Chapter I
The American Indians
The ancestors of the Indians came to Alaska from Siberia more than 20,000 years ago. The only animal they brought with them was the dog. They did not bring any seeds of any kind. They lived by hunting animals, by fishing, and by gathering nuts, berries, and the edible parts of plants. The ancestors of the Indians did not come as a single group. At different times, more than five or six groups came from Asia. From the very beginning, they spoke different languages and had different cultures. Over time, some groups broke up and moved in different directions. Each subgroup gradually made changes in its language so that, after many years, new languages formed. By the time of Columbus, there were more than four hundred languages spoken by the Indians of America.
Very long ago, Indians liked to eat the meat of the mastodon. The mastodon was a large elephant-like animal. After a while, they killed all of the mastodons. Long before Columbus discovered America, all of the mastodons were gone.
In America, the Indians found many plants that did not grow in Europe or Asia. They learned which plants could be eaten. After many centuries, they found out that if they planted the seed, they could grow the plant. Among the plants they grew for food were tomatoes, potatoes, sunflowers, and maize. None of these plants were known in Europe. It was only after the time of Columbus that these plants were brought to Europe. Maize is a British word. The American word for maize is corn. The Indians also found wild tobacco plants that they began to smoke. Later, they began growing tobacco. The Indians found about thirty different kinds of plants that they could grow. In Peru, they began growing potatoes. Corn was first grown in Mexico and the lands near Mexico. However, by the time of Columbus, corn was grown in what is now the Southern and Eastern parts of the USA. Sunflowers were first grown in the Ohio River valley.
In America, there were no wild horses, cows, pigs, or chickens. Therefore, the Indians knew nothing about these animals. In Peru, they found a weak animal called the llama that could carry things on its back. The llama was unknown outside Peru. In Massachusetts, they began to domesticate the turkey, but there also were many wild turkeys in the forest.
Some groups of Indians invented pottery. Other Indians did not know about pottery. None of the Indians knew about the wheel. None of the Indians invented guns.
Some groups of Indians lived in houses made of wood. Others lived in tents made of sticks and animal skins.
The grasslands in the center of the United States are called the Great Plains. They are similar to the steppe. Many, many millions of buffaloes lived in that area. The British word for buffalo is bison. The Indians that lived there did not grow any crops. They lived by hunting the buffalo. They ate buffalo meat. They made tools out of buffalo bones. They wore clothing made of buffalo skin. They lived in tents made of buffalo skin. They cooked their food over fires made of buffalo dung. Their entire life was simple. It centered around the buffalo.
A few groups were much more advanced. In Mexico, the Aztecs built palaces for their king made of stone. They built houses of brick for themselves. They had large irrigated farms where they grew corn. They mined silver and gold and they made nice things out of gold. They developed a system of picture writing and had books. Their capital was as large and beautiful as any European city of that time. The Aztecs were interested in astronomy and kept very accurate astronomical records over a very long period of time. They developed a more accurate calendar than the European calendar of that period. At the time of Columbus, people in Europe used the Julian calendar. The Orthodox Church still uses the Julian calendar.
What is a year?
It is the length of time that it takes for the earth to go around the sun and
return to exactly the same place.
How long does it take the earth to go around the sun?
The Julian calendar says that it is 365 days and six hours.
However, the Aztecs knew that it takes 365 days, 5 hours and 48 minutes. So every year the Julian calendar has an extra 12 minutes in its year. After 130 years, these add up to a full day. In the 2000 years since the birth of Christ, the Orthodox Church calendar has gained 14 extra days. In 24,000 years, the Orthodox Church will have 182 extra days. By that time, Orthodox Christmas and New Year's Day will be in the middle of the summer, but under the Aztec calendar, Christmas will always be in the middle of the winter. The Gregorian calendar, which is used today by all the governments of the world, solves this problem by omitting three leap years in every period of four hundred years.
The Indians that lived in Peru were called Incas. They too built palaces of stone for their king. They also mined silver and gold. They had a lot of silver and gold. The Incas built thousands of kilometers of road in South America.