Beginnings

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Beginnings

• The First Americans

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The First Arrivals

• The first people began to arrive on
• this continent as early as 12,000 30,000 years
  ago
• But Where did they come from?

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The First Arrivals

• The first people began to arrive on
• this continent as early as 12,000 30,000 years
  ago
• But Where did they come from?
• 
  The Bering Strait, right??

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Yes and No
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• Due to recent archeological and
• anthropological evidence, authorities
• have been able to determine that it was not just
  one race of people who settled this land, but
• many.

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Early Civilizations
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Major American Tribes

• Navajo
• Iroquois
• Algonquin
• Cherokee
• Apache
• Comanche

• Zapotec
• Olmec
• Maya
• Aztec
• Toltec

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Major American Tribes

• The Aztecs
• - Largest tribe in the Americas
• - Est. Population of around 350,000
• - Covered an area from Guatemala to Mexico City
  (Tenochtitlan) or over 80,000 square miles
• 6th 16th Centuries

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Major American Tribes

• The Maya
• - Most scientifically advanced of all the
  American tribes
• - 2,500 B.C. 16th Century A.D. Yucatan
  Peninsula

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Literature

• The literature of the early Americans is mostly
  religious or mythical in nature.
• One commonality of Native American literature is
  the creation myth.

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Creation Myths

• Of all the archetypal stories that have transcend
  race, culture, and geographic separation, the
  creation myths are the most common. Almost every
  civilization has created one.

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• There are common themes, such as
• Order from chaos
• One supreme creator
• A great flood
• Other times, some stories can be quite unique.

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Pima
Iroquois
Maya
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Examples from Around the World

• Old Testament
• 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the
  earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and
  void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
  And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
  waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light and
  there was light.

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Examples from Around the World

• The Sumerians
• When in the height heaven was not named,And the
  earth beneath did not yet bear a name,And the
  primeval Apsu, who begat them,And chaos, Tiamat,
  the mother of them bothTheir waters were mingled
  together,And no field was formed, no marsh was
  to be seenWhen of the gods none had been called
  into being,

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Examples from Around the World

• India
• 1. THEN was not non-existent nor existent there
  was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What
  covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was
  water there, unfathomed depth of water?2 Death
  was not then, nor was there aught immortal no
  sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
  That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own
  nature apart from it was nothing whatsoever.3
  Darkness there was at first concealed in
  darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos. All
  that existed then was void and form less by the
  great power of Warmth was born that Unit.4
  Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire,
  the primal seed and germ of Spirit.Sages who
  searched with their heart's thought discovered
  the existent's kinship in the non-existent.

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Examples from Around the World

• The Greeks
• In the beginning there was an empty darkness. The
  only thing in this void was Nyx, a bird with
  black wings. With the wind she laid a golden egg
  and for ages she sat upon this egg. Finally life
  began to stir in the egg and out of it rose Eros,
  the god of love. One half of the shell rose into
  the air and became the sky and the other became
  the Earth. Eros named the sky Uranus and the
  Earth he named Gaia.
• Then Eros made
  them fall in love.

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Examples from Around the World
The Mayans

• Here is the story of the beginning,when there
  was not one bird,not one fish,not one
  mountain.Here is the sky, all alone.Here is the
  sea, all alone.There is nothing moreno sound,
  no movement.Only the sky and the sea.

• Only Heart-of-Sky, alone.And these are his
  namesMaker and Modeler,Kukulkan,and
  Hurricane.But there is no one to speak his
  names.There is no one to praise his glory.There
  is no one to nurture his greatness.