Southwestern Native Americans

The Hopi Indians, meaning good, peaceful, or wise, are a tribe in the group of Southwestern Native Americans called Pueblo.
Southwestern Native Americans lived in the region that included what is today Arizona, New Mexico, parts of Colorado, and Utah.
This section can be Subdivided into three sectors:
Northern: (Colorado, northern Arizona, northern New Mexico), with high, pleasant valleys and pine forests.
Southern: (southern Arizona, southern New Mexico, adjacent Mexico), with Hot dry deserts covered with cactus.
Western: (the Arizona-California border area), a smaller area with desert terrain cut by the valley of the lower Colorado River.

A mesa is a type of land form in this area. It is a name given to a small isolated flat-topped hill with three steep sides called the 1st Mesa, 2nd Mesa, and the 3rd
Mesa. On the mesa tops are the Hopi villages.
The pueblo of Oraibi on the 3rd Mesa started in 1050, and is the oldest in North America that has been lived in continuously.

The first known inhabitants of the Southwest hunted mammoths and other game with Clovis-style spear points by about 9500 bc. As the Ice Age ended (about 8000 bc), mammoths became extinct. The people in the Southwest turned to hunting bison (buffalo) and began collecting wild plants for food, as they became gatherers and hunters.< After the Ice Age began to recede the climate gradually became warmer and drier, and a way of life—called the Archaic—developed from about 8000 bc to about 300 bc. Archaic peoples hunted mostly deer, small game, and birds, and they harvested fruits, nuts, and seeds of wild plants, using stone slabs for grinding seeds into flour. About 3000 bc the South westerners learned to
grow maize (corn), which had been domesticated in Mexico, but for centuries it was only a minor food.

These Native Americans lived in towns in adobe-plastered houses built around public plazas. The peoples of the northern sector, after centuries of trading with the Hohokam, had by ad 700 modified their life into what is called the Anasazi tradition. They grew maize, beans, and squash(The Three Sisters), and lived in towns having terraced stone or multi story adobe apartment blocks built around central plazas. These blocks had blank walls facing the outside of the town, thereby protecting the people within.

Until 1680 when the Spanish came into the area these Native Americans lived in this area of North America with little intervention from the outside world.

The social organization of these groups was built on a husband and wife family.
The men each had certain jobs, which had to be fulfilled in order to survive.
The men were the laborers and hunters and taught the boys their use of bows and arrows and the making of tools and other needed items from stone or metal.
The size of a village may depend upon the environment in which the group lives.
If the land is productive and the hunting is good the village will be large.
Several times during the year, these smaller groups would come together to share information, trade and celebrate.
Each tribe was governed by a larger council, which was led by a chief.
Tribes traded among themselves to expand their tools, food supply and decorative designs on clothes and skin. Traders carried their goods on their backs or in canoes. Trade goods were usually relatively light small items. Furs and bright-colored feathers were valued in trade nearly everywhere.
The religion of these Native Americans was to worship the world around them.
Most American Indians believed that in the universe there exists an Almighty—a spiritual force that is the source of all life.
The men had a purpose for everything that was killed. Nothing was left to waste.
The women took care of cooking, cleaning, making of clothes, teaching the girls and gathering and/or planting the crops. The preparing of food was a constant struggle for the women. Fruits and berries had to be dried, seeds had to be ground into flour and meats had to be dried or prepared immediately.

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