Page 44 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

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Chatterjee, P. (1993). The nation and its fragments: Colonial and post- example, the archaeological record gives evidence of
colonial histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. major cultural and civilizational developments in central
Clarke, D., & Jones, C. (Eds.). (1999). The right of nations: Nations and
nationalism in a changing world. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Mexico associated with the pyramids at Teotihuacan
Deutsch, K. W. (1961). Social mobilization and political development. (200–900 CE),Toltec sites (900–1000 CE), and the mas-
American Political Science Review, 55(3), 493–514.
Duara, P. (1995). Rescuing history from the nation: Questioning narra- sive pyramidal structures built by Mayan peoples in
tives of modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize (300–900 CE). Archae-
Duara, P. (2003). Decolonization: Perspectives from now and then. Lon- ological evidence in South America suggests that inter-
don: Routledge.
Eley, G., & Suny, R. G. (Eds.). (1996). Becoming national: A reader. actions of Amazonian cultures are as complex and old as
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. those in the Andean highlands that led to the late Incan
Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Uni-
versity Press. empire. Moreover, while North and Central America
Hobsbawm, E. (1990). Nations and nationalism since 1780. Cam- were home to over five hundred native languages, South
bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. America has over eight hundred indigenous languages.
Leifer, M. (2000). Asian nationalism: China, Taiwan, Japan, India, Pak-
istan, Indonesia, the Philippines. New York: Routledge. In the region of the current United States alone, the
Smith,A. D. (1986). The ethnic origins of nations. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. diversity of cultural-historical developments is ancient
Tilly, C. (Ed.). (1975). The formation of national states in western Europe.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. and impressive. An indigenous culture named Hopewell
(200 BCE–400 CE), based on corn agriculture, piled soil
to create burial and effigy mounds in the central Ohio
Native American River watershed. A cultural florescence called Mississip-

pian (600–1400 CE) left temple mounds from the Gulf
Religions of Mexico up the Mississippi River to the current state of
Wisconsin. Similarly, in the Southwest cultures now called
uch a complex topic as understanding historical con- Anasazi and Kayenta (400–1300 CE) built remarkable
Ssciousness in Native American religions begins with cliff and pueblo dwellings at many sites including Mesa
two major insights. First, the religions of the over one Verde in Colorado, Chaco Canyon and Montezuma in
thousand indigenous societies of the American hemi- New Mexico, and Keet Seel and Betatikin at the Navajo
sphere involve concepts and practices that cannot be sep- National Monument in Arizona. Finally, the pottery skills
arated from the spheres of life in those societies termed and irrigation canals for agriculture of the T’ohono
economic,political,cosmological,and artistic.Lifeway is ancestors sometimes named Mogollon and Hohokam
used here to indicate this seamless interweaving of the (100–900 CE) are still used.The progeny of these ances-
spiritual and the historical. Second, history can be tral archaeological cultures migrated into diverse set-
recorded and transmitted in forms other than writing, tings, continued ancient visions, and developed distinct
There are, for example, the winter counts on bison hides religious concerns.
among the NorthAmerican Plains peoples,quipu or knot-
tying of narratives amongAndean peoples,and the screen- Religious Differences
fold picture books of preconquest Mexico. All of these Among Native Americans
historical expressions have oral myth-telling at their core. The North American Plains native peoples place a greater
emphasis on individual visions and their relationships, in
Diversity of Native the symbolism of the circle, with the well-being of the
American Religions community of life.The Northwest coast peoples celebrate
The term “Native American” suggests homogeneous soci- a human community’s privileges and obligations in a
eties, but the native communities of North, Central, and universe of giving subtly imaged as worlds within worlds
South America are extremely diverse in their lifeways. For symbolically imaged as boxes within boxes.