Cahokia People Compare And Contrast Essay

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American Natives are often grouped together as one culture, but each area has diverse groups of tribes with different cultural standards. Some of the largest Native settlements in the Americas were in the Southwest. Such as the Pueblo people, who created thriving settlements in New Mexico and Arizona. Another large tribe was the Cahokia people of the Mississippi Valley, often referred to as the Mound Builders, created a thriving culture around 900. Though there are some similarities between the Pueblo and Cahokia people, there are also many cultural differences. The Pueblo people of the Southwest had multistory buildings for many families and used a complex maze of canals, dams, and terracing to allow agriculture to thrive in their dry climate. The Pueblo diets mainly consisted of corn, brown beans, and different types of squash. The also domesticated turkeys and used dogs to hunt, so wild game and turkey added…show more content…
At the center were a series of wide earth mounds that were up to one hundred feet tall, which is what led to their nickname “the Mound Builders”. These mounds were used to bury the most prominent leaders, and atop the main mound was a temple and wide plaza used for ceremonies on the seasons and sun. The plaza was located on a north-south axis and had a huge circle of wooden posts used to observe the sun’s path. Priests and Chiefs tracked the sun, conducted rituals, and gave gifts to show their power. This large settled community was possible because of their agricultural practices, farming was a women’s job, and the Cahokia’s main diet consisted of squash, corn and beans, while the men hunted to add flavor and protein. By the 1400’s, mostly because of the “Little Ice Age”, Cahokia was abandoned and the people spread into many small tribes along the Mississippi River that spoke different

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