Good morning, we are continuing our exploration in 1491: Before Columbus. This is episode seven in this series. Today we will explore the art and culture of the native communities. The run time for this episode is 46:40.
Creativity flowed through the generations, as did the stories. They worked with metal, ceramic, and wood. They have been creating art from bronze, silver, and gold. Some of their metal work was the most advanced in the world. The Inka is credited with developing metalworking in South America. They were the dominant society in South America. However, one thousand years before, there seems to be hints of metalworking technology. Gold objects were a status symbol. It was reserved for the elite; however, commoners were permitted to wear gold during religious ceremonies. The Inka were the most advanced creators in metallurgy. Skilled artists were conscripted from all over the empire and had to move to the Inka capital. Gold was identified with the sun, while silver was identified with the moon. There were a variety of techniques to develop combined metals. They also had access to mercury. To remove the impurities from the metal you needed mercury. The natives created platinum and did gold plating. The Inka had an efficient road system and trading took place over this vast road system. The Great Inka Road was a 40,000-kilometer highway that crisscrossed mountains, deserts, and forests. There was a messenger system that employed runners transporting messages and other goods to different cities. One recreating in this section shows a messenger running the roads. He runs to a house where the next messenger is waiting to continue on with this journey. They are transporting feathers to a craftsman for a headdress. Will the feathers get to the craftsman in time? Will the craftsman be able to create a headdress for their leader in time? Oral storytelling was also an art form that the First Nations passed along the generations. The stories were the memories of the people. It preserved First Nation cultures for generations. You could understand where you came from and where you would go. You could dream about these stories at night and see the characters from the story in your dreams. These stories also talk about how to care for the young, the old, and the environment. Each nation had its own creation story. In Haida culture, a crow discovered the people coming from a clamshell on the beach. A second group has stories about the killer whale. The Inuit had lived in the Arctic for thousands of years and they have one of the richest storytelling traditions. They were nomads, but they all share a common language with the peoples of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. There are stories of a stone man that was part of the Inuit tradition and may have been part of Finnish Tradition. Rock art is one of the oldest art forms in the world. The First Nations were able to carve stone and create petroglyphs. Why were these sites chosen for the petroglyphs? What was the purpose of those petroglyphs? There are petrographs all over the Western Hemisphere that offer a look into the world of the First Nations. Pictographs were also an art form that was used in art as well. In Argentina, there is a cave site that is covered with hundreds and hundreds of hand prints. The First Nations used ochre to create their pictographs. *Side note, you are probably very familiar with the use of ochre in Ancient Egypt!* These pictographs provide insight into the mind of the people who created them. How else did the First Nations express themselves through art and storytelling? Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more. One of the little blips featured metalworking, particularly working gold. The earliest manufactured gold in the world had come from the shores of the Black Sea. Egypt was the first civilization to mine and craft gold. The first evidence of metal art in South America came from Lake Titicaca. The second blip talks about rock art. This was a good episode discussing First Nations and their artwork. I enjoyed the section on storytelling, perhaps they could have had a separate episode on that aspect of First Nations art. So far, I will still recommend showing this episode to a history class. This particular episode because of the focus on art could have the potential for an art class. The discussion on storytelling could make this episode fit in an English class.
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