On 3 August 1492, the Italian adventurer named Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain to find a new way

to Asia. His aim was to open up a shorter trade route between the two continents in order to bring in Europe silks, spices, goods. On October 12th, Columbus ashored on an low sandy island and he thought he landed in the Indies. The land he discovered would be soon named by the Europeans, America even though they went on calling its inhabitants Indians. Only recently, the first Americans have been described as native Americans or Amerindians. The Amerindians tribes were scattered across the grasslands and forests and had different ways of life: some were hunters, some were farmers, peaceful or warlike and spoke three hundred separate languages. These happened for many centuries, till a more settled way of life began. The first American farmers were the ones that found a wild grass with tiny seeds that were good to eat(where is Mexico now) . They cultivated the seeds and it eventually became Indian corn. By 5000 BC Ameridinians in Mexico were growing and eating beans, squash and peppers. The Pueblo people (Arizona and New Mexico today) were the best organized tribe. They lived in groups of villages, or in towns which were built for safety on the sides and tops of cliffs. Their houses were made of adobe (mud and straw) bricks, dried in the sun. They made their clothes and blankets from cotton which grew wild in the surrounding deserts. On their feet they wore boot-shaped leather moccasins. Irrigation made them succesful as farmers because of the built networks of canals across the deserts to bring water to their fields.( modern archaeologists have traced canals and ditches that irrigated 250,000 acres of farmland). The apaches, on contrary, wandered the deserts and mountains in small bands, hunting or raiding the Pueblo neighbors. They were fierce and warlike. The Iroqouis were a nation who lived in the woods of northeastern North America. They were skilled farmers. They were also hunters and fishermans, using birch bark canoes to sail along the rivers and lakes of their forest homeland. They lived in huts- a framework of saplings covered by sheets of elm bark. They were fierce warriors. Bravery in the battle was the surest way for a warrior to win respect and a high position in his tribe. From the Mississippi river to the Rocky Mountains there was another warrior nation: Dakota- which meant allies or Sioux- enemies. From clothing to food and shelter, they depended everything upon the buffalo that were wandering across the grasslands in vast herds. They invented the tepee(-built round a framework of about twelve slim, wooden poles twenty feet long; the thin ends of the poles were tied together with forty strips of buffalo hides that were sewn together then spread over the frame, their ends fastened to the ground by pegs), that for many people is still the symbol of the Amerindians way of life. The paintings on the outside of the tepee had religious or historical meanings. The lifestyle of the people of North Americas northwest coast was different again. Their main food was fish, especially salmon. The abudance of this kind of food gave the tribes of the Pacific time for feasting,

carving and builiding. The most important carvings were on totem poles. These carvings were a record of the history of the family that lived in the house.