ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on societies of North America. It examines societies of South America, giving particular attention to the Maya, the Aztecs, and the Inca. The Pawnee male was represented by the Morning Star of the East, woman by the Evening Star in the West. Long ago, they and their descendants migrated from colder climates, south into the plains of North America. The Pawnee farmed and hunted along the Platte, Republican, and Loup rivers that interlocked parts of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado, along the outer reaches of the northern plains. Scientists postulate that an ice-free corridor, the Bering land bridge, opened in successive periods roughly between 30,000 and 13,000 years ago, connecting Alaska and Siberia and allowing for human migration from East Asia into North America. Many Native Americans insist that their people populated North America long before the dates postulated by the Bering land bridge theory. Native North America had its own rich and complex history before Europeans arrived.
