Essay On American Indians Mathematics

Abstract: This paper gives an insight into the Mathematics used by the American Indians. The history of American Indians and how they incorporated mathematics into their lives is scarce. However from the information retrieved by Archeologists, we have an idea of the type of mathematics that was used by American Indians.

Introduction

When the history of American Indians come into mind, our minds tend to ponder on teepees, dances around the fire, feathers, and the stereotypical Pocahontas-like features of American Indians. As a matter of fact, American Indians have very rich history. They occupied this land before anyone else did. They are the original people of the United States. In order to survive on this unknown land to the world back then, they must have had to use some mathematics in some way, shape, or form. We will see in this paper that many of the mathematical uses among the

Many tribes successfully preserved their art. For instance, local Indians of New Mexico still embroider beautiful blankets that have many geometric figures such as triangles and diamonds, similar to tessellations. See Figure 2 below (“Mathematics Used,” n.d.).
Navajo pottery exhibits isosceles triangles, line bordering dots, and hooked spirals, and other figures as in Figure 3 (Live Auctioneers, 2016).

The Navajo also made blankets which have simple geometric patterns. Notice how in Figure 4 the artist combined a solid center with rectangles and diamonds on the edge to represent the Navajo’s cultural emphasis on restrained aggressiveness and controlled movement (Parr, 2002). It is important for the Navajo to maintain a balance between static and active, and so they represented this the symmetric designs of their blankets as seen in Figure 5 (Parr, 2002).
The Sioux also used many designs and separated them into various shapes as Figure 6 exhibits (“Mathematics Used,” n.d.).
Math in