【美国精神】第87期

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

Explanation:

  The American Indians, also known as Native Americans, were the first people living in North America when the Europeans began to settle (or begin to live there). Although many people think about the American Indians as a homogenous¹ group, or a group of all the same kinds of people, they were actually many smaller groups known as tribes³. The tribes had different languages, customs (or ways of doing things), foods, and cultures. Some of them were very large and others were very small. Only a small fraction⁴ (or percentage or portion) of the original tribes still exist, because many of them were destroyed by the European settlers.

  Today, the U.S. government officially recognizes (or accepts and lists) 563 American Indian tribes. The Cherokee and the Navajo are the two biggest tribes. The Cherokees’ ancestral lands, or the land that belonged to their relatives many years ago, are in the area that is now the eastern and southeastern parts of the United States, especially where the states of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina are today. But as the United States grew, most of the Cherokee were forced to relocate, or made to live in a new place even though they didn’t want to. The forced relocation is called the Trail of Tears because many Cherokee died while they were going to the new lands further west. Today, about 730,000 Cherokees live in the United States, mostly in the states of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas.

  The Navajo are the second-biggest tribe² of American Indians, with almost 300,000 Navajos living in the United States today. Most of them live in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. In traditional Navajo society, only women could own animals and property (or buildings or land). When people were married, the man moved into the woman’s home and the daughters inherited⁵ all the animals and property, meaning that the daughters got those things when the mother died. The Navajo are famous silversmiths, making jewelry⁶ and other things out of silver, a metal that is valuable and gray in color. The Navajo are also famous for their weaving, making beautiful red blankets and rugs⁷, which are small carpets or floor coverings.

 

问题：

分享到：