Before European colonization of the "New World," the only things man-made in the indigenous world that were somewhat permanent were tools, ceramics, and ceremonial and burial mounds. Since most native communities led seasonally migratory or even nomadic lives as hunter-gatherers, they had created patterns of living that included collapsable, transportable living quarters (like tipis). Also, it was not uncommon for a larger "nation" to keep favored hunting and fishing grounds under watch by skeleton populations (usually men, usually in hunting and trading mode).
The indigenous peoples' community living sites were recognized as what we might call "towns" or villages and the populations that resided there were usually never bigger than one or two thousand people, more often much smaller. This size was intended to make feeding the local population from local game and locally-grown and -foraged vegetation as straightforward and uncomplicated (as well as sustainable) as possible. Like our present day Amish, Native American communities would disband, split, or fragment and relocate once they had recognized a maximum strain on the existing food and resource supply. (This analogy does not work so well since, for the Amish, the splitting of a community ["church district"] occurs due to the time-honored recognition of the strain placed upon a community by having to serve [house and feed] numbers greater than 30 families per district.) Despite the knowledge and existence of some seasonally-applied agricultural techniques for the re-enrichment of the medium that supported food supply growth (like controlled burns of the forest flora and mixing plant and animal detritus into the growing soils), the soils and forest fauna would eventually grow depleted, forcing the town or community to pack up and move on--usually to a place fairly close by (within six to ten miles), that was familiar to them (due to trading or hunting and/or fishing expeditions), and often along the banks of the same river.
The pre-European Contact native populations in what were to become known as the Americas, or the "New World," were able to create a number of structures that could be used over a long term (a year or more) for storage, housing, guest lodging, and indoor banquet celebrations--each according to the resources available to them locally. With the prevailing worldview of being a part of, not separate from, Mother Nature and the great Circle of Life, even the "big houses" built by the nations of the Eastern Woodlands for community gathering were recognized as mere temporary structures existing purely for temporary needs. It was considered a given that housing repair and maintenance (as well as heating and cooling) would be constant chores for any community, even the most itinerant or nomadic. Long-term constructions were also processed and treated in order to try to prolong their practicable use.
The traditional mid-summer "busk" holidays celebrated by virtually all communities served as a kind of annual reset. The ceremonies and traditions of the busk served to cleanse and release all of the previous year's dross and accumulated baggage as a variety of physical rituals had been created in order to serve both the community and the individual metaphorically. This included the ritual burning of all clothing and last year's stores of corn, the consumption of the traditional "Black Drink" (a tea made of yaupon holly leaves, ilex vomitoria) in order to provoke vomiting so that individuals could purge all toxins, both physical and spiritual, the trance-like all-night night dancing and singing, even the forced ritual confession and forgiveness of all debts and wrongs. These all served to help release all of the pent up "demons," giving everyone (and the community as a whole) a "fresh start" into a new year, blessed by family, clan, and community, with a clean slate for a fresh start: new clothes, new marriages, fresh food, fresh relationships, new responsibilities, even new towns or "tribes" and new alliances between towns might spring out of the annual busks. Thereafter would ensue a busy time of building, re-building, and repair as well as the bountiful harvests (of vegetables both wildcrafted and cultivated) and then the hunting parties of fall and winter.
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