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Today we are all aware of our planet and the extent of the land we inhabit; there are maps, globes, books and websites that give every piece of information we need about our own country.

Native Americans had no such information and were only aware of their own immediate surroundings, plus the lands of their immediate neighbours - the lands further away were only vaguely understood. They had no concept of the planet or countries beyond the sea - their world view was completely different to ours.

There was no word in any native American language that corresponds with "North America" or "The Americas" or "The New World". Native pace-names are confined to small localities such as villages, hills, rock formations, islands or peninsulas and it was the European explorers who took these local locatives and incorrectly applied them to much larger areas. Examples are Tennessee and Canada, both of which come from local native words meaning a village, settlement or meeting place.

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13y ago

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