We are pleased to announce that eHRAF World Cultures now contains a new culture collection for the Jicarilla Apache and an updated culture collection for the Han Chinese. Check out these culture collections by clicking on the links below. The new publications contain approximately 30,000 new paragraphs of material across 65 documents.

Jicarilla Apache (NT26)

Jicarilla Apache Hoop Dance at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Jicarilla Apache (Jicarilla language: Jicarilla Dindéi) are a federally recognized Native American Nation. Their reservation is located in north-central New Mexico, spanning nearly 880,000 acres of high desert and mountainous terrain. The term jicarilla comes from Mexican Spanish meaning “little basket” in reference to the baskets they used as drinking vessels. To neighboring Apache bands, such as the Mescalero and the Lipan, they were known as Kinya-Inde which translates as “people who live in fixed houses.”

Here is the description of the Jicarilla Apache in eHRAF World Cultures:

The Jicarilla are an Apache tribe that lived a seminomadic lifestyle in what is now called the Sangre de Cristo mountains and the plains of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico around the 16th century. They are descendants of Athapaskan-speaking groups who had migrated south from Canada centuries before. Their reservation was established in 1887 in the Rio Arriba and Sandoval counties, New Mexico. The Jicarilla are particularly known for their pottery and basketry though the reservation is also supported by revenues from tribal-owned oil, gas, and timber industries in the 20th and 21st centuries. They have a creator deity, and shamans lead annual intra-group ceremonies.

Han Chinese (AE15)

The Han Chinese are the world’s largest ethnic group. Comprising over 1.4 billion people—roughly 17% of the global population—they make up the vast majority people in China and Taiwan, alongside significant diasporas worldwide. The Han Chinese identity is deeply rooted in a shared history, language, and culture that traces back over 3,000 years.

Modern Han Chinese in Ming Attire by JialiangGao, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Here is the description of the Han Chinese in eHRAF World Cultures:

The Han Chinese represent the largest and oldest continuous civilization in the world, originally centered on the Yellow River basin in North China where the dependence on cereal agriculture was established, supplemented by vegetables, domestic animals, and fishing. The Han make up most of the population of China proper, as well as on the islands of Taiwan and Singapore. Traditionally, China was an agrarian state with multiple administrative levels down to the village level, where corporate patrilineages ruled. In modern times, with new marriage laws and land reform, power has devolved to women and individual farming households. Religion was a combination of local beliefs and practices from Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism; more recently also Christianity and Communist ideology.

Photo Credits

• Jicarilla Apache Hoop Dance at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.
Original Caption: “Jicarilla Apache Hoop Dance.”
Photo Credit: NPS/Patrick Myers
License: Public Domain

• Modern Han Chinese in Ming Attire.
Original Caption: “Modern Han Chinese in Ming Attire.”
Photo Credit: JialiangGao
License: CC BY-SA 3.0