摘  要：

北美原住民或称印第安人，他们以不同的部落的形式，曾经广泛的活动在美洲大陆上，这些古老的民族创造了璀璨的文化。他们对早期的欧洲移民做出了很大的贡献，他们的文化对美国英语、习俗、艺术和日常生活都产生了一定的影响， 虽然这些古老的文明在与欧洲殖民者的冲突中几近消亡。本文从历史变迁的角度，浅析印第安文化对美国主流文化产生的一定影响，以便对美国主流文化产生的嬗变有更全面的理解。

关键词：美国；主流文化；北美原住民文化；影响

Abstract:

The Native American is also known as American Indian, they used to live in different tribes. And they widely distributed in the American continent. In the long history, American Indians have created lots of distinctive ancient cultures. They made great contribution to the early European settlers and their settlement. Their culture has great effect on American English, customs, arts and daily life, which can not be ignored even at present. This article is an analysis of the important effect of Native American culture on American mainstream culture. But those ancient culture almost disappeared in the colonial pillage which is started by the European settlers. This paper analyze the effect of Native American culture on American mainstream culture from the perspective of history and change of modern values. It can help people have a better understanding of the changes of American mainstream culture.

Keywords: America；Mainstream Culture；Native American Culture；Effect

1 Introduction
Culture in a broad sense refers to the sum of all the material and spiritual products created by human beings. In the narrow sense it refers to the spiritual products of language, literature, art and ideology.
The Native American here refers to those aborigines who live in North America continent, including all indigenous peoples of Latin America, but with the exception of the Inuit. They were called the Indians before, living on this continent for thousands of years before the European settlers’ arrival. They lived in peace with the Mother Nature, and created a lot of amazing cultures. When “The May Flower”, full of persecuted Puritans, coming from Britain berthed at the “New World”, everything changed on this continent. The settler brought their own cultures and techniques, and there were conflicts between the two kinds of civilizations. But after all those events, people finally live in harmony, no matter who they are, Native American or European settlers. They have changed each other’s culture within hundred years.