1491: Coda

by Charles C. Mann
This nonfiction book presents research about the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans in 1492, shedding new light on the knowledge that these groups had in the fields of science, engineering, medicine, agriculture, and more.


Here are links to our lists for the book: Introduction, Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Coda
15 words 12 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. ubiquitous
    being present everywhere at once
    Although Nabokov was the scion of a Russian noble family, he detested the class-bound servility ubiquitous in the land of his birth.
  2. demeanor
    the way a person behaves toward other people
    Their straightforward, even brash demeanor, with its implicit assumption that everyone was on the same social level, enchanted him.
  3. promulgate
    state or announce
    Deganawidah had a message of peace. He couldn’t easily promulgate it, though, because he had a tragic flaw: a severe speech impediment, perhaps a stutter.
  4. parley
    a negotiation between enemies
    In a parley, Deganawidah took a single arrow and invited Tododaho to break it, which he did easily.
  5. nascent
    being born or beginning
    The shaken Tododaho agreed to add the Onondaga to the nascent alliance.
  6. constituent
    one of the individual parts making up a composite entity
    Although the council negotiated peace treaties, it could not declare war — that was left to the initiative of the leaders of each of Haudenosaunee’s constituent nations.
  7. averse
    strongly opposed
    In practice, wrote colonial leader Roger Williams, "they will not conclude of ought...unto which the people are averse."
  8. predicate
    involve as a necessary condition or consequence
    The league was predicated, in short, on the consent of the governed, without which the entire enterprise would collapse.
  9. despotic
    having the characteristics of a tyrannical ruler
    Compared to the despotic societies that were the norm in Europe and Asia, Haudenosaunee was a libertarian dream.
  10. clout
    special advantage or influence
    Anthropologists debate the extent of women’s clout under this “separate-but-equal” arrangement, but according to University of Toledo historian Barbara Mann, author of Iroquoian Women: The Gantowisas (2004), the female-led clan councils set the agenda of the League — "men could not consider a matter not sent to them by the women."
  11. mnemonic
    of or relating to the practice of aiding the memory
    Iroquois pictographs could convey sophisticated ideas, but functioned more as a mnemonic aid than a true writing system.
  12. autonomy
    personal independence
    Scholars debate these estimates, but nobody disputes that the Haudenosaunee exemplified the formidable tradition of limited government and personal autonomy shared by many cultures north of the Río Grande.
  13. egalitarian
    favoring social equality
    Colonists and stay-at-homes, intellectuals and commoners, all struggled to understand, according to the sociologist-historian Denys Delâge, of Laval University, in Québec, “the very existence of these relatively egalitarian societies, so different in their structure and social relationships than those of Europe.”
  14. propensity
    a disposition to behave in a certain way
    Northeastern Indians were appalled by the European propensity to divide themselves into social classes, with those on the lower rungs of the hierarchy compelled to defer to those on the upper.
  15. adherence
    faithful support for a cause or political party or religion
    The social ideal was responsible adherence to religiously inspired authority, not democratic self-rule.
Created on Wed Mar 23 13:59:11 EDT 2022 (updated Mon Jun 30 12:59:58 EDT 2025)

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