Culture of South America

The diverse traditions, languages, arts, religions, and social practices of South America, shaped by Indigenous societies, colonization, African diasporas, migration, and regional exchange.

Connect

Indigenous peoples of South America: The many distinct peoples whose societies developed across South America before and after European colonization. Their living languages, knowledge, and traditions underpin cultures throughout the continent.
Andean culture: The cultural traditions of the Andes, shaped by Indigenous societies, highland environments, and colonial histories. The Andes preserve distinctive Indigenous languages, textiles, music, and communal practices.
Syncretism: The blending of distinct religious or cultural traditions into new forms. South American religious practices often combine Indigenous, African, and Christian elements.
Cumbia: A popular music and dance genre that originated in Colombia and spread across Latin America. Its regional adaptations show how a local form became a shared, continually changing tradition.
Casta system: A colonial system in Spanish America that classified people through ancestry and assigned social status. Its racial categories influenced later ideas about identity and hierarchy in South American societies.
Spanish colonization of the Americas: The conquest and settlement of much of the Americas by Spain from the late fifteenth century onward. Spanish rule reshaped language, religion, institutions, and social hierarchies across much of South America.
Amazonian peoples: The diverse Indigenous societies inhabiting the Amazon Basin and surrounding regions. Their varied lifeways demonstrate cultural histories often obscured by national boundaries.
Transculturation: The process through which cultures acquire, adapt, and transform elements through sustained contact. It describes cultural change under colonization without reducing it to one-way European influence.
Samba: A Brazilian music and dance tradition with deep African diasporic roots. Samba became both a symbol of Brazil and a site of debate over Black cultural ownership.
Indigenismo: A Latin American political and cultural movement that addressed Indigenous peoples and their place in national life. It made Indigenous identity central to debates over nationhood, often through non-Indigenous voices.