Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Hiawatha ... High God

Hiawatha: (Ojibwa: "He Makes Rivers"), a legendary chief (c. 1450) of the Onondaga tribe of North American Indians, to whom Indian tradition attributes the formation of what became known as the Iroquois Confederacy. In his miraculous character, Hiawatha was the incarnation ...
Hibbing: city, St. Louis county, northeastern Minnesota, U.S. It lies on the Mesabi Range, in a forest and lake region, about 70 miles (115 km) northwest of Duluth. Settled in 1892 when iron ore was discovered, it was laid out the ...
hibernation: a state of greatly reduced metabolic activity and lowered body temperature adopted by certain mammals as an adaptation to adverse winter conditions.
Hiberno-Saxon style: in Western visual arts, the decorative vocabulary that resulted from the interaction of the Irish, or Hibernians, and the Anglo-Saxons of southern England during the 7th century.
hibiscus: any of about 250 species of herbs, shrubs, and trees constituting the genus Hibiscus, in the mallow family (Malvaceae), and native to warm temperate and tropical regions. Several are cultivated as ornamentals for their showy flowers.
hiccup: spasmodic contraction of the diaphragm (the muscular partition separating the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity) which causes a sudden intake of breath that is involuntarily cut off by closure of the glottis (the opening between the vocal cords), thus ...
hichiriki: a Japanese short, double-reed aerophone (wind instrument) used in ancient court music and surviving in the gagaku, or courtly music, tradition. It is derived from earlier continental Asian models. The present Japanese form is about 7 inches (18 cm) in ...
Hickok, Wild Bill: American frontiersman, army scout, and lawman, who helped bring order to the frontier West. His reputation as a marksman gave rise to legends and tales about his life.
Hickory: city, Catawba county, west-central North Carolina, U.S. It lies near the Catawba River (there dammed to form Lake Hickory) just east of the Appalachian foothills and about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Charlotte. A store was established on the ...
hickory: any of about 18 species of deciduous timber and nut-producing trees that constitute the genus Carya of the walnut family (Juglandaceae). About 15 species of hickory are native to eastern North America, and 3 to eastern Asia. Fossil remains identifiable ...
Hicks Beach, Sir Michael Edward, 9th Baronet, 1st Earl St. Aldwyn Of Coln, Viscount Quenington Of Quenington, Viscount St. Aldwyn Of Coln: British Conservative statesman who was chancellor of the Exchequer (1885-86, 1895-1902).
Hicks, Edward: American primitive, or folk, painter known for his naive depictions of the farms and landscape of Pennsylvania and New York, and especially for his many versions (about 25 extant, perhaps 100 painted) of "The Peaceable Kingdom." The latter work depicts ...
Hicks, Elias: early advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States and a liberal Quaker preacher whose followers became known as Hicksites, one of two factions created by the schism of 1827-28 in American Quakerism.
Hicks, Granville: critic, novelist, and teacher who was one of the foremost practitioners of Marxist criticism in American literature.
Hicks, Sir John R.: English economist who made pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and, in 1972, shared (with Kenneth J. Arrow) the Nobel Prize for Economics. He was knighted in 1964.
Hida Range: mountain group in the Chubu chiho (region) of central Honshu, Japan. The range stretches from north to south along the borders of Toyama, Niigata, Nagano, and Gifu ken (prefectures). With the Kiso and Akaishi ranges, it constitutes the Central Mountain ...
Hidaka Range: mountain range, southernmost portion of the Shiribeshi Mountain system, on Hokkaido, Japan, projecting into the Pacific Ocean at Cape Erimo. The mountains are west of the Tokachi Plain. The seaward margin of the range is skirted by marine terraces that ...
Hidalgo: county, southwestern New Mexico, U.S.; it is bordered by Arizona on the west and Mexico on the south and east. The county's northwestern area, featuring alkali flats and crossed by the Gila River, lies in the Colorado Plateau. The remainder ...
Hidalgo: estado ("state"), east-central Mexico, bounded by the states of San Luis Potosi and Veracruz (north), Puebla (east), Mexico and Tlaxcala (south), and Queretaro (west). It was part of the state of Mexico until 1869, when it was established as a ...
hidalgo: in Spain, a hereditary noble or, in the later Middle Ages and the modern era, a knight or member of the gentry.
Hidalgo del Parral: city, south-central Chihuahua estado ("state"), north-central Mexico. The city, renamed in honour of the patriot Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, lies on the Parral River 5,449 feet (1,661 m) above sea level and south of Chihuahua, the state capital. An important ...
Hidalgo y Costilla, Miguel: Catholic priest who is called the father of Mexican independence.
Hidatsa: American Plains Indian people of Siouan stock who lived on the upper Missouri River between the Heart and the Little Missouri rivers in semipermanent villages. The Hidatsa were a sedentary people who lived in circular lodges roofed with earth; they ...
hiddenite: green, semiprecious variety of the silicate mineral spodumene (q.v.).
hide: in early English history, the land necessary to support a free peasant family. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the hide commonly appeared as 120 acres (50 hectares) of arable land, but it probably represented a much smaller holding before ...
hide: the pelt taken from a cow, steer, or bull of the bovine species, from the pelt of a horse, or from the integument of some other large adult animal. The pelts of smaller animals are commonly called skins-namely, sheepskins, goatskins, ...
hide-and-seek: old and popular children's game in which one player closes his or her eyes for a brief period (often counting to 100) while the other players hide. The seeker then opens his eyes and tries to find the hiders; the ...
Hielm, Jonas Anton: political leader who defended Norway's position within the Swedish-Norwegian union and led an early attempt to form a national reform party with peasant and liberal urban support.
Hien Vuong: also called Chua Hien, Nguyen Phuoc Tan, or Thai Ton member of the Nguyen family (q.v.) who ruled in southern Vietnam in 1648-87. He persecuted European Christian missionaries, expanded the territory under his control, and made notable agricultural reforms.
Hierakonpolis: prehistoric royal residence of the kings of Upper Egypt and most important site of the beginning of Egypt's historical period, located in Aswan muhafazah (governorate). Hierakonpolis, then called Nekhen, enjoyed its period of greatest importance from about 3400 BC to ...
Hierapolis: ancient Phrygian city in southwestern Turkey, about 6 miles (10 km) north of the ruins of Laodicea. Situated on the Coruh River, a tributary of the Buyuk Menderes (Maeander) River, it was probably established by Eumenes II of Pergamum in ...
Hierapolis: ancient Syrian city, now partly occupied by Manbij (Membij), about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Aleppo. The place first appears in Greek as Bambyce, but its Syrian name was probably Mabbog. The Seleucids made it the chief station on ...
hieratic script: ancient Egyptian cursive writing, used from the 1st dynasty (c. 2925-c. 2775 BC) until about 200 BC. Derived from the earlier, pictorial hieroglyphic writing used in carved or painted inscriptions, hieratic script was generally written in ink with a reed ...
Hierocles Of Alexandria: Neoplatonist philosopher who, after studying under the Greek philosopher Plutarch of Athens and visiting Constantinople, spent the rest of his life in Alexandria, where he won a reputation as a teacher of philosophy.
hieroglyph: a character used in a system of pictorial writing, particularly that form used on ancient Egyptian monuments. Hieroglyphic symbols may represent the objects that they depict but usually stand for particular sounds or groups of sounds. Hieroglyph, meaning "sacred carving," ...
hieroglyphic writing: a system that employs characters in the form of pictures. These individual signs, called hieroglyphs, may be read either as pictures, as symbols for pictures, or as symbols for sounds.
Hieron I: brother of the tyrant Gelon and tyrant of Syracuse, Sicily, from 478 to 467/466 BC.
Hieron II: tyrant of Syracuse, Sicily, from about 270 to 216/215 BC, who struggled against the Mamertini and eventually allied his city with Rome.
hierophant: ("displayer of holy things"), in ancient Greece, chief of the Eleusinian cult, the best-known of the mystery religions of ancient Greece. His principal job was to chant demonstrations of sacred symbols during the celebration of the mysteries. At the opening ...
hieros gamos: (Greek: "sacred marriage"), sexual relations of fertility deities in myths and rituals, characteristic of societies based on cereal agriculture, especially in the Middle East. At least once a year, divine persons (e.g., humans representing the deities) engage in sexual intercourse, ...
Hierta, Lars Johan: journalist and politician who became a leading agitator for Swedish political and social reform.
Higashi-Murayama: city, Tokyo to (metropolis), Honshu, Japan, east of Lake Sayama. The town of Kumegawa, now the city centre, was a post station in the 8th century and an important local centre until the late 14th century. Higashi-Murayama remained the commercial ...
Higashi-Osaka: (Japanese: "East Osaka"), city, Osaka fu (urban prefecture), Honshu, Japan. It lies to the east of Osaka and was formed in 1967 by the merger of the three towns of Fuse, Kawachi, and Hiraoka. It is a residential suburb of ...
Higashikuni Naruhiko: Japanese imperial prince and army commander who was Japan's first prime minister after the country's surrender in World War II (August 17-October 6, 1945). He was the only member of the imperial family ever to head a cabinet.
Higden, Ranulf: English monk and chronicler remembered for his Polychronicon, a compilation of much of the knowledge of his age.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth: American reformer who was dedicated to the abolition movement before the American Civil War.
Higgs particle: hypothetical particle that is postulated to be the carrier particle, or boson, of the Higgs field, a theoretical field that permeates space and endows all elementary subatomic particles with mass through its interactions with them. The field and the particle-named ...
High Commission, Court of: English ecclesiastical court instituted by the crown in the 16th century as a means to enforce the laws of the Reformation settlement and exercise control over the church. In its time it became a controversial instrument of repression, used against ...
High Court of Admiralty: in England, formerly the court presided over by the deputy of the admiral of the fleet. The Black Book of the Admiralty says it was founded in the reign of Edward I, but it actually appears to have been established ...
High Court of Justice: in England and Wales, court system centred in London and comprising three divisions of both original and appellate jurisdiction, mostly in civil matters and only occasionally in criminal cases. The divisions are the Chancery Division, presided over by the lord ...
High God: in anthropology and the history of religion, a type of supreme deity found among many nonliterate peoples of North and South America, Africa, northern Asia, and Australia. The adjective high is primarily a locative term: a High God is conceived ...