Native Americans: The Best of Both Worlds

Everyone lives on planet Earth.. so it's not like any one race came from another planet with their own exclusive superior knowledge with which they come to "save"

Europe became a superior power probably because of all the ideas which were swirling around on Eurasia. A good many secrets from other "barbarian" cultures most certainly had their impact. Weren't ideas exchanged by means of all those trade routes?

The Eurasian continent had a lot of good ideas. The vaccine for smallpox, for instance, was an innovation of Chinese, and Middle Eastern people. That discovery was only taken to England in the 1700's. Even some African slaves shipped to the Americas had already been immunized before coming to the United States, and didn't suffer along with the outbreaks being experienced by the colonies.. It's what prompted people in the northeast to take a second look at this despised practice of purposely innoculating themselves with weakened versions of the illness.

And of course, good ideas also came from the Indians. Back in America's early history, there were widespread diseases (pellagra and malnutrition) associated with eating corn. Nobody knew why corn-eating was killing corn-dependent people of the American south. The Native Americans (who had been eating corn for thousands of years) knew the secret. Indians practiced nixtamalization which the Americans did not.

A lot of Indians nowadays don't practice nixtamalization, but Latin American countries still do. It's how you end up with white corn tortillas and hominy corn. Americans get a breakfast item known as grits out of this process.

It also should be noted that the America that the Indians thrived in was not the same America we see today. Today's America is treeless and dry. Indians weren't accustomed to depleting the forests and grasslands. The climate was wetter and cooler in places that are nowadays dry and arid. This was even as recent as the 1700's. Scientists refer to the change as a mini-ice age. So the impoverished and miserable Indians we know today are certainly not the resource rich Indians who inhabited the continent of yester-era.

 

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Maybe you don't remember,
but the early period of interaction between EUROPEANS and natives
there was no United States or Canada, etc., yet.

Obviously i dont remember.

So the two cultures we were talking about were European and native. So yes, in fact, this was the comparison. And school books tended to refer to the two cultures in this way. 1775 is late in the game and the colonists would have thought of themselves as Europeans of various sorts, especially in comparison with natives.

And most of the texts I have seen the American culture was seen as one emerging from but very much akin to
its european roots. Americans did not think of themselves as arriving ex nihilo. The pattern of interaction and the justifications for their sense of superiority were based on their being that extension of European culture with its long history of technological inventions, Christianity and more clothing.

And i am sure they teach the same things in China. Not all technology is European based.

 

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I had to break off…

Let me continue. Then once the US and Canada were formed
EUROPEANS
Kept on immigrating to these countries. These Europeans were not seen as barbarians or as coming from some radically different culture – though some like the Irish were looked down on, but not remotely to the degree natives were –
And LO!
These Europeans even having been in the US for just a short time became part of the waves of Manifest Destiny and their needs and wishes were given priority instantly by the US government over that of the Natives. They were seen as coming from the same culture
As opposed to the natives.

And what was this culture European or Euroamerican. Civilized, a term that has been used horrendously, but there it is.

What set these people apart from the natives was their European heritage. That is what I meant.

 

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my heart goes out to doreen
john, the aoler, engages her in conversation

run dear lady run!

 

Priceless.

 

The irony I realized was that my posts are like the European's armies marching in formation in the New World. All lined up. Out in the open.

And Lo...

The natives fire from cover in the trees.

Guerilla warfare.

I had to laugh at myself. And learn, of course.

 

I truly hope you don't think I asserted it is. If you do, we have a serious communication problem.

 

Not the Scotch-Irish.

 

Amazing you would bring this up, since I have just been reading about them in this wonderful book
Deer Hunting with Jesus
which I heartily recommend. It will make any neo-conservative gnash his or her teeth in vain. But it is no picnic for liberals either. And excellent set of solidly grounded diatribes from a redneck socialist.

I have to at least partially accept your criticism. The Scots-Irish - I thought you made a classic error with your spelling but found it is spelled both ways, and that yours is the better one - seem not to have thought of themselves. You'd think that sentence should go on, but it doesn't. However, depite being looked down on and utilized by rich whites - often precisely for their injun killing abilities - they were granted more rights than the natives. So they were a part of the wave of manifest destiny, if seen more as weapons or tools than real people by those in power.

But hell, aren't we all.

 

that is what i have seen as well.

 

And their bodies showed this. They looked much healthier than most of the Europeans. They had more diverse and steady diets. They practiced better hygiene. This difference was noticed by both sides.

 

Certainly, this is true of a sizable percentage of indigenous people--they move to cities, "assimilate," etc.--but by no means all. Again, the Navajo who live on reservation land, for instance, do very much live a traditional life: they live in hogans, their dead remain in the hogans, and they continue to observe their rites and ceremonies. And this is a part of what many fail to understand when they suggest that indigenous people ought to be content with relocating in cities, "where the work is": for many, being inextricably bound to their land is a core aspect of their metaphysics.

 

Thanks for the tip - I ran across an interview with the author, and he talks well for a writer dealing with that general area: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5049027318355798863#

I've run across very few books, at least modern ones, that deal with the S-I from the inside with awareness or are written from the point of view. Maybe the most interesting, in several ways, was "Westering Man", a biography of Joseph Walker by Bil Gilbert (a very good writer). Another one: "A River Runs Through It" by Norman Maclean - the book, please, not the movie. The book is a collection of stories, none too long, and is autobiographical. The style, or tone, of both of these books is central to their representation.

More technical and informative, but wider netting with less of the inside view, and lacking the peculiar S-I "tone of voice", might be this book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Scots_Invented_the_Modern_World.

 

I'll check those out, thanks. One thing I liked about the guy is here absolute identification with his rural, working class roots. From there he is absolutely candid about his criticism of both his own people and everyone else. It is perspective that does not get enough light, especially from people willing to put themselves up for critique. And his brainpan ain't empty, neither and that don't hurt.

 

the whole world has changed though. doreen seems to have (i should say may have) issues with humanity and to that i have no advice for him\her.

 

There is no need to give advice. Since you don't have issues with humanity, you could, on topic, describe how you see things. I could learn from that.

 

i think i did in post #75.

 

Has it?

I think "seems to have" and "may have" are pretty much interchangeable--kinda sorta fuzzy and all.

Who doesn't? And what kind of advice would one offer? Of this I am even more curious.

 

basically yes..

 

This is the extent of your ideas on the subject?

Parmalee has pointed out, ironically in the post this was a response to, that this is not true. Or, at best, a partial truth.

Part of the concerns I expressed in this thread was that certain ideas have not changed for many people. You do realize that indigenous lands are being taken away from indigenous people who are considered to have less right to it because they are ´more primitive'? There are American corporations active in this.

Further, if everything is changed, than there is no reason not to acknowledge what happened in the past was wrong. Reluctance to do this should make us wary.