From: mel (mbtlehn@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Sat Nov 13 2004 - 04:42:17 GMT
Hello Arlo,
(INTERLEAVED REPLY)
Arlo said:
I hardly think it's my role to argue for primary sources that are
available
readily for anyone to consult and come to their own conclusions. But
some quick
comments...
mel prior:
> Pardon my butting in, but one thing to keep
> in mind regarding counts on them pesky
> injuns...In a very real way the Indians
> "killed" more Indians in the 19th/20th
> centuries than the whites did.
>
Arlo said:
There is no doubt that white policies of cultural extermination forced a
huge
division between those who felt that assimilation was necessary for
survival
and those who felt that the tribe should resist to its dying breath.
It continues to be a polarizing topic, as it does with any minority that
has
been systematically disenfranchised. Look at the black communities,
where many
see assimilation as betraying one's culture. Whites, of course, see
assimilation (since they are not the one's doing the assimilation) as
being
natural and necessary.
But with the Indians, we gave them little choice. Forced off their land,
beaten
and tortured for speaking their own languages, denied the ability to
perform
their religious rituals, continued denying of equal cultural status,
what would
one expect?
mel:
No doubt... bad stuff, but the point
was that individuals make choices to
survive and the numbers have that hinkey
back door. Each wave of peoples here in
Western Hemisphere as in Eastern Hemisphere
push relentlessly to dominate others.
Read up on the Wendat diaspora by the
Iroquois, look at the Aztecs' bloody
domination of their territory...nothing
Euro-folk did could match that.
Much of what you think happened in North
America was really something that had
happened in Europe and this was merely the
tail end...
Social warfare is not pleasant to the
individual(s), but it sure does provide
incredible chaos and as with such mixtures
there are some Dynamic Qualities that the
children generations find. (not compensation,
but rather CHANGE.)
It's what happens when culture collide in a
mismatch. Thousands of years of non-stop
warfare evolved a determined cultural trait
in Europeans. The relentless push from the
east kept them bottled up in the west end of
the Eurasian landmass, until technology freed
them. (How much of the foment in Europe was
from DQ vs SQ as opposed to SQ vs SQ would
be an interesting study, but as with the
Renaissance and the reformation it was not
just a stable SQ world there.)
North American natives had developed a very
different set of cultures. Their cruelties
were less impersonal, there were books of the
innovative tortures that the natives had devised
and perfected over generations that were the results
of observations by traders, which were studied in
Europe with great amazement.
Many of the native N.A. teachings and social
practices were in many was surprisingly more
"intellectual" than the "every one knows..."
approach of European's with their appeals to
cultural authority, but the battle was not a
fourth level battle, it was third.
The European OVER EMPHASIS on culture led to the
near tyranny of law over thoughtful consensus that
drove them to act in ways united that were
incomprehensible to the more consensus oriented N.A.
natives.
The pioneer culture as Scotch-Irish as it was in tone
was more easily able to understand the natives and as a
result there was much early inter-marriage. The French
trappers were similarly able to reach accommodations, but
the FORMAL established colonial/post colonial culture
that felt a sting of inferiority to Europe saw only the
pacification and assimilation of those whom they did not
understand, but sensationalized instead. Again, the acts
were done without even considering the natives, only out
of social inferiority to Europe.
Arlo said:
If a Muslim army swept across America and did the same to white
christians what
white christians did to Indians, would you "assimilate"? Or would you
fight
assimilation to your dying breath? What would you think of your fellow
white
christians who assimilated into the conquering Muslim culture? Would you
disown
them? Or understand that (as the Borg say) "resistance is futile"?
Just something to think about...
mel:
Sorry, way ahead of you in terms of thought. We
who are alive today are the result of all of the
people who sought survival over futile resistance.
The paleo-lithics who fell under the Celtic axes and
forged a long trading civilization, then under early
Germanics in some places or Iberic invaders from Africa,
or Etruscans or Hellenics or Romans, then later Germanics
or Fino-Ugrics or Turkics etc. Then under social movements
that transcended governments, cults, Christian, Mohammedan,
later Shia vs Sunni or Orthodox vs Catholics, Catholics vs
Heretics, Catholics vs Protestants then Dissenters et al.
Those who can roll outside of dying third levels to keep
second level survival intact do so. Later the changes that
come make as much change to the "conquerors" as to the ones
conquered. E.g. post Alexander Hellenism was not a spread of
Macedonian sensibilities, but a synthesis of mass cross-cultural
pollination, only nominally Greek...
As Pirsig pointed out, the American change was real in
this regard, but far less recognized. You and I are not
just sissified Liberal guilt bags of decadent Euros on an
extended Spring Break, but rather the descendants of a truly
mind boggling combination of cultures in a Native American
matrix.
A previous generation named sports teams for the most
admired and noble opponent they knew and we in our
political correctness fog of revisionism think the
"Indian" mascots are demeaning. That makes us ignorant
of the respect, the regard, the "matrix" of our native
portion of the cultural matrix that make Americans also
bearers of that set of traditions as well.
What American did not gaze upon Ben Campbell in his
full Chief's regalia and not feel a swell of pride or
nod solemnly to Chief Sealth's (Seattle) words. That is
at least an echo of what is really there.
mel prior:
In other states as well, the
> "civilized" Indians learned to farm the same
> ground
Arlo said:
Just have to point out the HUGE myth in this. Nearly all primary sources
from
the first-wave or European settlers describe the Indian populations not
as
primitive nomadic foragers who did not comprehend "farming the same
land", but
as established civilized people who had agriculturally tamed many
regions in
the North East. Even in Guns, Germs and Steel the author mentions how
"corn"-
as it existed when Europeans arrived- was the product of generations of
agricultural breeding and deliberate selection. Many tribes farmed the
same
land. It's only with latter waves of settlers, who wanted the Indians'
land,
that the whole nomadic savage myth was invented.
mel: You missed the " " around the word civilized.
mel prior:
and went to the same denominational
> churches, bore the same last names... their
> children moved to new places, passed for white
> and hid their backgrounds until their grandkids
> new no different than that they were white.
>
Arlo said:
And again, would you assimilate? Often times this is an impossible
question to
comprehend when one sees one cultural as having the mandate to "civilize
the
world". After all, even though you would never want to be like anyone
else, why
wouldn't everyone want to be like you?
Why wouldn't those brutish "injuns" want to become part of the
"civilized"
culture of the white man? Why?
mel: To trace one line, the Wendat after their
diaspora wandered for two-hundred
years before they made the conscious choice to
settle and did so in Kansas. The world had
changed and they had debated for generations
over just how to respond. Except for a small group
of traditionals who chose to relocate into Oklahoma
the majority of the tribe chose to "Americanize"
and reacted very little at the Citizenship act.
That was not a hasty choice, their children have
survived quite well and while the US Government
won't recognize them as a tribe, Kansas has
chosen to see the reorganized tribe as a real
entity...just an aside.
So, they made the same wise choice our own
predecessors made many times. They embraced
an overwhelming change.
In some ways it makes less sense to discuss the
morality of the cause of change than to look at the
morality of the reactions to change and how much
is SQ vs DQ and what we learn from the "other"
culture. This may be the most important.
mel prior:
> The folks who toss the numbers don't tend to
> follow that line, as it is too hard to trace.
>
Arlo said:
At any rate, no one denies the difficulties in getting an accurate
census. As
I've said, the current numbers are disputed both by whites (who see
larger
indian populations getting more power) and indians (who see dilution as
a
threat to their culture).
But if you honestly believe, as Platt intimated, that all these people
just
coincidentally "killed themselves off", just in time for the glorious
white man
to arrive and inherit an empty continent, then I guess you agree with
the
recorded Pilgrim prayers at the time, that god was clearing the
continent for
"his people". And those pox blankets recorded in military records,
transcripts,
reports to england and letters, well, they must all be part of the
"liberal
conspiracy" to make white men feel guilty about their glorious and moral
legacy... damn, and we almost had you.
mel:
Pox blankets are sensational. Don't get too
Comfortable in stuckness there unless you choose
to counterbalance it. Young gangs of roving
adolescent toughs, history's Bloods and Crips
did prey on lone Easterners. Black and White and
did Rape and torture in graphic detail. Leaving the
desecrated corpses to be seen, thinking that would
terrorize the next group into turning back.
They misunderstood the response that would come.
While individually we would react that way, the
social animal of Anglo-European influence had a
very different reaction, much like one who fears
snakes or spiders, it is not to run, but to
exterminate.
It might be that as many later treaties were broken
in response to those actions than simply "greed".
Not to be the eternal dreamer, but then that is the
only way progress is made, ultimately, as a prime
motivation, but to me the real question to me is:
given that we are all here now and history is not
affectable, how do we forge a more dynamic "tribe,"
a new American tribe that reaches far beyond any
single tradition? Where do we find the Dynamic.
BECAUSE IT SURE AIN'T HERE IN THIS LOWEST
COMMON DENOMINATOR OF GUILT RIDDEN AND
BACKWARDS LOOKING MEDIA FED, OVER SCHOOLED,
UNDER EDUCATED, CONSTANTLY ENTERTAINED,
ELECTRONIC GAME FED... (pardon the outburst,
but surely there is something better...)
Isn't that what we are all looking for HERE?
Arlo, thanks for stirring me up...felt good.
thanks--mel
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