American Indian Contributions to the World.

[Tengu]

I read a long time ago a collection of monographs on Europeans and Indians...A crying shame I cannot reccolect the smigionest of the titles!

It was really very good and covered aspects such as the concept of the Noble Savage, European Indian societies (Many Eastern European and Soviet) and notable vistors to the Old World and their perceptions.

What I really took away from the study was the feeling that few if any Europeans have ever understood such cultures.

(Though not in the sad same way that an ex Head of Arabic at Madrid University boasted he had never actually spoken to a Muslim...)

(For those of you who are not sure, from the 6th century to 1492, Absolutley Nothing happened in Spanish history...)

 

[dewi]

That is kind of where I draw the line... calling them 'noble savages'...

Behave, they were quite happy before the Europeans trundled along with their 'civilisation'.

And accounting brought something to their world did it? No, it didn't. It brought along capitalism to a world that existed quite happily without it.

Double book, single line, on the ceiling... who the hell cares. Accounting encouraged the world of greed we live in, it gave those precious numbers those in power needed to prove that the average man was unproductive, needed the 40 hour week and the amazing minimum wage (which should be renamed the maximum wage for people we view as uneducated)

This thread has turned from what the American Indians (or native people to a large land mass that the Europeans nicked) gave us into what did we take to them.

We took death, disease and extinction. That is the truth of the matter. We didn't share anything, we took over their land against their will, took what we wanted and categorised them as 'Nobel Savages'.

Bravo!

 

[Tengu]

Exactly, savagery is a most ignoble state, and the only people who could romaticise it were civilised folks.

(Pretty much the same as the embarrasing pastoral movement (think Little Bo Peep, who is not a sheperdess though her bottle fed lambs are too tame to care) and other romantics.)

Shakespeare had an answer to this in his play, the `Tempest` (one of his little original works) He called it Caliban, and gave him the best lines (But of course, the savage is as eloquent as any philosopher, and I suspect often by far superior in linguistic skills.)

(And hey, even if is his only talent, (unlikley) we should admire him for it...Language is what makes us human, that and fire...)

Give me Rome, which did not have double entry bookkeeping but they did have public libraries.

 

[Robson Valley]

I looked back at the OP. This european scruff just has to stop. Same with double entry and the Romans.
Read the OP.
What do I see?
Travel technology = boats and snowshoes. I see huge load-bearing baskets of Black Ash.
I see all the bone and stone fore-runners of the Mocotaugan-style crooked knives.
I see fantastic and comfortable housing in long snowy winters.
I see living.
I see the first europeans trading disease for starvation. Native peoples did survive for some 10,000 - 15,000 years
without "help" from europe.

The Pacific Northwest native cultures were not a whole lot better off with european encounters.
They sometimes took a far more rigid stance. But that's another story for another time and place.
The iconic art and carvings of the PacNW is recognized, globally. How can that be labelled as "primitive" in this day and time?

I can only despair at the white, wanna-be indians who think that they can copy, ride on giants' shoulders, and
fake replicas of native art for sometimes serious money. I despair at the caucasian buyers who endorse this.

 

[forrestdweller]

I read a long time ago a collection of monographs on Europeans and Indians...A crying shame I cannot reccolect the smigionest of the titles!

It was really very good and covered aspects such as the concept of the Noble Savage, European Indian societies (Many Eastern European and Soviet) and notable vistors to the Old World and their perceptions.

What I really took away from the study was the feeling that few if any Europeans have ever understood such cultures.

(Though not in the sad same way that an ex Head of Arabic at Madrid University boasted he had never actually spoken to a Muslim...)

(For those of you who are not sure, from the 6th century to 1492, Absolutley Nothing happened in Spanish history...)

i still remember being made a fool in front of the class by my history teacher when asking her WHY she was telling me that columbus discovered america when others were there before him.... .
and my aboriginal wwoofhost on dampier peninsula told me ten years ago that when he was in high school his teacher told the class[ mainly aborigines....] that james cook discovered australia....


makes me wonder how much nonsense is written in [school] history books....

 

[mrcharly]

and my aboriginal wwoofhost on dampier peninsula told me ten years ago that when he was in high school his teacher told the class[ mainly aborigines....] that james cook discovered australia....
.

That's a bloody ignorant teacher - australia was called Van Dieman's land (assuming you accept the principle terra nullis).

 

[Tengu]

Yes, the Chinese knew about Australia a long time ago. Didnt want to live there, though.

 

[mrcharly]

Yes, the Chinese knew about Australia a long time ago. Didnt want to live there, though.

I've never seen any evidence of that. Can you link to some?

As a child of the 70s, I was fed the full 'discovery' tale bullcrap, which mostly centred around lost dutch sailors then Captain James T Kirk, sorry, Cook.

 

[crosslandkelly]

I had never heard of Admiral Zheng until a few years ago, a remarkable man.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.html

 

[boatman]

What do I see?
Travel technology = boats and snowshoes. I see huge load-bearing baskets of Black Ash.
I see all the bone and stone fore-runners of the Mocotaugan-style crooked knives.
I see fantastic and comfortable housing in long snowy winters.
I see living.
I see the first europeans trading disease for starvation. Native peoples did survive for some 10,000 - 15,000 years
without "help" from europe.

The Pacific Northwest native cultures were not a whole lot better off with european encounters.
They sometimes took a far more rigid stance. But that's another story for another time and place.
The iconic art and carvings of the PacNW is recognized, globally. How can that be labelled as "primitive" in this day and time?

I can only despair at the white, wanna-be indians who think that they can copy, ride on giants' shoulders, and
fake replicas of native art for sometimes serious money. I despair at the caucasian buyers who endorse this.

If you cared to look you would see that prehistoric Europeans developed in different places everything that Native Americans did including sledges, skies, winter houses etc. In addition they learnt to smelt and work metal. Initially metal working came from the Middle East, possibly. So, what actual contributions to the world did they make? Personally I don't care where an innovation comes from but am interested in hoe it is developed.

A lot of the concept of cultural imperialism comes from Toffler's book Future Shock and similar writings in the 1970s when self-sufficiency and living small and how horrid and culpable contemporary Western life was were common themes.

Incidentally I reject the idea of "primitive" as well except in terms of boats when it is the construction commented on not the people who built them. All peoples on earth have a lineage the same length and all have adapted remarkably well to any environment they find themselves in

 

[Goatboy]

Possibly the prettiest and most coveted (by us lot anyway) the birch bark canoe.

 

[mrcharly]

I had never heard of Admiral Zheng until a few years ago, a remarkable man.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.html

Yeah I found that article. The Chinese academics pooh-pooh ideas of Zheng having sailed to Australia. No evidence. I think if the Chinese could find any evidence, they'd be trumpeting the 'discovery' of Australia by Zheng.

 

[Tengu]

Admiral Zheng would logically have gone places he knew there were civilisations he could impress with his fancy ships.

I dont think it was him, I read something about sea slug collecting? Cant remember.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia

Ha! shows how good my memory is...Not China...but...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baijini

The First Briton to visit Australia was Willam Dampier. (Who enjoyed meeting new people but was not terribly impressed by either the place or the natives...this was about 1600, I think)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dampier

 

[Robson Valley]

What other people did in other places is for other people in other places.
I'll never claim that North American native peoples "invented" anything but they
certainly rasied the level of sophistication in their own environment.

What just might be nearly unique is the Mocotaugan knife. Tombear (bless his heart) gave me a Sheffield blade of the design that the Hudson's Bay Company was trading post-1750 or so.
Hafted in a classical style, it sure isn't a carving tool but a shaping tool.

 

[boatman]

I posted some time ago about a bronze hook knife made perhaps 1,000 BC in England. Not disparaging the Mocotaugan of course. parallel needs mean parallel solutions.

 

[Robson Valley]

That's wonderful. Scandinavian and Pacific Northwest crooked knives reflect similar sweeps.
I hammered one from 1/4" copper rod which is fairly hopeless carving wood even as soft as western red cedar.
The HBC Mocotaugan blades have just a crooked/upswept tip. For planing fresh birch, really fun to mess with.

 

[santaman2000]

If you cared to look you would see that prehistoric Europeans developed in different places everything that Native Americans did including sledges, skies, winter houses etc. ....

Mostly true. But then, that's my point; they developed separately and thus the Europeans didn't really contribute much as most of it was already there (save the metal working) However if we expand, as has been suggested, to include the whole of the Americas, then the indigenous peoples in South America had developed a system of interlocking stone masonry that withstood the earthquakes. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe that was possible with European, Asian, or African masonry at the time.

As you stated the Europeans brought horses, the wheel, and bookkeeping. Horses definitely caused a drastic change but in the overall scheme of things was that a "contribution" or an interruption? After all they had been thriving for centuries before then.

 

[Tengu]

They were introduced to Europe too...we regard them as a good thing.

Particularly my friend who worships hers.

 

[boatman]

Mostly true. But then, that's my point; they developed separately and thus the Europeans didn't really contribute much as most of it was already there (save the metal working) However if we expand, as has been suggested, to include the whole of the Americas, then the indigenous peoples in South America had developed a system of interlocking stone masonry that withstood the earthquakes. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe that was possible with European, Asian, or African masonry at the time.

As you stated the Europeans brought horses, the wheel, and bookkeeping. Horses definitely caused a drastic change but in the overall scheme of things was that a "contribution" or an interruption? After all they had been thriving for centuries before then.

The original was what had they contributed. Of course they survived, because they were still there and many thrived. Problem is that it appears that many had fitted into niches and were vulnerable to disease among buffalo or change in migration pattern of salmon or caribou etc. Europeans did disrupt and many were unable to adapt, or, to be fair, were not allowed to adapt.

 

[Dave]

Ive just ordered a book entitled 'Once They Moved Like the Wind,' by David Roberts. EXCERPT HERE

Its supposed to be very good. An account of the Apache, who were particularly hated it seems, by the United States Cavalry, and obviously extremely misunderstood, as you can see from the brief quotes by notables in the excerpt above.
Its described as unsentimental from the apache viewpoint.

You can buy it for £4.90, plus £3 delivered from the States.

On Horses;

Modern horses, zebras, and asses belong to the genus Equus, the only surviving genus in a once diverse family, the Equidae. Based on fossil records, the genus appears to have originated in North America about 4 million years ago and spread to Eurasia (presumably by crossing the Bering land bridge) 2 to 3 million years ago.

Following that original emigration, there were additional westward migrations to Asia and return migrations back to North America, as well as several extinctions of Equus species in North America.

The last prehistoric North American horses died out between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene, but by then Equus had spread to Asia, Europe, and Africa.

Animals that on paleontological grounds could be recognized as subspecies of the modern horse originated in North America between 1 million and 2 million years ago.

I think the oldest known dwellings in europe were found recently in Yorkshire, which looked very much like the native Americans Tipis. That prof. Alice Roberts was on TV recently showing them.