Native American Wisdom

[soulman]

Wasnt there a tribe who were into scalping ones head off? I admnit i had the poster from Athena when i was about 12, and even though there are some pearls of wisdom, (at least back then) we should take off our tinted glasses and realise not everything was as peaceful as we like to believe back then. Although it would be interesting to see how the country would have been if the settlers didnt land there...

although i would like to read more about the native americans, if they had an oral traidtion in reciting history, what would be a credible source?

One that immediately springs to mind is 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West' by Dee Brown. Can't vouch for credibility but it might help to dispel some of the myths. '500 Nations' is another book about the history, although again you'll have to reach your own conclusions about credibility.

 

[Belushi]

We have to be really wary of the New Age danger, but equally I don't believe in just saying all human societies are/were the same in terms of their positive and negative behaviours.

I dont think anyone has said that, but they have criticeised the airy-fairy notion of Native American Cultures as some kind of eco-friendly spiritual nirvana. It wasn't, being human beings just like us Native Americans were capable of just as much violence, aggresion and materialism as we were. Even a cursory investigation of the Inca or Aztec Empires, or the Native American Plains Culture which developed after the introduction of the Horse and Gun will demonstrate that.

As well intentioned as it is the whole concept of the 'Noble Savage' is just as uninformed and racist as the idea of all non-western peoples as bloddthirsty savages.

 

[Louloubelle]

intereting and important link here

http://www.comanchelodge.com/plastic-shamans.html

 

[merlin wood]

Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
What ever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.
-- Chief Seattle

 

[Louloubelle]

when the genocide and murder of native americans was in full flow, the invading europeans set up a bizzare masonic order called 'the improved order of red men' where they dressed up in pretend native american clothing and acted out pretend native american rituals.

Native americans were not allowed to join, even if they had wanted to (unlikely)

George Washington himself was a 'red man'

http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/fraternalism/red_men.htm

http://mill-valley.freemasonry.biz/marin_red_men.htm

 

[kyser_soze]

Wiki on scalping

 

[ICB]

Fleecing dumb yankee fuckers in casinos

 

[Azrael23]

Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
What ever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.
-- Chief Seattle

It took 400 years for science to figure this one out. How clever they are!

Google: Zero Point Field

 

[merlin wood]

It took 400 years for science to figure this one out. How clever they are!

Google: Zero Point Field

While there's a lot more yet to be discovered in a systematic scientific theory about how all things connect.

http://tinyurl.com/ek76d

 

[ZWord]

The Native Americans could be as vicious, aggresive and cruel as any other people, the idea that they were a bunch of peace loving ecologists is nonsense.

Thats not to say they werent treated abominably by the Europeans.

Well without abnormal ways of knowing, it's pretty much impossible to know what the people's culture was like before they encountered the europeans.

However, reading the things they said on this page,
http://www.greatdreams.com/wisdom.htm, makes it obvious to me that even after they encountered the europeans, they retained a wisdom, and a poetic appreciation of life, and a nobility that the europeans did not have.

As generalisations go, - the native americans were noble- is about as true as you can get.

 

[TeeJay]

although i would like to read more about the native americans, if they had an oral traidtion in reciting history, what would be a credible source?

I can recommend a book called "Stolen Continents" by Ronald Wright - he has examined American Indian (Iroquois, Cherokee, Aztec, Maya and Inca) history over 500 years specifically looking at native sources, giving a very different viewpoint to the whole history of the americas all the way up to current times.

Link with a few reviews: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0395659752/026-0907770-0721200?v=glance&n=266239

 

[kerb]

Thanks Soulman and Teejay.

 

[snouty warthog]

I totally agree with what Spring-Peeper said (about tribal Americans and Canadians not being a homogenous group)

I will stand by the Native Americans. I have always had respect for their ways and beliefs.

I would recommend 'Black Elk Speaks' as a fine book that documents the 'breaking of the sacred hoop' from a Native American perspective, as well as touching on other visionary aspects of their spirituality.

 

[kyser_soze]

As generalisations go, - the native americans were noble- is about as true as you can get.

Ahhh yes, the noble savage.

Racist toss. I always find it amusing when people talk of the 'nobility' of non-European civilisations - what exactly is nobility? Pride? Ability? The success of a society in continuing to exist? There were Christian religious writers who talked about protecting the earth, even in the C16 - does that make tham noble as well? What about the Chinese and Japanese - were they 'noble' as well, or were they closer to European civilisation? What about the writers of the industrial revolution who spoke against machinery; the poets who decried the despoiling of the landscape?

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

the chinese and the japanese are still around ... i think you have to be mostly killed off before you gain nobility or else people start noticing your actully just like everybody else

 

[ZWord]

Ahhh yes, the noble savage.

Racist toss. I always find it amusing when people talk of the 'nobility' of non-European civilisations - what exactly is nobility? Pride? Ability? The success of a society in continuing to exist? There were Christian religious writers who talked about protecting the earth, even in the C16 - does that make tham noble as well? What about the Chinese and Japanese - were they 'noble' as well, or were they closer to European civilisation? What about the writers of the industrial revolution who spoke against machinery; the poets who decried the despoiling of the landscape?

Well obviously you know fuckall about nobility or tthe native americans.

Racist toss. m

 

[dilute micro]

Well without abnormal ways of knowing, it's pretty much impossible to know what the people's culture was like before they encountered the europeans.

You can pick up on things from the earliest accounts though. I finished reading a book on the Indians of North Carolina in the 1600s which was real interesting. The idea that the natives lived in harmony and were turned evil because of the influence of the white man of course is total garbage. There seems to have been everything from protectorates to uncertain peace to a drawn-out tit for tat war that existed between the tribes. They were all about one-uping their rivals. When the white man did come each tribe wanted better weapons to use against their traditional enemy. When this tribe got ahold of guns their enemy had to get them too. An arms race was created and the Europeans played it to their advantage. But before the white man came they certainly knew how to kill. If you look at arrowheads look at the back end. In a native american archaeology class I remember that to distinguish between an arrow meant for hunting and one for war was that the hunting arrowhead would have a tapered end, sort of a diamond shape so that it could be withdrawn and reused. An arrow meant for a human was pointed at the edges so that to remove it meant further damage to the victim.

One of the most interesting things from the book was that tribes would engage in war for sport. Before the Europeans came the Catawba tribe in SC and NC had the reputation for being the most fierce among the rest of the tribes of the Atlantic seaboard. So much so that warriors from tribes from the Great Lakes region would go all the way down to SC to fight the Catawba just to say they killed one.

While I'm on the subject, the Catawba looked the part too. They had a signature look different from the other tribes. They had sloping foreheads from tieing boards to babies heads And they had a ponytail and distinctive warpaint of one eye in a white circle and the other in black with the rest of the face in black. The earliest slave owners would walk a newly gotten slave past a Catawba brave with the understanding that if the slave ran away he could expect the Catawba to track him down which scared the shit out of the slaves.

There is a lot I believe we could learn from the culture of the native americans overall. With every myth there is some element of truth. In some things the natives had a moral ethic, if you will, that we can't manage to live up to today. I think that's true.