Native Americans knew something that is blind to society.

a reply to: solemind4
White man destroyed them?
You mean Eastern European men. There is a difference.

a reply to: diggindirt

Of course they had weapons! There were lots of large wild animals out there trying to make a meal of them, especially the weaker members of the community. They needed weapons to defend themselves. Nobody ever said they didn't have weapons. Nobody is saying that they didn't know how to defend themselves.

Again, you're missing it, they had weapons for hunting, but they also had weapons for killing. Weapons used in warfare are not always the same as the ones used in hunting, in principal they are similar but they aren't the same, sorry.

There is simply no evidence of wide-spread wars and conquests in the north American southeast and middle America until after the arrival of Europeans.

Gee, you think there wasn't that many records in oral histories? Because it wasn't written down. For the people that actually spoke to them they got the gist:

At a community level, warfare played a multifaceted role, and was waged for different reasons. Some conflicts were waged for economic and political goals, such as gaining access to resources or territory, exacting tribute from another nation or controlling trade routes. Revenge was a consistent motivating factor across North America, a factor that could lead to recurrent cycles of violence, often low intensity, which could last generations. Among the Iroquoian nations in the northeast, ‘mourning wars’ were practiced. Such conflicts involved raiding with the intent to capture prisoners, who were then adopted by bereaved families to replace family members who had died prematurely due to illness or war.

Archaeological evidence confirms the prominent role of warfare in indigenous societies well before the arrival of permanent European settlers. As early as the year 1000, for example, Huron, Neutral, Petun and Iroquois villages were increasingly fortified by a timber palisade that could be nearly 10 metres in height, sometimes villages built a second or even third ring to protect them against attacks by enemy nations. Craig Keener has described how these structures became larger and more elaborate through to the 1500s, with logs as large as 24 inches in diameter being used to construct the multi-layered defences, an enormous investment in communal labour that the villagers would not have made had it not been deemed necessary. Sieges and assaults on such fortified villages therefore must have occurred before Europeans arrived, and were certainly evident in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Link

On the other hand, if the Native Americans were so wise and with that wisdom had tremendous power, why did they get practically obliterated by a load of ignorant, unholy, gun-toting Europeans?

This is a hard world. And basically the "right" way to do things is whatever keeps the species alive and thriving from one moment to the next.

a reply to: Blue Shift
The plains Indians were defeated by the The United States by almost completely destroying the Buffalo Herds. The environmental terrorists destroyed there main food source and resources. This is just one example of how the Natives were defeated. It took Europeans hundreds of years to defeat the Native Americans even though they had much superior weaponry. However the Plains Indians were a product from Europeans as they are the ones that introduced horses to the Americas. One thing the tribes have in common was most of these tribes lived in balance with the environment, when the US understood this they acted accordingly. Most surrendered to avoid starvation.

Again the Native Americans are not represented by the United Nations. The PTB do not want the Native people to have any kind of independence.

originally posted by: Dark Ghost
a reply to: solemind4

Ironic that today the vast majority of countries with majority white populations are among the most civilized throughout the world.

This "blame whitey for all our problems" sounds like something the Nation of Islam or Black Panthers would preach.

Ironic that today the vast majority of countries with majority non-white populations are among those that those civilized "white population countries" came, conquered, and colonized throughout the last 150 years, and exploited for resources, left the civilizations in shambles with their "God".

Ironic that "blame white for their problems" sounds historically correct.

a reply to: LDragonFire

No representation in UN? What part of THIS did you not see?
www.unep.org...

a reply to: boncho
You have yet to produce a link leading to any report of a site that contains human remains showing signs of warfare. You have someone's interpretation of what they (Europeans) saw and the way they interpreted it or what they heard from native sources. Translation is sometimes a tricky thing, eh?
Show me the bones. Show me the mass graves---not someone's best guessimates of what might have happened and what walls around a village might mean. If there was war there will be bodies that show the evidence. When you give me a link to a paper showing the evidence behind these claims, I'll be glad to examine it. Until then, you have no argument based on evidence, only on guesstimations of writers and journalists.
I've already addressed the palisade-enclosed villages. Of course they were enlarged over time, as the village grew and the wooden posts deteriorated, they were replaced. But unless you can show me some physical evidence that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these palisades were warfare defenses, I will continue to maintain that they could just have easily been to keep wildlife out of the village. As I stated in an earlier post, these structures appear in the archaeological record at about the same time that above-ground storage bins for corn appear. When these folks began growing corn and depending on it for a goodly portion of their nutrition during the winter months, they began building structures to store the grain. Those structures would be magnets for critters seeking an easy meal so rather than have to put round-the-clock guards on each grain storage structure, it was just sensible to have a wall around the village to keep the varmints outside. If you live in moose country, it takes a strong wall to keep them out. An additional benefit would have been protection of the children and elders from predatory wildlife as well.
There is some pretty fair evidence in at least a couple of instances of villages in Middle Mississippian period that these palisades were covered in clay on the interior walls and decorated with white wash and paint.
There is ample of evidence of wide-spread trade throughout the North American continent from the Archaic period of hunter/gatherers until the dispersal of the large population centers in both the southeastern and southwestern parts of what is now the US beginning roughly around 1350 AD. That's not to say that all trade stopped when the people began to disperse from "urban" centers, but the evidence says it dropped off pretty dramatically and became more regionalized. In the middle Mississippi Valley, evidence of working of large marine shells like conchs disappears from the record. There are a few scattered marine shell gorgets still showing up in the Late period (post-dispersal) but never the evidence of them being manufactured as they had been for several centuries.
About 50 years earlier, the use of fishhooks dropped dramatically. This holds true for several villages studied both in the Black Bottoms and in Ohio Valley. Again, they don't disappear from the record, but decline sharply. Theories abound as to the "why" of this phenomenon...did they forsake using hooks for using nets to catch their fish? Why? Did river levels drop, making the use of nets more practical?....no way to know at this time but perhaps as technology progresses, we'll learn more. What we know now is that in about one generation, the number of fish hooks manufactured in these villages dropped by 50-90% but percentages of fish in the diet didn't decline significantly nor did the types of fish they were eating change at all.
All that rambling about changes in culture reflected in the archaeological record is to say that without physical evidence, we can't answer the "why" or "how" questions. Why they did they----build palisades? mounds? stop using fish hooks? How was their trade network managed? What caused it to fall apart?
I can show you the evidence of the palisades being built. Same with the mounds. But I can only make my best guess as to the why of these activities.
I know that the native people sometimes were violent toward each other. I'm pretty sure that they had their fair share of nutcases. Some of the nutcases may have died in a violent manner if they were threatening or harming other members of the community. But evidence of widespread violence just doesn't exist in prehistoric sites in the Middle Mississippi Valley. You will find plenty of stories describing "massacres" as described by early explorers or archaeologists with an agenda. But time after time those stories have been proven false when modern methods are applied to the research of those remains. In the 19th century many archaeologists and adventurers reported finding bones with "cut marks" which signified to them that the person had been slaughtered and eaten by someone.
With the advances in technology we can now look at those bones and see that the cut marks were a result of the mortutary practice of de-fleshing a corpse, a custom of the southeastern people in North America. Again, we can't say why this was a custom...nor can we say definitively that the flesh was not consumed. However, the limited genetic studies conducted on some of these populations don't give any indication that they were habitual cannibals. Perhaps as the costs of the newer technologies come down, more studies can be done and we can learn a bit more about this culture group. In the meantime, anybody's educated guess will be entertained as to the "why" of many things about prehistoric people.
I really need to see evidence also for your assertion that weapons for killing humans are somehow different from weapons for killing game. A single link to a scientific paper proving your claim that there are quantifiable differences in "weapons of war" and weapons used to kill game would do the trick.
And the same for the evidence of mass graves as a result of warfare---just one link to a scientific paper reporting the evidence of warfare in the Mississippian culture regions. Not ritualized violence---warfare among the villages.
There is ample evidence for ritualized violence in form of sacrifices. That practice continues today...we have our own forms of ritualized violence. That particular trait seems to fall into the "universal to humankind" category, along with with belief in a higher power.
NOTE: The views expressed here by me are mine. They are formed from spending 30 years poking about and digging and studying and living on a small Middle Mississippian village at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. They are influenced by every site I've ever visited, worked on or studied. Meeting and greeting and listening to the public, doing public education for 30 years on that site and interacting with numerous natives. We made it our business to listen to every person who visited our site and had theories or ideas about what might have happened there. A whole bunch of my education came, not from academics although that played a large part, but from listening to people and exchanging information. That's why you won't find my viewpoint to be popular among a lot of "mainstream" academics today. Happily, that is changing somewhat. I've seen a lot of progress in the field in the time I've been involved.

originally posted by: LDragonFire


The land belonged to the people and nature, and no one owned any property its was not a known concept. They borrowed and paid respect to what they took, then they moved on. Home or property didn't fit in there culture.

Sorry but you are wrong. That view you have there is the romanticized version of native Americans that Hollywood has had for quite some time. Although they didn't understand the European view on owning land, since a lot of them moved with the herds of buffalo and other animals hence they couldn't understand the concept of "owning land", the native Americans certainly had property. Not to mention that they fought amongst each other to keep their tribal bounderies.

Heck, if the native Americans didn't have a concept of property then they would have never had come up with trading, and gifts that they exchanged with other friendly tribes BEFORE the white man arrived. Not to mention that quite a few native American tribes were as brutal, or more brutal in some circumstances than the white man. Remember that the Incas and Aztecs were known for their human sacrifices... Again, I am not saying they all were like this, but this romanticized notion people like you seem to have is not based on facts, but rather on the illusion created by romanticism.

originally posted by: LDragonFire

These conflicts were more about driving off competition for the available resources. Also marriage rituals varied from tribe to tribe, claiming there was one set customs is as dumb as claiming they had 1 set of ten commandments..

Claiming that these conflicts were more about "driving off the competition" is as dumb as claiming that the Earth orbits the sun... Of course that native Americans had a concept on property, just not on owning land. As for marriage rituals being different? of course they were, but all the men had to give "gifts" to the father of the woman they wanted to marry. Were there tribes that would not do this? yeah, there were tribes that taught their males since childhood to just take whatever they wanted including the wife. All native Americans were not peaceful, and quite a few were brutal in nature. Yes, there were some tribes that were a bit more peaceful than others. But in a world of 'kill or be killed" amongst enemy tribes there isn't a lot of room for 'being nice".

...

In the old days, marriages were usually arranged by the parents in both Sioux and Cherokee society, and the formal request for a bride was made by presenting gifts (the bride price - usually food, blankets, and fine clothing, and later horses) to the bride's parents, who made the decision to accept or reject the marriage proposal for the girl

Sioux Courtship and Wedding Customs

In Sioux culture it was usually the fathers who negotiated the marriage, looking for like minded political alliances, or a social tie that would strengthen the stature of the bride's family in the community, or an acomplished hunter or warrior who would be an asset in providing for and protecting the whole extended family.

While Sioux fathers took the lead and had the final say in such matters, mothers did the steering, and heavily influenced the stance taken by the fathers. Often the father would consider the wishes of a favored daughter, but this wasn't always the case.

If gifts were accepted and the father approved, the girl would have no say in the matter, even if she was opposed to the marriage.
.
...

Read more: Cherokee and Sioux courtship and wedding customs www.aaanativearts.com...
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives
Follow us: @aaanativearts on Twitter | aanativearts on Facebook

originally posted by: LDragonFire

Much of these possessions were related to there kills, A stone knife chiseled and attached to antler from a deer they killed, all males probability spent there entire lives making bows and arrows, stone working and whittling was apart of there upbringing.

You are making a lot of claims there, do you have any corroborating evidence to claim the above? The tradition of exchanging "gifts" with the white man didn't start with the white man going to the Americas... It was a custom between friendly tribes, or even friends from time to time to exchange gifts. Not to mention that when a native wanted to marry a woman he had to pretty much buy her with gifts. When you are exchanging a gift you expect something from something you are giving. Even native Americans knew this and it was a great insult if you didn't give something for what they gave you as a gift.

originally posted by: LDragonFire

You guys think they deserved to have there homelands taken from them? Did they commit genocide? Ethnic cleansing?

Who in the world said that they deserve what happened to them?... You shouldn't try to imply that people said things like that, because I didn't, and I certainly don't believe that they deserved it in any way...

As for whether "they committed genocide" Are you even familiar with the fact that there were native tribes in the Americas that made human sacrifices? They weren't "voluntary" as the majority of the sacrifices were done to captured people from other tribes.

Also, are you even aware that we have found evidence that there were tribes that would herd entire herds of animals(such as buffalo) off a cliff instead of hunting them one by one?... They even had a name for this type of hunting.

Remember that "the white man" brought horses from Europe to the Americas. The ancient native American tribes couldn't run after their food since their food(animals) were much faster than any of the native people...

Buffalo jump

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


A buffalo jump is a cliff formation which North American Indians historically used in order to hunt and kill plains bison in mass quantities.

Method of the hunt[edit]

Hunters herded the bison and drove them over the cliff, breaking their legs and rendering them immobile. Tribe members waiting below closed in with spears and bows to finish the kills. The Blackfoot Indians called the buffalo jumps "pishkun", which loosely translates as "deep blood kettle". This type of hunting was a communal event which occurred as early as 12,000 years ago and lasted until at least 1500 CE, around the time of the introduction of horses. The broader term game jumps includes buffalo jumps and cliffs used for similarly hunting other herding animals, such as reindeer. The Indians believed that if any buffalo escaped these killings then the rest of the buffalos would learn to avoid humans, which would make hunting even harder.
...

en.wikipedia.org...


Like I said, a lot of made up romanticism being mistaken as facts.

a reply to: diggindirt

I think you are confused about the definition of conquest. Does it matter what the size of the conquest? Perhaps you are buying into some revisionist history.

www.nationalreview.com...

originally posted by: ItCameFromOuterSpace
a reply to: solemind4

You must be studying from the new curriculum. The one that excludes the part about native americans committing genocide on other tribes.. owning slaves.. cannibalism.
You bring up a lot of good points, but the majority of that is overly romanticized malarky.

Their creed has nothing to do with human culture. Anywhere you go, at some point in history there has been kind of atrocity committed by humans. It's like dismissing the teachings of Christianity because various ranking members of the church have been found to be child molesters, or dismissing the teachings of Islam because most Middle Eastern cultural norms are barbaric by Western standards.

Judge the message, not the messenger, is what I'm getting at.

Well, they killed each other all the time and if there were as many of them then as there are of us now, they would likely have done the same thing as was done to them and generally ignored their commandments the same as religious people do now, so I think it's time another passenger got off the 'native americans were so, so in tune and totally, like, you know, loved everything and sht' train.

originally posted by: ThirdEyeofHorus
a reply to: LDragonFire

No representation in UN? What part of THIS did you not see?
www.unep.org...

I stand corrected apparently Native Americans do now have a voice! This is awesome news is it not??

Keith M. Harper is the U.S. representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. He is the first Native American to ever receive the rank of a U.S. ambassador.[1][2] Before that he was a lawyer known for working on behalf of Native Americans. He is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma

wiki

So last June 5 2014 he was appointed to the UN...I'm floored!

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Ok the method used to drive herds off cliffs was used successfully for 10k years at least. This was a horseless tactic, but I'm sure they used it with horses as well, but are you implying they killed the Buffalo to the brink of extinction using this tactic?

Or was it the profit made from Buffalo hides and tongues?


BTW there humans, why would they be better or worst than anyone else? Cannibalism existed all over the world so did sacrifice and a host of other atrocities.

Not sure what your trying to say?

I find the fact that the word "savages" keeps popping up to be exceptionally troubling and an indication that prejudice is still an acceptable practice - provided the target group not have a loud enough voice to silence it.

To the Romans Europeans were savages. To the Persians and Chinese all westerners were savages, and were thought of exactly in the same way in reverse.

"Savage" is a term used by people who do not know or understand.

Aboriginal Americans, from both North and South America were not the simple Tarzanesque characters that John Wayne films showed. At a time when London was a small, muddy village - there were vast empires in South America to rival anything else in the world.

One could assert that Philip of Spain was a horrible savage when he cut down every single tree in his country to complete his infamous Spanish Armada. That seems like a legitimate act of barbarism to me. Nevermind that Rome provided murder for entertainment, or that the Church, throughout history, loved their little murder sprees.... Or that Europe stayed at war as much as any American tribes might have.

People are people and all races, ethnicities, creeds, and religions have their skeletons in their respective closets and those periods of time that they would like to forget. The Natives of this nation included.

a reply to: diggindirt

You have yet to produce a link leading to any report of a site that contains human remains showing signs of warfare. You have someone's interpretation of what they (Europeans) saw and the way they interpreted it or what they heard from native sources. Translation is sometimes a tricky thing, eh?

Ah yes. Sorry, I won't continue this argument. You have obviously pulled a few bones out of an archeological site, so the rest of us are complete imbeciles when it comes to anything to do with history, you the grand master though, has all the facts on a 10,000 year history of a race (various races) of peoples.

My apologies for being so obtuse.

Since you pulled a skull out of the ground, want to give us your statistic analysis that you seem to have for every year dating back to 8000BC. Please, give us a yearly population figure, the annual birthrate, decline, number of women/men/children, homicide rate, theft rate, sexual crime rate.

Oh wait, yeah, you don't know s#*T and you can't really get most of that data can you. You pull a few bones and believe it to represent 10,000 years of life. Okay. But then clam the rest of us are comparing the human race to Charles Manson when we use comparative examples.

I do not argue with trolls. If oral histories are not good enough by the people themselves Im not sure what is. Do yourself a favour and actually go to a First Nations reserve and get to know the people and ask them some of their histories. Although you will be missing some, as certain clans and tribes disappeared while warring with other clans and tribes (odd).



Western ideologies have shifted, and the pendulum has swung in higher learning institutions. Yes, I agree. So for years certain races were misrepresented. The Vikings, the Native Americans, the Australasian Aboriginals, all depicted terribly barbaric in study, but now, because everyone is so PC the pendulum has swung, and we're making up for it. So they were entirely peaceful the whole thousands long period and only started killing people because white people showed up right?

Thats the new history?

The problem is native populations fought each other without provocation from europeans, which is documented (sadly because they relied on oral tradition there isn't much documentation prior) go figure??

Despite evidence of warfare and violent conflict in pre-Columbian North America, scholars argue that the scale and scope of Native American violence is exagerated. They contend that scholarly misrepresentation has denigrated indigenous peoples when in fact they lived together in peace and harmony. In rebutting that contention, this groundbreaking book presents clear evidence—from multiple academic disciplines—that indigenous populations engaged in warfare and ritual violence long before European contact. In ten well-documented and thoroughly researched chapters, fourteen leading scholars dispassionately describe sources and consequences of Amerindian warfare and violence, including ritual violence. Originally presented at an American Anthropological Association symposium, their findings construct a convincing case that bloodshed and killing have been woven into the fabric of indigenous life in North America for many centuries.

The editors argue that a failure to acknowledge the roles of warfare and violence in the lives of indigenous North Americans is itself a vestige of colonial repression—depriving native warriors of their history of armed resistance. These essays document specific acts of Native American violence across the North American continent. Including contributions from anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, and ethnographers, they argue not only that violence existed but also that it was an important and frequently celebrated component of Amerindian life.


1. Traditional Native Warfare in Western Alaska
Ernest S. Burch Jr.

2. Barbarism and Ardour of War from the Tenderest Years": Cree-Inuit Warfare in the Hudson Bay Region
Charles A. Bishop and Victor P. Lytwyn

3. Aboriginal Warfare on the Northwest Coast: Did the Potlatch Replace Warfare?
Joan A. Lovisek

4. Ethnohistoric Descriptions of Chumash Warfare
John R. Johnson

5. Documenting Conflict in the Prehistoric Pueblo Southwest
Polly Schaafsma

6. Cahokia and the Evidence for Late Pre-Columbian War in the North American Midcontinent
Thomas E. Emerson

7. Iroquois-Huron Warfare
Dean R. Snow

www.uapress.arizona.edu...



But yes, lets ignore all that, because you can write a paper that is PC showing the natives never killed anyone, they were totally peaceful, and never knew what war was until the big bad white man came. Please, I hope you make a real big name for yourself and push your career finding some PC history you can weave into native histories.

The problem, as you say yourself, is that obviously, your anthropology-archeological science is a soft science at best because it can be so easily manipulated.

I will simply put my money on logic, and logic says that out of every civilization and every race, creed and colour, in any instance where more than a few people got together and formed some system of civilization they all ended up killing each other in some manner or the other.

It's called human nature. You know, beyond the oral history, the recorded history, the hard evidence like the fact that you only need one knife to skin an animal yet they had many, you're right and everyone else is wrong, because you know, your theory fits in with the politically correct view of the day.

Congratulations.

Life time achievement you've done yourself there.

a reply to: diggindirt

You also realize 80% of that wall of text was not relevant to our discussion. It is merely you trying to boast about your work. Very sad indeed.

The previous quote you claim is completely without merit by the way, was quoted from the following people:

P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Ph.D., is assistant professor and chair of history at St. Jerome’s University, Waterloo, Ontario. His recent books include, Arctic Front: Defending Canada’s Far North (2008), Battle Grounds: The Canadian Military and Aboriginal Lands (2007), and two co-edited volumes on Aboriginal peoples and military participation.

John Moses is an objects conservator and researcher with the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec. His particular interests are the accommodation of Aboriginal perspectives in mainstream museum practice, and the provision of collections care training to non-specialists. He is a registered member of the Delaware band at the Six Nations of the Grand River at Brantford, Ontario.

R. Scott Sheffield, Ph.D., is an instructor in the Department of History at the University of the Fraser Valley. His major publications include, The Redman’s on the Warpath: The Image of the Indian and the Second World War (2004), A Search for Equity: The Final Report of the National Round Table on First Nations Veterans’ Issues (2001), and a recent edited volume on Aboriginal peoples and military participation in international perspective.

Maxime Gohier holds a Master’s degree in history from l’Université du Québec à Montréal. He is the author of the book, Onontio le médiateur: La gestion des conflits amérindiens en Nouvelle-France (1603-1717), which focuses on the Native American policies of France in North America. He is currently doing doctoral research into the history of the native peoples of Quebec under the British regime.

If you want, you can look up some of their stuff, I found one piece, you probably have better access to the rest of their work since you're in the field.
www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca...
You can argue with them if you wish.

formal battles occurred that were often
highly ritualised and conducted in ways that limited
the casualties. For instance, fur trader David Thompson
recorded the following description by the Peigen elder,
Saukamappee, of a battle with the Shoshone in the Eagle
Hills region of Saskatchewan when he was a youth, long
before the arrival of European guns and horses.
After some singing and dancing, they sat down
on the ground, and placed their large shields
before them, which covered them. We did the
same, but our shields were not so many, and
some of our shields had to shelter two men.
Theirs were all placed touching each other;
their bows were not so long as ours, but of better
wood, and the back was covered with the sinews
of the bisons which made them very elastic, and
their arrows went a long way and whizzed about
us as balls do from guns … on both sides, several
were wounded, but none lay on the ground; and
the night put an end to the battle without a scalp
being taken on either side, and in those days
such was the result unless one side was more
numerous than the other.s

If you live in moose country, it takes a strong wall to keep them out

Yeah, no it doesn't.

This is absurdly ridiculous. Please find me an instance of a giant moose wall. Moose pens are not thick at all, it doesn't take much to send them on their way laterally, and only until recently is there a real problem with moose and deer getting used to humans enough to stick around after picking up their scent.

There is a reason hunters go hunting with no scent at all, often keeping their gear in scent lock bags, smearing scent over themselves. Moose attacks happen when a cow and her calf are involved and she perceives a threat to the calf. Or during rutting season you might be extra cautious. As far as having to build defence walls for moose, thats just silly.

a reply to: boncho

Just curious, if Native Americans used walls and forts why didn't they build any fighting against the Blue coats?

a reply to: LDragonFire

Eastern tribes seem to have utilized wooden walls. Some western tribes used natural caves elevated above the ground. This could be equally seen as protection from natural predators as for protection from invasion by other tribes.

a reply to: Hefficide

Spain also used the gold plundered from South America to pay for there ships and war machine only to have the armadas destroyed by mother nature, kinda ironic.

a reply to: LDragonFire

It's all intricately woven together and proves that reality is stranger than fiction in many cases!