Hey, i'm a non-indigenous european person and i've been having a discussion with an elder lady friend about the topic of exactly what indigenous folks were like compared with europeans, and whether there was always a shared mentality of severe alienation in both cultures, and here's what she said to me...(i'm looking for insights from others, including possible proofs or info leading us to seeing such)
>Please I don't mean to offend you.,
but the reality exists that long before europeans came to this
continent that war, starvation, incest, slavery and genocide was a
reality for the people. There has always been inhumanity in every
cultuer and indeed the natives were particularily ruthless and felt
justified by there culture.... that europeans were so capable of
overpowering thier foes had alot to do with the developement of steel
and manufacturing, but the mentality of consciousness is universal
and although the european culture was colonistic they did not/ do not
hold the strings of brutality and even within european cultures there
existed a great deal of enlightenment.... Also let us not forget the
stong hold and influence of the church which is probably much more
influencial than any european country ...
---
i replied:
Where do you get this information, S? How do you know these things for certain? How can a european know what happened long before europeans were here?
Oh, yes, you are partially indigenous; yet what does that really mean if you look only through the lens of the european way of seeing? (a way that has, by the way, systematically utilized fraud and sleight-of-hand to conceal its own history not only during conquest of the indigenous people here, but also on *every* topic after "legally" securing this land). Every topic you can think of, i bet that there is a long history of suppression of truths that simply are not allowed.
Some questions:
Where do you get the idea that the original natives practiced genocide against each other?
What does slavery really mean between varying cultures, and do severely alienated cultures like european cultures truly have similar ways of seeing these things? After all, indigenous folks never had *wage slavery* (they tended to look out for each other, realizing the value, i see and think); nor did they have all of these long lists of ways to keep some marginalized while others, via deceit, gained wealth!
Why is starvation spoken here? If a group, say the Irish, die of a "potato famine" is there a context that is deeper? How about when others,
say indigenous folks began to starve? In what context, again? Perhaps because their food stores were destroyed by europeans always taking and hardly giving anything in return? And before europeans arrived? --Okay, some starved at times, just as the Irish, just as the peasants in a world dominated by feudalism.
Does incest mean the same thing in all cultures?
For instance, if there is no heavy-feelings in a culture about sexuality or *bad touches*
then would people have the same kind of a taboo feeling about it that a culture that *has* such heavy-feelings (via the state-backed church's
way of control over the people through proscribing all sex acts except missionary-position procreation made by heteros married by the chruch)? Are there grey area ways that make it possible to approach things which are taboo in one culture and yet not at all similarly viewed in another?
No, i see very heavily-loaded value assumptions being thrown, blanketly, upon the "primitives" in general by you and so many others. i say, read some critique and demystification of anthropology (and any other usually politically-suberservient social "science") before you make your sweeping judgements (which have a curious way of making the conquering society sound so much "better", notably). i know an author off-hand that could help you in that area...i'm trying to recall his name...um...oh yes, Theodore Roszak (spelling?) went into this in some detail in his book about the 1970s counterculture.
And i don't agree, either, on the "mentality of consciousness" as you seem to believe it was some universal. Look at indigenous medicine, look at how shamans were created and when, look at every facet of pre-colonized life and then tell me that they shared a "mentality of consciousness"! i don't see that at all!
But when the europeans arrived, a ton of shit began cropping up. Tribes were divided up and the old trick of "divide and conquer" was employed systematically (to this day); indigenous folks did not understand this. Nor did they understand the selling of lands. You read any account of old-way chiefs talking to europeans and you see that there is a QUALITIVE difference between the two cultures! Once indigenous folks were pushed into the insanity of european seeing and believing, all of these pollutions began cropping up, and peoples, seeking to remain in harmony, did what they could to get along; but systematically, they were fooled and tooled! Only now have they, as a whole people, begun to get a full understanding of we colonized peoples' mentality.
So the point i'm trying to make is that we can see, often too clearly, that indigenous society wasn't nearly as insane as european society! How?
By recalling that the waters were not polluted, the forests were not decimated, the wild animals were not decimated by hunting, nothing was
wasted, and so on and so forth. Guns were not invented, not even the wheel. Alienation did not exist as we know it today, if at all; Mom nature (aka wakan tanka) was always there in everything they were and did. Animals, when killed, were prayed to (before and after death).
Even if i'm somewhat "romanticizing" the indigenous, pre-"civilized" way of life, you know you cannot help but to see the truth when
comparing with european feudalistic society, right?!
The other info is interesting to me, thanks for sharing about the jewish guy who saw in his captors their lostness; do you have a title in mind?
i'd like to read about that one.
As for the stronghold of the church? Back when the church ran states, okay. Yet, after they became *subordinate* to states, all they did was
its bidding. We can see examples of this in movies like "At Play In The Fields of the Lord", where missionaries are tolerated to change
the indigenous peoples, but if they don't, the military will kill and terrorize them. The church (and every state-subordinate religion!)
is yet only one more example of the bigger picture of the meta Chess Game being played on all diverse humans who subordinate their individualities to such a dumbed-down way of being in the world. Do you see what i'm saying?
>Please I don't mean to offend you.,
but the reality exists that long before europeans came to this
continent that war, starvation, incest, slavery and genocide was a
reality for the people. There has always been inhumanity in every
cultuer and indeed the natives were particularily ruthless and felt
justified by there culture.... that europeans were so capable of
overpowering thier foes had alot to do with the developement of steel
and manufacturing, but the mentality of consciousness is universal
and although the european culture was colonistic they did not/ do not
hold the strings of brutality and even within european cultures there
existed a great deal of enlightenment.... Also let us not forget the
stong hold and influence of the church which is probably much more
influencial than any european country ...
---
i replied:
Where do you get this information, S? How do you know these things for certain? How can a european know what happened long before europeans were here?
Oh, yes, you are partially indigenous; yet what does that really mean if you look only through the lens of the european way of seeing? (a way that has, by the way, systematically utilized fraud and sleight-of-hand to conceal its own history not only during conquest of the indigenous people here, but also on *every* topic after "legally" securing this land). Every topic you can think of, i bet that there is a long history of suppression of truths that simply are not allowed.
Some questions:
Where do you get the idea that the original natives practiced genocide against each other?
What does slavery really mean between varying cultures, and do severely alienated cultures like european cultures truly have similar ways of seeing these things? After all, indigenous folks never had *wage slavery* (they tended to look out for each other, realizing the value, i see and think); nor did they have all of these long lists of ways to keep some marginalized while others, via deceit, gained wealth!
Why is starvation spoken here? If a group, say the Irish, die of a "potato famine" is there a context that is deeper? How about when others,
say indigenous folks began to starve? In what context, again? Perhaps because their food stores were destroyed by europeans always taking and hardly giving anything in return? And before europeans arrived? --Okay, some starved at times, just as the Irish, just as the peasants in a world dominated by feudalism.
Does incest mean the same thing in all cultures?
For instance, if there is no heavy-feelings in a culture about sexuality or *bad touches*
then would people have the same kind of a taboo feeling about it that a culture that *has* such heavy-feelings (via the state-backed church's
way of control over the people through proscribing all sex acts except missionary-position procreation made by heteros married by the chruch)? Are there grey area ways that make it possible to approach things which are taboo in one culture and yet not at all similarly viewed in another?
No, i see very heavily-loaded value assumptions being thrown, blanketly, upon the "primitives" in general by you and so many others. i say, read some critique and demystification of anthropology (and any other usually politically-suberservient social "science") before you make your sweeping judgements (which have a curious way of making the conquering society sound so much "better", notably). i know an author off-hand that could help you in that area...i'm trying to recall his name...um...oh yes, Theodore Roszak (spelling?) went into this in some detail in his book about the 1970s counterculture.
And i don't agree, either, on the "mentality of consciousness" as you seem to believe it was some universal. Look at indigenous medicine, look at how shamans were created and when, look at every facet of pre-colonized life and then tell me that they shared a "mentality of consciousness"! i don't see that at all!
But when the europeans arrived, a ton of shit began cropping up. Tribes were divided up and the old trick of "divide and conquer" was employed systematically (to this day); indigenous folks did not understand this. Nor did they understand the selling of lands. You read any account of old-way chiefs talking to europeans and you see that there is a QUALITIVE difference between the two cultures! Once indigenous folks were pushed into the insanity of european seeing and believing, all of these pollutions began cropping up, and peoples, seeking to remain in harmony, did what they could to get along; but systematically, they were fooled and tooled! Only now have they, as a whole people, begun to get a full understanding of we colonized peoples' mentality.
So the point i'm trying to make is that we can see, often too clearly, that indigenous society wasn't nearly as insane as european society! How?
By recalling that the waters were not polluted, the forests were not decimated, the wild animals were not decimated by hunting, nothing was
wasted, and so on and so forth. Guns were not invented, not even the wheel. Alienation did not exist as we know it today, if at all; Mom nature (aka wakan tanka) was always there in everything they were and did. Animals, when killed, were prayed to (before and after death).
Even if i'm somewhat "romanticizing" the indigenous, pre-"civilized" way of life, you know you cannot help but to see the truth when
comparing with european feudalistic society, right?!
The other info is interesting to me, thanks for sharing about the jewish guy who saw in his captors their lostness; do you have a title in mind?
i'd like to read about that one.
As for the stronghold of the church? Back when the church ran states, okay. Yet, after they became *subordinate* to states, all they did was
its bidding. We can see examples of this in movies like "At Play In The Fields of the Lord", where missionaries are tolerated to change
the indigenous peoples, but if they don't, the military will kill and terrorize them. The church (and every state-subordinate religion!)
is yet only one more example of the bigger picture of the meta Chess Game being played on all diverse humans who subordinate their individualities to such a dumbed-down way of being in the world. Do you see what i'm saying?
posted by:
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Re: Arrogant europeon assumptions? Or?
Mon, October 22, 2007 - 9:22 PMcontinent that war, starvation, incest, slavery and genocide was a
reality for the people. There has always been inhumanity in every
cultuer and indeed the natives were particularily ruthless and felt
justified by there culture....
********
I don't see this at all. I do see some of that dynamic, but not to the extent that it was after Eropean colonialization.
Granted tribes warred on each other, for whatever reasons. It's my understanding wars were not fought over land, but rather in retaliation for some wrong or for the taking of hostages. The taking of hostages was to replace lost family members, and hostages were treated quite well, despite hollywood's attemtps to show otherwise.
Slavery did exist to some degree with some nations, though not all.
Starvation? I don't understand how that can be, as native culture has always taught to take care of each other. People in general did not go without. Here in the Northeast, it was not uncommon for several families to have shared a longhouse with a center fire. These families lived in realtive cooperation and communally took care of each other. Als at harvest time...the entire community would bring to the pot latch whatever food they had left over. It was shared with the entire community.
Incest...no..I dont' beleive so...nations married to nations, surely and there were marriages between family members, usually of some third or fourth dispensation...this was to keep the blood lines strong. I have an ancestor, a Chief who gave both is daughters to a man in marriage...so yes there was plurality in marriage for some tribes.
As far as genocide ... the only genocide committed on native peoples began with Colombus and hasn't stopped since. Before European colonization, the native americans lived in relative peace with each other and their environment. Severe alientation is a learned behavior, that was brought here by colonialists...after all it is far easier to conquer and colonize a group of people who are indeed alientated from each other. Ruthless? Justified by their culture? Our men fought with only war clubs, bows, arrows, in the tradition of their own nations. It was Eropepans that aremd them with guns, muskets, and explosives and taught them the Eropean way of fighting.
Divide and conquer eh?
I If you don't think that a reality...look a the history of residential schooling. The government knew that the balalnce of power lay with the women. all of the treatise signed in this country are totally illegal as signed by men...the women are the keepers of the land and only they can sign treatise....under The Great Law of Peace and the Haudenusonee way. The Haudenusonee are the keepers fo the Wampum Belts.
what better way to crush a nation and emascualte its men than to rip children away from their mothers. Mothers longing for thier children, snatched and kidnapped could not raise themselves out of that place....their hearts were broken. Take the heart of the nation...Crush the women and the men would follow...how undignified do you think this was for native men?
Oh dont' get me started...LOL~ i hope this helped? Good question~thanks.
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Re: Arrogant europeon assumptions? Or?
Mon, October 22, 2007 - 9:38 PMAnd by the way....the men did not go to war unless the women made the moccaisins, eh?
Matrix cultures are built on the natural fact that women give and sustain life, through their bodies, their love, attention, work, and their arts. Social, economic and cultural organization follows kinship through the mothers. All descendants of a female ancestor or a group of sisters, including sons, brothers, and uncles, belong to the maternal clan.
One outstanding trait of this extended family matrix is social motherhood, shared among the women of the central generation. All sisters’ children are regarded as sisters and brothers. Aunts may be called Mother by any of their sisters’ children, even if biologically “childless.” Maternal cousins are often nursed together and this milk bond is held sacred.
Sharing of food, shelter, and goods, and mutual support, assistance, and protection are fundamental values growing out of the matrix kindreds. They focus on sustaining the life-support network, under cardinal principles of cooperation, harmony, and living peaceably. The clans are founded on the blood tie, not the legal tie of marriage. They share the substances of life: blood, milk, food and fire. This can be described as both an economic relationship and a magical bonding.
These motherlines see themselves as part of larger circles of relationship. They reach out to other clans through giveaways and circles of redistribution. They relate to the natural world, and to each other, through linkages of each kindred to animals, plants, elements or social functions. The animal totems became a staple and then a contested turf in anthropological studies of indigenous cultures. Lost in all of this was the fact that “totem” originated in an Ojibwe term ototomen, meaning maternal relatives.
The concept of matrix societies encompasses much more than a single criterion of matriliny. A constellation of qualities define the pattern, among them maternal descent, matrilocal residence, egalitarian and communitarian values, and emphasis on harmonious and peaceful relations. These societies retain female choice, initiative, and female spheres of power, in the public as well as the domestic realm, including diplomatic and inter-group relations. See below by Kantinetha Horn , Clan mother:
Moccasin Makers and War Breakers
A call to action by the women of the world.
We have the power to stop the war!
"Before the men can go to war, the women must make their moccasins."
In the tradition of our ancestors, it was customary for the women to make the moccasins worn by the men who were going to war. If the women did not want war, they did not make the moccasins.
Our ancestors belonged to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Europeans called them Iroquois.
We overcame a horrible legacy of war and violence when Deganawida, the Peace Maker, gave us our Great Law of Peace. The United States Senate has acknowledged that our law served as a model for the Constitution of the United States (U.S. S. Con. Res. 76, 2 Dec. 1987). The U.S. Constitution was, in turn, a model for the Charter of the United Nations. Our law is the basis of modern international law.
The Americans copied our laws and customs, but they did not understand them.
Our ancestors recognized the sovereignty of all men and women by solving community conflicts through discussion in a People's Council. In our tradition, three criteria must be kept in mind through all deliberations:
1) Peace: meaning peace must be kept at all costs.
2) Righteousness: meaning decisions must be morally right taking into consideration the needs of seven generations to come.
3) Power: meaning the power of the people must be maintained including the equal sovereignty of all men and all women.
Conflicts between nations were also resolved through diplomacy and concensus. War - or the use of violence- was only a last resort. Even then, the women and children of the opponents were spared.
Throughout, our ancestors always respected the other nation's different customs, laws and ways of life, whether they approved of them or not. They would work out agreements on how to live side by side. Therefore we have stood by and not become involved in this currentconflict. But we see now that it has gone too far. Innocent lives and mother earth is at stake. As women and caretakers of this earth, we have decided to speak up.
According to the law of our ancestors, the soil of North America is vested in the women. Serious decisions about warfare had to involve the other half of the people - the women - the bearers of life, the nurturers of the earth.
We are now facing an unnecessary war.
We have a duty to use our power to do good. We have decided to remind all humanity of this important truth. War cannot happen without the support of women.
We ask the women of the world to come forward and play their rightful role as the progenitors, the creators of all men, of all humanity, the caretakers of the earth and of all that lives upon it.
As women, we know the pain and suffering of childbirth. We feel a deep loss when our children die. This understanding compels us to act to stop the destruction of lives. The children must not suffer. Not our children. Not the children of anyone we disagree with. We respect the sovereign and sacred right of each individual to live on this earth.
We ask you, the women of the world, and the men who support us, to come forward and stop this madness.
This decision to go to war will cause the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children. It is a decision that has been made primarily by men without the input of the people of the nation, without the imput of the women.
Most of these men have grandmothers, mothers, wives, girlfriends, sisters, aunts, daughters, nieces, granddaughters, nannies, etc. We are asking all of these women to put pressure on these men - men like President George Bush, Colin Powell, Senator Rumsfeld, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Saddam Hussein, Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Ariel Sharon, the Palestinians, the North Koreans and anyone else who is involved in causing the current threat to destroy the world.
Women, bring your men to their senses.
Women, remember your power. Remember your responsibility.
Every person has personal power. We must all use our power to do good.
We must stop the war.
We must maintain the Peace.
We must hold back the moccasins.
Kahn-Tineta Horn, Mohawk mother & grandmother
Kahente Horn-Miller, Mohawk mother
Karonhioko'he, Daughter
Kokowa, Daughter
Grace Lix-xiu Woo, Aunt & Sister
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Re: Arrogant europeon assumptions? Or?
Mon, November 26, 2007 - 8:08 PMI thank you! Thank you sO MUCH for taking so much time to speak! i will definitely be sending this on to the older lady whom I'm having this talk with (she's in her upper 50s and has had some contact with natives in some real ways; so it surprises me that she believes as she does...)
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One more thing (right now)
Mon, November 26, 2007 - 8:25 PMi see you've brought up the topic of war. In my view, European "culture", at least when "society" is involved (as it usually is, at least in public), IS a kind of war (or at least a structure birthing, building, and perpetuating the values and alienation *necessary* for war). I'm probably going to have to list a bunch of examples to wake people up on this, and perhaps that's important.
Let's start with the Nuclearized family. We settlers have had our extended families systematically removed from our lives, albeit largely by the techniques of *engineering opinion* (i.e. elders being authentic after lifetimes of social facades, "must be" "senile", etc. etc.) and manufacture of consent (i.e. professionals and their methods of intervention and caretaking are "better" than "laymen", and if we question that, we're being "disruptive" or worse!)
And how about education. It's compulsory (parents can go to jail or have their kids taken away if they don't submit to the authority of compulsory schooling). Some families can homeschool (or "unschool"), but that's not "possible" for "most" people; and not always legal in every state either.
Work. You BETTER work or you might be *cast out of society*.
Be A Man (or a "proper" woman). Don't be "too" emotional if you want to be "a man."
I could go on and on...
What others can you all come up with?
Now let's compare this to pre-colonized indigenous values. Anyone?
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