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February 13, 2005

Can we stop patronizing 'Indians?'

I'm not trying to pick on one of my readers who has been posting to the Ward Churchill thread, because Morgan offers a lot of valuable insight on many subjects. However, I think his statement --

When I look at the pollution and abuse to the land that has been caused by my "white" race I am not proud of that. The "indians" had tribal wars and made slaves of each other, but they had more respect for the land than to pollute it.
-- must be definitively addressed.I, too, grew up with the romantic image of the stoic, proud Indian, in harmony with nature around him. I remember the famous ad of Iron Eyes Cody[ed. note -- he was a faux Indian, too], with one tear trickling down his cheek in response to all the pollution caused by "white man." And leaving aside that we all should practice the ethos I learned as a Girl Scout -- "Leave the campsite you've used in better condition than you found it" -- can we please acknowledge that the image of American Indian as uber environmentalist is a myth.
where land was abundant, it made sense to farm extensively and move on. Indians would commonly clear land for farming by cutting and burning forests. After clearing, they would farm the fields extensively until they depleted soil fertility; then the Indians would clear new lands and start the process again. From New England to the Southwest, wherever Indian populations were dense and farming was intense, deforestation was common. Indeed, the mysterious departure of the Anasazi from the canyons of southeastern Utah in the 13th century may have been due to their having depleted the wood supplies they used for fuel.
Morgan also states
They never killed animals just for sport and left them to rot in the sun. They made use of almost every part of the ones they took for food.
I suspect that refers to the practice whereby buffalo were stampeded over cliffs. Well, if "white" man was doing it, he learned it from the Indians.
Similarly, where game was plentiful, Indians used only the choicest cuts and left the rest. When the buffalo hunting tribes on the Great Plains herded hundreds of animals over cliffs in the 18th and early 19th centuries, tons of meat were left to rot or to be eaten by scavengers - hardly a result consistent with the environmental ethic attributed to Indians. Samuel Hearne, a fur trader near Hudson's Bay, recorded in his journal in the 1770s that the Chipewayan Indians would slaughter large numbers of caribou and musk ox, eat only a few tongues, and leave the rest to rot.

Indians also manipulated the land to improve hunting. Upland wooded areas from east to west were burned to remove the undergrowth and increase forage for deer, elk, and bison. Indeed, because of this burning, it's possible that fewer "old growth" forests existed in the Pacific Northwest when the first Europeans arrived than exist today. In some cases, however, the improvements sought by burning were short term, because anthropogenic fire altered the succession of forests. In the Southeast, for example, oak and hickory forests with a higher carrying capacity for deer were displaced by fire-resistant longleaf pine that support only limited wildlife. Biologist Charles Kay concludes that "Native Americans were the ultimate keystone species, and their removal has completely altered ecosystems, not only in the Intermountain West but throughout North America."

I'm not stating this as to cast some evil aspersions in the direction of American Indians, but to show that they are just as human as "white" people and not some strange mythical race immune from the human condition of pursuing their own interests. Like all human cultures, there are good and bad aspects, just like each individual can act in good or evil ways. The image of the American Indian as either all good or all evil is equally damaging to the effort to fully understand the myriad of cultures that existed on this continent prior to the modern arrival of Europeans. Indeed, American Indians can be just as fiercely protective of the history that favors them as any other group ... as evidenced by their resistence to any archeological discovery that may challenge their own arrival in the Americas, ie the bitter struggle over Kennewick Man, a 9300 y/o skeleton that doesn't resemble American Indians. In my opinion, I think American Indians are trading on the "noble" myth by insisting that any ancient remains within their "indigeonous" range are "theirs", regardless of any evidence of geneological link. It is nothing more than a desire to "freeze" history to their specifications and seize and destroy any evidence to the contrary.

But non-Indians may be afraid to challenge them in this regard because they, too, buy into somesort of "collective guilt."

This has got to stop.

Posted by Darleen at February 13, 2005 08:35 AM

Comments

Darleen,

Thanks for supplying some info I was not aware of.

I had heretofore only heard of the shame of shooting buffalo from a moving train. The end result being the plains indians found themselves with too little food and had to surrender to the reservations.

I didn't mean to "romanticize" the indians as such, I was merely repeating what I had read about in books not mentioned here. As I have said before, I desire to maintain an open mind because it is the only way to learn new ideas and cast aside misinformation.

I am surprised they would waste food by herding animals over cliffs but if it was documented, then it must have happened. None of the books I have read mentioned such, but they were not of the plains indians.

I only know what I have learned about the Cherokee from the Carolinas and the Ojibwa from Wisconsin, and from what has been portrayed in movies (which is questionable).

I suppose a critic could say the reason "indians" didn't pour toxic chemicals into the river is because they didn't have any. Given time to develope them??????

The indians I have known and read about had more sense than to poison their drinking water.

The values you learned in Girl Scouts were good ones. I hope you adhere to them and pass them to your children. If all of us followed those teachings of respect for the land we wouldn't have toxic waste dumps and poison in our water and air.

Maybe the wish for a clean, safe environment gives us cause to "romanticize" the indians. If we at least embraced the "respect for the land" attributes we would all be much healthier.

Iron eyes Codi was born Espera DeCorti on 3 April 1904 in the small town of Kaplan, Louisiana to Italian-American parents.
In 1995, Hollywood's Native American community honored Iron Eyes for his contribuitions.

If he convinced just one person not to throw trash on the land with his little tear jerking commercial then his life was not in vain.

Take care..................

Posted by: Morgan at February 13, 2005 01:21 PM

My, it is a bit reassuring to have you write that I provide valuable insight. (Even if only occasionally)

For awhile I feared I had alienated both you and Jeff by posting counter points.

At times you and other bloggers have posted comments that guided me to do research that opened windows of info I had not encountered before.

At times it led to info that reinforced my thoughts and led to controversy. Jeff once emailed me a warning that I was not the most popular guy on his blog!!

I wasn't certain if that was good or bad.

After review, I am certain it meant I had stirred peoples thinking (to the point they were complaining). That is my only intent. Not to offend, not to insult, but to spur new thoughts and even get others to help me collect new info. Just like this post.

There are some people who can't stand it if you raise a point that challenges their school of thought. They need the security of thinking they are "RIGHT".

Not that I am perfect and hold myself up as an example to follow, but I would rather be informed than to think I am right when in reality I am not.

Let the information flow.................

Viva los bloggers........................

Posted by: Morgan Painter at February 13, 2005 05:42 PM

I remember reading somewhere in an old journal or book how Plains tribes, would regularly eat only the choicest bits, hump and tongue of fresh killed buffalo.
On the other hand I'm sure if game were scarce that Indians would eat every scrap of the buffalo like any other hungry group of folks.

Too bad Time machines aren't available yet. If they were, I'd like to send Ward Churchill back to the upper Missouri River about 300 years ago. Wouldn't it be fun to watch him conduct his 'Tenured Indian business' with the real thing.

Posted by: Bzzz at February 14, 2005 06:47 AM