What we can learn from the ancient Native Americans?

[MarkTwain]

Not a lot is known about Native American spirituality, religion, or where they really came from, but the culture is rich. I want to cover a few points on how Native Americans understood life and I feel we can learn from them.

Everyone is Equal

Native American culture during the colonial eras saw everyone as equal to them. There was no segregation or separation. Though they were gender roles in tribes, no gender was superior to the other. In fact, among Iroquois tribes, the chief was always male, but the chief was always selected by a council of women. Homosexuals in tribes were often called “two-spirited” and accepted for their sexuality. Children were also welcomed with open arms and large amounts of affection. There were no poor, no rich, no insane asylums, no jails, prisons, lawyers, taxes, borders or boundaries, and no religious animosity.

Honor the Earth

The Native Americans have always had a deep respect for the land. Therewas a love of every form of life. The Native Americans did not kill anything they couldnot use. They never killed an animal or a fish for the sport of it. Fishing and hunting were a way to survive. The Native Americans lived in harmony with nature and did not abuse the natural world.

Your inner Spirit

It was hard to be a priest in Ancient American Indian culture, but when you are picked to my surprise the priest before you would not teach you anything; claiming that each priest is different, because of this you have to listen to yourself and find what works for you and seek guidence from above. So the the previous priest never teaches or shows him anything. There was once a trainee preist out in the woods praying to the gods to help him heal a fellow brother from his sickness, and later on that night in the dark he noticed a small light at a distance; he went up to it. He found the small source of light was from a small plant, so he took it and made a tea out of it and healed the sick man.

Hope you find this nyTake enriching... These are few things of beauty to the American Indians...

[DodgersGM]

I love what you're trying to accomplish with this take, but there's some inaccuracies, ie generalizations.

For example, many tribes took captives (slaves), many tortured people, many raided, pillaged, and killed.

They were definitely separated from one another. In fact, their general isolation and tribal rivalries played a role in them being overrun by European settlers. They weren't able to come together and fight the Euros as a common enemy. Many tribes were traditional enemies, warring with each other for centuries.

Medicine men (shamans) were respected greatly, but those who were suspected of witchcraft and could be killed in gruesome fashion.

Of course, all this varies wildly from tribe to tribe (as you alluded to when you mentioned the Iroquois).

Anyway, not trying to reign on the parade. Just throwing some additional info out there. Great take! :)

[DodgersGM]

I should add, the flip side is that there were numerous peaceful tribes, too. I'm just trying to point out that indigenous American tribes were incredibly varied.

[Anonymous]

There were all sorts of cultures in per-columbian America but I can't think of any where there was anything like sexual equality. Iroquois women had special functions and prerogatives but they were nothing like equal to men or equally valued.

The idea of Indians having a special respect for nature is bullshit. It's something romantic Europeans projected onto them and they reflected back. They had a fear of nature like all pre-scientific humans but they had no special respect for it. They didn't have the power to make much of a difference because of their primitive technology but it wasn't for lack of wanting to. Just go ask the nearest giant ground sloth - Oh wait you can't because the Indians exterminated them.

Again utter nonsense.

There is a lot to learn from pre-columbian American civilization, most notably they are examples of just how adaptable and various human social organization can be but these romantic ideas about native Americans are just silly.

[MarkTwain]

No one was better than another in these times, everyone just knew their place in the tribe; so no one made a big stink about it. Native Americans were in America estimated about 13,000 years ago. Do you really think they were scared of the land for 13,000 years; no they just had a respect for it that the Europeans did not understand. Yes they were primitive people, but they just wanted a simple life. If you believe everything the Europeans projected about Native Americans than you are probably mislead, Europeans did not fully understand the American Indians; American Indians are not exterminated, I'm 100% Aztec and my grandfather still speaks the native language of his tribe. It's just not the same..

[Bluemax]

@myTake Owner
People can inhabit a place for tens of thousands of years and still maintain all kinds of superstitions based on a fearful misunderstanding of nature. The Aztecs killed children to their god, Tlaloc, out of fear that if they didn't, it wouldn't rain.

[Bluemax]

Whereas I feel we can learn from their cultures (notice the plural... Algonquins had about as much in common with Tongvans as the French did with Russians... Indians were not this monolithic culture), I also think that they were not all innocent, nor were they like Rousseau's "noble savages."

More on that later.

P. S., I use the term "Indians" because it's shorter, some Indians I know use the term, and I think it's kind of a silly thing to get offended over.

[DodgersGM]

Indigenous American is a preferable term, I think. But I agree, many tribe members are cool with the Indian name and if it's no biggie to them, then who am I to say anything.

That said, never call a subarctic person an Eskimo!

[Bluemax]

MarkTwain, you seem to be painting the Indians with a very broad brush, and you're sort of cherry picking the examples that support you while ignoring the examples that don't. People certainly weren't equal in many tribes. The Aztec emperor was in no way considered an equal. The Aztecs had slaves. The Quileute had slaves. The Cheyenne had slaves. The Iroquois, which you cite, were not just one tribe, but several who had banded together after the Iroquois had defeated the others into submission. The only recorded instances of the Cherokee committing human sacrifice were of women. The Awhanee were very patriarchal. Their legends include stories of husbands hitting wives. Among the Aztecs, Toltecs, Mayans, Olmecs, and Incans there very definitely were poor people. There were no jails because punishment was extracted immediately. The Meso Americans DID have taxes. In fact they paid quite a bit of their taxes, or tribute, to exactly one man, the emperor. There were no well defined...

[Bluemax]

... borders, but there were indeed territories. The Cheyenne and Lakota struggles with the Crow and Pawnee over territory were epic. The Hoh and Quiliutes still dispute territory, as do the Hopi, Navajo, and Apache (though they do so in court now). The Mayans were slash and burn farmers, as were the Aztecs. Originally it was thought that the Anasazi were driven out of their pueblo communities due to a change in climate. Scientific evidence shows that they more than likely over farmed the area. The mega fauna of North America was hunted to extinction by the Indians. One of the first things the Aztecs did when they conquered a tribe was burn their temples and build new ones.

It might be enlightening for you to read Michael Shermer's "Beautiful People" myth. The Indians were a vast collection of very dynamic people, and the evidence supports not all of them fit the mold you are presenting. There seems to be a correlation between the size of the tribe and the tolerance.

[Bluemax]

Small tribes seemed to be very tolerant, such as the Tongva, the Chumash, Yurok, and the Cahuilla Indians of my home state of California. All of them were small and didn't seem to conflict with each other. Navajo and Hopi tended to be tolerant of one another (the very name, "Hopi" seems to be a corruption of the Navajo words for "polite ones"), but as soon as the Apache acquired horses and grew, they expanded into the Dineta and that's when the Apache acquired their name ("Apache" seems to be a corruption from Navajo meaning, "enemy.") A similar story could be told about the Comanche (whose name seems to be a corruption of the Kiowa word for "trespassers.")

Whereas there is MUCH to learn from Indians, as there is from any culture, there is also much to be learned in the form of cautionary tales.

[Bluemax]

@DodgersGM
Respectfully, I think one culture shouldn't be in the business of telling another culture what they can call a group of people, so long as that name isn't intended as an insult (in which case, the Messai, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, Sioux, Winebego, and a host of other cultures should stop calling themselves those names, as those aren't their original names and they have various degrees of insult to them). Japanese people don't call themselves Japanese. Germans don't call themselves Germans, Scandinavians don't call themselves Scandinavians. Koreans don't call themselves Koreans. And so on.

It's a curious thing to me that the news media and the education system seem VERY sensitive about what they call minorities or 3rd world people, but when it comes to white or 1st world nations, call them whateverthehell you want.

[Bluemax]

@DodgersGM
On a somewhat related note, and you being a California native probably have noticed this, I've noticed that when it comes to pronouncing Spanish names, many local TV news people suddenly turn into Ricardo Montalban (my mom had SUCH a crush on him... and who could blame her). But any other name (Moscow, Paris, Rome, Vienna, etc.), then to hell with how they pronounce it.

[DodgersGM]

Haha, very true! Those R's really start rollin', baby! I guess it has to do with viewership, etc. I bet the same thing is done in, say, Wisconsin, in regards to German names.

[DodgersGM]

And I find myself agreeing with you once again. I prefer to call people what they call themselves (their endonym), but if they've adopted names given to them by outsiders and they like that, then that's cool too.

Isn't it interesting though, the amount of power that lies in a name? And the power of *who* gets to do the naming?

[Bluemax]

@DodgersGM
Once again, you have given me food for thought, my friend.
By the way, the woman I told you about, the one I dated who loved to hear me read (must be my teachery voice) was a Latina. I LOVED hearing her say names like Anza, Sepulveda, and (my favorite) Marina del Rey.

[ScruffynateAK]

@DodgersGM
Interestingly enough, I've come across many groups and people that consider themselves Eskimo.
The thing is, they were never part of that group, but more a mix of tribes off the Aleutians and Yu'piks.
The whole PC game with names of ethnicities is getting old, no one knows what to call anyone these days, and no one should really care.

[DodgersGM]

Haha yeah I'm not surprised. Women love voices and you've had lots of practice honing yours. :)

@ScruffynateAK See, I think names are very important, but at the same time I'm very lax about what people call me (white, Irish, American, etc.)

I don't think we need to be apologists for crimes committed when we weren't here, but I also think it's important to remember that many minority ethnic groups were subjected to white domination. And the Indigenous American people probably got it worse than anyone.

Given that history, it's easy for me to understand the desire for proper nomenclature. Like, if I were a an Inuit, for example, I'd be pissed if someone called me an Eskimo (a name which originated from Inuit enemies, which translates to "eaters of raw flesh." And that name has been used as an ethnic slur in the past, making it even more inflammatory).

[ScruffynateAK]

@DodgersGM
They weren't subjected to white domination, but to domination by specific European societies. Were the Irish subjected to white domination? The skin color dominant in a society does not define that society, is truly expect you to recognize that.
My point about the term Eskimo is that there are people who prefer to be called that, even those that would not fall under the original umbrella of the term.
Also, I fully understand the origins and implications of the term, I've been up here a while. I also understand the origins of the term "Kass'aq," which I and my family have been called dozens of times over the years. It was generally preceded by words like, "stupid."
The idea that groups define what the world refers to them as is ludicrous. The world, and those around you do what they want, always has, for good or ill. The world doesn't care, the issue is miniscule, and I don't feel any responsibility to keep up to date on what people feel like being called on any given day.

[martyfellow]

Let's not get carried away. There was systematic slave taking, torture of captives, monopolization of women by the chiefs in many cases...

Yes, we could learn from their relationship to nature, but a lost paradise? Far from it.

[ScruffynateAK]

What can we learn from ancient Native Americans?
Not how to use the wheel, that's for damn sure.

[Bluemax]

We could learn MUCH from their mathematics, which in many ways was centuries ahead of their European counterparts.

[ScruffynateAK]

@Bluemax
True.
And of course there were many societal achievements in many tribes.
However, their impressive mathematics (It WAS an indigenous tribe that may have been the originators of the concept of zero, correct?) didn't seem to assist much in the way of technological advances.
Most of the peoples in the Americas hadn't even domesticated horses before the settlers came.

[Bluemax]

Horses didn't exist in the Americas when the Indians arrived here, and wouldn't exist in America until the arrival of Europeans.

Have you read Guns, Germs, and Steel? Fantastic book if you haven't read it.

[ScruffynateAK]

@Bluemax I'm sorry, I was playing dark souls right before this and was flustered by my incompetence, I meant large livestock, other than a few instances in central and South America.
Incidentally, horses ARE believed to have lived in the Americas, but died out before the immigration of the Indian peoples.
No, I haven't read it. What's the premise?

[ScruffynateAK]

@Bluemax I can google it haha nvm

[Bluemax]

The ancestors of horses lived in the Americas. In fact, horses EVOLVED in the Americas. However, they weren't here at all when the Indians crossed Beringia. I also do not think that any modern horses lived in the Americas. Only their ancestors, which were much smaller and unable to carry riders.

[Bluemax]

Guns Germs and Steel goes on to systematically and convincingly explain how and why nation states happened in some places and not in others. It provides numerous scientific research and specific examples (some of them even contemporary). It tells about the role of livestock in the development of civilizations (and how they contributed to Eurasians' immune systems). It tells about how the east-west alignment of Eurasia played a significant contribution to the development of civilizations there, as opposed to the north-south alignment of the Americas. It dissolves the myth that some races are less intelligent than others as an explanation of why certain civilizations evolved. It's a FANTASTIC book! One of the most seminal reads of my life! Get it and read it! You'll thank me for it. ;)

[ScruffynateAK]

@Bluemax
I'll check it out, thank you.
I've maintained for a long time that a society being more advanced technologically doesn't make them more intelligent. However, I also don't think that technology contributing to their rise in power makes them evil either.

[DodgersGM]

Oh of course not all whites are the same. I was just making a broader point that, as a result of European sellers taking over and forming America, Indigenous Americans were stripped of their cultures. And I think we'll have to agree to disagree about the naming thing. Names carry weight. They're cultural markers, and in the case of many tribes, the names are direct ties to their ancestors. It's very important, and I think we can all make a good faith effort to at least try to use the correct terms. But like you said, it'd be impossible to remember all of them -- that's why other, respectful terminology is needed.

[ScruffynateAK]

@DodgersGM
I'm sure bluemax appreciates us moving off his opinion ;)
I think we've passed each other in the night a little bit. It's not that one should be deliberate in incorrectly or even offensively naming a person or group, it's simply that we need to get over how much importance we place on it as a society.
As always, even in our disagreements, you've been the button in the cap of kindness, thanks man.

[DodgersGM]

Thanks, man. You know I feel the same way. There's lots to learn talking with people we might disagree with. :) And yeah, I felt bad fur Blue! LOL

I think I better understand what you meant, now. Names are important but they can also be divisive, and as long as a person cares about being respectful then that should count for more than we give credit.