Especially after the slaughter of WWI, many Westerners saw "peaceful
natives" everywhere. Further study found that warfare is pretty much
universal. There are some interesting variations like the "Flower
Wars" of Mexico, where the deaths may not have been during battle,
but during religious sacrifices that took place afterwards. The
Plains Indian practice of counting coup is also interesting, but did
not preclude combat deaths.
Another American Indian 'myth" is that they lived in harmony with
their environment. To a certain degree there simply weren't enough of
them to cause widespread ecological destruction. But they did engage
in practices that had pretty serious local consequences. And in some
cases there is evidence (especially in the Southwest) that practices
may have at least contributed to habitat loss and ecological
degradation.
Before the arrival of the horse, standard practice by the Plains
Indians was to set fire to the prairie and drive the buffalo off
cliffs. A bit rough on the grass and also making no attempt to cull
the herd, just massacre the whole thing. Questions have been raised
about some of the large kill sites whether there were Indian groups
large enough to use all of the resultant meat.
The Powhatan and other groups here in Virginia practiced slash and
burn agriculture. Village sites were shifted after the soil was
farmed to exhaustion (the indicator often being when there was not
enough food for the old and very young). It was also not unknown for
the locals to set fire to the forest and drive animals into the
river, where they were killed by people in boats. Burning the forest
also made for better deer habitat. Big Meadow on Skyline Drive
There is also a widespread claim that slavery did not exist before
the arrival of Europeans. many tribes maintain they did not enslave
"people". But as only members of the tribe qualified as "people" this
is a pretty empty statement. It is true, however that the form
slavery took was often very different. While manumission of African
slaves by Europeans was not a common practice, Indian slaves were
sometimes/often (?) made full members of the tribe. And children of
slaves were often not considered slaves, unlike the children of
African slaves.
James Brothers, RPA
[log in to unmask]
On Mar 3, 2007, at 20:42, Sunshine49 wrote:
> off topic and far from Virginia, but an example of the risk of over-
> simplifying historical villains. From the current issue of
> Archaeology magazine, an excavation at Crow River in South Dakota,
> where remains of 500 men, women and children were discovered...
> massacred around AD1325. Nary a white man in sight...
>
> Nancy
>
> -------
> I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
>
> --Daniel Boone
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the
> instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
|