Monday, February 06, 2012
The First Americans, 2: An Inevitable Clash of Cultures
HISTORY
The arrival of Europeans in the New World resulted in almost immediate exploitation of native Americans.
"They should make good and intelligent servants," was his initial impression, conveyed in letters to his royal Spanish patrons, Ferdinand and Isabella.
Although Columbus maintained he had seen "no better people" in the world, his admiration did not deter him from chaining and shipping hundreds of Taino men and women back to Spain
Grossly Undercounted
Grossly Undercounted
As recently as sixty years ago estimates of the size of the Indian population north of the Rio Grande at the time of Columbus
The indigenous population of America and Canada South America , the total Indian population is believed to have been an astonishing one hundred million.
Epidemics of smallpox, measles, cholera, typhoid, and dysentery swept through whole tribes like wildfire on the prairie. Ironically, recent studies have confirmed that the crewmen on Columbus ’s ships returned to Europe with a disease, syphilis, acquired in the New World , which spread with equal rapidity. Some observers consider the exchange an inadvertent but exquisite form of payback.
By the time of the 1910 federal Census, only a scant 210,000 Indians could be found and counted in the United States
What Scottish poet Robert Burns called "man's inhumanity to man" still "makes countless thousands mourn." The relentless genocide of North American Indians is now being repeated in the Brazilian rain forest. And for the same reasons: A desperate lust for gold and for land.
Despite their lack of civilization, the Indians' gentle use of the world around them was remarkably sophisticated and forward-looking. Land was an abstract commodity--much like air or fire or water--something there to be freely used by the group.
Not understanding the European concept of "title" or ownership of land by individuals, they were at a disadvantage in making treaties. Under pressure of immigration and westward expansion, whites abrogated such treaties almost as soon as they were made.
Possessions and authority among Indians often passed through a female line of descent. In contrast to the Old World practice of hereditary rule, leadership of clans and tribes was based on ability or proficiency. Decisions bearing on tribal policy were reached by unanimous consent--not mere majority agreement--at public meetings attended both by men and women.
Native Languages
Some four hundred identifiable tribal cultures flourished north of the Rio Grande
Native American languages have a practical side. During World War II Marine Corps
Navajo language talkers confounded Japanese code breakers in the Pacific. Similarly, U.S. Army Cherokee speakers confused the Germans opposing the landings at Omaha Beach in Normandy
Every native language that disappears takes with it clues to philosophies, histories and irreplaceable environmental wisdom accumulated over many millennia. More than half of the remaining 140 native languages may fall silent unless organized action is taken to teach them. In the U.S.
Native language distribution gives tantalizing clues to early migrations. For example, the tribes in the lower Hudson Valley all spoke an Algonquian language--but an Algonquian tongue was spoken as far west as Montana by the Blackfoot and by the Cree in subarctic Canada Virginia and the Carolinas .
Indian Contributions
Indian Contributions
Indians made important contributions to the world's food supply, including corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes, manioc, peanuts, squash, peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, avocados, and dozens of other vegetables and herbs. Indian societies were well acquainted with plant medicines.
Before 1492, 40 percent of the modern world's medicinal drugs were being used in America
Indians ritually identified themselves with the animals they hunted. Common to Indian life was shamanism, an animalistic religion of Asiatic origin in which mediation between the visible and the spirit world is performed by shamans. Shamanist practices have been documented in cultures as diverse as Iron Age Ireland , pagan Scandinavia, classical Greece , and ice-bound Siberia .
Sometimes described as "medicine men," the shamans' powers went beyond treating the sick. In the Americas
Like the philosophers Montaigne and Rousseau, it is easy to sentimentalize Indians as "noble savages." Far from being idyllic, their existence was harsh. The average life span barely exceeded 35 years; infant mortality was high. Evidence from graves reveals that diseases like arthritis and tuberculosis were common, and tooth decay was a problem.
Our modern world owes much to Indians, far beyond the woodcraft skills taught in summer camps and the foolish names applied to professional baseball and football teams. We are still in the process of learning truths they knew instinctively in their reverence for nature--that the land and its resources are not only for our use but must be preserved for generations to come.
In addition to the communality of land and possessions, belief in the freedom and dignity of the individual was common to many Indian societies. With patient research and a measure of good luck, we may yet learn the secret of the Indians' relationship with nature, and their basic sense of equality and respect for human rights.
Labels: American Indians, Christmas History
