November 17, 2008: Indians

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Coign

Come now, they burned the landscaped, over hunted their lands, droves whole herds off of cliff sides, and massacred any neighbors that posed a threat to their hunting grounds? That is living in harmony?

Here are some quick links for you.

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1...ndians+harmony

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles...ton112205.html

http://www.reason.com/news/show/30146.html



It is not an argument, it is an education.

Sorry dude. Those are pretty weak arguments in the face of reams of historical evidence to the contrary.

[xoxoxoBruce]

He's right in that the plains Indians used all resources at hand, then moved on down the trail. They were nomadic because one spot wouldn't sustain their lifestyle for long. Of course they were limited in number, and the area they left would recover fairly quickly, so they could return to that spot on their next tour.

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

He's right in that the plains Indians used all resources at hand, then moved on down the trail. They were nomadic because one spot wouldn't sustain their lifestyle for long. Of course they were limited in number, and the area they left would recover fairly quickly, so they could return to that spot on their next tour.

Kind of like Lumberjim and jinx following the Greatful Dead.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Only the Indians didn't leave such devastation in their wake.

[Coign]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Sorry dude. Those are pretty weak arguments in the face of reams of historical evidence to the contrary.

Where are your reams of historical evidence? I did an opposite search and didn't see any evidence in the top hits.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&r...ny&btnG=Search

I did find a site briefly talking about countering prejudice against American Indians and Alaska Natives. They had this to say:

Typically, when teaching about Native Americans, teachers favor two approaches in developing their lessons. The first is the "dead-and-buried culture approach," which portrays Native Americans as being extinct. Lessons tend to present information in the past tense, "Indians lived in tipis, they grew corn and hunted buffalo, they were very athletic, they lived in harmony with the land," and so forth.

...

Neither approach provides non-Native students the tools they need to comfortably interact with American Indians and Alaska Natives. Instead, they teach simplistic generalizations about other peoples and lead to stereotyping, rather than to understanding (Derman-Sparks, 1993-94).

http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-2/antibias.htm

Hmm, are they saying that you are not being taught how the Indians actually lived? Don't buy into the myth.