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Think the days of arrogant white ignorance are over? Consider that just a few weeks ago, American Geek-in-chief Bill Gates grandly offered to give Bolivia, which he referred to as a poverty stricken country, 100,000 chickens. (Sort of a “Let them eat eggs” statement — or, with a little extra trouble, cake.) Bolivia, it turns out, has a thriving economy, exports 36 million chickens a year, produces nearly 200 million. But thanks anyway, Great White Father.
[This is one of a series of meditations on what we might have learned, and might still learn, from the history of Native Americans about how to live without modern technology and industry, which we may have to do in the near future.]
One cannot answer a question that has not been asked (if you are a parent, you know exactly what I mean). And one cannot ask a question of which one cannot conceive. Thus does ignorance remain locked in place. Before we can learn anything useful from or about any other culture, we have to remove any blinders that prevent us from conceiving of questions: things like bigotry, racism, intolerance, delusions of superiority and exceptionalism, convictions of a special and exclusive relationship with God.
Fellow white Europeans, we have some work to do. The toxic brew that characterizes our relationships with others races did not begin with our contact with Native Americans, but it sure reached a kind of an apex before our mutual story was done. We can’t atone for that behavior, of course. But it would be good if we would stop it.
Columbus set the bar by mistakenly calling the first people he saw on the west side of the Atlantic Ocean “Indians,” because that’s what he was looking for, and in his culture, believing was seeing. That was just the beginning of the ignorance. As European traders, explorers and then settlers began moving inland, they would get to know a tribe, eventually become aware of another tribe some distance away, and would ask their hosts, “Who are they?” “Oh, you’d better steer clear of them,” would come the reply, “they are rattlesnakes, (pronounced Iroquois).” Or, “You mean those people out west? They are cutthroats (Sioux). The ones down south? Cannibals (Mohawk).” Almost all the names assigned to the tribes of North America were in fact vile pejoratives, often words from a language other than their own. (And today, the PC Police get overwrought about the Washington “redskins.”)
Anyone who cared could find out that each tribe referred to itself as “The People,” perhaps with some modifier. The “Iroquois” were the People of the Longhouse (Haudenosaunee); the “Sioux” were just the People (Lakota); and the “Mohawks” were the True People (Ongwe Honwe). But who cared?
Is there any right more fundamental to human dignity than the right to be called by your own name, in your own language? Is there any worse insult than refusing to do that? But wait, there’s more.
Every Native American had an identity with two parts; asked for it, he or she would offer a name and a clan. One’s clan membership was as vital to knowing who a person was, as our last names are, to us. Clan membership determined who one could and could not marry. It was the clan that defined and preserved and passed on the behaviors and beliefs that comprised the character of its members. Hardly any white people knew then, or know to this day, that the clans even existed.
Moreover, most of the clans in North America were matrilineal, meaning:
- when a couple married, they went to live with the wife’s clan;
- when a child was born, it was born into its mother’s clan;
- when a person died, any possession or title that could be inherited — not many could — went to daughters, not sons.
- a child was taught the ways of the clan, i.e. virtually everything about life, from how to hunt to how to cook to how to dress, by aunts or uncles who were fellow clan members. Fathers, who were not, had little to do with their progeny, but had major responsibilities for their sisters’ offspring.
Think what this means for the Europeans’ attempts to establish religious and political authority by invoking — as they did constantly for centuries — to the presumed authority of a “great white father” residing somewhere overseas, or in Washington, or in heaven. If you ever come across a carefully done transcript of an exchange of views between whites and natives, you will note that when the natives wish to convey respect they use the appellation “uncles.” And their responses to the notion that they are in the care of a “great white father” fairly drip with sarcasm.
“Hey, lighten up,” I can hear someone calling. “Why are you so down on your ancestors for not knowing enough about Indians? They didn’t have Google.”
Well, I am down on them, and the culture they bequeathed us, not only because its baked-in bigotry enabled one of the most evil episodes of genocide in the history of the world — but because the habit of racist condescension is still here, still killing people, still poisoning relations among people of color and white people everywhere..
We fought and lost a terrible war in Vietnam convinced that the people of Vietnam were allied with the people of China against us; in fact, they had been mortal enemies for a thousand years. We fought our longest war, in Afghanistan, and our dumbest, in Iraq, with little knowledge of the religious sects and familial clans that are central to life in those countries.
If we can’t change our own culture’s nature, change its tendencies to racism, violence, exploitation and greed, we have no hope of a better future. Because bound as we are by chains of traditional ignorance, we can’t even see the multitude of paths that could lead us to a better place.
Fortunately, the ignorance I’ve been describing was then and is now dominant, but not universal. There is another thing that happened during our early history with Native Americans that is virtually unknown, and has immense significance for our present inquiry. We’ll get to that, next time.
Canada, a grand example of your point:
The name “Canada” likely comes from the Huron-Iroquois word “kanata,” meaning “village” or “settlement.” In 1535, two Aboriginal youths told French explorer Jacques Cartier about the route to kanata; they were actually referring to the village of Stadacona, the site of the present-day City of Québec.
Could we change the Country’s name now to Stadacona? Or even spell it right as Kanata?
Racism, def: institutionalized epithet delivered upon those who are deemed to inappropriately cease worshiping individuals and societies that never developed out of the stone age.
Religion of Self Hate, def: A cognitive phenomenon limited to white affluent culture typically displaying a fervent state of worship for a mental model of idealized stone age societies. Also applies to incessant application of Jewish victimhood. Religion built upon irrational premise that guilt, agonizing, and self hate are the only appropriate responses to an invented history taken as unexamined truth.
Guilt, in white society is sacred and fully transferable to those whites who committed no such historic wrongs.
Reparations for acts currently perceived as engendering guilt are also fully transferable to those who committed no wrongs.
Racism, by definition cannot be employed to describe the behavior of non-whites, jews, or their societies.
Religion of Self Hate is itself racist, for it’s membership can only be pulled from one segment of white society. This would lead to even greater levels of agonizing and hand wringing by members, if it was realized. The fact it is not probably saves us all from having to clean up after millions of suicides, from members drowning in their own tears.
ˈrāˌsizəm/
noun
noun: racism
1. the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
o prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.
None so blind, indeed.
Thanks Mr. Lewis for another enlightening (and thereby painful) account of our Eurocentric background, ensconced in racism, bigotry and hatred which has been more or less taught to future generations since “we” got here.
It’s eye-opening when one realizes that many of the holidays of the U.S. are mainly remembrances (and “honoring”) of war and the manifestation of (our) ethnocentric behavior.
Dear Mr. Lewis,
Do you ever respond to individuals with historical requests? I inherited boxes of old deeds, legal papers, newspapers, and family notes that go back to the 1700’s, They were collected by my grandfather, Brackett Snidow, a descendent of Col. Christian Snidow. The family owned land in Giles County, called “The Horseshoe Farm” because it lay in the bend of the New River near Pembroke. I am reading your “West from Shenandoah ” and getting so much out of it. You give clarity to a very confusing time period. Am also reading, “A History of Middle New River Settlements” by David Johnston, with much detail though very unsympathetic to the First Nation activities. It was written in 1906 with a reprint in 1969. My ultimate goal is to write up our own family history. Do you have much historical information on the New River Valley or recommendations?
It’s not so much that I don’t respond to historical requests, it’s that in this case I have absolutely nothing to offer. Good luck, and thanks for the good words about West from Shenadoah.
The interesting thing about societal labels, such as racism, is that those who paste these labels upon others automatically feel themselves elevated, superior, to the poor dumb bastard they just slapped.
Unfortunately, such euphoria of triumphant selfrighteousness is but fleeting, thus the practice must be repeated again and again.
Are the p.c. police so convinced that others would crumble before this awful racism, that they don’t have the respect to allow the targets their own responses? It certainly appears that the lust for euphoric crusading preempts the rights of others to decide for themselves if something is racist or not.
Thus, I’m afraid we must add to the definition of the Religion of Self Hate, and include overbearing hubris. In essence, no one is allowed to interfere with the rituals of euphoric self hate, which take the acolyte to new heights of Self congratulation.
Here we have the psychological complex of the divine redeemer translated into societal norms. Absolutely fascinating.
“The interesting thing about societal labels, such as racism, is that those who paste these labels upon others automatically feel themselves elevated, superior, to the poor dumb bastard they just slapped.
Unfortunately, such euphoria of triumphant selfrighteousness is but fleeting…”
Who are you talking about? Tom?
I have never seen anyone so determined to prove they are “above it all.” Physician, heal thyself.
Mike—
“Racism, def: institutionalized epithet delivered upon those who are deemed to inappropriately cease worshiping individuals and societies that never developed out of the stone age.”
I have never heard this definition before. Would you please tell me the source?
I believe it is possible, and beneficial, to recognize and have a conversation about some of the positive attributes such societies shared. This is not the definition of worship, at least not in my dictionary.
As for “invented history and unexamined truth,” what is the truth as you see it?
Here’s my take. The following excerpt is from paragraph 28 of the Iroquois Great Law of Peace. Their constitution. I especially like the last sentence:
You shall now become a mentor of the people of the Five Nations. The thickness of your skin shall be seven spans which is to say that you shall be proof against anger, offensive actions and criticism. Your heart shall be filled with peace and good will and your mind filled with a yearning for the welfare of the people of the Confederacy. With endless patience you shall carry out your duty and your firmness shall be tempered with tenderness for your people. Neither anger nor fury shall find lodgment in your mind and all your words and actions shall be marked with calm deliberation. In all of your deliberations in the Confederate Council, in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self interest shall be cast into oblivion. Cast not over your shoulder behind you the warnings of the nephews and nieces should they chide you for any error or wrong you may do, but return to the way of the Great Law which is just and right. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground-the unborn of the future Nation.
http://www.iroquoisdemocracy.pdx.edu/index.htm
If you replace “nephews and nieces” with corporations and lobbyists, what sort of country would we have if our leaders had faithfully followed this? What sort of world would this be if all leaders had faithfully followed this?
William Catton wrote that the indigenous people of this land had lived here for ten thousand years, certainly long enough to have reached the carrying capacity. Anthropologists have placed that figure at somewhere between 10 to as many as 100 million people living here before the first European explorers sailed. What was the land and water and air like after all those thousands of years before those Europeans arrived? What’s that land and water and air like now? How many native Americans are alive now and what portion of the land do they control? Did any sail east to colonize Europe or was it entirely a westward conquest? Pretty sure this is not invented history. Can’t see where discussing such topics constitutes a foray into self hatred, much less a religion.
You are obviously well-educated and well-read. I don’t understand your reasoning but recognize your right to express yourself. If I misread your first comment I apologize. Perception has never been my strong suite. But if you are saying, in essence, — “Progress. What’cha gonna do?,” then I withdraw that apology.
The issue we inevitably face when looking at history is the one of artificially isolating specific elements.
This cognitive tool ensures that those elements are viewed sans the fabric which gives them meaning. This also promotes interpretations which lead to blanket value judgments, because the interpretation is based upon a modern cultural setting largely uninformed by the world view and conditions that allowed said element to thrive.
The societal label of racism, especially when attached to historic events, is serving a modern interpretation of history that is guaranteed to misrepresent, often grossly, that very history. Think of it as looking back to the Neolithic, for example, and concluding that people were way too smart to eat processed food.
Further, the issue of racism suffers from an utter lack of objective benchmarks. There can be no objective standard to racism, just like there can be no objective standard for heat or cold.
When we make the assumption that our personal standards are also transpersonal, that they must be upheld by others, then we have just moved away from truth, and into ego, away from active observation, and into personal perspective.
Our culture, our society is failing on all levels. The nihilistic drive for material excess lays bare the failed myth of abrahamic indoctrination, a myth that only retains prominence through fear and force. Of course previous cultures and societies are going to be ransacked for any gems they might possess, given the paucity of current vision, it’s inevitable.
It is impossible for a nihilistic, materially obsessed cognitive process to grasp world views that hold far different values and certainties, and I submit that it is exactly this culturally conditioned cognition which seeks to escape itself in the arms of a glorified past. That is worship, perhaps the only available to that cognitive construct.
The definitions are my own.
“The issue we inevitably face when looking at history is the one of artificially isolating specific elements.”
Yes. I agree. But this applies to all facets of our existence. We live in a complex, chaotic universe. Any subject you care to name, from astronomy to zoology, is subject to these constraints and possible pitfalls. It would be the very definition of hubris to think we will ever figure it out. Yet we try. We call it “field of study.” Is this a futile waste of time? Depends upon your viewpoint. Yet we continue to study; to learn; to try to understand. What else is there to do?
Cherry picking your data to fit your confirmation bias is an ever-present danger. I understand this. I’m guilty, as I suspect we all are. But I believe it is possible, knowing this, to still be able to coax a few gems of truth into revealing themselves. What is truth? Ah, that’s a whole different issue and one I don’t have the philosophical background to pursue. I’m prepared to accept the possibility that my truth differs from yours. But I’m okay with that. I will continue to rely upon my upbringing, common sense, education and life experiences to be my guide.
I like Catton’s take on our present predicament. Our great western civilization culture has been blessed, or cursed, with two game-changing events—the discovery of a whole new hemisphere, inconceivably rich in natural resources and populated by a relatively small and defenseless people. And the discovery of fossil fuels, a means of rapidly utilizing all these resources. The result, like an introduced bacterial colony onto a sterile agar substrate in a petri dish, was inevitable. Virtually all the problems we face, all the strife and poverty and hunger and woe are due to stress from overcrowding. And the end result will be die-off.
Getting back to the original subject, the study of the culture of early Americans, you are right in saying one can become enthralled over the myth of the ”Noble Savage.” But I believe you can still look at the subject and discern some basic precepts. And I think that this is what’s being done here. Whether those precepts will merely help us to reach a greater understanding of our current situation, or actually help us in dealing with this situation, remains to be seen.
The theories, philosophies behind history belie a great contradiction within our current explanations for what happened and why.
Today, we are told that events happen according to “movements”, or “consciousness”, or mass public opinion, that the leadership of the civilization can be “steered”, that this leadership is blameless, without hidden agendas, manipulations, or goals that set them in arrears of the rest of the planet.
There are no orchestrated events, according to this perspective. Its all because of lone nuts and cavemen with box cutters. Anything else is simply a paranoid fantasy.
Thus, the money changers and bankers are held blameless for the exploitation of the Americas by the Spanish, Portuguese, and English-just as they are held blameless today for a world paralyzed by massive debt, a world driven to convert natural living systems into money to vainly attempt to fill that black hole that began with debt driven currency so many centuries ago.
History, however, has quite a different perspective. History advances the idea that events are shaped by powerful people who have the ability to command others to get in line with their objectives. History is happy to report on secret agendas, base manipulations, elites behaving like crazed beasts, and the people running like mad to get away from all of it.
So, either the current groupthink is intentionally manipulated to hold the guilty blameless, or indeed the theory of history must be revisited with different qualifications. Unfortunately for this re-visitation, its pretty difficult to claim the Ludlow massacre occurred due to a mass movement of public opinion crashing against a blameless elite, and this is but one of an almost endless series of events that have actual fact for documentation.
Further, history itself has long been subject to sanction, court approval, and revision. The early church fathers, for examples, regularly “edited” extant texts to change words, insert passages, altering content to support their fiction of an early christianity. Today, this is generally available knowledge should one wish to seek it, but the fiction is allowed to continue by the powers that be.
For an example closer to home, how about that “Day of infamy”? Never mind that the Japanese code was broken. Forget that FDR implemented direct action to agitate for WW2. Ooops, that little thing about the Dutch East Indies providing direct and specific intel concerning the Japanese task force IS a tad embarrassing-better “edit” that out from accounts, and oh yes, scrap that fact that the task force maintained constant radio contact with HQ as well. Most of all, we need to make it clear that just because the Navy had decided the new maritime warfare would consist of airpower first, and dreadnoughts were obsolete, had absolutely nothing to do with the absence of the aircraft carriers, and the presence of so many of those old outmoded battleships. Then of course, the “Day” was used as justification to declare war on Germany, which provided zero threat to American national interests. Yes, it certainly makes sense to someone to claim a blameless leadership, perhaps those who are waiting on that sizable check?
If we are going to attempt to learn from history, we had better decide if we want to learn from the factual truth, or the cooked up version(s). Further, if we want to apply it, we had better decide if we want to know the genuine conditions we face, or those politically correct ones that trot out out Nazis every 5 minutes, so we can still think “we” are the good guys.
Your contention that a United Europe, under Nazi control, would pose no threat to American interests (or security, by implication), and the remark about trotting out Nazis every 5 minutes, leads me to believe you may have a hidden agenda (which would help me to understand some of your comments). Seems to me a united Nazi Europe would have posed a grave threat to the dreams of an Imperial America. But I digress. So be it. I strongly agree with most of the rest of your latest comment.
I am still puzzled, however. In regards to early American cultures, what is the “truth” as you see it? Do you believe there is anything of value that warrants their study? Was there any sort of collective behavior which proved beneficial to the long-term well-being of their ecosystem? In regards to the (mostly) European “migration” to this land: Do you believe it was genocide? Was it a case of conquest, victor and vanquished? Was it inevitable; a case of social evolution, ie, migration-displacement? Was it just a big misunderstanding? What do you believe?
I’m not trying to be glib or obnoxious. But I did take offense to that original comment. Perhaps warranted. Perhaps not. You still haven’t explained, at least in terms I can understand, using small words, what you know about the history of Native Americans and the impact upon them from outside forces which supports the view expressed in your original comment to this post. I truly want to understand what you are saying and why.
John,
You are exhibiting the same cognitive patterns I have objected to in my statements above. Here you assert that wartime Germany was a threat, while ignoring that this threat was cultivated by the same government that claimed it as a threat. Are you familiar with that Lenin quote about being the opposition?
In terms of my hidden agenda, I plead guilty to being sick and tired of having the jewish version of the holocaust rubbed into my daily routine. Other scholars have already pointed out that WW2 non-jewish deaths topped 20 million. So, what about THAT holocaust? Not a word.
I find it interesting, that with the recent accusation that Israel is guilty of launching a genocide and a land grab, out come the Nazis and the holocaust. The more criticism they face, from such notables as ex- assistant Secretary to the Treasury, Paul Craig Roberts, the nastier the rhetoric becomes. I’ve been running an informal count of the number of times I run across Nazis, and the holocaust over the last several weeks, not scientific, just informal, and it is now every other time I log on. Just out of interest, why do I have to search to read about the jewish final solution for every non-jew on the island of Cyprus, if this is just a genocide meme? Why do I have to look for Josephus’ account of jewish civil wars that left uncountable deaths across the middle east, if this is just a statement about the horror of war? Why can’t I just read about the jewish murder campaign that left Libya lightly populated to this day, if the point is to highlight mans’ inhumanity to man?
I’m not the only one with these questions, John.
I made my position pretty clear with my opening statement. I also think I filled it out as best as this format allows in following statements. However, for the sake of summation and conclusion, lets put it in plain old conversational English;
Racism is a weapon used to de-legitimize the validity of a point of view, action, or stance by either a group, or individual. In other words, John, you call somebody an effing racist so you don’t have to take anything they say, do or think seriously. Works great. Take a look around and you’ll see what I mean.
Pasting someone as an effing racist has everything to do with character assassination. There is no standard by which we can judge racism, so its a perfect weapon. They used to tar and feather folks, now they just slap ’em as racist.
Today, you had better pay homage to the Indians, and support the meme of your ancestors as very very very bad, and the position that you are going to correct history. Never mind that the Indians fought every step of the way, sacrificed untold victims, launched their own genocides, brought several species, such as the woodland buffalo, into extinction, never developed out of the stone age, and allowed their environment to manage their populations. If you have ever read Ed Abbey, he summed up his perception of Indians, and I paraphrase; Humans living not exactly in their culture, and not exactly ours, spanning the full range of modern human behaviors from rednecks to corporate cogs… These are the Indians that I know, and whats’ more, this setting them upon a pedestal is as much a feature of removing their humanity, as condemning them was previously. Call me crazy. but I have a problem with that.
OK, final point, then the wrap up. History, as we get it today, is not history, John. Its a narrative that has been adjusted, changed, modified, and generally screwed with to the point that just about all of it needs to be decoded with fact. I’ll go so far to say that what passes for history today, is just as much of a weapon as the racism label, and as for learning anything from it, good luck!
There, this is the summation of essential points. I don’t have the time and patience for any more, because I’ve already outlined a dissertation here. You can easily discover that these conditions exist by just observing things clearly,.Simply stop all the knee jerk value judgements that keep your mind closed, do some genuine research, and you will find out for yourself.
Best wishes.
Mike,
I’m a product of several decades of indoctrination. It was time spent mostly asleep, apparently. It has only been in recent years that Vonnegut, Gatto, Loewen and Zinn helped me see a past I never knew. And reading Catton, Abbey, Kunstler, Martinson, Greer, Lewis, Heinberg, Cohen, Orlov and McPherson have helped shape the way I view the present. Baby steps, I know, and a long ways to go. But I’ll enjoy my journey.
We have had an interesting and civil conversation. I enjoyed it. I do not agree with everything you’ve said but I feel I understand you better now. You have given me some points to consider and I plan on following your advice to continue my studies. Thank you for your patience and take care.