I like reading about ancient civilizations and cultures. Right now I am reading a book about the Anasazi (In Search of the Old Ones by David Roberts). So far, I have only been able to find books about the Anasazi – I’m still looking for one written by an Anasazi!
I’ve been reading a lot about the Indians. I’ve tried to focus on first encounter reports or very early works, where the Indian was still largely unaffected by European civilization. That is admittedly a very small window, as contact with white people had an almost immediate impact on their culture.
Just a few observations from all this reading:
In all early records, America is described as a beautiful and bountiful place. And many explorers commented on the beautiful aroma that met them while still out at sea. Despite the incredible bounty, almost all the original colonizers starved or nearly starved.
Nearly all Indians were incredibly hospitable - they housed and fed these strangers. At least until it became more than obvious that these newcomers were going to kill them, steal from them, and otherwise abuse them in untold ways.
Indians did not share a monolithic culture. In other words, they were not all plains Indians. In fact, the plains Indian moved there because they got chased out of their earlier homeland by other Indians.
Indians were not living in peace and harmony when the ‘mean ole white man’ came. There was constant warfare among tribes. One Indian, Charles Eastman, who grew up among the Sioux and was later educated in missionary schools, wrote several books about Indian life. He tried to maintain that they all lived in peace, yet admits that they were in constant fear of attack and capture by neighboring tribes. Interestingly, the Catawba of South Carolina would routinely travel north for the sole purpose of attacking the Iroquois. And the Iroquois would do the same. So, the north-south animosity in the US predates the US!
The Europeans who came to America were generally not nice people. It seems that the majority of the earliest adventurers came to get rich quick. The Spanish were the absolute worst of the bunch. Yet there is the amazing story of Cabeza de Vaca. He was somehow separated from his fellows in La Florida and then proceeded to walk across America until he arrived in Mexico and was able to rejoin his fellow Spaniards there. This is an amazing story and one that permanently changed him. You can read his account in The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca.
Europeans routinely dismissed the Indians as savages – unintelligent, uneducated, uncivilized, yet in humorous irony, the Indians routinely dismissed the Europeans as “stupid” – after all, “they didn’t know how to do anything” – they couldn’t hunt, farm, fish, find their way in the woods, nor did they know anything about the herbs of the forest.
I like to try and imagine the land then. So many places empty of people. What it must have felt like to wander in the woods and not see or hear anyone else. Or, on the plains or in the southwest. Apparently it was easy to get lost on the trackless plains, even for Indians. So to keep from getting lost they would shoot an arrow and then go forward until they found it. Despite all the open space, people were in contact with each other. Wyoming is huge and was a sparsely populated place both in Indian times and in the early days of the settlers, yet I am amazed that travelers would routinely run into each other! There are people I never see in Rock Hill. And with all this space Indians would go out of their way to attack another group of Indians! And when the white man came . . .
I am simply astounded at where they lived. I still can’t figure out why Indians and whites fought so savagely over the desert southwest. But as I read about the Anasazi, they ALL lived in the most out of the way places. These places are hard to get to today. And apparently, they chose some of these locations because someone was out to get them! It is hard enough to imagine them choosing to live where they did, but then other people would hunt them down??
Family was very important to them. As was self-discipline. And most of them were not materialistic. They lived a truly communal life-style and one of the chief’s main responsibilities was to make sure all were fed and cared for. So one of their chief virtues was to give to the needy before you consumed yourself. And an interesting combination, if an Indian considered you a friend he was hospitable and giving, but if you were his enemy he was ruthless and unforgiving. They don’t appear to have had a word for forgiveness.
They were not “poor” until they came in contact with European culture.
As I mentioned, I am currently reading about the Anasazi. They truly lived in the most amazing and out of the way places. And on top of that, they built their cities high up on a cliff. The only access was by rock climbing! Even their little children had to be able to climb precarious heights!! But then, how beautiful it must have been in the morning at sunrise and how dark at night. If there was a star in the sky, they could see it! And being the desert, how utterly hot in the day and cold at night.
I don’t consider these people to be “inferior” to us. Oh I know, they had no electricity, or running water, or computers or cars or even metallurgy – all the stuff that we deem necessary. Yet they knew things and could do things that none of us know or can do. And they had an understanding of the rhythms of creation, which are a foreign language to most of us.
Finally, an end to all these random thoughts. Do I feel the guilt that some white people love to indulge in? You know, we stole their land, thus we are a vile people. No. Oh, the actions of early Europeans was despicable and really inexcusable. But this has been the history of man every where. God established their boundaries and times. I have no idea why their way of life gave way to the European. It just did. The Anglo / Indian conflict was inevitable. Their cultures were so different . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment