Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 6:38 am Post subject: IS there a post tonight ? due feb 18?
Well first of all I think that he made it very clear that there is a lot of speculation and often misestimation about specific numbers involved in the Native American societies. There is also a lot about speculation of how 95 percent of certain populations were dropped out of the picture. Some say it was a few pigs others say that’s impossible. I think this, like gina was saying, sheds some light on the Jake page book. It’s highly likely that he is taking the data that best supports his thesis as any good scientist should, which is sort of how I see this book so far. I also think he isn’t completely unfairly representing the native American fact either. He does say, especially in the beginning, a lot about how some of these dates are wrong but you can never tell which ones. I suppose he makes his opinions clear rather than completely avoiding some data points.
On the pig killing population note I think its possible, though probably unlikely that, we are putting too much blame on the Europeans for coming to The Americas and wiping out a whole shit load of people through diseases. Now as Europeans they do seem to prove them selves by sending these natives away on the trail of ters and shit like that but original I’m not sure if they had malicious intent yet. I almost, but not quite, want to say that the native Americans were going to eventually have to come in contact with some other people seeing that they lived in world not a vaccum and that they had to learn how to be more diseas resistant
Was this incredible loss of 95 percent of the population in some way helpful to the NA population?
Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 7:09 am Post subject: is this where i post for wednesday night?
this reading was interesting, it seemed to focus on one of the issues brought up in the packet and touched on a lot of the same data. i dont find it hard to believe that there were as as many as 100million native americans prior to european disease. the only glitch i see with this estimate is that it is based on the census that 20 indians died for every one who survived the illnesses. i wonder where this bit came from, nobody seems to be able to back it up.
i wish there was more about what the indians thought of the white people, i think that the brevity of this section gives credit to the old phrase "history is written by the victors." clearly if the indians had prevailed in the battles/confrontations or invasion whatever you want to call it, we wouldnt hear constantly that they thought the white men were gods. with this in mind though, the first piece about quetzalcoatl was very compelling, actually all of the indian prophesies about white people were. i wonder why this is the first that i have heard of them?
my question is:
why do you think the spaniards and the later europeans had such different views about the native people of america? why did the spaniards decide to grant them (some) rights when the europeans came gunz'a'blazin?
Well hey there.
So I guess I’ll start by taking a stab at cooper’s question. I don’t really think that losing 95 percent of their population helped them out much. If they hadn’t succumbed to disease then they may have been able to defend their land. Also, countless unknown cultures died out with these people. Maybe I am misunderstanding your question though.
As for cooper’s comment about us putting too much blame on the Europeans, I don’t think that that is the intent. Before people would say that the Europeans deliberately gave the Natives blankets with smallpox. We now realize that would mean that Europeans of that time had knowledge of germ theory which we know that they did not. So even though the Europeans did not necessarily mean to wipe out 95% of the Native Americans, the facts cannot be ignored. Though it was not intentional, it is still their fault. If you hit a deer on the road and kill it you are still responsible for its death, even if it was an accident. No matter the intentions, if the Europeans had never shown up in the Americas 95% of the population would not have died from these epidemics.
I found the stories at the beginning of the chapter, with the different predictions of the “white man’s” arrival interesting and confusing. It talks about how different Native tribes all knew of the coming of the white man and that he would be dangerous. This can be explained (as Page does) by the fact that these people probably came in contact with Europeans before. What is bothering me is that many of the stories had the Native Americans hailing the Europeans as gods. I feel like we keep going back and forth with this. Sometimes we say that the Europeans decided that Natives saw them as gods and sometimes we tell it the other way. What is the truth? Do we know it or is this all speculation?
P.S. I wasn’t trying to attack cooper, he was the only one that posted when I started writing this.
I really liked that this chapter started with a story. I find them very interesting and they lead really well into what he is going to talk about. I knew the story about Quetzalcoatl but I had never thought about it much before today. I found it very interesting that the story referred to the evil ones. Quetzalcoatl "presided over the golden age before the evil ones came..." Page brings up the interesting idea that the "evil ones" could have been the Europeons. Even though the Aztecs had never seen any white people they had heard stories about them and what they heard was not always good. I think that it is quite plausible that the Aztecs and other Native Americans made up stories or prophesized about white people even thought they had never seen them and made quite accurate predictions. Even though people are inclined to say prophesyzing is not true at all, I believe that the Native Americans took facts they had heard or observed about things and put them into stories and made them into predictions instead of just making everything up. I think there is a lot to be learned from their stories and it would be nice to look at some.
I agree with Cooper that the Europeons were not intentionally trying to make the Native Americans sick. I think that people back then did not know enough about how diseases spread and how people's immune systems work to know that when they came they would create dozens of epidemics. But in the end I think the Native Americans dying quickly in a lot of ways probably benefited the Europeons. A good example of that is what happened in Tenochtitlan.
Were you surprised that in Europe, people categorized the Native Americans into three groups, "civilized, barbarian and savage" instead of just all in one group? What did you think of these groups?
I found this reading to be very similar to the one we did yesterday, well as I assume probably everyone did. But a new part I found interesting was the idea of the white brother. All of these different tribes have different stories of coming across the white man. And often they knew that he was coming, through tales or visions or i dont know what. It was funny to me that we hear all this stuff about the white man being Columbus when it could really refer to the Norsemen who were here hundreds of years beforehand. It is interesting to me that we, as a people neglect certain pieces of history in order to fill a role, I mean not that this is a new idea or anything, but just interesting that we see it again.
The other part I found super interesting is the "unconcious process of osmosis" We all already knew that this existed, but the interesting part was what to accept from each culture. And who decides what it accepted from each culture? or is does it all just melt in? Well I mean we know it is both but I guess I am kinda curious as to what is more productive to each respective society? and kinda what is productive? kinda nebulous questions, but whatevs.
To start, I guess I'll quickly address Coop's question, too. " Was this incredible loss of 95 percent of the population in some way helpful to the NA population?" Like Ricka said, I think there are a bunch of reasons that you could argue that the loss in population didn't help the Native Americans, but I think one could argue that it "helped" America from not overpopulating. Not that that was a huge issue, but that's one idea that I thought of that could have "helped" the Native Americans, not that I particularly believe that...
Gigi's question is sorta a perfect segway into what I've been thinking about from this reading and what I wanted to post about. "Were you surprised that in Europe, people categorized the Native Americans into three groups, "civilized, barbarian and savage" instead of just all in one group? What did you think of these groups?" I thought that quite possibly the most important, significant, and concise quote that said a lot was this, "Europeans simply had a very difficult time seeing the people of North America, and once seen, the Indians were hard to fit into the categories available to the European mind." (p. 108) I guess I just think that that's SO true. And Gigi, I don't think I was surprised that the Native Americans were categorized into those three groups, necessarily, but I would say that just the three specific names/categories they chose to categorize them BY was the more surprising part. It shows just how narrow their view on these new people were. And it PISSES me off that their idea of "civilized" was that they had to be Christian and literate. That's just bullshit in my opinion. Oh and how it said that EVENTUALLY, the Europeans accepted that "non-Christian people could be rational and that there were various levels of society, from high-grade civilization to low-grade savagery." THAT pissed me off too...
I have a few questions. The first is about the text specifically... Can someone help clarify what Page was trying to say in this quote - "The fact that most American Indians by far were, at the time Columbus arrived, agricultural villagers who supplemented their crops with wild or semidomesticated food never really sank until recently." (p. 109) I'm confused about that.
Also, does any one think that there was ever a time when the Europeans thought that maybe, JUST MAYBE, the Native Americans were more advanced (aka better) than them?
Was this incredible loss of 95 percent of the population in some way helpful to the NA population?
My knee jerk reaction is a screaming no. On the other hand, the Native Americans died because of European contact, which had some very interesting outcomes. If the Europeans never came to México (or any Latin American country- I'm going to use MX for simplicity's sake) then we wouldn't have the amazing culture we have now. The Europeans brought their culture with them, which lives on today through our music, dance, and language, and the Europeans (more specifically the Spanish) had done some mixing in their culture as well. Because of European contact, México not only has Indigenous and African roots, but Spanish and Arab as well. On the other hand, many had to die for this cultural diffusion to take place. Some good things happened because of contact, but the way they happened were in no way "helpful".
Now's time for my own thoughts. Page writes "Cortés quickly returned with 1,250 Spaniards and perhaps 8,000 friendly native warriors..." [pg 101] I was actually disappointed by how brief this was. Page neglects to mention that the Spaniards actually formed alliances with some Mexican tribes. You see, the Aztecs weren't exactly well liked. Some tribes felt like they had perverted the religion and oppressed other groups. They saw this as an opportunity to put things right again. However, they had no intent of doing all that Cortés did. [All of these facts come from growing up Mexican/Puerto Rican/West African/Arab/Native American & The Buried Mirror by Carlos Fuentes.] This would have been a really nice addition to the book, especially since Page made note that most Native Americans didn't see themselves as a singular people earlier in the book.
Page also mentioned this idea of the Christian barbarian, which reminded me of the "noble savage". How do they differ? How are they the same?
Every time I see these facts about these colossal indian population decreases, I am shocked. It doesn't matter how many times I see them, it is just such a preposterously huge number and percent I cant begin to grasp it. Aside from that, I thought it was interesting how the American Indians had many of the same overall perceptions of whitemen. In the beginning of the chapter it mentions how all white men were grouped together in the Hopi mythology similar to how we group all tribes into the blanket term of Native Americans. Also how the Indians did not think of the white men as entirely human. I would like to know what the visual idea of white men was for Native Americans before the arrival of the Spaniards. If the idea of White Men was passed on through the Viking voyages to Newfoundland, it doesnt seem like the Spaniards would have looked as the Indians were expecting to, because as far as I know the Spaniards did not exactly resemble Norsemen. Another thing I thought was interesting was that the Church thought of the Native Americans as humans, and believed they deserved better treatment than they had been receiving. I had never heard of anything like this before.
My question is, if the Native Americans did not view the white men as entirely human, what do you think prevented them from reacting the same way staging massacres and enslaving them? (or maybe they did those things, I do not know)
People seem very interested in Cooper's question and I would like to know what exactly he meant when he asked it and how he thought that it might have helped. I think the reason everyone thinks that it defiantly did not help is because we always think about the Natives and the Europeans as polar opposites that are in direct opposition with each other. Therefore weakening the Natives was like weakening an entire team. How the Natives were in many different tribes and from what i understand did not all join together against the settlers. Within each group i would assume that those not effected would not benefit from the lack of others but perhaps it made it so they were less likely to be murdered directly by the Europeans. The Natives that are in this country today must be descendant from those left so in a way i would say they did benefit.
To respond to Gina's question "does any one think that there was ever a time when the Europeans thought that maybe, JUST MAYBE, the Native Americans were more advanced (aka better) than them?" I think that there must have been some people who felt that the Natives were more advanced than them however because it was their own standard of advanced I think that it is unlikely that they ever really thought about it too much however i was surprised by page 108
"The church argued strenuously that these were humans with souls and deserved better treatment than many of the lay adventurers and colonists were ready to provide." I was surprised that many people were thinking about it especially the church who i often think of as being rather violent.
My question is how many Native sympathizers do you think that there were. according to the first paragraph on 110 there were people who believed that the Natives should be left to there own beliefs.
(first part to Ricka) Regardless of whether they had knowledge of germ theory, do you not agree that to an extent they certainly had knowledge of the disease itself. And POSSIBLY, this is a stretch but possibly that the native americans were prone to it? that was not sarcastic, although rereading it made it seem like it. I am almost 100 % comfortable agreeing that the Europeans wiped out 95% percent of the native Americans, however I certainly think that this was due to violence on a very large scale over time, but also disease. Due to the fact that the native americans were in fact very prone to it, im not sure how likely it is that however many pigs they brought over spread the disease, and even if it was predominantly, it was the Europeans themselves that brought those pigs. In short, I think the murder and rape was obviously of malicious intent ( as oppose to raping and killing out of benevolence) and all disease related deaths were surely not intentional but possibly the Europeans were aware of them.
I don’t think the yer a peeins were regarded as gods by the neigh tiva merry cans.
My question is, what do you think is the ratio of deaths from brutality as oppose to disease?
Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:30 am Post subject: Quetzl!
So yeah this chapter (reading?) was a really cool different perspective than Da Mann's, but still totally plausible. Anyway, so Cooper seems to be the talk of the town so I think I'll start by addressing one of his statements. I agree that eventually at some point in time, someone would have stumbled upon the americas and given the indigenous people there a pathogen that they genetically or environmentally resistant too (genetically, as in today we discussed that people from europe just seemed to maybe possibly have natural resistance to diseases a la small pox, and environmentally supporting the theory that by being isolated from europe, native americans had the same immuno capabilities as hte europeans but just had not come in contact with disease) Ok switching gears totally here, I have to say I thought it was kinda of strange that the Hopi people actually thought there would one day be a decent white man. I mean, for me, if I was witnessing people being slaughtered and hellfire flames everywhere I would hardly have the best impression of the people perpitrating these crimes. Props to the Hopi being able to forgive that. Also on what Isaac said, I totally agree. That many people dissappearing is like taking the state of California (or more and just making it vanish) Mind Boggling. None of were there, so we can't know, but I have to think either, more than disease was a factor in killing off all these people OR they lived really close together in order for the epidemic to spread
Q: Do you think the White man had malicious intent in the new world?
-I found the part about smallpox and syphilis kind of eye opening. The fact that venereal syphilis was one of the diseases passed on kind of reminded me that the Native Americans and Europeans were doing it with eachother.
-Do you think this was mainly rape, or at least some of it was consensual sex? And do you think when they got pragnent and had children, that the mommys or babbys were treated any differently in their society?
-To look at Isaac's Question (which was asking why the europeans didn't enslave the native americans if they thought of them as less than human)
-I think it might have been kind of hard for them to walk in with only so many settlers and a limited amount of stuff, and to just be like oh hey were gonna enslave you.
-Celina's Question was also kind of interesting, comparing the Christian barbarian with the noble savage.
-I don't really have an answer I just thought it was really cool how the two connected and how similar they may seem.
-Also i was just wondering where those little drawings were from
So like Zack I thought this reading went really well with last nights, but I definitely liked this one more. Again, this is due to Page’s writing style and like Gigi, I really liked how this started with a story.
I thought that Gina’s question, “Also, does any one think that there was ever a time when the Europeans thought that maybe, JUST MAYBE, the Native Americans were more advanced (aka better) than them?” brings up some good points. I thought the same thing for a little while which would have partly made sense. If the whole “the Europeans killed the Native Americans purposely” thing held true, that this could be a possible reason. They could have realized that they were more advanced and that they accomplished this without some important aspects in the eyes of the Europeans. This could have led to some jealousy, explaining why they wanted to kill the Native Americans. However I think this really far fetched, especially since I think that the Europeans didn’t know they would kill the natives.
So to answer the question, I don’t think this happened. I think the Europeans thought that there was no way the Native Americans could be civilized without being more like them and other “civilized” people. I think you, Gina, hit it right on the head when you said, And it PISSES me off that their idea of "civilized" was that they had to be Christian and literate.” The Europeans were very ignorant and thought their way was the only way.
So here’s my question, why do you think the Europeans were like this? (ignorant of other people) and why do you think that a lot of us are still like that today?
I was really glad this started with all the stories from Native Americans' side instead of the Europeans' side. The whole history of other people coming and encountering the Native Americans seems so foggy and like you have to uncover layer after layer before you get to something that makes sense. Like at first, you're taught that the Native Americans thought the white people were gods, which just seems insane. Then you learn that that was from the Europeans' view, so they could have just been self loving morons. And now we learn about this Aztec story about the god that went away and people were waiting for him to return by the eastern shores, and when they saw something "glittering and shining" coming across the sea, they thought it was that god. Finally something that sounds totally understandable. Really unfortunate for the people who thought this god was returning though...kind of like if some kind looking, long haired guy with a beard came floating from the sky, lots of religious people would probably be really excited, but then he kills everyone...that sucks.
It was interesting hearing about the Norse bit. Page said it is flat out fact that some Norse people showed up in 1001 A.D., but the part about them meeting the people here seemed a bit less clear? To me at least? He said "probably an Algonquin-speaking group", and "perhaps ancestors to the Beothuk Indians"...I'd like to know what parts are facts, what parts are widely accepted theories, and what parts are Page's theories.
Questions...The last few stories at the beginning had interesting endings. In one, the white guy took Nanamakee by the hand and was all nice, then in the other one the lady becomes the white people's queen, and in the last the guy offers the women water. No intentional killing or hurting...? What do people think of these?
Also, a clarification thing with the part about the Spanish explorers reading the Requirement...were they literally just reading it to like...a random forest?? Just thinking "We know you guys are out there...you'll hear us..."??? That combined with Native Americans elaborately patting the European's hairy chins makes it seem like there was some mutual confusion going on.
I was happy to finally read another myth. I loved reading about why dawn happens everyday. I also thought the ideas and beliefs the Hopis held about the Fourth World, about Yaapa the mockingbird sorting everyone into different tribes and giving them their languages. I still think it’s so interesting the way that Native Americans would have stories to explain their history.
I agree with Max and wish that there had been more about what the Indians thought of the white people. Page touched upon the Native Americans believing that the Spanish were godlike, and maybe even Quetzalcoatl.
So a random little part of the reading that I thought was interesting was about the witch’s brew. It was a broth that gave comfort to all of these people living so close together with the same animals, soil, and water.
My question is were you surprised to learn that the Europeans wondered whether the Native Americans had souls? And that the Church ultimately stood up for the rights of the Native Americans?
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