Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 10:03 pm Post subject: Due 4/1: Response to Reading from Ch. 3
After actively reading pp.33-43 and pp. 59-64 in your Jake Page books, please write at least 100-200 words in response on the forum. Try to respond to something one of your classmates has said and make sure you include at least one question (of the how/why/what do you think variety) for your peers to use as a jumping off point. Posts are due by 6am on 4/1/2010.
To get you started, here are some things to think about. Why do you think Jake Page starts and ends this chapter with traditional stories? How do they change your understandings of the facts presented? Are they useful?
How did hunting and agricultural societies differ from each other? What social or cultural implications do these modalities have?
I think Jake Page starts and ends this chapter with traditional stories because they make the historical explanations, analysis, and facts that are sandwiched in-between each story, more personal to the Native Americans who we are studying. I think this relates to when talked about if we should study Native American history differently than other history. Jake Page seams to think so, and I like that he does. By putting in the stories, we as readers are not just getting Page’s view on Native American history; we are also getting a view of how Native American’s viewed the world around them. These stories help to highlight the importance of what we read about, such as hunting, agriculture, tradition, family, etc. They make the information more personal and meaningful.
In this reading, Jake Page talked a lot about change. I thought this theme of change was very interesting. There seemed to be so many changes happening, like changes in hunting styles, like with the evolution of arrow heads and elimination of certain animals that were important to the Native Americans, with the climate, and with the discovery of agriculture and corn. There were so many changes, and yet I noticed that they all took a long time to come about. It is really interesting to think about people living the same way for so long, and being content with the tools and ways they had, in comparison to how we live now, when everything is evolving insanely fast, and people can’t wait to move on the to next new and improved thing. I think it’s interesting that a lot of the time the environment around the Native Americans that spurred change. For example, on page 39 Page explains that long term, and even short term, climate change provoked changes in Native American lifestyles. This was because climate changes affected the plants and animals living in the areas that were changing, and because the Native American’s depended so fully on the natural world, they had to change their entire lifestyles to go along with these changes. Examples of this are when they stopped using Clovis points because all the large animals had died out, and created smaller points that were better for killing smaller animals, or when they started settling instead of moving around all the time because agriculture was becoming more important. It is all pretty amazing.
How do you think the Native American's discovered and began agriculture? Page mentions something about it being an accident, but do you think this is true?
I completely agree with Rachel as to the reasons Page put's the traditional stories at the beginning and end of the chapter. I think that it is extremely important for us to make sure that every time we read of research something from a scientific/ archeological standpoint we must also address what the Native Americans explanation for our findings are. Even if one does not believe the Native Americans stories/ beliefs they obviously often have important connections and sometimes even back up the scientific findings.
For example Page discusses how the ancient natives were extremely in tune with and in awe of the animals around them. This is mostly because of the fact that until agriculture developed, their way of life depended on the animals they used to sustain themselves; if the animals they were hunting moved, they moved with them. The story that Page begins the chapter with seemed to back up this scientific theory. According to the story the animals that were hunted were often even considered to be magical. Just because the animal was magical did not mean that it could not still be used for food. To me it seemed that the animal was simply recognized as an extremely important part of the ancient natives way of life. Furthermore the fact that the hunter lived with the bear and ate the food that it provided shows the fact that the ancient natives and the animals around them lived in harmony although they were also sometimes hunted out of necessity.
Rachel, I don't know the answer to your question about whether or not the ancient natives stumbled upon farming agriculture or not, but I think Page has made a very good guess. Many great discoveries, even medicines, and as we talked about today, archeological discoveries, are found accidently and I don't see why that would have been any different in ancient times. That being said, after Page provides his possible answer for the discovery of agricultural farming he also presents the Native American's explanation story which obviously does not have the same accidental discovery.
One of the things from the reading that I found most interesting was the way the natives hunted bison. The idea of corals and sand pits seemed to be their first big step from being nomadic people to becoming a settled group. Instead of following the bison they could lead the bison to them, making their hunting process much easier and more efficient. For the first time they could create a more permanent settlement, allowing for their techniques and culture to develop. It was once these more permanent residencies were set up that the real development of their society began; better building structures, better processing of meet, and less time spent walking from place to place. This also allowed the natives to develop their agricultural skills. Only when they were settled for multiple seasons could they observe plants over time and learn how to grow them.
The Native stories give us an idea of just how important these new ways of life were to them. No matter which perspective one looks at this history from, it is clear on both sides which changes had an important impact on the native people. Jake talks about all of our modern day advances in technology that affect the way we live. Often because there is so much change happening so quick it seems that we lose site and don’t fully appreciate what we have. The fact that a story about corn could be passed down over thousands and thousands of years shows that even slight changes had huge impacts on the way these people lived, and that when they were for the better, the fully appreciated them.
Does it matter that we don't take as much time to appreciate?
Mac wrote about how some Native Americans hunted bison. I was wondering why they don’t’ teach that to us. We are never taught in elementary school about how clever Native Americans were when they were hunting. I feel like that is such an easy fact to tell kids that I think would change a major stereotype about Native Americans, that they are dumb or less intelligent than us.
I completely agree with what Alex said about why Page puts the Native Americans stories at the beginning and end of the chapter. I think on of Page’s main reasons for writing this book is to give Native American’s a voice in telling their history. Or I guess you could say a more complete history with all the facts and for the reader to come a conclusion.
When Page was explaining what he thought really happened to the large mammals that inhabited North America, I thought he was trying to clear the Native American's name. What do you think?
I also found the section about corralling the animals really interesting. It was especially intriguing how the American Indians had used the natural surrounding to help them capture the animals. This seemed like a good example of something that could be romanticized by people- they might say that the American Indians had used the land to respect it or because they wanted to honor the sand pit or something when in reality it was probably just more convenient and made the hunting easier.
I'm not really sure if it matters that we don't take time to appreciate what technologies we have. Like... does it matter in reference to what? I think it leads to a society that is all about change and moving forward, which is good in a way because we are constantly developing. It also has some negatives though, like we might not learn to really master something (the way people way back when could stab through the ribs right into the heart, or be incredibly accurate with a bow and arrow) because we know there will always be another development just around the corner.
The introduction (or discovery and mastery) of corn as a food source gave opportunities to expand tribes because there was a more reliable food source that was stationary. This didn't seem to happen as much as one might have expected (at least not that we read about). Why do you think this is? Do you think there was a certain value in having a smaller tribe?
I really enjoyed that Jake Page chose to use these stories in this chapter. They were my favorite part. I think he chose to use them here because to become a historian like him, you have to apply historical thinking to whatever material you have about your subject. These stories are a key element to the history of the Native American, and these stories were their main form of teaching and history. The stories really put a lot of Native American practices into perspective, like how the story about the bear explains the importance of the relationship between man and prey.
Jake Page also said that we "live in a world that changes so fast that many things disappear from use before they become familiar enough to generate a tradition." I think that when the Native Americans pass on these stories, and when Jake Page publishes them in his book, they are all trying to preserve that tradition, and that is another key reason for including the stories.
I also think it's really interesting to see how much humans effect nature, especially because that's something many are ignorant of right now.
I understand the message behind the story in the beginning, to be one with and respect the animals on which you prey. But this reads to me as you can hunt any animal you please as long as you have some remorse for the animal you’re killing. I understand that the “hunt was so central a feature of life,” but it seems like a convenient excuse to disregard any negativity towards the fact that you are murdering a living thing.
Page makes the argument that the animals that were preyed on would have gone extinct anyway, even before the Clovis began hunting them and sped up the extinction process, so they might as well have just hunted them since they were going extinct anyway: “That hunters may have participated in the final extinction of dwindling numbers of the remaining large-animal types is likely, but these creatures would have almost surely have been already on the way out.” This false transgression theory was cute, but didn’t quite play to my own logic. This was the little PETA voice screaming in my head when I read this.
On another note, I thought it was interesting how Page mentions that most of the continent changed its “basics of life” even before Europeans came in contact with the Natives. We always have assumed that the Natives were thriving on their own, until the Europeans kicked in the door and corrupted everything, and I’m sure that was a part of it as well. But Page argues that you can’t blame the Europeans for every change that occurred.
Why is Page defending Europeans? Could Page’s race have anything to do with it?
Wow, I agree with so much of what has already been said. Specifically, I completely agree with what Abby said about why Jake Page chooses to start and end with these stories. Without this opening story of the "magic bear", the different techniques that Page goes on to explain of hunting and the spears would not nearly be as interesting. I also definitely would not have appreciated the details that archeology can provide.
"What we think of as agriculture, the deliberate planting and harvesting of plants for food or fiber, was not a revolution, though its effects would become revolutionary" (Page 59). This quote explained so many thoughts that I unsuccessfully had tried to put into words. Going off of what Steph said, as humans have evolved, technology is always coming out with the "new" thing. When in truth, not much is actually of new origin, technology usually is just an improvement of what is already there. Our socalled "revolution" in agriculture was not anything new, what was indeeda revolutionary aspect of the agriculture was the ways in which we used what had already been grown.
Lastly, this quote also reminded me of what page states at the very beginning of the book. Page explains how everytime new people would settle in America, they called themselves the first Americans. Page corrects them and exlains that even today only few people can feel the connection to Native creature; they are the first Americans.
((I really am not sure if that makes sense... Perhaps Page will explain my thoughts more articulately in the near future...))
I guess a general question for the book has to do with pronouns. I find the Page often uses "we" and "us" and "they"; I do not know if I am in the we or the they. I know this is very specific to each time and in what context...
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