Thank you for bringing my attention to this book which I will be purchasing. In 1980 I took a trip in South and North America and self-published a travelogue, the antipodes of which spanned the middle of the Amazon basin and the streets of Manhattan. In Hitch-Hiker in Hades I reflect on the genocides that took place on the two continents between Tierra del Fuego and Point Barrow, a crime that dwarfs the terrible genocide now taking place in Gaza. In the early 19th century the painter George Catlin foresaw the damage that Elder Dan talks about concerning English. Henry David Thoreau refers to "civilized" and "savage" (from the Latin sylva, forest) as meaning "city-dweller" and "forest-dweller", both good words. Here is an excerpt from the prologue of my book:
"An obscene misunderstanding which began with the stupid misnomer “Indian” continues to this day between those of European ancestry and the descendants of the First Nations. And yet, closer scrutiny will reveal that the People have never had anything thing to do with India, where it is universally acknowledged that Indians live. This gross misuse of the Word is equally present in the very name “America.” However, for certain tribes along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, the continent was known as Turtle Island. For the most skilled of Europe’s dreamers, Shakespeare, this was a poetic domain where Caliban’s people dwelt, and where Ariel was ally. Turtle Island is a good name. But in his captivity Tatanke Iyotake (Sitting Bull) was doubtful about the merits of the name “America”: “I feel that my country has gotten a bad name, and I want it to have a good name. It used to have a good name. I sit and wonder who it is that has given it a bad name.” Amerigo Vespucci has simply nothing to do with me. Possessed of the poet’s desire for a genuine application of language, a much more correct name is needed to refer to my nationality – Amerigo’s stupid nickname no longer suits me. Henceforth, yes, to the very core of my being, I shall feel myself to be a Turtle Islander." (Hitch-Hiker in Hades) www.theoradic.com
Loved this. Yes Language defines the perception. You see it today. Today 30 people were killed in Gaza. Today 30 people were executed in Russia. Today 30 people were gun downed in Hungary. Today 30 people died when confronted by the authorities in Canada. See how it is? You do not like someone or something you black ball it. While your side does the same thing or worse and you justify it or white wash it.
Lifelong learning, and hopefully the attainment of wisdom, requires unlearning so much of what we were “taught”, and gaining the appreciation of different perspectives. Thank you for this post, it helps do both!
Your article is the first thing I read this morning and it will stay with me. You've pointed out the importance of choosing our words correctly, something that I try to do always. I'll be more attuned to that teaching from Elder Dan and will get the book about him. Thank you, I'm grateful for this morning gift you've passed along through your writing. ~ JD
BS. Just stop with the james fennimore cooper crap; 'indians' are migrant invaders of this land. They admit it themselves in their 'oral traditions' - do a little research. The Celts and Danes were here before the time of Christ and those settlers were genocided by invading 'indians'. They complain about language - gee, so sorry that our language is reasonably precise. They complain about how our culture makes their children feel...wah. How about how your garbage and your (((handlers))) stuff makes our children feel? Of course, indians are SO well known for their care of the 'vulnerable' members of their society, both young and old. Like the elders that are left on a remote hillside in winter to die because they are no longer 'productive'. That of course pales in comparison to their advanced, civil societies and numerous inventions. Oh, and their literacy and written languages. /s Spare me the crap. Why on earth would lewrockwell.com reprint this nonsense?
The point is that they were a people. They belonged to tribes/nations. They had a way of life/culture. These people had beliefs which are still seen as more spiritual than our middle eastern fairy tale religions.
They had lesser numbers and technology and so they lost. But it's not too late to have respect for them and their way of life before mass influx of Europeans.
My ancestors lived between what is now Pebble Beach and Moro Bay. They weren't noteworthy for being warriors, hunters etc. They weren't a particularly large tribe. They were known as Salinan indians and absorbed into Catholicism by Fr. Junipero Sera. Whatever could possibly be remembered of their spirituality would be no better than any other religion. There is a vibrant spirituality in the middle east, but just because it has been corrupted by western influence and dogmatic religious beliefs, it doesn't then follow that the underlying spirituality is just some "middle eastern fairy tale."
With western expansion, the Spanish were displaced, but what goes around comes around and the current northward expansion from Mexico and South America is recapturing lost land and nobody is going to miss the modern American culture of drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual perversions, violence, war etc. etc. etc.
There's a great deal of truth in Elder Dan's remarks. His is the story of human advancement over human retreat. What he leaves out is that the Indian tribes were frequently at war with each other, just like the endless wars between European nations. South Dakota's White Butte (if I remember rightly) was the scene in the early 19th century where one tribe surrounded and exterminated another tribe sheltered atop the butte. (Masada in America?) There's a roadside marker recalling the incident. Same old problem: land, resources, different ethnicities, and so forth.
I'm not sure that "Turtle Island" is any better or more appropriate a name than "America." Elder Dan was surely pulling the recorder's leg.
It is an esthetic choice. Amerigo Vespucci was merely a passenger to the New World. He is accused of lying about his voyage(s). His friend, a German map-maker, was so impressed that he scrawled "America" over the map he was working on. In one narrative Amerigo alleged that, starting near the gulf coast of Honduras, he proceeded northwest for 870 leagues (about 5,130 km or 3,190 mi) — a course that would have taken him across Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. His name is well suited to a nation of liars. How many far greater men existed at the time that had worthier names! Why not Columbus? Why not Magellan? No, as I wrote above, Amerigo's silly nickname suits me not at all.
That inconvenient problem (PTSD) has been "cured" at incredible expense to individuals who allow themselves to fall victim to the State by being tricked into fighting for it.
Modern militaries are made up of mostly folks who can't kill without PTSD, and only a few elite troops are true killers.
New England's first Indian war, the Pequot War of 1636-37, provides a case study of the intensified warfare Europeans brought to America. Allied with the Narragansetts, traditional enemies of the Pequots, the colonists attacked at dawn. Surrounding the Pequot village, whose inhabitants were mostly women, children, and old men, the British set it on fire and shot those who tried to escape the flames. William Bradford described the scene: "It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them." *69[Quoted in Kupperman, Settling With The Indians, 185. See also Jennings, Invasion, 220] ... The slaughter shocked the Narragansetts, who had wanted merely to subjugate the Pequots, not exterminate them. The Narragansetts reproached the English for their style of warfare, crying, "It is naught, it is naught, because it is too furious, and slays too many men." In turn, Capt. John Underhill scoffed, saying that the Narragansett style of fighting was "more for pastime, than to conquer and subdue enemies." Underhill's analysis of the role of warfare in Narragansett society was correct, and might accurately be applied to other tribes as well. Through the centuries, whites frequently accused their Native allies of not fighting hard enough. The Puritans tried to erase the Pequot even from memory, passing a law making it a cirime to say the word Pequot. Bradford concluded proudly, "The rest are scattered, and the Indians on all quarters are so terrified that they are afraid to give them sanctuary." *70[Bradford, Of Plimoth Plantation, rendered by Valerian Paget (New York: McBride, 1909), 284-87. Underhill quoted in Jennings, Invasion, 223, and Segal and Stienbeck, Puritans, Indians, and Manifest Destiny, 106. Indians quickly adjusted to European warfare and raised their level of violence accordingly. The Pequots were not quite destroyed; a few still live on and near a tiny reservation of a few acres in Connecticut.] None of these quotations enters our textbooks, which devote an average of 1 1/4 sentences to this war. -James W. Loewen, LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME, (New York, NY: Touchstone 1996), p. 118
And this example - - -
...we preferred hunting to a life of idleness on our reservations. At times we did not get enough to eat and we were not allowed to hunt. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers came and destroyed our villages. Then Long Hair (Custer) came...They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same to us. Our first impulse was to escape but we were so hemmed in we had to fight. - Crazy Horse/Tashunkewitko, ibid.
However, I've noticed lately what I interpret as a desperate attempt to resurrect the "human-as-violent-and-dangerous" meme, which has an active economic constituency in the law-and-order industry -- and Eisenhower's "militaryindustrialcomplex."
Vespucci had a far better grasp of self-promotion than did other explorers. If Bill Gates had been the first Euro to land on "Turtle Island" America would now be Gatesiana.
Indian tribes forced through other tribes out of their way quite violently, if they could. The story is older than time. If any Indian tribe had the technology the Euros did, they would have butchered just like the latter did. In fact they did: when the Eskimo got motorized canoes and rifles they slaughtered reindeer and left the carcasses to rot on rivers' shores. None of this justifies what some early settlers did, but it does put into perspective the myth of the "noble savage."
Thank you for bringing my attention to this book which I will be purchasing. In 1980 I took a trip in South and North America and self-published a travelogue, the antipodes of which spanned the middle of the Amazon basin and the streets of Manhattan. In Hitch-Hiker in Hades I reflect on the genocides that took place on the two continents between Tierra del Fuego and Point Barrow, a crime that dwarfs the terrible genocide now taking place in Gaza. In the early 19th century the painter George Catlin foresaw the damage that Elder Dan talks about concerning English. Henry David Thoreau refers to "civilized" and "savage" (from the Latin sylva, forest) as meaning "city-dweller" and "forest-dweller", both good words. Here is an excerpt from the prologue of my book:
ReplyDelete"An obscene misunderstanding which began with the stupid misnomer “Indian” continues to this day between those of European ancestry and the descendants of the First Nations. And yet, closer scrutiny will reveal that the People have never had anything thing to do with India, where it is universally acknowledged that Indians live. This gross misuse of the Word is equally present in the very name “America.” However, for certain tribes along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, the continent was known as Turtle Island. For the most skilled of Europe’s dreamers, Shakespeare, this was a poetic domain where Caliban’s people dwelt, and where Ariel was ally. Turtle Island is a good name. But in his captivity Tatanke Iyotake (Sitting Bull) was doubtful about the merits of the name “America”: “I feel that my country has gotten a bad name, and I want it to have a good name. It used to have a good name. I sit and wonder who it is that has given it a bad name.” Amerigo Vespucci has simply nothing to do with me. Possessed of the poet’s desire for a genuine application of language, a much more correct name is needed to refer to my nationality – Amerigo’s stupid nickname no longer suits me. Henceforth, yes, to the very core of my being, I shall feel myself to be a Turtle Islander." (Hitch-Hiker in Hades) www.theoradic.com
GREAT! Thanks!!
DeleteHey anonymous, where can I get your book, "Hitch-Hiker in Hades?"
Deletehttps://www.angelfire.com/sk/syukhtun/hhh.html
DeleteThanks!
DeleteLoved this. Yes Language defines the perception. You see it today. Today 30 people were killed in Gaza. Today 30 people were executed in Russia. Today 30 people were gun downed in Hungary. Today 30 people died when confronted by the authorities in Canada. See how it is? You do not like someone or something you black ball it. While your side does the same thing or worse and you justify it or white wash it.
ReplyDeleteLifelong learning, and hopefully the attainment of wisdom, requires unlearning so much of what we were “taught”, and gaining the appreciation of different perspectives. Thank you for this post, it helps do both!
ReplyDeleteYour article is the first thing I read this morning and it will stay with me. You've pointed out the importance of choosing our words correctly, something that I try to do always. I'll be more attuned to that teaching from Elder Dan and will get the book about him. Thank you, I'm grateful for this morning gift you've passed along through your writing. ~ JD
ReplyDeleteBS.
ReplyDeleteJust stop with the james fennimore cooper crap; 'indians' are migrant invaders of this land. They admit it themselves in their 'oral traditions' - do a little research. The Celts and Danes were here before the time of Christ and those settlers were genocided by invading 'indians'.
They complain about language - gee, so sorry that our language is reasonably precise.
They complain about how our culture makes their children feel...wah. How about how your garbage and your (((handlers))) stuff makes our children feel? Of course, indians are SO well known for their care of the 'vulnerable' members of their society, both young and old. Like the elders that are left on a remote hillside in winter to die because they are no longer 'productive'.
That of course pales in comparison to their advanced, civil societies and numerous inventions. Oh, and their literacy and written languages. /s
Spare me the crap. Why on earth would lewrockwell.com reprint this nonsense?
The point is that they were a people. They belonged to tribes/nations. They had a way of life/culture. These people had beliefs which are still seen as more spiritual than our middle eastern fairy tale religions.
DeleteThey had lesser numbers and technology and so they lost. But it's not too late to have respect for them and their way of life before mass influx of Europeans.
DeleteMy ancestors lived between what is now Pebble Beach and Moro Bay. They weren't noteworthy for being warriors, hunters etc. They weren't a particularly large tribe. They were known as Salinan indians and absorbed into Catholicism by Fr. Junipero Sera. Whatever could possibly be remembered of their spirituality would be no better than any other religion. There is a vibrant spirituality in the middle east, but just because it has been corrupted by western influence and dogmatic religious beliefs, it doesn't then follow that the underlying spirituality is just some "middle eastern fairy tale."
With western expansion, the Spanish were displaced, but what goes around comes around and the current northward expansion from Mexico and South America is recapturing lost land and nobody is going to miss the modern American culture of drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual perversions, violence, war etc. etc. etc.
There's a great deal of truth in Elder Dan's remarks. His is the story of human advancement over human retreat. What he leaves out is that the Indian tribes were frequently at war with each other, just like the endless wars between European nations. South Dakota's White Butte (if I remember rightly) was the scene in the early 19th century where one tribe surrounded and exterminated another tribe sheltered atop the butte. (Masada in America?) There's a roadside marker recalling the incident. Same old problem: land, resources, different ethnicities, and so forth.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that "Turtle Island" is any better or more appropriate a name than "America." Elder Dan was surely pulling the recorder's leg.
It is an esthetic choice. Amerigo Vespucci was merely a passenger to the New World. He is accused of lying about his voyage(s). His friend, a German map-maker, was so impressed that he scrawled "America" over the map he was working on. In one narrative Amerigo alleged that, starting near the gulf coast of Honduras, he proceeded northwest for 870 leagues (about 5,130 km or 3,190 mi) — a course that would have taken him across Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. His name is well suited to a nation of liars. How many far greater men existed at the time that had worthier names! Why not Columbus? Why not Magellan? No, as I wrote above, Amerigo's silly nickname suits me not at all.
DeleteSome perspective on ""Indian" wars - - -
DeleteThat inconvenient problem (PTSD) has been "cured" at incredible expense to individuals who allow themselves to fall victim to the State by being tricked into fighting for it.
Modern militaries are made up of mostly folks who can't kill without PTSD, and only a few elite troops are true killers.
New England's first Indian war, the Pequot War of 1636-37, provides a case study of the intensified warfare Europeans brought to America. Allied with the Narragansetts, traditional enemies of the Pequots, the colonists attacked at dawn. Surrounding the Pequot village, whose inhabitants were mostly women, children, and old men, the British set it on fire and shot those who tried to escape the flames. William Bradford described the scene: "It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them." *69[Quoted in Kupperman, Settling With The Indians, 185. See also Jennings, Invasion, 220] ... The slaughter shocked the Narragansetts, who had wanted merely to subjugate the Pequots, not exterminate them. The Narragansetts reproached the English for their style of warfare, crying, "It is naught, it is naught, because it is too furious, and slays too many men." In turn, Capt. John Underhill scoffed, saying that the Narragansett style of fighting was "more for pastime, than to conquer and subdue enemies." Underhill's analysis of the role of warfare in Narragansett society was correct, and might accurately be applied to other tribes as well. Through the centuries, whites frequently accused their Native allies of not fighting hard enough. The Puritans tried to erase the Pequot even from memory, passing a law making it a cirime to say the word Pequot. Bradford concluded proudly, "The rest are scattered, and the Indians on all quarters are so terrified that they are afraid to give them sanctuary." *70[Bradford, Of Plimoth Plantation, rendered by Valerian Paget (New York: McBride, 1909), 284-87. Underhill quoted in Jennings, Invasion, 223, and Segal and Stienbeck, Puritans, Indians, and Manifest Destiny, 106. Indians quickly adjusted to European warfare and raised their level of violence accordingly. The Pequots were not quite destroyed; a few still live on and near a tiny reservation of a few acres in Connecticut.] None of these quotations enters our textbooks, which devote an average of 1 1/4 sentences to this war. -James W. Loewen, LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME, (New York, NY: Touchstone 1996), p. 118
And this example - - -
...we preferred hunting to a life of idleness on our reservations. At times we did not get enough to eat and we were not allowed to hunt. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers came and destroyed our villages. Then Long Hair (Custer) came...They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same to us. Our first impulse was to escape but we were so hemmed in we had to fight. - Crazy Horse/Tashunkewitko, ibid.
However, I've noticed lately what I interpret as a desperate attempt to resurrect the "human-as-violent-and-dangerous" meme, which has an active economic constituency in the law-and-order industry -- and Eisenhower's "militaryindustrialcomplex."
Vespucci had a far better grasp of self-promotion than did other explorers. If Bill Gates had been the first Euro to land on "Turtle Island" America would now be Gatesiana.
DeleteIndian tribes forced through other tribes out of their way quite violently, if they could. The story is older than time. If any Indian tribe had the technology the Euros did, they would have butchered just like the latter did. In fact they did: when the Eskimo got motorized canoes and rifles they slaughtered reindeer and left the carcasses to rot on rivers' shores. None of this justifies what some early settlers did, but it does put into perspective the myth of the "noble savage."
Thanks for responding, Charlene. Do you have any references?
DeleteSee outdoorsman Sigurd Olson's "The Singing Wilderness," published quite a while ago.
DeleteThanks Charlene!
Delete