5 ms·

Artifacts are not history, they are items. The names, languages, and cultures of many native groups are completely unknown due to genocide and forced integratio

by t-3 5y ago

Artifacts are not history, they are items. The names, languages, and cultures of many native groups are completely unknown due to genocide and forced integration. I said that they lacked the trappings of what present-day humans think of as civilization, not that they didn't exist or have civilization, which I know they did - but they died out due to drought. Much of the time, they lacked resources for widespread access to fire, clothing materials, or sedentary farming, because there was so little water and so little arable land, and they learned to live without those things. https://www.desertusa.com/ind1/ind_new/ind16.html https://www.desertusa.com/ind1/ind_new/ind16.html

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> The names, languages, and cultures of many native groups are completely unknown due to genocide and forced integration. Now that I understand what you're referring to, sure, absolutely. A apologize for not getting your point there immediately, since it now seems so obvious. The Chihuahan and Sonoran deserts are certainly unforgiving landscapes for human settlement, even more so without access to groundwater. But they don't represent the full range of landscapes and ecosystems of the "desert southwest" - the northern half of both what is now AZ and NM is still relatively dry compared to areas east of the 100th meridian, but has lots more opportunities for water-requiring civilization-al stuff (especially along valleys like the Rio Grande). Places like Bandelier and Gila show evidence of sedentary farming that lasted for (at least) hundreds of years. Yes, this is a different ecosystem and climate from the desert areas described in the article you linked to, but just as much a part of the human history of this part of the world.
eesmith 5y ago
So if I understand you right, Namibia lacks the "trappings of what present-day humans think of as civilization" because many San live as hunter-gatherers? The link you gave describes people who live on the margin; "peripheral members of the Puebloan culture". Not "most of the native groups", which is the phrase yous used earlier. Yes, many modern people don't have a sense of the pre-Spanish history of the Southwest. How is their ignorance relevant? > Artifacts are not history PaulDavisThe1st wrote "I suspect that the Tewa/Pueblo people in general would be a little troubled by the idea that they "left almost no history" behind." The current buildings of Taos Pueblo, as an example, started about 1,000 years ago. And they have a detailed oral history. This history helps understand the physical evidence. I'll quote from https://orias.berkeley.edu/resources-teachers/societies-americas/ancestral-pueblo https://orias.berkeley.edu/resources-teachers/societies-amer... : ] Consultation and collaboration with Pueblo people and scholars has changed the way that archaeologists think about migration away from Mesa Verde. Now, based on Tewa oral history, researchers understand that Mesa Verde people simply moved farther east, towards the Rio Grande region of northern New Mexico, where many of their descendants still live today. Using oral history, archaeology, and soil science, archaeologists have been able to come up with new ideas about the end of Mesa Verde. Even though there was a drought at the end of the time that people lived at the site, we can see that the environment was only one of the things that led people to move. The conditions when people moved weren’t much worse than they had been before. (Emphasis mine.) > everything died so we traveled through the hellish lands of death until we reached a place with water What are you talking about? Here are stores from the Cochiti - https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/sw/tci/index.htm https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/sw/tci/index.htm . I couldn't find something like what what you described. Or, "The oldest tradition of the people of Acoma and Laguna indicates that they lived on some island; that their homes were destroyed by tidal waves, earthquakes, and red-hot stones from the sky. They fled and landed on a low, swampy coast. From here they migrated to the northwest, and wherever they made a long stay they built a "White City" (Kush-kut-ret)" - http://www.legendsofnativeamerica.com/region_southwest/legends/CreationofSummerandWinter.php http://www.legendsofnativeamerica.com/region_southwest/legen... . In that story, things died because it was too cold, until Summer and Winter came to an agreement. And as I quoted earlier, "The conditions when people moved weren’t much worse than they had been before."
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  to be fair to t-3, they seem to have some real focus on the Chihuahan and Sonoran deserts, and I suspect that things may indeed have been a little different there than the areas occupied by the Tewa/Pueblo peoples and even the Hopi.
  - eesmith 5y ago
    I think you're being generous. "American west" covers a lot of area. The idea that the people there 'lacked resources for widespread access to fire' is preposterous. And t-3's own example shows the Jumanos 'developed a high skill in tanning buffalo and deer hides from which they made clothing and moccasins', the and the Mansos women 'cover themselves from the waist down with two deerskins', so definitely with access to resources from which to make clothing. That they didn't is a different thing.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      The only recent human population that lacked fire was the Tasmanians. They of course had fire when Tasmania was still connected to Australia, but lost the secret, probably in some catastrophe that wiped out hereditary fire-keepers. Tasmanians were almost exterminated by British occupiers conducting safaris.
scythe 5y ago
>The names, languages, and cultures of many native groups are completely unknown due to genocide and forced integration. This is post hoc ergo propter hoc. The history was lost because the Spaniards burned all the books, with the exception of stuff that was never written down in the first place. The Romans did plenty of genocide and forced integration but we didn't lose the history of their predecessors because they didn't intentionally destroy it all. >Much of the time, they lacked resources for widespread access to fire, clothing materials, or sedentary farming This bears little resemblance to the actual history of the Southwest, which was absolutely agricultural: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_agriculture_in_the_Southwestern_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_agriculture_in_the... and one of the few civilizations to independently develop the use of cement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Grande_Ruins_National_Monument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Grande_Ruins_National_Mon... (e.g.) They also made clothing not only from animal hides but from furs and yucca fibres. Native trade networks extended nearly across the continent, although mostly by local connections. Durable goods such as fiber could easily have made it to the desert. However, they did often wear little clothing, because it's damned hot in the Southwest.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Most American cultures were wiped out largely by smallpox, measles and other Eurasian diseases before the Spanish got around to most places.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    I'd be careful with language like this. My impression is that "they were wiped out by smallpox" is the sort of thing that infuriates native Americans, because it is implies that their cultures were destroyed, a claim they very much dispute. Yes, populations were massively reduced by european diseases, but in most cases (all? I don't know) it did not wipe out the cultures. It have a dramatic impact on them, and did set the stage, of course, for the subsequently arriving colonialists to attempt to continue the process in person (with varying degrees of success).
    - 5y ago
floor2 5y ago
While you're correct about the native people often living as nomads and lacking clothing or permanent structures, it's worth clarifying the "genocide" claim which is a source of mass misunderstanding about American history. To be clear- many indigenous groups lived as distinct tribes for decades or centuries which then disappeared, but essentially none of them were due to direct contact with immigrants from Europe. Disease, drought, inter-tribal warfare wiped out the vast majority. The introduction of guns and horses to tribes that had lived in a state of intergenerational conflict led to much higher death rates when groups clashed. Even relatively minor diseases can lead to deaths when the entire tribe needs to keep moving daily to follow a herd of animals. The narrative of European immigrants wiping out the tribal groups is mostly a modern fiction, heavily signal-boosted by Chinese & Russian propaganda to undermine Western human rights demands by turning contemporary abuses into a "whataboutism" of an imagined past.
- eesmith 5y ago
  > Disease, drought, inter-tribal warfare wiped out the vast majority. To be clear, disease was by far the biggest factor. To be even more clear, diseases introduced via Europeans. Wikipedia's list includes "smallpox, bubonic plague, chickenpox, cholera, the common cold, diphtheria, influenza, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, sexually transmitted diseases (with the possible exception of syphilis), typhoid, typhus, tuberculosis (although a form of this infection existed in South America prior to contact),[4] and pertussis" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_ep... European colonization was significantly easier because something like 50-90% of the population was gone, 1) causing Europeans to think the land was 'virgin wilderness', with no strong indigenous land claim 2) making it easier for Europeans to conquer the local population, and 3) leaving improved lands that were easier to settle. > led to much higher death rates when groups clashed Do you have any numbers putting those rates into perspective? What I've found says it's a relatively small factor. > The narrative of European immigrants wiping out the tribal groups is mostly a modern fiction I have no idea of what are you talking about. The California genocide isn't a modern fiction. The forced relocations and ethnic cleansings of the "Five Civilized Tribes" isn't a modern fiction. The "Battle" at Wounded Knee was a US fiction about a massacre. I don't even see how this "whataboutism" is supposed to work. US government policy was directly based on white supremacy. It ended up with horrific consequences. We teach those as bad things. So that makes similar contemporary abuses good? Somehow? How?

by t-3 5y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

> The names, languages, and cultures of many native groups are completely unknown due to genocide and forced integration. Now that I understand what you're referring to, sure, absolutely. A apologize for not getting your point there immediately, since it now seems so obvious. The Chihuahan and Sonoran deserts are certainly unforgiving landscapes for human settlement, even more so without access to groundwater. But they don't represent the full range of landscapes and ecosystems of the "desert southwest" - the northern half of both what is now AZ and NM is still relatively dry compared to areas east of the 100th meridian, but has lots more opportunities for water-requiring civilization-al stuff (especially along valleys like the Rio Grande). Places like Bandelier and Gila show evidence of sedentary farming that lasted for (at least) hundreds of years. Yes, this is a different ecosystem and climate from the desert areas described in the article you linked to, but just as much a part of the human history of this part of the world.

eesmith 5y ago

So if I understand you right, Namibia lacks the "trappings of what present-day humans think of as civilization" because many San live as hunter-gatherers? The link you gave describes people who live on the margin; "peripheral members of the Puebloan culture". Not "most of the native groups", which is the phrase yous used earlier. Yes, many modern people don't have a sense of the pre-Spanish history of the Southwest. How is their ignorance relevant? > Artifacts are not history PaulDavisThe1st wrote "I suspect that the Tewa/Pueblo people in general would be a little troubled by the idea that they "left almost no history" behind." The current buildings of Taos Pueblo, as an example, started about 1,000 years ago. And they have a detailed oral history. This history helps understand the physical evidence. I'll quote from https://orias.berkeley.edu/resources-teachers/societies-americas/ancestral-pueblo https://orias.berkeley.edu/resources-teachers/societies-amer... : ] Consultation and collaboration with Pueblo people and scholars has changed the way that archaeologists think about migration away from Mesa Verde. Now, based on Tewa oral history, researchers understand that Mesa Verde people simply moved farther east, towards the Rio Grande region of northern New Mexico, where many of their descendants still live today. Using oral history, archaeology, and soil science, archaeologists have been able to come up with new ideas about the end of Mesa Verde. Even though there was a drought at the end of the time that people lived at the site, we can see that the environment was only one of the things that led people to move. The conditions when people moved weren’t much worse than they had been before. (Emphasis mine.) > everything died so we traveled through the hellish lands of death until we reached a place with water What are you talking about? Here are stores from the Cochiti - https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/sw/tci/index.htm https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/sw/tci/index.htm . I couldn't find something like what what you described. Or, "The oldest tradition of the people of Acoma and Laguna indicates that they lived on some island; that their homes were destroyed by tidal waves, earthquakes, and red-hot stones from the sky. They fled and landed on a low, swampy coast. From here they migrated to the northwest, and wherever they made a long stay they built a "White City" (Kush-kut-ret)" - http://www.legendsofnativeamerica.com/region_southwest/legends/CreationofSummerandWinter.php http://www.legendsofnativeamerica.com/region_southwest/legen... . In that story, things died because it was too cold, until Summer and Winter came to an agreement. And as I quoted earlier, "The conditions when people moved weren’t much worse than they had been before."

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
to be fair to t-3, they seem to have some real focus on the Chihuahan and Sonoran deserts, and I suspect that things may indeed have been a little different there than the areas occupied by the Tewa/Pueblo peoples and even the Hopi.
- eesmith 5y ago
  I think you're being generous. "American west" covers a lot of area. The idea that the people there 'lacked resources for widespread access to fire' is preposterous. And t-3's own example shows the Jumanos 'developed a high skill in tanning buffalo and deer hides from which they made clothing and moccasins', the and the Mansos women 'cover themselves from the waist down with two deerskins', so definitely with access to resources from which to make clothing. That they didn't is a different thing.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    The only recent human population that lacked fire was the Tasmanians. They of course had fire when Tasmania was still connected to Australia, but lost the secret, probably in some catastrophe that wiped out hereditary fire-keepers. Tasmanians were almost exterminated by British occupiers conducting safaris.

scythe 5y ago

>The names, languages, and cultures of many native groups are completely unknown due to genocide and forced integration. This is post hoc ergo propter hoc. The history was lost because the Spaniards burned all the books, with the exception of stuff that was never written down in the first place. The Romans did plenty of genocide and forced integration but we didn't lose the history of their predecessors because they didn't intentionally destroy it all. >Much of the time, they lacked resources for widespread access to fire, clothing materials, or sedentary farming This bears little resemblance to the actual history of the Southwest, which was absolutely agricultural: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_agriculture_in_the_Southwestern_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_agriculture_in_the... and one of the few civilizations to independently develop the use of cement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Grande_Ruins_National_Monument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Grande_Ruins_National_Mon... (e.g.) They also made clothing not only from animal hides but from furs and yucca fibres. Native trade networks extended nearly across the continent, although mostly by local connections. Durable goods such as fiber could easily have made it to the desert. However, they did often wear little clothing, because it's damned hot in the Southwest.

ncmncm 5y ago
Most American cultures were wiped out largely by smallpox, measles and other Eurasian diseases before the Spanish got around to most places.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  I'd be careful with language like this. My impression is that "they were wiped out by smallpox" is the sort of thing that infuriates native Americans, because it is implies that their cultures were destroyed, a claim they very much dispute. Yes, populations were massively reduced by european diseases, but in most cases (all? I don't know) it did not wipe out the cultures. It have a dramatic impact on them, and did set the stage, of course, for the subsequently arriving colonialists to attempt to continue the process in person (with varying degrees of success).
  - 5y ago

floor2 5y ago

While you're correct about the native people often living as nomads and lacking clothing or permanent structures, it's worth clarifying the "genocide" claim which is a source of mass misunderstanding about American history. To be clear- many indigenous groups lived as distinct tribes for decades or centuries which then disappeared, but essentially none of them were due to direct contact with immigrants from Europe. Disease, drought, inter-tribal warfare wiped out the vast majority. The introduction of guns and horses to tribes that had lived in a state of intergenerational conflict led to much higher death rates when groups clashed. Even relatively minor diseases can lead to deaths when the entire tribe needs to keep moving daily to follow a herd of animals. The narrative of European immigrants wiping out the tribal groups is mostly a modern fiction, heavily signal-boosted by Chinese & Russian propaganda to undermine Western human rights demands by turning contemporary abuses into a "whataboutism" of an imagined past.

eesmith 5y ago
> Disease, drought, inter-tribal warfare wiped out the vast majority. To be clear, disease was by far the biggest factor. To be even more clear, diseases introduced via Europeans. Wikipedia's list includes "smallpox, bubonic plague, chickenpox, cholera, the common cold, diphtheria, influenza, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, sexually transmitted diseases (with the possible exception of syphilis), typhoid, typhus, tuberculosis (although a form of this infection existed in South America prior to contact),[4] and pertussis" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_ep... European colonization was significantly easier because something like 50-90% of the population was gone, 1) causing Europeans to think the land was 'virgin wilderness', with no strong indigenous land claim 2) making it easier for Europeans to conquer the local population, and 3) leaving improved lands that were easier to settle. > led to much higher death rates when groups clashed Do you have any numbers putting those rates into perspective? What I've found says it's a relatively small factor. > The narrative of European immigrants wiping out the tribal groups is mostly a modern fiction I have no idea of what are you talking about. The California genocide isn't a modern fiction. The forced relocations and ethnic cleansings of the "Five Civilized Tribes" isn't a modern fiction. The "Battle" at Wounded Knee was a US fiction about a massacre. I don't even see how this "whataboutism" is supposed to work. US government policy was directly based on white supremacy. It ended up with horrific consequences. We teach those as bad things. So that makes similar contemporary abuses good? Somehow? How?