4 ms·

Yes exactly. The myths of native people being hyperegalitarian, one-with-nature types started because colonists came upon cultures in the North East woodlands.

by culi 2mo ago

Yes exactly. The myths of native people being hyperegalitarian, one-with-nature types started because colonists came upon cultures in the North East woodlands. Those same people, just a few decades before that were living in Cahokia which was at one point larger than any city in Europe. It was a massive urban city that was also very hierarchical. The hyperegalitarian Algonquian and Haudenosaunee/Iroquois people were basically the result of a successful political revolution that decided to organize themselves like that in response to the hierarchies they experienced.

suddenlybananas 2mo ago
The Iroquois had slaves, they weren't hyperegalitarian.
- I-M-S 2mo ago
  The Iroquois did not have slaves. You might be thinking of individuals that were sometimes taken as compensation for people killed in battle. However, these people were then fully assimilated into the society with all the rights and obligations of anyone in the clan (in most cases, they would even take the name of the deceased). To call these people "slaves" is much more revealing of the Western civilization than that of First Nations.
  - suddenlybananas 2mo ago
    Did those people have the right to leave or do what they wanted? https://www.jstor.org/stable/482790?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/482790?seq=1 Read this paper and the contemporary accounts and tell me that's not slavery. >To modern Westerners, the use of such a kinship metaphor suggests and is believed to reflect genuine nurturing and closeness; however, in Africa and elsewhere it conveys an entirely different meaning: authority and subordination. >Villagers, forming a gauntlet and armed with clubs, fire-brands, sticks, and other weapons, greeted the prisoners and rained down on these hapless individuals blows designed to inflict pain but not to kill This was often followed by torture and public humiliation and then deliverance to the grieving families, whose "matrons then chose either to adopt or to execute them," or both If you look at pages 11-13, there's a discussion of ritual torture to prevent captives from escaping. 13-14 deal with the torture and execution of unruly captives. 15-16 deal with the etymological relationship between "slave" and "pet/livestock" in Iroquonian languages like Mohawk. Pages 17 and 18 discuss people preferring suicide to capture and the sexual exploitation of female captives.
    - I-M-S 2mo ago
      I put much more credence into lived experiences than into academic journals. There's plethora of examples in which children/teens of the settlers taken by First Nations would refuse to go back (especially females, which had little rights in the American society back then). Conversely, First Nations children/teens that were taken by the settlers would almost without exception risk life and limb to escape their newfound circumstances.
      - suddenlybananas 2mo ago
        The personal accounts which are the data for this article are in fact lived experiences. You can read them in their own words.
      - Jensson 2mo ago
        You know there were lived experiences of black people who didn't mind being slaves as well and were able to roam freely? There is a reason we don't just go by anecdotes, anecdotally white people were very nice to their slaves and never did anything bad to them and let them do whatever they want.
      - themaninthedark 2mo ago
        There are a plethora of examples of slavery as well.... >The ways in which captives were treated differed widely among Native American groups. Captives could be enslaved for life, killed, or adopted. In some cases, captives were only adopted after a period of slavery. For example, the Iroquoian peoples (not just the Iroquois tribes) often adopted captives, but for religious reasons there was a process, procedures, and many seasons when such adoptions were delayed until the proper spiritual times. >In the cultural practices of the Iroquoian peoples, also rooted in a matrilineal system with men and women having equal value, any child would have the status determined by the woman's clan. More typically, tribes took women and children captives for adoption, as they tended to adapt more easily into new ways. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_Native_Americans_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_Native_Americans...
- culi 2mo ago
  The Haudenosaunee are radically democratic, place a very strong focus on gender equality, and possess then-unmatched levels of horizontal power-sharing
  - suddenlybananas 2mo ago
    They also had slaves.
curioadu 2mo ago
While many Amerindians had impressive achievements considering their almost complete isolation from the rest of the world, your claim seems misleading. > At its apex around 1100 AD, the city [Cahokia] covered about 6 square miles (16 km2), included about 120 earthworks in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions, and had a population of between 15,000 and 20,000 people.[5][a] > During the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, the population of the city of Rome is conventionally estimated at one million inhabitants. And there are much better examples according to some sources of large cities in the Americas than Cahokia. > Hernan Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan on 8 November 1519. Although there are no precise numbers, the city's population has been estimated at between 200,000 and 400,000 inhabitants,[27] placing Tenochtitlan among the largest cities in the world at that time.[28] Compared to the cities of Europe, only Paris, Venice and Constantinople might have rivaled it. > In the 9th and 10th centuries, Constantinople had a population of between 500,000 and 800,000.[60] > With the restoration of firm central government, the empire became fabulously wealthy. The population was rising (estimates for Constantinople in the 12th century vary from some 100,000 to 500,000), and towns and cities across the realm flourished. > Kaifeng-Dongjing became largest and most prosperous city in China, with a population of over 400,000 living both inside and outside the city wall. The historian Jacques Gernet provides a lively picture of life in this period in his Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276, which often draws on Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, a nostalgic memoir of the city.[14] > Around 750 AD, Chang'an was called a "million-man city" in Chinese records; most modern estimates put the population within the walls of the Tang city at around 800,000–1,000,000.[1]

by culi 2mo ago

suddenlybananas 2mo ago

The Iroquois had slaves, they weren't hyperegalitarian.

I-M-S 2mo ago
The Iroquois did not have slaves. You might be thinking of individuals that were sometimes taken as compensation for people killed in battle. However, these people were then fully assimilated into the society with all the rights and obligations of anyone in the clan (in most cases, they would even take the name of the deceased). To call these people "slaves" is much more revealing of the Western civilization than that of First Nations.
- suddenlybananas 2mo ago
  Did those people have the right to leave or do what they wanted? https://www.jstor.org/stable/482790?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/482790?seq=1 Read this paper and the contemporary accounts and tell me that's not slavery. >To modern Westerners, the use of such a kinship metaphor suggests and is believed to reflect genuine nurturing and closeness; however, in Africa and elsewhere it conveys an entirely different meaning: authority and subordination. >Villagers, forming a gauntlet and armed with clubs, fire-brands, sticks, and other weapons, greeted the prisoners and rained down on these hapless individuals blows designed to inflict pain but not to kill This was often followed by torture and public humiliation and then deliverance to the grieving families, whose "matrons then chose either to adopt or to execute them," or both If you look at pages 11-13, there's a discussion of ritual torture to prevent captives from escaping. 13-14 deal with the torture and execution of unruly captives. 15-16 deal with the etymological relationship between "slave" and "pet/livestock" in Iroquonian languages like Mohawk. Pages 17 and 18 discuss people preferring suicide to capture and the sexual exploitation of female captives.
  - I-M-S 2mo ago
    I put much more credence into lived experiences than into academic journals. There's plethora of examples in which children/teens of the settlers taken by First Nations would refuse to go back (especially females, which had little rights in the American society back then). Conversely, First Nations children/teens that were taken by the settlers would almost without exception risk life and limb to escape their newfound circumstances.
    - suddenlybananas 2mo ago
      The personal accounts which are the data for this article are in fact lived experiences. You can read them in their own words.
    - Jensson 2mo ago
      You know there were lived experiences of black people who didn't mind being slaves as well and were able to roam freely? There is a reason we don't just go by anecdotes, anecdotally white people were very nice to their slaves and never did anything bad to them and let them do whatever they want.
    - themaninthedark 2mo ago
      There are a plethora of examples of slavery as well.... >The ways in which captives were treated differed widely among Native American groups. Captives could be enslaved for life, killed, or adopted. In some cases, captives were only adopted after a period of slavery. For example, the Iroquoian peoples (not just the Iroquois tribes) often adopted captives, but for religious reasons there was a process, procedures, and many seasons when such adoptions were delayed until the proper spiritual times. >In the cultural practices of the Iroquoian peoples, also rooted in a matrilineal system with men and women having equal value, any child would have the status determined by the woman's clan. More typically, tribes took women and children captives for adoption, as they tended to adapt more easily into new ways. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_Native_Americans_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_Native_Americans...
culi 2mo ago
The Haudenosaunee are radically democratic, place a very strong focus on gender equality, and possess then-unmatched levels of horizontal power-sharing
- suddenlybananas 2mo ago
  They also had slaves.

curioadu 2mo ago

While many Amerindians had impressive achievements considering their almost complete isolation from the rest of the world, your claim seems misleading. > At its apex around 1100 AD, the city [Cahokia] covered about 6 square miles (16 km2), included about 120 earthworks in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions, and had a population of between 15,000 and 20,000 people.[5][a] > During the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, the population of the city of Rome is conventionally estimated at one million inhabitants. And there are much better examples according to some sources of large cities in the Americas than Cahokia. > Hernan Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan on 8 November 1519. Although there are no precise numbers, the city's population has been estimated at between 200,000 and 400,000 inhabitants,[27] placing Tenochtitlan among the largest cities in the world at that time.[28] Compared to the cities of Europe, only Paris, Venice and Constantinople might have rivaled it. > In the 9th and 10th centuries, Constantinople had a population of between 500,000 and 800,000.[60] > With the restoration of firm central government, the empire became fabulously wealthy. The population was rising (estimates for Constantinople in the 12th century vary from some 100,000 to 500,000), and towns and cities across the realm flourished. > Kaifeng-Dongjing became largest and most prosperous city in China, with a population of over 400,000 living both inside and outside the city wall. The historian Jacques Gernet provides a lively picture of life in this period in his Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276, which often draws on Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, a nostalgic memoir of the city.[14] > Around 750 AD, Chang'an was called a "million-man city" in Chinese records; most modern estimates put the population within the walls of the Tang city at around 800,000–1,000,000.[1]