Another Stereotype of the Month entry:

A Native replies
Normally these right-wing rants are published on Columbus Day, But I guess Thanksgiving is almost as good an opportunity to denigrate Indians.

Needless to say, Thornton's revision of the Thanksgiving revisionism needs revision. Setting the record straight is Wade Wofford, who responds to Thornton with the comments in italics. I've edited Wade's comments slightly for clarity, and added a few of my own in the regular font.

>> Who does not warm to that iconic scene memorialized in thousands of grammar-school decorations末doughty Puritans and noble Indians feasting together on the fruits of the New World earth graciously provided by the native hosts? That is how we like to imagine the Indian, as the Noble Savage, uncorrupted by the decadent Old World that the adventurous Puritans were themselves fleeing. <<

Huh? That might be how some wool headed liberals might "like to imagine" Indians, it's NOT how everybody else does....Indians themselves have a realistic view; MOST non-Indians if anything have a negatively stereotypic view which allows them to ease the pangs of conscience over genocide & conquest. Although to be fair, most were simply taught lies & never thought to question them.

>> We have heard the tale repeatedly, even in cartoons like Disney's Pocahontas, itself testimony to how mainstream and orthodox is the supposed revision of orthodoxy. Yet in setting the record straight, some revisionists have perpetuated an equally mythic picture of Indians, one that distorts and loses sight of their complex humanity. <<

Why does this make me suspect that his definition of "complex humanity" equates to "were just as venal as Whites, hence Whites are not to be blamed for the Conquest"?

>> Increased contact with Indians soon disabused Europeans of these idealizations. For ages before Columbus, warfare, scalping, torture, and massacres of women and children were going on across the continent, as attested by the archaeological record. <<

Misleading....What the archaeological record REALLY tells us is that warfare was LESS intense before Whites moved in, that there are only 1-2 archaeological sites with "possible" evidence of pre-Columbian scalping, that "torture" is rarely if ever recorded archaeologically, and that "massacres of women and children" were rare.

By citing "things" but NOT frequency, he paints a false picture. Hey, *I* could just as (if not more so) truthfully say that "the archaeological record attests that cannibalism, dismemberment, enslavement, pedophilia, butchery of whole clans & families, genocide of whole tribes and peoples, and socio-economic inequity was going on ALL OVER EUROPE."

See Scalping, Torture, and Mutilation by Indians for more on the subject.

>> Nor should we be surprised. Like all human peoples all over the earth, Indians competed violently for scant resources with others who needed them just as badly. <<

Nonsense! MOST populations (Indian & otherwise) existed at low enough densities that resources weren't "scant". It was only in congested cities (NOT present in the Americas, what cities existed here had the assistance of quite capable urban planning!) during extreme periods of shortage...during drought or such...that real shortage existed. Even then, "violent competition" was not assured....Often enough, NOBODY would have a hoard of resources, the "resource" simply wasn't there or was thinly scattered...so that either ALL went without or it was a case of who found it first. You didn't get it by using violence on other people (who were likely related to you by ties of kinship anyway).

Neh, this sounds like he's trying to project EUROPEAN type feudalistic violence...or 19th century theorizations of "brutal, prehistoric man"...onto the Americas.

>> Thus in 1841 the painter George Catlin apostrophized the Indian and the bison as "the joint and original tenants of the soil, and fugitives together from the approach of civilized man." <<

Well, yes...there IS a great deal of truth in this. It's called sustainable subsistence patterns, and can be learned by trial & error if nothing else.

>> Today, the Indian as Noble Savage ecologist is firmly lodged in the national consciousness. Unfortunately, the Indian Ecologist is a myth no more true than the picture of Puritan-Indian harmony. Like all peoples in human history, American Indians exploited their harsh environment in order to survive <<

False, and revealing of the bias he's projecting.

And "exploit" does NOT mean they were not ecologists or "in harmony with nature". DEER "exploit" their environment by eating leaves, BISON by eating grass, HERONS by eating fish. This natural subsistence "exploiting" actually FUELS the ecosystem, without it nothing would exist. ("Circle of life", and all that). For that matter, Native Americans were plant domesticators of unrivaled ability! In the productivity of the crops they domesticated, and in the sheer NUMBER of crops they domesticated, they far exceeded anything the Old World had to offer.

>> limited only by small numbers and crude technologies. Pre-contact Indians used fire extensively to clear forests for farming <<

False. Fire was used SELECTIVELY by Indians in a FEW locations to clear brush they'd already cut, and to fell & burn trees (those they didn't have a more direct use for) that they'd already killed by girdling. Just "using fire extensively to clear forests" translates to a devastating forest fire WORSE than exists in nature (where such fires rarely "clear forests")...and would be of NO USE to Indian farmers. It would clear MORE land than they could use, destroy forest resources they relied on, AND lead to excessive soil erosion.

>> promote tree species more useful to them <<

Not by clearing forests through extensive use of fire, it wouldn't. Indians "promoted tree species more useful to them" by PLANTING & transplanting such species, and by selectively removing competing trees BY HAND.

>> and facilitate travel and hunting. <<

I hate to tell this fool, but a burnt out forest is HARDER to travel in...lots of soot & ash, crusted soil that breaks under a step & will abrade the ankle, NO SHADE, lots of ragged stumps & half burned branches lurking under the ash to impale or snag the traveler....

And any game that survives the damned fire, has to leave afterwards for greener pastures. It takes years for the ecosystem to regenerate to anything near as high a level of forage & cover.

Indians killed "whole herds"?
>> Whole herds of game were driven off cliffs, with no regard whatsoever for modern ecological conceptions of waste or conservation. <<

Nope, this is pure stereotypic myth. Indians were recorded as driving SMALL GROUPS of bison off cliffs...NEVER whole herds. And they used what they drove.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS have found some cases of massive drops that were "only partly harvested"...but it's also found many that show no signs of human harvesting at all. Bluntly, a spooked herd will run over a cliff all by itself. *IF* humans are nearby & find this before the meat has rotted too badly, they'll quite naturally enough harvest what they can of it. But there is NO evidence that humans (Indian or otherwise) ever "drove whole herds off cliffs" "without any regard whatsoever" re "waste or conservation".

>> Nor did Indians worship a bountiful Mother Earth. <<

Worship? Probably not. Revere and honor? Quite possibly.

>> Contrary to modern Romantics who take for granted an adequate supply of cheap, safe food <<

Snicker...has he seen supermarket prices lately? Or read up on food contamination occurrences? On unapproved GMO contamination of the food supply? On the health consequences of junk food? Of a modern diet high in sugar and starch?

>> Indians were practical realists who were concerned with survival and who depended on animal protein for nutrition. <<

Stereotypic generalization. MANY Indians were agriculturalists who depended PRIMARILY on plants for their nutrition. Crops like BEANS & Tarwi & Amaranth & Quinoa are efficient protein sources. Animal protein often supplemented agricultural production among these people, but the PRIMARY subsistence...the one DEPENDED on, was their crops. Vanish the animals & these people would still survive....Vanish their CROPS & they'd starve.

There's no necessary conflict between honoring the earth's bounty and being a practical realist. Every people in history has realized that to achieve a good result, they can 1) pray for it, 2) take steps to make it happen, or 3) both.

>> Nor did they worry about waste or extinction, concepts absent from their world-view. <<

FALSE. Indian oral tradition SPECIFICALLY notes certain ancient animals that no longer exist anywhere (ranging from giant beaver, to short faced bears, to giant deer, etc.).

Indian culture mandated a respectful treatment of sustainable resources, such as prayers & rituals (sometimes lengthy) before the harvest of a tree. Indian culture also often had built in conservation measures...things like dictates that you could only harvest every 7th specimen of whatever type of plant you were looking for, a rather strong precaution against overharvesting.

Perhaps Thornton means Indians didn't "worry" about waste or extinction because neither one happened under their sensible approach to life.

See Dennis Prager and The Ecological Indian for more on these ecological arguments.

>> Indeed, in the religion of many tribes dead game was reincarnated末thus the more animals one killed, the more there were. <<

Did this guy flunk math 101? If an animal is reincarnated, AT MOST you've got the SAME number of animals...not "more".

I think he's talking about a proportional increase in animals. If you kill five, five new ones appear. If you kill 500, 500 new ones appear. Etc.

But still, Thornton's point is ridiculous. If animals die and are reborn in a one-to-one correspondence, how would that influence the Indians' behavior? They wouldn't gain anything by killing an animal, so why would they do it for any reason other than necessity?

More significantly, in these religions there was ALSO a little codicil to the effect that the spirit of the game species in question watched over it...and if humans mistreated the species by hunting more than they needed, or wasting them, new animals would be withheld as a punishment to humans.

And...some tribes ALSO believed that hunting malfeasances would ALSO be punished by sickness being sent to punish the hunter(s) in question...as well as any accessories to the crime.

>> Again, in this the Indians were simply behaving as all peoples have in human history <<

Yeah, really sounds like this guy is trying to whitewash European misbehavior...by slandering the victims in one breath, and then by claiming "all peoples" were just as bad (i.e., Whites weren't any worse!).

>> for whom the natural world was filled with fearsome, fickle, destructive forces indifferent to human survival. <<

False. The Indian worldview SPECIFICALLY states that the natural world was full of many spirits CONCERNED with humanity, whom could be enticed or swayed (by humans showing qualities making them WORTHY of assistance) to aid human survival. Some such "forces" were noted as having helped create or save humanity in the past.

>> For all pre-modern humans, starvation and famine were concerns more important than whether or not their actions damaged the environment, threatened animals with extinction, or disrupted some presumed primal harmony with Mother Earth. They were worried about eating one more day. <<

False. This guy REALLY loves making those negative generalizations, doesn't he?

Face it, ANYBODY would know that if you get rid of a forest, you won't be able to harvest forest products from it. That if you divert all of a stream for irrigation, you won't be able to harvest fish or shellfish from the now dry stream bed.

Thornton's no racist?
>> Yet to point out that American Indians were no different from other human beings is to invite charges of racism <<

To point out any real universals is NOT to invite charges of racism; to falsely manufacture blanket slanders (in a seeming attempt to whitewash European actions) as this author has done...DOES "invite (nay, MANDATE!) charges of racism"

>> or at the very least of being insensitive to the real suffering European contact left in its wake. That the European discovery of the Americas was a disaster for the peoples living there is a truism, though we should remember that bacteria and microbes did that most of the killing. <<

And that Europeans callously introduced these bacteria & microbes....that they WERE conscious of said introductions taking place as the result of THEIR activities, yet still went blithely on irregardless.

And that they "thanked God for these introductions" (which freed up previously occupied lands, cleared fields and all, for their tenancy), and that there are indications that on rare occasions they even DELIBERATELY made such introductions.

See Genocide by Any Other Name... for more on the subject of blaming Europeans for the diseases they brought.

>> Yet all human history is a tragic record of vast movements of people searching for resources, and willing to use violence against those who already possess them. <<

Translation: He's trying to rationalize European acts of genocide & conquest as a natural, universal human search for survival...instead as greed and indifference to any human suffering induced by their greed.

Yep. That's how I read it too.

>> The Persians, Romans, Arabs, Huns, Mongols, Turks, Bantu, Khmer末all wrought devastation on the peoples unfortunate enough to be in their paths. For the Indians, the European invasion of the New World was one more act in the tragedy of history. <<

Yup, he's trying to shed European blame by smearing it all over the rest of humanity.

>> Moreover, reducing the European contact with American Indians to a therapeutic melodrama of good and evil ultimately dehumanizes both sides. Loading the Indian with our mythic obsessions does nothing, of course, to change the past, and actively distracts us from solving the very real problems that too many American Indians face today, none of whom are served by our Golden-Age daydreams. <<

Translation: He's trying to claim that admitting Indians WERE victims deserving of compensation, and blaming Whites for the victimization, will "distract us from solving" American Indian problems.

Hmmm, wonder if he's another one of these hypocritical, self indulgent fools who feel that "the Indian problem will be solved if Indians will just drop their grievances, disappear into the mainstream population, and stop reminding us (by their mere existence) that there IS a problem"...?

>> No Indian benefits from Ward Churchill's fake Indian identity <<

Nope, but more than a few Whites did. His lies gained status for his university, sold lots of books, and so on. Can you spell "cultural exploitation"?

>> one that worked because it traded on the myths that have been enshrined in university Indian studies programs. <<

Nonsense! It worked because the man was a dammed leftist fanatic whose rhetoric made him the darling of the leftist ivory tower elite. If he'd taken a CONSERVATIVE right wing approach to defending Native America & blaming Whites for their sins (easy enough to do, this is a MORAL issue, not a left vs. right wing political one)...he'd have been shunned by universities & academics everywhere.

Slight difference of opinion here: Conservatives will rarely if ever blame whites for their sins because the conservative philosophy is all about preserving the status quo. And the status quo is a self-serving power structure in which whites have risen to the top through allegedly righteous behavior (prayer, hard work, etc.). No selfish body of people like today's conservatives will ever admit their sins and thus concede some of their power.

>> No Indian benefits from the NCAA's attempt to punish schools with Indian mascots <<

False. Getting rid of stereotypes CAN be quite beneficial to Indians...after all, it's them that these stereotypes are applied to in real life...it's them that are degraded by almost always negative imagery.

I'd go further and flatly say that every Indian benefits from fighting mascots and other stereotypes. See Team Names and Mascots and The Harm of Native Stereotyping:  Facts and Evidence for more on the subject.

>> 末an act of monumental hypocrisy, by the way, given that the NCAA is an organization making billions from black athletes admitted to universities they are unqualified for and can't graduate from. <<

No argument there. But saying that a group is ALSO guilty of "sin A" doesn't mean that it's hypocritical of them to fight "sin B". One step at a time. And at least some of these athletes DO graduate, or DO go on to lucrative careers...these athletes would NOT be better off by not having attended college at all. What NEEDS to be done is to place more emphasis on academics...and the mainstream (largely White) population is at least as guilty of such exploitation as the NCAA. And it's the mainstream population that IS guilty of hypocrisy here...enjoying and profiting from black participation in sports, even as they discourage many blacks from participating at the upper levels of American society.

No benefit to preserving sacred sites?
>> No Indian benefits when business projects that could bring economic benefits to a region <<

To a whole region, or mostly to the WHITE inhabitants of the region...or worse yet, to White owned corporations from OUTSIDE the region?

Few mainstream business projects are set up with the intent of helping Indian people in the region. That's why Indian gaming has been so beneficial.

>> are stalled because they might offend some Indian religious belief that in many cases is very likely a modern invention. <<

Uh, the only thing I can even vaguely imagine he might be referring to has to do halting construction that would destroy Indian burials & sacred sites.

Religious sites likewise. If something (earthen ceremonial mound, medicine wheel, etc.) had been constructed at a site, it is by definition "sacred" (nobody builds a huge ass mound aligned with celestial movements just for fun!). If a natural site is sacred, the law goes by documentation...you can't stall a construction project by making a spurious last minute claim!

Asserting that Native religious beliefs are a "modern invention" is a blatant insult to Indian people. I presume Thornton doesn't give us an example of this because he can't.

Thornton presents a false choice here. The choice is rarely between doing a business project and not doing it. It's usually between doing it the cheap and easy way and doing it a slightly more expensive but sensitive way. Major corporations can afford to earn a tribe's goodwill instead of a few more bucks; they just don't want to do the right thing.

>> Most important, Noble Savage Indianism serves an identity politics that reduces individuals to some fantasy group heritage, one predicated on their grievances as victims, and then demands benefits for the group so defined. But such politics run counter to the fundamental premises of our government. Like everyone else, American Indians are individuals first: their rights are those our political system confers on individuals, <<

Uh, not quite. Many American Indians are ALSO citizens of their respective tribes, and these tribes have certain rights as sovereign nations AND as partners with the U.S. in certain legally binding treaty agreements.

Thus they have the SAME rights as individuals as any other citizen of the U.S., PLUS "sometimes" additional rights passed down to them as members of tribal nations...rights guaranteed by federal law, and typically granted them in exchange for old land cessions. This is analogous to all citizens having the "same rights", but "some" citizens ALSO having the right to income from trust funds set up by prudent ancestors.

Congress must grant group "rights" a thousand times a day. This state gets a block grant that only its citizens can use; that state gets a blanket exemption that only its citizens benefit from. Married people, veterans, or the disabled or get this tax credit; corporations, farmers, or churches get that tax exemption. Etc. No one has ever turned down a "group benefit" like the above because he was an individual first and a group member second.

Indians aren't demanding "benefits" because they're "victims." They're demanding the US uphold its treaties because they're signatories to those treaties. The US owes them what it agreed to pay them in exchange for their land.

>> and that is how they should be treated末as unique individuals, not as the mascots of some imagined idealized identity invented by whites to gratify their mythic longings. <<

Yeah...but peoples' rights as individuals DON'T negate the rights of groups. Treaty obligations to sovereign tribal nations DO exist and are not erased by the rights of anybody as an individual. If you aren't willing to acknowledge those treaty rights, then the treaty is abrogated...and the U.S. has no legal claim on those lands.

>> A lie liberates and benefits no one. <<

Yes. That's why we've helpfully corrected Thornton's lies and misstatements.

>> Instead, we should proceed with a clear-eyed recognition of the tragic complexity of history, with all its contradictions, failed good intentions, and mixed motives. And we should remember that in America at least, individuals, not fabricated group identities, are the locus of rights and responsibilities and value. <<

Whoa Nellie! First off, Indian tribal identity PREDATES the U.S., and is NOT a fabrication! Second, it is CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (re both federal AND state constitutions) & the relationship BETWEEN individuals AND THE GOVERNMENT...that is "the locus of rights and responsibilities and values". The U.S. is NOT an anarchy, rights are NOT vested ONLY in the individual....Our system SPECIFICALLY gives many rights to governments (federal, state, tribal...) at the expense of the individual.

>> So this Thanksgiving Day, rather than indulging our gratifying myths, let's remember the hard truth of universal human evil and failure <<

AND the fact that this human evil & failure was NOT always equally apportioned, that NOT all peoples & cultures were equally guilty of all things. (Try telling a Jew he's guilty for the Holocaust, or a Tibetan that he's guilty of the transAtlantic slave trade!)

>> at the same time giving thanks that despite all the suffering and misery of history, on this land a world was created were millions of individuals live free from the violence and hunger and tyranny our ancestors had to endure. <<

Yep, we SHOULD be thankful that the European invaders no longer explicitly practice slavery & genocide towards non-Europeans, and that they've become civilized enough to decry tyranny. Oh, while we're at it, let's also give thanks to the Iroquois for the explicit political example that led to our American constitutional democracy...and the other Native American tribes whose citizens' rights & freedoms were looked upon enviously by European immigrants...without all of whom we'd not have the freedoms we do.

Kenuchelover

Thanks, Wade. See Indians Gave Us Enlightenment for more on the subject.

Rob

Related links
Dennis Prager and The Ecological Indian
Ten little Pilgrims and Indians
This ain't no party:  a Columbus Day rant

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