Monday, March 15, 2010

Facts Trump Fiction

For almost 200 years literature, plays and in modern times, TV and radio have created a mythos of the noble American Indian being cruelly oppressed and mistreated by the White Man. This revisionism began in the early 1800s in books and theatre and continues to this day. One need only listen to NPR awhile to hear this blather in real time. What all this re-writing lacks is any link to original sources or facts. Simply put, most of this mythos is sheer fiction.

Reading that first sentence stating the mythos reveals one internal contradiction in it. How could the White Man "mistreat" the American Indians ? They are people and had a culture and controlled the continent. The answer was given in my blog post of Columbus Day, October 12, 2009: The American Indian culture and technology was very, very primitive compared to the western European culture and technology. There was no equality of ability or capability or even of simple social organization at all.

Last week's Book of the Week (March 8 - Changing Military Patterns of the Great Plains Indians by Frank Raymond Secoy) provided a large amount of first hand information gutting the mythos to shreds. Before 1500, the American Indians had no horses and no metal tools. That means they had to walk everywhere and had no tomahawks, iron arrow points and no guns. This is irrefutable. The reality of the diffusion of the horse and guns meant that neither were present in the Great Plains in significant quantities until beginning around 1650 and the full diffusion was not complete until about 1800.

Before the horse and gun, Indian warfare used clubs and lances with hardened wooden or stone points, and bows with stone tipped arrows. The bows had little penetration power. "Armor" was folded hides to create layers or layers of hides held by glue. Sand-glue coatings gave some external hardness. With six or so layers, an arrow or lance could not penetrate. Hide shields were used and could ward off arrows.

The reality is that an Egyptian army with bronze weapons could have routed any Indian force on the Great Plains. A force of Greeks under anyone like Alexander the Great could have created a huge empire. Genghis Khan could have replicated his empire in the New World with ease. American Indian technology was just so primitive compared to anything in Europe or the Near East for 4,000 years.

The horse arrived via the Spanish and local breeding populations were large enough in the northern New Mexico area around commencing around 1650. What happened ? The Apache developed a Post Horse, Pre-Gun culture and immediately used the technical superiority to attack, kill and enslave neighboring tribes. This was not the White Man - this was the noble Indian, simply acting as people have done for millenia. The Apache simply behaved like the Mongols, Turks and other steppe peoples.

What else ? The Shoshone to the north obtained horses and did the same thing, expanding onto the Great Plains from the west. How did they obtain the horse ? By selling Indian captives as slaves to the Spanish. The "noble" American Indian was a slave merchant.

The gun arrived to the Great Plains from a long trading line stretching back to France and England: furs - primarily beaver - were traded for metal axes (tomahawks), iron pots and guns. The Spanish forbade selling guns to Indians. The French and English would sell them, hence the gun diffused from a completely different direction from the horse.

Tribes with access to guns pushed out and massacred tribes without guns. The "noble" Indian did that themselves. Tribal cultures were rather different from the woodlands to the plains. Plains Indians like the Sioux were shocked by the cruelty they saw in the woodlands Indians as those Indian mistreated, oppressed and stole their lands: burning prisoners cruelly and cannibalism was unknown to them. Those were standard practiced of the "noble" woodland Indians of the Northeast (i. e., east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio).

I will not reproduce the first hand accounts of Indian cannibalism - they are sickening. The book provides such with documented quotes of persons who saw it.

The early Sioux had an unusual custom: they would weep when greeting strangers. This was misinterpreted by new arrivals such as the Ottawa and Huron, who thought they could easily defeat such "women". Eventually the Sioux acquired guns by training pemmican and other foods to fur traders who needed concentrated, high caloric foods for long journeys into the Canadian fur zones. Then the woodland Indian found out how wrong they were. And with guns, the Sioux were able to encroach onto the northern plains. Beginning around 1775 the Sioux acquired horses and could expand onto the entire Great Plains, pushing out indigenious tribes that depended partially on horticulture for food.

In the south the arrival of guns enabled oppressed tribes to push the Apache back. The Apache resorted to stealing horses and guns from the Spanish. This was helped by the Mexican revolution that ended in 1821 and which left a vaccuum of power in the entire Southwest.

[Aside: to those who hear hispanic baloney about how the US stole the southwest, one can note the Mexicans got independence just 14 years before Texas won its own independence. Mexico had no effective authority over that entire area, as the accounts of Apache successes when Spain's power crumbled proves.]

Over the decades, the horse and gun became available to the entire Great Plains principally from American traders from St. Louis or New Orleans. The Hollywood image of the Plains Indian culture is true, BUT that culture was a new one, being in existence only about 100 years or less. And it derived from and was entirely dependent on trade with the White Man. The entire American Indian mythos is built on sand.

This information is all available in books. TV and the Internet do a lousy job in compiling a complete or true account. One need the facts and sources records that books can provide. Last week's Book of the Week in 100 pages trumps hours upon hours of NPR, TV, and fiction accounts in plays, literature and theatre.

Read books.

Markets

Futures are down for now. I see no significant news. I am holding my puts. On further moves up, Krypto will have sell orders.

Word of the Day

"Bricolage" - noun [?? perhaps $10] a loan word from French that is now in some English dictionaries. It's NOT in the OED or any of my normal paper dictionaries. This word came to me from Woodie, one of the Epicurean campers, who saw it in "Green Days in Brunei", a book by Bruce Sterling (fiction).

Here is the French meaning for "le bricolage" : do-it-yourself; makeshift repair or job; odd jobs. In French, le bricoleur is the handyman, or a do-it-yourselfer.

Dictionary.com gives this for English now: (A) 1.a construction made of whatever materials are at hand; something created from a variety of available things; 2. (in literature) a piece created from diverse resources; 3. (in art) a piece of makeshift handiwork; 4. the use of multiple, diverse research methods. OR (B) Something made or put together using whatever materials happen to be available: "Even the decor is a bricolage, a mix of this and that" (Los Angeles Times).

The English meanings seems to use more of the sense of bric-a-brac than the original French.

From all this, I presume it's a recent adoption in English from the French and its meaning is not yet stable.

Sentence: Obama annouced a new education initiative. He now seems to be the bricoleur trying to perform some emergency bricolage with the pieces of his crumbling presidency.

46 comments:

Spin-em said...

geez bunk..you're all over the Injuns junk today...roaming band of Algonquians pillage and plunder the gold mist?

Bunkerman said...

lolol nahhh .. just re-read that book and found so much good info, I had to write about it again.

Bunkerman said...

the slave trade and cannibalism of some tribes got me motivated.

Spin-em said...

yes ...the word of the day should have been "noble"..lol

Bunkerman said...

haha, but that's a $0 word.

Frosty said...

Bunky...you and your nazi heros gonna complete the national rape, passing health care, crushing the common small business man...of course you will profit via puts and vise peddling...pushing him further into the abyss...you should feel great shame sir.

Spin-em said...

transactin tax making rounds again.....Lloyd needs to do a lil God's work and scare these douchebags

Spin-em said...

sorry Mrs B

Bunkerman said...

guess I should be doing more Obama bashing to get frosty off this rant.

I thought that I've been doing a lot for months ...

No foregiveness for giving him a chance to do good for six months in 2009 ?

Frosty is a harsh taskmaster, not a typical mellow man from the NW.

Frosty said...

current quote from Intrade says that there is a 70% chance that Obamacare will pass, up from 61% a week ago....happy now...pass out the smallpox blankets.

Bunkerman said...

I do call them all racketeers, knaves, crypto-fascists, and / or proto-fascists.

:)

maverick said...

Bman...went to a gun show this weekend to put some handguns in my hand for feel...You must check out The CZ 75 P-01...about a half inch smaller than the reg 75 and much lighter. The feel was superb. The P-01 is a 9mm and the P-06 is .40.
Prolly a good carry gun.

Spin-em said...

guard your horses and push the Apache back mav

maverick said...

Buying some of these guns are better investments than mr hunt's treasures or sharkfolio gems. :)

Frosty said...

Merny...you and Sal ever tag team "jihad jane" during a philly trip...she have dirty feet sir.

Bunkerman said...

interesting mav ... but many of those can't be bought in the PRM due to crypto-fascist gun rules.

Bud said...

frosty put a....uhhh.....'gun'........ in his hand too this weekend.............ya'know......for feel...........except he likes'em thick....and big

Bud said...

hey frosty....do you people consider freddie mercury a national hero ???

Bud said...

good afternoon Bman !!!!!!!!!!


very interesting blog today............i like it........you actually thought about it

Bud said...

Bman do you have HBO ?? i think you should watch the Pacific.............i liked episode1 last night

i am pretty sure you will enjoy it

Spin-em said...

very interesting blog today............i like it........you actually thought about it

can you believe that azzhole???

Bunkerman said...

I had Tivo tape that show, Pacific, on season pass.

Hmmm reminds me - one of the WW II veterans - Sledge - I have his book and read it. Very, very good WW II first hand accont. Maybe a good "Book of the Week"

Hey, I admit I don't have a great idea every day.

Bunkerman said...

I think I wrote about another guy in that show - John Basilone - once. A Medal of Honor winner.

maverick said...

oh forgot about MA laws....maybe change is a coming Bman

Bunkerman said...

My uncle was in the Pacific war & saw mucho combat. He was in the first wave for one of the landings; three battle stars - was overseas for the duration. Army.

Bud said...

Bman tell me about your tv situation .........you got a japanese made 50inch hi-def widescreen...............or you got the 26inch blackandwhite rca ?? ya'know............you bein an anachronistic and all


PS.........not sure i got that word right

Bunkerman said...

I have a 10 foot projection TV with full hi def, multi speaker sound, etc. The works.

mfl59 said...

ummm...you didnt.....you used it as adjective when you meant to use it as a noun...

Go Cyclones!

Bunkerman said...

it's an example of my Epicurean lifestyle -- mostly simple with a few very good things.

Bunkerman said...

I am an anachronism. (noun)

I have an anachronistic lifestyle in some ways. (adjective)

Bunkerman said...

but ... unlike a certain writer, I don't get paid when I wing it. Or when I think about it awhile.

mfl59 said...

Bunkerman I know someone who has a tv in every room of his mansion...

Bunkerman said...

anyone with a TV in every room must be brain dead, or can't read.

Spin-em said...

Dodd....'short term profiteering"...take care bunk

Frosty said...

Bunky...you and dodd discuss this bill while cookin up a batch of pemmican this weekend...wouldn't lynching lloyd and his find be more expedient sir.

Bunkerman said...

I think GS being gutted would be fitting.

Eviserated perhaps.

Dodd missed forbidding firms from ALL trading against customers, though.

Bunkerman said...

I hope Dodd read some of my posts.

Frosty said...

Sal...where can I get of copy of the wing tax petition...thx in advance.

Frosty said...

atta girl Krypto...hold your fire, dodd nutten...ben has our back, want your paw print my 1256 helmet.

Spin-em said...

when Lloyd goes all Iroquois....should shut the transactshateers right the hell up

Frosty said...

dodd...boy that bill makes me forget all about the sweetheater mortgage from countrywide...financial reform my aazzz...shame continues to pile upon your shoulders Bunky.

Bunkerman said...

For hedge funds, the bill would require those that manage over $100 million to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and to disclose financial data

hmmm .. should go a lot further.

Bunkerman said...

I supose he's gotten paid off the the Greenwich beefer society.

Bud said...

ES M0


F'ng nailed it...............you catch that frosty ?????



danke vielmals e-mini boy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bunkerman said...

nothing new on SEC, short selling, etc.

I wonder what it has re derivatives ?

Frosty said...

come on son (thx Mike)...this isn't the minors...everyone bat on shoulder until Bunk's hero shut his yap.