This kind of thing blows my mind - tribes

[justTripn]

My source is my husband, so TAKE IT WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I always do!

I think JadziaKathyrn's thoughts on this are interesting. Being "parental." Not letting them "grow up." There will always be a clash when nomadic and settled communities colide. How much room will these people need to maintain their hunting and gathering lifestlye? Will they get squeezed into too small a space?

And as for those valuable traditions, the traditions are invented and profliferate becasue people are desparate to cure their children. Beleive me, if something worked they wouldn't need the extra traditions. I had this conversation with one Hmong man about why there were so many different traditions for curing someone of disease. He said the reason was because people will keep trying different things, anything they hear might work, until the kid gets better! Duh!

One beautiful ceremony involved building a small bridge over a ditch and calling the child across it on the theory that people have like 8 souls and sickness is caused by one of more of these souls getting lost. So you call the spirits back home to the child and the child back home to his family and all is well. NICE. But that's not the point. They want to cure the child. So if that doesn't work, on to tying strings around a tree or whatever . . .

And of course these ceremonies can be successfully integrated with modern medicine. In the refugee camp, the Shamans were invited into the hospitals. I heard a touching story: A nurse was at work on a patent, while the shaman is chanting and doing his thing. Someone asked the shaman what he was doing. He says, this is a chant to help the nurse find a vein for the injection!!!! See, successful integration . . . like christian prayers for the sick. It goes WITH modern medicine.

[Elessar]

I agree with Asso, we don't know what happened with the Viking contact or West African contact, info is quite scanty I believe? And that certainly involved many less people than the European settlements centuries later. I saw a documentary a while back which postulated that there was other early European contact. I forgot what that was based on - DNA studies? Don't remember, but also probably not large groups of people coming over.

JK, what is the source(s) of your info. My info is from how people feel about what happened to them, the residual resentment, the mistrust that still exists between cultures. Perhaps the deliberate disease transmission was only isolated cases, but that is what sticks in people's minds. And it seems logical that European diseases would be spread among the native populations because of the movement within their populations of natives who had European contact. Who spread it inadvertently is not my point. That people did not know much about disease transmission is my point. We know much more today and so can minimize the effect and treat the diseases.

The West African thing comes from a book I read called "Lies My Teacher Told Me", about how when Columbus was exploring Hispanola and the Caribbean, he encountered natives who spoke of dark men that came from the East and traded them gold and something else, I forget the name, but it was exactly what the West Africans called it also. Like the same name. And there was record of like a Phoenician king from around 700 or 800 BC sending a voyage west across the sea, so they thought the two were the same event. Also, there were apparently already african slaves in a town he found in the Yucatan later on.

[Alelou]

They knew enough in the 18th century to use small pox blankets to spread disease, which is what Lord Jeffrey Amherst will ever be notorious for. And also for Edward Jenner to begin vaccinating people with cow pox. They knew visiting a prostitute could end result in syphilis -- the bawdy songs of that era are full of people's body parts rotting off. They even knew how to treat it successfully with mercury -- James Boswell had to have it done repeatedly because the fella just couldn't keep it in his pants. I'd say they at least had a clue about the obvious disease vectors.

[Elessar]

They knew enough in the 18th century to use small pox blankets to spread disease, which is what Lord Jeffrey Amherst will ever be notorious for. And also for Edward Jenner to begin vaccinating people with cow pox. They knew visiting a prostitute could end result in syphilis -- the bawdy songs of that era are full of people's body parts rotting off. They even knew how to treat it successfully with mercury -- James Boswell had to have it done repeatedly because the fella just couldn't keep it in his pants. I'd say they at least had a clue about the obvious disease vectors.

Oh yeah. I had to do a paper in highschool about how that was the first documented case of biological warfare. They knew what they were doing, no doubt.

[Distracted]

JzK's point about being "parental" and not letting a society grow up is very pertinent. Look at the Australian aborigines.

And it's not just indigenous peoples. It can happen to any group that's "taken care of" by Big Brother. At the risk of being called non-PC and right-wing, I could also recommend that you look at the Welfare State here in the US. Some of those people are fourth and fifth generation lay-abouts. We're not doing their culture any favors.

[Mitchell]

I wont chew you out Distracted. I agree with ya.
When it comes to "Helping the Masses" the US Government has done the exact oppisite of what it should of done, since at the very earliest as when FDR was in office.

Keep paying Generation after Generation of Americans who arnt workin, instead of really trying to get their butts employed.
Or Throwing a lil bit of Money at Farmers, Instead of Regulating the Greedy as hell companys who buy the produce/crops, Buy putting up reasonable minnum Prices. So its possible for some one to start out farming as a first Generation Farmer, an not actualy be in Debt till they Die.

Dont Care what party is in power, They both screw us over when they Try an Help us.



Back on topic/Sorta.
I kinda Envey the Amish. As ass Backwards as they are. Stuck in their Century old Farming/working, an living Habits. I have yet to meet a poor Amishmen, or ever even hear of one. Ofcourse I cant really call them assbackwards. Since every single one of them are raised Bilingual, Know their Multiplication tables, an divission front an back with out the aid of a calculator. IMO were the Assbackwards ones.

As for helping/advancing these Undeveloped Tribes. Personaly This is my Motto "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you." An before anyone is going to Help me, Id like to be asked first. If they want it then fine, If they prefer their Old/Underdeveloped ways then fine. It should be their choice, since no matter how we help them, we would drasetcly change their world.

[Alelou]

Even Moynihan realized welfare wasn't doing the right thing eventually. You have to balance providing a safety net vs. providing an incentive not to do anything for yourself. It doesn't help when you also build in incentives to keep people from forming stable family units.

As far as farm bills go, that's a combination of Presidential politics and lobbyists for the giant agricultural concerns and middle men getting the subsidies and trade protection they want, with 'helping family farmers' as a the wholesome-sounding excuse. I despair of our government no matter who's in power when it comes to this stuff.

[JadziaKathryn]

Linda, my sources are various university lectures and history books. But certainly and understandably the deliberate cases would be what stick in people's minds. Horrific, that - just inhumane beyond words.

It is widely accepted (but not completely, because nothing ever is) in historical circles that Vikings colonized what is now eastern Canada for a brief time (the # of years escapes my memory now). Oral histories (legends, songs) can be problematic, but then archaeologists discovered old sites too. Regrettably, Vikings weren't big on record-keeping, so we don't know very much.

Can I toss another thought out? A lot of times, traditional medicine is of dubious use. (Bleeding sick people in medieval Europe, for instance - because losing lots of blood is just what every sick person needs. ) However, there are some cases where it can work. Aren't there pharmaceutical companies working with native elders in the rain forest to look for cures before the rain forest is gone? That's just another thing to consider. Crossing a bridge isn't likely to cure anyone, but maybe a traditional combination of plants will. Quinine, which can cure and, better yet, prevent malaria, comes in its natural form from some South American tree bark.

[Elessar]

Oral histories (legends, songs) can be problematic, but then archaeologists discovered old sites too.

There's some interesting detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_colo ... e_Americas

I had heard of these Runestones found - I think somewhere in the area of the Great Lakes. I was about to say that they've supposedly be way further than just the Atlantic coast, but this article claims they're "likely" forgeries, but who knows whose judgement call that was.

Even Moynihan realized welfare wasn't doing the right thing eventually. You have to balance providing a safety net vs. providing an incentive not to do anything for yourself. It doesn't help when you also build in incentives to keep people from forming stable family units.

I think it has a purpose, a really really important purpose that we can't exactly appreciate living in the prosperous (sort of) world we live in now. But obviously we don't want to produce a culture of anti-industriousness. I think the genius of FDR and his programs was simply the fact that they happened. Can you imagine ANY politician today getting something that comprehensive even accomplished? No matter what it is? In any issue at all?

That's the tragedy. Nobody has the balls or the fortitude anymore. Anyway. Off topic.

[Alelou]

Roosevelt only succeeded because the Depression radicalized so many Americans, and Hoover was so appallingly ineffective ahead of him that he came in with really strong support. And Roosevelt certainly couldn't do everything he wanted. He couldn't get us into WWII except covertly until Japan attacked. Arguably he didn't even try to do certain things he knew he should have done, like helping the Jews in Europe, because he knew it would be unpopular.

Politics is always the art of the possible. Americans don't tend to either understand or appreciate that. They keep expecting their politicians to be pure of heart and free of all cynical calculation, which means politicians have to find a way to make themselves look like morally pure saints you'd somehow still like to sit down and have a beer with -- but no effective politician is really like that.

[Linda]

There has to be a balance between non contact, that would attempt to keep them isolated and the paternalism some of you are describing. Since I think contact is inevitable (do you agree with that?) some guidance is needed to cushion the culture contact and culture shock. Certainly not a Big Brother type perpetual supervision, but a protection against the health problems of contact and an introduction to the options now available to them. Then stepping back and letting the tribe determine its future and respecting their choices.

I have a friend who teaches Native American studies who I have emailed for sources of the things you mentioned, JT, so I soon will have specific references to look at. My other sources are how people feel about what happened to them, how they perceive their culture and react to the dominant culture that they must deal with in a climate of residual mistrust and continued (even if only occasional) derogatory remarks about their race and derogatory remarks about the eroded culture that is still left to them and that they are trying to hang on to. I learn of this at pow wows and other social gatherings and in the experiences of my daughter and grandchildren. And they hear from elders of things which no longer are practiced, thank goodness, like the elder who can only speak his native language when he is drunk because it was beaten out of him in one of the schools Indian kids were ripped away from their families and sent to. But there are positive models today like one Native American actress who wrote on a photo of her that my daughter has which says "keep the strong heart of our people".

[Distracted]

It wasn't just the native Americans TPTB did that to, Linda. Both of my grandmothers spoke French as their first language. The people in South Louisiana were French speakers for over 200 years after immigrating to the US, for so long that Cajun French grammar and vocabulary differed from standard French due to isolation from other native French speakers. In the 30's they were punished for speaking it in school, and in one generation the Cajun culture was virtually destroyed. The state's been trying to restore it by bringing Belgians and Canadians to teach immersion programs in our schools, but it's not the same. I can remember visiting my great-grandmother Champagne when I was a toddler. She didn't speak any English at all. My paternal grandmother only spoke it when she was playing Bourre' with her friends, and my parents don't speak a word of French. I had to get a degree in it to learn to speak it, but my maternal grandmother and I can only communicate in English. The French isn't the same. We can't understand each other in French. She's still alive at 91, BTW, and healthy as a horse. I hope I take after her.

[JadziaKathryn]

Contact is probably inevitable. I know probably inevitable sounds silly, but it's within the realm of possibility that a deliberate choice would be made not to contact these uncontacted tribes. This choice would have to be widely respected of course. Alternately, some terrible catastrophe in the developed, modern world could keep the rest of us occupied.

Maybe a better way to put it is, barring some radical change, contact is inevitable.

[Elessar]

Politics is always the art of the possible.

Were you watching Hardball yesterday, too?

Roosevelt only succeeded because the Depression radicalized so many Americans, and Hoover was so appallingly ineffective ahead of him that he came in with really strong support. And Roosevelt certainly couldn't do everything he wanted. He couldn't get us into WWII except covertly until Japan attacked. Arguably he didn't even try to do certain things he knew he should have done, like helping the Jews in Europe, because he knew it would be unpopular.

Maybe. But the fact is he did something unparalleled, regardless of whether a person agrees with it. The social welfiare programs he initiated were just as unpopular because the world was even then in a fit of anti-communism. Everyone with half a brain identified his programs as being socialist in nature. I'm just saying that there was a giant need for something BIG to save the country from the depression and he produced it, despite the fact that it was just as unpopular as something like interfering with the Reich. But, you know, wasn't the holocaust largely unknown until after the war? When you say he wanted to get involved, I think he wanted to get invovled in stopping Hitler from invading all these European countries, but was enough even known about what was being done to the Jews for him to want to get involved with that?

I think that what you describe of politicians is true because we make it true. The American electorate just divorces itself of its own sins by saying that politicians will be politicians, just like mothers divorce themselves of their sons' actions by saying boys will be boys. When you really get down to it and really grill a voter about "Why do you support this guy when he did this" or "Why did you still vote for him when he did this" or "Why don't you write your congressman and say you won't vote to re-elect him if he doesn't do this", eventually you'll get to bedrock and they'll break down and confess that they just don't have the time to be civically responsible. It's nearly a full-time job, in this day and age, to be sure. But complaining about its difficulties aside, it's our job to suffer not an indecent and corrupt government, not their responsibility to be angelic.

There's a lotta talk about how this election's different. We'll see. So far I'm just happy about how much more the media is pouncing on every little thing. At least most every little thing. It keeps everything transparent. One thing that's noticably different that pundits have been remarking on is 'the Youtube' age we live in, in which you can't just say something one day and then say a week later that you never said it. Without naming names, one of the big politicians did this recently and was pounced on for it. The pundit made the comment that he was living in the 'old politics' where it was perfectly normal to say one thing and then say you didn't say it becaus the footage or the recording of you originally saying it was locked away in some network television's vault and it took forever to find it and produce it and by the time you did, the news cycle was over and nobody cared. Now it can be retrieved off youtube in 3 seconds.

[Alelou]

I don't know that YouTube is such a great thing for our politics. Yes, it makes it more transparent, but total transparency can sometimes be the enemy of political compromise. If everyone has to be pure all the time, nobody can ever agree to anything that doesn't line up with their stated goals.

The stuff that needs to be transparent in government is the money. They can say whatever they want in front of the cameras or the cell phones but you follow the money if you want to see what's really going on. As far as deal-making, I think there are times that just has to happen out of the public eye or it ain't gonna happen. Not when the public is totally polarized and ready to pounce.

Not to mention you have to practically a nut job to want that much constant, vicious prying into every corner of your life and every contact you've ever had with anybody in your life. Roosevelt would never have won in today's climate. He was a cripple in a wheelchair, but the press never let on. He had a long-running affair that they all knew about but the press never let on. There was a gentleman's agreement that some stuff wasn't the public's business. Today, a man like Roosevelt would have to be a fool to run.

On the other hand, you could argue a black man named Barack Obama has to be a fool to run, so I guess that just proves you never know.

There are debates about how much the Holocaust was understood before the end of the war, but the administration knew. Among historians the debate is more whether the lack of action was based on anti-semitism or simply political expediency. They were already having enough trouble with Jewish refugees who'd made it to this country. Many of them were kept in a virtual concentration camp here in NY State (not to equate that in any way with what they would have encountered under Hitler) because the public was so opposed to letting them into this country. Others were refused entry and sent BACK. Can you imagine making it all the way to this shore and then having to go BACK to THAT? It's horrifying. But perhaps in the long run it was part of what allowed Roosevelt to win the war. We'll never know. Maybe Daniels could have told us...