From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Nov 04 2002 - 00:08:16 MST
Ron writes
> You might look in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I think there might be some
> stories of West Coast Indian conflict with the White Man.
I do know about Chief Seattle's dealings with the whites,
and the falsification (forgery) of his speech by a reporter
in 1971 depicting him as the great environmentalist. He
and the whites were making a killing, so to speak, on
business deals. Some of the Indians and whites worked
together profitably.
But, as Bury My Heart an Wounded Knee and many other
sources report, and as is common knowledge, relations
between whites and Indians were hardly always peaceful,
and it's entirely possible that certain tribes were
peaceful *until* the whites arrived. That's what I
want to know: were there tribes for whom war was
unknown?
> There is at least one other story that indicates Southern
> California Indians fought among themselves.
Okay, thanks for the tip.
> I will probably bolax up the story but around the time of WWI a very
> primitive Indian came wandering into civilization. Maybe someone remembers
> his name.
That was Ishi, last of his tribe.
> Some professors in your University system got him in tow and
> eventually figured out most of his story. I believe that
> story included getting pushed off into almost worthless
> land by the other tribes.
Since people are almost universally the same in terms of
their built-in morals and ethics, differences are almost
always attributable to culture. Of course, from a Darwinian
viewpoint, tribes that did not resist would soon be
exterminated or go extinct. That, at least, would be
the expected course of events. But there may be exceptions.
Lee
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