[paimei01]

Found this, from Luther Standing Bear :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7AC4ld5hwg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL5gULCHV-E&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd8z6XyLHsU&feature=related

They had no written language, and so they had to be always conscious about what they were doing. Always rediscovering the world because the way it worked was not written somewhere to be forgoten.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ':') ...The Earth People (indigenous natives) never wrote anything down, had no written language. They knew that if they wrote anything down it would be disastrous. If you write something down you don't have to remember it. And mind goes off into unconsciousness. It becomes negative, or unconscious force...
Brave Buffalo, Brule Sioux Nation (1985)

[Schmuto]

Well, this bodes well for the children of today, as most of them don't read and can't write very well.

Seems to me that the quoted material is just a disingenuous method of attempting to rationalize why they weren't advanced enough to come up with the concept of writing. It suggests, laughably, that Little Bear suggested once, in the great teepee meeting, that they write things down, and elders Spotted Eagle and Flowing River nixed it as a threat to the integrity of the tribes' mentation.

[insert Howard Dean scream here - yeaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaa]

[Maddog78]

I notice many Europeans love to romanticise about Indians (Native Americans)

I grew up 3 miles from an Indian reservation in northern Canada. No romantic notions for me.
Some of them were OK. The rest, well........no point getting into that here.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')istorically, religion permeated every aspect of Tibetan life. The only educational system was religious, all cultural and intellectual activities were centered around religious beliefs, and the heads of government were Buddhist monks. However, from 1966 to 1972, during the Cultural Revolution, religious practice in Tibet was completely curtailed. Bands of Red Guards, youths loyal to Chinese leader Mao Zedong, destroyed temples and other religious structures in Tibet, and persecuted monks and nuns.

Since 1959

There are two main methods of training for Tibetan doctors:

The first five years of the course consists mainly of medical theory, leading to the recognized qualification of Men-pa-kachupa degree.

Courses include:

Memorization of medical texts
Medical theory
Practice of pharmacy
Herbals and minerals, collection and recognition
Tibetan grammar
Debate on Tibetan medicine
Medical astrology and astronomy

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Maddog78', 'I') notice many Europeans love to romanticise about Indians (Native Americans)

I grew up 3 miles from an Indian reservation in northern Canada. No romantic notions for me.
Some of them were OK. The rest, well........no point getting into that here.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Maddog78', 'I') notice many Europeans love to romanticise about Indians (Native Americans)

I grew up 3 miles from an Indian reservation in northern Canada. .

[vision-master]

I was here - Oglala Lakota Nations Powwow

[AgentR]

I've been very suspicious in the past of things that are passed off as "TribeXYZ Lore", wondering how much has been shaped and presented to meet the desire of a quasi spiritual commercialism, what is actually EuroAmerican fabrication, and what remains of authentic teaching.

And how would some backwater redneck like me ever be able to tell the difference!

[Maddog78]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Maddog78', 'I') notice many Europeans love to romanticise about Indians (Native Americans)

I grew up 3 miles from an Indian reservation in northern Canada. .

[Ludi]

My is because you seem to be judging mostly-dead cultures (Native American cultures) based on the behavior of Indians on an Indian Reservation. That's like judging Native African cultures of two centuries ago based on the black population of Haiti. People mostly romanticize their ideas of ancient Native Americans, not present-day folks on the rez.

Anyway, if you don't want to get into it here, you don't have to.

[Maddog78]

OK.


I guess what I was saying is it is a lot easier for someone who has no first hand experience living with Indians (Europeans) to romanticise them compared to someone who grew up with them and that fact will distort his viewpoint no matter what their history was. Just the way it is for me.
I guess I'm mentally scarred for life when it comes to this.

[smallpoxgirl]

Bottom line, they lived free. That's something we Homo Domesticus will probably never know. For all our fancy philosophy, when it's all said and done, we are nothing more than caged rats.

[Boris555]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'B')ottom line, they lived free. That's something we Homo Domesticus will probably never know. For all our fancy philosophy, when it's all said and done, we are nothing more than caged rats.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Boris555', 'R')ead some early literature (Project Gutenberg is a good source) by people who had contact with the indigenous Americans in their natural habitat.

Guess what...they constantly fought one another, stole from one another, got stoned when they could, treated their women like shit...

[Boris555]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', ' ') I'm sure you can find a wasicu historian to paint the picture you describe, mostly because they needed some reason to justify their own deceit, treachery and barbarism.

[paimei01]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Boris555', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', ' ') I'm sure you can find a wasicu historian to paint the picture you describe, mostly because they needed some reason to justify their own deceit, treachery and barbarism.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Boris555', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', ' ') I'm sure you can find a wasicu historian to paint the picture you describe, mostly because they needed some reason to justify their own deceit, treachery and barbarism.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Boris555', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'B')ottom line, they lived free. That's something we Homo Domesticus will probably never know. For all our fancy philosophy, when it's all said and done, we are nothing more than caged rats.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Boris555', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', ' ') I'm sure you can find a wasicu historian to paint the picture you describe, mostly because they needed some reason to justify their own deceit, treachery and barbarism.

[Ludi]

A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/ ... les=283563

"...From which time they began to consider by what wayes and
means they might expel the _Spaniards_ out of their Countrey, and
immediately took up Arms. But, good God, what Arms, do you imagin?
Namely such, both Offensive and Defensive, as resemble Reeds wherewith
Boys sport with one another, more than Manly Arms and Weapons.

Which the _Spaniards_ no sooner perceived, but they, mounted on
generous Steeds, well weapon'd with Lances and Swords, begin to
exercise their bloody Butcheries and Strategems, and overrunning their
Cities and Towns, spar'd no Age, or Sex, nay not so much as Women with
Child, but ripping up their Bellies, tore them alive in pieces. They
laid Wagers among themselves, who should with a Sword at one blow cut,
or divide a Man in two; or which of them should decollate or behead a
Man, with the greatest dexterity; nay farther, which should sheath his
Sword in the Bowels of a Man with the quickest dispatch and expedition.

They snatcht young Babes from the Mothers Breasts, and then dasht out
the brains of those innocents against the Rocks; others they cast into
Rivers scoffing and jeering them, and call'd upon their Bodies when
falling with derision, the true testimony of their Cruelty, to come to
them, and inhumanely exposing others to their Merciless Swords,
together with the Mothers that gave them Life.

They erected certain Gibbets, large, but low made, so that their feet
almost reacht the ground, every one of which was so order'd as to bear
Thirteen Persons in Honour and Reverence (as they said blasphemously)
of our Redeemer and his Twelve Apostles, under which they made a Fire
to burn them to Ashes whilst hanging on them: But those they intended
to preserve alive, they dismiss'd, their Hands half cut, and still
hanging by the Skin, to carry their Letters missive to those that fly
from us and ly sculking on the Mountains, as an exprobation of their
flight.

The Lords and Persons of Noble Extract were usually expos'd to this
kind of Death; they order'd Gridirons to be placed and supported with
wooden Forks, and putting a small Fire under them, these miserable
Wretches by degrees and with loud Shreiks and exquisite Torments, at
last Expir'd.

I once saw Four or Five of their most Powerful Lords laid on these
Gridirons, and thereon roasted, and not far off, Two or Three more
over-spread with the same Commodity, Man's Flesh; but the shril
Clamours which were heard there being offensive to the Captain, by
hindring his Repose, he commanded them to be strangled with a Halter.
The Executioner (whose Name and Parents at _Sevil_ are not unknown to
me) prohibited the doing of it; but stopt Gags into their Mouths to
prevent the hearing of the noise (he himself making the Fire) till that
they dyed, when they had been roasted as long as he thought convenient.
I was an Eye-Witness of these and and innumerable Number of other
Cruelties: And because all Men, who could lay hold of the opportunity,
sought out lurking holes in the Mountains, to avoid as dangerous Rocks
so Brutish and Barbarous a People, Strangers to all Goodness, and the
Extirpaters and Adversaries of Men, they bred up such fierce hunting
Dogs as would devour an _Indian_ like a Hog, at first sight in less
than a moment: Now such kind of Slaughters and Cruelties as these were
committed by the Curs, and if at any time it hapned, (which was rarely)
that the _Indians_ irritated upon a just account destroy'd or took away
the Life of any _Spaniard,_ they promulgated and proclaim'd this Law
among them, that One Hundred _Indians_ should dye for every individual
_Spaniard_ that should be slain."