Rich Hall and American Indians

  • Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
And flint is a top quality structural material for edges.
I'm just beginning to use flint edges in my kitchen for meats and vegetables.
First rate results.

I suspect that because of the skills required to render such edges, iron/steel is far easier to maintain.
 
So why didn't they develop manufacture? All over the world indigenous people did.

Don't take this too seriously Boatman. Your question is just the same as me asking you, why you brits didn't invent:-

Agriculture
Maths
writing
Astronomy
Algebra
Philosophy
Space travel
Introduce all the things the Romans did for you (they didn't do anything for us) You know, central heating, money, sewerage etc., etc., And jeez, you guys simply gave it all up once those guys left the UK!

Money
Metal
Pizza
Curry
Burgers
The Wheel
Rifles, guns, rockets, machine guns, bombs
Maple syrup (sorry, we got that one 1st)
Corn - the stuff you call corn-on-the-cob
Burgers
Glass
Democracy
Ice Hocky
American Football
Kayaks (invented by Innui)
Birch Bark canoes (Algonquins - us, the people)

But I guess you did invent Morris Dancing. Whats that all about fella?

Kinana' skomilina' wa'wa

Joe

Ps As other people said we manufactured lots of things. Canoes, axes, food, bows, arrows, houses, clothes, blankets and these and much more were traded (sold) from tribe to tribe. Please send $50 and I'll send you some nice maple syrup.
 

Old Bones

Settler
Oct 14, 2009
745
72
East Anglia
I would ask you to widen the view a little….those schools that teach the songs of the Empire (from religious to Glorifying) could just as easily teach the ones of the seasonal round, not just the religious ones….so harvest songs, the ones of the land, the hills and the seas, and Mayday songs, and……ah, but that touches the pagan, doesn't it ? and since the schools are RC or C of E, you're rather stuck with their status quo. The school terms and holidays were originally set up around the need for child labour during planting, harvest, etc., Not many kids pick fruit or plant or gather tatties nowadays though. The holidays don't really mesh now with most parents working lives.

I suspect that the choice of songs has more to do with whats available, what the kids will vaguely enjoy singing, and of course the time/expertise available. You dont get that much kudos for getting a bunch of 9 year olds to learn local county harvest songs, but OFSTED will kill your career if your paperwork isn't in order. In much the same way, 20th Century History is dominated by studying the Dictators, because the material is easy to find and thats what everyone is familiar with.

Personally, I'd love it if there was a wider curriculum, but there is only so much time in the school year. And although in theory you could shorten the summer holidays, I seem to remember that there was a plan to do that, but it didn't work out so well when trialed.

What can't change dies.
That's the one clear overwhelming message of the eons….well, unless you're a shark, I suppose, or amoeba.

I think that's the clearest lesson for humanity. Change isn't always a bad thing, though it's usually driven by something or other.
The skill is in using the change to your society's benefit, in adapting to it as individuals to strengthen the bonds of family and culture.

So, back to using modern technology to keep the words alive, to keeping in touch with distant family, to encouraging the children to appreciate their roots, their heritage, in all it's diversity.

Totally, and that evolution is still going on, although we might not like it. The best we can do is to remember as much as we can.

Santaman - to answer your question:

A "state run Catholic school?" Isn't that an oxymoron though? I'm not being facetious; I'm genuinely curious. Aren't church schools separated and private?

Things are slightly different in the UK from the US, where there is in theory a separation of church and state with regard to education (although Betsy De Vos will be doing her very best to bring them together).

Since the Church of England was (and still is) the 'state church' (the head of the church being the Queen), it was the Church that started many schools, particularly in the 19th century. However, as the state (or local councils) took on the provision of education, there was a very British 'understanding'. If a religion wanted to found a school, and there was a local need, then as long as they raised a certain percentage of the cash, the state would pony up the rest.

So you could have a school with religious links (at first C of E, then Catholic and Non-Conformist, Jewish, and more recently Muslim and Sikh), which are state schools, but with input from a religious denomination, with perhaps the local bishop, etc being on the Board of Governors.

My siblings went to a Catholic primary school (my mum was Catholic) and we all went to the same Catholic Secondary school. The only way they really differed from any other schools was that nuns were on the staff of the primary school (including the head teacher), plus some 'Catholic' prayers, and the fact that my parish priest would come around once a term and say hello to everyone. My kids are at or have been at local C of E schools, and although part of the criteria to get in is religious (hence the phrase familiar to local vicars - 'down on your knees and save the fees' - church school places are highly sought), a lot of the kids are local to the area, no matter what their religion.
 

boatman

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Feb 20, 2007
2,444
4
77
Cornwall
Television, antibiotics(discovered not invented) and a host of other things were invented in Britain and others developed in common with other Europeans. Developed and improved while, for example, the Islamic "Golden Age" petered out. At least we had the wheel from certainly the Bronze Age ( see Must Farm and Flag Fen) but to be fair I believe that a toy wheel was found in an Inca excavation. No corn admittedly but then no pellagra from excessive eating of it. We probably cannot claim Morris Dancing as it might have been brought in by some immigrants.
 
Last edited:

boatman

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Feb 20, 2007
2,444
4
77
Cornwall
Look up safety bicycle, disc brakes, vacuum flask, even the internet. In fact to save time look up the top fifty British inventions that will give you a flavour of our ingenuity.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
Syphilis? Really? Never mentioned it. I said Smallpox. Sorry but I can't compare apples and cattle.
Spelled differently and scientifically classified differently. There's no Haida Dragonfly clan. Smallpox killed them all.

Franz Boas suggested that the Haida population was well above 100,000 before European contact.
After contact and smallpox, possibly 10,000 survivors.

Find the village of Missinippe in Saskatchewan on the Churchill River. Upstream is to the west as I'm sure you know.
Before you get to Black Bear Island Lake, you will paddle through Nipew. I lived there. About a mile wide and 12 miles long.
Look at enough maps and the english translation of the Cree word "nipew" should be clear.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
....Santaman - to answer your question:



Things are slightly different in the UK from the US, where there is in theory a separation of church and state with regard to education (although Betsy De Vos will be doing her very best to bring them together).

Since the Church of England was (and still is) the 'state church' (the head of the church being the Queen), it was the Church that started many schools, particularly in the 19th century. However, as the state (or local councils) took on the provision of education, there was a very British 'understanding'. If a religion wanted to found a school, and there was a local need, then as long as they raised a certain percentage of the cash, the state would pony up the rest.

So you could have a school with religious links (at first C of E, then Catholic and Non-Conformist, Jewish, and more recently Muslim and Sikh), which are state schools, but with input from a religious denomination, with perhaps the local bishop, etc being on the Board of Governors.

My siblings went to a Catholic primary school (my mum was Catholic) and we all went to the same Catholic Secondary school. The only way they really differed from any other schools was that nuns were on the staff of the primary school (including the head teacher), plus some 'Catholic' prayers, and the fact that my parish priest would come around once a term and say hello to everyone. My kids are at or have been at local C of E schools, and although part of the criteria to get in is religious (hence the phrase familiar to local vicars - 'down on your knees and save the fees' - church school places are highly sought), a lot of the kids are local to the area, no matter what their religion.

Thanks for the reply. There's no way a church school would be allowed to receive any government funds here (one exception I'll mention farther along) Prayer in any public schools can't be led, proposed, or in any way facilitated by any faculty member (students are allowed to pray on their own or in small groups outside classrooms) Deviation would be seen as a school endorsement of whatever given religion (or even of religion at all) It wasn't always that strict but that's the case for the last 30 years at least.

The exception I mentioned was a proposal to allow the states to grant school vouchers (vouchers to pay individual students' tuition to private schools; which might include religious schools) if the local public schools were substandard. The proposal was largely defeated for several reasons but it resurfaces every now and then. The primary exception to the defeat (in other words, the area where government assistance for private, even church schools is more or less common) is the pre-school age group; the group going to what we call pre-school," or the year before kindergarten. There are few government run pre-schools available in rural states whereas there are numerous church run ones.
 

boatman

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Feb 20, 2007
2,444
4
77
Cornwall
Complicated though Santayana, there appears to be provision for the supply of secular textbooks from state funds in religious schools, among other limited items.Then there are the tax breaks for churches which must help where the pastor does not pay himself a vast salary.
 

Nomad64

Full Member
Nov 21, 2015
1,072
593
UK
Look up safety bicycle, disc brakes, vacuum flask, even the internet. In fact to save time look up the top fifty British inventions that will give you a flavour of our ingenuity.

An outsider stumbling across this thread could be forgiven for wondering why someone apparently passionate about both bushcraft and preserving traditional "English" folk songs would argue that his culture was somehow superior because his ancestors "got off their backsides" and worked harder and more successfully at inventing ways of destroying an idyllic rural and maritime heritage (that may or may not have ever existed) and colonising half the globe if it did not want that way of life compromised by exposure to other cultures.

Boatman's "English folk music for the English" musical apartheid plan throws up a conundrum. Should a kid in a school in Cornwall be taught Ilkla Moor Baht 'at which culturally (apart from the fact that I'm sure Bodmin Moor can be just as wet and chilly as Ilkley Moor) and linguistically has little to do with Cornwall rather than some Breton folk music or songs brought back from their travels by globetrotting Cousin Jacks?

Traditional 'English" folk music (whatever that is - even before the post WW2 immigration from former colonies we were one of the most mongrel cultures in the world) declined not because schools in the 21st Century introduce kids to music from other cultures (in all probability those which Britain colonised from the 16th - 20th centuries) but because the great inventions (English, British or otherwise) of the industrial revolution took people away from the woods, fields, small farms and rigging and into the dark satanic mills and boiler rooms of steamships which in turn spawned different music.

Should classical music lessons in schools be limited to Vaughan Williams at the exclusion of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky etc? Should English parents and grandparents have "got off their backsides" in the 1950s and banned Blackboard Jungle from cinemas to stop kids being exposed to rock and roll, prevented Dylan from using an electric guitar in the 1960s and picketed punk concerts in the 1970s?

IMHO, most musical genres that have developed since about 1980 are dross but that's what happens when people "get off their backsides" and try to develop something new rather dwelling on the past. I might occasionally try to introduce the Nomad nieces and nephews to the delights of the music I like, but if at the moment, they prefer One Direction and Mylie Cyrus then good for them.

Boatman, presumably your ire at the failure of the indigenous people of North America to "get off their backsides" also applies to the hundreds of sub-Saharan and Southern Hemisphere peoples who (despite being almost completely overlooked by people on this forum who seem to assume that bushcraft = boreal forest - perhaps if Fjallraven were to do a new range of loin cloths in G1000? Maybe not! :yikes:) try to eke out traditional livings as hunter gatherers, subsistence farmers or nomadic herders using minimal technology and skills honed over millennia rather than moving to a shanty town on the outskirts of a big city to make a living doing who knows what.

Perhaps rather than "sitting on our backsides" while patting ourselves on the back for what Britain contributed to the 19th and 20th centuries, we should all be learning Mandarin and Cantonese folk songs to equip us for the 21st century since if history teaches nothing else it is that being top dog in the technological, economic and military power game is cyclical! :)
 
Last edited:

Swallow

Native
May 27, 2011
1,545
4
London
An outsider stumbling across this thread could be forgiven for wondering why someone apparently passionate about both bushcraft and preserving traditional "English" folk songs would argue that his culture was somehow superior because his ancestors "got off their backsides" and worked harder and more successfully at inventing ways of destroying an idyllic rural and maritime heritage (that may or may not have existed) and colonising half the globe if it did not want that way of life compromised by exposure to other cultures.

I think there are plenty insiders struggling with it as well.
 

Old Bones

Settler
Oct 14, 2009
745
72
East Anglia
Nomad64 - excellent post. If anyone is looking towards an idea as to why certain people's may have had advantages in terms of technology, etc, they could do worse than read Jared Diamonds 'Gun, Germs and Steel', and perhaps his later book, 'Collapse', which shows the pitfalls of going beyond your natural limits, and how empires rise and fall. Looking at folk songs, traditions, etc, its surprising just how modern so many of them are - the Victorian's were particularly effective in this regard.

As for the fate of indigenous peoples around the world when faced by outside settlers, etc, its generally a matter of deciding whose come off least worst, and certainly not whose done well. The native peoples of the America's have been subjugated, enslaved, massacred, and had their land/resources stolen by outsiders, and that legacy is still with us, although there is a movement to regain land, etc http://www.motherjones.com/environm...cess-pipeline-standing-rock-oil-water-protest

Santaman 2000:

There's no way a church school would be allowed to receive any government funds here (one exception I'll mention farther along) Prayer in any public schools can't be led, proposed, or in any way facilitated by any faculty member (students are allowed to pray on their own or in small groups outside classrooms) Deviation would be seen as a school endorsement of whatever given religion (or even of religion at all) It wasn't always that strict but that's the case for the last 30 years at least.


The religious right have been trying to undo this for years, but Betsy De Vos and her ilk are now in positions of huge power http://www.motherjones.com/politics...-schools-vouchers-charter-education-secretary - it will interesting just how far they get.
 

mrcharly

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jan 25, 2011
3,257
44
North Yorkshire, UK
I've always applauded the separation of religion and state embodied in the USA's constitution, but been fairly amazed at how some states ignore it.
The Australian education system (that I went through) was resolutely not separated, and there is a sad, horrible history there in institutions, currently being played out in courts.
The UK is a nation of several countries, so I'm not sure what would be 'traditional' here, as Nomad has already pointed out. Same applies in USA (as has already been pointed out). Some groups were nomadic, some not. Some had large social groups and sophisticated political structures, some didn't.
 

BCUK Shop

We have a a number of knives, T-Shirts and other items for sale.

SHOP HERE