American Indians' Contribution To The World

[bearbait]

For those of you with an interest in First Nations/Native American culture I came across the book Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the World. Whilst trying to find where I could buy myself a copy I came across a PDF download of the book.

If you are interested, this link mexikaresistance.com/research-library will take you to a page containing a number of downloads. You'll find the Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the World about halfway down.

Enjoy.

 

[Robson Valley]

They are very careful to filter out any tool technology which they might have brought across Beringia.
I looked specifically for the iconic tools of the Pacific Northwest native cultures.
Crooked knives, elbow adzes and D-adzes = no entries. So, I quit.
Did not look even for the Hudson's Bay Company trade blades, the Sheffield Monocataugan blades.

I think that these texts are flawed in that their rigid view or "yes, they did" or "no, they didn't," gets really fuzzy
with the editorial perogative.

Haida have had iron for centuries before the incursion of Eoropeans & Smallpox. Crap drifts across the Pacific
as it always has. After Fukushima, we all hope that none of it glows in the dark.

 

[bearbait]

Maybe the authors of the book have evidence that, for example, hook or crooked knives were around around in Europe before contact. If not, maybe they felt that they weren't significant enough to go in the encyclopaedia. The encyclopaedia is themed on what "they" gave "us". And is therefore subjective.


Many things in life are subjective. It doesn't mean we can't individually enjoy them, outside of the constraint of some empirical constant.


The important thing, in my point of view, is that some people think that the American indigenous peoples contributed to the sum total of mankind's knowledge far more than us European colonial sorts ever gave them credit for.


And that is a good thing.


Which is why I feel this book may have been of interest to some of my fellow inhabitants of this forum.