Rich Hall and American Indians

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boatman

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Feb 20, 2007
2,444
4
77
Cornwall
I thought that I had given evidence to support a grand statement. Disputed evidence but that is different to there not being any. Incidentally how healthy do you think music education in English schools, any music?
 
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dannyk64

Full Member
Apr 1, 2015
106
17
Nottingham
You made statements but added no supporting information or explanation to why you hold these opinions. music in schools is often taught to a poor level mainly due to the fact so many uninterested students are forced to learn it. It is a vocational subject and should be treated accordingly.

Obviously this debate has strayed far from bush craft now and so I'm going leave it here,

whilst I disagree with a lot of what you have said your entitled to your own ideas and opinions.
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
Old Bones ? while not disagreeing with you, 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.

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.

Mod Hat on
This thread has it all, doesn't it ? from racism to religion to politics and now nazis :rolleyes:

Ca' canny folks :)
….that mean be careful, please.

It's only the character of the people who are in the discussion that has kept this thread open so far. I don't want to see it closed because it loses the plot. I'm involved in the thread, I'll ask another Mod to deal with the reports.

M
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
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Florida
..... music in schools is often taught to a poor level mainly due to the fact so many uninterested students are forced to learn it. It is a vocational subject and should be treated accordingly......

I'd only differ from you slightly. I agree music in ordinary public schools should be taught with a view to increase the students' understanding and appreciation, and deeper education on the subject should be taught elsewhere, but even so, I'd consider it more art than vocational.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
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You seem to give us advice from your great wisdom, so? Incidentally is it not thanks to things and methods introduced by incomers that you do not actually have to make your living from the forest, unless you choose to.?

There's no doubt that the introduced European technology had some benefits for the natives, but to assume that their current life is only possible because of it is to also assume that their own culture and technology would have remained static without European intrusion. Who's to say where they would have advanced if left alone?
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
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Florida
Pessimist! I went to a state run catholic school in Nottingham leaving in 2012 and we where taught traditional English songs (despite much complaining).........

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?

......My kids go to a C of E school , and they learn hymns and traditional English songs again and again.......

Ame question as to Dannyk above?
 

Leshy

Full Member
Jun 14, 2016
2,389
57
Wiltshire
Santaman , They are run by the state. Anyways, that's a subject for a whole new thread.

This thread has ran its course for me , waaaaay off topic and nothing to do with the beautiful way of life of the Indigenous people of the North American Continent.

I'm out.
 

boatman

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Feb 20, 2007
2,444
4
77
Cornwall
There's no doubt that the introduced European technology had some benefits for the natives, but to assume that their current life is only possible because of it is to also assume that their own culture and technology would have remained static without European intrusion. Who's to say where they would have advanced if left alone?
So why didn't they develop manufacture? All over the world indigenous people did. See the age old notorious production of firearms in Afghanistan, for example. Quite possibly they had achieved a sort of climax civilisation with stuff in that lauded balance with nature. Of course there were crashes such as those of the Mayans so indigenous ways of life in the Americas could change for the worse. One wonders why disasters in Europe led to more progress and in the Americas often to retrenchment. Sadly, in a way that might have been why the incomers kept coming, aided by manufactured goods but also with a driving ethic. I am aware of attempts by such as the Civilised Tribes to join in and the racial and criminal attacks on them.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
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Florida
So why didn't they develop manufacture? All over the world indigenous people did. See the age old notorious production of firearms in Afghanistan, for example. Quite possibly they had achieved a sort of climax civilisation with stuff in that lauded balance with nature.....

Again you're lumping all Native Americans into a single culture. Balance with nature? Some of the plains nations hunted (pre Columbus) by setting the prairie on fire to drive the animals to the hunters. The Choctaw here in the Southeast did the same to the forests although they timed it with their annual burning (much like the controlled burns still being done by the forest Service) Even that burning, beneficial as it is, is hardly a lauding nature; it's interfering with nature just as much as was their farming.
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
…….that's a world wide practice though. Humanity changes it's environment to best suit itself.
Even if that just means building houses, of any variety.
Farming it just another step, and that step wasn't too far for many anyway, since people (women usually) forage and they did and do preferentially plant tubers, seeds and cuttings closer to where they will be nearer at hand. Not a lot of steps from that to cultivation on a wider scale.

M
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
Native groups who were and are resource rich turn to culture before manufacuring. The Pacific Northwest is the world renown example.
If they "manufactured" anything, it was trade goods and an abundance of the ever present storage containers.

The analysis of obsidian and copper metal reveals a spiderweb of trade over all of North America.

To this day, the Haida still cultivate kitchen gardens and areas of clams and oysters.
They continue to use the same design of stone salmon weirs that were used as sea levels were rising (the weirs seen in 70' of seawater.)
 

boatman

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Feb 20, 2007
2,444
4
77
Cornwall
So why did they desire steel weapons etc without a thought of making themselves, war clubs shaped like musket butts do not count. Culture before manufacturing in a resource rich area just confirms my point that they had reached a climax.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
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Florida
Who's to say they would have discovered metal? Australian aboriginal technology has not moved on in thousands of years.

Exactly Rik. There's no way we can know whether they would have discovered anything or progressed any farther or not. That's my point; We simply don't know, contrary to Boatman's presumption that they wouldn't.

So why did they desire steel weapons etc without a thought of making themselves, war clubs shaped like musket butts do not count. Culture before manufacturing in a resource rich area just confirms my point that they had reached a climax.

It confirms absolutely nothing. It merely shows the state of development at the time.
 

Adze

Native
Oct 9, 2009
1,874
0
Cumbria
www.adamhughes.net
So why did they desire steel weapons etc without a thought of making themselves, war clubs shaped like musket butts do not count. Culture before manufacturing in a resource rich area just confirms my point that they had reached a climax.

Pray tell me, O wise one, why the Parthenon is not made from plastic?
 

Wander

Native
Jan 6, 2017
1,418
1,983
Here There & Everywhere
It is.
And available in 1/72 scale...

952868-19277-94.jpg
 

boatman

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Feb 20, 2007
2,444
4
77
Cornwall
Pray tell me, O wise one, why the Parthenon is not made from plastic?
Didn't you know that plastic was not invented then and stone is a better structural material. Such ignorance on your part!
 

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