Native Americans knew something that is blind to society.

I really think this is one of the best posts ever. Thank you OP.

It's seems so simple, yet we make it so hard.

a reply to: solemind4

Chi monne ta tanka o wache'!

SnF

Ok, while these" commandments " are just and true i highly doubt they were a part of almost any native American religion. The ansazi and aztec were cannibals and sacrificers of humans on altars respectively. The Apache and mohawk were very warlike. There were hundreds and hundreds of disparate tribes flung around the americas. You telling me the Inuit, Iroquois, and Miami indians all have these commandments?

a reply to: dashen

Actually the "Miami, Fl.", Indians would be the Miccosukee and based upon research. In respect to the University of Puerto Rico, Caribbean Indians are decedents of the Miccosukee.

I am Taino and before in ignorance you claim the Taino no longer exist???

Taino

Any thought?

Love this thread. As a Native American myself..it is good to know who the racists are on ATS.

So apparently the white man came along and civilized us..

Apparently we weren't committing genocide properly, destroying our land enough and worshiping the right God.

By the way....for the guy who knows a Native American ...good to know you don't base our entire people on the one you know...

Why do we have to assimilate in order to be accepted.

Oh lets face the facts. No matter if u white,black,hispanic,indian,asian or E.T flyin in space, there is alway's going to be someone who is good and bad. Now your interpretations on what is good and bad will all vary. This is the problem. So People set down basic laws way before jesus walked the earth. Laws or rules were made to govern the societies way back then and now, they have been changing ever since. How these laws are made and used is another matter or issue. We hope that the rules or laws made were governed by the masses of people. In lies another problem. Different societies have different laws and rules to govern the masses. This in turn causes more problems. Once a nation or society expands to a huge mass of people it needs more lands to occupy and feed the mass and this leads to war with other societies because of resources and they have different rules or laws and each is different and a clash occurrs. A BATTLE. This was experimented at the university of minnesota with rats. The rats were fine until the population increased and space ran out. When this happened , the food was less and the rats started fighting amoung themselves for food and space. NATURE. In the end all we can hope for is peace and harmony amoung all walks of life. So the way to keep this, is to keep the populations down, inhabit other worlds or in space. Have adaquate space to grow animals and plant life. Enough space for crops. Have the masses govern the populous with fair and just laws. It seems that the masses can figure out the problems if they have food and adequate space to roam. Without it, all mayhan erupts and all bets are off. THIS IS A FACT.

originally posted by: kosmicjack
I really think this is one of the best posts ever. Thank you OP.

It's seems so simple, yet we make it so hard.

How true

originally posted by: boncho
a reply to: solemind4

My point is, there was no hatred, no fear of another human being because they were all the same, just living on different paths of destiny.

Umm... You might wanna bone up on American Indian history, where they used to kill each other in pretty large numbers. Tribe vs. tribe, young warrior vs one that wants to prove himself. They were pretty apt with knives, tomahawk and bow.

In any case, respect for the land, animals, and simply being content with what they had, at least that part is true.

Perhaps it is you who need to bone up on American Indian history and culture. Like a lot of us, you were probably raised on "cowboys and Indians" flicks and the idea that the native inhabitants of North and South America were just murdering savages. That is the picture painted by European invaders for a few centuries.
It is true that once the North American continent was invaded by Europeans there was a massive amount of savage warfare. However, take a look at the actual studies of the cultural remains of the native peoples prior to invasion. Take a look at the actual studies of human remains and in many, many, many areas you will find they show a peaceful people, no signs of violence. I know, I know, that's not as exciting as what has been portrayed but it is true nonetheless. The wild and crazy exceptions are the ones who get the most attention---the barbaric practices. Much like we see today with the barbaric practices of a few folks in the Middle East.
I've spent the past 30 years studying the people who lived in villages along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, creatively termed the "Mississippian Culture." While there are notable exceptions, Mound 72 at Cahokia for instance, most of the villages contain human remains which have been studied extensively. They show no signs of warfare/violence. In fact, upon study of many of the incidents previously reported as extreme violence, new studies show those conclusions to have erroneous.
Of course the movie makers and the attention seekers bring forth the exceptions because they get far more attention from the human sacrifice angle than a village full of hard-working farmers living life and raising their children. To say that all nations of American continents were the same is simply ignorant. To say that the few incidents of warfare and violence in thousands of years of history is ignorant as well. That would be like saying that Charles Mansion and family represent the culture of the US in the 1970s. It might make a good movie but it is skewed to the point of being ridiculous!
I've handled literally thousands of human remains in the past 30 years, spanning nearly 500 years of cultural development in the Mississippi/Ohio valleys and I've never seen any indication that any of them were involved in warfare prior to the European invasion.
The absolute worst cases of violence I've seen were in the remains of the people slaughtered by the Spanish in their early sweeps through the southeastern US. If you want to see true barbarian behavior read some of the reports of the sites where the DeSoto expedition visited.

Each culture has its good points and bad. The key is to take only the good. Regardless, it's not just religion. All throughout history, man has made up constructs like race, ideologies, continents, countries(or borders, remember that we all used to be tribes) to try to differentiate ourselves and then use that to justify wars.

Right now, the construct "countries" is what is posing the greatest threat to world peace. This can be overcome by basically redefine the word country as cities, the Earth as country, and the central government as the UN, in other words, a one world government.

To me, the current definition of country is all screwed up. Because every country was formed by conquest, the current and dubious "accepted definition" is that the conquered must consider themselves part of the conquerers, and that to me doesn't sound right. 200 wrongs don't make a right after all, and because of this, to me, it's only fair that no one deserves to call themselves a country.

Honestly, other than the U.S and China, no one really much cares about anyone else anyway. I mean, it's not like people talk about Japan, South Korea or most European countries(even if you do talk about them, don't see why you can't refer to them as cities as opposed to countries), and the reason people talk about China is because of their so-called long standing civilization and culture, but then after learning about their history, you have to wonder if we should look at them with respect or contempt.

To me, it seems like the only way to "get attention" is to be "strong," yet in order to be strong, it has to come at the expense of someone else, be unethical, or the environment, and to me, that is nothing to be proud of. Therefore, I propose that we have a one world government, and that each country shall be known as cities. I have already shown how people can "occupy and amuse" ourselves after that(and quite frankly, you still have to ask this "what's next?" question even after you achieve world peace anyway.)

It may seem like a silly question, but do people really want world peace? If yes, then I've just suggested a solution. Right now, I think most people pretty much agree that genocide is bad, and after that, most differences are really not worth fighting over, or can be resolved through logic(which would be fitting since most wars are fought over ideas.)

a reply to: diggindirt

I've handled literally thousands of human remains in the past 30 years, spanning nearly 500 years of cultural development in the Mississippi/Ohio valleys and I've never seen any indication that any of them were involved in warfare prior to the European invasion.

While most of the recorded warfare was yes, instigated by the influx of europeans, that is not to say the natives were not warriors before they arrived. Why do you think they were so apt at fighting? The clan structure I would say would be similar to scots, and in any case, while they didn't go out looking for wars, they certainly had their share of skirmishes, and in some cases worse. Its been years since I studied this topic, no not from hollywood movies.

According to Jacques Cartier, the Battle at Bae de Bic happened in the spring of 1534, 100 Iroquois warriors massacred a group of 200 Mi’kmaq camped on Massacre Island in the St. Lawrence River. Bae de Bic was an annual gather place for the Mi’kmaq along the St. Lawrence. Mi’kmaq scouting parties notified the village that the Iroquois attack the evening before the morning attack.

Permanent outposts were not built until 1604, but in the interim French trading ships made regular trips to the Micmac homeland for fur. The demand overwhelmed the resources available to the Micmac, but they solved this by becoming middlemen for the Algonquin tribes of the interior, an economic opportunity which they apparently protected through warfare. Already formidable warriors, the metal weapons received through trade with the French gave the Micmac and their allies an enormous advantage over their enemies ...a possible explanation for the sudden disappearance of the Iroquian-speaking peoples Cartier had met on the St. Lawrence River during 1534 and their replacement by Algonquin-speaking Montagnais and Algonkin sometime before 1608.

*

Just prior to Battle at Bae de Bic, the Iroquois warriors had left their canoes and hid their provisions on the Bouabousche River, which the Mi’kmaq scouts had discovered and recruited assistance from 25 Maliseet warriors. The Mi’kmaq and Maliseet militia ambushed the first company of Iroquois to arrive at the site. They killed ten and wounded five of the Iroquois warriors before the second company of Iroquois arrived and the Mi’kmaq/ Maliseet militia retreated to the woods unharmed.

The Mi'kmaq/ Maliseet militia stole of the Iroquois canoes. Leaving twenty wounded behind at the site, 50 Iroquois went to find their hidden provisions. Unable to find their supplies, at the end of the day they returned to the camp, the 20 wounded soldiers having been slaughtered by the Mi’kmaq/ Maliseet militia. The following morning, the 38 Iroquois warriors left their camp, killing twelve of their own wounded who would not be able to survive the long journey back to their village. 10 of the Mi’kmaq/ Maliseet stayed with the canoes and provisions while the remaining 15 pursued the Iroquois. The Mi’kmaq/ Maliseet militia pursued the Iroquois for three days, killing eleven of the wounded Iroquois stragglers.[6][7]

Source

Mi'kmak battles after europeans:

Battle off Port La Tour 1677
Raid on Salmon Falls 1690
Raid on Chignecto 1696
Avalon Peninsula Campaign 1696-97
Northeast Coast Campaign 1703
Raid on Grand Pré 1704
Siege of St. John's 1705
Battle of St. John's 1709
Siege of Port Royal 1710
Raid on Port Roseway 1715
Battle of Winnepang 1722
Blockade of Annapolis Royal 1722
Raid on Canso 1744
Siege of Annapolis Royal 1744
Siege of Port Toulouse 1745
Siege of Louisbourg 1745
Naval battle off Tatamagouche 1745
Battle at Port-la-Joye 1746
Battle of Grand Pré 1747
Raid on Dartmouth 1749
Siege of Grand Pre 1749
Battle at St. Croix 1750
Battle at Chignecto 1750
Raid on Dartmouth 1751
Attack at Mocodome 1753
Battle of Fort Beauséjour 1755
Battle of Petitcodiac 1755
Battle of Bloody Creek 1757
Siege of Louisbourg 1758
Lunenburg Campaign 1758
Battle of Restigouche 1760
Burying the Hatchet ceremony 1761

That same year, Henry III of France granted a monopoly in the North American fur trade to a consortium of French merchants to secure his hold on the French throne. Henry was assassinated the following year and got very little out of this bargain, but the French merchants became rich. Permanent outposts were not built until 1604, but in the interim French trading ships made regular trips to the Micmac homeland for fur. The demand overwhelmed the resources available to the Micmac, but they solved this by becoming middlemen for the Algonquin tribes of the interior, an economic opportunity which they apparently protected through warfare. Already formidable warriors, the metal weapons received through trade with the French gave the Micmac and their allies an enormous advantage over their enemies ...a possible explanation for the sudden disappearance of the Iroquian-speaking peoples Cartier had met on the St. Lawrence River during 1534 and their replacement by Algonquin-speaking Montagnais and Algonkin sometime before 1608.

In 1604 Samuel de Champlain and Pierre De Monts established the first French settlement in North America at the mouth of the St. Croix River, the current boundary between Maine and the New Brunswick. Although it was close to both the Abenaki and Maliseet villages, the location proved a terrible choice, and the French stayed there only one winter. Frozen and flooded, half the party died of scurvy, and Champlain and the survivors moved across the Bay of Fundy to the Nova Scotia's Annapolis Basin in 1605. The new site became known as Port Royal, and was located in Micmac territory. Although this gave the Micmac a definite advantage, the French continued to trade with the Abenaki, particularly the Penobscot. The Penobscot prospered as a result, and their sachem Bashaba was able to form a powerful alliance which threatened the Micmac across the bay. The rivalry over the French fur trade aggravated earlier animosities and by 1607 escalated into the Tarrateen War which broke out between the Bashaba's Penobscot confederacy and the Micmac and their Maliseet allies.

The fighting continued for eight years. Although the French were not pleased with the warfare, they managed to trade with both sides. Meanwhile, the first Jesuit missionaries had arrived at Port Royal in 1610 and met immediate success working among the Micmac. Their first important convert was the sachem Membertou who was baptized with his entire family in 1610. Unfortunately, conversion did not protect him from epidemic, and Membertou died the following year. In spite of their war with the Micmac, the French also built a mission and trading post for the Penobscot at St Sauver Mont-Deserts de Pentagoet (Bar Harbor, Maine) in 1613. It had a brief existence, however, and was destroyed by an English raid from Jamestown, Virginia later that year. In 1615 the Micmac succeeded in killing Bashaba and in so doing won the war. During the next two years, Micmac warriors swept south through the Abenaki villages in Maine in a wave of destruction reaching as far south as Massachusetts.

www.dickshovel.com...

The inhabitants of pre-Columbian North America had no written language, various ( though often related ) religious beliefs, and were tribal. The similarity in tribal law or custom tended to be similar only in terms of geographic proximity. Thus customs on the west coast were different from those on the east.

The idea of a universal "code" seems highly implausible and historically impossible to prove given the above.

Many of the tribes did share behaviors, such as utilization of 100% of resources ( kills ). But this can be put down less to universal agreement and more to simple necessity and utilatarianism.

Those seeking to portray the American aboriginals with a broad brush, either as barbarians or as saintly spiritualists both fail equally.

a reply to: diggindirt

ts of warfare and violence in thousands of years of history is ignorant as well. That would be like saying that Charles Mansion and family represent the culture of the US in the 1970s. It might make a good movie but it is skewed to the point of being ridiculous!

No not really. If you were to take a look at the US from 2000-2001 or say 1990-95 and say that this time is descriptive of American culture and warfare as a whole, would you be getting the full story? Obviously not.

The aboriginal peoples of North America dates back something like 10,000 years, so that is a lot of time, in which plenty of years of peace, and war. The war is what we were talking about though, and while it wasn't opportunistic war like the West is involved in, their wars or skirmishes were probably brought on by changes in Mother Nature that forced their tribes or clans to migrate which would have them encroaching on another's land. While most firmly didn't believe the land was owned by any man, a person will still defend their favourite hunting and gathering lands when it comes down to who is going to eat from it the next day.

So you say a bunch of skeletons without spears in their hands, that is not indicative of a culture in a lifetime span. I think the span of a lifetime is a good period to judge a culture by, if they can go 50-80 years without a war or fighting than most definitely you can call them a peaceful people. As a person could live a lifetime of peace amongst them.

Finding remains however is a crapshoot, as a single year of blood could be completely washed away by the time we find them. Oral tradition/history tells us another story.

a reply to: solemind4

Your Native American Ten Commandments sound nice and New Agey. What's your source for your claim that all Native American tribes had these? What's your source for pre-European influenced Native Americans worshipping "The Great Spirit"? I look forward to your answers.

originally posted by: Onslaught2996

By the way....for the guy who knows a Native American ...good to know you don't base our entire people on the one you know...

Why do we have to assimilate in order to be accepted.

I don't think he was judging all natives with his comment, I thought he directed it at women on the east coast who can be woo'd by the mythical native stereotypes.

I also grew up in New Mexico, at least half my friends are native, we've all encountered tourists who are amazed to see a real life "Indian". They talk to my friends in slow broken down sentences, and my friends respond in slow broken down sentences, they might even throw in a reference to the great buffalo, but only cause it's hilarious. We laugh about it, but the tourist leaves thinking they received some higher knowledge.

There are defiantly people who revere natives as some type of spiritually enlightened people. That's a nice stereotype to have, but it's honestly BS. You guys are no different than the rest of us.

I also know enough to know different tribes have different beliefs and spiritual practices, saying "natives believed" is a generalization. I know some tribes still see each other as rivals today as well.

originally posted by: boncho
a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

so the OP is partially correct they did know more than we know....lets face it at the very least had we not destroyed their way of life they would and the world around them would still be thriving
more to the point if we lived our lives to those commandments the world would be a better place

Well I don't know. the Inuit population in Northern Canada is nearly untouched in many instances by modernization. .

You mean except for snow mobiles, guns, and liquor?

a reply to: solemind4

Religion created laws, hatred and all the negative things in the world. It has been the fuel for war, because one persons beliefs were different than another.

While your new age view on this is nice.......you dont seem to have all the facts........

Granted they were more in tuned with how nature worked and to leave more then you took, and how to use nature to their best advantage......but......

My whole mothers side of the family is Native American......and I can tell you right now, being Comanche , there was plenty of wars between clans and tribes, and there was thievery and every other manner of debauchery you can think of......

Human nature to be selfish and corrupt didnt come from "religion" ......its in human nature, just as it is human nature to inherently know what is right and wrong......

PS Native Americans had a religion too.......might want to look up the definition on that.....

Also I dont ever remember my great grandfather or grandfather reciting these "commandments"

There was wisdom passed down.....

....but so much of this stuff people talk about now days, comes down from new age butterflies and rainbows, and crystal wearing Santa Fe New Mexico transplants, and would make my grandmother laugh......

originally posted by: sacgamer25
a reply to: solemind4


The law is beautiful, the Native American Religion is beautiful, how do bad Indians diminish the value that came from those who were obviously of character, virtue and love?

Do you seriously think there was one Native American religion?

a reply to: boncho

Kudos to you on this thread..........

Stick to your guns.....

Anyone on here saying the Native Americans didnt war and have horrible battles with each other is full of crap......

We wouldnt have had "braves" and "warriors" if there wasnt any fighting......

Seriously anyone who acts like everything was roses and peace pipes and pemican sharing between tribes is being intellectually dishonest......

originally posted by: Hefficide

The inhabitants of pre-Columbian North America had no written language, various ( though often related ) religious beliefs, and were tribal. The similarity in tribal law or custom tended to be similar only in terms of geographic proximity. Thus customs on the west coast were different from those on the east.

The idea of a universal "code" seems highly implausible and historically impossible to prove given the above.

Many of the tribes did share behaviors, such as utilization of 100% of resources ( kills ). But this can be put down less to universal agreement and more to simple necessity and utilatarianism.

Those seeking to portray the American aboriginals with a broad brush, either as barbarians or as saintly spiritualists both fail equally.

Thank you Heff and Spot on bud!

originally posted by: solemind4
"When the white man discovered this country, Indians were running it. No taxes, no debt, women did all the work. White man thought he could improve on a system like this" - Cherokee

originally posted by: TheJourney
Awesome...clearly I have underestimated the Native American wisdom...how do I join such a society, where I don't have to do any work?

Am I really the only one who found the bit about women doing all the work odd, funny, and out of place?