Indian Chief 'Two Eagles' was asked by a white government official, 'You have observed the white man for 90 years. You've seen his wars and his technological advances. You've seen his progress, and the damage he's done.'

The Chief nodded in agreement.

The official continued, 'Considering all these events, in your opinion, where did the white man go wrong?'

The Chief stared at the government official for over a minute and then calmly replied. 'When white man find land, Indians running it, no taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, clean water. Women did all the work, Medicine man free. Indian man spend all day hunting and fishing; all night having sex.'

Then the chief leaned back and smiled. 'Only white man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that.'

the sad part is that this is true......

As a child, all I wanted to be was an indian brave, riding bareback accross the plains on my painted stallion. Now I understand why

LOL
My god that one is good.


muck

ooga booga

Damn Politicians

They live in very poor housing and died at very young ages. They were always killing each other off and most had some canabalism in the tribes.

Many starved in the winter, died of disease's in large numbers.

The only reason they didn't explot the country and kill of the all the game is they didn't not have the means and knowleage to to so.

Its a myth that they were noble.

They put up a pretty poor show in battle against "the white man". Compared with the well organised and Zulus in South Africa and their showing against the British.

If the American Indians had been that smart they would have obliterated the first white settlers and burnt their ships.

quote:

Originally posted:
They live in very poor housing and died at very young ages. They were always killing each other off and most had some canabalism in the tribes.

Many starved in the winter, died of disease's in large numbers.

The only reason they didn't explot the country and kill of the all the game is they didn't not have the means and knowleage to to so.

Its a myth that they were noble.

Beg to disagree with most of that post. Like all prejudices it mostly is a overly-broad painting of a large variety of very different human groups with the same inaccurate brush.

Firstly, the various tribes lived in all sorts of different dwellings, from Hogans to Tepees, and on and on.

The Teepees (sp?) are one the best forms of survival dwellings that exists, even today. They are easily heated, easily cooled, easily moved, very well insulated and can be made of skins, woven fibres of many sorts, and so on. Even at -50 below zero Fahrenheit ambient temperature they are very comfortable and livable.


Although they did have frequent battles between tribes, relatively small numbers were killed as a result...certainly no more than in the constant wars Europeans had with THEIR neighbors (which still went on until the most recent crap in Bosnia).

In many Indian tribes of the west, there was much greater honour obtained by "counting coup" in battle than by killing. Counting coup meant getting close enough to your enemy to actually touch him during the battle with a very short stick, but not harming him....and then escaping with your own hide untouched and intact.

Many Europeans also died of famine in winter...ever hear of the potato famine in Ireland? How about the hundreds of thousands of starved Kulaks who died in Ukranian Russia immediately after WWI?

As to disease, the indians were relatively disease-free until the Europeans brought little beauties like flu, small pox, and syphalis here with them. The indians, having not had such diseases in North America, naturally had no immunity to them. Still, even then they did not die in anything like the numbers the Europeans did when the Bubonic (Black) Plague was brought from China to Italy and then spread across the rest of Europe.


Canabalism was mostly isolated to tribes along the lower Mississippi, but I think even some white groups were reported to have practiced it...like the Donner Party. Of course many of the reports were by people with some other hidden agenda, who had an "axe to grind"...usually to create an image of something or other...either of desparation (the Donner Party) or of being "sub-human" to justify wiping them out and stealing their land (the indians). At any rate, both reports may in fact be untruths.

As far as the ability of indians to fight, the Cheyenne and Sioux were claimed by the soldiers they fought against to be "the best light cavalry in the world". Those same soldier's forbears had no trouble stomping the Brits at New Orleans, so perhaps they knew something about the indians' fighting ability

Humans as a whole are hardly "noble", especially the ones who sign treaties with abolutely no intention of abiding by them...such as the treaty to NOT settle Montana and the Dakotas with whites....which was quickly violated once gold was discovered in both territories.

Sheesh! I was just posting a joke, and you guys go and get all serious on me. Is this now the political humor forum?

And I thank you for posting it. I think it is hilarious. It was definitely not your posting to which I had any objections.

Wow, this reminds me of my wife.

Husband: "Hey snookums, want to hear a funny joke about indians"
wife: "yes dear"

Husband tells funny joke

wife:"I dont get it"
Husband must explain, in detail the origin of all the nouns in the joke

wife:"thats not funny, I cannot believe you talk like that"

Husband rolls over
farts . . . the end

cute white man still improving system, WAFM

Alberta Canuck I think you should read the accounts of some of the earlest explorers they tell of lots of starvation ,canabalism. Selling women into slaverly. The chippewas and the Souix paractice all of them.

One of the biggest battles between the Souix and the chippewa was less then 20 miles from by house it is est that 700 hundred souix warriors were killed in that one battle alone.

Do you really belive living in a tee pee when its -40 below is one of the best shelters out there yea get a life. Better then some not even close to a good house. A open smokey fire in the middle with no steel axes or saws to cut wood. No metal cooking pots ect. Yes they lived a wonderful life.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
Alberta Canuck I think you should read the accounts of some of the earlest explorers they tell of lots of starvation ,canabalism. Selling women into slaverly. The chippewas and the Souix paractice all of them.

One of the biggest battles between the Souix and the chippewa was less then 20 miles from by house it is est that 700 hundred souix warriors were killed in that one battle alone.

Do you really belive living in a tee pee when its -40 below is one of the best shelters out there yea get a life. Better then some not even close to a good house. A open smokey fire in the middle with no steel axes or saws to cut wood. No metal cooking pots ect. Yes they lived a wonderful life.

Appaently you know very little about tipis (or teepees, in English). Properly constructed and erected, they were/are much more comfortable than the typical "soddies" that many whites lived in at the same time in the same areas. Here's a source for some knowledge anout them...numerous good books on the subject are currently for sale, new, used, and cheap, at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Tipi-Mod.../188-4364843-2702261

Also, no one said the indians never killed each other in war. Just compare the 700 you mention killed with the losses in the internecine European wars which went on constantly, if you consider killing each other a sign of pure savagery. Napoleon marched into Russia with hundreds of thousands of men. On his retreat, he arrived at the captital of Latvia with something like 30-40,000 still alive. When he left Latvia on the continued march home, only some 6000-8,000 were still ambulatory. Many of those few remaining died before they got back to France. Then of course, there were other little skirmishes like the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Balkans, the Franco Prussian War (1871, was it?), the First World War, the American War of Northern Aggression (civil? War). Yeh, sure, the indians were the "savages" who were always at war...that's why the cities of Europe were mainly all walled at one time.

As to starvation, from about 1,400 A.D. through about 1,850 A.D. that was quite common throughout the world and all cultures because of the "mini ice age" which occurred then and destroyed basic food crops in the northern hemisphere world-wide.

The French revolution really started as a result of the ensuing shortage of grain to make bread, and began with the "bread riots" in Paris. Nursery rhymes such as Hansel & Gretal evolved from the practice of starving parents taking their kids into the forests and abandoing them in order to save others of the family.

As far as selling kids and wives into slavery, you may want to read up on the history of indentured servitude in England (and other countries). NOT the same thing as apprenticeship, children were effectively sold to factories and merchant ships as slaves in jobs whch very regularly resulted in their deaths or permanent disability. That finally started to come to an end in England as a result of the work of Charles Dickens and other like himboth before and afterward, which resulted in the passage of laws in the 1800's forbidding such practices.

Anyway, before one looks down their nose at the indian tribes, they really need to learn more about their own culture(s). They may end up with a new-found understanding, and perhaps even a bit of respect.

No one is perfect, indian or white, but the history written by European whites about people who are not white is possibly among the least objective literary work available.

People the world over, now and in the past, are more notable for their similarities than their differences, both physically and culturally.

The noble savage is a romantic myth - and so is the civilizing influence of science and industry.

BTW, just for the record, the best scientific evidence indicates that syphilis developed in the New World as a mutation of the yaws bacterium and was first brought to the Old World (and Naples, in particular) by Columbus's returning crewmen.

Syphilis (until it was rendered curable by antibiotics) and casino gambling appear to be the red man's best revenge.

BTW, good joke!

1. Great joke.
2. Didn't know this thread was going to become so educational.
3. The Comanche became probably the best horsemen of all the tribes. 'Just never got as much press as the others.

Thanks for posting the joke.

quote:

They put up a pretty poor show in battle against "the white man".

From the movie "The Outlaw Josey Wales" when Clint Eastwood sneaks up on Chief Dan George:

Lone Watie: [realizes Josey has snuck up behind and pulled a gun on him] They said a man could get rich on reward money if he could kill you.
Josey Wales: Seems like you was looking to gain some money here.
Lone Watie: Actually, I was looking to gain an edge. I thought you might be someone who would sneak up behind me with a gun.
Josey Wales: Where'd you ever get an idea like that? Besides it ain't supposed to be easy to sneak up behind an Indian
Lone Watie: I'm an Indian, all right; but here in the nation they call us the "civilized tribe". They call us "civilized" because we're easy to sneak up on. White men have been sneaking up on us for years.