What do you know about Native Americans?

Question

Well as a native american it seems people these days don't know CRAP about Native Americans!!! Some say navajo were wind talkers? My elders were "CODE TALKERS" that bullshit movie was just BS! The language they spoke was some what navajo but it was by a guy who WAS NOT a navajo. THe question i want to ask is should schools know about Native american history?Why that a$$ stole OUR land! Including the other 270 other tribes? But there are only 6 that are reconized....bullshit...

Answer 1

Well I am 1/16 Cherokee and I do catch hell for turning red in the sun, there is still racism here and we get to get it from both sides the joy.

Answer 2

I agree, Adam Beach isn't very good at speaking Navajo. That's no reason to berate him for trying though. It's nice to see more Native Americans getting roles in Hollywood movies.

You might be interested to know that Dinè, or Navajos, were not the only Code Talkers that served during WW2. There were representatives from several other tribes such as the Sioux, Comanche, Hopi, Choctaw, and several others; some of them even served in the European Theatre.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_cr/hr3250.html

Also, the notion of tribes is a bureacratic convention to conveniently categorize Native Americans. Realistically speaking, "tribes" were a conglomeration of many groups of people who had similar cultural and linguistic traits. Members of each group were typically related along matrilineal lines which was represented in the form of a clan system. I assume you know a little something about Navajos so you should know that some Navajo clans are actually from several other "tribes" the lived in the same region. Zuni, Hopi, Pueblo, Apache, and Ute tribes are all represented in one form or another in the traditional Navajo clan system.

One last thing, using the notion of a "tribe", there were significantly more than 270 "tribes" when Europeans came to North America. Many of them became extinct by the time the US government had been formed. Several "tribes" to this day are also on the borderline of losing their status as a federally-recognized tribe.

Answer 3

It's my understanding that the code was based on the Navajo language, but that doesn't answer your question.

It's a source of shame and sadness to me that the history of Native Americans has not been a part of our educational system from the outset. After all, the natives were here first and I believe that the Europeans could have learned a lot from them if they'd only been more open minded and less ethnocentric.

The Native Americans had survived in this country because they knew how to adapt to the areas in which they lived, instead of trying to replicate life in the area they'd left. So, naturally, who would know more about what plants would thrive and how to use every part of a game animal? Not the new kids on the shore, that's for certain.

Unfortunately, the new kids on the shore thought their culture was vastly superior to that of the indigenous people and just dismissed a very vibrant, vital culture as 'savagery.'

I often wonder, in the final analysis, who the real savages were.

Answer 4

You'd be AMAZED at what most people don't know about most things. "Code Talkers" was crap. So was the movie about *my* ethnic ancestors: "Braveheart". Movies provide drama, not history. They exist to get paying butts in the theater seats, so if the reality that the drama is based on has to be changed to maximize the number of butts, it will be.

If you look more closely at history, you'll see that there is no "fair." The Seminoles were driven into the Florida swamps by the Cherokee, who were in turn sent on the Trail of Tears by Americans. Or, to get closer to the Contact Period: the Powhatans were busy conquoring and consolidating their neighboring tribes, and those who didn't *want* to be conquored allied with the English settlers (the Potomacs, Nansemonds, and Chesapeakes allied with the British, to name but three).

Do Native Americans have a reason to be torqued? You bet. Mainly over broken treaties dating to the late 19th Century... when "win at any cost" Unionists (Republicans) held a monopoly on government. So go to law school and open a case.

Look at Jews, they're vastly outnumbered globally, but they tooled their culture to promote success: they value education and striving to better one's self, and in preserving their heritage. The cumulative effect is that they thrive and have a solid cultural identity.

Answer 5

Yeah, I'm part Native American too, but so small a fraction that I'm basically white. It is pretty fukt up that whites basically came over, raped, pillaged, slaughtered, and forcably migrated the entire Native American population to near extinction. And we act like Hitler was evil, and we are righteous "under God". Our whole infastructure is pathetic.

The human race is doomed.

On to your issue, I think educating the youth about Native Americans would do little to alleviate this problem. The damage has been done. Our technological innovations have warped our perception of reality such that our technologies have shaped our lives; they are so embedded in our lives that life would be almost unthinkable without them. Children care more about video games than the mistakes of our ancestors. Educating youth will just make them feel guilty for something they didn't do because they are too stupid and immature to realize the meaning behind it. They will learn the truth if they seek it, but even fewer will seek it as time progresses.

If we continue our present trajectory of unethical business practices involving our new technologies (i.e. pharmacuetical companies shoving pills down our throats through paid off shrinks, TV dinners and processed foods generating obesity, oil spills in the arctic, etc.) we will reach a barrier to our progress; either we will be forced to reject the use of certain technologies as our resource availability permits or we will die off in a vicious battle for remaining resources.

Sorry for the digression, but I tend to blab on and on when I speak on an emotionally charged topic.

Answer 6

I know that before 1492, there were hundreds of thriving nations. I know that some of these nations were thriving before the birth of Egypt. I know that the Aztec population dwinled from over 25 million to under a million in less than a century.

Answer 7

If you go to your local library or look up "nI"s on the net you'll find that the NI had more dignity,honor, and trust than any white, black' or yellow, That set foot on this great continent. I say this, not as an INDIAN but as an Irish-american.

Answer 8

Yeah, you bring up a lot of valid points. Unfortunately, your cries will fall mostly on deaf ears on this website. Most people would rather tell you to shut up, stop exaggerating, or to just get over yourself--just because they have NO IDEA what you are talking about. It is sad.

Answer 9

I too have a cherokee great grandmother on the maternal side,and blackfeet and crow on my dads. I have tried to find out more but always hit a blank wall!

Answer 10

Move to Canada, they treat the first peoples with respect, always have.