Real thanksgiving

[billc]

Yeah, they had trouble surviving those first few years because their technology was limited as well, but once they were established they swarmed over the whole continent.

 

[Omar B]

Remember as well that the early people also had slaves, and captured members of other tribes, and ate their enemies and engaged in torture and human sacrifice. They were not Disney characters, they were primitive peoples living in a harsh environment with inadequate technology and medical care. The Europeans were ahead of them just enough to give them the advantage. I'm not saying THe europeans were saints either. They killed each other and tortured and stole and all the other evils that people are capable of. My point is that the early native americans were the same. Not worse, not better, but just people in a primitive time.

Ok, the pilgrims who had the thanksgiving with the natives did not have slaves. One of the reasons they left the old world was because they disagreed with the practice, they had many reasons, but it was in there.

As for the natives being backwards. It's debatable. Many tribes practiced agriculture, they worked metal (they had gold jewelry after all), and many of their medicines worked. Not because it wasn't cooked up in a lab makes it any less valid, look at Chinese medicine for instance.

They were overwhelmed by numbers and yes, better technology, but they were not as backwards as you would paint them.

 

[billc]

I remember an account that I read in my freshman history class by a priest who lived with the indians. He said that they would carry the sick along with them until they lost their appetite and then they would leave them under a tree to die. He also spoke about spending the winter with the tribe where they had to remain in their tents to stay warm. The priest said you had to lay down near the side of the tent, and lift it to get clean air to breath because the smoke was so thick in the tent.

 

[Omar B]

Yeah? What's the point you are trying to make here? People got sick and died all over the world at that time and even now from easily cured diseases. People also got cold in winter and used fires to heat their homes ... even now too.

 

[Steve]

Just making sure I understand the OP. Are you saying that Thanksgiving is a liberal plot to brainwash our kids into becoming Socialists?

 

[billc]

No.

 

[Omar B]

Just making sure I understand the OP. Are you saying that Thanksgiving is a liberal plot to brainwash our kids into becoming Socialists?

I think he's trying to say that the Pilgrims were from a more advanced society and the natives had nothing to teach them. But this is ignorning the fact that most of these Pilgrims were from metropolitan areas in England and The Netherlands doing jobs that are pretty similar to what we are doing now. After all, this was post Renaissance Europe city dwellers, most had never worked on farm in their lives, many of them shop keepers, tailors, shop keepers, butchers, accountants, lawyers, clergy, sailors, brokers of various materials, not the type (even now) to know much about agriculture or starting a new society from scratch.

Reminds me of the last book in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy with the entire ship full of accountants, lawyers, hairdressers, phone repairmen, etc. Who landed on a primordial earth and had zero clue how to do anything but do each other's hair and complain about the humidity.

 

[Tez3]

I remember an account that I read in my freshman history class by a priest who lived with the indians. He said that they would carry the sick along with them until they lost their appetite and then they would leave them under a tree to die. He also spoke about spending the winter with the tribe where they had to remain in their tents to stay warm. The priest said you had to lay down near the side of the tent, and lift it to get clean air to breath because the smoke was so thick in the tent.

I have to question this, it doesn't ring true, in this day and age that anyone in America just leaves people to die under trees! they would carry them around until they lost their appetites? C'mon, you are going to have to come up with something better than that!

Billchihak, could you put all you want to say in one post rather than one after another?

 

[billc]

I am talking about during the time of the colonies, when missionaries went to live with the tribes to convert them. These practices were observed by a jesuit priest, I think. I also just found the edit button, so I hope to consolidate my posts. Happy Thanksgiving, time to indulge.

 

[Tez3]

I am talking about during the time of the colonies, when missionaries went to live with the tribes to convert them. These practices were observed by a jesuit priest, I think.

Oh yes those nice men who tortured and killed my people, coming from the church that initiated the Inquistition, who actually killed more natives in various countries than they converted..by force. Yep always a reliable source of how bad natives are.

 

[billc]

It wasn't a reflection of good or bad on his part he was just making reports about how the native americans lived. It was an essay in the history supplemental at the University of Illinois at chicago, freshman history way back in 93 or so. I don't remember the name of the collection. It is also where the report from the native american winter camp came from.

 

[Tez3]

It wasn't a reflection of good or bad on his part he was just making reports about how the native americans lived.

Not my point, the Catholic Church along with other Christian beliefs felt that all natives were savages who either needed pacifying ie killed or converting. Their reports of the practices of the people they considered savages can't be trusted to be unbiased eye witness reports.

 

[Blade96]

Blade96 is going to ask permission to borrow your thread to wish all her American friends on here a happy thanksgiving. :uhyeah:

 

[billc]

Then of course, the eyewitness accounts of the first thanksgiving shouldn't be trusted either. Or any history for that matter. In fact, the study of history should just stop since the accounts of eyewitnesses cannot be trusted. There is only today. Was there even a roman republic, or ancient Egypt? Did the Japanese shogun, in fact exist or was it made up by interested petty japanese warlords?

 

[Omar B]

Now you are being facetious when your argument crumbles upon itself. One sent to convert people can hardly be looked upon as an unbiased source of information.

Fact is a priest sent out to convert the "savage natives" is going to write and report to his superiors that they are just that. Cortez looked down on the Maya too, but they had great cities, irrigation, medicine, etc. Sure they had human sacrifice, but that wasnt the whole culture, there are many cultures who have things we look down upon but they contributed to our civilization.

 

[billc]

Perhaps the individual commenting on the motives of a long dead jesuit priest is reacting to his own preconcieved notions of the man and his calling. Maybe all the people who wrote about the wrongs of the catholic church back then, were angry atheists, and protestants who had axes to grind. Why bother with history at all?

 

[Omar B]

That is a ratther immature and illinformed view on history. If the one source you go by is wrong then it is all garbage huh? There is a reason people study events from several sides and differing accounts, to try to eliminate personal bias and just see the events as they happened. I don't think any angry atheist had any axe to grind against the church, the crusades, inquisition and middle ages happened, Martin Luther did nail his note to the door, the pilgrims did leave because of how they were treated by the church, these things happened.

If one were to take the account of Europeans as gospel then China would be nothing but a bunch of warring tribes, India would be nothing but a humid pesthole. Both very advanced societies who in many ways were way ahead of Europe, but they were not christan and didn't care for European monarchs.

 

[billc]

Of course, since discussions on a martial arts forum are the absolute best place to look at all the first hand accounts of all the witnesses to native american tribes from all the myriad points of view I guess being able to bad mouth, one, lone, jesuit preist, (if he was a jesuit, that class was a long time ago) who kept a journal is the best way to examine the validity of his account. I guess I just didn't take your view point seriously because you may have a bias against Jesuit (?) priests who lived among the native americans.

 

[Omar B]

No, you seem fixated on one account when the native people of this country are one of the most well documented aboriginal people out there. There are literally thousands of books written on them, many first hand accounts from people who lived among them, hunted them, tried to convert them and who held them reverent. No one should rely on one account, especcially that of a person sent for the sole purpose of converting the savages.

But you have not responded to European thought on Asian culture at the time. They certainly didn't have a high opinion of China, India, Japan, though we know they were not the backward people they were portrayed as.

And you really shouldn't say such disparaging remarks about discussions on a "martial arts forum," it displays nothing but contempt for a place you choose to be and your fellow posters. I'm a journalist, there are several scientists, doctors, historians, teachers, police officers, military, etc here. We are by no stretch of the imagination meatheads, but your open sneer at this place because we don't share your opinion betrays a lot about yourself.

 

[billc]

To all the fans of Japanese martial arts, how long did the Japanese feudal period last. Not that I am complaining, because they were still in their feudal period so long they were able to keep their martial arts and pass them on more completely than their european counterparts did. Oh, what was that cult in India suppressed by the British, the Thuggees, and what did they do to the wives with dead husbands, something about throwing them on the burning pyre. Now I am not saying anything about anyone being superior to anyone else, let's just not claim that they were saints either.