November 17, 2008: Indians

A group of what I believe are High School students in Texas, have put together a beautiful website. Using pictures of Indians from the National Archives and adding text that appears when each picture is clicked on, they've created an emotional experience.

Beautiful.

Indians sure were short on smiles, weren't they?

Great idea for a site.

I spent my childhood summers travelling with my folks around the western states going to archives and Indian Days (which is what they're called - Browning Indian Days, for example). It was a great experience.

They may have lived in harmony with the land, but not with one another. The Iroquois, for example, were no friends of the Hurons.

If you ever get a chance to do a sweatlodge, take it. Brutal to experience but life changing.

Some of these are probably from the Frank Rinehart collection. About 800 of the original glass plates are stored at Haskell Indian Nations University here in Lawrence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SPUCK Indians sure were short on smiles, weren't they?

There are also some cultures (today, not back then) where smiling in photos just isn't done. When we were buying our current house, we walked through one that had all these posed family photos on the wall, and not a single smile, anywhere. There is nothing creepier than a group of dead-serious children staring at you. Also, the mother had a pretty hefty moustache. That was pretty creepy too.

heh.

That reminds me that when my daughter was around 15 months old, we were trying to get her to smile for the camera. For some reason, she decided that "SMILE!" was a command to open your mouth as wide as you can. We have a lot of pictures from this couple month long period with her mouth stretched wide open.

Very cute glatt, could make for some interesting senior photos later in life.

It looks like she is yawning. Cute.

(Is it terribly wrong that I want to put a ping pong ball in her mouth and try to win a prize?)

Early photos did aim at dignity, but I also think that by the time those photos were taken, your average Native American didn't have an awful lot to smile about.

Email from the site creators...

It is nice that these kids are learning about other cultures but the myths they learn bug me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce Picture a time when Native Americans lived in harmony with the land.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coign The reason they did not have as much a impact on the land as we may have now is that there were just less of them.

Beautiful site.

lmao @ Coign. Seriously?

Just because they didn't have the technology to mess up the land didn't mean they had the will. They were less "green" intending than many of the green conservatives of today.

My argument is don't point to them as your green land loving idols. They were not.

They hunted and fished, for food and clothing. They used trees and rocks for shelters and tools.

That is the very definition of a relationship with nature. For them to be "green" do you think they should have sat around starving to death in the snow because they didn't want to use the land? Damn buffalo ate stuff too. Damn birds and coyote. Damn plant life.

:

I can't believe I'm even arguing this point. It's ridiculous.

Come now, they burned the landscaped, over hunted their lands, droves whole herds off of cliff sides, and massacred any neighbors that posed a threat to their hunting grounds? That is living in harmony?

Here are some quick links for you.

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1...ndians+harmony

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles...ton112205.html

http://www.reason.com/news/show/30146.html



It is not an argument, it is an education.

Whew. I'm glad we (they) slaughtered them (us) and stopped them (us) from bastardizing our (their) land.

Long live the American Holocaust, so people like Coign can feel big and strong. Your solely opinion articles mean nothing to me. Why do you want to fuck up a nice thread and a nice site anyway? Can't stand it, can you?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coign Just because they didn't have the technology to mess up the land didn't mean they had the will. They were less "green" intending than many of the green conservatives of today. My argument is don't point to them as your green land loving idols. They were not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coign Come now, they burned the landscaped, over hunted their lands, droves whole herds off of cliff sides, and massacred any neighbors that posed a threat to their hunting grounds? That is living in harmony? Here are some quick links for you. http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1...ndians+harmony http://www.victorhanson.com/articles...ton112205.html http://www.reason.com/news/show/30146.html It is not an argument, it is an education.

He's right in that the plains Indians used all resources at hand, then moved on down the trail. They were nomadic because one spot wouldn't sustain their lifestyle for long. Of course they were limited in number, and the area they left would recover fairly quickly, so they could return to that spot on their next tour.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce He's right in that the plains Indians used all resources at hand, then moved on down the trail. They were nomadic because one spot wouldn't sustain their lifestyle for long. Of course they were limited in number, and the area they left would recover fairly quickly, so they could return to that spot on their next tour.

Only the Indians didn't leave such devastation in their wake.

...nor broken hearts!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shawnee123 Whew. I'm glad we (they) slaughtered them (us) and stopped them (us) from bastardizing our (their) land. Long live the American Holocaust, so people like Coign can feel big and strong. Your solely opinion articles mean nothing to me. Why do you want to fuck up a nice thread and a nice site anyway? Can't stand it, can you?

Skip this post Shawnee.
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Quote:

Originally Posted by classicman ...nor broken hearts!

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMercenary Sorry dude. Those are pretty weak arguments in the face of reams of historical evidence to the contrary.

As for the lack of smiles in everyone depicted in old photographs, regardless of their culture, it has nothing to do with the general cheeriness of the people being photographed, it has to do with the limitations of the film back then. The exposures were extremely long, people had to sit absolutley still for upwards of a minute at times. You cannot hold a smile that long with out it looking like a horrific grimace.

Try it if you can get your digital cameras on a tripod in a darkish room and you can set a 30 second exposure.

And as for "the Indians" living in harmony with nature that idea is fairly simplistic mainly because it presupposes that "the Indians" were a homogeneous group who all shared the same culture. I'm sure there were a few Indians who didn't finish all the food on their plate, and who didn't mind torching an enemy's camp even if it meant that all the resources that went into making that camp were destroyed.

But when has a lack of facts and personal experience ever stopped anyone from expressing their opinion on the internet?

Aren't there a few Indians STILL ALIVE? The conversation seems to be as though they are extinct.

Were they forced to be nomadic because of their lifestyle (hiding from enemies too) or were they concerned about "nature" and therefore nomadic by choice?

Absolutely Native Americans warred with each other, killed critters, and other unpleasant things.

My problem was with Coign looking at these pictures and commenting that it is a romanticization of a culture that was savage. He used "they" referring to NAs as if they were a homogenous group. A homogenous group of land-rapers and savages.

Another side of the culture is the respect for nature, as a whole, the awe of their gods (i.e. nature), loyalty to the tribe and family, and an inner peace with the ways of life and death.

When I look at these pictures, of course I romaticize the Native Americans. As a societal victim of genocide, they don't get the kind of press that African Americans, or Jews, or Rwandans, but I can bet the fear of the unfathomable concept that someone wants to wipe out you and your loved ones and your entire way of life were comparable.

My grandpa once said he never felt closer to God than when he was on the lake, fishing and thinking. I tend to feel that I got a lot of traits from him, and that his traits came from his ancestors.

Romanticize away. Give this culture some respect, it is no less a deserving object of this diversity thing you hear about in every seminar, lecture, class, and whatever other venues you can think of. It's a deeply beautiful culture.

As a society we have not cared for a long time, we have swept the issue under the rug because it is hard to look at and is so easily dismissed due to the current culture of the Native Americans, living on reservations or trying to assimilate: a calm demeanor, an attitude of seeming defeat that arises from an inner strength I think most of us couldn't understand. And we don't like to ever look like the "bad guys."

Though everyone is entitled to their opinion, I don't know that it would be met with such complacency had Doign walked into a thread about slavery and said something that amounts to the slaves being bastards and getting what they deserved.

Can't we just appreciate the beauty?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shawnee123 slaves being bastards

You BASTARD!

Uh, you rang?

and then there's anadromous fishing rights in the NW...

goldurn injuns get to keep using dip nets while paleface has to stick to rod & reel

lol...for a second I was thinking Goldurn Indians? Where did they originate?

The article pics are great!

Update

The kids that built the website have added a section with pictures and verses about themselves. Well worth checking out.
http://www.picture-indian.com/los-vatos-de-oro.htm