>Pre-American tribes in the United States were inherently communistic and shared everything. They had no concept of ownership.
>Murder amongst tribe members was very rare, and when it did occur the murderer was forgiven after apologizing and atoning rather than being executed.
>Wars between tribes were uncommon, and when they did occur, the two sides tended to forgive and forget rather than hold grudges.
>There are many recorded instances of white settlers running away to live with the tribes. However, there are few if any recorded instances of a tribal willingly joining American settlers or adopting their way of life.
the first one is true even today. I know some tech projects with natives in south america, private property is an alien concept to them.
Dylan Powell
So they behaved in the exact opposite manner of European nobility?
Noble savage debunked.
Parker Parker
Honestly though there's no way to verify anything natives say because their record keeping is fucking shit, and for people with no concept of ownership they fought over land rights quite a bit.
All we know about natives is from our dealings with them and from uncovering old remains/buildings, and from our own talks with them and our own findings what we see in the natives is the same shit we see in ALL humans - Lots of fucking war, lots of land taking, lots of brutality.
As for there being "few if any" recorded instances of indians joining settlers, that's plain false. I don't have it on hand, but there were a number of tribes in florida that dressed western and even bought slaves. Plenty of natives adopted our way of life, most of our time spent in the colonies (in the beginning anyways) was spent converting them to christianity.
Cameron Ortiz
check out the tupi guaranis , and the jesuist reductions.
They were chill as fuck.
Austin King
Source on any of these things?
Elijah Howard
It's just a well-meaning rehash of old memes used to justify Native oppression.
Instead of saying "they're if ignorant savages and this means they should be crushed" it's just "they're ignorant savages and this means they should be celebrated."
Historians hate this meme because applying contemporary Western standards to isolate peoples is dishonest, retarded, and reductionist.
Michael Sanders
Aztecs debunk a lot of that shit.
Hudson Cook
I hate this ridiculous back-and-forth people have with the Natives. No, they weren't noble savages, but just because they weren't hippies doesn't mean it's any more correct to say they were degenerate subhumans. Were the Aztecs savages? Sure, but that doesn't condemn all of the Americas. It doesn't really say anything about the Incas.
Parker Brown
Yes, they were human just like everyone else. No better, no worse. I think they deserve a more balanced view and as I read more about them this is supported by evidence too.
No native tribe was the same. Some were close to le noble savage may may but most weren't at all.
Isaiah Anderson
"Noble savage" Hold on. Ahahahahahahahahahhahahaahhaa Oh dear god, ahahahaha
About that. >Wars between tribes were uncommon, and when they did occur, the two sides tended to forgive and forget rather than hold grudges. No shit. You can't be fighting wars without supply lines, without surplus.The reason there were few wars is that war was not feasible. What did occur were raids. These were brutal. There's a site in the northern US (forget which states) and it has a massive pre-cplumbian burial ground. There are over 100 skeletons, all savagely killed, and all males. This implication is that the women were carried off.
Real noble right?
Dominic Jones
Weren't they all cannibals?
Gavin Kelly
What makes you think that? I know a couple of tribes practiced it but it wasn't some widespread thing, I mean hell the northern tribes had stories of a monster that was basically a warning to never eat other people.
Easton Gonzalez
>noble >savage
So I suppose the Europeans who killed, raped and kicked them off their land (not saying that the indigenous people were blameless too- wars, etc) were gud BOIS who dindu nuffin?
Both the natives and the colonisers had their own levels of savagery.
And as such our notion as to what we define as savage is shaped on the spooks of morality.
I suppose medicine and respect for the land would count, but there have been other civilisations who have done this.
Indigenous people have fought and killed over land and resources just like anyone else.
Just so happens that the colonists were better at it.
Brody Powell
I guess what I'm trying to say is "why should we apply a double standard?" Both the colonists and the indigenous people did horrible things to each other and their fellow men.
Christopher Morales
Right, this is the mainstream historical attitude. The noble savage thing is just hippie bullshit which is hugely racist in effect.
Owen Flores
In Algonquian folklore, the wendigo or windigo[note 1] is a cannibal monster or evil spirit native to the northern forests of the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes Region of both the United States and Canada/ Manitoba.[4] The wendigo may appear as a monster with some characteristics of a human, or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous. It is historically associated with cannibalism, murder, insatiable greed, and the cultural taboos against such behaviours.[5] The legend lends its name to the disputed modern medical term Wendigo psychosis, which is considered by psychiatrists to be a form of culture-bound syndrome with symptoms such as an intense craving for human flesh and a fear of becoming a cannibal.[6] In some Indigenous communities, environmental destruction and insatiable greed are also seen as a manifestation of Windigo Psychosis.[7]
Cooper Stewart
So we've got one group who has beliefs about cannibalism. What about all the other groups?
Cameron Morris
isolated practice im sure
Jackson Taylor
>noble savage theory >theory Why are you acting like this is some academic standpoint and not just a popular media stereotype that nobody takes seriously?
Sure, some anthropologists might argue that hunter-gatherer or egalitarian tribal societies are better to live in compared to stratified chiefdoms and states, and maybe the modern world too (I disagree, at least in the case of developed countries), but nobody other than hippies takes the idea that war and cruelty didn't exist in prehistoric societies seriously.
Attacking strawmen seems to be all Veeky Forums can do these days.
Samuel Ortiz
>wars between tribes were uncommon This is a fucking joke That last one sounds like you literally made it up on the spot.
However, the noble savage thing is stupid. Tribes in the Americas didn't really operate that much differently than early medieval Europeans but because Europeans had access to more resources they built more shit. The only reason people think natives are savages stems from the fact that people assume Europeans were more advanced based on little else but architecture. Sure cathedrals and castles are great and a little more impressive than large dirt mounds, but for the most part Europeans and Americans before Columbus lived in remarkably similar housing. And of course there's the fact that they almost never wrote anything down and most of what they did write was destroyed so Europeans could claim whatever the fuck they wanted about them.
Grayson Smith
>Wars between tribes were uncommon You misspelled constant.
Zachary Hill
>tribes in the United States were inherently communistic
Every day I'm becoming happier that they got killed off
