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#15112047
A thread to contemplate the wise words of First Nations leaders.

Let me start with a paraphrasing of a Chief Seattle letter:
Irma Velasquez Nimatuj wrote:The prophetic words of the Great Chief Seattle of the Suquamish People are fulfilled– in 1854 he sent a letter to President Franklin Pierce warning that the white men who contaminated their bed would perish contaminated in their own waste, walking toward their self-destruction.


And then the author concludes:

Just as Chief Seattle warned, today we are seeing the end of self-destructive life and we begin to go back to the dawn of the age for survival.


So Chief Seattle seems to have noticed that the incoming Euro-colonists created an incredible amount of destruction and waste. And he concluded that our callous attitude to the environment and other people would eventually kill our "built on the graves of our victims" civilization.

Another author I've read lately mentions how, at the end of the empire, Rome imported everything and only exported its own shit and garbage.

Not easy to trade with people with those things.
Last edited by QatzelOk on 08 Aug 2020 18:24, edited 1 time in total.
#15112072
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself...


- Tecumseh, Chief of the Western Confederacy and Amerindian warrior against American imperialism.
#15112164
ness31 wrote:“Hau“ *raises hand*

This is how they were depicted in Hollywood movies, as disposable props for a heroic genocide campaign by "religious" Europeans. Amazing that Hollywood was able to make so many "feel good" movies about genocide.

HATUEY
Ah-too-ay

Image

A Taino chief from what is now Dominican Republic. He heard that the Spanish were starting to do the same things in Cuba that they did to his hometown. So he went to Cuba with a Taino posse, and then tried to unite both the Taino and the runaway slaves they joined forces with. He lands at Caobana, Cuba, showing them a basket of gold and jewels he had brought with him.

wiki wrote:He showed the Taíno of Caobana a basket of gold and jewels, saying:

Here is the God the Spaniards worship. For these they fight and kill; for these they persecute us and that is why we have to throw them into the sea... They tell us, these tyrants, that they adore a God of peace and equality, and yet they usurp our land and make us their slaves. They speak to us of an immortal soul and of their eternal rewards and punishments, and yet they rob our belongings, seduce our women, violate our daughters. Incapable of matching us in valor, these cowards cover themselves with iron that our weapons cannot break...


I love that he realized how fake and strategic the Spanish "faith" was.

Late, when he's put to death by the same Spanish Christians, he is offered salvation through last-minute Christianity:

Before he was burned, a priest asked Hatuey if he would accept Jesus and go to heaven. Las Casas recalled the reaction of the chief:

[Hatuey], thinking a little, asked the religious man if Spaniards went to heaven. The religious man answered yes... The chief then said without further thought that he did not want to go there but to hell so as not to be where they were and where he would not see such cruel people. This is the name and honor that God and our faith have earned.


This quote has a universal message: don't imitate people you don't really admire.
And to find out if you admire someone, look at their actions and not at the bibles they conspicuously hold over their heads as they commit immoral acts.
#15112197
The prophetic words of the Great Chief Seattle of the Suquamish People are fulfilled– in 1854 he sent a letter to President Franklin Pierce warning that the white men who contaminated their bed would perish contaminated in their own waste, walking toward their self-destruction.


@QatzelOk, you are being romantic. The chief was no ecologist, he just put a spell on his enemies, which he knew he couldn't defeat by means of the weapons at his command. The curse only works for those who are superstitious.

I'm afraid, ethno-romanticism won't help to solve the world's problems, ecological or otherwise.
#15112225
Amazing that Hollywood was able to make so many "feel good" movies about genocide.


It’s a skill :hmm:

To be fair, I also think Hollywood gave your First Nations People quite a positive image. But I might be wrong. I was never fully immersed in American TV to make a proper judgement.

@QatzelOk, you are being romantic. The chief was no ecologist, he just put a spell on his enemies, which he knew he couldn't defeat by means of the weapons at his command. The curse only works for those who are superstitious.

I'm afraid, ethno-romanticism won't help to solve the world's problems, ecological or otherwise.


Stop being a stick in the mud Atlantis :lol: It’s a wonder you allowed yourself to have such a beautiful and mythical user name. Perhaps you should change the last two letters.
#15112338
Atlantis wrote:@QatzelOk, you are being romantic. The chief was no ecologist, he just put a spell on his enemies, which he knew he couldn't defeat by means of the weapons at his command. The curse only works for those who are superstitious.

I'm afraid, ethno-romanticism won't help to solve the world's problems, ecological or otherwise.

I am not being romantic, here.

The Seattle quote in the OP is not configured as a curse. It is more like lucid prophecy, based on Seattle's observations of the destruction that Europeans were already responsible for in his time.

He was able to project this mindless destruction into the future. And the future he depicts looks very much like the end of many European empires. Waste, war, and the wearing down of the locals by ideology. Obviously, Seattle's most important concern is what these radical rednecks are doing to the land, air and water, along with what they are doing to the other nations ("the others") they come into contact with.
#15112340
QatzelOk wrote:This is how they were depicted in Hollywood movies, as disposable props for a heroic genocide campaign by "religious" Europeans. Amazing that Hollywood was able to make so many "feel good" movies about genocide.

HATUEY
Ah-too-ay

Image

A Taino chief from what is now Dominican Republic. He heard that the Spanish were starting to do the same things in Cuba that they did to his hometown. So he went to Cuba with a Taino posse, and then tried to unite both the Taino and the runaway slaves they joined forces with. He lands at Caobana, Cuba, showing them a basket of gold and jewels he had brought with him.



I love that he realized how fake and strategic the Spanish "faith" was.

Late, when he's put to death by the same Spanish Christians, he is offered salvation through last-minute Christianity:

Before he was burned, a priest asked Hatuey if he would accept Jesus and go to heaven. Las Casas recalled the reaction of the chief:



This quote has a universal message: don't imitate people you don't really admire.
And to find out if you admire someone, look at their actions and not at the bibles they conspicuously hold over their heads as they commit immoral acts.


All you guys do is judge people that lived hundreds of years ago with today's standards. This is known as presentism and is futile.
#15112343
Julian658 wrote:All you guys do is judge people that lived hundreds of years ago with today's standards. This is known as presentism and is futile.

No.

The wisdom of these leaders is universal and timeless.

And I am not "using" today's standards; I am mocking today's standards, and all the rapidly-changing modern standards that lead to them.
#15112396
QatzelOk wrote:I am not being romantic, here.

The Seattle quote in the OP is not configured as a curse.


What do you mean "not configured"? Are you a mind-reader to know what was in his mind at the time? Are you even fluent in his language as it was spoken at the time?

He knew that his life-style was threatened by the new civilization. But that is neither here nor there because if you want to go back to the hunter gatherers, you first have to eliminate 99% of your compatriots.
User avatar
By Beren
#15112403
I don't see how it should have been so hard for indigenous leaders to realise how the Europeans were and what the consequences would be while all that being so obvious, although @Atlantis's comments make it somewhat clear how a lot of Germans were fatally unable to realise how Hitler and the Nazis really were and how devastating they would be if elected.

Also, it's not brilliance, it's just common sense.
#15112405
Beren wrote:I don't see how it should have been so hard for indigenous leaders to realise how the Europeans were while being so obvious, although @Atlantis's comments make it somewhat clear how a lot of Germans were fatally unable to realise how Hitler and the Nazis really were and how devastating they would be if elected.

Also, it's not brilliance, it's just common sense.

The history of the world has been groups conquering others. We are a very violent species, something we share with other primates. Some that were conquered cannot get over it. BTW, the Incas and Aztecs were a violent bunch too. The Incas captured children for other villages and sacrificed by removing the heart. The Aztecs had slaves. The continent with the most tribal warfare is Africa. The Vikings invaded and tormented the British isles for three centuries (The Viking Age). The Japanese invaded Korea many times and treated Koreans worse than Hitler treated the Jews.
#15112408
Julian658 wrote:The history of the world has been groups conquering others. We are a very violent species, something we share with other primates. Some that were conquered cannot get over it. BTW, the Incas and Aztecs were a violent bunch too. The Incas captured children for other villages and sacrificed by removing the heart. The Aztecs had slaves. The continent with the most tribal warfare is Africa. The Vikings invaded and tormented the British isles for three centuries (The Viking Age). The Japanese invaded Korea many times and treated Koreans worse than Hitler treated the Jews.

As a matter of fact we're peaceful compared to chimpanzees, for example, we're just a lot more methodical and organised. Which also made a difference between Europeans and the Aztecs or the Incas, neither of the latter ones had ever had the potential to destroy the Earth's biosphere any time in the future. It was the Euros that created and spread such a civilization.
#15112448
Beren wrote:As a matter of fact we're peaceful compared to chimpanzees, for example, we're just a lot more methodical and organised. Which also made a difference between Europeans and the Aztecs or the Incas, neither of the latter ones had ever had the potential to destroy the Earth's biosphere any time in the future. It was the Euros that created and spread such a civilization.


The Euros had germs, guns, and steel, therefore they were formidable conquerors. If other groups had the same they would also be great conquerors. To think that skin color determines the cruelty of a conquest is actually racist.
#15112456
Beren wrote:Also, it's not brilliance, it's just common sense.

False.

For Europeans and their colonies:

it's common sense to drive an SUV
it's common sense to attack less developed countries
it's common sense to virtue-signal while being amoral and selfish
it's common sense to do whatever corporations tell you to do
it's common sense that God told us to control the earth

So for us, anything logical that is poignantly stated... is brilliance.

But you're right: for the people european colonists killed, a lot of this was common sense.
But it's also the wisdom that comes from loss.
User avatar
By Beren
#15112516
QatzelOk wrote:But you're right: for the people european colonists killed, a lot of this was common sense.

That's what I actually meant, they didn't need to be geniuses to realise what had come at them.
User avatar
By Beren
#15112518
Julian658 wrote:The Euros had germs, guns, and steel, therefore they were formidable conquerors. If other groups had the same they would also be great conquerors. To think that skin color determines the cruelty of a conquest is actually racist.

They were formidable conquerors because they were (proto-)capitalists with the potential to destroy the Earth's biosphere in the future, and some people just happened to see that potential in them. The Mongols were cruel and formidable conquerors as well, but they also didn't have that potential, for example.
By Rich
#15112521
There was no letter that's just a filthy Cultural Marxist lie!

I remember going round this chick's (young women's to be politically correct) place, in late 1995 or 1996 and seeing the so called Chief Seattle Speech on the back of her door. I've always been ideologically acute even when I was a child even if back then I was still somewhat nieve. I was genuinely amazed and expressed my amazement to her. This is the exact view point of late twentieth century Liberal Green being expressed by a nineteenth century Native American I said to her. I was slightly frustrated that I couldn't really convey to her just how remarkable this similarity of ideological viewpoints was.

:lol: Later sitting round a camp fire I recounted my intial encounter with the so called Speech of Chief Seattle. "Well its funny you should say that ..." said one of the people I was conversing with. Chief Seattle did make a speech, that much seems true but beyond that the whole thing is a fraud. As best as we can make out the most popular extant version of this speech, written down thirty years later not only felt free to change what Seattle said, but even felt free to say the complete opposite.

What is truly remarkable is how early the romanticisation of the Amerindians began. How much of Green ideas can be traced back to the nineteenth century. Similar to the way so many New Age ideas can be traced back to Madam Blavatsky.
#15112579
Julian658 wrote:The Euros had germs, guns, and steel, therefore they were formidable conquerors. If other groups had the same they would also be great conquerors. To think that skin color determines the cruelty of a conquest is actually racist.

This quote is an example of how semi-literate, media-numbed Westerners derive meaning from "the Titles of books," rather than their contents.

Bragging about how much "germs" made the murderous colonists "strong" is also an invitation to the world's nations to start throwing biological weapons around - just to be "strong" like Julian658 understands the word.

And if most Westerners understand biological weapons this way (a tactic celebrated in a book title), the rest of the world better start using them on us before we use them on them.
#15122589
Delete
Last edited by QatzelOk on 24 Sep 2020 17:27, edited 1 time in total.

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