h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't think Crum can really address the issue you raise since among the Shoshone there isn't a lot of interaction anyways. The region was and still is relatively large and sparsely inhabited.

The Spaniards hardly penetrated it at all and the more warlike tribes along the Lower Colorado River like the Mojaves or Yumas didn't range much beyond the river valley. After all there wasn't anything to steal out in the desert really. So Shoshone have traditionally been pretty laidback or mellow.

That was a problem too when the Anglos showed up because initially at least the Shoshone approached them mostly out of curiosity. The whites, however, apparently considered indians vermin or brigands so they shot first and asked questions later as they say. This didn't work too well in the human relations department.

Some Shoshone banded together after they got horses and guns and started attacking the immigrants pretty much treating those immigrants as they had been treated by the immigrants. This is mostly what encouraged the government to come to terms with the Shoshone. The excuse was the Shoshone had been abused by bad white people and the government would deal with those bad white people so the Shoshone wouldn't have to.

Now, let's put this in a little larger perspective. How would you characterize the trading practices or warring between Europeans? Weren't they sort of variable depending of what sort of Europeans we're talking about and when?

The same would apply to people in the Americas. Some were pretty warlike and trade conscious like the Aztecs and some like Shoshone didn't have much use for anybody else's stuff or territory. And there were many shades of divergence inbetween. So a lot depends on what groups you want to discuss and when.

And that's a problem too. For example, my roommate, Rita, who is Sicangu Lakota, says that the whites often call her people sioux which is allegedly a French corruption of an Ojibwa word meaning snake in the grass or something perjorative. This is supposedly because the Sioux and Ojibwa were traditional and mortal enemies. Now Rita says the only problem with that is none of her people or any Ojibwas she knows seem to remember this bitter contest so they don't know where that word comes from. Many think the French Jesuits just made it up or something along with the story to justify it. That's sort of the way it is with etymologies anyways but it's worse when the people making them up don't really understand the words to begin with.

Among the Iroquois confederation people there's a tradition of much fighting that was eventually brought to a close by the peace upon which the confederation is based. You can think of it as a United Nations type of organization rather than a federal government type thing in that the individual tribes that held membership still governed themselves in accordance with their own traditions but maintained peaceful relations with each other and tried to settle differences by negotiation rather than bloodshed.

That's an important legacy maybe to the world along with the idea of representative government itself, which contrary to popular belief is not a product of classical Greece, Imperial Rome or Colonial England. I think you've had to opportunity to review the constitution of the confederation and can attest to this being so.

Certainly the early history of the English colonies would argue for this idea as well because the colonists had plenty of opportunities to observe the Iroquois or similar confederations in action and appreciate how much freer they were than the political institutions brought from Europe.

The respect for women and the individual which Americans like to extol for themselves really derives from these indian things and that the borrowing should have been acknowledged long ago. It's an important legacy that shows that the borrowing went both ways not just indians borrowing horses or guns or other blessings of European civilization but Europeans also borrowing indian things.

So again to answer your question specifically, the trading and warring issues depended on who we're talking about and when. And again some groups would have been more inclined to war or trading than others. Some would have raided for slaves (women or children) or stolen crops. Some would band together in confederations for common defense or just to keep the peace and so on.

Trade in the Southwest was very ancient and widespread coming all the way from the Valley of Mexico or beyond. There's evidence of occasional invasions or large scale wars such as those associated with the Hohokam, which are believed to be Pimas (O'odham) by the Pimas themselves and believed to be colonialist tyrants or something similar by the Pai or others in the region.

Where the local people have a tradition it probably should be accepted at least with the same credibility as is accorded to the chronicles of the medieval clergy in Europe. But that hasn't been done for the Southwest so the dominant culture's histories of the Southwest tend to be more fabrication than anything else when they aren't relying directly on Spanish or Anglo documents. That's changing though as more indian people become college educated with advanced degrees like Crum.

And white scholars are starting to listen more and talk less in their narratives letting the people speak for themselves for a change but it's a change that is slow in happening and a work still in progress. We can only hope it continues.

I hope all this explains things a little better for you.

Very good explanation.
Like Crum ,I think that is why you are an important WMI.

I do know of the Iroquois confederation, we have discussed it some, and you have taught me things about it.
It's a beautiful negotiation tool. I read it several times a year along with other writings common to my personal comfort zone of self- imagined knowing.

The questions I have about it's need & origin you have begun to answer, enough for me to possibly research it more myself.
Thank you

Thanks Analiese, what you've opened up to me already is very interesting, I'll try to find the Crum text somewhere. I only hope you don't think I'm patronising you in any way, I really am interested in finding out more - then maybe I can understand a little more of your debates in relation to your people and I do plan on spending more than 20 minutes on the basics.

For now though, have to dash, friends to meet and drinks to be drunk.

Later,