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Secret of American History: Europeans were 'obsessed' Aboriginal people were 'focussed'.
"The Complete Idiots' Guide To American History" by Alan Axelrod | Thursday, 17 March 2005 | hleewilder

Posted on 03/17/2005 4:52:00 PM PST by hleewilder

Unlike the Maya, Aztec, and Inca, these North American groups had no written language and left no historical records, so it is impossible to present a "history" of the North American Indians before their contact with Europeans. In fact, some scholars have gone so far as to suggest that most North American Indians lived apart from linear time, harmonizing their lives with the cycles of the seasons and the biological processes of propagation, birth, and death. Europeans, forever doing and getting, were obsessed with recording events and measuring time. The Native Americans were focused instead on being. Time itself was therefore different for them...


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Hmmm. This would go a long way towards explaining why the Amerindians fell such easy prey to the Europeans: They had a differnt sense of time! While the Europeans were obviously anal-retentative (as in White, Uptight and Outta Site)The aborginal people were cool; tuning their lives harmoniously to the passing of the seasons.

"Two Dogs Kissing, the White Eyes are descending on our encampment...Let's gather our young Braves together and drive them from our sacred hunting grounds! What say you?"

"Well, Crazy Cat, ordinarily, I'd say 'go for it', but looking up into the sky, I couldn't help notice that the Spring equinox isn't for another two weeks..."

Shucks, and here I thought it was because:

1. They didn't have easy access to mineral wealth.

2. Hadn't evolved, for the most part, past the hunter/gatherer stage, due in large part to the lack of decent domesticated animals. At least prior to the Spanish Conquest, anyway.

3. A state of constant warfare between many tribes, due to constant encroachment on each other's territory.

As for the last, there was a push there for ahwile to point out the difference between how the Amerindians and the European settlers viewed the concept of property. The argument went something like this:

Problems arose when Europeans decided to fence in and claim plots of land as their own individual territory, while to the aborigines, the 'Land' belonged to everybody. You know, another one of those New Age romantic fairy tales.

Sure, the 'Land' belonged to everybody, that is, as long as you belonged to the tribe whose territory that 'Land' was.

Daniel Boone found this out the hard way when, he pushed West into Ohio and the Ameindians there told him that he was trespassing on their hunting grounds, that he should immmediately leave and that he would be killed if they found him there again.

When Boone went back the following season, a couple of people got killed, including one of his brothers.

The book's not bad, but it is typical of the Evil-(White)-Europeans versus the holistic, pre-vegan (Bison meat is natural, right?) aboriginal peoples of the world, who worshipped Gentle Mother Nature and not some frowning, severe patriarchial GOD. Oh yeah, they never developed a written language or the freaking Wheel, for that matter, because they weren't as 'obsessed' with such things as were the Europeans.

Bottom-line: When Sixteenth Century European Civilization met Stone-Aged nomadic tribes on the North American continent, the disparity between their technological development made the conquest of America a forgone conclusion.

1 posted on 03/17/2005 4:52:01 PM PST by hleewilder
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To: hleewilder

Also known as the "manana time" syndrome.


2 posted on 03/17/2005 4:56:59 PM PST by MeanWestTexan
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To: hleewilder
If the Europeans and American Indians switch places, America would have been colonized by the Indians and we Europeans would be in reservations (or something like that). Resources determined that the Euros would conquer the world.
3 posted on 03/17/2005 4:57:39 PM PST by Killborn (Happy St. Paddy's Day!!! :))
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To: hleewilder

"Aboriginal people were 'focussed'."

Too bad they weren't 'focused' or perhaps they'd be ruling the world.

Europeans were obsessed and focused.


4 posted on 03/17/2005 4:57:42 PM PST by PeterFinn ("Tolerance" means WE have to tolerate THEM. They can hate us all they want.)
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: hleewilder

Yeah, the Dodo bird must have been too "focussed" on living also.


6 posted on 03/17/2005 5:00:18 PM PST by Bird Jenkins
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To: hleewilder
Let's not dismiss this whole thesis out of hand.

I'm a different person depending upon the speed of my internet connection. I spend a couple months a year away from clocks, watches and time keeping and it makes for a markedly different, not better, way of life.

7 posted on 03/17/2005 5:10:55 PM PST by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: Bird Jenkins
Its interesting to note every Indian tale includes horses. Horses didn't arrive in North America until the Spaniels arrived.
8 posted on 03/17/2005 5:11:36 PM PST by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: hleewilder
The author goes a long way around the barn to try to explain away a simple fact.

The "Native Americans" were basically stone age peoples. Proof that the 'cavemen' did not live only in caves.

There is no 'history' because there were no accomplishments. I mean your friends may want to hear you talk about the big bison you bagged or the bad guys you scalped but that only goes so far.
9 posted on 03/17/2005 5:12:27 PM PST by BenLurkin (O beautiful for patriot dream - that sees beyond the years)
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To: Bird Jenkins
"Yeah, the Dodo bird must have been too "focussed" on living also. "

Take him out Alice!


10 posted on 03/17/2005 5:14:39 PM PST by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: hleewilder

They had the continent for 20,000 years and had worked it all the way up to the stone age. Europeans and others came here and in fewer than 500 years had left footprints on the moon.


11 posted on 03/17/2005 5:17:52 PM PST by muir_redwoods (Free Sirhan Sirhan, after all, the bastard who killed Mary Jo Kopeckne is walking around free)
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To: hleewilder
LOL. I drink deep of the pool of sarcasm accumulated under your post.

12 posted on 03/17/2005 5:19:20 PM PST by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: hleewilder

Yup, Boone was an interesting character. He wanted to live like the amerindians by hunting and living off the land, but at the time that was considered "speculation". So he couldn't even keep the land that he acquired due to the fact that he had not farmed it nor "improved" it.

His family was the first to settle the valley and by the time he moved away (I think to Missouri), there were over 100k settlers living in the area. He had no idea what kind of floodgates he was pushing open and was surprised at the result.

He reminds me of Gary Kildall, the author of C/PM operating system, who didn't know how to handle the business end of what he had generated. When Kildall stubbed his toe with IBM, Bill Gates swooped in with a cloned version of QDOS and completely bypassed him.


13 posted on 03/17/2005 5:25:20 PM PST by Kevin OMalley (No, not Freeper#95235, Freeper #1165: Charter member, What Was My Login Club.)
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To: hleewilder
Perceptions of time had nothing to so with the Indians' defeat at the hands of Western militaries. Western warfare concentrates upon killing the enemy. Personal valor, while appreciated, is not the main focus of battle; killing is. (In fact, personal bravado that threatens the unit is frowned upon in the West.) In non-Western militaries, the American Indians included, personal valor is the be-all-end-all of combat. You're there to prove your bravery. Their Western opponents were there to kill as quickly and efficiently as possible. Bravery, to a Western warrior means keeping his place in the line next to his comrades. The result is a superior, winning military philosophy.
14 posted on 03/17/2005 5:29:52 PM PST by Redcloak (There is no "I" in team. But then again, there is no "us" in it either. There is "meat" however.)
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To: Redcloak

Thanks for that insight. Upon reading your post, it reminded me of how the Romans had developed a professional standing army beating, among others, the Gauls rather easily.

My understanding was that this was, for the most part, due mostly to the penchant of Gallic warriors to pick out individual Roman soldiers oppostite their line and challenge them to individual combat for individual glory and fame.

The Romans ignored this sort of chaotic approach, stuck to their formations and tactics and simply mowed the hillbillies and tribespeople down as the military arm of the first Western society to develop, use and improve bureacratic organization.

You could make the argument, without too much of a stretch, then, that the conquest of the Americas was an ongoing extension of the Roman/Western European tradition of expansion.

Individual bravery, while a noble and worthwhile accomplishment, still loses hands down to superior equipment, tactics, training and organization, all else being equal.


15 posted on 03/17/2005 5:47:56 PM PST by hleewilder
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To: Eric in the Ozarks
Horses didn't arrive in North America until the Spaniels arrived

So they came for the dog racing?

16 posted on 03/17/2005 5:52:58 PM PST by monkey
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To: hleewilder
The Western military tradition starts with the Greeks. They used the heavy infantry/shock combat technique to beat larger Persian armies.

I think that you'd really enjoy Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture. Davis chronicles the rise and continued dominance of Western military power. Repeatedly through history, Western militaries have trounced larger non-Western armies. The Iraq campaign is the latest example of a smaller, Western force beating the snot out of a larger, non-Western opponent; even on that opponent's home territory.

Here in North America, Europeans were outnumbered by the Indians. It's also easily arguable that the average Indian warrior was superior to his European opponent. The difference was the fact that the Europeans stuck together in a line and fought as a group. An individual Indian, no matter how brave, could not stand up against a whole company of Whites formed in a line like a bunch of Greek Hoplites.

17 posted on 03/17/2005 7:42:07 PM PST by Redcloak (There is no "I" in team. But then again, there is no "us" in it either. There is "meat" however.)
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To: monkey; Eric in the Ozarks

There were horses here 14,000 years ago, but the eco-friendly Indians ate them into extinction.


18 posted on 03/17/2005 7:44:51 PM PST by Redcloak (There is no "I" in team. But then again, there is no "us" in it either. There is "meat" however.)
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To: Redcloak

Thanks for recommending the book. I'm a big VDH fan.


19 posted on 03/17/2005 10:11:14 PM PST by hleewilder
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To: hleewilder

"harmonizing their lives with the cycles of the seasons"


DUDE. Cycles and seasons IS time!!

So is birthing cycles. Is this guy claiming that the Indians didn’t notice that the sun went down about the same "time" every day? And if the Aztecs and Mayans were not so interested in time why did they create all those calendars!!??

Nutty, nutty, nutty.


20 posted on 03/17/2005 10:50:16 PM PST by Mobile Vulgus
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