Posted on 09/21/2004 9:42:49 AM PDT by LouAvul
ST. LOUIS (AP) - A group re-enacting the Lewis and Clark expedition was confronted in South Dakota by American Indian leaders who questioned the legacy of the 200-year-old trip and its effects on native culture. An American Indian delegation greeted the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles over the weekend with protest signs, including one suggesting the original expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led to genocide of their people and destruction of their culture. The re-enactors were asked to go back home.
"I went as a peaceful emissary and asked in a kind way if they would leave," said Alex White Plume, a Lakota from Pine Ridge, S.D., who led the protest. "They should go home and rethink what they did to the native population."
Jon Ruybalid, a spokesman for the re-enactors, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the group expects more dialogue with the American Indians they met Saturday near Chamberlain, S.D.
"It wasn't easy listening," Ruybalid said. "What they said was filled with a lot of pain. We are being educated and, in the process, we are a platform for people to express their concerns."
About 20 people taking part in the expedition left St. Charles, Mo., on May 23 on its planned journey along the path of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-06. The expedition is heading up the Missouri River in a replica boat.
Ruybalid said members of several South Dakota tribes planned to take part in bicentennial events this weekend near Pierre, S.D. But White Plume said he was "saddened that some tribes welcome them with open arms."
(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...
From the strength of protests we might assume that the protestors are wrong in their premises. If they were correct, everyone would know and there would be no need to protest.
Coincidentally I've almost finished reading "The Journals of Lewis and Clark", up to the point where they had reached the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers.
All the Indians to date meet them with curiosity and such hospitality as was possible. Seems like a whole lot of smoking went on in the evenings with the Discovery Corps and the various chiefs.
Wish these latter day morons actually knew something of their own history.
Amazing journey, well worth the read even in the abridged version.
""They should go home and rethink what they did to the native population.""
I don't understand why these people are not thankful their ancestor's were spared, least they would not exist today.
Maybe they would rather have a visit from the General George Crook Reenactors?
Well said. Why can't the descendants of the Indians come to an understanding with the reenactors? Both sides represent a part of our country's history.
The French and Indian War commemorations that have been going on this year, celebrate the contributions of all cultures to the developing events of our nations. Reenactors portray the battles of the French and Indians and the British and the British colonists. Memorial services are conducted which include a Native American ceremony (chanting, dancing, etc.) See link in next post.
These are the people who traded with Lewis & Clark on the Missouri, and where they met the Shoshone woman, Sacajawea...
The Mandan and associated tribes were equestrian in habit and depended about equally on hunting and agriculture, cultivating large fields of corn, beans, pumpkins, and sunflowers (for the edible seeds), which they traded to the Plains tribes for horses and buffalo robes.
According to Maximilian the Mandan were vigorous, well made, rather above medium stature, many of them being broad-shouldered and muscular. They paid the greatest attention to their headdress.
Tattooing was practised to a limited extent, mostly on the left breast and arm, with black parallel stripes and a few other figures.
Some of the women were robust and rather tall, though usually they were short and broad-shouldered, and were adept potters.
Their houses were large circular communal structures of stout logs covered with earth, and their villages were sometimes palisaded.
They had the same organization of military societies common to the Plains tribes generally.
Polygamy was common.
Besides the Sun and the Buffalo, they invoked a number of supernatural personages, among whom was the "Old Woman who Never Dies," who presided over the fields and harvests, and in whose honour they performed ritual dances and sacrifices at planting and gathering.
They had numerous shrines and sacred places, and their great palladium was a sacred "ark," which was connected with their genesis myth, and which was carefully guarded in a house by itself.
Their great ceremony of the Sun Dance described by Catlin under the name of Okeepa exceeded that of all other tribes in the extent of barbarous self-torture practised by the participants.
The Mandan tribe was reduced to a scant 130 members due to smallpox..
This whole BS victimology is why these "leaders" want any real history to be colored by PC guilt.
Consider that the indians who sold manhattan to the dutch thought THEY were ripping the europeans.
Consider that the indians had no concept of land ownership. (that is first year property law)
In stead of whining like the french, these indians should have taken this to facilitate more interaction. They COULD have used this chance to make the public aware fo their existence in the 21st century.
What? Civilized them? Brought them into the 18th century? Which one?
Actually my understanding is that most of the casinos are "in partnership" with established casino operators.
The Disney film Pocahontas shows John Smith as tall and blond whereas he was short and dark-haired. Other than that it's probably historically accurate--or at least as accurate as one of Dan Rather's news broadcasts.
Yes, but you see, these are indigenous pipples, and "indigenous pipples" can do all this stuff and believe the world is flat and get praised for their "otherness" by liberals.
I wonder . . . is it against the law to teach Darwin to "indigenous pipples?" I think it constitutes "cultural genocide." Only "rednecks" are required to subscribe to scientific materialism in order to be a better Abstract Host Population to the "gorgeous mosaic."
That's because the Indians are indigenous to this planet and not Alien Invaders from Outer Space like us "rednecks." Indians can kill and eat animals for the same reason wolves or pumas can . . . they are part of the quaint "circle of life" whereas we are not.
I'm still pissed off that they can believe in the supernatural and I'm supposed to be scientific naturalist.
Correction: the "tree huggers" disappear whenever the "indigenous pipples" appear, and, like anti-hunters and atheist scientists, only come out when there are "rendecks" around to pummel(sp?).
PS: As a rural person I must confess the terrible "crime" of being fond of trees, wildlife, and thinly settled places. It's a shame this sentiment has been radicalized" by city slicker lefties.
And like the independent Black Southern Confederacy the Communists used to advocate, no liberal would condemn it.
I generally am sympathtic to the sentiments of Native Americans,...
You mean "American aborigines" or, to use the British term, "Red Indians". A "native American" is anyone born w/i the goegrpahical borders of the United States.
But since liberals advocate fascist ideology for favored races, they apply Charles Maurras/Oswald Spengler to them and insist that ze Volk is a Single Organism in which individuals are mere cells, constantly dying and being replenished for the sake of the Whole. And since ze Volk is the racial organism native to America then only its "cells" have the right to that title.
Bingo. Except that there are plenty of white nationalisms that are politically correct: mostly Celts (Sinn Fein/Irish Republican Army, Scottish National Party, Scottish National Liberation Army, Plaid Cymru [Party of Wales], etc. [even Breton and Cornish nationalists are supported by the Left]); but also the Basques and other separatists in Spain (Leonese, Catalonians); the Greeks and Armenians (Papandreou's Pan-Hellenism, the "Dashnaks" and Communist Armenian terrorists); and even the Parti Quebecois here on our own continent (which is admired to no end by our "neo-Confederate" movement but is a member of the Socialist International). There may even be some liberal support for French Cajun nationalism.
In other words, anti-Southerners are even more hypocritical than you thought they were, because they not only advocate non-white nationalisms (including now Japanese and Arab) but also plenty of white nationalisms. The "anti-white" ideology of the Left isn't really anti-white; it's ANTI-ENGLISH. The Anglo-Saxons of the world are supposed to constitute a blank, monochromatic, abstract humanity against which the "beauty" of all the "ethnics" shines forth. This is true not only in America, but even in the UK where Irish, Welsh, and Scottish (white chr*stian) nationalism are politically correct but any manifestation of English identity is labelled "racist" (didn't know those Scots were People of Color, did you?). In fact, England is the only one of the four countries of the UK that has no legal existence; it's merely an Abstract Federal District. The other UK countries have legal existence with parliaments/assemblies of their own. England has only the British parliament, which means the Celts have double-representation and can legislate for England in the British Parliament whereas the English can't legislate in the Celtic parliaments/assemblies.
The next time you think that the Left is single-mindedly opposed to white nationalism, remember these three words: St. Patrick's Day. (When have you ever heard of St. George's Day or Orange Day being celebrated in the US? They wouldn't be tolerated, and lily-white Irish would be leading the chorus.)
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