[RightWhale]

Each tribe was different. Some no doubt lived close to nature and understood nature's mysterious ways. Others ate their neighbors.

[electron1]

What was the "NORM"? Were there far more neighbor eaters, or far more nature lovers?

[Senator Pardek]

Good point. One thing that many tribes shared, however - the smell of each settlement could be noticed from a great distance. Native Americans should never be equated with environmentalism.

[dandelion]

Bump for tribal differences - and let's not forget that there were also confederations of tribes, creating governments. Each tribe/confederation was different, with different rules and values, and those rules and values changed through the years.

To ask, "were the Indians angels or savages?" is about like asking "were the Americans angels or savages?". The question would have to be couched in terms of time, place, and culture. Texas is different than California; the Caddo were different than the Karankawa. To try to generalize any culture as only good or only bad is to oversimplify - and that in itself is wrong.

[Eternal_Bear]

There were good and bad among Native Americans as among all people. It is wrong to categorize them in simplistic terms. They were as complicated as human beings anywhere. Early Spanish explorers such as Cabeza de Vaca reported that they worked very hard. They had no dometicated animals to do the labor for them. Many of the cities in Central and South America are older than European cities.

It is true that Meso-Americans indulged in human sacrifice but were not the Europeans also putting to death witches and heretics to appease their God during the same period as well? I doubt Native villages were any more septic than most European cities of the time. Most Native Americans also bathed more often than Europeans of the time.

Many of the staple crops today such as maize, potatoes, chocolate, squash, tomatoes and pumpkins were first developed by Native Americans. Most societies in North America were egalatarian and practiced democracy. Chiefs rarely had dictatorial powers and women had great influence on who the leaders would be. Traditional Native Americans valued honesty and always telling the truth. Native societies worked for thousands of years. They were destroyed more by European diseases than by any military conquests. The first European explorer on tha Amazon described a high degree of culture along the Amazon River. He said it was teeming with bustling cities but today it is all gone, due to disease.

Native Americans should be accepted as people. "Savages" are unfortunately found in all races and groups as even this message board sometimes evince.