Well, to be nitpicky, at least some tribes used dogs to drag their equipment around on a sled-type contraption. They had dogs and they used them for all types of different things (including food).
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?
Some groups of Indians did indeed have human sacrifice, but killing witches and heretics in Europe did not serve the same purpose. While the Europeans could be quite brutal (hanging, drawing and quartering come to mind), if not more so than the Indians in many respects, drawing some sort of moral equivalence by insinuating that God was pleased with the blood of witches and heretics, or needed their blood to survive or make the crops grow is not appropriate.
Most Native Americans also bathed more often than Europeans of the time.
That's an inaccurate generalization on the same level as calling all Indians dirty savages. The ancient Romans were into bathing, and the Europeans all through history indulged in hot baths more often than is generally known. Many villages had bath houses--the Nordic people had their saunas. I don't think your average Native American bathed any more often in winter than your average European.
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.
Again, that's also an inaccurate generalization. Societies in North America were just about as diverse as societies in Europe. They had ways of ruling that fit their culture and their environment. They were not egalitarian or democratic. They had counsels or groups of elders that arrived at most decisions by mutual consensus--which works for small groups of people, but not large populations--that's not the same as a majority vote. I'm sure Native American women had just as much influence on things as European women (which is more than what the feminist movement will allow). Native Americans valued honesty and telling the truth just as much as Europeans did, although they relied on someone's word more, since most of them couldn't write.
I think that Indians have been crapped on about as much as anyone could be and still survive. I personally think that it is probably the most shameful segment of American history. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a joke. But romanticizing the Indians and demonizing the White Man is counterproductive to improving the lives of Indians today. Trying to make their cultures somehow more pure, and their characters so superior to that of Europeans is a lot of hooey. Native Americans were then, and are now, no better or worse than anybody else when it comes to human nature.
That's an inaccurate generalization on the same level as calling all Indians dirty savages. The ancient Romans were into bathing, and the Europeans all through history indulged in hot baths more often than is generally known. Many villages had bath houses--the Nordic people had their saunas. I don't think your average Native American bathed any more often in winter than your average European.
You're right about the generalization... but on 'average' the eastern and southeastern North American Indian did bathe more often, typically daily, and even in winter, and what is more, never peed in a stream or body of water, something which rather shocked them regarding white settlers. (Bear in mind most encountered the French more often than anyone) It was a religious thing, and prudent in a hunting culture. Bathing was considered healthful, even on cold days, and a sign of strength and vigor to others, not unlike Nordic culture. One southern chieftain, taken to France for the purposes of impressing him and his entourage for trade negotiations, was asked on his return to New Orleans what he thought of Paris, the buildings and the people. He responded to the journalist of the local Orleans paper something like this, "It was very impressive, but the women smelled like alligators."
Midwestern and southern Indians showed the settlers how to use soapweed (yucca) to wash hair and body... evidently they weren't to impressed with lye soap, which was quite caustic if the balance wasn't just right. Another reason whites were reluctant to bathe, as well as the English, German and Scottish settler's belief that bathing was unhealthful and caused illness. In a way they were right- settler's homes were cold, not cozy, and they could indeed get pneumonia. The natives' winter houses - they often had open air pavilions in summer- were smaller and better suited to the cold. Most settlers couldn't even swim, since they viewed water as unhealthy, perhaps a holdover from populous Europe where the wastes went into the water and it WAS unhealthy. Everyone, even children, drank cider, dairy or beer, rather than water, when given a choice.