Posted on 11/24/2005 5:13:54 PM PST by lainie
ALCATRAZ ISLAND, United States (AFP) - A tribal chant rose from a thousands-strong prayer circle on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay as Native Americans held a sunrise "Unthanksgiving Day" ceremony.
"What we call it is Unthanksgiving," Bear Lincoln of the Wailikie Tribe told AFP as he waved burning sage to purify the area and ward off evil spirits.
"It was the saddest day for us. It was a big mistake for us to help the Pilgrims survive that first winter. They betrayed us once they got their strength."
Traditional Thanksgiving feasting in the United States is a tribute to the meal the original European Pilgrims shared with the Native Americans who helped them survive in the new land.
An estimated 3,000 people packed onto ferries that set out from Fisherman's Wharf for Alcatraz in the pre-dawn darkness Thursday, according to organizers.
A bonfire blazed at the center of a prayer circle set up on a bluff beneath the Alcatraz lighthouse. And at the base of the rock wall leading up to the ruins of the former federal prison were a pair of Indian teepees.
"Ultimately, this is their land," said Irma Pinedo, a Mexico City native who was among the Aztec dancers taking part in the ceremony. "For us, no turkey today."
Turkey, which nearly became the national bird in the United States instead of the eagle, is the main course at traditional Thanksgiving dinners.
"I take my children to this every year because I want them to understand there is another side to the story," said 41-year-old Erin Alexander, who added that the event has grown significantly since she began attending 12 years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.netscape.cnn.com ...
Only with peyote or any one of 238 New World mushrooms, cacti and herbs with hallucinogenic properties. The Old World was pretty much limited to Amanita Muscaria, a couple of mushrooms in India, opium and MJ - oh, yeah, and cheap beer and wine.
Buncha ingrates. If it wasn't for the white man, they would've had to have crammed themselves into a dug-out tree trunk instead of a spacious ferry to get to that island.
Years ago my husband and I found ourselves in the middle of a ceremony outside of an old church in Cuzco Peru. As we looked around we realized that there were no other gringos. Many of the celebrants were carrying masks of what looked like white conquistators and 16th century women. They were all drunk and probably stoned on coca. Then they began to shoot off fireworks in the crowd and I'm sure I heard gunfire. We were getting some very ugly looks so we siddled out of the sqare and went back to the part of town where the touristas belong. Very scary.
Civilization happens. Some Europeans were similarly slaughtered by other superior tribes in ancient times. Notably the original inhabitants of England were conquered and overrun by Anglo-Saxon tribes from Germany-Holland. This has happened throughout history. You cannot just blame European people for this. Every region in the world has experienced this.
AFter the mid 1600s (when most of the Eastern Indians died from Old World diseases) Indian power was broken and the white folk got the upper hand. At that point most Indians became professional meat hunters. Still, the problem with disease lingered and their very high infant mortality rate was finally recognized by Jefferson, et al.
The impetus behind the "reservation system" was the need to find a place where Indians could live separate from Old World people so that they could survive. Initially what is now Indiana was selected as a site for a very large reservation. This was later changed to Wisconsin, and finally Oklahoma.
Among others, the Kickapoo Indians were in the lead for the evacuation of Indian people from the East to a safe place in the West.
Modern medicine makes it possible for Indians to live off the reservation.
Yes but can any example from amongst the warring natives of a ferrier be cited? Without ferriers and blacksmiths, the horse was used merely for transportation until it could no longer provide transportation at which point it would be eaten.
Similarly, from amongst the warring peoples, can any example of a native blacksmith be cited? Any gunmakers?
OK, then "fallen angels" and "demons" that have managed, somehow, to escape from that herd of hogs in Jerusalem.
Now, go back to sleep.
I am actually part Indian, more than likely Creek. Should my blood line had remain pure native American, I would have strong feeling against my white relatives. 1. I am not able to kill my neighbors for fun so I can feel better about myself. 2. If I captured one of my neighbors, I can't spend the afternoon torturing him to death. The louder I could make him scream, the better I could feel about myself. 3. If I wanted to feel stronger in the arms, I could just get one of my neighbors arms and eat it. 4. If I got tired of my parents, especially during the winter, I could just kick them out of the lodge and let them starve out in the woods. 5. If I wanted a hot date, I could just go over to my neighbors and steal one. 6. If I didn't like where I was living, I could just kill or run all my neighbors off and see how I liked living there. 7. If I was hungry and my wife hadn't got me enough food, I could just kill everything in the forest and move where there was more food. 7a. If I lived out west I could just run a herd of buffalo off of a cliff and take just what I needed for a week or two. I could just leave the rest, bears and wolves have to eat also. 8. If I wanted to take a dump, I could just walk out in the woods. That would work fine unless there was a large bear out in the woods. In that case, what was left of me might end up in the dump that the bear took in the woods a few hours later. I am sure there are so many other things I could have been doing now if the white man had not showed up. He really screw up my future.
Not only that, but what liberals never remember is that ALL the Indians engaged in warfare with each other before and AFTER the white man came. I wonder what they fought each other over? Maybe hunting grounds??? The Indians were in no way innocent, the white man wasn't either, neither side was guilty either. It was two cultures in astruggle to SURVIVE, and the one with the good technology is the one who thrived. What happened was unavoidable. I'm very proud of my Mayflower and Puritan ancestry and glad that they came here so long ago.
They look a little cold in that picture maybe they could use some blankets.
They were making some good stuff back in the old days. The South Americans built substantial boats that enabled them to mount an invasion from what is now Venezuela to conquer Hispanola and other Caribbean islands just a few years before the arrival of the Spanish.
Horses, guns, and licker. That's three, I'm sure there are more.
Mr Bear needs to lay off the guilt trip, have a big slice of pumpkin pie, and wash it down with a nice hot cup of STFU.
No where in the Western Hemisphere or Africa did they have the wheel. Very few tribes had metal working.
Subsequently various conquests were much less violent.
"Us"? Your people didn't help the Pilgrims in any way shape or form. The Pilgrims were some 3,000 miles away, and likely your ancestors didn't even intereact with anyone that had even heard of them for more than a century and a half.
Aztecs are complaining about helping the Pilgrims? 500 people with slow firing weapons defeated an empire and occupied a capital city of a half-million within a few months. So few were able to do this, because the Conquistadors were an improvement, and freed the slaves your people kept and they hit the capital city with a force of as many as 4 million who wanted to rip THE Aztecs hearts out. There was no way for the Aztecs and Western Civilzation to co-exist.
Once the settlers around Jamestown figured out how to tell which indian tribes were which they eventually worked things out via Powhattan's federation (Though Powhattan's tribe itself conquered or destroyed more than 20 other tribes). There was trade and calmness. Then Powhattan died, and the replacement was rather more irritable and stupid. About three years after Powhattan's death, the indian tribes of the whole region all went out and arranged for trades and to share breakfasts, or other meetings with the various settlements. Then in an attack of astounding synchronicity, the indians all got up from what they were doing at the same time and tried to kill every European in Virginia. Indians sharing a breakfast suddenly got up and picked up shovels and farm implements to beat their hosts to death. Trading indians suddenly picked up metal axes being offered in trade, or used knives to attack the traders. All up and down the Potamac this went on. The indians only managed to kill about a third of the Europeans, and drug off remaining women and children, leaving an impression that even more had been killed. This is bound to have an effect on relations for a long time.
Not so. The Crow tribe figured out real early who was going to win the Indian wars. This is why the threw in with the white man against the other Indians.
Only to bring many of them into the slavery of socialism.. and brain washing many of them into animistic evolutionary scientific materialism.. or worse agnostic or even gnostic creativism.. Course some know the King of Kings, the Alpha and the Omega, the bright morning Star, and are Full of ThanksGiving, amazing..
Poor buggars, most of them..
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