Jimbo
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Posts: 38
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Post by Jimbo on Feb 28, 2007 23:38:56 GMT -6
I went shopping in a store recently and while checking out with my purchase, the checkout girl's features & skin tone caught my attention immediately. My curiosity overrode my shyness and I asked her if she was an American Indian and she answered yes, with a big smile on her face. She said that her dad was a Sioux from North Dakota & her mom was a Navaho from New Mexico, so she was a 100 karat American Indian, which you don't ever see in my part of the country. She had the coppertone complexion and high prominent cheek bones and other Indian features as well. Her English was wonderful, much better than many Anglos that I know, and rather surprised me. I have studied Indian images for years in my collection of books and was sure that she was one, but had to ask. I wished that I had my camera at the time to capure her image and her pretty smile because of all the photos that I have examined, she was the first Indian that I have ever observed that had a smile, a very humbled one. Afterwards, my mind began to analize her unusual smile, it was a smile of reconciliation I realized later,and after mulling it over, I concluded that I can now well understand why the Indians back then never smiled for the camera for they had nothing to be happy about after having their land, buffalo, means of survival, etc. confiscated from them at that time. About the only thing that we gave them was the white man's diseases which exterminated thousands of them in the end. An analogy that I thought of along the lines of "The other side of the coin" is How would I feel if I was European and witnessed the same scenaro, but in reverse, say living in England where many of my ancesters are from, and having giant canoe loads of American Indians landing there in the English Channel area, confiscating my homestead, my food, firewood, my means of survival, birthright, etc. and forcing me into a concentration camp for the rest of my life...........not very good. I doubt that I would ever smile again !
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Post by Diane Merkel on Mar 1, 2007 17:16:28 GMT -6
Jimbo, with all due respect, I think you may be reading too much into your encounter. You said she answered your question with a big smile, which would indicate pride to me, and I don't understand why you would be surprised at her English language abilities.
Look back through photos during the Indian Wars period, and you'll have a hard time finding anyone smiling. I'm not a photo-culture expert, but I don't believe it was customary to smile in photos until well into the 20th century.
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Post by elisabeth on Mar 2, 2007 7:04:29 GMT -6
The usual explanation is that in 19th-century photography the exposures took too long for the sitter to maintain anything like a natural smile, which sounds reasonable.
There seem to be very few exceptions. One is Libbie Custer, whose habitual expression for photos was a turning-up of the corners of the mouth that sort of verged on a smile. Some of Benteen's photos have a faint hint of one, though it's more an expression of sardonic benignity than a smile as such; and there's that nice one of Keogh in civilian clothes, taken in the 1870s (perhaps the technology had speeded up by then?) where he has a half-smile. Funnily enough, in the group shot of Fat Bear, Dull Knife, and Big Head, Fat Bear does seem to be smiling, despite being a prisoner; the nearest thing to a proper smile I can think of from that period!
Maybe it wasn't until the era of personal photography, the 1890s and onwards, when people could fire off their own "happy snaps", that the "say cheese" convention came in?
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Post by mort aux vaches on Mar 2, 2007 19:03:57 GMT -6
No disrespect but you come across as a bit out-of-touch with reality in your message. I can assure you that if you travel to certain parts of the UK you may find some Welsh people that, albeit a silly dialect, speak english pretty well. On the photos; off the top of my head I would say both photos of Crawler and Rain-in-the-Face have them with somewhat of a smile. I would say the same of the photo below, taken by Barry. No wonder that they're smiling on this though, pretty much ready to party.
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Jimbo
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Posts: 38
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Post by Jimbo on Mar 3, 2007 0:04:16 GMT -6
Thanks for your various viewpoints, readers. After reading them, I began to think about my ancestry, which is comprised of English (Anglo/Saxon ), Irish, French. Choctaw and Pawnee or Shawnee. I am a mixture of various ethnic groups, like many of us are and can't help but harbor ambivalent attitudes, opinions and viewpoints at times about the "Winning of the West, for example, so to speak. My genes are comprised of those who have all fought each other from time to time through the ages, in Europe and America. My dad's ancestors were prominent gun makers in England, my mom was French and Indian, who told me many times, that her grandfather, an Indian and was forced to leave his tepee and move into a wooden structure or house of some sort (on a reservation I would assume ). The French and Indians fought the English in the 1700's; and English fought English, Indian fought Indian during the American Revolution, the Civil War and Indian wars, all of the above fought each other: Indian against Indian, English against English, French against French, Irish against Irish, etc. at one time or another. To me, it all defies logic and I don't understand why, since the beginning of time, people have been, and seemingly will continue fighting each other unto eternity........
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Post by elisabeth on Mar 3, 2007 1:52:08 GMT -6
What a lovely heritage, Jimbo.
Somebody did a DNA study recently in Britain and found that even people who considered themselves "100% English" had genes from all over the place: the Middle East, Russia, you name it. It was fascinating.
You're absolutely right, this fighting does defy all logic. I guess the truth of it is that -- gulp -- people enjoy it. Had never really grasped that until I started reading about LBH. We've all been brought up -- at least since WW1 in Europe, probably since the Civil War in the US -- to believe that war is intrinsically A Bad Thing. Which of course it is, and all the more since the mid-20th century introduced us to the prospect of total annihilation via nuclear weapons. So no-one nowadays dares to say what people like Custer, and his Indian opponents, were quite overt and unashamed about: that to the natural-born warrior, war is fun. "Glorious war!", said Custer. And he later said that buffalo-hunting was the most exciting thing he knew of ... next to a cavalry charge. Others were the same, Keogh for instance: though a staff officer in the CW, he was forever piling into every melee he could get near. Loved it. And one of the young Indian warriors at LBH, I forget who, said afterwards: "It was my first battle, and I liked it". Hard for us sedentary, peaceable types to understand ... but I doubt if human nature has changed very much. There'll always be enough politicians to create causes for wars, and always enough born warriors to leap at the chance to fight in them ... At least, that's the conclusion I've come to!
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Post by harpskiddie on Mar 3, 2007 10:31:33 GMT -6
Man's inhumanity against man, is part and parcel of the humanity of man.
Gordie
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Post by clw on Mar 3, 2007 18:18:48 GMT -6
"War, God help me, I love it so." General George S. Patton
I pray for a day when we will have no need of warriors, but until that day comes it comforts me greatly to know they still exist.
Each and every one of us is some odd mixture of ethnicity. My father was Oneida and my mother's family came over on the ship Bonaventure in The Great Puritan Migration. Guess that just makes me an All American Girl! ;D
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Frank
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Post by Frank on Mar 17, 2007 13:19:52 GMT -6
Here is one "rare" pick where Indian is smiling: Guy with grin is Short Bull (Brule Sioux) and the "smiling" would be more obvious if the pic would be larger but I coulnd find it any bigger...
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ladonna
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In spirit
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Post by ladonna on Apr 1, 2007 20:52:25 GMT -6
I was kind of surprised by this post I am 100% Native and we smile all the time, humor is a part of our lives.
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Post by Montana Bab on Apr 1, 2007 21:36:47 GMT -6
Hi Ladonna, I can vouch for that. All they have to do is go to a Pow-wow to gaze at laughter and enjoyment. The dances are worth the trip too. Sincerely, Bab
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Post by BrokenSword on Apr 2, 2007 11:38:13 GMT -6
Jimbo -
Sounds to me, old friend, like you fell in love.
M
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Post by BrokenSword on Apr 2, 2007 12:41:02 GMT -6
clw-
"Each and every one of us is some odd mixture of ethnicity."
That's for certain - my family crest is a 'Heinz 57' label.
M
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Post by crzhrs on Apr 2, 2007 13:31:59 GMT -6
And after visiting Lakota reservations and meeting a number of the people . . . I found their humor outrageous, some times risque, and always funny. And this from some of them who are living at below poverty levels!
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Post by BrokenSword on Apr 2, 2007 14:52:46 GMT -6
Elisabeth-
"...always enough born warriors to leap at the chance to fight in them ...
Okay. I’ll give it a whirl. …and will probably get stoned from every side… again.
Just remember .. The following isn’t all original to me, by any means:
I firmly believe that ‘inclination toward war’ is in the very DNA of MEN. Furthermore, (ducking rapidly here) I also believe that ‘inclination toward domesticity’ is in the very DNA of WOMEN. (Picking self up off floor now) …and here’s why.
In the REALLY old days... I’m talking ‘caveman’, all were more or less pushed in those directions by necessity. The men, being physically larger and stronger, went out as hunters and in the relative safety of groups. The women, tied down with small children (somebody had to watch over them and the hunters’ ‘work place’ surely wouldn‘t do), went out foraging - gathering roots and berries and such.
Members of the men-groups had to work co-operatively and silently and had to develop strategies and tactics as well as learn to think in those ways from an early age. If not -- all go hungry.
Members of the women-groups could operate more independently from each other (within the group) while picking berries and digging roots. Talking - idle chattering and gossiping - was acceptable as were crying children. The more noise, the safer? From many animal predators at least. They just had to bring home the berries. Back up food for the hunters when unsuccessful or if the hunters were out for several days.
The more technology that humans developed and acquired, the easier life became and the less that human beings have had to depend on the ‘old ways’. But! It was too late. Thousands of years of this learned behavior had instilled itself as natural behavior.
Survival hunting was widely replaced by farming and by the domestication of animals. But, what did they do if their crops failed or disease struck their herds? RIGHT! You guessed it! They took it from the neighboring villages. Or at least, they tried to. The old hunting instinct kicked in, revived in the form of a hostile raid - war - if you will. Go to the head of the class.
Seeing the probable need for such raids or defense against them from time to time, hunting became, in many ways, a method of keeping the war skills sharpened. As humans have become more and more ‘civilized‘, the DNA instinct for combat has remained. Sports can only go so far to feed that need. Not every one can throw a ball or run at top speed - even if they can work well within a team. And, there are only so many slots on a sports team anyway. In a war - why, ‘The more the merrier!’ Alternate means to prove one’s self and one’s value haven’t become as respected and admirable in societies across the globe as they might be.
In the meantime, the women are still tied down with the children and their first instinct is still the well being of them. War makes that job LOTS more difficult in all ways, including the possible permanent loss of the family ‘hunter’. The ‘war’ DNA in men and the ‘preservation’ DNA in women are in basic conflict with each other. Many women - I say again, ‘MANY women’ don’t care a twit about sports either. What’s THAT do to nurture the family?
Patton and the young Sioux warrior summed it up in far fewer words when they said, ‘I love/like it.’ What maybe, they were saying was, ‘I need it.’
M
P.S. OH! (he says running VERY RAPIDLY from the building) women still have the need to gossip… ZOOM!
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