The narrative of the Aboriginals’ 45,000-year history is given some majesty in popular opinion pieces. Why, I don’t know, unless stagnation is your thing. Wandering about for 45,000 years while advancing as a culture not one iota: no writing, no buildings, no structures, no technological advancements of any note. In short: Nothing, aside from some rock painting, superstition, and subsistence. This is nothing about which today’s Aboriginals need to feel either pride or humility, since today’s individuals have no responsibility for what others did in the past, only what they themselves do today and in the future. But this 45,000-year story of stagnation does not seem to me what constitutes the natural state of man, or any sort of grounds for future success should one attempt to find lessons in it for today.
Occasional bad word advisory. (h/t Adrian)
Parts of it sound really familiar. The multicultural thing might be fine and dandy but some cultures are vastly superior to others in providing material aspects of life that all cultures seem to value.
The observations and conclusions would, to a great extent, apply to the situation extant on many of Canada’s Indian Reserves. But there is almost a total absence of political will among our politicians, Indian Chiefs, press, and public to honestly admit the faults, failures, and causes… let alone demanding and committing to practical solutions.
Western Civilization needs to get off its ‘noble savage’ romanticism; thinking that preserving a human cultural adaptation through unlimited welfare dollars gets them off the so called moral hook for being successful.
This would apply to whether the tribe is the Aboriginals, the Kung Bushmen, the Yanomami, or for that matter the Inuit.
The respective cultures are successful adaptations to the conditions prior to the arrival of Western Civilization. For example:
Violence is one of the leading causes of Yanomami death. Up to half of all of Yanomami males die violent deaths in the constant conflict between neighboring communities over local resources. Often these confrontations lead to the Yanomami leaving their villages in search of new ones.[12] Women are often victims of physical abuse and anger. Inter-village warfare is common, but does not too commonly affect women. When Yanomami tribes fight and raid nearby tribes, women are often raped, beaten, and brought back to the shabono to be adopted into the captor’s community. Wives may be beaten frequently, so as to keep them docile and faithful to their husbands.[14] Sexual jealousy causes much of the violence.[13] Women are beaten with clubs, sticks, machetes, and other blunt or sharp objects. Burning with a branding stick occurs often, and symbolizes a male’s strength or dominance over his wife.[6]
Now if you ask your local university femi-nazis whether they want to be subjugated to the Yanomami tribe ethics you may find some resistance…
On the other hand, the femi-nazis don’t seem to mind female genital mutilation as practiced among the sharia law minded; so maybe they enjoy the abuse or have caved into it.
Respect for the female of the species doesn’t have to be high on the agenda, if reversion to a more ancient lifestyle is preferred.
But of course Western Civ should feel guilty, because they treat their women somewhat marginally better than so called ‘stone age cultural adaptations’.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
This list is in the same vein. It compares Arab Nobel prizes to Jewish prizes over time:
http://www.jewishmag.com/99mag/nobel/nobel.htm
The aborigines didn’t have much of a chance to advance culturally. Isolated with a small population doesn’t lend itself to rapid advancement. Eurasia was huge teaming with peoples trading and exchanging knowledge. Each culture in Eurasia learned from the other.
All is not lost Kate.
There is at the present time in in Osoyoos BC a First Nations Band with an enlightened Chief, Clarence Louie with a Band Council whom the Harper Government should invite to Ottawa in order to change the Aboriginal narrative in Canada forever.
What the SOMEBODY must do is convince the FIRST NATIONS BANDS to install Clarence Louie as GRAND CHIEF and an earth moving event in the lives of all FIRST NATIONS will happen if he applies his enlightened gift of bootstrap business insights to FIRST NATIONS AFFAIRS!
Will Clarence Louie agree?
Cultures that have plateaued at the Stone Age should not be extolled. We wonder at the newest discoveries of the Neanderthals. We don’t applaud them for taking the culture as far as it can go. We have absorbed and surpassed them. So, too, any aboriginal culture should not be treated as cute or quaint or even enlightened by the cocooned white liberal. I can’t imagine that person painting dots on a hollowed out log in the hot sun and thinking: “Wow! This is SO deep and cultural!”
They say “Got land, thank an Indian”. I say, “Got wheel?” That is the sentinel difference between us. Even after they saw the wheel being used by the white-man, they stubbornly kept on using poles to drag their crap.
And isn’t it odd that anything even CLOSE to religion is scrubbed from public events….well, that is, except for the phoney religious ceremonies that so-called First Nations people are permitted, nay, even encouraged, to engage in during public events.
I remember during one such “ceremony” when they passed around a “peace pipe” and I refused to indulge and simply said “I don’t smoke”. You would have think I produced an art piece with a crucifix in a bottle of urine…..First Nation speaking, of course.
I also like to remind people of the practice of “First Nations” males biting off the noses of females who were believed to have been unfaithful.
“And isn’t it odd that anything even CLOSE to religion is scrubbed from public events…”
As a practising Roman Catholic, I can get quite annoyed by the hypocrisy of the state on religion.
Some poor mayor up in the Saguenay gets hell because he has the Our Father recited at the beginning of a town meeting but no government-First Nations conference gets going before all the necessary “native spiritual” ceremonies are observed.
Christianity? Catholicism?
Nah. That has nothing to do with the history, culture and heritage of Canada at all, right?
The worst of many mistakes our governments have made in dealing with Indians was to dignify their squalid Reservations by calling them “First Nations”.
The Indian politicians always were self-important,which is why the Chief always has the biggest house and newest car, big screen TV,etc., but calling them a Nation further exacerbated their sense of importance.
The only answer always has been and forever will be,to follow the McEachen decision of the early 1980’s in which it was stated that (not Verbatim) “200 years of European occupation and development precludes any Indian Land claims”.
When the Reserve system ends,and Rez’s become municipalities governed by Mayors,covered by Canadian laws and Rights, with fee simple ownership of property,only then will the situation improve.
And that day will come over the dead body of every Indian politician in Canada who lives off of the Canadian taxpayers money.
Here’s an opportunity to expand your viewpoint:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
I’ll give you the benefit of probably never hearing about Göbekli Tepe
The tell includes two phases of ritual use dating back to the 10th-8th millennium BC. During the first phase (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)), circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6 m (20 ft) and a weight of up to 20 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock.[5] In the second phase (Pre-pottery Neolithic B (PPNB)), the erected pillars are smaller and stood in rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime.
An intelligent person would recognize that this is much more than “painting dots on a hollowed out log”.
The “First Nations” moniker was self-labeled, and of course the politically correct do-gooders embraced it. They are first immigrants, nothing more.
Under the oppressive weight of political correctness there are many true and important things that must never be said. And many things that we all know to be false whose veracity must be vigorously defended.
I read a very interesting and totally none politically correct book this past winter. “Empire of the Summer Moon-Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Commanches” by S.C. Gwynne. This should be a must read in all schools and it would soon disabuse a lot of people about the “culture, and compassion” of our native bretheren. It would also show how tough and determined our white brothers were when it came to settling the land. Pretty much all aboriginal tribes were of the same bent with very few passive and peaceful.
” Isolated with a small population doesn’t lend itself to rapid advancement. ”
Probably true, the european stone age ( older and newer) lasted a very long time too, followed by a tediously long bronze age…
But is notable that Australia has plenty of non-desert that would seem to have lent itself to A. Greater populations B. Some economic surplus that might have lead to at least late stone age/early metal age cultures, and it may be my ignorance but there seems to be a notable paucity of that.
The Maori, next door, relatively, seem to both have had that AND been much quicker on the uptake to absorb and re-organize. ( Much like the early Iroquois and Huron, though all three got into trouble because they couldn’t keep up. Which is not a criticism. I can only imagine what meeting an expansive late iron-age culture is like for one in the later stone age.)
That being said, they have been un-isolated and are part of a much large population, who have been happy to sell & give them tools, textbooks etc., for hundreds of years now.
Maybe time to get with the programme?
Umm, that’s in Turkey, it was built about 12,000 years ago, it involved quarrying and architecture, and it has nothing to do with the modern day aboriginal/Indian culture under discussion. Plus, the culture in that region — Turkish, Anatolian, whatever — obviously didn’t plateau at the stone age.
But I’m sure Osumashi appreciates you “expanding his viewpoint”.
Very interesting article.
He summarizes leftist thought in one awesome paragraph;
“This is the all-too-often default position for good people isn’t it? Whatever has been done, has either done nothing or made things worse. But the situation is so shit, that any caring person would want something to be done. So if something ain’t working – do it harder. If the money isn’t fixing it – spend more. If government inference isn’t changing anything – they should interfere even more in perhaps another way, or the same way, or both … f**k, who knows? Something must be done – this looks like something – so just for f**k’s sake do it!!”
Pretty much summarizes every half-assed idea the left comes up with.
It appears EBD beat me to the punch.
If by “expanding” you mean “someone shot a hole in that argument”, well….
Frankly it’s futile to bother any debate concerning “Native” Indians in Canada, they’re the untouchables politically and will continue to bleed big bucks from the working people of Canada, showing no appreciation or respect whatsoever.
We developed the land, they lay claim to it. When they decide to band together as a tribe of obnoxious jerks to block our rails or roads or bridges or interfere with the pipeline which are all key to our economy,our laws do not apply to them thanks to gutless politicians who refuse to take action, whatever process it takes, however long it takes, to kill their ancient treaties and land claims. In the real world bums don’t get to call the shots, they work or starve.
I’ve been to outback places myself and concur with this author.
Imagine the abbo traditional society, they spent a lot of time sitting around in the shade of large trees. Gasoline sniffing did not exist, so some other drugs may have.
Go to Broome today, there are still abbos sitting around under large trees, but now drunk.
Their problem is the same as the Canadian abbos (oooh, scary non-PC). The do-gooders and the indigenous industry want to keep them on the reservation, physically and metaphorically. They are to be kept in a time-warp zoo practicing their primitive and barbarous cultural traditions, such as continual warfare, misogyny, medical practices, etc.
Their only hope is to integrate into the wider society.
Bill Whittle put it pretty well in this viginete video.
http://therightscoop.com/bill-whittle-it-doesnt-take-a-village-it-takes-a-superhero/
Golden ages don’t come from Cities or Nations. They arise from individuals who transform their societies. When you have a culture that allows them freedom than many of these geniuses or even normal people with a vision, coupled with hard work, this creates a real age changer. The more folks like this are stifled for corrupt power’s, with monetary interests to protect. Including the mentality of always doing it the old way. Cadres to stop any innovation. The more culture declines.
Not Turkish, they invaded much later. This is Hittite land of origin.
Actually Golbeki Tempe is not a good example of anything…..any more than the Pyramids of which we know very little….who built them, how or why.
Comparing The Maori to the Australian Aborigini is hardly accurate as well….The Maori are Polynesians, a Neolithic culture.
The Australia Aborigini culture is pre-stoneage because they have no evidence of working stone into tools or bone…..prior to the stone age there was a “bone age”………quite simply, they are the most primitive people on earth…..
LOTSA QUESTIONS BUT NO SATISFACTORY ANSWERS.
Socialism kills all it touches, and the reservations where there is heavy state intervention ( free stuff ) is where you see the most problems.
On the other hand, I heard a member of the Huna Tlingit explain what life in her small community ( 500 people ) is like not long ago, and it was clear these were hard-working, normal; in fact, very admirable people. I think much of it derives from the fact that they were observing Christians; they have 5 churches to serve 500 people.
And they may not even be “first immigrants”, either if the Solutrean Theory is proven…..and it is gaining strength with virtually every new discovery.
Thanks for the link, Kate, and to those who’ve commented. Glad you enjoyed our post. 🙂
I really appreciated Steve’s point, that “being “isolated with a small population doesn’t lend itself to rapid advancement,” whereas a culture offering openings for trading and exchanging knowledge does.
@Fred 2: Commenting on this fundamental division-of-labour/multiplication-of-knowledge point, you said, “The Maori, next door, relatively, seem to both have had that AND been much quicker on the uptake [than Australian aboriginals] to absorb and re-organize.”
True, but I think that reinforces the point.
Australian aboriginals were isolated on the Australian continent for 45,000 years, without even any pressure to develop beyond their beginnings. Problems with your neighbours? Then there was plenty of space to find others, or none at all. Problems with food supplies? Walk about and find some elsewhere. There was no need to develop in a place in which population pressure didn’t demand it, and no spur to multiply and trade knowledge when, as economist George Reisman talks about in discussing the multiplication of knowledge, everyone you’d meet all have virtually the same knowledge as you do.
You mention New Zealand Maori. But Maori were at the end of the vast chain of human migration that over two-thousand years or so populated the entire Pacific, arriving in New Zealand around 800-1000 years ago having, as a culture, developed through several hundred cultures resulting from those that broke away from the mainland. Each new voyage from each of these places took what was probably the best of what that culture had developed — the best ideas, and probably the best people.
That’s a hell of a filter — not just having grown out of several cultures, but also along the lines recognised by Robert Heinlein, that migration itself is a threefold sorting device, a Darwinian selection, by which the best in any culture get up and go, the best of those that go survive the journey, and the best of those that survive flourish when they arrive.
And the Maori who arrived here in New Zealand were part of a culture that had done that hundreds of times over hundreds of years, across the Pacific on the long, long journey here across several hundreds of years.
So it’s no wonder the two cultures were very different, both when Europeans arrived, and since.
….Frankly it’s futile to bother any debate concerning “Native” Indians in Canada, they’re the untouchables politically and will continue to bleed big bucks from the working people of Canada, showing no appreciation or respect whatsoever.
We developed the land, they lay claim to it. When they decide to band together as a tribe of obnoxious jerks to block our rails or roads or bridges or interfere with the pipeline which are all key to our economy,our laws do not apply to them thanks to gutless politicians who refuse to take action, whatever process it takes, however long it takes, to kill their ancient treaties and land claims. In the real world bums don’t get to call the shots, they work or starve…
Well said and to the non PC point.
I often refer to a comment made by a caller into a Calgary AM talk show with Dave Rutherford as host…
Here’s the deal:
“you get your land you currently reside upon”
“you get colmplete ownership of said lands and homes built thereupon”
“you get your canadian citizenship papers”
“you get your Canadian Passport”
…and you get the money for 5 more years.
THATS it…after that Muchacho’s..?? you are on your own and have all the rights and obligation of each and every other Canadian. Sink or flippin swim – your choice. I personally could care less.
I resemble that attitude and will continue to resemble that attitude.
I am also highly pissed as well with our GUTLESS POLITICIANS for allowing this disgusting charade of EXTORTION continue.
Expect significantly more of the same when little useless pony takes the chair. Given his ass kissing of the sack of cow dung Theresa Spence…pretty much garanteed.
All you guys are wrong! It was the Garden of Eden then. Why do you think people like Maurice Strong want to industrialize the planet?
Ooops, that should be DE-industrialize the planet.
Her viewpoint, IIRC, you default misogynist.
Thanks Max.
Sorry Osumashi.
“But there is almost a total absence of political will among our politicians, Indian Chiefs, press, and public to honestly admit the faults, failures, and causes… let alone demanding and committing to practical solutions.”
The Residential Schools were the last best hope to bring the Indians up to speed with our civilization. The Indians chose to denigrate those schools and accuse them of being the sexual-abuse equivalent of Auschwitz.
Stephen Harper apologized, the Injuns got paid, end of story.
Now any concept even resembling the Residential Schools is politically dead-in-the-water, so the only practical solution left is to take the approx. $16+ billion of our taxes we give them per year and buy semi tractors full of decent quality booze, without another penny for anything else, and truck that booze onto their reserves so that they can freely drink themselves to death. Problem solved.
I call it the “Leaving Las Vegas” solution, after the inspiring movie of the same name starring Nicolas Cage.
Too bad some people couldn’t grasp the fact that there are examples of stone age cultures that were advanced, while some were not. Applying a broad brush of racism is never valid. If it makes someone feel better to believe they ‘won the argument’ then go right ahead. Not everyone is capable of objectively discussing concepts. Everything is a personal confrontation contest to them. Have a nice day.
“Actually Golbeki Tempe is not a good example of anything..” … to some people with a limited grasp of history.
We can lead people to knowledge but we can’t make them think.
I’m a victiiiiim!
Another thing is that there ARE aboriginal people who have done remarkable things (Sequoyah, the developer of the Cherokee syllabary, for example) despite great disadvantages. Yet, for some reason, it is easier to be a victim, and a Stone-Age one, at that, than be a success.
“some people couldn’t grasp the fact that there are examples of stone age cultures that were advanced”
There may be examples, …but you sure can’t name any.
No, strike that. ‘Advanced’ and ‘stone age’ are polar opposites.
A culture cannot be both, the same way that ‘water’ cannot be ‘dry’.
Sleep well, Sunshine.
Dream of all the shiny plastic things that Russian Danegeld you’re paid can buy you at Wal-Mart.
Grow up.
I see no reason to extoll a culture that went no further than the Stone Age or a group of people who spend more time complaining than working to improve themselves and bring honour to their culture. I don’t see Japanese people whining that they didn’t invent “black ships” or Koreans with their hands out because of a decades-long tyranny. Though hardly Stone Age, these hermit kingdoms managed to advance and compete globally.
Discuss that.
the only practical solution left is to take the approx. $16+ billion of our taxes we give them per year and buy semi tractors full of decent quality booze, without another penny for anything else, and truck that booze onto their reserves so that they can freely drink themselves to death. Problem solved.
That’s an excellent solution.. give ’em all the free booze and drugs they want so they OD and stop being a burden on our overused health care system. In a few years the loser element would be bred out of the culture.
In our community it’s almost impossible to get timely emergency care at the hospital because of all the intoxicated aboriginals clogging up the system.
Nearly all of the successful aboriginals today went to the residential schools, unfortunately the leftist media loves to focus on the losers.
“Grow Up” yeah right, so Golf Foxtrot Yankee if you want that sort of exchange.
If you think I’m defending the useless N.American aboriginals then you clearly haven’t been paying attention and obviously filter all comments through your agenda. Take your own advice.
I think the point north of 60 was trying to make (I could be wrong … it’s often difficult to tell with people like him), is that there are different degrees of even stone age. The point, I believe, is our own stone agers appear to be the most primitive.
Osumashi brought up cultures that plateaued at the stone age …
Steve said,
“…The aborigines didn’t have much of a chance to advance culturally. Isolated with a small population doesn’t lend itself to rapid advancement. Eurasia was huge teaming with peoples trading and exchanging knowledge. Each culture in Eurasia learned from the other.
Posted by: steve on July 16, 2014 3:54 PM …”
And I say there are so many things wrong with that argument I don’t know where to begin.
No one forced aboriginals to live isolated from each other; they did that to themselves
They had 45,000 years to change their ways, such as stop living isolated an start exchanging knowledge, they chose not to do it
Europeans CHOSE to trade and exchange knowledge, they did that to themselves ( if I can put it this way).
English is not my first language so forgive me for over simplifying but your argument reminds me of the fable of the two insects ( an ant and a grass hoper I think ); one that danced and sang all summer while the other amassed food, when winter came the one that danced all summer complained to the other he had nothing to eat as if that had happen to him trough some bad luck.
As if it was unfair that the other insect had so much food to go trough winter.
As if the dancing insect had had some bad luck while the other insect had had good luck that gave him an unfair advantage.
Each insect chose to do what they did. They made their bed, then they slept in it.
There is no victim of unfair bad luck and there is no unfair advantage.
If aboriginals had been stuck on an island where a comet crashed and that killed half the vegetation, animals and population and destroyed water ways, ok that would be bad luck and could be blamed for them not creating a civilization as advanced as the other people on the next island that did not get hit by a comet.
You say the aboriginals did not have much of a chance…it has nothing to do with chance.
nothing.
In all those 45,000 years No one kept the aboriginals from living closer and exchanging knowledge, just as no one kept the grass hoper from amassing food all summer long.
In the States they wanted to make Indians into farmers. That didn’t work out so good either.
The obvious truth is, they weren’t created for that role. No amount of forcing them to fit into a role for which they weren’t created will ever be successful.
The few who do fit in prove the rule.
A trend in BC education circles is the concept of “aboriginal ways of knowing”. Not sure exactly what they mean by that but I’m guessing it’s some kind of mystic ability to detect where the nearest liquor store is.
I agree. Not only the Indians, but also a lot of our non-Indian citizens, fit much better into the welfare recipient role.
There’s no point in coming down hard on Aboriginals / First Nations. No one in the human race had a culture much above eternal stagnation until the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Then along came Immanuel Kant and his successors the Marxists and the “political correctness” gang who are trying to shut the whole thing down again.
Ayn Rand pointed out that only two or three per cent of humanity do the heavy lifting, even in the most advanced societies. If you’re among their number, more power to you.
45,000 years without a wheel! Wow!!
I don`t think the Indigenous tribes of North America were here anywhere near 45,000 years!! Perhaps 6000–tops.
If that’s the way you want to interpret that, have fun funding knocking your head against that stone wall.
Kinda funny, the Indians claim to be victims, and people like ∞² claim to be victimized by an indolent culture created by their own ‘superior’ culture.
Heh, I guess it isn’t so ‘superior’ after all.
I didn’t claim anything – I agreed with you.
Please let me know what culture I represent.
Apparently the culture that pays the welfare recipients. Maybe not…