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| Typical American Thanksgiving portrayal |
Today is American Thanksgiving. Gobble gobble motherfukkers. Most Americans understand it as this: get together with family and friends, eat a shiteload of turkey and all sorts of other good foods, and give thanks for the companionship and nourishment. Give thanks to God, or if you are irreligious, give thanks to ourselves and the circumstances. To go one level deeper, many understand it as first coming about when some early settlers in America were having a great feast to celebrate their survival, thanks to the Natives who showed them numerous ways to live when they first arrived.
One has to remember what worked for survival in the Old World would not always work the same way in the New World. Also, many of the settlers weren't exactly rich or royalty (in fact many risked coming to a strange land because they almost had nothing to lose and were desperate), and things like hunting and trapping were not as practiced. Nobles did it, mostly for sport, but the bulk of the rest were poor peasants or farmers, not master hunters. Of course, exceptions always apply, but for the most part, if it wasn't for the initial hospitality of the Natives, most American settlers would have froze their asses off, starved to death, or become impaled by the Natives themselves. Besides Thanksgiving, the gratitude given to the Natives by the early pilgrims was to steal all their land, kill many off with foreign sickness that a natural immunity wasn't developed for, and wage war until the assimilation the entire Native culture occurred. Now the culture exists in a form forced to adapt to the new circumstances, and faces many challenges. Sure, the Natives did a lot of hostile or mean things in return, but usually it was the case of them being driven to do so against increasing pressure of self preservation.
We tend to forget who they are, and what they really gave us. When I say 'we' I refer to Americans, or even all North and South Americans, who are descended from the Old World in some manner, or anyone who did not originally inhabit the Americas before Native Americans did. I also must note that in Canada the Natives prefer to be called First Nations, if I use the term 'Native', I use it as a wider term for the sake of convenience to include them as well. At times I'll use the word 'Indian' or 'Indigenous' for simplicity of language to encompass all First Nations and/or Native American peoples.
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| A Native American Food Guide Pyramid..ha. Note most of the foods of Native origin in pictures |
Ok, so it's established that Natives acted as guides and showed us how to survive and broke bread with us (at least before getting pissed at us for overstaying our welcome). That alone is huge. We wouldn't BE HERE otherwise! They showed us all kinds of foods to eat and medicinal plants to use. Do you like tomatoes, salsa, avocado, guacamole, tortillas? This is usually labelled 'Mexican' food, but it mostly derived from the indigenous peoples of the particular area, long before the Spanish arrived. POTATOES, a huge part of diets worldwide, originated with the Natives. So did CHOCOLATE. Imagine no potato chips, tortilla chips, hot chocolate, chocolate bars? Scratch popcorn from the snack food list as well with no Native influence factored in. In fact corn itself came from the Natives. We have an unbelievable array of uses for corn, from corn syrup, to starch, to feed for farm animals, to certain sugar cereals. There were three foods nicknamed the 'Three Sisters' by a number of early Indians: corn, squash, and beans. The three complimented each other and helped one another to grow, and were staples of the diet of certain tribes. Closely associated with Thanksgiving itself, the Natives showed early settlers how to cultivate the Three Sisters. Pumpkins were another food eaten that had Thanksgiving associations. Imagine no pumpkin pie? Maple syrup, clearly a favorite of many, was tapped from trees by those early Indian folk. Cranberries, blueberries, trail mix, a lot of things like that would not be eaten today without Native influence. Vanilla was used by Natives. Wild rice originated from them, harvested mainly from the Great Lakes area. For better or worse, drugs like peyote, cocaine, aspirin, tobacco and so on all originally were used by the Natives.
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| Long before the Marlboro Man was simply the calumet...or 'peace pipe' |
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| An 'Aztec Basketball' court.. |
Some Natives played a game similar to ice hockey, sometimes called shinny. Although hockey-like games have existed all over the world since time began practically, the modern ice hockey as we know it was probably in part shaped by the settlers taking a note or two from the Natives. The Indians also invented the game of lacrosse. Snowshoes, toboggans and igloos come from Natives. There goes a hell of a lot of winter and sporting fun without all that.
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| The emblem for the Chicago Blackhawks. |
All kinds of sports teams would have totally different names and images without the Indian presence: Kansas City Chiefs, Washington Redskins,Chicago Blackhawks, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, and Edmonton Eskimos to name some. Call the names or images controversial or not, but those teams would not exist in the same way. A blinding assortment of place names, including states, cities, roads, rivers, and so forth are all named from Native words. An interesting taster map of this can be found at: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/04/departments/native-names-interactive . Scores of words now common in the English language derived from the Indians, including words such as : chipmunk, caribou, hickory,moccasin, moose, muskrat, opossum, papoose, pecan, persimmon, raccoon, skunk, squaw, succotash, tomahawk, woodchuck, chayote, chili, mesquite, coyote, tamale, condor, guano, Inca, jerky, puma, quinoa, husky, malamute, anole, anorak, barbeque, caiman, guava, cassava, hurricane, chinook, papaya, saguaro, savannah, yuca, iguana, cashew, capybara, sequoia, Sasquatch, potlatch, kokanee, manatee, kiva, hogan, hooch, appaloosa, geoduck, cannibal, abalone, alpaca, cougar, jaguar, tapioca, cayenne, etc etc etc. All kinds of institutions, businesses, products, people and things have Native names or imagery associated with them.
The indigenous Americans made transportation of people and goods easier with modes of transport such as kayaks, dugout or birchbark canoes, and the travois. Teepees and totem poles are distinctly Indian inventions. Like cowboys and Indians films? Well, obviously they wouldn't exist without the Indians! You can't relax in your hammock without remembering the Natives did it first. Cultural and counter-cultural ideas and ideals have been influenced by Native American thinking. Many hippies and rockers (especially in the 60's) took some lessons from the old chiefs and their people. Certain animals and breeds of animal were used by the Natives: alpacas, llamas, special breeds of horse and dog, and so forth. Spinning tops, balloons, and rubber balls came from Indians if traced back far enough. Rubber itself was harvested by them. Chewing gum was as well. Fashion items such as feathers and fringe jackets and moccasins would not exist or be the same without the Indians who wore it first.
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| How cool would Dennis Hopper be without his Native-inspired fringe jacket and free spirited attitude in Easy Rider? Not very. |
It is up for debate in the sense of 'who exactly did it first', but American tribes of old were known to have developed sophisticated calendars and almanacs, astronomy, mellalurgy (in limited ways), certain forms of government and democracy, architectural wonders such as adobe buildings and pyramids (independent of Egyptian inspiration), the number zero, forms of agriculture, embalming and more. Although they collectively may not be the sole inventors of all these things or the first inventors, the nature of many of these things had Native American influence, sometimes to a great degree. One of the most important lessons Natives have ever taught was that of respect for nature, and never destroying the very land you stand upon. Far beyond treehugger crap, if we do not take this idea to its sheer limit our planet and our lives may become utterly unlivable soon!
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| pic by Henry Krauzyk |
In conclusion, though some may disagree on some areas, it is hard to fully disagree that Native Americans have influenced the way all Americans, and ultimately people around the globe, live their lives. I'm not saying all white people or Europeans or descendants of New World settlers are pure evil and all Natives are saints, I'm saying that Natives strongly helped create what our life is today and we did happen to do them a lot of injustice historically, and we continue to do the injustice in certain ways today. The very least we can do is try to learn more about their culture and respect them as people and all they have offered.
