Thank you for this thread, it is really informative.

Thanks

Lou

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A substantial amount of the money used by Queen Isabella to finance the explorations of Columbus came from the seizure and sale of properties owned by Spanish Jews and Muslims. On March 30, 1492, she issued an edict demanding that Jews either convert to Catholicism, leave the country, or be executed.

Quoted from We Were Not the Savages

"The event that led European Nations to destroy many of the civilizations of two continents, and drastically diminish the remainder, resulted from what was an almost impossible accident of fate. If it had not already occurred, it would be virtually impossible to envision.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus, on a sea voyage to chart a shortcut to the Indies, funded by Queen Isabella of Spain, set the stage for the rape of American civilizations by going astray at sea. By chance he eventually landed on a small island in the Caribbean sea populated by a defenseless and friendly pacifist race of people, the Taino. These people were ripe for picking by unscrupulous men, and Columbus and his crew pillaged with impunity. The blind luck that led him to land on this small defenseless island instead of somewhere else along the thousands of miles of North and South American coastline-where people wouldn't have been so complacent-is akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

In retrospect, if he had instead landed in a non-pacifist country, such as that of the Iroquois or Maya, history would have turned out differently. Their Warriors would have fought back ferociously, very probably ending his voyage on the American side of the Atlantic. If this had happened, and no Europeans had appeared for another century, population growth and technology development would have reduced the possibility of European colonization considerably. However, history turned out the way it did and no amount of fantasizing can change that.

Columbus, thinking he was in the Indies, did not waste time paying lip service to the pretence that he was importing "shining" European ideals to the people he mistakenly labelled Indians. Instead he wrote in his journal: "We can send from here, in the name of the Holy Trinity, all the slaves and Brazil wood which could be sold." True to the intent of these words, he initiated the Amerindian slave harvest on his first voyage. When he embarked from the Americas for Spain, it was with a cargo of five hundred Native Americans to be sold on the continental slave markets. Upon landing at Seville, only about three hundred of these unfortunate souls were still alive. These and booty were turned over to Queen Isabella.

The news of the riches offered by Hispaniola and surrounding islands soon spread across Europe. The notion of fabulous wealth for the picking was like a magnet for other European Nations. Within a few years, harvesters from Spain and other European countries were travelling from island to island seeking artifacts, precious metals, spices, and human beings for enslavement. The cruel assault mounted by these people against the defenseless and non-aggressive Taino, who had numbered in the millions in 1492, was so effective that forty years later they were virtually extinct."

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The Army expression "Going over The Hill" meaning leaving the army without an authorized pass or going Absent With out Leave (AWOL) came about due to the early setttlers living close to a Cherokee group called "The Over The Hills" ?

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Eagle mating ritual

When I was a teenager I heard the sound of two eagles and I looked up and saw them..They were flying very high up over the mountains and were just specks in the sky..I witnessed them lock together and they looked kind of like a helicopter as they spun towards the ground..They were spinning closer and closer to the ground but just yards away from hitting the ground they separated and flew off together over another nearby mountain..

I asked my grandfather what was that all about and he told me the following..He told me eagles mated while flying very high and as they mated they did not fly but locked together and fell toward the ground..He told me this was the way the Creator ensured only the strongest eagles survived because if they did not finish mating while they were locked together in the sky they would both hit the ground and die together..

Eagles mate for life and when one dies the other usually dies within days after the others death..

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 Designs are different for each Tribe. The Sioux Indian's have a large flair and make a very colorful  Indian Headdress, while the Crow Indian War Bonnets slopp back flatter on the head.

The Blackfoot Indians make an Indian Headdress that is worn straight up from the head. The Sioux Indian, Cheyenne Indian and the Pawnee Indian use only geometric designs in the beaded brow band. Indian

War Bonnets were very practical on the Plains because there were no bushes or trees for them to catch on. Eagle feathers were rewarded to Indian Braves, warriors and Chieftains for extreme acts of valor and bravery and were very difficult to achieve. They were earned one at a time. 

Regardless of the circumstance of how an Indian Brave accumulated feathers, he was not authorized, according to Tribal law, to wear them until he won them by a brave deed. He had to appear before the Tribal council and tell or reenact his exploit. Witnesses were examined and if in the eyes of the council the deed was thought worthy, the brave was then allowed to wear the feathers in his hair or Indian Headdress or in the Indian War bonnets.

Sometimes a tuft of horsehair was added to the tip of a feather to designate additional honor. Coup Feathers (pronounced "coo") of the Native American Indian can be compared to campaign ribbons or medals awarded to our modern soldiers. An Indian would rather part with his horse, tepee or even his wife, than to loose his eagle feathers. To do so would be dishonor in the eyes of the Tribe. Many of the old Native American Indian Chiefs had won enough honors to wear a double-trailed bonnet that dragged the ground. Only the great and important men of the Tribes had the right to wear the doubled-trailed Indian war bonnets.

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Why the Blackfoot Indians are called Blackfoot!

The tribe was called Blackfoot from the discoloration of their moccasins from ashes. They also had a habit of dyeing their moccasins black and the dye would color their feet black..

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"Who are the Elders ?"by Daniel Crowfeather

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The Choctaws comprise two American Indian tribes whose origins are in central and eastern Mississippi. Their ancestors lived in fortified villages, raised corn, and hunted deer. They first encountered Europeans when Hernando de Soto led his forces from 1539 to 1541 through the Southeast. In the eighteenth century, they traded food and deerskins to British and French traders in exchange for weapons and cloth. Their major public ceremonies were funerals, but otherwise Choctaw religious beliefs were matters of private dreams or visions. They traced descent through the mother's line. The Choctaws settled conflicts between towns or with neighboring tribes on the stickball field, where each team tried to hit a ball of deerskin beyond the other's goal. The game was violent, but its outcome kept peace within the nation. During the American Revolution the Choctaws remained neutral, and they rejected the Shawnee leader Tecumseh's effort to form an alliance against the Americans before the War of 1812. In 1826, to assert their national identity and to show that they were adapting to white civilization, they adopted a written constitution that established a representative form of government. Despite the Choctaws' friendship and signs of adopting American customs, President Andrew Jackson pressed all Indians east of the Mississippi to cede their lands and move west. In 1830, Choctaw leaders signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, and approximately fifteen thousand Choctaws moved to what is now Oklahoma. There they reestablished their constitutional form of government and controlled their own school system. They allied with the Confederacy during the Civil War and afterward were forced to sign new treaties with the United States that ceded parts of their land and allowed railroads to cross their territory. Railroads brought non-Indians to Choctaw lands, and in 1907 the tribal government was dissolved when Oklahoma became a state. Mineral resources, however, remained as communal holdings, and the federal government continued to recognize titular chiefs. Political activism in the 1960s led to a resurgence in tribal identity. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma had over 127,000 members throughout the United States, and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, descendents of those who resisted removal, numbered over 8,300.

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From 1492 forward, European countries and the United States justified their dealings with the natives and American Indian tribes in North and South America under the “doctrine of discovery.”  Under this principle, the European country that first discovered a new area where Christian Europeans had not yet arrived could claim the territory for their own country.  This did not mean that the natives lost the right to live on the land or to farm and hunt animals on it but it did mean that the natives could only sell their land to the one European country that “discovered” them and that they should only deal politically with that one European country.  In most situations, the Europeans also enforced the doctrine of discovery against themselves because they recognized and agreed to be bound by the principle that the discovering country earned a protectible property right in newly discovered territories.  The audacity of one country “discovering” and claiming lands already occupied and owned by American Indians came from the idea that Christians and white Europeans were superior to people of other races and religions.      When European countries first came to the New World, they were not strong enough militarily to just take the land from the Indian tribes.  Thus, they entered treaties with tribes to make the transactions look legal and valid, and they bought the lands they wanted.  In addition, influential scholars in England and Spain, for example, believed that Indians had a legal right as free people to continue to own their lands and that a European country could only take lands by force in an honorable war.

In exercising its control over the American continent, the United States also enforced the doctrine of discovery.  Thus, as the United States Supreme Court stated in 1823, in the case of Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. (8 Wheat) 543 (1823), the United States acquired the sole right to buy lands from Indian tribal governments under the doctrine of discovery.  Thus, sales of land that Indians had made to persons other than to the United States government were invalid.  Tribes continued to have the right to use and occupy their lands but their governmental sovereign powers were restricted in that they could only sell their lands to the United States.  Johnson, 21 U.S. at 573-74.  The United States gained this power under the doctrine of discovery from England and from other European countries as the U.S. bought or acquired the “discovery” authority of these European countries over various parts of the American continent.

In upholding this power of discovery over Indian tribes for the United States, the Supreme Court had to ignore its own opinion that Indians possessed natural rights to their lands.  In fact, the Supreme Court refused to say why American farmers, “merchants and manufacturers have a right, on abstract principles, to expel hunters from the territory they possess” or to limit the tribal rights.  Instead, in determining tribal rights to sell their lands, the Court relied on the doctrine of discovery and the fact that the United States had beaten some tribes in war to decide that only the United States could buy Indian lands.  “Conquest gives a title [to the land] which the Courts of the conqueror cannot deny . . . .”  Id. at 588.

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American Indians are also mentioned in the Constitution of 1789, Article I, and again in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which was ratified in 1868.  In counting the population of the states to determine how many representatives a state can have in Congress, Indians were expressly not to be counted unless they paid taxes.  In effect, Indians were not considered to be federal or state citizens unless they paid taxes.  After the Civil War when citizenship rights were extended through the Fourteenth Amendment to ex-slaves and to “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States,” that Amendment still excluded individual Indians from citizenship rights and excluded them from being counted towards figuring congressional representation unless they paid taxes.  This demonstrates that Congress still considered Indians to be citizens of other sovereign governments even in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted.  This view was correct because most Indians did not become United States citizens until 1924 when Congress passed a law making all Indians United States citizens.  For many years after 1924, states were still uncertain whether Indians were also citizens of the state where they lived and in many states Indians were not allowed to vote in state elections.

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The meaning of the term medicine to an American Indian is quite different from that which is ordinarily held by modern societies.  To most American Indians, medicine signifies an array of ideas and concepts rather than remedies and treatment alone.  There is no separation between religion and medicine in tribal culture and healing ceremonies are an integral part of the community experience.  To the American Indian, the natural or correct state of all things, including man, is harmony.  Far from being dominant over nature, man is seen as interdependent with other living beings and physical forces.  All thinking is grounded in relationships.  More emphasis is given to the connectedness of one thing to another than to the individual thing itself.  To maintain a correct or natural relationship is to be in harmony.  The universe is a complex matrix of interdependence.  There is a proper set of relationships for each being, a proper existing in harmony with the universe.

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Medical problems in aboriginal times included wounds, sprains, broken bones, burns, and other minor skin ailments. Rheumatism and arthritis affected the old. Smoke-filled lodges caused sore eyes. Dental problems were fairly common. Women had problems with menstruation and childbirth. Intestinal worms were endemic.

"Diseases of civilization" such as heart disease, arteriosclerosis and cancer were rare in aboriginal times. Very few viral or bacterial diseases existed in North America before contact. Epidemic "crowd" diseases such as measles and smallpox did not affect Indians until European contact when these diseases came to the New World.

The North American Indians did not usually regard physical problems as distinct from spiritual problems. Some tribes had herbalists as well as shamans; however, in many tribes the two roles were combined in a single person. Even when a physical remedy was applied, the cause of the ailment might still be scribed to evil spirits. In many respects, Indian medicines in the days after contact were not much different from those in Europe. Early explorers, particularly clergymen, took an interest in simples (herbals) used in the Americas.

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The city in Florida named Miami means sweet water in the Seminole language

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English/Cherokee Dictionary - Cherokee NationCherokee Nation

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American Indians made foot wear for the right and left foot whereas the white more civilized Europen made foot wear that was worn by either foot..Can you imagine wearing the same size and shape shoe on the right or left foot when there is a difference in the size and shape of each foot ? If the wrong shoe is worn on the wrong foot it will cause severe damage to the foot.. The white more civilzed Eropean did not make foot wear for each individual foot until the 18th century..

HMM! Now You Know..

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The popular way of saying goodbye comes from the old Puritanical saying of "God Be With Ye" when someone departed from them..The American Indians living in the area heard the Puritans saying this but to their ears they heard "GOOD BYE" and this phrase became popular among the Indians of the area..When white non puritans heard this they also began using  the phrase and today it is a universal phrase for people to say when they depart from one another....

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A German Doctor visited the USA and North America learning various remedies natives used for colds,weakness,arthritis and he came upon a common remedy most Natives used to rid a headache..He saw them use the inner bark of a willow tree and dry it and then pound it into a powder and take it with water..When he had a very bad headache he took some of the powder and his headache ceased..

He took this remedy back to Germany and made some of the powder into tablet form..His Name Was M.L. Bayer and the founder of Bayer Aspirin which is often called the wonder drug of all time because of its many uses.. And NOW YOU KNOW...

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