Friday is Not Black
Indigenous American Peoples
As a philosopher I’ve studied many of the indigenous beliefs of the Americas, including publishing a paperback partly covering them. Entire TV programs on math, geometry, astronomy and the usually lethal influence of the European powers barely mention the Maya, for instance.
They were 1,000 years ahead of any white-dominated culture in utilizing 0 (zero, independently discovered by Asian Indians, who also utilized algorithms), one of the most significant steps toward sophisticated mathematics, including the ability to formulate and project huge numbers, such as when and where to expect a planet or the moon to show up decades into the future…
when their children and grandchildren and their grandchildren would have to confirm it. That’s teamwork.
Unlike Mel Gibson’s narrow-minded portrayal in his film “Apocalypto,” the classic Maya were not shocked (though perhaps awed) during an eclipse: their projections and astronomical observations guaranteed when and where an eclipse was coming.
Pyramidal observation posts and careful numerical records permitted that to happen.
The Pueblo peoples, especially along the Rio Grande River in New Mexico, had no use for the Franciscan friars and the pseudo-scientists who thought they knew better how to grow corn and other crops:
Corn Woman and Thought Mother had already successfully taught the Pueblos hundreds or even thousands of years before.
How about today? There are many books, some written by Native Americans about the poverty and mistreatment still going on in reservations and wherever Indian land might, maybe, contain gold or silver or uranium or just land.
When some Conquistadors heard rumors of seven “cities” made of pure silver, they found nothing but the sunlit, blindingly bright-white adobe homes of the Zuni.
The Spanish and others, in their mad pursuit for huge wealth for themselves and their royal masters in Europe, didn’t have a clue about the real treasures they were tripping over: rich soil, clean water, seemingly vast spaces and Native skills that often produced surpluses of crops that provided all the essentials for good health — and the meat, furs, medicines — in the midst of the West’s endless rugged mountains, rivers and deserts.
But, in getting background on Indigenous peoples and their years of frustration when many of them did (and do) want to work for American corporations, we’re in luck: read a new history by P. Hämäläinen called Indigenous Continent, a history of white and indigenous interaction written from the point of view of the Natives.
An even tougher POV of the First Americans is reflected in another new book, The Rediscovery of America, by New Blackhawk.
That background is essential when Natives are being interviewed for jobs of all kinds — not to give them an advantage but rather to comprehend a bit of the 500-yr.+ history and mindsets of both sides.
Too much silver was mined in Bolivia, Mexico and other areas, and shipped to Europe (most gold was stolen ornaments). The result of all the sudden new silver ironically caused enormous inflation (!) in Europe. Even today greed is underrated as a cause of inflation.
A non-economist’s speculation inspired by those new histories: if greed stopped, inflation would too. If inflation were no longer a threat, all people could better afford the necessities of life. Our values precede our actions.
A powerful passage (see below) from the Washington Post Book Club (11/25/22) with some good news on the matter of respecting, learning from and hiring Indigenous peoples from the Americas, even on Black Friday.
With thanks to Ron Charles of the Washington Post Book Club for both his next quote and the sample poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo :
“Today is Native American Heritage Day. The Library of Congress has announced that the Kislak Family Foundation donated $10 million to create a gallery on the history of the early Americas. When it opens in 2024, the new exhibit, drawing on earlier donations by the late Jay Kislak, will include paintings, maps, rare books, documents and artifacts — some more than 3,000 years old.”
Joy Harjo:
“Prepare”
You are a story fed by generations
You carry songs of grief, triumph
Loss and joy
Feel their power as they ascend
Within you
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As you walk, run swiftly, even fly
Into infinite possibilities
Let go that which burdens you
Left go any acts of unkindness or brutality
From or against you
Let go that which has burdened your family
Your community, your nation
Or disturbed your soul
Let go one breath into another
Pray thankfulness for this Earth we are
For this becoming we are
For this sunlight touching skin we are
For the cooling of the dark we are
Listen now as Earth sheds her skin
Listen as generations move
One against the other to make power
We are bringing in a new story
We will be accompanied by ancient songs
And will celebrate together
Breathe this new dawn
Assist it as it opens its mouth
To sing.
(From “Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years,” by Joy Harjo, W.W. Norton. Copyright © 2022 by Joy Harjo-Sapulpa.)
Of course today is Columbus Day too. Native Americans discovered America, while Columbus rediscovered it, accidentally, only to be stopped and finally ordered home by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella the Catholic of Spain — Columbus’ aspirations for power and wealth were not unusual for the time but gradually went out of control, including hanging uncooperative natives of the Caribbean.
Nevertheless, Italians have a lot of pride in the rediscovery, which did a lot more than what later became the colonial way. Europe saw and opened:
brand-new worlds, peoples, mineral resources, foods, cultural and personal relationships (including other ways of raising kids), religions, different ways of governing, women’s periodic governing roles in some native nations, prestige, sources of labor, and the indefinable beauty of “our” continent.
Since our planet today, including the US, isn’t handling those aspirations and goals very well, Native Americans have much to teach the rest of us about how to succeed with them. Do we have the humility to learn?
#Indigenous #FirstAmericans #Colonialism #Columbus
