Who has more Rights? ( Archived) (63)

JasperCrush: I guess you really couldn't know unless you lived here your whole life. Where I live is life, not something that you read out of a book.

The_Kansan: Spirituality was very important on an individual basis, not necessarily so on a 'national' one. Please don't tell me that materialism wasn't part of the culture. Any man worth his salt who couldn't gift a prospective 'father-in-law' with enough horses, hides and/or other gifts to please him would never marry. Tell a Lakota warrior with the biggest horse herd in the nation that he didn't need all those horses to be successful because his ultimate goal was spirituality and he'd laugh at you and take your hair - and then your horse.

At the same time, depending upon the tribe, it wasn't uncommon for someone to gift himself into poverty. You'd think that someone else would immediately step forward and see that they wouldn't then starve, but I assure you that this was not the case.

There are alot of points we could argue and I'm sure that some of it would be 'give and take' but frankly, I'd rather watch T.V. with my lovely wife, since I'll be leaving out at 5:00 a.m.

If you're really interested though, I could suggest some books - written by the people who were there - that might further your understanding a bit. If you'd REALLY like to learn, I could give you the address of the man (Grandfather Ugly) who walked me through my first vision quest and then saw to it that I was inducted into the War Eagle Society...

Later...

StressFree: I wanted info on South American indigenous tribes imposing their belief systems on other tribes, and how were they so different? You said "Oh, and if you REALLY believe Also the natives never imposed their religion or spirituality on any other tribe. then you might want to read up on some of the SOUTH American tribes, (amongst others)."

And now you have to convenientaly go to watch tv and avoid my question...plus Grandfather Ugly is North American...I did not ask for that. My original point was that the Natives did not impose their will and belief systems over an entire continent and hemisphere. They were content and respected their boundaries.

You speak of horses, and I'm speaking of something far greater and cruel. Wake up.

The_Kansan: I still maintain that they would have, given time. Mankind is mankind and it doesn't matter what shade your skin pigment is or where you've lived for the past 10,000 years, basically you're still a damn mess and very damned few have ever gotten past that, although I, personally have been trying.

Walk in my shoes and maybe some day YOU'LL wake up. And as to the question you accuse me of avoiding - Pardon me for not being able to recall specific names, but there's a temple(s) in Central America specifically dedicated to the furtherment of that tribes particular religion. It's thought that thousands of <otherwise to be assimilated peoples> were "sacrificed" (read tortured/killed) because they wouldn't accept the religion of the conquerers. It shouldn't be too hard to find out more for a man of your cunning and resources.

In the mean time, if it'll make you happy, I'll concede your point that Indo-Europeans are the most screwed up folks in the history of the world and that we'd all be better off if they'd stayed "over there" and left the Indians alone.

Good night, SF. Maybe next time we can start this earlier in the day? (Then I won't have to "conveniently" do something else with my life.)