[mc32]

About the buffalo. First nations really think it's funny (patronizing) when some whites think FNs were all about peace and understanding. It makes them out to be emasculated. No, they say, we killed way more buffalo than whites ever did. Colonialists killed buffalo as a proxy siege warfare b/c buffalo were a vital natural resource for many FNs.

I think the Spaniards (or Iberians), given their religion, were way more accepting of other peoples and readily mixed --which is why you end up with so many meztizos in LAm --whereas initial NA settlers were less likely to reproduce with FN peoples.

[cbd1984]

> No, they say, we killed way more buffalo than whites ever did.

Ah, but the official mythology is that they used every part.

Sure. They herded massive groups of buffalo off buffalo jumps, which are essentially small cliffs, so that they'd fall and crush each other when they went off the edge, and they'd use every part of all of the hundreds of full-grown buffalo they killed.

But everyone knows the White Man invented waste. Thus it was, thus it must ever be.

[mc32]

The greatest respect one can offer another society is to treat them as being the same kind of humans as ourselves -raw, opportunistic, realists who would go to similar lengths as ourselves to achieve goals, not the fake respectful nonsense people project onto them to subvert them.

[pyre]

I somehow doubt that the indigenous peoples killed this many buffalo: http://cache.wists.com/thumbnails/7/37/7377f4d1d8add3298c08c...

But I'm open to the idea if you have more than just hand-waving to offer.

[cbd1984]

What, exactly, are you disagreeing with? The idea of a buffalo jump or my doubts that they used every part?

[coldtea]

Isn't it a little disingenious to only present these two things, and not the larger issue that matters more?

I, for one, disagree with the idea that the "buffalo jump" was all that prevalent and had a measurable impact, compared to the whites driving the buffalos to what they are now....

[cbd1984]

> I, for one, disagree with the idea that the "buffalo jump" was all that prevalent

I lived next to one. Try again.

[coldtea]

>I lived next to one. Try again.

So? That doesn't make it "prevalent", and even less makes it important next to white era's extinction of buffalo.

The only thing "I lived next to one" proves is that at least one existed. And we knew that already -- we also knew a lot more than one existed.

[pyre]

You are claiming that indigenous peoples killed more buffalo than "the whites." If this is true, then you are claiming that the indigenous peoples are the ones that drove the buffalo to near-extinction. I disagree with this assertion.

[cbd1984]

> You are claiming that indigenous peoples killed more buffalo than "the whites."

I am not.

[fsloth]

To my understanding the main economic motivator for hunting the buffalo in massive scale was the fact that their leather was fantastic for various belts and straps used for power transport in industrial engines.

[coldtea]

>But everyone knows the White Man invented waste. Thus it was, thus it must ever be.

No, he just took it 3-4 orders of magnitude higher.

(And even as a white man, I see some racism in your comment).

[lotsofmangos]

No, they say, we killed way more buffalo than whites ever did.

In total over time, maybe. However, it is pretty clear who got the number of bison to less than 600 in the 19th century.

[mc32]

That may or may not be true, but it's not the substance. The point was that FNs resent being caricatured into something they aren't. They are normal human beings capable of the same things (good and horrible) as any other human being, as an individual and society.

[lotsofmangos]

Fair point, I was being pernickety. I was not meaning it in terms of the Europeans being less moral, just that the Europeans had more effective tools for bison slaughter and when it got competitive, well, the results speak for themselves. - http://webs.anokaramsey.edu/waite/environmental/untitled.jpg

[swatow]

But the post you were replying to stated

>Truth is that American's ancestors where quite genocidal among other things. To the point of almost exterminating most of North America's population. Just like the Buffalo.

If the point about the buffalo is correct, then how does this post otherwise misrepresent Native Americans? It seems like you latched onto this mention of buffalo to make a completely unrelated point about Native Americans.

[coldtea]

>They are normal human beings capable of the same things (good and horrible) as any other human being, as an individual and society

Of course they are.

We shouldn't use this to neutralize who did the really horrible things to whom though. They were the victims here.