Thursday, February 15, 2007

Native Americans vs. Europeans

Dance and story telling was the greatest influence of the culture of the Native Americans. When you look to how they survived through the eras without the Europeans, you realize that their forms of teaching and remembering their past was very fragile. The Native Americans learned by the hand of their ancestors who pasted their stories on to their children, who past it on to their children, and so on. Yet, when one of the family member are killed who teach the young all of the secrets to living, the entire colony and culture starts to collapse.
The mystical function was a large influence on an individual in the Native culture. They would be taught that they have spiritual power, which if you find, may change you life in many great ways. They also thought that nature is very mystical to them. When they would sacrifice an animal to feed their family they would show gratitude toward the animal, who gave its life, by dance or song. These spiritual rituals would be taught by the elders and without this knowledge they couldn't carry on the religion and culture. Thus, when they met the Europeans, they lost a lot of their culture.
When the Europeans came over and started to have consistent contact to the Natives, they found that their are many cultural differences between them. The Europeans believed heavily on the scientific path, but with a belief in one god. God, is that spiritual part of the their lives, but when they go home to eat, they didn't give thanks to the animal, but God. Whom they believe let them have the chance to eat a great meal.
In summary, they had some conflicts that hurt their relationship. When the Europeans came over, they started to clear land and kill animals like it was nothing. This is because the Europeans believe that killing animals and clearing land for large homes wasn't against what God wanted. Yet, the Natives saw this as blasphemy and were mad that they were doing such evils. Also, the Natives were taken as slaves by the Europeans, and the Native that fought, died. Thus, this starting a great conflict that would end the cultures of thousands of the Natives tribes. Because of the greediness of the Europeans, they started to ask for gold and other minerals that the Natives didn't have. This was impossible for the Natives, not only because they couldn't speak English but they literally didn't have what the Europeans were asking for. But, when the Europeans didn't get what they wanted, they would kill the Native Americans.
This was bad. Like was stated above, when the elders die, the culture dies. Now, that millions of the Natives are dead or dying, they are taking with them, the culture.
In conclusion, conflict and violence was, undoubtedly, inevitable. The Europeans were very wealth driven. They wanted to find the fastest and most economical way to make money. That said, if anything got in their way, they would find a way around or resort to fighting their way through. This causing the great conflict between the two cultures and causing the demise of the Native Americans elders. By the end of this war, it was estimated that millions of Natives were killed because of one nations greed, but the worst of it was shown through the massacre at Wounded Knee. The Seventh Cavalry killed hundreds of women and children out of spite, not for defense. Thus, showing that violence can not be avoided in some cases because some people have their mind on one thing. When it comes between morals and what they want, both of the cultures were for what was best for them, instead of who gets hurt in the process.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

You have a couple of very strong insights: the strength of native culture in an oral tradition depended on a certain continuity between elders; and youth and Native communities gave thanks directly to the resources whereas Christians gave thanks to God. These are the strength of your paper.

The areas to work on are that the paper presents itself as being hurried and does not exploit these strong insights enough. The treatment of the functions of myth is rushed, and the conclusion seems rushed as well. In general the audience gets the impression that you know what you are writing about, but you don't bring the audience with you.

Come see me if you have any questions. Good work.

Jess said...

I like how you said when the elders die, the culture dies & how you said the Europeans killed people at the Massacre at Wounded Knee out of hate.

Anna said...

I liked how you had a lot of examples backing up you statements. I was able to understand your points better and what you meant exactly. Good Job!