🚀 go-pugleaf

"S D Rodrian" <sdr@sdrodrian.com> wrote in message
news:bf7b874e.0112080548.790c56b5@posting.google.com...
> Dear sir, for your information: The plains indians
> only became efficient at killing buffalos AFTER the
> introduction of the horse into North America by the
> Spanish--before then the only way they could hunt
> such a huge animal was by prayer (they got lucky if
> a herd happen to pass where they could stage an ambush
> --a practice which survived in some of their cultures
> long after the pony had made it irrelevant): Try to
> imagine a bunch of stone-age "indians" running after
> a herd of buffalo on foot... and then come back and
> tell me about how they relied on the buffalo for food
> with the same degree of confidence a farmer relies on
> his non-legged crops!!!! The reason why you see the
> substantial indian "empires" of latin America is because
> they were agricultural societies--And EVERYWHERE you
> find populations in some numbers you find evidence of
> how they managed to sustain themselves to their numbers
> by agriculture:

The herds travelled known paths, were absoloutely massive, and each animal
could feed a large number of individuals for over a week, less if they were
conservative about their rations.  Capabilities varied, but most tribes were
observed to kill large numbers - on foot.  Getting to their targets was
easy - it could take over a week for the herds to finish crossing one area.
Also they usually knew when they were comming - they could be ready.

Their populations weren't huge in areas like the more dessicated areas of
the west, and far to the north... but throughout most of North America, food
was no issue, agriculture or no agriculture.

> You're talking about populations whose historical camp
> sites any high-school archaeologist-wannabe can find to
> this day ANY a lot of them are even used by the same
> indians to this day. These populations are pretty well
> documented (and, baby, Geronimo at times led a band of a
> dozen or fewer insurgents, but when we see a movie about
> him he's got a couple of hundred extras behind him). It's
> just the way popular myths and legends work. Abd then
> there's science.

Geronimo was a poorly equipped rebel - he rarely had more than ten men with
him (though for a few raids, including some of the ones grossly dramatized
in movies, the men with him (though not under him) numbered 50 to 100).
Most of the time, though, he was just nominal leader of a loose band of
guerillas - and operated more often with no more than 3-4 others.

> Nope: By every definition you'd care to use they were
> neither bronze-age nor iron-age (the reason Cortez and
> his 300 soldiers were able to "cut-through" many hundreds
> of their enemies "like a knife through butter" was because
> they had armor and the indians only had stone-head arrows).
> I've read of several isolated instances of metallurgy in
> pre-Columbian North America, but it's always controversial
> as to whether it's a true case or a misreading of the dates.
>
> I am a racist. But this is an acknowledgment essential for
> anyone who is trying his/her best to be less of a racist: We
> are all racists, and I have never come across bigger racists
> than those who claim the loudest that they are NOT racists:
> How the Hell could anyone who already claims to not be one
> ever be expected to make the slightest effort to stop being one!?!

Ooookaaay....