🚀 go-pugleaf

Susan S <otoe@slb0.atl.mindspring.net> wrote in message 
news:<vejk1uo1phnmrqgjb34atefb0a044gklb0@4ax.com>...
> In talk.origins  I read this message from sdr@sdrodrian.com (S D
> Rodrian):
> 
> >gfostel@aol.com (GFostel) wrote in message news:<20011214025932.05934.00000063@mb-fu.aol.com>...
> >> S D Rodrian wrote:
> >> >
> >> >I have a sneaking suspicion that late-comers to this thread
> >> >have assumed the erroneous idea that this is an argument
> >> >between those who say indians planted and those who say
> >> >indians hunted!
> >> >
> >> >NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> >> >
> >> >This is merely an argument between those (me) who say
> >> >indians who hunted never achieved populations into the
> >> >billions... and those who say indian populations in
> >> >North America ran into the hundreds or millions: Yeah, like
> >> >the 50-million strong settlements of Eskimos in Alaska.
> >> >
> >> >The indians were stone-age hunter-gatherers: Intensive
> >> >agriculture requires something called the "plow" (or the
> >> >"plough" in weird places like England): Ya can't have
> >> >stone plows turning up the rock-hard (dry) prairies.
> >> 
> >> Well, I can't say if the previous posts were different and I  missed them.  I
> >> simply commented on things you said which were invalid in a factual and logical
> >> sense.  You chose not to respond to any of them so I assume you agree with what
> >> I posted.  
> >> 
> >> I am surprised that you think ANYONE is saying there were "billions" os Native
> >> Americans at any time.  There were not billions of anyone, anywhere in those
> >> days.  This is not even a red herring.  This is just inane, if it is really
> >> your thinking.  
> >
> >The most heavily populated indian empires were those of the
> >Aztecs and the Incas. Together they added up to some 14-18 million
> >persons. There have been posters here who have claimed 100 million
> >indians: If there had been that many indians they would have left
> >traditions tens of times more weighty than those left by the Incas.
> >
> >The only peoples who left traditions of that nature were the French,
> >the English, the Germans, and the Russians, etc.
> >
> >The only other substantial indian groups in the new world were
> >those in Cuba, who numbered up to 1.8 million. There were associated
> >tribes in the other big islands (but never to those high numbers).
> >
> >The English settlers found indians who knew of some agriculture,
> >but who, exactly like them, until they introduced the plow and
> >intensive agriculture... indians who were living just above
> >starvation during the last days of Winter. The historical record
> >numbers different "tribes" in North America into a hundred here 
> >and a hundred there. Even when they acquired guns themselves
> >they were usually no match for white settlers who fielded an
> >"army" of a hundred farmers. That should tell you their strength
> >of numbers right there.
> >
> >sdr
> > 
> > 
> >> ---garyFostel---
> 
> Yeah, they were so hungry they managed to help those English
> settlers from starving. What are your sources?

Well, it's been a long time now, but I happened to have been
there in person as a young man. It was indeed a pretty bleak
Winter (that whole Summer), and I recalled that on one of our
regular visits to the indian camp (where we used to go to try
to buy some food from them with pretty bright spitballs and
sparkling sand) I even suggested we kill a couple of'em, fry
them, and eat them--but just then this young indian teenager
went by with a ghastly case of acne and put us all off indians
(well, except young Mr Brosman, but he even ate indians raw).

So we had to settle for some hard-as-pebble little pebbles
they gave us to munch on (called "maize," which they "failed to
tell us" were supposed to be boiled before eating--but to this
day I think it was an evil plot to de-tooth us, which it nearly
did)... and a horridly dry bird (they appropriately mockingly 
called a "turkey") which was more tendons than meat OR bones.

For their OWN feast the indians had roast pork, for Christ's 
Sake, and we later found out that they had picked up several
sauces from the nearby-by French colony (and a rather sticky
way of kissing which looked to us as if it might have been
specifically designed to assist in the passing of venereal
diseases, so we banned it in our own colony). 

But the Wampanoags were sneaky indians who used to ask other
indians from miles and miles away to accompany them to our
settlement so we'd think there were a lot more of them than 
there actually were--We'd be suspicious of the fact that most 
of them never spoke and only communicated with the Wampanoags
like Greeks with Mexicans, but we never said anything about
this because the Wampanoags usually put on a great big show
of being terribly offended and'd kill one or two of us). We
later found out there were only 17 Wampanoags in all (when we
killed them and were thus able to count all their bodies at
leisure). Nothing like the scientific method, I always say.

Later some indians showed up asking if we'd killed the Wampanoags
but we told them it'd been the French because the Wampanoags
had started corrupting one of their sauces with a sugary tomato
mixture; and, since it sounded very believable, they went out
and killed all the French they could find. That is how we got
the French out of New England for good (well, until all the
indians started having little French babies some months later).

S D Rodrian
poems.sdrodrian.com
physics.sdrodrian.com


> Susan Silberstein