OMG! This is the worst piece dreck I have ever read. I would have put it in the comedy forum if it wasn't so racist and stereotypical. I swear you can't make this stuff up.
Remember when
By Pat Russell Jun 2, 2016
Last week we discussed family life for the Indians. When I think of making deerskin clothing for a whole family, I wonder how they held it together. Perhaps bones were used for needles and strings of hide were used for thread to hold them together. But the Indians had to make a covering for their feet also. When we think about covering our feet, we go to a shoe store and try on shoes, but without stores, buckskin was the covering they used to make moccasins. They were durable, soft, pliable and even noiseless as the hunter tracked down his game.
In the winter when the snow covered the ground, a special broad surface shoe had to be built of a light wood frame, covered with a network of strings of hide. This was the only way they could walk on top of the snow or run down a deer.
A canoe was necessary to go down the waterways. Indians in some parts of the country hollowed out logs for their canoes, while others used birch bark to make theirs. These were light weight, strong, and easily moved on down the stream. The Indian could travel quickly, silently and with little effort as he traveled down the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico or from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the falls of the Niagara.
Each Indian tribe had a chief and you would think that they had all the power, but the chief had very little real power. If the matter was important it was settled by a council. The record was kept of their council meetings. Even though they couldn’t write, they made pictures that served that purpose. Every time a council was held, a belt was made to show what had been done. A belt was made of strings of beads called “wampum.” And every tribe had its “wampum” interpreters, just as city meetings have their secretaries today to keep records and read the minutes. They could tell what activity had been taken by examination of a belt even from the past. A belt was made of a string of beads to commemorate the treaty made by the Indians with William Penn. In a token of friendship an Indian and a white man clasping each other by the hand was recorded in the belt of beads that was the record of the peace established between the Indians and William Penn.
The arrangement of the beads and their colors had a meaning. Originally all “wampum” was made with white beads or colored shells strung on strings; after the Europeans came, they often used European glass beads. The beads of these “wampum” strings had another use also. It served as money, a certain number of them representing a certain fixed value. For instance, 100 white beads or 50 colored ones would buy a certain quantity of corn. However, the Indians rarely needed these beads for this purpose. He could depend on the forest to supply food, clothes and medicine for him and his family.
Each clan, which was made up of kinsmen or descendants of a common mother, had a “totem” or badge to designate it, which was usually the picture of some animal. The animal or object represented by the “totem” was held in reverence by the tribe. They believed that they descended from its spirit and that it watched over them and protected them.
Among the Iroquois the figures of the bear, turtle, and wolf were the coat-of-arms of the “first families” of the Indian aristocracy. The “totem” was also used as a mark on gravestones, and as a seal. Old land deeds given to Indians often had these marks, just as a grant of land was later made to the white man and had the U.S. government seal on it.
The Indian had very little liberty within his tribe. He was bound by customs handed down from his forefathers. He could not marry as he pleased. He could not sit in the seat he chose at a council. The color of paint he put on his face could not be chosen by him either. A young man who had not won honors in battle could not and would not dare decorate himself like a veteran warrior any more that a private soldier in the U. S. Army would appear in a parade in a major-general’s uniform.
Feelings were expressed with the color of paint on his face instead of words. Among the Indians, complaining or crying was looked on with scorn. Sometimes young Indian boys lined up and put live coals in their arm pits and pressed them close. The one who held out the longest became the leader. Even a mortally wounded young lad didn’t complain, but sang his “death song” and died like a veteran warrior.
The Indians either adopted their captives or tortured them. General Stark of New Hampshire was taken prisoner by the Indians in 1752. Two long rows of young warriors were formed. Each man had a club or stick to strike Stark as he passed down the row but Stark, just as he started, snatched a club out of the hands of the nearest Indian and knocked down the astonished warriors right and left, and escaped almost unhurt. The old men of the tribe roared with laughter as they looked at the warriors sprawled in the dust. Instead of torturing Stark, they treated him as a hero.
The Indian believed in a Great Spirit that was an all-powerful, wise and good Spirit, the one Omnipotent Power, of which they worshipped at least at times. But they also believed in many inferior spirits; some good, and some evil. He often worshipped the evil spirits most, reasoning that the Great Spirit will not hurt me, even if I do not pray to Him, for He is good; but if I neglect the evil spirits, they may do me harm.
The Indian looked for an afterlife, believing that a brave warrior who had taken many scalps would enter the happy hunting-grounds; but there, the coward would be flogged by demons and never-ending.
The Indian would not steal from his own tribe, nor lie to his friends and he did not become a drunkard ‘till the white man taught him.
Until another day, God Bless! Have a blessed week.
http://www.mcleansborotimesleader.com/opinion/remember-when/article_7680091f-c189-58ab-b4c9-c23bb66ca0a3.html
