Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:18 pm Post subject: Eden
Okay first thing I have to say about this reading is this:
Is it me or does the information given on Native Americans totally contradict what was said in previous essays we read?
In previous readings, specifically Diamonds, explained that all other countries were in the Stone Age and still hunter-gathering while Eurasia already was in the midst of their Iron Age. Yet in the reading “Eden” it states that Native Americans also had agriculture (at one point they even where referred to as farmers) chopped down trees, and intentionally wiped out animals by adding salt to fields where they graze.
Does anyone else feel this is confusing in terms of what we read earlier?
On another note, it is neat to think of diseases as part of the environment, because it definitely plays a big role. I have always heard about the diseases brought by Europeans coming America, but the story “Eden” covers the diseases originally in America. How come Europeans didn’t contract any American diseases? Or if they did, why don’t we seem to hear about it? Was it a trivial amount of people who caught any illness?
This reading started off so happy with the idea of North America being like Eden and so many animals everywhere, but then everything dies from diseases. It was kind of depressing.
So far I have only read the “Eden” reading, but I will post again once I read the others.
After taking “Native Americans” last mod, this was an interesting read. Since Native Americans use oral history instead of written history (which is the standard for Western History), anthropologists, scientists, and historians have been attempting to get a picture of what America was like before European contact.
The “pristine myth” is a term used to describe the idea that America was a perfect, untouched frontier before Europeans arrived, and that the Europeans completely destroyed all that was good in it. Although it has been proven false (Native Americans did some non eco friendly things as well), it continues to be emphasized. Scientists and historians are trying to piece together what America was like before Columbus, how many people lived there, and what the environment was like.
This article presented a lot of information I did not know, such as information on diseases that already existed in America, and which specific diseases that afflicted the Native Americans.
One quote that struck me was “No one involved- not Indians, not white people-wished to see smallpox spread”. I was a little skeptical about this quote. This quote may apply to the French, who relied on Native Americans to keep up their fur trade industry, but in Central America, where the Spanish were conquering (and in some cases massacring) the indigenous people, the diseases just helped them reach their goals faster. Maybe this is a little cynical, but I was not fully convinced.
Like Kniade, I disliked how this reading started off with vivid descriptions of nature and European reactions to America, and then weirdly transitioned to disease, statistics, and biology. The essay started and ended in very different places.
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