My point was, that part of your "argument" was so bereft of accurate information that it damages your credibility. In other words, you're so full of crap your eyes are brown, and I'm not going to believe anything ELSE you might try to tell me without massive substantiation.
"They never invented the wheel, metalurgy, schools, technology or managed to escape dependency on bison. Women were practically slaves in their society which was also quite brutal (in a Spartan way) with children."
Brief one word summation: Bullshit.
Oh! Sorry. I didn't realize native americans HAD invented the wheel, matalurgy, schools, technology, etc.
Your own education on these matters is obviously vastly superior to mine.
Do you mind if I humbly request your sources on refuting my statement, please? Thanks ever so much!
I am very, very far from an expert on the subject. I consider myself to be someone with just casual interest in the subject. Compared, of course, to someone whose opionion is so far from the facts that it must surely be the product an act of will, I must sound like a supreme expert.
Women in Native America: the Iroquois were about the most matriarchal of the tribes as far as we know, women among the Navajo and Cherokee owned the property, and it passed down thru the mother's line.
Children: at least some Sioux were reported to be horrified at how horribly whites treated children
Technology: What do you define as "technology"? some Native tribes had irrigation, built large structures, had advanced calendar systems, mathematics (apparently the Mayans were the first to have a concept of 0), in terms of agriculture they domesticated corn, potatoes, turkeys, cotton...
Education: if you mean did they have buildings where salaried professionals taught everyone between the ages of 5-18, then no...and neither did most other cultures up until VERY recently (very few Europeans attended "schools" at the time the New World was "discovered"). Did the different tribes have different systems of passing on their knowledge to later generations? yes Did it work? yes
Metalurgy: New World archaeologists have found gold artifacts dating back a couple of thousand years, and copper was in use more than double that long; Did they have steel? No (Jared Diamond fan, are you?)
Bison: the Plains tribes made heavy use of bison because it was an abundant resource (this seems quite sensible to me). Tribes who didn't live in or travel to the plains didn't. Plains tribes didn't "escape dependency" on bison because the herds were decimated in less than a generation, and they did not have the time, opportunity, nor were allowed the ability (once they were forced onto reservations) to adapt.
The Wheel: Oh yes the big favorite argument. Ya got me there. New World tribes didn't invent the wheel. Maybe they didn't see the point, as they didn't have any draft animals. They managed to travel and trade across an entire hemisphere without it.
In the first place Native Americans are not one unified homenous group. "American Indians", as a group, did not "do" or "fail to do" ANY of these things.
Sigh. When we speak about Christians or Muslims or Canadians or Latinos do you hold this same standard of prissy nit-picking precision? Or, is it just barely possible that we relax our rigorous delineations in casual conversation as a shorthand in communication?
Actually, "we" do tend to hold discussions of other groups "to the same standard of prissy nit-picking precision." If someone came on this or any other board and made pronouncements along the lines of "All Christians have the exact same understanding of and belief in the Trinity" or "All Christians follow the Pope" or "All Canadians adore hockey" or "all Latinos are short brown people who eat tacos"...then I have no doubt those statements would be quickly refuted (and rightly so).
I can't help it that you do not understand that what you said is the equivalent of saying "The sun rises in the West, so that proves my point."
