Origins: The First Americans and Plants ** Was: Wildcrafting ??

[Guest guest]

Hey Rox,

 

> > potatoes, tomatoes and the many plants that grow wild in the USA

> > now but were once cultivated .. after being brought to the New

> > World by folks from Europe.

>

> I thought plants in the nightshade family (tomatoes, potatoes,

> peppers) were indigenous to the New World and taken to Europe . . .

> am I making this up? (don't think so, but then, I'm no expert . . .)

 

Right you are .. and I meant to have a split in the train of thought

when I wrote .. and the many plants .. but maybe I wrongly assumed folks

were inside my mind with me. ;-)

 

Peppers and potatoes and tomatoes were domesticated and cultivated

thousands of years ago in South America and Mexico.

 

And Fried Green Tomatoes were invented in Tennessee, Kentucky or maybe

Georgia somewhere within the last couple'a hundred years. Goes great

with possum stew. ;-p

 

Aside from that .. I have little interest in the origin of plants. But

the next part of your post .. if I knew then what I know now I think I

would have studied anthropology and hoped to be good enough to be paid

for research. I might even have been researching my own history.

 

> Oh, and there are lots of traditional " Native American " folks who

> believe that they originated here, too.

 

I think in centuries past all American Indians believed they originated

wherever they found themselves .. though by different means. Some as a

result of Spider Woman, others came in on the back of a big turtle, some

came from the Neither Regions, some from a stone statue impregnated with

a knife, some from swirls of dust cast out from a pit, some came from

the sky, etc. Even their tales of the origin of various animals and corn

and fire, etc., is interesting. And as the tales were passed along

without being recorded they had no reason to think otherwise.

 

Interesting too are some tales that give credit to a great flood that

dispersed folks into different areas. Could be this tale originated

from Welsh sailors that are thought to have come to North America long

before Eric and who made it as far as the Mandan tribes. Though the

Mandan nation was totally destroyed by disease, Lewis and Clark made

note that many of their implements and boats had a Welsch design and

they told tales similar to those told in Christianity. But if we go

back even further, we see the same tales of the Great Flood mentioned in

the Epics of Gilmamesh .. so who knows? :-(

 

There are, however, records reflecting the attitudes of the South West

and Indians of Mexico who met the Spaniards .. they were surprised to

see that there were people in the world that were different from them.

 

As for tribes claiming they came from this or that direction .. Lakota

history and legends were kept pretty well .. and it was known they came

from the Eastern USA .. it was the horse that moved them into the Plains

and allowed them to displace other tribes/nations. Most of the tribes

and nations had a fairly good idea of the general direction from whence

they had come.

 

Fact is .. though I guess all men are men of their times and we would

have to live those times to be able to criticize without being snobbish,

I have few problems with the idea of Manifest Destiny but some problems

with the way it was executed. The new Americans did what the indigenous

nations/tribes had done for centuries .. the strongest displaced the

weakest. And some of the American Indian nations were totally destroyed

long before English speakers arrived in North America.

 

> And there seems to be some genetic evidence that the Bering Strait

> migration theory is only applicable to a limited number of western

> hemisphere people (the northern folks - Inuit, Aleuts, Navajo (not

> northern now but genetically related and their own storeis say that

> they came from the north] - are genetically related to Siberian

> tribes).

 

Interesting that is for sure. There is a URL on it below. I think we

can see major differences in many of the nations .. and even in some

tribes of the nations. The Ute and Comanche split from the Shoshone ..

they were the same folks in the beginning. And we certainly see Asian

features there. But some of the Lakota/Dakata tribes don't share the

same features nor did their neighbors the Cheyenne. And the Kiowa were

completely different from any of those previously mentioned.

 

My first contact with Kiowas was in 1960 .. in Anadarko, OK. At that

time there were still some old people alive who had been forced to come

onto reservations when they were just children .. in the early 1880s. I

got to know them fairly well as I was dating a Kiowa girl then, and

later when I met their neighbors, the Comanche, I found them to have a

totally different appearance.

 

> More contemporary anthropological theories posit that most western

> hemisphere folks may actually have been in what's now South America

> area before the land masses separated and migrated north.

 

Makes a lotta sense. Every few years positions are changed on origin of

this or that group or when this or that animal was domesticated. And I

have a buddy in Norway .. a Social Anthropologist, Dr. Harald Skogseid,

who has studied the similarities of linguistics between the Samis and

some of the American Indian tribes .. a new twist that one is.

 

But I believe long ago they moved from the theory that life originated

in Africa and then migrated .. it left too many unanswered questions.

So the idea of life forms and different genus of similar plants having

developed at pretty close to the same periods in different locations is

not hard to accept.

 

This supports what you have written .. and a coastal migratory route

makes more sense than does a cross country route ..

http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmnh/origin.htm

 

> They're actually closer genetically to southern and eastern Asian

> than to the Siberians.

 

Interesting for sure. Of course, genetics is one thing .. appearance

today and lore be another .. but there are definately some American

Indian groups that do NOT have Asian facial features.

 

And interesting too is even the task of determining the origin of the

names the First Americans called themselves. There are 30-40 tales on

the origin of Comanche .. and the name " Comanche " is not native to that

group in the second place. Nor are the names Shoshone, Dakata/Lakata,

Apache, Cherokee .. in fact there are only a couple that we get close to

in English. So those that get wrapped around the axle when they hear

the words American Indian oughta do a little research and call the

tribes and nations by their correct names too .. methinks. ;-p

 

I will recommend a book to those who are interested .. " Hanta Yo, " by

Ruth Beebe Hill. Its a tale of Lakota life in the 1800s .. in English

but without the grammar that was not found in Lakota/Dakota useage. I

think it would be an ideal gift for anyone who sees themselves as being

authentic First American cause it will allow them to see the positives

and negatives to such a life .. as told from authentic translations of

one of the last seers.

 

> Interesting stuff . . .

> rox

 

For sure it is .. thanks for this post. I enjoyed it mucho. :-)

 

Regards and y'all keep smiling, Butch http://www.AV-AT.com