Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Huron chief who never was

And other nativist fantasies:
 
Chief Seattle, Dekanawidah, Hiawatha, Jingosaseh and Don Juan are just a few of these resurrected Adarios. And while they may be either actual persons or total fabrications, the words attributed to them are fictional.
 
Although Lahontan's Adario is generally recognized as bogus, other assertions concerning aboriginal peoples, such as the "Great Law of Peace," the Iroquois Confederacy's influence on the American Constitution, a native "conservation ethic," ethnobotany and the existence of pre-contact wheeled toys and the zero in what is now Latin America, are often uncritically accepted.
 
Full article here
 

Posted via email from Garth's posterous

No comments: