Indigenous History

An exploration of history centering on and from the perspective of indigenous peoples around the world. (a @gaylienz sideblog)

[olowan-waphiya]

[northern-punk-lad]

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again sign language needs to become part of the mandatory school curriculum

[olowan-waphiya]

I agree, but as part of that they should teach the history of it as well.

ASL has many signs inspired by (and/or taken directly from) Plains Indian Sign Language/Hand Talk Except that for a long time PISL was forbidden for Native Americans to use so they were forced to use ASL

Signs Across the Prairies: An Introduction to Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL)  – Deaf Services Unlimited

https://youtu.be/s1-StAlw3aE?si=qIqfw4Sf2aUPlu0TA Legacy of Intertribal Communication and Cultural Resilience Long before the emergence of A

[olowan-waphiya]

How Indigenous West African Communities Resisted the European Slave Trade

Compelling evidence of massive African resistance to Atlantic slavery can be found from the very onset of the European colonial arrival on t

[olowan-waphiya]

By performing [the ghost dance], people sought to hasten the coming of Wovoka's apocalyptic vision. They sought to reunite themselves with their ancestors, restoring the earth to the fullness of its bounty and resurrecting the ancient values of the Indigenous culture. As news of this dance spread, more delegations of Native people made the long trek to Wovoka's desert valley. They came from over thirty Native nations, including the Cheyenne, Shoshone, Caddo, Kiowa, Lakota, and Arapaho. Each delegation brought its skeptics along with its true believers, for not every Native person who encountered Wovoka believed in his vision. But a great many did, and within a year his Ghost Dance was being carried out from North Dakota to New Mexico. Wovoka's dream had touched a spiritual nerve among the beleaguered people of the Plains. As the pilgrims returned home from their meeting with the prophet, they brought his universal vision to their cultural reality. The mixture of the two began to produce hybrids of the original Ghost Dance, especially among the Lakota.

--We Survived the End Of The World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope by Steven Charleston

[sottopressione1]

Tuira Kayapó brandished her machete in the face of a government official who was trying to convince indigenous leaders to accept a mega-dam project in the Amazon, 1989

[lesbianmichelmishina]

“Electricity won’t give us food. We need the rivers to flow freely. Don’t talk to us about relieving our ‘poverty’ – we are the richest people in Brazil. We are Indians.”

part of kayapó’s speech during this event

also! she’s still alive! that sort of thing is always worth pointing out to show that we really aren’t too far removed from events like this! here’s a 2019 photo of her:

[shinytarountula]

I just checked, she passed away in August 2024 - but not before working with a filmmaker to make an hour long movie where she explains her life and her activism. If you want to hear what she has to say for herself, here’s the opportunity.

Movie is ‘Tuire Kayapó’ (First Contact) by Pınar Yolaçan, in case the link breaks

[olowan-waphiya]

Oxford’s first Indigenous scholar was honoured

A pioneering Māori scholar believed to be the first Indigenous woman to study at the University of Oxford, England, has been awarded a posthumous degree certificate almost a century after she died. Mākereti Papakura (pictured) passed away in 1930, just weeks before she was due to present her thesis. With the agreement of her family, the university published her work in a book titled The Old-Time Māori. It became the first ethnographic study published by a Māori author, offering a unique insight into Indigenous culture.  Now the university has awarded Papakura a posthumous degree, which was presented to more than 100 of her descendants in Oxford on Sunday.  “Mākereti Papakura has been a legend in our family for over a hundred years,” said June Northcroft Grant. “Our family have been quietly and patiently telling her story over many decades. We … are humbled by the recognition and conferment of this great honour from Oxford University.” 

Image: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

via positive.news

[olowan-waphiya]

It was the experience of apocalypse, not just the fear of it, that my ancestors faced. On Turtle Island, the name many Indigenous nations give to North America, the apocalypse began its inexorable consuming of our Indigenous way of life from the moment European settlers reached our shores. Our people died from a host of diseases for which they had no immunity or cure. The Mayflower was a plague ship. It, and countless others like it, brought smallpox, measles, and influenza--diseases we had never known before that wiped out whole communities to the last person. At the same time European colonialism, with it rapacious hunger for our land brought war and destruction upon us no matter how many peace treaties we signed. Whatever we gave, it was never enough. Many of us were forced onto death marches, like the Trail of Tears, that claimed the lives of thousands of people, especially our elders and infants. Over time, our children were taken from us. They were taken to boarding schools where they suffered physical and sexual abuse. They were forbidden to speak their language or wear their cultural styles of hair or clothing. The animals on which we relied for good were systematically slaughtered and left to rot. Racism made us objects of derision and scapegoating. Even our ways of prayer and worship were outlawed. We were left in poverty and isolation, with the expectation that our genocide would soon be complete. If you wanted to find an experiential example of an apocalypse, you would be hard pressed to find one more total than what North America's Indigenous civilization confronted for more than four hundred years. If apocalypse means cataclysmic destruction--in essence, an end of the world--my ancestors went through it. But they did not all die. They did not become victims of genocide. They did not disappear. They survived. Even if only as a remnant of what once had been, they came through the nightmare to live another day.

--We Survived the End Of The World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope by Steven Charleston on the 'American Apocalypse'.

[olowan-waphiya]

Tenskwatawa taught that Americans were created by a different god from Native people. This malevolent spirit had shaped white people from the foam of the great ocean, where an enormous and apocalyptic crab hid beneath the waves to carry out its evil designs. Only by living in love with one another, living in the old ways, could Native people drive back the land-hungry Americans and restore peace to the world. Not since the days of Pontiac and Neolin had such a reformation been so profoundly preached and so widely accepted. Within a year, word about the new prophet was spreading from Florida to the Great Lakes. Tenskwatawa's apocalyptic vision was attracting scores of followers from many Native nations throughout the border regions with the United States[...].

--

It was during this time of burgeoning growth that the territorial governor, the Prophet's nemesis, William Henry Harrison, sought to discredit him once and for all. "If he is really a prophet," Harrison wrote in an open letter to Native people, "ask him to cause the sun to stand still--the moon to alter its course--the rivers to cease to flow--or the dead to rise from their graves. If he does these things then believe that he has been sent from God." Much to Harrison's surprise, Tenskwatawa accepted his challenge. He invited all his followers at a small village in June of that year so they could see the miracle for themselves. The faithful gathered on that date, and while the Prophet remained within his lodge, they suddenly witnessed a "black sun": a total eclipse. Just at the darkest moment of the eclipse the Prophet emerged, to the acclaim of his followers. What actually happened that day--whether it was an apocalyptic sign or just a natural event--is open to interpretation, but the fact remains that the Prophet stole his accused thunder. Perhaps Tenskwatawa was better versed in the scientific literature of his day and knew of the impending eclipse when the governor did not. We will never know.

--We Survived the End Of The World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope by Steven Charleston

[olowan-waphiya]

When the holy village at Greenville was threatened, when Governor Harrison planned to burn it to the ground, Tenskwatawa demonstrated the resilience of his apocalyptic vision by showing his followers a very visible spiritual lesson: the city on the hill can be seen on any hill you choose. In other words, the vision was not glued to a particular geography. It was not a Mecca or Jerusalem that could not be moved without the faith around it collapsing, it was a vision based on a belief that any person could carry it with them wherever they went. He transferred the location without disturbing the belief. In Prophetstown the belief remained intact; in fact, it grew stronger. As long as the people believed in community, that community could go anywhere. Every village could become a city on the hill. Every Native person could be a citizen of this new vision. The lines on the map drawn so rigidly by the colonizers could be erased. Native sovereignty was not tied to space but to belief. It could exist anywhere at any time. [...] No matter how great the forces threatening them, they can create an alternative. Each time they build a House of the Stranger to welcome others, they make their hope come to life.

--We Survived the End Of The World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope by Steven Charleston

[boygirldykething]

i'm not really good at posts but i'd like to leave this in memory of Mi'kmaw elder and author Daniel Paul who passed away last month.

his book We Were Not the Savages is an incredibly detailed, researched, and impactful book on Mi'kmaq history, pre- and post-european contact and to the present day, including his personal experiences at the Schubenacadie Indian day school. i really don't have the words to express how important he and this book have been but it's really something to check out.

[neechees]

Historical Indigenous Women & Figures [7]:

Indiana Juliana: a Guarani woman who, along with many other Indigenous women, was captured and sold into slavery during early colonial Paraguay. She is known for killing her slaver with poison and encouraged other Indigenous women to do the same. Elsie Allen: a prominent Chief, activist, and weaver of the Pomo who worked to preserve her cultural traditions and improve education and Native rights for her community. She is considered to have been one of the three most well known basketweavers in California. Agrippina Vaganova: a famed Armenian Ballerina who developed the Vaganova method, which remains a standard textbook for ballet instruction to this day. Che-Na-Wah: Hailing from the Yurok tribe and commonly known by her English name Lucy Thompson, she was an author who was first trained to become a spiritual leader, and served her community this way. In 1916, she became the first Native American published author in California, debuting her memoir which preserved cultural teachings of the Yurok in addition to criticizing Whites for over-fishing on Native Land, and directly expressing that violence towards Indigenous peoples of California as genocide. Reina Eva: known as the Last Queen of Rapa Nui, she was also one of the last women to have received traditional tattooing. She and her husband King Atamu Tekena experienced the Annexation of Rapa Nui to Chile. Teresa Magbuana: Indigenous revolutionary who took up arms against the Spanish, winning multiple battles, and took part in all three major resistance movements against all 3 colonizers within the Phillipines. She was often called the "Visayan Joan of Arc" Tjintji-wara: a Chief, alleged sorceress, and skilled tracker of the Mantuntara people in what is now called "Australia", she also resisted colonialism with her people by killing settlers' cattle that were drinking from and polluting the water on her people's lands while they were experiencing a severe drought. Her life experiences were recorded in a book and, at one point after she had returned home from a Christian mission that had treated her for an illness, she left saying, 'too much soup! Too much Jesus!' Tonita Peña: Also known by her traditional name Quah Ah, Tonita was was a prominent Pueblo artist who was raised by her aunt, a famed Pueblo artist in her own right, she heavily influenced social change within her community, and Euro-American views of Native American art. She refused to abide by gender restrictions at the time, while at the same time highlighted women's cultural significance within her art. Her son became a famous artist himself, and her art is featured in multiple prestigious art collections, including the American Natural History Museum.

part [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. Transphobes & any other bigots need not reblog and are not welcome on my posts.

[justsomeantifas]

Can you explain why Europeans were much more technologically advanced than the indigenous populations of Africa? I mean, these cultures hadn't even invented sewage systems, which is something the Romans were able to design and implement in 800-735 BC (a long fucking time before "the white man" colonized it)... I mean fuck, without "the white man", they would probably still be in the fucking bronze age.

I don’t really know what kind of history books bigots like you read.

The Great Libraries of Timbuktu? The steel metallurgy of the Haya? Dentistry? Caesarean section? Premature neonatal care? Mathematics, architecture, engineering?

I know it’s hard for a racist like you who imagines “technological advancement” to be some kind of end-all-be-all, or proof of some “inherent intelligence”. I know, I know. It’s hard to imagine, but Europeans have been drawing knowledge from everyone around them since the dawn of time. What did you think ended the Dark Ages?

Your magical (read: white supremacist) idea of a purely ‘white’ Rome never existed.

Nevertheless…

The Minoan culture on the island of Crete between 1500-1700 B.C.E. had a highly developed waste management system. They had very advanced plumbing and designed places to dispose of organic wastes. Knossos, the capital city, had a central courtyard with baths that were filled and emptied using terra-cotta pipes. This piping system is similar to techniques used today. They had large sewers built of stone.”

In case you needed further clarification, neither the Minoans nor other (later) Greeks were ethnically uniform. They also had the first flush toilets, dating back to 18th century B.C.E. They had flushing toilets, with wooden seats and an overhead reservoir. The Minoan royals were the last group to use flushing toilets until the re-development of that technology in 1596.

Oh, and look the Mayans had indoor plumbing, acqueducts, and pressurized water too. I mean, you can ignore that the area Mayans lived in had little to few rivers, no lakes or standing water, nor other sources of running water, while simultaneously dealing with monsoons and flooding due to one of the heaviest yearly rainfalls in the Americas.

Classic Maya even used household water filters using locally abundant limestone carved into a porous cylinder, made so as to work in a manner strikingly similar to modern ceramic water filters.

Of course, by this time millenia later none of your precious “white people” had developed any methods besides shitting in pots.

Continuing, the earliest archaeological record of an advanced system of drainage comes from the Indus Valley Civilization from around 3100 B.C.E in what is now Pakistan and North India.  By 2500 B.C.E (almost 5,000 years ago), highly developed drainage system where wastewater from each house flowed into the main drain.

All houses in the major cities of Harappa and Mohenjo−daro had access to water and drainage facilities. Waste water was directed to covered drains which lined the major streets directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Each home had its own private drinking well and its own private bathroom. The mains that carried wastewater to a cesspit were tall enough for people to walk through. Reservoirs, a central drainage system, fresh water pumped into the homes. Pools. Baths.

It was made from bricks smoothened and joined together seamlessly. The expert masonry kept the sewer watertight. Drops at regular intervals acted like an automatic cleaning device.

Filters for solid waste.

Sorry, what were the British doing up until like, 200 years ago? Shitting in the streets? Oh yeah.

I mean, I could get into how by the Shang Dynasty (roughly 1600 B.C.E.), China had sophisticated plumbing including pressure inverted siphons.

Or into the city of Amarna, Ancient Egypt. Or Persepolis, Persia and the Achaemenids in 600 B.C.E.

But, I mean, it sounds like the only one still in the Bronze Age is you.

[misanthropicmephistopheles]

eshusplayground:

I love it when people bring facts to white supremacist logic.

White people ain’t shit

[jessicalprice]

Not only is this an excellent rebuttal to the idea of European supremacy, but it’s also a reminder that technological progress isn’t always forward. We lose technology, backslide, and discover it (or something similar) gain. 

The past doesn’t look like you’ve been taught. 

[queeranarchism]

This is all extra funny because Romans were very aware of this shit and considered pretty much everything north of Italy - most of what we now call Europe - to be a barbaric backwater that wasn’t worth their time, while gushing about getting to visit the cultural worlds of what we now call North-Africa and the Middle East.

Not only was the concept of ‘Europe’ as a distinct continent separate from Africa extremely illogical to them (they had a word for ‘north of this ocean but it had no political meaning’), if you did draw that line through the Mediterranean and said that these were meaningfully distinct regions, they would be extremely insulted to be grouped in with the North.

[evilkaito]

i dont think whites understand how being white makes literally everything easier.

it effects everything.

being trans is easier when youre white.

being gay is easier when youre white.

being disabled is easier when youre white.

being a woman is easier when youre white.

being autistic is easier when youre white.

oppression is eased when you are white, as you get extra privileges, and your whiteness is seen as a positive characteristic that in some ways counter-balances your other forms of being a minority. whiteness controls everything.

you are automatically way more innocent in your own oppression as a gay, trans, disabled person because of your whiteness.

never forget this.

[raccoon-piss]

three things:

1. it’s true

2. white people get pissed when i bring this up/wear this shirt

3. the comments to this thread melted my fucking eyeballs seriously why the fuck are y’all like this

[folkfashion]

Bwiti dancers, Gabon, by Yoan Michel Mboussou

[desert-dreamer]

Evenk (Russian minority) shaman with a collection of shamanic objects, including images of helper spirits, early 1900s.

[forever70s]

young indigenous women photographed by Nick DeWolf (Wyoming, 1972)

[hiveswap]

Everyone say thank you american indigenous people for cultivating corn, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, cacao, pumpkin, squash, and anything i missed. Makes life more meaningful globally

[foxglove-garden]

Tobacco, too.