Language Masters
I know Indigenous People spoke many, many languages, hundreds. We shared some commonality with sign language, etc and a few core languages. But, what recently caught my attention while studying Taino was that when Columbus and his hoard arrived, within 3 days, we were able to answer many questions they had and were able to speak with them. Similar to how Squanto learned english in months and Samoset in days of observing the pilgrims.
Backtrack to Tainos. Remember, Columbus was Italian and not very good at Spanish or Portuguese as his writings show despite living in Europe and being on ships with these sailors for months. Yet the natives learned, not only all three languages, but were able to realize that they were speaking different languages almost at once and when suddenly under duress.
The level of education/intelligence one would need nowadays to pull of that is incredible. Not just masters of linguistics, but, multilingual. And not just one or two Natives, but, almost all of them. You try learning a new language (or 3) from your immigrant neighbors in 3 days to the point of being conversational.
Yet, history still sees us as just ignorant, happy to please, indians.
