It seems to me that one of the most important points to keep in mind
in discussing this topic is that Native Americans are and were human beings,
and like human beings the world over certain needs and emotions promote the
urge to fight. That is to say, when someone invades your home territory, you
generally fight to keep it; when you have too little to eat and no other way
to get more, you are likely to steal it; when someone insults your father or
mother, you will probably feel like killing him/her, etc. These things are,
after all, pretty universal. Romanticizing the early Native American culture
is all too easy for a lot of people, for whatever reasons. The fact remains
all people have periods of peace and periods of conflict (of whatever type).
What did change after white contact was the level of destruction that
resulted from many conflicts, primarily because the technology the white man
brought made it easier to kill efficiently larger numbers of the enemy at a
time. So the difference was a matter of scale, not of substance.
What we have found in our research on the Apaches is that white schola
scholars have found it all too easy to concentrate _only_ on the periods of
war and ignore the fact that there were long periods of peace between battles.
This has left the impression that Apaches were a fierce, warlike people whose
culture centered on nothing else but violence. What has been ignored is a
fascinating culture of survival which included such things as art and music
and dance unique to this civilization. We hope to change that erroneous
impression at least to some degree when our book is completed.
Elizabeth Pollard, Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville
Bitnet: uahebp01@uahvax1 Internet: uahebp01@asnuah.asn.net