Read the entire article from Cultural Survival

The documentary To Brooklyn and Back tells the little-known stories of the artisans who played an important role in developing the infrastructure of the world’s most famous skyline. Hundreds of Mohawks left the reservations beginning in the early 1900s looking for work in the growing metropolis; taking a leap in the dark, some came with their families, establishing neighborhoods that still bear their name. Kahnawake Mohawk filmmaker Reaghan Tarbell traces her own family history in one of these communities.

PBS Documentary “To Brooklyn and Back: A Mohawk Journey”

Indian Country Today: Documentary Traces Brooklyn’s Mohawk Ironworkers

Image: Katja Esson – Skydancer

Skydancer: A Film by Katja Esson

Beginning with the St. Lawrence Bridge near the Canada border, built in the 1880s, Mohawk emigres first established a reputation in construction. As more Kahnawake crews joined the burgeoning steelworking industry, employers were impressed with their determined work ethic and remarkable coordination and balance – and they quickly became renowned as some of the country’s finest metal builders. The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the World Trade Centers, and even the San Francisco State Bridge are all on the impressive list of projects to which they have contributed substantial effort.

The Straight Dope: Why do so many Native Americans work on skyscrapers”

Today, metalworking and construction are almost a family business among Mohawks – they work all over the nation wherever skyscrapers and steel frames go up; many still live in the New York boroughs where their ancestors first “boomed out.”

David Noble: The Mohawk Ironworker Series

From Language Among the Skywalkers by Mushkeg Media

Hidalgo is a quasi-historical production about Frank Hopkins, a Wild West rider who takes his mustang on a treacherous race through the Arabian desert. At face value, it’s fun and attractive and more of a family flick than a plausible historical epic. But once you’ve seen it (and the epilogue explaining that the whole thing was a true story) your first thought is to find out more about this amazing guy who used his outstanding feats on horseback as a catalyst for one of the greatest efforts of wild mustang preservation.

Aside from the mustang outreach, the film’s other attraction was its roots in Plains Indian culture. Hopkins isn’t just a cowboy; he’s a born-and raised Lakota struggling to come to terms with his mixed white heritage, serving as an army scout and finding himself involved in the fateful events at Wounded Knee. By movie’s end he is able to reconcile his purpose in life by embracing his Indian heritage and working to preserve the horse lifestyle.

It’s obvious to any objective viewer that the story line is a little far-fetched, slightly on the feel-good side of reality. The reinvented cowboy figure sanctified by his Indian heritage, making it more politically correct for a modern audience; damsels in distress (an Arabian princess, no less); a journey of self-discovery and redemption, and the impossible victory of the underdog in a typical Disney-ish fashion.

Add to this the faux pas of having a half-Lakota portrayed by a blond Nordic (you probably already know my feelings about Indians played by non-Indians), and some really deplorable geography (Damascus is nowhere near the sea, and a 3,000 mile race would take a rider far out of the range of the film’s setting). But that’s my more abrasive approach. You’d really have to see it to get that it really works. It’s good in a genuine, almost-but-not-really-believable sort of way.

The Hopkins Controversy

But back to my investigation. Unbeknownst to me, the movie had already stirred up a long-standing, long-winded debate about this marvelous legend of a man, Frank Hopkins. “Camp A” lauded Hopkins’s accomplishments as a champion endurance racer, and his landmark efforts of preserving the mustang and traditional Lakota knowledge of horsemanship. “Camp B” called him a hopeless huckster, and Hidalgo merely the cheap and devious sequel to his colossal fraud. Some of these even purport that he may never have ridden a horse in his life, and the whole legend was the pipe dream of a thwarted wannabe cowboy. Oddly enough, this time, the cry of stretched or embellished facts was not aimed directly at Hollywood.

I was interested in what first provoked such a vociferous debate. It seems that if Hopkins were half the man he was claimed to be – and did half the things he was claimed to have had accomplished – he should literally be the most famous man on earth. Excuse my ignorance but I had never heard of him before I saw the movie. Apparently, the historical record is none too familiar with him either. A quick read of his biography and you can easily sympathize with Hidalgo’s detractors:

“As well as spurring his mustang to victory in (to be exact) 452 endurance races around the globe, Frank Hopkins also has an impressive list of other achievements. He claimed to be the most famous dispatch rider in the West, an associate of Buffalo Bill Cody and one of the “cowboys” from the Congress of Rough Riders of the World performing in Buffalo Bill’s internationally famed Wild West Show. He says he was Chief Crazy Horse’s protégé, put on a two-hour equestrian performance before Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and helped famed plainsman Buffalo Jones capture and tame the first buffalo.
 
Hopkins also said he served with the Pinkerton detective agency, was a secret agent of the US government during World War I, a guide in the Grand Canyon for big game hunters including novelist Zane Grey, and once charged up San Juan hill with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. All this, of course, was in addition to mentoring Billy the Kid.”
 
“Hidalgo: A Film or Flimflam?” by Peter Harrigan, Arab News

Please give me a break. Either he suffered from borderline personality disorder, senility, or the world’s worst midlife crisis – or someone was seriously messing with this man’s memoirs.

I am not about to get embroiled in the convoluted debate over whether Hopkins was the world’s greatest endurance racer, or which episodes of his exploits are plausible and which are merely spin; there’s far too much literature on the subject for me to add more (and almost nothing about the man is not in question, starting with his date of birth!) But the material points here are 1) what’s the best evidence for and against the legend of Frank Hopkins, and 2) what to make of Hidalgo the movie?

Supporters vs. skeptics

In Camp A are such supporters as writer John Fusco, the administrator of FrankHopkins.com, mustang preservation activist, and last but not least, author of the Hidalgo screenplay. He has spent many years researching Hopkins’s life and offers the testimonies of first-hand acquaintances and friends of Hopkins. They vouch for his vast knowledge of unorthodox horsemanship gleaned from many years of intimate association with mustangs and Native horsemen:

“Whoever Frank Hopkins was—whether or not he made some spectacular long rides in underground competitions; whether or not he or Gert [Gertrude Hopkins, who published her husband's biography after his death] padded a more modest history with purple prose– one thing is now incontrovertible fact, supported by living witnesses:
 
The man was acknowledged and respected as “the ultimate in horsemanship”, a skilled trainer who used natural techniques long before they became trendy, and a passionate and eloquent spokesman for the preservation of an endangered breed. He was extremely knowledgeable about Native American horsemanship and Native horse medicine. He was an inspiration to later preservationists… and he remains an inspiration to the new wave of preservationists. He was also–according to everyone who has come forward to say they knew him—a very decent and quiet man.”
 
John Fusco, from FrankHopkins.com

Fusco and others also tout Native oral traditions which may or may not support the story of the epic desert race depicted in the movie. This draws the ire of opponents such as Vine Deloria Jr., renowned Lakota scholar, and likewise of Arab scholars who contest the idea of screenwriters with insider knowledge of a grand ceremonial race which has apparently defied all historic record – even in the Middle East.

The rallying cry of the Hopkins supporters is the adage “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” – this in response to the fact that there is no concrete information about his upbringing, his pony express career, his racing record, or any overseas performance; no record of his service as an army scout and interpreter; and no documentation of his being in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

Oddly enough, the only extant employment records for Mr. Hopkins are from the early 1900s – as a manual laborer in the shipyards and subways of the Eastern seaboard, and as a horse handler for the Ringling Brothers Circus (the irony there being that the show horses were Arabians, not mustangs).

A History Channel documentary entitled “The True Story of Hidalgo” featuring many of Camp B’s Hopkins opponents outlines many of the arguments discrediting the Hopkins story. Most damning perhaps is the text of the autobiography itself, with its outlandish Quixotic exploits (some of which no doubt were added at a later date) and its egregious distortions of Native history. In this respect it was a dubious move on the part of Fusco and the producers to use such a distasteful example of cultural appropriation as a source for a film supporting a Native image. Really, would it have been so difficult to start from scratch?

The most extreme naysayers paint a portrait of Hopkins as the most insidious kind of charlatan, slandering the movie Hidalgo and conjuring every possible criticism to the point of crying conspiracy. But between those who claim he is a neglected and maligned hero, and those who claim that he never rode a horse in his life, my instincts tell me that the truth is to be found somewhere in the middle. Our best bet is to work backwards – before the movie, before the publications.

Hopkins did work as a horse handler, so it’s likely he was able to pick up a good bit of the trade. Unfortunately any evidence of his prowess as a rider is circumstantial at best. If he was anything as good as he is claimed, then it is highly suspect that no more substantial record exists in all the annals of the West. (Movie fans should also remember that the film depicts only one hand-picked episode from Hopkins’s fantastic memoirs; if we had been presented with the lump sum of his Wild West escapades, it would certainly never pass for reality.) Until Hopkins researchers come up with more solid evidence to support his reputation as a champion horseman, his case is shaky at best. The fact that almost nothing is known about his life outside of his memoirs remains the primary obstacle, and explains why the story is such fertile ground for imagination.

What about his real role in mustang preservation? Supporters claim that he started the first wild mustang preserve in eastern Oklahoma, where his beloved Hidalgo was released to run free with a wild herd. I haven’t been able to find record of any such preserve. In fact the next best thing is the project organization of none other than writer John Fusco, who founded a mustang refuge for the Indian ponies of the Oklahoma reservations. This, incidentally, is the place where he claims Hidalgo’s descendents can be found today – an uncanny and somewhat confusing find that brings the search full circle. (I’ve got to admit, I’m not totally on board with Fusco’s line of logic through all of this.)

During Hopkins’s time in the limelight, and up to his death in Queens, New York in 1951, he was an outspoken advocate for the mustang and urged for steps to be taken to ensure its survival:

“In my day I watch the destruction of the buffalo and the antelope, We say their destruction was due to a benighted profligate generation, If we permit the MUSTANG to disappear we may be accused of the same qualities and we will deserve the accusation, The MUSTANG is as AMERICAN as George Washington and AMERICA is a vast enough land and IMPORTANT enough Nation to have A HORSE of our very own, HE IS FACING HIS LAST STAND, TO LET HIM GO WOULD IN MY OPINION BE A MAJOR AMERICAN NATIONAL TRAGEDY.”

Frank Hopkins, quoted from Reno Wild Horse Tours – About Nevada and Mustangs

Whether his interest in the mustang was from personal experience, or merely part of some fantasy, wild horses were the height of romance in the early 1900s – part and parcel of the “vanishing frontier” that spawned so much sensational spin and so many hollow heroes. Hopkins’s legend survived because it embraced the lure of the West, interwove it with popular fantasies about its Native peoples, and captured the romance of the horse in much the same way as the Wild West shows, dime novels, and early Western movies. If Hopkins was a complete fraud, then he’s by far not the biggest or the worst that has been perpetuated into the present day.

The mustang – and by extension the man who rides it – has always captured our imaginations and embodied our wildest fantasies of adventure and freedom. That’s the natural reason most people will be biased in favor of this kind of story: just like enthralled audiences of the early 1900s, we’d really love to believe it’s true. It’s why the Hopkins’s legend still looms large and the movie has caused such a huge splash.

The legend and the movie

“As far as I’m concerned, if they [the producers] would’ve made it clear from the very beginning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Juti Winchester, curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyo. (Quoted from “Hidalgo the Horse Hoax” – Blue Corn Comics

This is only partly so, given that the Hopkins controversy was seething long before Hidalgo ever saw the light of day. But the interest stirred by the movie’s production has certainly served to intensify the public debate over historical accuracy, and added a few more questionable elements to the mix.

For instance, the movie makes a focal point of Hopkins’s Native heritage, whereas beyond his memoirs’ aggrandized tales of kinship with several well-known Native leaders, there’s no indication that he had any Lakota ancestry. As far as it’s presented in the movie, it’s pure literary license. And the part about his using the winner’s purse from the Arab race to save a herd of doomed mustangs that still roams free today, is likewise pure fiction. It appears that the film writer has channeled his own honest desire to protect and celebrate the mustang into a partly fictional persona who was less real than his on-screen portrayal.

“I took what was a very banal, saddle-tech account of Hopkins’ own desert memories of 1891 and turned them into an action-adventure celebration of a story that has long fascinated me. Today, some critics actually believe that Hopkins himself dreamed up bandit ambuscades, hunting leopards, daring rescues, a three second victory margin, and the dramatic name of the race: the Ocean of Fire. He did not. I did.”

John Fusco (FrankHopkins.com)

In my mind, tacking on the “true story” line was the clincher – an underhanded marketing spiel that contributed absolutely nothing to the efforts of validating Hopkins’s life and achievements. It merged the Hopkins controversy with what should have been a completely separate issue about film making and performance. If writers or producers want to take a few liberties with a historical idea and make it into a movie, we can all live with that. But using already disputed material, embellishing it, and then passing it off as the real thing, is a recipe for disaster – hence the ridiculously voluble debate that’s still going strong several years after the film’s release.

Critic Roger Ebert’s 3-out-of-5-star review sums it up perfectly (in addition to describing the movie to a tee):

“Whether you like movies like this, only you can say. But if you do not have some secret place in your soul that still responds even a little to brave cowboys, beautiful princesses and noble horses, then you are way too grown up and need to cut back on cable news. And please ignore any tiresome scolds who complain that the movie is not really based on fact. Duh. ”

“Hidalgo” Review – RogerEbert.com

The Long Riders Guild “The Hopkins Hoax” – a huge directory of Hopkins-related research (mainly debunking the legend)

Weaving a Cinematic Web: Hidalgo and the Search for Frank Hopkins By Juti A. Winchester, Ph.D., Former Curator, Buffalo Bill Museum

FrankHopkins.org Article about the Hopkins debate – from John Fusco’s site dedicated to Hopkins research

“Hidalgo – the Horse Hoax” from Blue Corn Comics – more research about Hopkins and the movie Hidalgo and correspondence with John Fusco

“Hidalgo” on Internet Movie Database

Images:
Brego.net – Hidalgo
Wikipedia

This installment of video-photo essays by Syracuse Post-Standard photographer John Barry explores the winter traditions of the Onondaga nation.

Iroquois people are no strangers to winter weather – their upstate New York homeland gets more than its share of frigid temperatures and snowfall.

Below: Throwing snow snakes and mud cats is a favorite traditional winter sport for Iroquois guys.

Togetherness and thankfulness are the cornerstones of traditional Iroquois culture. The coldest part of the year marks the time of the Iroquois midwinter ceremonies, held in the community longhouse.

Schoolkids make visits to senior citizens to help with chores and errands and share stories, bonding the two pillars of Iroquois society: the children and the elders.

A symbolic circle of pine trees at a counseling center. Members of the community struggling with substance abuse gather for support and healing.

Syracuse Post-Standard: People of the Hills – Winter

Watch Reel Injun – Trailer on PBS. See more from INDEPENDENT LENS.

From the same author that brought us 1491: New Revelations About the Americas Before Columbus and numerous excellent essays and articles comes this very interesting piece on one of Native America’s most important staple crops.

This time of year, with Thanksgiving just around the corner, foodstuffs with deep connections to Native culture come to the forefront of popular culture: turkey, pumpkin, cranberry, just to name a few. There’s an aura of bounty and nostalgia around the foods that hallmark the holiday, as if the lingering memory of the land’s plenty as first experienced by early colonists has been passed down along with its ever-evolving traditions and legends.

Most people aren’t aware that their Thanksgiving turkey was first savored by the Aztecs, or their steaming bowl of mashed potatoes is an Andean specialty – or for that matter, that their European, African, or Asian ancestors would have been completely unaware of these dishes. Likewise, few know about the underlying circumstances that made the introduction of these foods possible for the rest of the world. But there’s a subconscious cultural connection that still links them – however vaguely – with their Native source.

Maybe it’s the grade school story of Squanto befriending the Pilgrims, teaching them how to plant maize – recounted again and again, and plastered all around us in countless cartoons and caricature – that gives the modern Thanksgiving its ostensible “Indian” savor, and makes it a uniquely American holiday. But maybe there is more to be gleaned from today’s Thanksgiving rituals about the intertwining of cultures that forms the roots of both the holiday and the country.

Food for Thought: Little-Known Facts About American Indian Innovations

National Geographic News – 16 Indian Innovations: From Popcorn to Parkas

“Celebrating an Indian Summer” by Richard B Williams The importance of the material contributions from Native cultures

Countdown: 10 Things About Thanksgiving A series about the foods, traditions, and legends of this distinctly “Native” holiday

Charles C Mann, “Native Intelligence” from the Smithsonian Magazine – a background study of the events and people of the mythical Thanksgiving

An exhaustive writing about Native stereotyping in film and particularly its effects on Native youth.

Below: Heroine or hazard? Legend or liability?

According to the National Weather Service,

“…The most popular belief of Indian Summer is as follows…It is an abnormally warm and dry weather period, varying in length, that comes in the autumn time of the year, usually in October or November, and only after the first killing frost/freeze. There may be several occurrences of Indian Summer in a fall season or none at all…”

The article goes on to describe many popular and scientific theories about the origin of the expression:

“One explanation of the term “Indian Summer” might be that the early native Indians chose that time of year as their hunting season. This seems reasonable seeing the fall months are still considered the main hunting season for several animals. Also, the mild and hazy weather encourages the animals out, and the haziness of the air gives the hunter the advantage to sneak up on its prey without being detected. Taking this idea one step further, Indians at that time were known to have set fires to prairie grass, underbrush and woods to accentuate the hazy, smokey conditions. But Albert Matthews pointed out that the Indians also did this at other times of the year.

Other possibilities include; the Indians made use of the dry, hazy weather to attack the whites before the hard winter set in; that this was the season of the Indian harvest; or, that the predominant southwest winds that accompanied the Indian Summer period were regarded by the Indians as a favor or “blessing” from a “god” in the desert Southwest. Another idea, of a more prejudicial origin, was that possibly the earliest English immigrants equated Indian Summer to “fools” Summer, given the reliability of the resulting weather. Finally, another hypothesis, not at all in the American Indian “camp” of theories, was put forward by an author by the name of H. E. Ware, who noted that ships at that time traversing the Indian Ocean loaded up their cargo the most during the “Indian Summer”, or fair weather season. Several ships actually had an “I.S.” on their hull at the load level thought safe during the Indian Summer.”

(From JUST WHAT IS INDIAN SUMMER AND DID INDIANS REALLY HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT? by William R. Deedler)

But there’s another side to this coin: if there was such a thing as an “Indian summer” among Indians, that begs the question – what do they have to say about its origins?

The following article was first published in the Denver Post, 2001 (thanks to NativeVillage.com for the text.)

Celebrating an Indian Summer
(Richard B Williams, President, American Indian College Fund)

“Lately we have heard the phrase “Indian summer” used frequently to describe our stretch of good weather. Most of us are taking advantage of the warm weather rather than contemplating the etymology of the term “Indian summer.” However, a study of the phrase is an eye-opening look into our nation’s history. After years of asking elders and prominent Indian historians, I stumbled across an article written by a leading American Indian author from an Eastern tribe who explained the origins of “Indian summer.”

Early settlers who coined the term would see Indian farmers celebrating the blessing of being able to add a second and sometimes third harvest to their winter store following the first frost. The author described how the Indian farmers would give thanks to the creator for the warm days. As we celebrate our own recent warm weather, we must also recognize the contributions that these Indian farmers made to our overall well-being. American Indians were not only the first landowners in North America – they were also accomplished farmers whose agricultural aptitude would eventually transform the world.

Most Americans today do not know that American Indians owned the land upon which they farmed largely because the land-tenure system to the American Indian was vastly different than what the European colonists knew and would later institute in North America. The Indian farmer owned the land as long as it was occupied. When land was abandoned, anyone could claim the land as long as the new owner farmed it.

Because the farmed land did not look like the parceled-out sections of Europe when settlers arrived, they mistook the symbiotic, ecologically friendly farming style used by Indians as meaning the land was not owned.

According to Jack Weatherford’s book titled “Indian Givers; How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World,” American Indians cultivated more than 300 food crops with dozens of variations that improved the world’s diet both in quantity and quality of foods.

As testimony to the skill and knowledge of Native farmers, three-fifths of the world’s crops in cultivation today originated from the ingenious farmers who were successfully growing crops in varied soils and climates throughout the Americas.

The Native farmers’ agricultural proficiency and understanding of the need to farm in harmony with the land is reflected in “Three Sisters,” a traditional horticultural technique of planting corn, squash and beans together.

The Three Sisters are inseparable because each crop benefits the growth of the other two crops in a limited space. The growing corn provides a pole for the bean plant to climb and needed shade for the squash that covers the ground to provide even moisture and reduce weed growth.

Through agricultural experimentation, Native farmers employed highly developed agricultural methods and introduced nutritious crops to the world that included corn, new grains, wild rice, tomatoes, chilies, sunflowers, numerous bean and pepper varieties and potatoes.

Ironically, the introduction of high-yield crops such as the potato and a more nutritious diet helped spawn a population explosion in Europe that heralded the colonization of the Americas. The eventual displacement of Indian people from their traditional farming lands would encourage the eradication of Indian civilizations.

Some 7,000 years before the first Thanksgiving, farming was an integral part of the culture and economy of indigenous people in the Americas. By introducing new agricultural principles, foods and improved cultivation techniques, the American Indian farmer made an immeasurable contribution to the world. This is indeed a blessing we should all celebrate during this Indian summer.”

See also: Food for Thought: Little-Known Facts About American Indian Innovations

Ski resorts using recycled sewage to produce artificial snow is not new – especially in water-poor regions. But in the San Francisco peaks outside Flagstaff, Arizona, the prospect of introducing this alternative has spawned a legal battle with the Hopi who are taking the issue to court.

To the owners of the Snowbowl resort, and the surrounding communities, the lack of water to produce artificial snow has a direct impact on the bottom line. To the Hopi Indians who have tended the land for millennia, the sacred mountains are a bulwark of refuge and purity – and blanketing them with recycled refuse for a purely commercial enterprise is not an option.

So far, the Forest Service has already approved the expansion of the resort into the surrounding wilderness reserve, and it remains to be seen if the Hopi can appeal the water issue on the grounds of environmental violations, since processed waste water contains trace pharmaceuticals and other chemical substances that would be introduced into the local environment.

The variance between indigenous and modern Western viewpoints about land runs deep, and battles like this are just a small manifestation of the chasm that has always divided them. Because the indigenous approach to decision-making in issues that affect their people is so fundamentally different, it’s hard for those living in the mainstream outside tribal society to understand why the Hopi can fight this kind of issue with the same rigor that they would oppose, for instance, the dumping of nuclear waste. What many may see as a backward, stubborn adherence to tradition is a demonstration of an ancient way of thinking that is driven by profound respect for land and resources and a careful consideration of both the principles of the past and the rights of future generations.

The resort argues that the use of non-potable water for their purposes is in the end more efficient and environmentally friendly, since they would not be diverting valuable fresh water from elsewhere. But without taking sides in the argument, it’s hard not to observe the irony of the situation:

1. that an argument over water for a resort exists at all, when every day so many people around the world die of thirst;
2. that the very fact that it has come down to using recycled sewage suggests that a polar playground in the middle of a desert is perhaps a ridiculously extravagant luxury.

Maybe, in our scientific day and age, truly nothing is sacred anymore. Maybe if the leisure industry did not have such a powerful pull in our over-indulged society, the scruples of the Hopi and others would have more meaning for the rest of us. And maybe the time will come when we are forced into having the same kind of respect for our resources that the ages have taught the Hopi.

The San Francisco Peaks (Hopi “Nuvatukya’ovi,” Navajo “Dookʼoʼoosłííd“)
Image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Mills (born 1938) was raised on the Pine Ridge reservation. He trained as an athlete from an early age, later garnering many awards and earning sports scholarships that put him through college. He became a cross-country track star before graduating and joining the US Marines.

His record and training qualified him to compete for both the 10,000 meter and marathon events in the ’64 Tokyo Olympics, where his 24:4:4 win in the 10k was one of the great upsets in the history of the games. He was inducted into the US Olympic Hall of Fame in 1984.

Today, Mills is the spokesperson for Running Strong, an outreach organization for Native youth.

Wikipedia: Billy Mills

Running Strong for American Indian Youth – Official Website

Image: “Catching up with Billy Mills,” Sports Illustrated

Recently I posted about research positing a link between peoples of the Na-Dene/Athabaskan family (e.g. Navajo, Apache, Tlingit) and Central Asian refugees of Genghis Khan’s conquests. The connection, based on physical, cultural & religious similarities and linguistic and genetic evidence, has been proposed for decades but is only now being verified by concrete evidence.

The implications of such a realization are staggering – but no more than those of other recent discoveries challenging our conceptions of the early Americas.

In time for Columbus Day this year I thought it would be appropriate to note a few of the major convulsions in the established historical record that highlight the fact that the “era of Columbus” is now over. It’s already firmly established that Columbus didn’t discover America; and the illusion that the Americas existed in a bubble of cultural isolation is being shattered with every new finding of global interchange. But beyond that, it’s time to observe this ideological regime change by questioning whether Columbus is really so important after all – and what that means in the context of America’s colonial and imperialist legacy.

1: Norse Colonies & the First Native American in Europe

The presence of Scandinavians in North America before Columbus is well-established. At present they lay title to being the first Europeans to set foot on American soil. But one of the major revelations of the past year was the evidence of the earliest Native Americans in a European country – not as chattel transported via the English and Spanish slave trades, or even as diplomatic attaches to European monarchs – but as part of the saga of Norse exploration along the Atlantic seaboard.

The ill-fated Norse colony of L’anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, dating to the 11th century, may have shared less than ideal relations with their Beothuk neighbors, according to extant records; but their association may have been closer than those records indicate. It remained for DNA science to reveal that many present-day Icelanders carry the genes of Newfoundland’s extinct indigenous populations, indicating that this Norse emigration was, at least on one occasion, a two-way street. This discovery marks a milestone in our understanding of early European involvement in North America and raises numerous questions about the nature and extent of the interaction between these groups.

2: Polynesian Trade with the Pacific Coast

There is a growing body of evidence that Polynesian sailors reached the Americas long before the 15th century, setting up an exchange that left clues on both sides of the Pacific. The Polynesians are an optimal candidate in the search for pre-Columbian contact, because they had both the technology and the motive to reach the Americas.

The prime evidence:

• Chickens – Ancient remains of chickens found on the coast of Chile predate the arrival of domesticated breeds introduced by European colonists. There were no chickens indigenous to the Americas; they are native to southeast Asia where they were first domesticated and later brought as far east as the Pacific islands. Obviously their presence in Chile could not be explained as a simple case of migratory spread. The carbon dating of the chicken bones gave them a tentative age of 600 years, right around the peak of the Polynesian’s Pacific expansion.

(National Geographic: Polynesians – And Their Chickens – Arrived in Americas Before Columbus)

• Sweet potatoes – As part of the Columbian Exchange, many of the New World’s important native foodcrops – including maize, potatoes, and cacao – were transported to Europe, Asia, and Africa where they became fundamental commodities. One of these crops, the sweet potato, has been cultivated for more than 5,000 years by peoples in Central and South America, where it first originated. Apart from direct human introduction, it is difficult to account for sweet potato cultivation by the Polynesians dating back more than a millennia. (Sweet potatoes propagate through tubers or plant cuttings, not by seeds that can be windblown or spread by birds.) It is even more difficult to explain how they came to be called by almost identical names in both regions.

There are even deeper connections on the horizon. Many researchers point to linguistic similarities and parallels in artifacts found in the Polynesia Pacific (including Easter Island) and in America’s Pacific coast cultures. Such suggestions of an information and technology exchange may be circumstantial at best. But there is considerable support rising from other fronts, not the least of which is recent DNA research confirming the exchange of much more than just trade goods.

3: Tibetan origins of Athabaskans

Historians and scientists have long understood that the genetic origins of most Native Americans lie in Central Asia, where they lived before crossing into the Americas sometime during the last Ice Age, and where their nearest living relatives can be found today. There are already observable parallels in language and culture that demonstrate this link. But in the case of the Athabaskan peoples (a linguistic group encompassing an extended range from Alaska to the Southwest) a much later entrance onto the historical stage supports a more recent connection.

The spread of Athabaskans – in particular the Navajo and Apache – is documented by archaeology and by the ancient records of Pueblo peoples who witnessed their arrival to the region around 1400. They were originally warlike migratory peoples seen by others as outsiders – and while this alone does not prove a recent origin beyond the Americas, the striking congruities between Athabaskan and Yeniseian languages pose important questions first asked by scholars as early as the 1800s. Why would one ethnic branch of Native Americans have such a well-preserved connection to an ancestral Asian tongue?

The research into this area has since evolved far beyond linguistic analysis to include technologies such as modern genetics and physical anthropology which further corroborate the recent timeline, and have helped to hone in on a more exact point of origin. The evidence points towards a conglomerate of Central Asian peoples in what is today Tibet who absconded from the region under the scourge of Genghis Khan’s Mongol invasions in the 13th century. The examination of Native oral accounts describing an exodus from a dangerous world, and an exhaustive comparison of ceremonial/ritual practices all bear this out in astonishing clarity. It’s pointless for me to describe the issue in further detail when it has been so deftly laid out in this well-annotated academic paper:

Relatives Halfway Round the World: Southern Athabaskans and Southern Tarim Fugitives

While controversial, these are three examples of scenarios that are rapidly gaining credence within the academic community and among Native leaders and scholars eager to re-examine their respective cultures’ roles on the broader stage of global history. It is interesting that these studies are so unfamiliar to the general public, and are rarely or never mentioned among the ranks of “fringe theories” about seafaring Egyptians, wandering Celts, marauding Templars or even Atlanteans. And it is also hard to believe that old misconceptions about the exploration of the Americas should die so hard in the face of so much information, when the reality is potentially much more incredible than we could have imagined.

These theories raise provocative questions about both Native and non-Native perceptions of Indian identity, and about of the role of colonialism in shaping the history of the Americas. If they were not always isolated, as previously thought, and carried on as lively and extensive an interchange with other cultures as new evidence leads us to believe, then was the high cost of European settlement – and the subsequent cultural dominance it has always taken for granted – really so inevitable? What transpired in these other contacts that set them so much apart – or in what ways were they more similar than we suppose? As time is quick to remind us, history is not always clearly in black and white.

What an irony that in the wake of a massive cultural genocide, where lost lifeways and endangered languages define much of the discussion of America’s indigenous peoples, we are on the threshold of such breakthroughs unveiling the staggering complexity of America’s culturally dynamic past. Of course it is hardly necessary to add to the topic by mentioning the continuous stream of new discoveries steadily demolishing the old view of pre-Columbian America at every turn. These paint a new landscape of astonishingly complex and advanced infrastructures, economies, and methods of land management: the point being that today’s Native Americans don’t need the establishment of these discoveries as a device to reinvent their modern identity or to legitimize their past. At present, the prospect of a profound interchange of shared knowledge and experience with other cultures – beyond the confines of colonial exploitation – does more than enrich our understanding of history and challenge prevailing concepts of pre-colonial America. It offers the vision of a new gateway of communication between modern Native Americans and cultures beyond the borders of the Americas, many of whom have far more in common than the shared experience of a colonial past.

Bottom line: the native peoples of the New World are not a subcategory of American or Western culture – a relic, frozen in time, leftover from the story of European colonialism. They are, as they have always been, a living part of the spectrum of the human family. It could never be said that it was Columbus who played the role of introducing the Americas to the world. If we can take away anything new from this Columbus Day, perhaps it should be that there’s no longer any reason to continue seeing America from the point of view of Columbus. It’s about time we can all start looking at our world from a wider, more complete perspective.

References:

• Weatherford, Jack: “Reexamining the Reputation of Columbus” (Baltimore Evening Sun, Oct. 1989)

• Wilson, Joseph: “Relatives Halfway Round the World: Southern Athabaskans and Southern Tarim Fugitives” LIMINA University of Western Australia (PDF)

• National Geographic: “Native Americans Sailed to Europe With Vikings?” (Nov 23, 2010)

• Ebenesersdottir, et al: “A new subclade of mtDNA haplogroup C1 found in icelanders: Evidence of pre-columbian contact?” American Journal of Physical Anthropology (November 10, 2010)

• Inman, Mason: “Polynesians — And Their Chickens — Arrived in Americas Before Columbus” (June 4, 2007) National Geographic News

• Montenegro, Alvaro, et al: “Modeling the Prehistoric Arrival of the Sweet Potato in Polynesia” (April 2, 2007) – Journal of Archaeological Science (PDF)

• Lebot, Vincent: Tropical root and tuber crops: cassava, sweet potato, yams and aroids (CABI, 2008) p. 94

• Thorsby, et al: “Further evidence of an Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool on Easter Island” Tissue Antigens, Immune Response Genetics (March 16, 2009)

The striking similarities of appearance, language, culture & customs between the two peoples were just a backdrop for a rekindling of a very deep and very ancient connection.

On the other hand, it’s possible that their bond may be not quite so ancient: the topic is controversial, but linguistic and genetic evidence strongly suggests that the origins of the Athabaskan peoples (including the Navajo and Apache) may have more recent links with Central Asia.

Renowned Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. once said in an article entitled Indians, Archaeologists, and the Future,

“I personally feel that unless and until we are in some way connected with world history as early peoples, perhaps even as refugees from Old World turmoils and persecutions, we will never be accorded full humanity. We cannot be primitive peoples who were suddenly discovered half a millennium ago.”

Here is a scholarly publication from the University of Western Australia’s Anthropology department that gives a pretty detailed overview of the subject:

Relatives Halfway Round the World by Joseph Wilson

Can you tell which of the women below are Navajo and which are Tibetan?

According to her 1890 birth certificate, she is in line to become the longest-lived person in recorded history, passing up the current record holder Jeanne Calment (who died in 1997 at the age of 122). Cultural rights organization Survival International says that authorities have been able to vouch for the authenticity of her documents.

She is reportedly healthy and active, for a 121 year old – or for any age, by most standards – and credits her longevity to the traditional Amazonian diet of fresh produce, meat, and manioc.

SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL: Living the longest – indigenous Brazilian celebrates 121st birthday

Eddie Little Sky was born Edsel Wallace Little on the Pine Ridge Reservation (Oglala) in South Dakota. After serving in the Navy in the Pacific theater of World War II, he returned to civilian life as a rodeo and stunt rider, hoping a performance career would make him a living off the rez. When the impressed Audie Murphy watched one of his shows, he encouraged Little to audition for the screen.

Little Sky (as he later adopted for his screen name) became one of the first Indian actors to play Native roles on tv. Up until then Indians – even in leading roles – were played almost exclusively by white actors and very few Indians ever appeared on screen. His prolific filmography eventually included dozens of movies and almost every popular western series of the 50′s and 60′s – making him, if not a household name, at least a familiar face in homes across the country.

Today he is best remembered for his role as a Sioux chief in the major 1970 film “A Man Called Horse.”

His career was a significant milestone in the public portrayal of Native Americans. The presence of an Indian actor representing Indians on screen gave some authenticity to their overwhelmingly stereotyped persona. Along with other pioneers in the field, such as Jay Silverheels, he helped opened the door for other aspiring Native actors and actresses.

His wife Dawn, also Lakota, was an actress who occasionally appeared alongside him in films.

Eddie retired in the 1970′s and worked as a tribal parks & recreation administrator back at his home in South Dakota. He died in 1997.

Wikipedia: Eddie Little Sky

From the “People of the Hills” video essays by John Berry of the Syracuse Post-Standard

Summertime is the spotlight in this seasonal journal from the Onondaga Nation in New York state. This time of year is full of the celebration of life: school graduations combine the traditional with the modern; the first harvests from the community gardens begin; and music and dance are everywhere.

The milder summers of upstate New York have everyone outdoors enjoying the sunny weather, making it an ideal time for public events. Late June sees the main summer holiday – the Strawberry Festival – held, as in ancient times, in the community longhouse for all to participate.

Because of water pollution issues encroaching from neighboring areas, scenes like this are becoming increasingly less common. Lake Syracuse itself is a superfund site and is considered one of the most polluted lakes in the country, a condition affecting the water supply of the entire region. The Onondaga Nation is embroiled in major legal battles to reclaim water rights and establish more responsible methods of resource management.

WATCH: Post-Standard Video Essay – People of the Hills (Summer)

With its title aptly taken from the Persian poet Rumi, the exhibit reflects the powerful use of symbol, the respect for materials used in the process, and the harmony of function and embellishment that characterize many traditional indigenous crafts.

NMAI Online Exhibit: Beauty Surrounds Us

PART 1: The Horse Emerges

The horse – second only to the dog – is possibly the most magical animal to capture the human imagination. It has enthralled artists ever since its first appearances in Paleolithic cave paintings. In its domesticated forms, as a laborer, a warrior, and a brother, it has had no parallel.

But its mystique is universal and goes far beyond its functional roles. As the mustang, or feral horse, it is a symbol of wild beauty and indomitable freedom – because in this persona it transcends the divide between the wild and the domesticated. In this state, the horse carries the heritage of both worlds, and a great deal more besides.

The American mustang conjures up a web of various symbols and emotions; for many it personifies the rugged spirit of the West, or the proud legacy of the Plains Indian. It’s an incredible irony of nature that the horses reintroduced into the Americas by the Spanish explorers were part of a diaspora returning to their original homeland after an absence of over 10,000 years.

The small hoofed mammals that gave rise to the first horses originated in prehistoric America. Small horses similar to the today’s true wild horses of the Asian steppes populated the North American grasslands up until late in the last Ice Age – an era that also witnessed the extinction of the mammoth, the sabre-toothed cats, and many other species.

The reason that horses disappeared from the Americas and not from the other continents to which it had spread is debated. There is strong evidence to suggest a massive comet that exploded over the Great Lakes region about that time was the culprit. The disaster devastated the continent and its aftermath created a bottleneck of plant, animal, and human populations, with the American horse likely being one of its casualties. The drastic climatic changes of a planet just leaving an ice age drastically reduced horse numbers across the board, but was not enough to extinguish the species completely.

In any case, it was to be millennia before the horse returned to the Americas – greatly changed in appearance, but still bearing deep within its DNA the genes of those early horse ancestors who first roamed American Plains.

In the words of the Native Americans – whose cultural memories preserved a remnant of the horse’s presence, and whose destinies became so closely intertwined – “The grass remembered them.”

For those who are interested, Texas A & M’s Center for the Study of the First Americans issues a quarterly publication called Mammoth Trumpet. The January 2008 edition covers the Clovis Impact theory in fascinating detail. (View the PDF)

See also:
The Talk Origins website’s “Horse history 101″ – a technical paper on the horse’s development and spread

BBC News: Origins of the domestic horse

The American Museum of Natural History has an excellent website for their exhibition on horses. It covers the development of the horse from prehistoric times & follows its involvement with humans through history. Lots of great reading, photos, videos, and interactives.

American Museum of Natural History: The Horse

3 Ironies about the Horse in the Americas

1. Although horses originated in the New World, they were non-existent here until they were reintroduced by the Spanish explorers in the 16th century, during the conquest of the Americas.

2. The ancestors of the first mustangs are believed to be the horses driven from Spanish colonial settlements and scattered across the Southwest during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. When the Pueblo revolutionaries turned loose livestock – including horses – corralled in the Spanish settlements, they unwittingly unleashed a new era in Native American history, and a new chapter in the genetic history of the horse.

3. The Plains Indian nations so closely associated with the horse, such as the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Comanche, never laid eyes on it until a few centuries ago. Their world-renowned horse cultures developed during the 1700s, when they first began to utilize horsepower to adopt a nomadic lifestyle on the Great Plains.

NEXT: Part 2 – New World, New Horse

The Long Walk was part of a removal program similar to the Trail of Tears. Beginning in January, 1864, Navajo people from across Arizona were led by army troops and Western legend Kit Carson on a forced march to the Bosque Redondo internment camp in New Mexico. An area nearly 40 square miles, originally intended to support around 5,000 people, it came to host nearly twice that number as the removals continued.

The relocation project was a fiasco; the area’s bad water and impossible terrain made disease and hunger rampant. In addition, the confinement of Navajo together with Apache and Kiowa led to conflict. The ordeal eventually claimed the lives of thousands of Navajo people.

Courtesy of the State Records Center and Archives. Frank McNitt Papers, Serial #5514; photo #5702. “Navajos under guard at Fort Sumner,” ca. 1864 (New Mexico Office of the State Historian)

US and Navajo leaders signed a treaty on June 1, 1868 which granted the right of return for the Navajo expatriates and formed the nucleus of the modern-day Navajo reservation. On June 18, the diverse bands of the Navajo diaspora began their trek back to their ancestral homelands in the Four Corners region of the Southwest, known to them as “Dine-tah.”

The Navajo are among the few Indian nations to have regained possession of their traditional territory. Their land holdings have expanded to what is today the largest Indian reservation in the US.

New Mexico History – The Long Walk

Legends of America – The Navajo Long Walk to the Bosque Redondo

Production interviews from the KUED documentary The Long Walk: Tears of the Navajo

NPR Story: The Navajo Nation’s Own ‘Trail of Tears’

Wikipedia: Long Walk of the Navajo

Wikipedia: Bosque Redondo