The Inaccurate Romanticizing of Indigenous Peoples
***Trigger Warning***
The Progressive Woke will call you a racist for reading this article.
As the war in the woods heats up out on the West Coast between the Wet’suweten First Nation, Coastal GasLink, the province, and the RCMP, it reminded me of how Canadian Indigenous peoples have been deliberately romanticized as the mythical ‘Noble Savage’.
There is a fascinating account of the famous ‘wild white man’ called William Buckley who after being transported to an Australian penal colony in 1803, escaped and lived amongst the Aborigines for 30+ years. He had zero contact with white men during that time and his memoirs are an invaluable peek into Aborigine life before their territory started to be seriously encroached upon by Europeans.
If the reader is interested, open source accounts of Buckley’s exploits can be accessed here and here.
There were a few points that jumped out to me during my readings:
- A man’s worth depended not only on his strength and prowess in battle but also in how clever he was. A man could became more popular through fighting or by coming up with novel ways to hunt game. This equated to a greater standing within the tribe and more wives.
- The Aborigines were strict hunter/gatherers moving from hunting ground to hunting ground with the season, when the hunting turned poor, or by being chased off by a competing tribe.
- The Aborigines could accurately be described as grifters. Buckley described one instance where his tribe was tricked into turning over all their tomahawks or the deity that looked after the World would falter in his job. When Buckley got back to a white settlement, he was constantly trying to keep the Aborigines from thieving or outright slaughtering the whites. Guns and larger numbers swung the tide towards the colonizers.
- From Buckley’s observations, women Aborigines were the root cause of the constant warfare between tribes. Grievances seemingly never forgotten and were fueled by spats over who should have married whom, women running off with other men, or blatant attacks to steal another tribe’s women. Tribes would come together under congenial conditions only to end up with a fresh round of revenge murders by the end of the day.
- The Aborigine women were not shrinking violets. They would just as often fight alongside the men and no quarter was given just because a female was in the mix. But in general, if a raiding party was formed to enact justice for some old slight, the men would go off to fight.
- The Aborigines were cannibals. Some practiced a ritualistic form after a foe or a loved one perished. But Buckley did describe a couple of tribes who lived off the flesh of man. Everyone steered clear of their territory.
Speaking of cannibalism, did you know that Canada’s West Coast natives indulged in the practice, usually related to a potlatch ceremony where they would kill a slave? Reports of cannibalism involving Vancouver Island natives were as recent as 1904. Also, it is well documented that before the Europeans showed up, the Canadian natives warred constantly whether to exact revenge, gain territory, or to carry off slaves. Sounds very similar to what the Aborigines were up to over on the other side of the world.
During my sojourn with the Armada de Chile in 2013, I was intrigued to learn of the natives of Patagonia. They were first discovered by Ferdinand Magellan during his voyages. Subsequent visits by Europeans and missionaries eager to convert the ‘heathens’ did not go well. The Natives or Indios were not friendly and did their best to kill Europeans whether they were friendly or not. They kept up a rear guard war against Spanish settlement for about 350 years by taking advantage of the remoteness of their territory. Unfortunately, unlike the Incans who had tried to conquer them, eventually the Chilean colonizers either killed or bred out almost all of the full blooded natives. When there was only a handful left, they relocated them to Puerto Edén which is an extremely remote island location. There was supposedly only one full blooded Native left when I sailed past Puerto Edén and she has probably passed away by now.
In stark contrast to the manner in which Canadian First Nations peoples have now become ‘sacred’ so to speak, Chile is slightly less politically correct when it comes to their actual genocide of their native peoples. Yes, they did feel bad about killing off all the Natives and the bottom half of their flag is red representing all of the Indio blood that was spilled. At the world famous Cementerio Municipal Sara Braun in Punta Arenas, there is the revered tomb of the Indio Desconocido (The Unknown Indian). But throughout the country, in every tourist shop, you can pick up in various sizes, a male or female Indio Picaro (Kinky Indian). The big joke is when you slide the body upwards a big erect dick or hairy bush is revealed. Somehow, I doubt that sort of ‘joke’ would go over well here in Canada.
The point of these examples is that man is not particularly special just because they were ‘native’ to an area that was eventually colonized by the Europeans. The ‘white’ man just upped the ante and was able to spread out further as technology related to sailing, exploration, and firepower progressed. The entirety of world history can be summarized as the powerful taking advantage of the weak.
This is the danger of elevating Natives onto a pedestal. Canadian First Nations have severe ongoing issues related to the colonizing of Canada, the Reserve system, the horribly outdated Indian Act, and attempts to assimilate them into Canadian culture. But they are not particularly ‘Green’ or in tune with ‘Mother Earth’ compared to anyone else. It is a mistake to attribute undue weight to their counsel in order to atone for Canada’s collective sins vis-à-vis their past treatment. But special interest groups and virtue signaling politicians are eager to take advantage of their ‘special’ status.
Hopefully the upcoming shenanigans in the woods are dealt with more peacefully compared to the Oka Crisis in 1990. By the way, no one was ever charged in the murder of Sûreté du Québec police officer Corporal Marcel Lemay.
Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.