Quarantines may be justified

[Harmon Seaver]

On Sun, Apr 20, 2003 at 09:32:16AM -0700, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
> At 09:03 AM 4/20/03 -0500, Harmon Seaver wrote:
> >      So the native americans here before 1492 weren't free? They did,
> of
> >course, have private property -- whatever they could carry with them --
> but the
> >land was held in common. The idea that individuals could "own" land was
> not
> >known to them.
> 
> This is a white fallacy.  If you caught someone hunting on your familial
> land,
> you might initiate violence against them.  Within the family, resources
> were
> shared, but in dealing with other clans, violence certainly occurred.
> 

    Well, not between clans, certainly tho between various
tribes. Territoriality is quite a bit different than dividing it up into
individual parcels, however. Nor was it like communism where the government
imposes group ownership from above, since they really had essentially no
government. It was really a totally different mindset, and one that the euros
couldn't even grasp. Nor could the native americans understand the euros -- why
would the euros leave the land where their ancestors were buried? Why would they
think that any of the local "chiefs" had any authority to speak for anyone
except themselves, as in most tribes they only had their own personal charisma
to exert any influence on thier "followers". No kings or rulers at all in the
european sense, just councils of old men, or more often, old women, who got
together and reasoned things out and gave advice. 


> You think some of them lived in fortresses for yucks?
> 
> Talk to an anthropologist some time.
> 
> Territoriality is as old as amphibians.

-- 
Harmon Seaver	
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com