From: Sid Shniad November 22, 2006
THE STORY OF THANKSGIVING "It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it." Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson THE STORY OF THANKSGIVING, in the rich MaxSpeak tradition, is here. [http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr040.shtml] Or maybe it's here. [http://www.eatel.net/%7Ewahya/thksgvg.html] MaxSpeak Summary: the Puritan Christian fundamentalists, of whom the Pilgrims were a subgroup, were murderous, treacherous swine who made a treaty with the indigenous people around Plymouth until they had enough forces to wipe them out. This they later did with smallpox and guns, unless they were able to sell them into slavery, all of course for the greater glory of Jesus Christ. Wait a minute. That wasn't quite right. Let's try it again. Here's how it goes. The Puritans in England were subject to religious persecution, lo unto death. They needed a homeland where they could survive as a people and live in peace. They tried to settle in the Netherlands, but it proved inhospitable. Only the possibility of the New World seemed to beckon. It was a land without a people, and they were a people without a land. Upon settling around Plymouth, the first Puritans (Pilgrims) established amicable relations with the Wampanoag Nation. The Wampanoag had already been depleted by disease brought by previous settlers. They were also subject to aggression by other Native American groups, so their alliance with the Puritans became an outpost of peace and freedom in the New World. As more Puritans arrived, they required more breathing space. The Wampanoag, like other indigenous peoples, lacked a modern system of property rights. They did not see fit to build fences, put up street signs, or establish variable-rate mortgages. The Puritans remedied these defects of indigenous culture. It just happened that the Puritans ended up owning all the property, and Native Americans themselves became classified as property. Taking umbrage at this advance of Judeo-Christian civilization, the indigenous people reduced themselves to terrorism. Some were sufficiently maniacal as to sacrifice their own lives in order to murder innocent settlers. There was a veritable cult of death. Underlying this irrationality was a primitive religious belief system that celebrated exterminating one's enemies, as well as the consumption of locoweed and psychedelic mushrooms. In short, the natives hated the settlers for their freedom and no longer greeted them as liberators. They meant to establish dominion over the entirety of Europe by summoning the Great Spirit as a weapon of mass destruction. As a matter of self-defense, the Puritans were compelled to rise to the challenge of this clash of civilizations and wage a pre-emptive war of extermination of both the terrorists and the societies that nurtured them. There was no middle ground; you were either with them or against them. Those Native Americans who were willing to live in peace were provided with alternative living arrangements, under the protection of the new government. Sadly, they proved unequal to the rigors of modern society and eventually disappeared, although they were given the opportunity to experience democracy before their demise. Today we, "the people who build square things," celebrate Thanksgiving as a tribute to their memory, and to the invaluable assistance they unselfishly provided for the Christian arrival to America. Now please pass the gravy. * * * From: "RICHARD MENEC" < <mailto:menec...@shaw.ca> menec...@shaw.ca> <http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19672.cfm> http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19672.cfm Thanking Indigenous People for the Food We Eat By Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq. Organic Consumers Association: November 24, 2009 This Thanksgiving, the Organic Consumers Association gives thanks to the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere for their contributions to agriculture. 75% of the food crops grown in the world today were first cultivated by Native Americans. These include corn, beans, peanuts, cotton, potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, avocados, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, squashes, black walnuts, pecans, chocolate, tobacco, rubber, and sunflowers. In "Pristine Nature: The Founding Falsehood," Steven H. Rich explains that the New World that European colonists believed was a miraculous wilderness was actually a "human-created landscape full of food and useful plants": Native Americans had managed the woodlands and grasslands to produce native game animals, native birds and fish, berries, nuts, greens, fruits, bulbs, corns, mushrooms, roots, basketry and cordage materials, firewood, weapon-making and building materials, medicines and ceremonially important plants. Many 'wild' native plants that exist today are in fact the products of ancient Native American genetic selection and propagation projects that favored better-tasting and more useful varieties. Popular belief that pre-Columbian America was a "pristine wilderness" is false and based on racist stereotypes that reduce the highly successful and extremely intelligent adaptations and achievements of Native American societies to the instinctual behavior of wildlife or "nobel savages in a state of nature." Native American elders remember better times. "The white man sure ruined this country," said Southern Sierra Miwok elder Jim Rust. "It's turned back to wilderness. In the old days there used to be lots more game: deer, quail, gray squirrels and rabbits." There are no "spontaneous Edens" on earth. The New World paradises were created by the sweat of millions of Native Americans caring for their land. Today, indigenous farmers remain the custodians of an immeasurable wealth of biodiversity. 4,200 Years of Farming on the Colorado Plateau On the Colorado Plateau farming has been an unbroken cultural tradition for at least 4200 years. The Navajo, Zuni, Apache, Hopi, Paiute and Tewa have cultivated the most diverse annual crop assemblage in the New World north of the Tropic of Cancer. Some of the very same fields documented as cultivated four centuries ago by Zuni (and perhaps by Hopi) remain in use today, without soil erosion, nutrient depletion or salination noticeably diminishing their food producing capacity. The 30 ecosystem types on the Colorado Plateau collectively harbor some 2,500 vertebrate species, well over 1,100 invertebrate species, and over 16,000 plant species. Despite the Anglo-American bias of assuming that this diversity is associated with pristine landscapes, it is more likely due to the traditional land use practices of the people who have managed the landscape for centuries. For instance, of the Colorado Plateau's 300-some endemic plants, roughly 2/3 (188) have been kept in fields, orchards and corrals by the region's indigenous farmers and ranchers. You can learn more about the Little Colorado River Watershed (Arizona, USA) on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation's Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems site. Today, the indigenous people of the Colorado Plateau are passing their agricultural traditions to a new generation. In September, students at Zuni High School won two first-place and two third-place ribbons at the New Mexico State Fair. The student's state fair entries included produce from the horticulture class's "waffle gardens," a traditional Zuni method of garden construction consisting of a series of parallel, square or rectangular depressions dug into the ground, creating a waffle-like pattern that maximizes use of water. Students from the STAR School, located just off the Navajo Reservation near Leupp, Ariz., and residents of the Village of Hotevilla on the Hopi Reservation created a gardening project where students learn food and farming traditions by helping Hopi elders tend their gardens. The Wayana's Cultivated Eden The farming system of Wayana society of French Guyana is based on shifting cultivation, with a characteristically high agrobiodiversity. Agriculture forms part of a complex system of activities taking place within the habitat where Wayana obtain a significant portion of their subsistence requirements through gathering, fishing and hunting. In fact, there is not a clear limit between cultivated and wild area, which can be considered as a single agro-ecosystem. The Milpa System and 20,000 Varieties of Corn Milpa is the most evolved farming system in the world. It create relatively large yields of food crops without the use of artificial pesticides or fertilizers, and is self-sustaining. Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary. Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the body needs to make proteins and niacin, beans have both lysine and tryptophan, and squashes provide an array of vitamins. The milpa, in maintaining soil fertility, providing a variety of healthy foods, and limiting environmental impacts of food production, may well be one of the most successful human inventions ever created. There are over 20,000 varieties of corn in Mexico and Central America. In southern and central Mexico, approximately 5,000 varieties have been identified. In one village in Oaxaca, researchers found 17 different environments where 26 varieties of corn were growing. Each variety has been cultivated to adapt to elevation levels, soil acidity, sun exposure, soil type, and rainfall. Andean Agriculture (Peru) "In the Andean region, generations of farmers have domesticated thousands of potato varieties. Even today, farmers cultivate up to 50 varieties on their farms. In the biodiversity reserve of the Chiloé archipelago in Chile, local people cultivate about 200 varieties of native potato. They use farming practices transmitted orally by generations of mainly women farmers." Potato and Biodiversity, the Global Crop Diversity Trust and FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division, 2008 <http://www.potato2008.org/en/potato/biodiversity.html> http://www.potato2008.org/en/potato/biodiversity.html "A long list of cultural and agriculture treasures from the Inca civilization has been carefully preserved and improved over centuries to guarantee living conditions over 4000 meters above sea level. "One of the most amazing features of this heritage is the terracing system used to control land degradation. Terraces allow cultivation in steep slops and different altitudes. From a range of 2800 to 4500 meters, three main agricultural systems can be found: maize is cultivated in the lower areas, potato mainly at medium altitudes. Above 4,000 meters the areas are mostly used as rangeland, but can still be cultivated with high altitude crops as well. In the high plateau, around Lake Titicaca, farmers dig trenches (called "sukakollos") around their fields. These trenches are filled with water, which is warmed by sunlight. When temperatures drop at night, the water gives off warm steam that serves as frost protection for several varieties of potato and other native crops, such as quinoa." <http://www.fao.org/nr/giahs/pilot-systems/pilot/andean-agriculture/andean-a griculture-summary/en/> http://www.fao.org/nr/giahs/pilot-systems/pilot/andean-agriculture/andean-ag riculture-summary/en/ Chiloé Agriculture (Chile) The Archipelago of Chiloé, in the south of Chile, is one of the center of origin of potatoes and is an extraordinary biodiversity reserve: its temperate rainforests hold a wide range of endangered plant and animal species. The Chilotes Huilliche indigenous populations and Mestize still cultivate about 200 varieties of native potatoes, following ancestral practices transmitted orally by generations of farmers, mostly women. Chiloe Island is one of the centers of origin of crop diversity. <http://www.ecobooks.com/authors/vavilov.htm> http://www.ecobooks.com/authors/vavilov.htm It is a centre of origin of potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), and a centre of mango (Bromus mango) and strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis). Some 200 documented varieties of native potatoes are still managed today, together with a variety of garlic (Ajo chilote) that is unique to the islands and its volcanic soils. <http://www.fao.org/nr/giahs/pilot-systems/pilot/chiloe-agriculture/chiloe-a griculture-summary/en/> http://www.fao.org/nr/giahs/pilot-systems/pilot/chiloe-agriculture/chiloe-ag riculture-summary/en/ _______________________________________________ Rad-Green mailing list <mailto:rad-gr...@lists.econ.utah.edu> rad-gr...@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: <http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green _____ _____ No virus found in this message. 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