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[-] codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 4 days ago

Reading "The Dawn of Everything" really opened my eyes to how much our understanding of Native American culture is entirely driven by White colonial narratives. It wasn't just everything in this meme, its the consequences of them. These weren't "tribals" waiting for civilization to come to them, there was a sophisticated and advanced ecosystem of nations here, not always peaceful but rooted in an entirely different world view and systems of interaction than Europe.

To the extent that when NA ambassadors traveled to Europe, they would report back with what barberous and disgusting people the Europeans were, for all the reasons that would sound familiar today: abandoning the sick, old, and poor to die; worshipping wealth and commodities over people and community; pollution; environmental destruction; exploitation; religious hypocrisy; and more.

The "Native Critique of European Culture" is devastating, as further evidenced by how many early colonies "failed" (including the famous "missing" Roanoke colony) because the indentured servants, prisoners, and other folks who made up early colonists much preferred to "go native" than be forced into exploitative labor relationships with the foreign power.

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 10 points 4 days ago

That book is fucking amazing and one of my favorite reads by far. It opened my eyes too and got me super curious about the first jesuit encounters with the Brazilian natives in the early 1500s. History as taught in schools is also very "white man brought civilization" and every single one of the natives' struggles is swept under the rug. Finding these first records is hard for me. I might need to hit up university professors.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yeah, it was wild to see how much of what I had been taught was European ideals and ideas were just Iriqouian critiques that Europeans were convinced of. Then later when he gets to talking about how some of these ideas seem to come from the rejection of Cahokia blew my mind again.

this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
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