Re:A Bemidji professor is on a quest to keep the Ojibwe lang...
by jcranmer on Monday April 20, 2020 @08:53AM
(#22923394)
> Public school definitely didn't help, we learned absolutely nothing about their culture despite maybe a quarter of my class being native kids.
The one thing that always grated me when learning history in school is how utterly Eurocentric it was. Early anthropology was focused on explaining how "we" (principally Victorian Britain) became so great, and looked at the world through a lens of a checklist of how evolved they were--and people who couldn't smelt bronze were not seen as far advanced, since that's one of the first items in the list. While this view has been thoroughly discredited within the field of anthropology itself, it still lives on in popular writings and (sadly) our history textbooks.
Which is a shame, because the more you study pre-Columbian Americas, the more amazing you find it is. There's plenty to challenge your preconceived notions of history.
The most impressive thing about the nation to me is how inhospitable the region is. The winter where I'm from typically lasts about 8 months, it snowed a few days ago. The area wasn't really permanently inhabited by white people until well after industrialization.
I couldn't imagine living there without shipping or heating infrastructure.
It's unfortunate that we've lost so much of the history and traditions that enabled the Ojibwe to thrive there. Public school definitely didn't help, we learned absolutely nothing about their culture despite maybe a quarter of my class being native kids.