Dear Google, and anyone else interested,
These thoughts came to my mind as a result of a statement that North Americawas "barren" when Europeans first arrived.
Those earlier times were very dark for the original peoples of this continent and those of Central America and South America.
While Europeans were appropriating for themselves and settling North, Central and South American lands there were certain ignorant, cruel racist Europeans who used to hunt Native Indian people with guns. I know of this happening in Northern
USA and in an Eastern Canadian Province where the Beothuk people were exterminated.
The fun of the cruel ones was to see shot native people spin as they fell in agony or death. These same ignoramuses hunted the buffalo almost to extinction.
They did the same to the passenger pigeon. Once these creatures were numberless
.
. It was once impossible to calculate how many there were because there were somany. The sun shining on the earth would be blacked out by a sky totally
filled by passenger pigeons. That's the kinds of numbers there were.
Europeans with their guns, and sport, and wastefulness in the face of so much
bountifulness just shot them until there were no more. The buffalo bison were even hunted by hunters from trains. They just left the carcasses lying where they fell.
The native people hunted for need and never for sport. They practised always
leaving enough of whatever they needed from the land so that it could carry on and reproduce as it always had. They didn't cause species extinctions. Many
peoples felt a kinship with the animals and plants. They would ask the animal'sor plant's permission to take its life in order to use it for food or clothing,
or other things they required. This is a very advanced idea that is on the forefront of current thought today. It goes like this: humans evolved through the mineral, vegetable, animal kingdoms, and on into the human kingdom. We are literally, all relatives. We are related to and contain, all the lower kingdoms.
There is still much of the practise of conservation practised among those who
haven't learned to be as ignorant of nature, or as stupid and greedy as many European types were then, and still are today. I remember a native man who was a Baha'i like me, grimacing at a large "white man's fire" and saying that a native
person carefully builds up a small fire according to a well thought out plan of
the ages and doesn't waste. Such a fire would be a small one, only large enough
for his needs.
Thoughtless, careless, ignorant or greedy human beings all around the world are
still causing species after species, both tiny and huge creatures, to become extinct.
There is no use blaming Europeans of today for the early horrors of the native
peoples of North, Central and South America, because those today are many
generations removed from those people. Many come from peoples who were not involved in conquering the Americas. However, the native peoples of these continents, and elsewhere, still need to receive justice. Slowly some of them are. They
have gone through a long hell, and are at last getting strong enough themselves
to begin to climb out of it. There is still much damage in present generations
for them to overcome. May they be very successful, and may we all understand -
-and as we can, be a part of justice. The native peoples, like all others peoples, have qualities that are needed to balance the understanding, behaviour and growth of the peoples of the world. We need to hear much more from them and other
peoples of the world who have suffered down the centuries for various reasons,
and are slowly beginning to come into their own today.
Thank you Google, for unintentionally opening this topic. I expect to writemore about it from time to time. :-))
I'm not thanking for Thanksgiving greetings because Canada's Thanksgivingday was a month ago. :-)) I'm glad that you are such a happy and gratefulperson and have so much to be happy about. :-))
Warmly, Mary