Knowing materials, matter and people, is a skill that seems to have slid. Probably because of surfeit and seeming disposalbility.
I once took a course on Native Americans in Contact (mostly it was Woodlands, with some early East Coast and 'late' Plains) and it was interesting the degree to which by trade goods Europeans had reputations, and traders had to think twice about not bringing the English red wool or the German knives, so on and so forth. It's a corrective to the 'disappearing Indian' to consider the finesse they had regarding people they didn't see, judging novel goods for fitness. Similarly, how material shapes culture expression and that there is change happening before, during and 'post' Contact- there is no more a timeless Authentic Indian than any other identity is unchanging while it's breathing. (Hyphenated identities often 'freeze' part, while the 'American' part continues on.)
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dancing_serpent
Re: Yes...
Date: 2015-05-31 05:53 am (UTC)I once took a course on Native Americans in Contact (mostly it was Woodlands, with some early East Coast and 'late' Plains) and it was interesting the degree to which by trade goods Europeans had reputations, and traders had to think twice about not bringing the English red wool or the German knives, so on and so forth. It's a corrective to the 'disappearing Indian' to consider the finesse they had regarding people they didn't see, judging novel goods for fitness. Similarly, how material shapes culture expression and that there is change happening before, during and 'post' Contact- there is no more a timeless Authentic Indian than any other identity is unchanging while it's breathing. (Hyphenated identities often 'freeze' part, while the 'American' part continues on.)