Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

sloth, you're from hershey, pennsylvania. that is funny. i don't know why, but one year my parents decided to take us to pennsylvania for vacation. i mean who picks pennsylvania for a vacation? my parents. so every single one of us got sick. we stopped off in NoVA -- my dad threw up then to a pretze...

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/thi...cle1325440.ece " Banksy targets Paris Hilton 'Guerrilla artist' replaces heiress's CDs in shops with doctored versions By Claire Truscott and Martin Hodgson Published: 03 September 2006 He has smuggled fake artwork into Tate Britain, and sprayed a vision o...

"Anyway I'm sorry to blab all about it here and everything" i don't mind. i have to require that people stay on topic and spell things correctly for my job . . . like we already decided, that's boring, so why would i want to require it of people i talk to for fun? "but this is a prett...

oops! three million years, not three million ears, although i made myself laugh.

okay, i think i'm becoming ocd with this topic, and it is now infecting both my personal and professional life as the hubby and i had a "discussion" about it last night and then i went off to work to get my coworkers in on it. the question that the hubby and i ended our debate with was how...

yes good luck to any sloth who wants to work, especially in a language that is not his own. that's a whole lot of work for a sloth. "I stayed home from work today because I was going to go to two job interviews but I cancelled the second one (for nothing about it made me want to work for them, ...

"I don't believe in God either, except when I need something from her." Tom Waits does, but thinks he's away on business. has anyone seen the enron documentary that the tom waits song closes? it is very fitting: I'd sell your heart to the junkman baby For a buck, for a buck If you're looki...

and some more stuff for when you have time. to me this is very interesting, for one thing b/c it is the history of the place i live, both america and virginia, and if you're in new york, that's where the iroquois (hiawatha's confederacy) came from so it's the history of the place you're walking around in too -- if you you're from north carolina or maryland, you too are in part of the iroquois nation. another reason it is important is our constitution is said to be derived from the iroquois constitution . . . so the iroquois are incredibly important to this country . . . although a lot of people don't know that, and that they had figured out some things about peace, now what they figured out i'm not 100 percent sure, but i think it'd be important for all of us to know . . . there are so many things about them that were so so so much further advanced than the europeans of their time.

and in an effort to be accurate rather than philosophical here's one historical account that differs from what I've told you about the Iroquois. To be fair and offer you evidence of what you've said about war existing in north America during the Iroquois -- this is one version of history --i've read conflicting things about how this is written, but it has been written:

“ . . . and unfortunately, Deganawida's "Great Peace" extended only to the Iroquois themselves. For outsiders it was a military alliance and the "Great War" against any people with whom the Iroquois had a dispute, and during the first 130 years of the League's existence, there were very few tribes who managed to avoid a dispute with the Iroquois.

The Iroquois were only required to maintain peace with each other, the individual members of the League were free to pursue their own interests, and at first, the Iroquois functioned as two alliances: the Seneca, Cayuga, and, to a lesser extent, the Onondaga combined as the western Iroquois; while the Mohawk and Oneida united in the east. Despite this division, the Iroquois still possessed a unity and purpose which their enemies could not match. During a 50-year war beginning sometime around 1570, the eastern Iroquois drove the Algonquin from the Adirondack Mountains and the upper St. Lawrence River - a possible explanation of the movement of the Pequot and Mohegan into southern New England just after 1600. There were also skirmishes with the powerful Mahican Confederacy to the south over the wampum trade, and most likely because they were Adirondack or Mahican allies, the Pocumtuc in western New England were attacked by the Mohawk in 1606.â€￾

I don't really know what I make of this account and here is why. This historian says that one of the reasons for fights was wampum trade. I've learned from several other accounts that I've read that Wampum wasn't money or a tool for bartering prior to European involvement with native affairs. It was sacred and part of their history, not part of their bartering. It'd be like me giving you my diary:
The beads of wampum, generally purple (Suckáuhock) and white (Wompam) in color, are traditionally made by rounding small pieces of the shells of quahogs and whelks, then piercing them with a hole before stringing them. Wampum belts are used as a memory aid in Oral tradition, badge of office, and ceremonial device of indigenous cultures such as the Iroquois. When Europeans came to the Americas, they realized the importance of wampum to Native people, but mistook it for money. Soon, they were trading with the native peoples of New England and New York using wampum. Dutch colonists actually began to manufacture their own wampum. The first guy who supposedly used the wampum for bartering was a Dutch man Jacob Eelkes in 1622 – the european version of the story goes like this -- supposedly he made it a big thing and from that the Mahicans got wealthy, the Iroquois got pissed and conflicts broke out.

The two accounts seem very different. The dates don't gel. In one the account reads that an ally of the Mohicans, the Pocumtuc were attacked in 1606 – but the other account claims that the Iroquois didn't get pissed at the Mohicans until after 1622, when wampum was supposedly made into a bartering tool by the dutch, so the dates in the two accounts don't make sense. Either one or both is wrong/inaccurate meaning to me how much more is inaccurate???

Then some folks make this claim:
“Wampum was not Indian money. Even the best dictionaries tell you it was, but this is an error. Native Americans, especially in the Iroquois Confederacy, greatly valued wampum. It was used to call a council, seat council members in the correct order, speak at the council, elect a chief, depose a chief (the chiefs were always men, but women elected and deposed them), for an adoption ceremony, during mourning, as records and deeds, as gifts and as ornament. But not for moneyâ€￾
That it was never money to the Iroquois making the assertion that Iroquois warred on the Mohicans over completely stupid.

So there is a lot, a whole lot we don't know about the iroquois as peacemakers / warriors. My brother was researching as many original documents on native americans as he could find, but his health has been bad for the last few months and I don't know if he's going to continue. There are a variety of different stories. I trust the ones based on oral tradition more than any others because that is the Iroquois tradition. The wampum was their memory aid and the history wasn't “writtenâ€￾ down.

and tori amos wrote a song on scarlett's walk that references some of this . . . if you're interested. if not, oh well.

******************************************

mark and maverick and anyone else who's reading,

with these two quotes in mind here is a nature vs. nurture / philosophical question:

"Pacifism to me is a noble thought, but not something that can be a reality in our world."

and

"And if you think peace is a common goal, well that goes to show how little you know..."

mark, i think you're quote is brilliant; maverick, i think yours is sad. yours takes responsibility, meaning man chooses war -- it is his goal, man controls his destiny. maverick's seems fatalistic, meaning man is doomed to war and peace is just not possible in reality.

i think they are two very very different statements.

do you think so?

"I'm sure you are familiar with the concept of yin and yang. Both exist, because it is the nature of the universe." i am familiar with that thought, i don't know if i believe that peace is the balance to war and both must exist, etc. if that is the line of thinking. i'm just not convinced ...

okay, so i recognize the one story reads like a myth, i wanted to put this one here because it reads more like a traditional textbook version of history. it is the same story . . . of the same orginal peace keeping american, hiawatha:

"There was at this time among the Onondagas a chief of high rank whose name, variously written—Hiawatha, Hayonwatha, Ayongwhata, Taoungwatha—is rendered, “he who seeks the wampum belt.â€￾ He had made himself greatly esteemed by his wisdom and his benevolence. He was now past middle age. Though many of his friends and relatives had perished by the machinations of Atotarho, he himself had been spared. The qualities which gained him general respect had, perhaps, not been without influence even on that redoubtable chief. Hiawatha had long beheld with grief the evils which afflicted not only his own nation, but all the other tribes about them, through the continual wars in which they were engaged, and the misgovernment and miseries at home which these wars produced. With much meditation he had elaborated in his mind the scheme of a vast confederation which would ensure universal peace. In the mere plan of a confederation there was nothing new. There are probably few, if any, Indian tribes which have not, at one time or another been members of a league or confederacy. It may almost be said to be their normal condition. But the plan which Hiawatha had evolved differed from all others in two particulars. The system which he devised was to be not a loose and transitory league, but a permanent government. While each nation was to retain its own council and its management of local affairs, the general control was to be lodged in a federal senate, composed of representatives elected by each nation, holding office during good behavior, and acknowledged as ruling chiefs throughout the whole confederacy. Still further, and more remarkably, the confederation was not to be a limited one. It was to be indefinitely expansible. The avowed design of its proposer was to abolish war altogether. He wished the federation to extend until all the tribes of men should be included in it, and peace should everywhere reign. Such is the positive testimony of the Iroquois themselves; and their statement, as will be seen, is supported by historical evidence."

“There is little conclusive evidence for pandemic human violence during the first 99 % of human evolution. During the last 1 % of human evolution there exists clear and often abundant evidence of organized violence and warfare.â€￾

(URY 1999)

http://www.peacealliancefound.org/content/view/118/103/

The history of our country, the actual soil that we walk on in America and those who first walked here, is actually a history of peace. If you had learned your own country's history, Maverick, you would know that peace is not only possible in reality, but did exist.

The story of Hiawatha – The Peacemaker from America. Some people think that his story is like a Disney movie, but that's just ignorant condescension; his story is of a real group of americans who formed a real governing body, who really, in reality, did not sprout wings, but achieved peace on this very piece of earth that we now occupy – the Iroquois Nation in America. Joseph Bruchac tells the history of these first americans better in a National Geographic article that I mentioned on the thread about pixie's engagement and women from the americas, but I have no way of uploading the whole article and posting it here, so this is more of the same story, just lacking Bruchac's talent for adding a lot of texture to the telling of history:

After leaving his canoe on the east shore, De-ka-nah-wi-da travelled overland to another tribal settlement and asked the Chief, "Have you heard that Peace and Power have come to earth?"

"Yes, I have heard," answered the Chief. "I have been thinking about it so much that I have been unable to sleep."

De-ka-nah-wi-da then explained, "That which caused your wakefulness is now before you. Henceforth, you will be called Chief Hiawatha. You shall help me promote peace among all the tribes, so that the shedding of blood may cease among your people."

"Wait," said Hiawatha. "I will summon my people to hear you speak." All assembled quickly.

"I have brought the good tidings of Peace and Power from the Chief of the Sky Spirits to all people on earth. Bloodshed must cease in the land. The Good Spirit never intended that blood should flow between human beings."

Chief Hiawatha asked his tribe for their answer. One man asked, "What will happen to us if hostile tribes are on either side of us?"

"Those nations have already accepted the good news that I have brought them," replied De-ka-nah-wi-da. Hiawatha's tribe then also accepted the new plan of peace. . .


http://www.geocities.com/sye_parker/DeK ... Peace.html

hey mark from your other post about peace, you said that you'd not seen a lot of pictures of peace symbols? well this is interesting because tommy's post made me think about a website that we use at school . . . myhero.com, which is where i first read the un's universal declaration of human rights; ...

she was amazing her crowning achievement is said to be the un's universal declaration of human rights: "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, etc" ...

some of us do blow. and that would be a really fun poem, blowing each other to peace :) "It depends on how to define peace." good point. "We don't all have to sing kumbya and eat granola.... but maybe we don't have to blow each other up also." even better one, imo. my muslim and ...

"Pacifism to me is a noble thought, but not something that can be a reality in our world." i disagree . . . because of this line of thinking: "So anyone who blindly wishes for peace is equivalent in my mind to a child wishing he could sprout wings and fly." because war is complet...