I am sick to death of everyone saying “Native Americans” and glorifying us like we were all one people living in some naked nirvana talking to animals like brown Dr. Dolittles.
NEWS FLASH: Not all of us like each other. Stop lumping us together.
- We had different traditions, values, languages and culture. (The Iroquois people and the Cherokee people are VASTLY different for example.)
- Some tribes had matriarchy, some patriarchy, some neither of those.
- Some Natives had a written language (Cherokee and I believe the Creek), some did not.
- Some tribes had polygamy, some did not.
- They waged war and killed each other, and some hated each other— they didn’t live a utopia.
Colonialism was terrible and killed many oral tribal traditions leaving generations of native people displaced and lacking in solidity in community and identity which has led to poverty and addictions on the reservations and in displaced natives everywhere, but we are still not all the same and those of us left are keeping our cultures alive any way we can, don’t homogenize us together.