hmmmmm....I've read that the great Mayan and Inca civilizations were not
quite so harmonious, and indeed were very brutal. Their treatment of the
fringe tribes, as I understand it, allowed the Spaniards to co-opt the
dominated tribes and helped them topple the mighty empires. Or so I've
read. My sense is that these societies were quite human, with all the
problems that have been part of the human experience elsewhere.
We've just bought a new house and are fixin' to move across town, so I
don't have much time to devote to this right now. I just did some skimming
of Wikipedia entries, which support the idea that for various reasons
(including the belief that Cortes was Quetzalkoatl, the Plumed Serpent),
marginalized tribes worked with the Spaniards in their conquest.
Peter
At 04:58 PM 12/1/2006 -0800, you wrote:
>Yes, the Europeans were not only stupider than the native Americans they
>were also more diseased in other ways. (What westerhn hemisphere disease
>did Europeans die of?)) Guns, Germs and Steel was a great read in 1967
>but it has nothing at all to do with the fact that superior military power
>(steel and guns) allowed the Europeans to massacre the armies of the
>Mexica and the Runa. In the process, in the name of the Prince of Peace,
>they destroyed a knowledge far superior to their own as to how humans can
>harmoniously inhabit the earth.
>
> Paul Dillon
>
>Tony Whitson <twhitson@UDel.Edu> wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Dec 2006, Mike Cole wrote:
>
> > My impression was that far more Native AMericans died of the diseases
> > brought by Europeans than their guns!
>
>Along these lines, in case anyone has missed this book, Jared Diamond's
>"Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" may be of interest.
>
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