Indigenous Consultation - Shawnee

[ls612]

I think the original point is that
Oral histories
1. don’t outlast the population dying off
2. require you to talk to the people that tell them (they were a little bit harder to mass copy and distribute for most of the past 500 years)

So for a population with a lot of oral history
1. if they are still alive in massive numbers…a lot of it has probably been written down now
2. if they are still alive in smaller numbers…. you need to talk to them
3. if there is no one believably claiming to be them…you need archaeology (and talk to the locals)

Agreed. In the 21st century there is absolutely no excuse for not writing down all surviving oral history to ensure its preservation.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I think the original point is that
Oral histories
1. don’t outlast the population dying off
2. require you to talk to the people that tell them (they were a little bit harder to mass copy and distribute for most of the past 500 years)

So for a population with a lot of oral history
1. if they are still alive in massive numbers…a lot of it has probably been written down now
2. if they are still alive in smaller numbers…. you need to talk to them
3. if there is no one believably claiming to be them…you need archaeology (and talk to the locals)

most notably, i think one further point is historically, written records are not inherently more reliable, but because of tendencies to be influenced by dogma, and editorialism, they have the possibility to be more changed over time.

it’s a little counter intuitive, but native oral tradition is how we know that washed up pine branches in japan were caused by the pacific megaquake in the early 1700s

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Agreed. In the 21st century there is absolutely no excuse for not writing down all surviving oral history to ensure its preservation.

totally, unless there’s a cultural or religious reason not to. We can always do audio recordings now too—this is a big reason why extinct and almost-extinct languages like ainu have been able to be revived

 

[ls612]

totally, unless there’s a cultural or religious reason not to. We can always do audio recordings now too—this is a big reason why extinct and almost-extinct languages like ainu have been able to be revived

I feel like if you refuse to let your oral traditions or language be documented for preservation then you shouldn't complain about them going extinct.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I feel like if you refuse to let your oral traditions or language be documented for preservation then you shouldn't complain about them going extinct.

some cultures expect people within the culture to maintain those traditions. i don’t think the complaints would be leveled anywhere elsewhere than inwards for those specific failings, even if the initial cause of decline was external

it’s like how zoroastrianism is an exclusive practice, so children of zoroastrians who married non-zoroastrians cannot practice zoroastrianism. as a result, the religion is declining. you or i can’t really do much about that, the culture/religion says what it does.

the best you can do is describe what it is/was and hope those traditions are protected by those within the tradition someway or another

 

[lymond]

Moderator Action: Please stay on topic and keep the context about Shawnee. thanks - lymond

 

[OzzyKP]

this is definitely something I don’t agree with, especially with indigenous people, who historically have had their own historical narratives wiped out and replaced by colonial fanfiction of how “the natives were weak and uncivilized, so we wiped them out”

there’s also a very common trend, especially in the US, for indigenous north americans to be stereotyped a single way—headdress, teepee, powwow, military ppl, etc. Consulting with elders and experts is often necessary to unlearn these stereotypes.

not to mention more insidious and less well known forms of ethnic cleansing like residential schools, which often find their way into these types of games through erasure of language and culture in popular knowledge. so consultation is necessary here

I agree with all of this, but it does need to be balanced against the modern fanfaction that indigenous people lived peaceful lives in harmony with nature.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I agree with all of this, but it does need to be balanced against the modern fanfaction that indigenous people lived peaceful lives in harmony with nature.

i’ll try to keep this on topic, but it depends on what you’re talking about here—it’s pretty well researched that some of the most intact habitats left on earth are under indigenous stewardship.

not all cultures followed western forms of land ownership/usage/resource extraction.

when people talk about certain indigenous peoples not exploitating the land, its not a “modern fanfiction” (necessarily), its describing these alternative relationships with the land

i’m not saying there isn’t a romanticization of these things in certain circles (there definitely can be), but we do have a lot of evidence that there was *more* harmony with *certain* indigenous peoples—obviously just as there are indigenous peoples in canada and america who didn’t mine, there were indigenous people explicitly known for their metalworking elsewhere.

 

[Zaarin]

I agree with all of this, but it does need to be balanced against the modern fanfaction that indigenous people lived peaceful lives in harmony with nature.

This is why I disliked some of the changes to AoE3. The Native American consultant proposed all of his ideas couched in the romantic view that Native peoples were environmentally minded, when in reality they simply liked the means and motives to abuse the environment in the same way Europeans did (and nevertheless engaged in serious deforestation, and, given the means, drove the beaver and white-tail deer to local extinction). This also annoyed me with how the Iroquois were presented in Civ5, given, again, they engaged in serious deforestation in New York. Romantic stereotypes can also be damaging, and I'm glad to see the Shawnee aren't being presented that way but focusing on the Shawnee's role as traders and diplomats in the Eastern Woodlands.

we do have a lot of evidence that there was *more* harmony with *certain* indigenous peoples

It was a matter of means and motives. The lower population density was less taxing on their environment; it wasn't an innate sense of environmentalism.

 

[Phrozen]

I still want a Comanche civ as they would be quite astereotypical to the way that tribes north of the Rio Grande are typically depicted.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

It was a matter of means and motives. The lower population density was less taxing on their environment; it wasn't an innate sense of environmentalism.

yeah for sure. it’s all about balance for me. you don’t want to romanticize, but there’s obviously basis for certain claims that needs to be introspected upon more before outright denied

one of the big ones that i can recall is the influence the maori had on deforesting new zealand, the extinction of the moa, etc.

 

[OzzyKP]

This is why I disliked some of the changes to AoE3. The Native American consultant proposed all of his ideas couched in the romantic view that Native peoples were environmentally minded, when in reality they simply liked the means and motives to abuse the environment in the same way Europeans did (and nevertheless engaged in serious deforestation, and, given the means, drove the beaver and white-tail deer to local extinction). This also annoyed me with how the Iroquois were presented in Civ5, given, again, they engaged in serious deforestation in New York. Romantic stereotypes can also be damaging, and I'm glad to see the Shawnee aren't being presented that way but focusing on the Shawnee's role as traders and diplomats in the Eastern Woodlands.

It was a matter of means and motives. The lower population density was less taxing on their environment; it wasn't an innate sense of environmentalism.

I've heard it said somewhere that the North American indigenous tribes should be seen as, essentially, a post-apocalyptic people. By the time the French, English, Dutch, etc made it up there they'd already been ravaged by disease (and climate change, etc) for generations and experienced catastrophic population loss. Before that "crisis" (to borrow Civ7's language) the people in NA were far better at exploiting the environment and had large cities and resource extraction, etc (i.e. the Mississippians). The scattered bands our ancestors encountered were the refugees from a collapsed civilization eeking out a living.

Not sure how accurate that is, but it has really been an interesting reframing of our typical idea of native americans that I hadn't considered before.

 

[Zaarin]

I've heard it said somewhere that the North American indigenous tribes should be seen as, essentially, a post-apocalyptic people. By the time the French, English, Dutch, etc made it up there they'd already been ravaged by disease (and climate change, etc) for generations and experienced catastrophic population loss. Before that "crisis" (to borrow Civ7's language) the people in NA were far better at exploiting the environment and had large cities and resource extraction, etc (i.e. the Mississippians). The scattered bands our ancestors encountered were the refugees from a collapsed civilization eeking out a living.

Not sure how accurate that is, but it has really been an interesting reframing of our typical idea of native americans that I hadn't considered before.

Interestingly, archaeology points towards indigenous societies going through a cycle where they'd centralize and urbanize, collapse, decentralize and egalitarianize, and repeat over the course of centuries. One could certainly term that postapocalyptic (and yes, by the time North American Natives were encountered face to face, they had been ravaged by smallpox and other European diseases that spread from Mesoamerica nearly a century earlier--indeed, disease spread so quickly that it even beat Pizarro to the Andes).

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Interestingly, archaeology points towards indigenous societies going through a cycle where they'd centralize and urbanize, collapse, decentralize and egalitarianize, and repeat over the course of centuries. One could certainly term that postapocalyptic (and yes, by the time North American Natives were encountered face to face, they had been ravaged by smallpox and other European diseases that spread from Mesoamerica nearly a century earlier--indeed, disease spread so quickly that it even beat Pizarro to the Andes).

this is so interesting to think about. it really makes you wonder how much different things could’ve been without colonial influences if there wasn’t (historically) a consistent tendency towards urbanization the way there has tended to be in europe and asia and rather these cycles you speak of.

i had no idea this was the case, very cool

 

[Krikkit1]

this is so interesting to think about. it really makes you wonder how much different things could’ve been without colonial influences if there wasn’t (historically) a consistent tendency towards urbanization the way there has tended to be in europe and asia and rather these cycles you speak of.

i had no idea this was the case, very cool

I do remember hearing that those cycles were actually fairly common many places.... situations support centralization & urbanization.... and eventually influences from outside or the urbanization itself breaks it up.

 

[ls612]

Even in a similar geographic area as the Shawnee you had sedentary agricultural societies like the Iroquois which were busy developing small urban centers around the Great Lakes shortly before Europeans arrived.

 

[Evie]

I'm still wondering, given that the Shawnee have an arguably Fort Ancient wonder, and that the Fort Ancient culture are widely suspected of being archaeological Shawnee, if the devs aren't doing exactly what Zaarin has been saying all along they should do with the Mississippian: give them a civ named after one of their descendant culture.

If the Shawnee are meant to represent in part or in wholethe Fort Ancient Culture, then having them in the so-called Exploration Age while most everyone else from the 1700s is in Modern would actually make (some) sense.

 

[Professor Phobo]

I really hope the Iroquois make it in. I've had a weird fascination with them since like, the third grade, when we had some sort of (obviously probably doesn't stand up now) "Lets Learn About the Native Americans!" unit.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I do remember hearing that those cycles were actually fairly common many places.... situations support centralization & urbanization.... and eventually influences from outside or the urbanization itself breaks it up.

that's a fair point. I can't think of any examples immediately off the top of my head besides perhaps the bronze age collapse, but obviously it's not like every city we have today are the cities we had 3000 years ago either. Moreso that european societies, at a minimum, have generally trended towards staying urbanized once they start doing so, just not necessarily in the same exact geographical locations. But thats maybe not accurate either and I just can't think of good examples to disprove that at the exact moment.

 

[Zaarin]

Even in a similar geographic area as the Shawnee you had sedentary agricultural societies like the Iroquois which were busy developing small urban centers around the Great Lakes shortly before Europeans arrived.

I'd prefer to call the Iroquois semi-sedentary since they moved their villages every few years and still relied more on hunting than on agriculture, but I 100% agree with calling them urbanized.

I really hope the Iroquois make it in. I've had a weird fascination with them since like, the third grade, when we had some sort of (obviously probably doesn't stand up now) "Lets Learn About the Native Americans!" unit.

I hope FXS makes them as aggressive and terrifying as they were historically TBH.