Since the graphic's Native American, why can't it be the Shoshone Pathfinder? Have we seen that one?
There seems to be something weird with barbarians since we have this as well as barbarian battleships - I'd hazard a guess that there will be some new mechanic to lend units to barbarians.
There is nothing about the graphic to say that it's Native American. How on Earth does this nonsense self perpetuate with no basis?
The image do send clues in many directions on its ethnic origin, but the "handaxe" unit do have a distinct mohawk hairdo,but with what looks like a black beard(and to my limited understanding of "indians",they aren't known for their black beards.. A hairstyle originally Indian,but have spread everywhere. But I do support your wisdom Menzies,theories without facts should die out :=)
Thanks,King of big oz, your comment on the barbarians throwing rocks at us made my day,and made me smile :=)
It's an axe unit, if you feel that it looks like a Native American unit that is your own interpretation. Considering that most of the barbarians in the game look European I'm surprised that nobody has said that's a bit culturally insensitive.
Also, how have they "turned backwards" when they actually added another Native American group to the game, instead of a host of considerably better options?
Lots of people did. It's a bit like the Boomerang being assumed to be uniquely Australian. The Egyptians however used them for hunting as well, and collections of them have been found even with Pharaohs. My favourite fun fact of the lot is that the oldest known examples of boomerangs come from the Carpathian mountains in what is today Poland.
As for the throwing axe, I have kept saying it but it seems to fall on deaf ears for the most part; there is nothing about it to suggest that it's a Tomahawk, it doesn't even look specifically like one, it looks like any generic hatchet (also known as hand axes which have subvarieties of throwing axes).
That all said, whilst 'Hand Axe' would seem an odd name for it, there is nothing strictly wrong with it. 'Hand Axe' is a perfectly acceptable name for a hatchet, although the wikipedia article seems to have tunnel vision for hand held axe heads. That said, wikipedia is not some divinely given font of wisdom and that particular article is a bit of a mess truth be told.
While the discussion of whether Hand-axe is a good name or whether it looks Native American is a good one, I'm more interested in why the heck it was necessary to make Barbs worse than they are.
Chariot Archers were by far (for me, at least) the most feared units in earlygame purely because of their speed.
While it is true that the hippie, tree-hugger stereotypes are there, it's also true that Native Americans have a more spiritually based connection with nature in a way European cultures never had - or had but abandoned. Such remains true today in 2013 - many spirtual stories revolve around symbolism from Nature, which includes anything from plants to animals to the cosmos
I think the fallacy is to think that spiritualism is the original state of affairs which got lost in most societies but remains in NA societies.
I think that this "more spiritually based connection with nature" came about later AFTER NA peoples had already damaged their environment irreparably.
Animals hunted to extinction by Native Americans:
woolly mammoths Columbian mammoths American mastodons three types of ground sloths glyptodonts giant armadillos several species of horses four species of pronghorn antelopes three species of camels giant deer several species of oxen giant bison
(Source: UCSB)
Other forms of impact include deforestation and creating a man-made desert (Anasazi) et al.
I'm not saying that NA cultures were inherently more detrimental to their environment than others (because they weren't) - just that a romanticized idea of their communion with nature is not doing them justice.
I think the fallacy is to think that spiritualism is the original state of affairs which got lost in most societies but remains in NA societies.
I think that this "more spiritually based connection with nature" came about later AFTER NA peoples had already damaged their environment irreparably.
Animals hunted to extinction by Native Americans:
(Source: UCSB)
Other forms of impact include deforestation and creating a man-made desert (Anasazi) et al.
I'm not saying that NA cultures were inherently more detrimental to their environment than others (because they weren't) - just that a romanticized idea of their communion with nature is not doing them justice.
I think it would be accurate to say that the Native American penchant for animism has been co-opted by modern Euro-American environmentalists to endorse a low-impact lifestyle that the Native Americans themselves may not have practiced.
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