Gov sends Indians to track illegals

[Fisherking]

Mar. 1 - An elite group of Native American trackers, the Shadow Wolves, is helping secure the United States border by using their ancient skills to catch drug and human smugglers.
Reuters Liza Feria and Krystian Orlinski followed the Shadow Wolves and they filed this report.

http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=17628

Ever notice the things government agencies use Native Americans for…

Too bad they use their skills but never seem to pay attention to their spiritual or environmental views.:no:

[Ronin]

this seems to uphold a certain stereotype...now doesn´t it?:idea2:

http://www.gasolinealleyantiques.com/kits/images/Miscellaneous/aurora-tonto.JPG

[English assassin]

Hmm. Is it me, or are these native americans shutting the door on immigration to the USA about 300 years too late?? :yes:

[Watchman]

Hey, they did make the effort back in the day.

..."Shadow Wolves"...? :inquisitive: Native American or not, that's still one cheesy name...

[ShadeHonestus]

Hey, they did make the effort back in the day.

..."Shadow Wolves"...? :inquisitive: Native American or not, that's still one cheesy name...

Thats a pretty ethnocentric point of view. The name is extremely fitting given their culture which I believe is Navajo.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It probably has conotations of "Man who will sneek up behind you and slit your throat."

It's nice to know American Imperialism is alive and well, this is exactly the sort of thing we British used to use the natives for.

[Scurvy]

this is exactly the sort of thing we British used to use the natives for.

:2thumbsup:

[R'as al Ghul]

I've never understood why Tonto is called Tonto (Spanish=Idiot). Iirc he saves Lone Ronger's butt in every story. If Tonto is stupid what is Lone Ranger?

[Ronin]

I've never understood why Tonto is called Tonto (Spanish=Idiot). Iirc he saves Lone Ronger's butt in every story. If Tonto is stupid what is Lone Ranger?

..uhhmmmmm? :idea2: he´s white? :laugh4:

[Banquo's Ghost]

Mar. 1 - An elite group of Native American trackers, the Shadow Wolves, is helping secure the United States border by using their ancient skills to catch drug and human smugglers.
Reuters Liza Feria and Krystian Orlinski followed the Shadow Wolves and they filed this report.

I don't see what's so elite about these trackers if they can be followed by a couple of palefaces.

:wink:

[ShadeHonestus]

I don't see what's so elite about these trackers if they can be followed by a couple of palefaces.

:wink:

palefaces had GPS...

[lars573]

..uhhmmmmm? :idea2: he´s white? :laugh4:
As a native Canadian tracker from WW2 said. "White man make to much noise." :wink3:

[caravel]

I've never understood why Tonto is called Tonto (Spanish=Idiot). Iirc he saves Lone Ronger's butt in every story. If Tonto is stupid what is Lone Ranger?
In Spanish Tonto/a does mean "fool" (estúpido/a is the word for stupid). I'm pretty sure that it doesn't relate to the Spanish word, but was just a made up name or maybe derived from a native American word meaning something else entirely.

[Fragony]

Too bad they use their skills but never seem to pay attention to their spiritual or environmental views.:no:

More of a marriage,

http://soba.fortlewis.edu/cotour/Casino.jpg

[ShadeHonestus]

Too bad they use their skills but never seem to pay attention to their spiritual or environmental views.

Actually their record on environmentalism has been greatly skewed. The typical ecological footprint of the Native American was quite large. Much of the reason for this myth is the hunting and gathering lifestyle by many of the tribes and their religious connection to nature, but there is plenty more to the story. :yes:

[Fisherking]

Actually their record on environmentalism has been greatly skewed. The typical ecological footprint of the Native American was quite large. Much of the reason for this myth is the hunting and gathering lifestyle by many of the tribes and their religious connection to nature, but there is plenty more to the story. :yes:

LOL, I am aware of that fallacy…But much of it was how they used what they had. They scalped the environment to support the lifestyles to a large extent…something we could learn from rather than paving it over. Spiritually and even politically they had lessons to teach as well. And yes we are making some slow progress, in spite of environmentalists who want us all dead. Besides I should have to be less general in that statement as some of the cultures were likely much worse than we are today. I know I am mostly unimpressed with the religious aspects of most of Mesoamerica. Spirituality though is not religion.

I am sure this programme has brought a few decent paying jobs to people who need them also. I am sure it will provide the same boost to those tribes on the northern border. But if it works too well I am sure we will see it go away…

[ShadeHonestus]

Spiritually and even politically they had lessons to teach as well.

This is one of the greatest missed opportunities in early American history. On one hand you had the Native American populations that were largely individualistic. They didn't have the traditional role of leadership, nobody could be ordered to do this or that. Leaders were in fact largely advisory and followed only when respected and in any individuals best interest. You also had the fledgling U.S. that placed a large value on the individual. The common ground was there...but terrible ethnocentrism and lack of vision let the opportunity slide.

[Watchman]

Actually, I'd say it was just the "whites" being at an entirely different stage of socioeconomical developement. Structures that work quite fine for what are essentially low-tech "tribal" communities are flatly inadequate even for sophisticated agrarian societies nevermind now something as endelssly complicated as was the norm among Eurasian "civilizations" of, say, the Early Modern period.

After all, that is exactly why the Eurasians had ditched their equivalent structures long ago and started developing more complex division of labor and hierarchies to manage the whole mess. Ditto for the high-cultures of Central and South America, Africa etc.

[ShadeHonestus]

Actually, I'd say it was just the "whites" being at an entirely different stage of socioeconomical developement. Structures that work quite fine for what are essentially low-tech "tribal" communities are flatly inadequate even for sophisticated agrarian societies nevermind now something as endelssly complicated as was the norm among Eurasian "civilizations" of, say, the Early Modern period.

After all, that is exactly why the Eurasians had ditched their equivalent structures long ago and started developing more complex division of labor and hierarchies to manage the whole mess. Ditto for the high-cultures of Central and South America, Africa etc.

That is an excellent point as the way you state it and I like the way you came about that as its very rational. So it pains me to some degree to tell you that its rather inaccurate. In most cases tribes gave up more settled existences and became more hunter gatherer in nature. This is especially true when pressure was applied from the east. The vast majority of tribes had very complex divisions of labor and economies, although foreign to the Europeans in concept served efficiently the same purposes.

The tribal existence most see popularized in modern writings and movies are those largely of the great plains, namely the Sioux and like tribes. These societies were formerly very complex agrarian societies along the Mississippi river valley and great lakes region. The tribes on each coast were highly evolved societies.

The "low tech tribal communities" had nothing to do with ability to perform a sophisticated agrarian society. In fact this is a perception born out of religion and the ethnic intolerance of the settlers furthered by the what was seen in the aftermath of disease. The settlers from Europe were the ones who were ill suited to the farming environment of North America, not vice versa. In fact at the time of discovery and settlement Europe was still almost entirely reliant on cereal crops. Even after new species were brought back to Europe it took decades upon decades upon decades for their cultures to slowly accept them as something more than inferior food beneath them culturally. A factor that only amplified famine after famine in Europe from 1500-1800. Even with fact evidence of the sustainability of non cereal crops from North America in changing climates, the Europeans refused on basis of cultural superiority. Even Louis the soon to be headless tried to convince the peasants that it was okay to grow potatoes...the French were the last to adopt non-cereal crops, long after the revolution....but I’m going off on a tangent, even though its relevance.

[Watchman]

Look, I know my history. I also know full well the diverse extent of Stone Age modes of subsistence, and I also know the Native Americans (we're talking those of the northern continent here, correct ?) adhered pretty much to the exact same patterns as were found here until the end of Stone Age and which are in fact still lingering around in some very remote corners of the world.

Which is, low-tech "tribal" agrarian communities, with hunting, fishing etc. providing an important nutritional supplement to the cereal yields of the comparatively unsophisticated agriculture, and a comparatively low degree of occupational specialization in the society. Local communities could form larger, if typically rather loose, political units if needed, tribal confederations usually. Standard stuff for low-tech existence then.

The above of course applies primarily to the dwellers of the northern forest regions, which are ecologically essentially interchangeable with the Eurasian forest belt and hence exert the same environmental pressures on their inhabitants. The other regions of the continent - the great plains, the mountains, the southern arid deserts etc. of course parallel different areas elsewhere.

Anyway, all that is the stuff of the socioeconimical and cultural stage before the advent of advanced, high-yield, labour-intensive agriculture and similar modes of production that place greater demands on the people engaging in them but also produce considerably more surplus, which in turn allows for the emergence of true professional specialization, various experts, adminstrators, engineers, bureaucrats, surveyors, inventors, astronomers, philosophers, priests, kings and other potentates, professional warrior classes, cities, major public works requiring the mobilizations of vast human and material resources, the whole nine yards; in short what is usually labeled "civilization" or "urban civilization", as one of its hallmarks has always been the advent of cities. The native cultures of Central and Southern America did cross the threshold to that latter stage; given enough time, so would eventually the northerners as well but as we all know their history was kind of cut short.

[ShadeHonestus]

You are confusing socioeconomical fitness with a eurocentric view of civilization development and claiming one was superior to the other in its ability to administer a complex agrarian society. I pointed out the flaw in that argmument in that the Native Americans were far more fit for their environment than were the "more advanced" europeans.

There is no doubt that technologically the Europeans were superior, but what failed Europeans (edit: agriculturally) was their ethnocentric view which is what also prevented any possibility of meaningful cultural discourse between the two at that time.

Your argument is indicative of the problem, the Europeans felt the Native Americans had little to offer culturally as they perceived them, incorrectly, as only a rear view mirror image of themselves...not to mention, Godless to boot.

[edit] BTW the northern tribes had cities every bit as grand as those of central america as the archaeological record dictates. Pyramid developement in the Mississippi River Valley actually preceded Central and South America as well.

[Hosakawa Tito]

It probably has conotations of "Man who will sneek up behind you and slit your throat."

It's nice to know American Imperialism is alive and well, this is exactly the sort of thing we British used to use the natives for.

Yeah, but now that we've given them casinos, they're going to buy their country back, tax free.....

[Watchman]

BTW the northern tribes had cities every bit as grand as those of central america as the archaeological record dictates. Pyramid developement in the Mississippi River Valley actually preceded Central and South America as well.River valleys were ever the cradle of "hydraulic empires" - ask the Mesopotamians and Chinese and Egyptians and the Indus cultures and...

What happened to these, incidentally ? I know full well some of the areas outside the forest zone were relatively far along the "civilization" axis - ecology is important here; there's a reason the woods of Germany didn't spawn sophisticated "civilizations" on their own for example - but I'm under the impression they were in some kind of slump by the time Europeans got to the region.


You are confusing socioeconomical fitness with a eurocentric view of civilization development and claiming one was superior to the other in its ability to administer a complex agrarian society. I pointed out the flaw in that argmument in that the Native Americans were far more fit for their environment than were the "more advanced" europeans.

There is no doubt that technologically the Europeans were superior, but what failed Europeans (edit: agriculturally) was their ethnocentric view which is what also prevented any possibility of meaningful cultural discourse between the two at that time.

Your argument is indicative of the problem, the Europeans felt the Native Americans had little to offer culturally as they perceived them, incorrectly, as only a rear view mirror image of themselves...not to mention, Godless to boot.I'm not confusing anything here. On the contrary, you're confusing the perfectly normal adaptation to local resource base with socioeconomical, technological and organizational sophistication. Of course the natives and their methods and culture were "fitted" to the local conditions; they'd grown out of those to begin with ferchrissakes. And of course they had the advantage here over the newcomers, especially, as you quite correctly say, the European colonists were being stubborn arrogant idiots and persistently tried to transplant their entire material culture and the associated ecology across the ocean. Would you believe the Spanish and Portugese actually shipped quite a lot of foodstuffs to their colonies for no other reason than the nostalgic desire of the inhabitants for "food just like back home..." and willingness to shell out a fair bit of dough to get it ?

Still, where the Europeans managed to take root for good they swallowed the bitter pill sooner or later and adapted. I would incidentally also imagine Scandinavian colonists in the coniferous forest zone had little trouble with that, since the ecology was for most intents and purposes identical to the one home. Heck, the flora and fauna were and are virtually identical to boot...

Anyway, I could tell you a fair few stories about how arrogantly dismissing the practices of the natives, or foreigners in general, brought a lot of problems to a whole lot of people, and not just Europeans overseas.

That does not change the fact that Eurasian societies in general were developed to a much higher degree of sophistication and complexity, nevermind now technology, than at the very least the North American ones and, in some ways at least, the highly advanced Southern ones as well. Frankly, that was probably mostly due to the way they'd spent the last... two or three millenia incessantly fighting each other creating a need to strive for an edge over your adversaries, but that's beside the point.


In fact at the time of discovery and settlement Europe was still almost entirely reliant on cereal crops. Even after new species were brought back to Europe it took decades upon decades upon decades for their cultures to slowly accept them as something more than inferior food beneath them culturally. A factor that only amplified famine after famine in Europe from 1500-1800. Even with fact evidence of the sustainability of non cereal crops from North America in changing climates, the Europeans refused on basis of cultural superiority. Even Louis the soon to be headless tried to convince the peasants that it was okay to grow potatoes...the French were the last to adopt non-cereal crops, long after the revolution....but I’m going off on a tangent, even though its relevance....do you happen to know when was the point when more people were living in cities rather than out on the countryside (and hence did not derive their livelihood from more-or-less agrarian occupations) ? The Nineties. Until then, for an estimated 8,000 years, the majority of the people on the planet were engaged in cultivating the land for their livelihood.

Anyway, Europeans were largely dependent on cereal crops for the exact same reason the Americans were big on maize and potatoes and the Asians rice (Europeans incidentally started growing rice in the Mediterranean marshlands during the Renaissance - silkworms had been imported almost a millenia earlier...). As for the potatoes (and, one would guess, maize as well), of course there was lag in accepting them. People didn't quite know how to cultivate them or what to do with them for one, and what had been picked up of American techniques had to be adapted to local conditions. Moreover peasants always resent change, especially if it comes in the form of their landlord wanting them to start growing some weird newfangled foreign root.
They had good reasons for that sort of heel-dragging as well. "Change" usually meant for them "trouble", and in any case they already had their hands full keeping famine away with tried-and-true agricultural techniques; trying to include an entirely new and untried one would have meant that much less effort available on the established staples and that much higher risk of a disaster if something went wrong (as it altogether too often did; farming being an unpleasantly volatile method of sustenance).

Plus, since the most avid proponents of the new plants were almost certainly great landlords who sought to introduce them to their serf-worked, cash-crop-growing latifundias, three guesses how well free peasantry either took to them or had access to the necessary resources to adopt them ?

Incidentally, didn't wheat and corn and whatnot take pretty well to the American plains ?

[ShadeHonestus]

River valleys were ever the cradle of "hydraulic empires" - ask the Mesopotamians and Chinese and Egyptians and the Indus cultures and...


Your choice of the term “hydraulic empires” does not apply to the prevalent culture of North America; however it does have some minor applications in Mesoamerica. If you’re simply trying to express the relationship between freshwater sources and the development of communities then this is applicable to a degree and not a point of contestation.




What happened to these, incidentally ? I know full well some of the areas outside the forest zone were relatively far along the "civilization" axis - ecology is important here; there's a reason the woods of Germany didn't spawn sophisticated "civilizations" on their own for example - but I'm under the impression they were in some kind of slump by the time Europeans got to the region.



When you ask "what happened to these" are you asking as to your examples of hydraulic empires or those referenced in my statement that you quoted? Your term of "sophisticated" doesn't fit in your view of civilization development. On the contrary it practically excludes your model in your typifying of European society as sophisticated at the point of contact and through conquest.



...do you happen to know when was the point when more people were living in cities rather than out on the countryside (and hence did not derive their livelihood from more-or-less agrarian occupations) ? The Nineties. Until then, for an estimated 8,000 years, the majority of the people on the planet were engaged in cultivating the land for their livelihood.



Actually, the turn of majority most likely happened this year or last as the last stat I remember hearing was in 2005 and that gave us a stat of only 48% (and change) urban. That’s if you’re talking worldwide. Europe urbanized about 1890 while the U.S. turned the corner ca. 1920.



Anyway, Europeans were largely dependent on cereal crops for the exact same reason the Americans were big on maize and potatoes and the Asians rice (Europeans incidentally started growing rice in the Mediterranean marshlands during the Renaissance - silkworms had been imported almost a millenia earlier...).

This proves the point that adaptation was largely cultural in resistance or acceptance. The archaeological record shows the spread of cultivating the crops of the western hemisphere spread like lightning throughout the Americas. Also the spread of rice cultivation in Southern Europe dates back to returning armies of Alexander ca. 300 BC and the Roman Empire, I believe by 700AD, saw its greatest spread as an acceptable crop. Later (1500's?) rice went into Southern France and parts of Italy where it had not been prior. However rice did undergo some further heresies in France in particular. So thats not bad, 1800 years for France to catch on to a crop that had been adopted by the pragmatic roman culture some 1300 years prior. :inquisitive:



As for the potatoes (and, one would guess, maize as well), of course there was lag in accepting them. People didn't quite know how to cultivate them or what to do with them for one, and what had been picked up of American techniques had to be adapted to local conditions.

Moreover peasants always resent change, especially if it comes in the form of their landlord wanting them to start growing some weird newfangled foreign root.



It wasn’t just resistance by peasants although by and large they resisted the most, nobles of all walks resisted on the basis of cultural superiority. You characterization that these peasants resisting something “newfangled” or “foreign” is cultural resistance, not just because its different, but is ethnocentric by definition. Northern Europe even had huge problems listening to their more pragmatic Mediterranean cousins let alone the heathens in the new world.



They had good reasons for that sort of heel-dragging as well. "Change" usually meant for them "trouble", and in any case they already had their hands full keeping famine away with tried-and-true agricultural techniques; trying to include an entirely new and untried one would have meant that much less effort available on the established staples and that much higher risk of a disaster if something went wrong (as it altogether too often did; farming being an unpleasantly volatile method of sustenance).


The idea that changes means trouble stemmed largely from religion at this time and resulted in ethnocentric cognitive dissonance. The case in point is just a stone’s throw away in history as found in the more pragmatic Roman civilization. New technologies were able to take root and spread with relative ease. The peasant population that you speak of didn’t have their hands full keeping famine away as the level of knowledge at this time consisted of only their primary life function and that had been limited agricultural knowledge and religious teachings. Education of the masses was not yet a widespread practice for Northern Europe. If they had their hands full doing anything, it was eating their seed stores as their crops failed thereby creating more problems. The crops of which I speak were shown, by the affluent, to survive climate change and provide a staple to augment their traditional methods and crops, not completely replace. The resistance came not from some well reasoned pragmatic view, but by cultural arrogance. They did finally find their saving grace. Instead of adopting proven agricultural benefits they began blaming the famines on witches and we all know how that story ended. Some 50,000 burned can’t be wrong.



Incidentally, didn't wheat and corn and whatnot take pretty well to the American plains ?

Yes, wheat and corn took extremely well to the American Plains. Of course you should know that large native cultures cultivated corn on the plains prior to European contact.

I've worked with and in the archaeological community for years. Particularly specializing in paleo-Indians, I've worked with many disciplines and even those who work culturally and physically with the European record. In fact, most department chairs I've worked have specialized in the agricultural record of different populations. The point being that you largely write from the perspective of an individual with, at least, a cursory understanding of history and the study thereof. However, if this is true you also know that the study of anthropology and archaeology is not the same as the study of history and there has always been cognitive dissonance when the two get together...especially when one representative lacks humility.

[Fisherking]

The disintegration of native societies in the Americas began with diseases. These predated the landings of the first successful settlements and actually made them possible. The Massachusetts Bay Colony in particular would have starved had they not been raiding the graves and abandoned towns of the area in the first winter.

There is good evidence that we have always underestimated the population of the Americas and some estimates put it above Europe and perhaps Asia at the time.

Their technologies were also not as inferior as you might have been taught, but they were of a different bent. I won't go into the differences here but you can research them if you choose. Remember the Spaniards did adopt cotton armor in Peru.

Most of what we think of as the Horse Culture were previously settled or semi settled farmers before (not horses but) firearms became available.

Something similar seems to have happened in South America were remnant populations took to the wilds and reverted to hunter-gatherer lifestyles.

A lot of those huge animal populations seen in the late 1700s and 1800s may in fact be resurgent populations who were no longer under the predatory pressure of before.

Several of the plains tribes have legends of the time the buffalo went away and how they were when they came back. George Bird Grinnell's works may provide some insights as he was about the first to actually record some of the old tales. These were stories in the living memories of some of these people.

[ShadeHonestus]

George Bird Grinnell's work was definitely of great importance and an asset to many scholars. He was typical of the kind of retroactive desire to understand that surfaced after the injustices piled upon the natives at the hand of European settlers and the U.S. Government became well cultivated in the high brow society in the easternmost U.S. The Indian Affairs failures following the Civil War really brought these to the forefront.

Unfortunately his work wasn't completely free of misunderstanding. Aside from some issues arising from cultural distinctions and translations, some of his work has unwittingly been the foundation for misconception such as evidence relating the bison as part of their spirituality and eventually sustenance places them as strictly a culture west of the Mississippi. Today most are not educated to know the that the bison range stretched across the Appalachian range to the east. Not to mention the typical student was and is largely unaware of the work in linguistic anthropology.

Many also forget that in the Northern Hemisphere there were 400 years from contact to conquest and when dealing with a people who's history is largely an oral tradition the only thing that can largely speak to the truth are the disciplines of anthropology.

[Fisherking]

Navajo Indian trackers trail illegal immigrants on Europe's wild frontier

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/30/wnav30.xml

Well I guess the US wasn't the first this century to think of this.

Whoops! I guess they were…they have been at it for a while.

http://www.azstarnet.com/clips/trackers.html

These stories by a NW Native American Indian telling what he thinks.
http://nwrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/02/forget-calvary.html

http://nwrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/04/bc-bud.html

[Redleg]

Tracking has long been a cultivated skill among many of the desert (Southwest) tribes of Native Americans. To include the whites that settled on the frontier, however several tribes are well known for their skill in this area. These tribes along with the tribes in Northern Mexico often tracked each other for days along their terrorities in the conflicts that span beyond the european and white american settlement of the area.

Utilizing individuals that have a skill to protect the border of their nation is not imperialism. Unfortunately the stupidity of Europeans in the past taints such a law enforcement effort in the present. Coupled with the fact that the Navajo have a long history of serving the nation smacks the charge of imperialism to the past where it belongs. I guess someone would make that same claim of the Navajo volunteers of WW2. You might want to check into that one before making claims that this is modern imperialism. Volunteer's for performing missions is service to nation, not imperialism.

[KukriKhan]

Looks like the group has a new mission (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21364526-2703,00.html).