“All people have
blind spots in their memory of the past, but the Southeastern Indians are the
virtual amnesia in our historical consciousness.”
- Charles Hudson, The Southeastern Indians.
I found the book, The Southeastern Indians
, to be by far the best book on the history of tribes in this region,
covering history from ancient to present. The tribes of this region had no
written history, so he has thoroughly documented his research with numerous
maps and photos. Hudson pulls together
artifacts and weaves them together to paint a picture of day-to-day life.
, to be by far the best book on the history of tribes in this region,
covering history from ancient to present. The tribes of this region had no
written history, so he has thoroughly documented his research with numerous
maps and photos. Hudson pulls together
artifacts and weaves them together to paint a picture of day-to-day life.
Hudson begins by emphasizing the importance of the culture, and
contrasts it with the gap in our knowledge:
“The native people of
the American South – the Southeastern Indians – possessed the
richest culture of any of the native people north of Mexico. It was the richest
by almost any measure. At the time Europeans first came to the New World, the
Southeastern Indians lived on the fruits of an economy which combined farming
with hunting and gathering; they organized themselves into relatively complex
political units; they built large towns and monumental ceremonial centers; and
they possessed a rich symbolism and an expressive art style. But hardly any of
this has left an impression on our historical memory. The average American has
some notion of the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the role they played in our
early colonial history; he has a clear but stereotyped concept of the Indians
who lived on the Great Plains; he may know something about the Navajo and
Pueblo Indians of the Southwest; but he knows little or nothing about the
Southeastern Indians.”
He
continues:
“The Indians of the
Southeast have been inadequately portrayed both by historians and anthropologists.
The reasons for failure are many. One general problem has been that the Indian
cultures were so different from European cultures that it has been difficult
for European intellectuals to translate the life experience of Indians into
terms a layman can readily understand; this problem still exists today, but it
was even more acute when Europeans colonization first began. But perhaps the
foremost for our ignorance about the Southeastern Indians is simply that many
of them were killed, their societies disrupted, and their cultures greatly
changed before the day when educated people thought the Indian cultures were
worth studying.”
Stay tuned. We will continue this theme in our writings in the
weeks ahead.
