Re: [Paddlewise] stupid natives

skimmer wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 7:01 PM, MATT MARINER BROZE
> 
> <marinerkayaks_at_msn.com>wrote:
>> My point is that the native paddlers may do it the way they do because 
>> that is what someone in a position of influence thought (and their 
>> ideas remained dominant long after they were dead) and the few who...

> What we have here is the stupid natives syndrome. 

> In the book "Longitude" that I mentioned the other day, the European sailors
> that first found their way to the Pacific islands considered the "NATIVES"
> to be uneducated primitives. The hotshot Europeans at the time could not
> tell how far around the globe they were. At a time when the Europeans had no
> answer, the Pacific navigators new latitude by the north star and by the
> position of other stars at their zenith. They knew the stars that marked
> true east and west and they knew which islands were located along which
> latitudes. For a thousand or more years before Europeans invented clocks,
> the natives were the masters of navigation in the pacific and the Europeans
> were the primitives-by far too primitive to listen to anything the native
> mariners had to say. 

> Remarkable that anyone would have the attitude that arctic hunters were
> using long paddles because they were too stupid to use short ones. I agree
> that in these matters, there seems to be a serious ego barrier involved.

Chuck,

Your point about the possible efficacy of long paddles has been made, made, 
and made.

To resort to distortion and exaggeration, not to mention a veiled 
accusation of racism, to debate the length of paddle we might use is 
outrageous.  You can quit now.  I doubt anybody is listening to this sort 
of "argument."

On the other hand, I'd listen to discussions of the merit of paddle length 
if they were substantive.  Let's do that for a while, OK?

-- 
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************