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. On the contrary, I have nothing but respect for native peoples, but I'm not going to put them on a pedestal either. Let's be realistic, we know we, as a society, have suffered from many delusions in the past, and are most likely still suffering from many we don't even realize exist yet (if we ever will). How many years was it that people believed Aristotle's proclamation that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones? To assume that native peoples had reached perfection and don't suffer from some of the same sources of human error as we do is just not being realistic. Assuming natives had reached paddle optimization is likely as much of an error as assuming they were not just as sophisticated as we are, but just look at things differently than we do, and do things for reasons that we don't understand. I read "We the Navigators" back in the 1980's. Long before that I tried learning native techniques for how to survive living in the wilderness. Let me tell you, if you try, that you will realize how many skills they had that we have lost. Ever try to get a fire going using a friction method? I'm pretty good at figuring things out, I made a lot of smoke, a few hot embers even, but although I got much better with practice, and improved my tools by reading and experimenting, and worked at it diligently for about a month, I never did turn that knowledge into an actual campfire. You are definitely wrong on this assumption I think natives were stupid. *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Jul 23 2010 - 11:20:21 PDT
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