The Wars of America--By Robert Leckie

[mmadsen]

First as a historian and second as a cherokee, I would question the eating of hearts.

Oh, c'mon, jester47/Aaron, we all know you eat human hearts at home! Honestly, have you ever killed an Algonquin and not eaten his heart?

Historically, eating of anyone on the battlefield is usually a fabrication created by one side to make the other side seem even more ferocious.

If your goal is to seem more ferocious, wouldn't you perform frightening acts, like eating your dead foes in sight of their comrades?

Against the Indian allies of the French they aimed a particular ferocity. They drove the Algonquins from their hunting grounds deep into the wilderness, pursuing them there to destroy their camps and boil and eat the enemy slain in the sight of the survivors. "In a word," wrote thw missionary Father Vimont, "they ate men with as much appetite and more pleasure than hunters eat a boar or stag."

I have a habit of doublechecking canibalism whenever and wherever it is mentioned. It is very rare and even only then ritual or survival based.

What's more ritual- or survival-based than a genocidal war?

 

[WizarDru]

For more information on the nature of the European conquest of the 'new world', I highly recommend Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. It's a history book that traces the origins of how technology rose, where it rose, and the proximate factors that led to some groups dominating others over the previous 15,000 years. It's an excellent read that is very approachable, making what could be potentially boring material very interesting. It caught my eye at a bookstore, and I found I couldn't put it down. Great stuff.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

It caught my eye at a bookstore, and I found I couldn't put it down.

Which is why you now have a police record.

Seriously, thanks for the book tip.

On a side note- I have been to Malvern a couple of times.. it is an odd area.

FD

 

[mmadsen]

For more information on the nature of the European conquest of the 'new world', I highly recommend Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

Let me strongly second this recommendation! Fascinating book.

A basic premise of the book is that most biological "technology" -- domesticated animals, domesticated plants, etc. -- spreads much more easily east-west than north-south, since similar latitudes have similar climates, and that led to Europe, the Middle East, and China quickly rising to become agricultural societies.

Agricultural societies have denser populations, allowing them to conquer hunter-gatherers. They also have denser animal populations, and while they suffer more diseases passed on from those animals, they eventually (over generations) develop resistance to those diseases -- resistance that isolated hunter-gathers don't develop.

 

[WizarDru]

Which is why you now have a police record.

Seriously, thanks for the book tip.

On a side note- I have been to Malvern a couple of times.. it is an odd area.

FD

Odd, how? Just another Philly suburb, really. It's been quite a while since I've been to Poughkeepsie, though. Spent a lot of time in Clifton Park and Hannacroix, though. (btw, I'm not saying it is or isn't odd...just curious why you think it is).

 

[WizarDru]

Let me strongly second this recommendation! Fascinating book.

One of things that truly made the book fascinating for me was how he pointed out factors that made a great deal of sense once he pointed them out, but you didn't necesarilly notice on your own. His analysis of things like why some animals can be domesticated (versus tamed...an important distinction that is covered at length) and why some plants are better for food production than others. The section on writing is excellent, as well.

He spends a good chunk of the book debunking a lot of racist clap-trap, and reinforcing how darn clever we are as a species.

I personally consider this book almost required reading for an DM who wants to create their game world from the ground up...it's very enlightening, or at least throught provoking. I especially intend to steal the one writing system for a d20 modern game at one point...I can't remember which Native American tribe it was, but one man (a blacksmith by trade) noted that the Europeans all used a written language, and benefited from it. Therefore, he set out to make his own written version of his tribes language...but used the roman alphabet and his own additions to make a language the looked like English...but was spoken NOTHING LIKE IT. The book is full of stuff like that. Great, great stuff.

 

[mmadsen]

I believe that it was originally introduced to the new world by the Spanish, who used it as a method of verifying kill claims made by their Indian allies. They also used it as a sort of incentive system, paying their allied troops bounties for the scalps.

That wouldn't surprise me at all, that the Spanish introduced it. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if they picked it up from the Aztecs (or their enemies).

It was used quite a bit by the British as a method of accounting for the successes of their native troops (and establishing the native's right to payment), witnessed by their paying bounties for scalps and other body parts in both North America and the Indian subcontinent.

When was this?

When King Leopold of Belgium took control of what is now Zaire, he used mercenaries extensively (to keep the Belgian parliament from establishing political claim to the colony), he paid his troops, both Zaireois and Belgian, bounties for ears.

Ears are a pretty common means of corpse-accounting, aren't they? Did anyone use scalps in Africa?

The practice of taking scalps and other body parts as a method of providing bounties to the local allies of European colonial powers is so widespread among the annals of European conquest that it is difficult not to believe that it was introduced to the new world by Europeans.

Interesting info, Storm Raven.

 

[mmadsen]

Odd, how? Just another Philly suburb, really.

Perhaps he has it confused with Manayunk?

 

[mmadsen]

This sounds like the perfect description of Hobgoblins/Orcs/Klingons:

But those who were merely killed and eaten were comparatively fortunate, for the Iroquois had brought the practice of torture to an indescribable degree of perfection. In justice to them, it must be stated that none of the Indians regarded cruelty as being wicked. Indeed, its very opposite -- pity -- was a weakness in their eyes. Compassion in a warrior seemed nothing less than cowardice. To eat the heart of a fallen foe or to drink his blood was to partake of the dead man's courage. To torture a prisoner was not only pleasant; it gave an emeny the opportunity to show by his stoicism that he was a brave man. At times a victim's fortitude so excited the admiration of the Iroquois that they conferred upon him the highest honor, adoption into one of the five tribes.

Can you imagine joining the tribe that tortured you beyond the limits of human endurance, because you somehow survived?

Anyway, maybe a savage D&D game would only reward experience -- or would reward more experience -- for eating the heart of a powerful foe.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

my hijack continues..

Odd, how? Just another Philly suburb, really. It's been quite a while since I've been to Poughkeepsie, though.

Ok- first.. stay away from Poughkeepsie!!

This goes for all of you!

It is an evil place that acts as a black hole for the spirit.

Phew- ok, Malvern.

I was only there for training, so I might have missed the sights, but it seemed to be a community revolving around the few corporations there. The place had a pretty sterile feel to it (and no good place to eat outside of that super-mall nearby).

The people were very nice.

Which makes it all the more odd and suspiscous....

FD