MovieChat Forums > The Revenant (2016) Discussion > Did the Native American nations really a...

Did the Native American nations really act that way?

posted 9 years ago by billanubis
39 replies | jump to latest

Just butchering people left right and center, scalping people and stealing from people they were doing business with?
There's a great many misconceptions about them, I know that, like those who call them uneducated rustics who "sold New York for a few beans" because they had no concept of property. But doesn't this film go a bit too far the other way? Why would anyone deal with these people if that they that sanctimonious and bloodthirsty?

I mean, the NA nations existed for centuries and centuries, many still do in various forms, they understood trade and diplomacy as well as any American or European.
Would they have really acted like this?

[–] herbsuperb 9 years ago

I'm sure that some did, and I'm sure that some didn't. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can apply any trait or behavior to 'Native Americans'. The pre-columbian peoples of North/South America were an enormously diverse array of peoples. Many different cultures with many different values/norms/beliefs at play. Like any other group as large, within 'Native Americans' you are surely to find the very best and the very worst of the human condition. I'm sure there were many Native Americans that were slovenly, low, barbaric savages that had no qualms about committing horrific atrocities on other people. I'm as sure there were many Native Americans that were soulful, compassionate, intelligent, honest, and good natured. Fine examples of humanity by any standard.

I've no doubts they ran the whole gamut. Much the same as any other race.

I do know that in 1823 dozens of trappers were ambushed by Arikara Indians while on an expedition along the Missouri River. Many of those trappers were killed. I'm sure it was a very savage affair. I also know that scalping was practiced by both various Native American groups, and some whites that displaced them. Taking trophies from human corpses after an engagement is known from cultures all over the world. Not always a scalp, but ears, noses, johnsons, fingers, toes, skulls, and the like.

[–] gljbradley 9 years ago

This!!! ^

[–] Don_Cheech 9 years ago

Damn... What culture takes your Johnson?

[–] SWLinPHX-2 9 years ago

Damn... What culture takes your Johnson?

LOL

[–] malkycombat 9 years ago

Jesus wept , is "lol" all you have to say...

[–] herbsuperb 9 years ago

Damn... What culture takes your Johnson?

Probably many. Found an article of interest. Drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia have been known to do the same barbaric **** even today.

http://darkandbizaarestories.blogspot.com/2011/12/phallotomy-penis-as-trophy.html

[–] Clatskanie 9 years ago

That's a "yes" then.

LL

[–] afredfan 8 years ago

Taking trophies in war time still happens today and was a real problem with American soldiers in WW 2, Korea, and Vietnam.

The native tribes involved in the fur trade had many reasons to be treacherous: they had to trade for metal weapons, guns, powder, and ammunition to keep up with other tribes who traded for these things. Sometimes tribes fought with each other over who controlled the fur trade, and some tribes were middle-men who had staked out a position and killed to defend it. If tribe A got guns, then all the other tribes around them who didn't have guns were at a disadvantage, for example.

The fur trade was complex, involving not just trade goods, but alliances as well. Greed is a human trait, not limited to any single culture or people. Once native peoples became dependent on manufactured items, they lost the ability to live off the land as they had before, and were vulnerable to their supply of goods being shut off.

Makes you think, how dependent we have become and how vulnerable we will be in the future when the internet of things is complete.

[–] jordandnt 9 years ago

Let's be honest can you blame them for some of their actions.i understand what you're saying to say the least. They weren't the only ones at fault by any means. We typically had just taken their lands away multiple times. In particularly in this movie over animal pelt...

[–] gljbradley 9 years ago

Indeed.

[–] lithium099 9 years ago

The frontier was a big place. Its exploration took a long time. The Indians were a diverse collection of nations who spoke many different languages and often fought bloody battles among themselves. So were the settlers.

There were times when a white family was going about their daily business and a raiding party showed up and tortured, raped, murdered, mutilated, stole the horses and went on their way. There were times when an Indian family was going about its business and the cavalry showed up and did basically the same thing.

There were times when the European powers and Indians met in friendship, but often it was to make a war alliance for the purpose of killing a third party.

There were times when the white man came to trap and hunt in Indian country, and the inhabitants rallied to attack and drive them out. Other times, it was the Indians doing the hunting themselves, trading the pelts for Western goods.

So yes, things like in the movie 100% happened, though certainly not all the time or everywhere. A lot that was bad happened to a lot of different people. Lots of groups took their turn as victim and villain. There aren't as many easy answers as people sometimes think/wish.

[–] herbsuperb 9 years ago

There were times when the European powers and Indians met in friendship, but often it was to make a war alliance for the purpose of killing a third party.

Indeed. Good point. As often as Colonists used alliances with native tribes as a means to turn them against each other, which is morally deplorable, those same tribes used alliance with the powerful new arrivals in order to destroy their blood enemies, other native tribes, which is equally deplorable.

That lack of large scale unity, and of course lack of resistance to foreign diseases on account of genetic limitations were the demise of the American Indian. That is truly unfortunate, but it is also the way nature functions. The Pre-Columbian peoples of North America were simply part of a branch of humanity that due to various factors was not equipped to survive the advancement of the human race.

[–] gljbradley 9 years ago

Good points. Both of you.

All of those events showed how unfortunate and ugly history truly is.

[–] Yxklyx 9 years ago

This is an Iñárritu film. The natives acted as expected in an Iñárritu film.

[–] aliza_tvito 8 years ago

^ that's the good one...

Listen to your enemy, for God is talking

[–] kmags84 9 years ago

I kept reading this thread and between the post by Herb and this, it's just the harsh reality of it all. Too bad most people get caught up on one side or another during these discussions rather than just understanding History and how the Frontier was actually explored/established. It was savagery amongst many. Alliances were made when necessary and 9/10 times it ended up badly for a Third Party. Nobody was perfect. Natives were already at War in many areas. Settlers just added another group of people looking for the fruits of a foreign land... And they used whatever means they found necessary to get them as well. Diseases were spread, many NA died because of them. So much was going on and we are only taught fragments of it all. Pilgrims slaughtering the Indians after a Peaceful Thanksgiving Meal! Grade school nonsense. And while we learn about Wars, Trade and Land over the years, we still are left with a very basic understanding of something insanely complicated.

[–] The_Mob_Has_Spoken 9 years ago

Cultural Marxists have done a great job at keeping the truth out of history books, but the indians committed numerous horrific and unprovoked massacres, which was the big reason they had to go and the U.S. government made their eradication priority #1 and which is why today nobody misses 'em.

[–] Kyumonryu 9 years ago

Some tribes did. And they did this even beofre the so called white devil entered the scene.

More often or not people fall victim to the "noble savage" depiction. No all of the native american tribes were in synch with nature or friendly. Quite a few of them were raping and looting savages who rapes the land as well as the people on it.

...but they hung him anyway.
Hanged, Ami. Your father was not a tapestry.

[–] cinema-23561 9 years ago

You are far overstating it and failing to compare with what was "normal" behaviour in Europe at that time. Europeans slaughtered each other at a far worse rate.

[–] eamonn_keane 9 years ago

"Europeans slaughtered each other at a far worse rate"

There's no clear evidence of that. What we do know is that the homicide rate in premodern society was much higher everywhere.

[–] maenad-3 8 years ago

eamonn_keane The evidence that Europeans slaughtered each other is found in European history. Going back to the Greeks and Romans, there were non-stop wars on the continent until 1945. The Greeks fought amongst themselves and against invading Persians, then the Romans conquered the Greeks and just about everybody else from the British Isles to Persia, then the barbarians came and demolished the Romans, then the Angles and Saxons overcame the Celts, then the Danes butchered many of the inhabitants of Great Britain during their raids, then the Normans took England from the Saxons in 1066, then there were non-stop wars of succession, including between parents and offspring, the Hundred Years' War, the Wars of the Roses, wars between Protestants and Catholics, which finally ended with the recent peace in Ireland, wars between France, England, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Thirty Years' War, the Eighty Years' War, the Seven Years' War, wars against the Ottomans, the Crimean War--just look up List of Conflicts in Europe, you will be blown away, I have mentioned just a very few. Last but not least, WWI and WWII cost more lives than can be imagined in the scope of world history. As a footnote, besides the wars, there were countless executions, some outright massacres, including burning alive (especially of "witches" and "heretics," like Joan of Arc), beheading (the last execution by the guillotine was in 1977), garrote/garotte (the last such execution took place in Spain in 1974). Let us not mention all those who died while undergoing torture. Hard to believe what a bloody bunch those Europeans were, not only in Europe but on three continents, which they conquered and settled, as well as in many other countries which they invaded and colonised for some time after finally being driven out.

[–] mobocracy 8 years ago

This is why the Europeans were so successful at colonizing the rest of the world.

Was there any nation the Europeans hadn't figured out how to defeat by 1600? Mongols, Turks, Arabs all fell attacking Europeans, even if they had succeeded in earlier attempts (like the Mongols).

By the turn of the 20th century there was almost no nation that resisted Europeans and made it stick. Afghanistan might be the one place the Europeans couldn't quite master, which is pretty much true to this day.

[–] cinema-23561 9 years ago

The movie was too much the other way no doubt a comfortable bias for a Euro-centric Hispanic director. PLEASE READ David Stannard's AMERICAN HOLOCAUST The Conquest of the New World. Also his book about Hawaii HONOR KILLING.

[–] joe_538 9 years ago

"sold New York for a few beans"

Two things a lot of people don't immediately consider about the transaction; the island of Manhattan was undeveloped at the time, and $24 sounds like less money every year. Additionally, the "trinkets" thrown in were cooking and farming equipment, not shiny beads.

[–] Catman_Scrothers 9 years ago

There are a couple encyclopedias that explain in detail all of the tribes of the Americas from the United States and Canada, including their traditions, enemies, who helped settlers and who hated settlers.