On the inside flap of the cover, “First of a handsome new series, this book reveals what it was really like to live, work, and die in the ancient world.” My first thought was, well, I’m handsome, so I should probably read books that are handsome…

Actually, this is one of the first books I read after moving to a new location a few years ago. I was at the library, and, remembering that this was a “series” of handsome books, wanted to go back and get the second book. However, my roman numerals got mixed up and I grabbed book IV instead of book II. I started reading book IV, and realized that it jumped right to the Renaissance era, and skipped a bunch of good stuff from where things left off in book I which started in Pagan Rome and ended in Byzantium.

So, I thought I would write a quick review of book “I” since I started writing reviews of books after I had initially returned this book to the library the first time I read it.

Book specs: Hunker down because you are looking at over 600 pages of well illustrated small text. This is not a light, weekend read. The library had a hard-cover version which was about 8″ wide and 10″ tall. (I love real books).

Read specs: This book will not engage you in a novelistic page-turning journey, it’s more like a bumpy cart-ride where there is too much beautiful scenery all around and you never quite can soak it all in. The historical context, along with the human “real” private life narration are the two threads that are followable throughout the book.

What I liked most about this book, was that it made history a bit more real by taking a look at everyday life of who might be considered in today’s day and age as the low to middle class. The author’s take on the evolution and influence of Christianity was particularly interesting. A relevant topic was the “paterfamilia” which was the head of a Roman family. Who are our “paterfamilia’s” today? While slaves in the past worked for their masters with varying degrees of confidence that they would be treated well and taken care of. I find it interesting to contemplate the current employee / employer relationship, medicare and social security. And on this level the book is quite eye opening in the realization that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I would recommend this book. I found it extremely interesting, but I did start to lose interest around page 450 on this particular volume. I’m returning volume IV to get volume II so I can pick up where I left off.

Pete Skenandore

About the Author:
Jack Weatherford received his Ph. D in Anthropology from University of California, San Diego. He is a professor, ethnographer, and anthropologist. In 2007 he received the Order of the Polar Star, the highest award for service to the Mongol Nation of Genghis Khan. Other books he has authored include: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World; The history of Money; Savages and Civilizations; Native Roots; and others.

Indian Givers was published in 1988 and 2010 in the U.S. by Three Rivers Press | Crown Publishing | Random House, Inc.

Review:

Let’s tackle the uncomfortable aspect of the phrase “Indian Giver” first. We’ve all probably heard this said at one time or another, and understand this to mean that something was given with something expected in return, or that something was given, and then later taken back. I’ve always hated this phrase for obvious reasons. The term “Indian giver” was first cited in John Russell Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms (1860). “When an indian gives any thing, he expects to receive an equivalent, or to have his gift returned.”

Let’s put the phrase “Indian Giver” into historical context. 1860. Not the best of times for the American Indian. Disease, oppression, colonialism, and now the big land grab west of the Mississippi all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Any intelligently reasonable person can conclude that the Native Americans were NOT the ones doing the taking. As a matter of fact, I personally think, the phrase may have originated FROM the American Indians of the time in reference to treaties and promises made to them. Historically speaking, the phrase fits more solidly the other way.

So with that out of the way, Indian Givers [the book] is a well-researched and documented historical narrative about the contributions of American Indians to the world’s economy and culture. It is an utterly compelling read that squarely puts the story of Native American cultural, social, and political practices fit and influenced world history.

There are larger themes, like how the Native American community may have given up land, but the world at large may have lost out by losing the vast cultural knowledge of native civilizations such as the Aztecs and Incas. In the last book I read called -***the Sioux*** I learned that, because of cultural and language barriers, many misunderstandings happened as to why Native people acted or reacted certain ways in different situations (much more to this). Given the massive communication gap between the cultures, it is not a far stretch to think that one party thought they were being given something, when in fact, it was a loan. Have you, dear reader, ever loaned something to someone who never returned it? Did they simply assume it was theirs without clarification? Or, did they simply keep it because they are one of the [many] who simply do not know or understand the importance of reciprocity?

Favorite Passage (one of many):

“Even though European settlers imposed new architectural styles and new ideas of urban planning on America, they usually built over existing Indian settlements…Subsequent generations of Americans usually forgot that their towns and cities had been founded by Indians. Myths rose about how the colonists literally carved their settlements out of the uninhabited forest. Nowhere does contemporary civic mythology elaborate on this theme more than in the case of Washington, D.C.

According to this story, George Washington himself, the father of his country, surveyed this virgin land astride the Potomac River as a place to build a new capital equidistant between the northern and southern halves of the country. The location…gave the city a potential water link to the Ohio River System. Few American books bother to mention that the city of Washington arose on top of Naconchtanke, the main trading town of the Conoy Indians. At the time of their first contact with the Virginia colonists in 1623, the site served as home and headquarters to Chief Patawomeke and his followers. The name of the chief evolved into the present name Potomac,…”

“In the 1975 excavation on the White House lawn for the presidential swimming pool, builders found Indian relics that pointed to the commercial prosperity of a former Indian group. Only a few blocks away from the White House, the Indians had operated one of the largest Indian quarries for steatite or soapstone. Numerous manufacturing sites surrounded it where Indian craftsmen made dishes, pipes, and implements from the soft stone. From here the Indians traded the manufactured goods all along the eastern coast in what may have been the last productive enterprise practiced by humans along this stretch of the Potomac.”

Conclusion:

This is a very worthwhile book to read. It doesn’t read like a romanticized novel of the native “ways”. More like a preface to the resources from which the narrative was gathered. It took me a few months, between some challenging classes, to get through the book, so it’s not brain candy, but it is fascinating, complex, and contemplative. Take your time reading to ponder, reflect, and share. I believe reading this book may also offer insights into how to recognize and respect other modern day cultures. Which might be a good thing in a culturally diverse world that is quickly shrinking.

Pete Skenandore

Try as I might I could not find my “happy place” as I suffered, and suffered during that class, wishing there was a “just pull the damn thing” option. -sigh-

And here’s the fallout. Every time I came back to my blog to write something, there was that big razzy award graphic and the haunting memory of that class staring me in the face. I could have just deleted it, I know, but I want this blog to be an honest reflection of a “work in progress”, not a “polished stone”.

But, I do want to get my momentum back so I’m going to go ahead and focus on the one positive aspect of that class and see if I can’t inject a bit of movement to “Ye old blog”(nod to The Office).

Here it is. Our pup. I made a movie about Elderly Pet Care starring Salley. She’s a healthy 14 1/2 years (human) old as of this writing. She’s stone cold deaf now, still barks all the time, but one look into those intelligent, soulful eyes and you will fall in love. We’ll have this memory of her and yes, you can friend her on facebook.

Happy accidents with the camera. It’s funny how it sometimes doesn’t do what I want it to do, but it turns out the picture featured of our beloved Salley is really probably her best character representation. Focus on the nose.

Pete

Got the A.

But I’ll never get that time back.

For one assignment we had to produce an essay that described ourselves and then take that essay and produce a representative graphic symbol. While I enjoy this type of distillate process, I really dislike anything close to labeling of people. This came close for me, so I found a workaround, making the argument that labels can have negative or adverse effects on perceptions in this type of an exercise.

So the graphic you see is what I produced which closely represents the tenets I expressed in the essay. I really received a wide range of thoughts about it. Its not something I would use for anything other than to express how important it is to not let one’s perceptions get in the way of what someone is really about. Have you ever judged someone by their looks? Their nationality? Their clothes? And then been really surprised to find out they were totally different than what you might have first thought? I know how incredibly powerful first impressions are, and how important it is to put your best foot forward and all that, however, maybe in some cases, jumping to conclusions based on first impressions is really just reflective of how shallow we might be.

Pete

Pete Skenandore

I asked my 9 year old daughter to pick me up a book at the library, and she brought home Crazy Horse by Mari Sandoz. You’ll note the accompanying picture above is a scan of the book covering. I made it halfway thru the first chapter and had the “I think I’ve read this before” déjà vu. Maybe it’s the “beginning of the end” feeling that is the common theme in books about Native Americans. I wish I had been doing some type of a reading journal all along, that way I might be able to look back and cross-reference thoughts and feelings about different books. Well, I’m glad I’m doing it now.

This book is a biography of Crazy Horse with an initial copyright date of 1942. The edition I read was printed in 1961 by the University of Nebraska Press. It has that 1960’s library smell that all dedicated bookophiles love, and that you cannot get from an e-reader. Maybe they’ll make an “app for that”?

As usual, here are a few excerpts that I found particularly poignant:

Perhaps the old-time white men like Le Beau and Bridger who knew the Lakotas before the days of the whisky wagons and the Holy Road spoke true when they said the Indian got lazy, dirty, and lousy from the whites. It was strange that the lazier, lousier ones were given presents and that those who would hunt for their living were chased by the wagon guns. (pg. 110)

-Social programs vs. self employment?

But the old man had words for the other things, too, the old, old things that make a good Lakota woman—diligence, modesty, virtue, and the mother heart for the people. “Follow Mother Earth in all things,” he counseled. See how she feeds her children, clothes and shelters them, comforts them with her good silence when their hearts have fallen down. Be like Mother Earth in all things and so be a good woman of the Lakota!” (pg. 115)

-Beautiful

With this blanket about him, his braids long and fur-wrapped on his breast, the father walked slowly through the village, making a song as he went, singing it so all might hear: (pg. 118)

My son has been against the people of unknown tongue.

He has done a brave thing;

For this I give him a new name, the name of his father,

and of many fathers before him—

I give him a great name

I call him Crazy Horse.

-I miss my Father. I hope to honor his [last] name in a way he would be proud of. Crazy Horse gave his son his name after his son earned the right to be a warrior in the tribe. What a powerful way to recognize a young man’s transition into manhood. Lessons all around, and one of humility as well. Crazy Horse’s father was then known simply as “Worm”.

–Reading this passage (pg. 140) made me contemplate what constitutes as weak and strong medicine. Crazy Horse recognizes that his medicine is weak and what caused it to be so.

-Racing into camp.. (pg. 328)

It was a great thing and Crazy Horse whipped his tiring pinto faster to where Black Shawl, indeed a warrior’s wife, had another horse waiting.

Behind every great man…

When he came closer those who had not known him made surprised words to one another. He was a small man for a fighter, less than six of the white mans feet, and slim as a young warrior. But they knew it was Crazy Horse, for he wore no paint and nothing to show his greatness. One feather stood alone at the back of his buckskin shirt, his Winchester in a scabbard at his knee… warriors and then the people, reaching clear back to the bluffs and out upon the highland… At the little army post everybody was out to see this wild war leader who had scared the whites so many years, who whipped two of their big soldier chiefs, Crook and Custer, in eight days…

And as the warriors neared the little fort, with all its blue-coated soldiers out, they began to sing, the women and children behind them taking it up, carrying it back through the line, until all the broad valley of the White Earth and the bluffs that stood against the northern sky were filled with the chanting of the peace song of the Lakotas.” (pg. 361)

Now that I’m jotting this down, I’m realized (and reminded by my wife) that the familiarity I was feeling was that I’ve read a few books on Sitting Bull. So I think that’s part of the connection I was making.

A great book, about a great man, and a great people. Obviously, I could digress the conversation into other areas of injustice, but I won’t. Beautifully written, and well worth the time. Thank you Mari Sandoz & family for the work and effort that went into this biographical sketch of Crazy Horse and the Oglala people.

Pete Skenandore

I recently went through all of our household books and, true to my streamlining nature, decided to cull the flock, so to speak…Who needs 4 copies of do it yourself home wiring? During this process a pile of books stacked up that I decided to read, or re-read, as was the case with this book. I purchased this book a few years back as a gift for my wife, Christelle, who really enjoys studying history. The reason it stood out is that, like most of you, I am really trying to figure out what role I want Government to play in my life. I decided to read it with that in mind.

The book is about, of course, Honest Abe, but more importantly, the men he surrounded himself with, and what their relationships [might have] meant to him. The title, of course includes the by-line “Abraham Lincoln and his friends”.

In the Preface the author touches on Aristotle’s typology of friendship:

There are, Aristotle shows, three basic kinds of friendships. There are “enjoyable” friendships, in which people associate simply for the pleasure they derive from each other’s company; there are “useful” friendships, in which each party has something to gain by associating with the other; and there are “perfect” or “complete” friendships, in which there is free sharing of ideas, hopes, wishes, ambitions, fears. Such a complete friendship can exist only between good people similar in virtue, each of whom wishes for his friend good things—not because his friend is useful or even enjoyable but simply because he is good. It hardly needs saying that such friendships are rare.

This led me to start thinking of the friendships I have, and have had over the years, as a young boy, I had what I would consider a few close friends, as a teenager as well. Interestingly, I think using others to benefit oneself is a learned behavior. I would consider the childhood friendships the most “complete”. Another interesting note the author makes is that family friends, meet a completely different need, and therefore cannot fit the role of a friend. And I agree.

The book goes through quite a few of Abraham Lincoln’s friends. The ones he practiced law with, all of the way to the ones who served as his private secretaries as President of the United States.  There were a couple of things I found interesting:

In a passage about his partner Herndon. Lincoln: “If ever American society and the United States government are demoralized…it will come from the voracious desire of office—this struggle to live without toil—work and labor…” Then pausing for a minute, he added wryly: “…from which I am not free myself.” Herndon failed to see the humor.

Remember, the context with which I am reading the book, I would be interested to hear other thoughts on this. What insight.

I thought this was funny:

President Lincoln saw many, many people that came to the White House to speak with him (wouldn’t that be nice). His two personal secretaries, Hay and Nicolay, had the feat of handling these visitors.

Once when an obvious demented man demanded to see Lincoln because, as the Son of God, he was carrying a plan to end the war, Hay informed him that the President was busy a but that he could come back again the next day, adding–…that it would be a good idea to bring a letter of introduction from his Father.”

Relevant to today, the President had people around him spending money in inappropriate ways. When his wife spent $7,000 dollars on Parisian wallpaper for the White house Lincoln was furious:

How could Mary overrun an appropriation for $20,000 “for flub dubs for this damned old house,” especially at a time when soldiers did not have blankets? He exploded. “It was all wrong to spend one cent at such a time,” he went on, “and I never ought to have had a cent expended; the house was furnished well enough, better than any one we ever lived in.

-Is anyone in the Federal Government reading this?

In conclusion, Honest Abe is a well-deserved distinction, and a virtue I appreciate reading about considering he was President of the United States. A “penny for your thoughts” means a bit more than it did prior to reading this book.

I was surprised at my emotional reaction when reading the passage about Lincoln’s assassination and how he passed away on the night of April 14, 1865, his friends at his side:

On the night of April 14, 1865, Hay was in the White House with Robert Lincoln, studying Spanish, when he heard the President had been assassinated. Immediately they rushed to the President’s side. Hay stood at the head of Lincoln’s bed when he died. Nicolay was aboard the Santiago de Cuba headed for Havana, seeking rest and recovery, when he learned of Lincoln’s death. “It would seem that Providence had exacted from him the last and only additional service and sacrifice he could give his country,” he wrote his fiancée, “that of dying for her sake. Those of us who knew him will certainly interpret his death as a sign that Heaven deemed him worthy of martyrdom.

This book will be staying in the home library.

-Pete Skenandore

From the inside flap:

By any measure, America’s health is failing. We spend far more, per capita, on health care than any other society in the world, and yet two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and more than 15 million Americans have diabetes. We fall prey to heart disease as often as we did thirty years ago. The War on Cancer, launched in the 1970′s, has been a miserable failure. Half of all Americans have a health problem that requires taking a prescription drug every week, and more than 100 million Americans have high cholesterol.

The book, in a nutshell extolls the virtues of plant based diet vs. an animal based diet. In comparison studies from around the globe are offered with statistical data about disease and mortality rates. The author, who grew up on a farm with the typical fare, has now converted himself and family to a wholly plant based diet and if the fact that he is over 70 and at the time of writing the book was jogging 5-6 miles per day says anything. Well,.. there you go. Vegetarianism does not mean no meat/extra cheese, eggs and dairy. In effect you are still consuming animal proteins which, as noted, can be just as harmful to your health as eating animal flesh.

One other note that I really liked was how he explained antioxidants, I’m putting just a few excerpts from “Antioxidants, a beautiful collection” located on page 92 &93.

One of the more obvious characteristics of plants is their wide range of bright colors… Living plants illustrate nature’s beauty, both in color and in chemistry. They take the energy of the sun and transform it into life… What makes this remarkable process relevant for us animals, however, is that we produce low levels of free radicals throughout our lifetime… Fortunately the antioxidants in plants work in our bodies the same way they work in plants. It is a wonderful harmony.

You’ll have to get the book to read more. It’s worth it if you need a little extra incentive to follow thru with those New Year’s resolutions for a healthier lifestyle.

One big gaping hole in this book, however, is the discussion about chemical fertilizers, pesticides and regional air quality. I would have liked to have heard the author’s thoughts about that and if any research has been done in that area re. disease/mortality rates.