Native Americans around us

[kimberkit]

Savannah was talking about the indigenous populations of Hawaii and mildly irate that a friend of hers had questioned whether Hawaii had a native language, in her blog post the other day. I responded that both Hawaii and Alaska have fairly non-European sounding names, and that it didn't actually take much thought to realize that both Hawaii and Alaska were ergo probably Native American names. Of course they have indigenous populations and languages, even if they've been sort of thinned out/ not widely spoken. Duh.

... Then I thought about what I'd said, and realized that 17 (edited: Ry counts 25, and I am too lazy to count properly) of the 50 states have Native American, not European or Latin names. (Wikipedia page on State name etymology). That really should underline how much of our country was originally Native American, for a sense of history but then I thought: but how many Native Americans do you see wandering around now? Our indigenous population is almost extinct in almost all our states, not just in Hawaii or Alaska... which is sad.

Comments

[amocantare.livejournal.com]

Actually, you probably see more Native people wandering around than you think. Of course it's important to recognize the decimation of pre-contact populations, but I've been learning recently how stable and vibrant Native communities have been in the last couple of centuries. The myth of the disappearing Indian is a really powerful one that came along with ideas about Manifest Destiny and Frederick Turner's frontier thesis (Americans are American because they move west) in the late nineteenth century.

It's part of most current political struggles for Indian nations. If they've disappeared, they don't require rights. And it also points to our fundamental resistance to the idea that indigenous people could be both Indian and modern. I know that I would have said the same just months ago!

[kimberkit.livejournal.com]

Really? Well, perhaps it's that I don't get out enough, then :) I mean, I saw more Native Americans when I was in Arizona; and a few around the Mohegan Sun Casino; but not in the city here per se.

[swagmonkey.livejournal.com]

Well, there was plenty of population-decimation of Native Americans when Europeans first moved into this country, and I'm sure that there are WAY fewer now than there were then. That said, I do think Emily's right that they aren't disappearing further at this point.