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From: Randy Sahr <>
Subject: ROOTS-L Digest V98 #852 Re: Indian princess
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 16:48:15 -0500


Donna,
Glad that you brought that up. I'm not familiar with that story, but it
is Probably because the Europeans couldn't figure out the culture or the
correct designations and simply referenced their own society to describe
the Chief.

If your grade school through high school education was anything like
mine, the history we were taught still used similar references. It seems
that the one thing that 'political correctness' and an honest interest
in true history has done for us, is to correct these misrepresentations
and misunderstandings. At least it has for the AfroAmer population to a
great degree. I don't think that the schools have caught on yet to the
facts that:

1.) Indians (Native Americans, if you prefer) STILL EXIST.

2.) Each Tribal Nation will have different traditions from any other
Tribal Nation, but some similarities, depending upon: their original
culture and how it has been altered by Reservation (Reserve in Canada)
'life' and being literally kidnapped from their family as children and
sent to Government schools to learn to be 'proper' Americans. This began
shortly after rounding up and putting as many as possible on
Reservations and resulted in the children losing their language (they
were not Allowed to use it, and punished if they did) and what would
have been their culture, had they been left at home with their
relatives.

3.) All Indians do Not live on Reservations. Many never did. (They hid
out and passed as either white or AfroAmer. This secret was often hidden
even from their offspring.)

4.) Many Indians do not resemble the steriotypes in physical appearance,
language, or behavior.

5.) Many Indians do not celebrate Thanksgiving or Columbus Day, because
both represent the loss of their culture, their freedom, their lands,
and their lives. Unfortunately today, many Native children are still
forced to make and don the typical Thanksgiving garb and to make
'feathered' headdresses of colored construction paper, or worse
Pilgrim hats. Very few people seem to understand that the Indians helped
the Pilgrim survive by providing knowledge of the local area, seed for
corn, pumpkin, beans, and of course the food for that first feast, but
were massacred shortly thereafter by the same people that they fed. In
fact, some Native people do not send their children to school during
this 'celebration', because they consider it a day of mourning.

The cultures of Europe at that time and the Natives here were so totally
different, that there was a total and basic inability for the Euros to
even try to understand. And we all learned basically the same history.
After all, history is always written from the victor's point of view.

Did any of you know that the Constitution of the United States of
America is based upon the wampum of the Iroquois Confederacy (a group of
Tribes)???? Cultural and social history is a fascinating topic, whether
it be a discussion of Native culture or any other, isn't it?

best,
Randy Bullock Sahr
mailto:

X-Message: #24
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 09:27:25 -0400
From: "Donna m Marchese" <>
Subject: Indian princess

Why is it that the ancestors of Chief Uncas of the Mohegan tribe
in Connecticut are referred to as "of the Royal Blood"?
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