Saying Hello

[Mogs]

Last week our national TV S4C have started to repeat a series made in 2010 presented by Iolo Williams. The first of the series follows him as he visits the Blackfoot tribe in Browning Montana and also in Canada.

What was ironic was that the subject was presented through the medium of the Welsh language. Iolo converses with one guy (Pete Standing Alone from Alberta with his son Fagan) in welsh who in turn responds in his native language, I know that Iolo speaks english and I guess that Pete does also. So the picture comes to mind of Iolo asking the question in welsh (on camera to Pete) then off –camera asking the same quest to Pete in english, Pete then responding in english, then again in his native language, a sure recipe for a comedy . Finally there’s me watching it having to read the english subtitles.

Pete was 82 in 2010, does anyone know him, he came across as a really nice bloke, I hope he is still with us?

[Maize-Grower]

In the typical pattern of thread degradation on powwows.com, we are now obsessing over food, LOL.

My great grandpa never seemed to regret eating anything he liked. Died (presumably happy) in January of 1999 of his 28th heart attack at the age of 78. He never did stop eating the sandwich his Mom used to make for him: Toasted fried spam and govt cheese on homemade white bread with mayo.

[OLChemist]

In the typical pattern of thread degradation on powwows.com, we are now obsessing over food, LOL.

[Maize-Grower]

Hunting over here is highly regulated; it goes hand in hand with the UK’s very strict gun laws. I’m not sure what you mean with the term blowgun. I’m assuming you mean Blowgun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - very impressive. I’ve had a go at archery and I have a friend who does field archery, we Welsh are supposed to be good at that, beating the French at Agincourt, but it’s probable not true.

I’ve never really thought about meat being spoiled around the bullet track, I’ve eaten wild rabbit killed by lead shot, we were warned that you may get the odd pellet.

K

Never had water buffalo before. Looks good though...

Blowgun is made of cane with darts made of wood and fletched with the fluff from milkweed pods, cattails, or cottonwood fluff. Most of my darts are just sharpened, but some also have small knapped points. (I was bored over winter... took up stone carving and flint knapping. I'm not typical of most people.)

Pashofa! I'll be over for dinner.

Hominy is one of those foods that you either love or hate, I think. My mom went to college in the south and face the lake o' grits every morning. She hated them. So I never had any hominy products growing up.

Then when I was in college there were a bunch of us who'd commandeer the kitchenette in the Fine Arts Center lounge. We'd cook comfort foods. There was a girl from Ada, OK and she'd make Pashofa. It was soooooooo good.


My hominy lecture for the uninitiated: Matured (dried) corn does not contain much bio-available niacin and if used as a stable crop would result in pellegra and other nutritional diseases. So, Native peoples treated corn with base from ash and/or from slaked lime. This removed the hull, released niacin bound to various glycosides, destroyed fungal toxins, and cross linked some of the proteins in the kernels.

Corn processed this way when served with beans gave the complete compliment of amnio acids. It could be more easily milled and preserved. The crosslinking also enabled it to form a dough without the addition of flour.

I grew up with hominy, love the stuff. Mine is blue... It wierds out my friends when I make grits, corn bread, or kanutsi (hominy and hickory nut soup). I keep my hominy in the freezer to maintain its pleasant chewy texture. I also have some regular corn meal for making johnny cakes and skillet pie.

Johnny Cake with butter:

[OLChemist]

...meat, hominy...

Pashofa! I'll be over for dinner.

Hominy is one of those foods that you either love or hate, I think. My mom went to college in the south and face the lake o' grits every morning. She hated them. So I never had any hominy products growing up.

Then when I was in college there were a bunch of us who'd commandeer the kitchenette in the Fine Arts Center lounge. We'd cook comfort foods. There was a girl from Ada, OK and she'd make Pashofa. It was soooooooo good.


My hominy lecture for the uninitiated: Matured (dried) corn does not contain much bio-available niacin and if used as a stable crop would result in pellegra and other nutritional diseases. So, Native peoples treated corn with base from ash and/or from slaked lime. This removed the hull, released niacin bound to various glycosides, destroyed fungal toxins, and cross linked some of the proteins in the kernels.

Corn processed this way when served with beans gave the complete compliment of amnio acids. It could be more easily milled and preserved. The crosslinking also enabled it to form a dough without the addition of flour.

[Mogs]

I have eaten it on many occasions. In my book, it is my second favorite red meat after white tailed deer. It is often ranched these days and is about $8 per lb from the butcher where I live.

After a little research it turns out that Buffalo are farmed over here, sadly the first one I found have had their herd destroyed (Scottish Bison). I found a Welsh one too (North Wales Buffalo), but I think their Buffalo, are in fact Water Buffalo. It is very much a specially product (expensive), perhaps on a special occasion we may buy some.

Hunting over here is highly regulated; it goes hand in hand with the UK’s very strict gun laws. I’m not sure what you mean with the term blowgun. I’m assuming you mean Blowgun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - very impressive. I’ve had a go at archery and I have a friend who does field archery, we Welsh are supposed to be good at that, beating the French at Agincourt, but it’s probable not true.

I’ve never really thought about meat being spoiled around the bullet track, I’ve eaten wild rabbit killed by lead shot, we were warned that you may get the odd pellet.

K

[Maize-Grower]

That’s another shocker, we are sold the line that the US is the most compassionate and caring society in the world.

Funniest thing I've heard all day. Thank you sir.

We are given to believe that Native American’s back then had no concept of individual land ownership, is this true or is it another load of simplistic rubbish? Group ownership must have existed, for there are many cases of Native American leaders asking/demanding settlers leave “Our Lands”.

Kinda depends on the particular tribe. If I recall correctly, the Mixtec capital actually had a complex system of laws governing real estate and asset forfeiture. I personally prefer a world without that sort of mess though. Individually owned property tends to crop up where monarchies do, and seems to be a major component of their alleged right to rule, because they own the whole nation and you must pay them rent (property taxes) and do as they say in their land... When land is collectively owned, there is more equality among people because everybody gets a say and no single person can claim it all for themselves. Common ownership of land and resources was fairly common among Eastern Woodlands peoples... It shows a great degree of social refinement and progress.

"My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away" ~Black Hawk, War Leader of the Sauk

"What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth, for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs only to him?" ~Ousamequin, Massasoit of the Wampanoag Confederacy

"The only way to stop this evil is for all the red men to unite in claiming an equal right in the land. That is how it was at first, and should be still, for the land never was divided, but was for the use of everyone. Any tribe could go to an empty land and make a home there. And if they left, another tribe could come there and make a home. No groups among us have a right to sell, even to one another, and surely not to outsiders who want all, and will not do with less. Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds, and the Great Sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Good Spirit make them all for the use of his children?" ~Tecumseh, a Leader of the Shawnee

Presently, the Maya in Chiapas Mexico are re-starting this practice, much to the chagrin of the Government there.

I've never seen a buffalo live, I guess we have some in zoo's, I've not come across one. It does seem silly to me (an outsider) that anyone would hunt anything big with bow and arrow, especially if that animal can then turn on you. The item I've seen was definitely modern Indians riding horseback, no saddles, some with rifles some with Bow & Arrow, there was no attempt to conceal it as a recreation.

I have eaten it on many occasions. In my book, it is my second favorite red meat after white tailed deer. It is often ranched these days and is about $8 per lb from the butcher where I live. My family's frybread is pretty different from OLChemist's, and is flaky like a pastry. In my house, this is topped generously with a bison meat patty or ladle of stew and consumed with total abandon. My stew is usually whatever squash or tubers are ripe in the garden, plus beans, meat, hominy (maize from the garden, processed in lye and then leeched), garlic, onions, hot peppers, and (in the autumn) pounded hickory nuts to add richness.

A bow and arrow has surprising power. The arrow goes slower than a bullet, but has more knock-down power and the damage is done with a blade instead of a lead bullet, so you can eat the wound-meat instead of it going to waste for fear of lead. I actually do take advantage of bow season, but I use a compound bow. I'd like a recurve, but they're pricey. I also have a blowgun, but I'm not sure it's legal to hunt with them, so I just shoot bug-eaten fruit with it. Most of my hunting is done with an old shotgun, though I've also got an SKS for hunting feral pigs and a Mosin Nagant for Bear. If I was hunting Bison, I'd use the Mosin Nagant. If it was the old days, I'd use an atl-atl and darts. (My tribe used these for large game according to archaeological digs in our homelands.)

Also, Monty Python is a riot.

[Toolbox]

I've never seen a buffalo live, I guess we have some in zoo's, I've not come across one. It does seem silly to me (an outsider) that anyone would hunt anything big with bow and arrow, especially if that animal can then turn on you. The item I've seen was definitely modern Indians riding horseback, no saddles, some with rifles some with Bow & Arrow, there was no attempt to conceal it as a recreation.

I guess the wolf is protected?

My next question (to you guys as Americans not specifically Indians).

US television, we receive loads, the quality range varies but as that’s subjective let’s not go there. How much British TV gets aired with you guys, what do you think?

It’s very obvious that Hollywood doesn’t like us Brits at the moment, it doesn’t matter which programme it is, if there’s a Brit in it, you can guarantee he’s the “baddie”. It get’s even better when the “Brit” is played by an American actor, especially when accents are attempted.

K

US television for the most part sucks. I have cable, with a large channel package, and I may watch 3 channels regularly. The only reason for the higher tier channel package is that the channels I watch are only available with that package. I mostly stream shows and movies over my Roku.

As for British TV, OLChemist is right, we only receive a little. When I think of British TV I think of Top Gear, which was one of my favorite TV shows but I guess they have not filmed a new season(?). The British, as TV stars, are very popular here - like Gordon Ramsey and Simon Cowell.

[Mogs]

Oh Dear

Some of those are okay, others are really old and very bad.

I hope the cricket is 20-20, if it's test match, it'll be like watching paint dry. Sorry.

K

[OLChemist]

Not much, if any on, network and local independents. By network I mean the three big nationwide networks that are available free to anyone with a set and decent reception. Local independents are stations that by and large are not affiliated with a major network and are also free to viewers.

If you watch PBS -- a national network funded by tax dollars and private contributions -- and your local affiliate thinks they will get viewership with British programming you can get a lot. My PBS station is currently running Doc Martin, Spooks, Foyle's War, Twenty Twelve, Death In Paradise, New Tricks, Midsummer Murders, BBC Newsnight, BBC World News, and whatever WGBH Boston and the BBC have cooked up for this year's run of Masterpiece Theater. PBS also shows endless reruns of One Foot in the Grave, Waiting for God, As Time Goes By, Are You Being Served, Black Adder, Fawltey Towers, Red Dwarf, 'Allo 'Allo, Dr Who, Mr Bean, Open All Night... During the Tellyspoting promotion of KERA's pledge drive week, you can see a thirty year span of Dame Judith Dench's career in one evening, LOL.

British TV on PBS in North Texas

On cable and satellite there is BBC America. Many of the documentary channels like Discovery, History, and TLC will show documentaries from Skye or one of the BBC channels. On the sports channels we get soccer and cricket.

[Mogs]

hello everyone

That was a quick response, if you are in the US, you're up early.

K

[kolos]

hello everyone

[Mogs]

I've never seen a buffalo live, I guess we have some in zoo's, I've not come across one. It does seem silly to me (an outsider) that anyone would hunt anything big with bow and arrow, especially if that animal can then turn on you. The item I've seen was definitely modern Indians riding horseback, no saddles, some with rifles some with Bow & Arrow, there was no attempt to conceal it as a recreation.

I guess the wolf is protected?

My next question (to you guys as Americans not specifically Indians).

US television, we receive loads, the quality range varies but as that’s subjective let’s not go there. How much British TV gets aired with you guys, what do you think?

It’s very obvious that Hollywood doesn’t like us Brits at the moment, it doesn’t matter which programme it is, if there’s a Brit in it, you can guarantee he’s the “baddie”. It get’s even better when the “Brit” is played by an American actor, especially when accents are attempted.

K

[OLChemist]

I have to laugh. Before I read this yesterday morning, I was sitting around with the Texas country boys at work listening to them talk about the upcoming deer season and eating the last of one guy's venison sausage.

From what I have read so far, hunting was a right of passage for many Indians, does this still occur, has it become so regulated to make it unworkable?

Even though from an anthropological point of the use of rite of passage may be correct for some cultures, the usage bothers me. Although I'd be hard pressed to explain why, LOL.

Tribes like state and federal governments regulate resources, this includes game animals. If you go any just about any tribe's webpage, you'll find a link or phone number for their Fish and Game office. They issue permits for tribal members and non-tribal members for hunting. This is no different from the akicita of old who regulated tribal hunters to insure the good of people and the resources. All hunting cultures have rules and practices to insure the continuation of the species upon which they depend.

If it is still practiced, is it undertaken in traditional ways, (eg. Archery as I've seen on TV, although this may have been simulated) or is it now all rifle.

Rifles mostly -- we like our boys to actually grow up, LOL. Those buffalo are freaking dangerous! Think really big bull with sharp horns without a few millennia of selective breeding pressure to make them docile. My ancestors sure as heck were sterner stuff than I to hunt those a bow and arrows.

Seriously, please be careful about confounding material culture with tradition. In my mind, tradition is about the attitude of hunter, how the animal is treated, and the role of the food and other animal products in the culture. If traditional means hunted with stone tips arrows, cut with stone knives and cooked in a buffalo paunch, then my people probably have not had a "traditional hunt" since Lewis and Clark. If traditional means respecting the sacrifice of the animal and using it's gifts to support the life -- physical and spiritual -- of the people, then traditional hunts are ongoing.

Now, are the people who use old fashion tool to hunt, yes. All the ones I know personally are non-Native ancient weapons enthusiasts. But, There are native people who still make and use the olf-fashioned weapons.

Are buffalo still hunted (albeit as part of a managed cull)? The same I guess applies to deer, elk, caribou, perhaps even bear and wolf.

All of those animals with the exception of the wolf are still taken.

Wild buffalo herds are still relatively rare. Most animals are parts of managed/ranch raised herds. Buffalo can be a vector for a illness that causes stillborn calves in domestic cattle. So, they are perceived, often disproportionally, as a threat to ranchers.

Part of what has fueled the resurgence of the buffalo is the dominant culture's interest in them as tasty, low cholesterol game animals. Buffalo (with varying degrees of genetic intermixture with beff cattle) meat is easily available in grocery stores and meat markets in major US cities. This city Indian gets her buffalo at Central Market. I may cook it in a GE oven and serve it with a touch of sage and mustard cream sauce, LOL. But it is still a meal with deep meanings that beef or chicken don't have.

Here are a couple of videos you might find of interest:

Look around minute 22 of this one:

Urban Rez

Decolonizing the Diet

[Mogs]

Thanks for the link, I was not thinking that deeply, with effort I’m sure I will be able to get it, one step at a time. I was thinking Asda (Wallmart) won’t have this.

I’m still up for the Frybread, having showed the recipe to my wife last night, we’re going to give it a try at the weekend. She took one look at the recipe and announced “You’re not having a lot, it’ll be loaded in calories”.

To my next subject – Hunting. This is not covered in Mr Treuers book, and anyway I prefer to converse as best I can with you guys. Hunting in this country (UK) is in the most part is practiced by the rich and/or the toffs. Either it’s Horse & Hounds or blasting away at birds that can barely fly. Neither of which I’ve much appreciation of.

I know that hunting in the US and Canada is still very much practiced for food (and well as sport). From what I have read so far, hunting was a right of passage for many Indians, does this still occur, has it become so regulated to make it unworkable? If it is still practiced, is it undertaken in traditional ways, (eg. Archery as I've seen on TV, although this may have been simulated) or is it now all rifle. Are buffalo still hunted (albeit as part of a managed cull)? The same I guess applies to deer, elk, caribou, perhaps even bear and wolf.

Yes, I know that there will not be a single answer, each nation will have its own customs and practices, and I am asking you all as if you’re a homologous unit, but I don’t know how else to ask the question on an open forum to all without it sounding as such.

K