What trap? Rubber was discovered in the Americas in the same way gunpowder and paper were invented in China. It is just that people should recognize the real origins, and not put on from of such discoveries the first European or American that noticed it.
Are you of those classic schollars that still believe Bacon invented gunpowder? Perhaps it is time you check against the sources :rolleyes:
Just as well really. Those early microwave dinners all tasted like salt pork and hard tack, mainly because that’s what they were. The only thing the microwave did in fact was make them hotter, and the early microwaves took days to do that.
Bacon was on Earth LONG before gunpowder. In fact it’s in the Bible, which doesn’t say jack about gunpowder (though it does mention salt, Peter, bats, and droppings, so I have to think the neglect to mention is intentional).
What’s your point? Making fun, or trying to get me banned, calling you what you deserve?
This thread is about Amerindian contributions to the world. If you don’t like the topic, please go to fool around elsewhere.
If you are tired of Black American revisionists that attribute many inventions to theirs group, complain to them, not to me. Besides, tell them that peanut butter was invented in Peru, given there peanuts are cultivated since thousand of years ago. Jesus!
Ok, but the whole “imagine a world without” really undermines your message. the world wouldn’t be “without.” It might have been discovered or invented a little later, but that’s all.
And tobacco. Where would we be without tobacco! Oh wait…
Of course. I don’t deny the world would have discovered those things in other time. That’s not the point. But if you think a bit about it, to have modern potatoes, tomatoes, maize, peanuts, chocolate, chilly peppers, vanilla and a thousand of other products, you need thousand of years of selective breeding. Well, that selection was done by Indigenous farmers, and that’s theirs legacy.
Just imagine how boring would be to still eat the Roman and Medioeval diet of meat, bread, honey and butter…
ok, but…
you went on to do just that.
[QUOTE=pinguin]
If you are tired of Black American revisionists that attribute many inventions to theirs group, complain to them, not to me. Besides, tell them that peanut butter was invented in Peru, given there peanuts are cultivated since thousand of years ago. Jesus!
[/QUOTE]
Actually I don’t know any Black American revisionists who take credit for peanut butter. It was in existence before the Civil War and in fact was widely used for protein by people unable to eat solids; about the only thing G.W.C. did with peanut butter was come up with a lot of recipes. His work with the peanut is actually overrated anyway; the soybean was his real brilliance.
Speaking of things the Indians gave us that speaking to you reminds me of-
Peyote, tequila and Mezcal.
Without tobacco we never would have had slaves. Without slaves we never would have had the cast of Good Times. Without Good Times “Buffalo Butt” would never have become a household insult. And you know who invented buffaloes? Indians! Without Indians Good Times would have been the most boring show on TV, just an empty apartment where occasionally a clueless white person wanders in and waits for a cue line that never comes.
Re: medieval and Roman foods, Terry Jones of Monty Python fame did a series of documentaries on ancient and medieval themes (“a day in the life” sort of thing) and said that while medieval food was as horrible if not worse as any depiction of it would indicate (this being for the peasant, kings and nobles ate better of course) the ancient Roman diet, even for the working classes, was actually pretty tasty. There were lots of beans and chick peas (the main protein of the diet), lots of garlic, various greens (mainly cabbage), more garlic, lots of spices and herbs (cheap even if you didn’t grow your own [which few did because only the wealthy cooked at home very much]) and bread [bought from the bakers on every street]). A laborer who was neither indigent or better-off-than-most would have fish and other seafood (or snails) a few times a month, chicken a bit less frequently, and red meat perhaps twice a year or so, thus it was a fairly healthy diet in addition to not bad tasting.
And tobacco, and coca :rolleyes:
Yes, you can’t expect everything was possitive. Alcoholics that drunk pulque (non destilled “tequila”) were common in Aztec times :eek:…
Now, with respect to tobacco that was smoked during rituals, and not to control the stress, like today. Coca is also chew in Bolivia to prevent altitude sickness, but it was never processed to produce cocaine. Cocaine production is an European invention, that Chilean chemists introduced in Colombia. 
False. Slavery of Africans was started by Portuguese in Africa, long before the Americas was “discovered”. Blacks were brought to the New World to grow suggar in the Caribbean, for a long time before tobacco or cotton entered the scene.
So, blame suggar and the Portuguese plantations, in the first place, for slavery in the Americas.
I know. You forgot olives and olive oil, and fish may have been quite common, too. We have the mediterranean diet in here, too. But about half the modern produces are from the New World, already.
A misconception about the diet of natives here and most of the rest of North America is that it was meat heavy. It was actually agriculture based- lots of corn and beans with meat thrown in for seasoning but only really eaten in abundance during winter and at certain festivals. John Smith recorded that the Powhatan did not have anything like a formal mealtime but kept a pot stewing constantly that people helped themselves from when they felt like it, kind of like the way we take water and restroom breaks today; this was echoed centuries later by Stephen Ambrose when he spoke of being on a Dakota reservation and a tribal friend laughing when Ambrose looked at his watch to see if it was lunchtime: “Only a white man looks at a watch to see if he’s hungry”.
Smith did describe one feast he witnessed where the main course was dog. The Powhatan kept dogs as pets and they ate dogs, but not the same ones; so much of their culture is unknown that it’s not sure what distinguished a “dog for eating” from a “dog for companion/helper”. It’s known that small white dogs were their favorite pets.
In any case, rarely do societies come into existence and stay for very long without figuring out what is and isn’t good to eat. If you’re a Ute you know what bugs are edible and if you’re a Creek you wouldn’t touch them unless it was that or starve. Eskimoes of course ate things that would disgust anybody else because they had to. Several Plains tribes seemed to have a taboo against freshwater fish which is odd since the tribes developed along the Great Lakes and several fish rich rivers. Whites and Indians both liked each others food items: whites liked native beans and corn and squash, Indians loved chicken and later pork as well as some of the European and African seasonings they were introduced to, African slaves started cultivating yams and okra and black eyed peas and the like (I assume the slave ships brought some over since I doubt any enslaved people said “Ooh, let me grab some yams and black eyed peas and okra before I get on board”, but cooking it was something they introduced to America) and once rice was introduced in the Carolinas and Georgia it became super popular with Indians as well. (Most people think “a slave was a slave” as far as where in Africa they came from, and if you were in Alabama or Missouri in 1860 you were probably right- tribal identity had largely been forgotten- but it was very important in the Carolinas and Louisiana especially as rice planters wanted Africans who had experience planting and tending rice- a very complex agriculture- and probably would never have been able to grow it without the expertise of the Africans who literally got off the boat knowing what to do with rice cultivation.)
So the Indians held their own in cuisine contributions but they’re far from the only food on the average American table in the 19th century or today, or even on the Thanksgiving table. Nobody here has said, to my knowledge, “Indians haven’t contributed one damned thing to anybody” in this or any other thread.
ETA: Damn I am jonesing for some black eyed peas, boiled okra and cornbread now.
Sure. Meat was scarse in pre-Columbian Americas. That’s why North American Indians developed jerky and Peruvians charky. A dried meat that preserved this precious resource for a long time. And not only meat; milk and cheese were unknown in the New World. So, nobody denies that the diet improved after contact with the Europeans. But improved not only in the New World, but in the Old World as well.
Aztecs and Koreans eat dogs as well…
Interesting.
I was born in the Western Hemisphere too. The people in my local town discovered 3 axis powered flight and landed on the moon. While not as impressive as discovering corn we’re proud of it.
I asked you what qualified as “Indian” because North and South America is filled with literally thousands of different groups of people who have been fighting and conquering each other since the beginning of time.
That you think Christopher Columbus is ignorant given his accomplishments is interesting. He represented one of many civilizations capable of global navigation. He was able to bring his advancements halfway around the world to add to the list of conquerors to the region. He is no better or worse then any of the other chiefs who hacked their way through history.
While I’m sure the indigenous people of this hemisphere invented rock stacking and the number “7” it really isn’t much fun to read about it considering every other group on the planet invented stuff too. We don’t sit around talking about it as if it has any real meaning. If we hadn’t landed on the moon the Ruskies would have done it soon after. Alberto Santos-Dumont or Louis Blériot or a dozen other people would have figured out 3 axis fight if not the Wright Brothers.
If you’re going to post stuff at least make it interesting. What you’re posting reeks of self patronization. It’s something you tell a child who asks why North America advanced so rapidly given the same European conquest the Southern hemisphere went through.
Congrats. But comparing the space race with corn growing it is quite original on your side.
Certainly.
Sure. Columbus was a great sailor and made a breaktrough in navigation. But he also started the destruction of the Americas. So, don’t expect he is much admired in certain latitudes.
Good for you. At least you recognize Amerindians were able to invent things. That’s is quite different to what many people still believe.
Sure. But were the Wright Brothers the first? I just heared that the French claim Adler was first :D. And the Ruskies beat you putting the first satellite and the first man into space. We just were remembering the 50 years of Gagarin historical flight.
Well, the U.S. had an amazing start. No doubt about it. Too bad things are not so clear now. By the way, this time we are growing faster than you guys
TL/DR
This is a good point. Columbus was not the discoverer of America, not when there’s already people living on it. Columbus was some stupid hack who thought Cuba was India, and probably died thinking it was India. He wasn’t even the first European, Leif Ericson kicked his stupid ass by hundreds of years. Further he was reported to be a torturer so vile even the government handling the Spanish Inquisition had him arrested.
Columbus was a dick.