I’ve come across a reference to that in this month’s Smithsonian. An old paddlewheeler that had sunk in the Missouri river in 1853 was found and excavated. One thing they found “on board” in addition to plates and wares and other manifest, was vermillion war paint. This seems somehow dissonant. At least through today’s lens it seems like you’re supplying the enemy with some tools of war. What’s known about this aspect of American commerce in the mid 19th century? After the Indians sold us Manhattan, what were we selling them?
According to a number of my history teachers, the Native Americans used to make the majority of their own tools and such themselves, but it just became more economical for them to buy them pre-made from the Europeans. Warpaint was commonly produced in China, then exported to the New World by the Europeans (“Made In China” is probably nothing new).
IIRC, this also included weapons, with many natives preferign to trade for axes made by the Europeans with superior technology like saws and metalworks than what they could make with sharpened rocks and deer sinew (or even better, they’d just buy guns).
In a way, it makes sense. Being self-sufficient and maintaining your culture is all fine and dandy, but if the tribe accross the river that you have had troubles with for many generations is buying paint and axes and guns from the White Men, and you’re making your own stuff from scratch, you’re very quickly going to find yourself outmatched.
What’s kinda funny is one of those things considered to be very much a Native American thing, Beadwork, didn’t exist until the Europeans begun selling them glass beads (the Indians generally were never known for their glassworking abilities).
Of course, in a way, the tradition continues today. Tanks used by the Americans use weapons made in Europe (At least, I think the 120mm smoothbores are made in Germany, we might have started making them ourselves at some point).
Most Native Americans in the early days got rifles by the simple act of trading. So many pelts/whatever got a rifle in return. If you have no problem letting them have weapons, then war paint doesn’t even raise a single eyebrow hair.
Commerce, even in the 1800s, was more-or-less independent of the big picture.
In many areas today, notably remote parts of Canada, the police have a hard time convincing people to not trade alcohol with First Nations people.
Makes perfect sense. Lewis & Clark, on their expedition overland to the Pacific and back, took special care to bring items of interest and usefulness to the tribes inhabiting the interior. They considered, and rightly so - that in order to trade for items necessary to effect their misson, a lot of bargaining would have to take place i.e. “In traffic they are keen, acute, and intelligent, and they employ in all their bargains a dexterity and finesse… A handful of roots, will furnish a whole mornings negotiation.” Items of cloth, bunting, kettles, lockets, earings, mirrors, rings and beads - red, white, and blue beads. Interestingly, it was only the blue beads which interested the natives - or at least had a value that far outstripped the others, and they ran out right away.
The “Indian Presents” actually made up the largest expenditure of the expedition - and weren’t enough, by the time of their return journey, Lewis ended up trading off his uniform jacket, hat, &c &c.
Could it just be *paint, *not necessarily war paint? After all, the Natives painted hides and pottery-- they had other uses for it. Is there some difference in the consistency which would indicate its usage?
Given that warpaint wasn’t directly useful as a weapon or a defense, but rather as a moral/spiritual support, I’m led to wonder how many American flags are made in China. Except in matters of serious national security, commerce doesn’t always take political alignments into account.
Why is this, is alcohol forbidden on their reservation? (I have heard of something like this, as I am aware alcoholism is a problem in many reservations) Is this a tribe rule or a Canadian law, and are the “police” you’re talking about Canadian or Native?
The glass beads replaced decorations made out of porcupine quills (often dyed different colors), feathers, or beads made out of the shells of whelk, mussels, and other “shellfish”, as well as bone and other natural materials. Of course, the hand-made beads were mostly quite a bit larger than the glass beads (there being limitations on how small it was possible - or even desirable to try - to make using the tools they had). Not to mention that the glass beads were ready to use, and manufacturing one’s own beads was an extremely time-consuming process. In short order, the smaller beads became more desirable; the time saved from preparing the quills or beads could be used to execute more intricate designs, which also justified taking the shortcut of using manufactured beads.
I could be mistaken, and it’s been quite a while since I did any research on beading, but I believe that white traders didn’t start offering beads until after they saw enough Native handiwork to have some idea what items would be appealing. IIRC, the earliest items offered in trade were iron and copper cooking pots.
Quillwork is still done by a few practitioners, and is valued much more highly, even though almost nobody prepares their own quills (quills ready for dyeing can be bought cheaply). I think that most of those who do it are affiliated with Eastern nations, or are whites enamored of the process
I seem to recall that many Native Americans are allergic to alcohol, & it has an exaggerated effect on them, although I could very well be wrong.
Native Americans were capable of crafting very small shell beads at least 11,000 years ago. Check out the Folsom Bead at the bottom of this page.
I don’t think I said my ancestors couldn’t make very small beads. I said “hand-made beads were mostly quite a bit larger than the glass beads.” I was fairly knowledgeable on this at one time. I’ve done beading, and seriously contemplated attempting quillwork, at one point. I also have books on the subject (not at hand; buried in boxes somewhere). The wampum beads in the link were typical in size for most pre-contact beadwork. The fine detail decorative work was almost invariably quillwork.
The emphasis in my earlier response should be on mostly. It was much harder with the tools they had (no iron {meteoritic iron is rare, and was used for weapons}; no copper, except in very limited geographic areas), and so they usually were larger, even quite a bit. Bear in mind, please, that there are only 24 hours in a day, and they were definitely living at subsistence levels. Beads - decorations of any kind - are a luxury. If they were in very rich habitats, there would be times of the year when they had spare time, and that was a way to use it, but that was highly variable.
It seems to be more cultural than genetic among Native American groups. Although there is a genetic protector against heavy drinking that Native Americans can lack. Studies conflict.
It’s complicated. Prohibition on reserves is a band (tribe) law. If the band is large enough to have its own police, then they enforce it. If the band is too small to have its own police, but is large enough to have provincial or RCMP police, then those police enforce it. Many bands are too small to have any police.
Some bands are not located on reserves, so they do not have the authority to proclaim prohibition.
Legally, there is a difference between aboriginal Indian and aboriginal Inuit, for although most aboriginal Indian bands will have a reserve base (although most aboriginal Indians do not live on reserves), aboriginal Inuit do not have reserves, and are not under the jurisdiction of the Indian Act. That is why Inuit communities in the arctic do not have the authority to proclaim prohibition the way Indian communites on reserves further south do. The approach for arctic communities has been to have their territorial governments enact prohibition legislation for specific communities (e.g. the arctic Inuit community of Cambridge Bay going dry over this Christmas by way of Nunavut legislation, as opposed to the Indian reserve community of Fort Hope being dry by Fort Hope legislation as permitted under the Indian Act, as opposed to the Indian community of Pickle Lake which is not situate on a reserve land base and therefore has no authority to enact prohibition and consequently is wet).
As far as enforcement goes, it is exceedingly difficult. Places that are fly-in only have a much better chance at reducing the importation of alcohol than places that are road accessible, but even then alcoholism remains an extremely serious problem.
By analogy, take a few hundred inner-city welfare recipients, have the Survivor producers fly them into the bush, far from any other communities, give them a modicum of shelter, let them fester there year after year with no hope of a better life, and add booze and gas sniffing to the mix. Now drop in a police officer or two. Despite the best efforts of the police, community councils, and individuals within the communities, the problem is too wide spread for them to make much of a dent in it. The solution to the problem is not prohibition on its own. Only significant social, economic and political changes will better address the problem of alcoholism and substance abuse. Quite frankly, while prohibition is better than nothing, it remains a band-aid on a haemorrhage.
The other thing to remember is that “The Indians” were not some single monolithic whole, always on the opposite side of the battlefield from the White Man. Various tribes also warred with each other, and white men warred with each other, too. It was not at all uncommon for the US government to be allied with some native tribes vs. other native tribes and/or vs. other Europeans. So it’s only natural to supply your military allies with military weapons.