# Where did the idea that Native Americans = Hippies come from? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2010, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439 "2010-11-04T11:07:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/41 "2010-11-05T01:54:14Z")
> [@jbaker](#): > > Any cites for the claims that Native Americans deliberately poisoned rivers, destroyed ecosystems, engaged in wasteful and destructive practices, had no knowledge of ecology, and overharvested bison? > > As for the claim that Native Americans exterminated thousands of species (surely an exaggeration), it can only refer to the initial period after the Clovis people first came to the Americas, more than ten thousand years ago. I’d say that’s long enough for a fresh start. > > Generally, hunter-gatherer peoples are forced to be good ecologists in order to have a sustainable lifestyle. Agricultural and industrial peoples, in contrast, tend to take over more and more of the landscape for those purposes. The grand exception is when a hunter-gatherer people enters a large new area (such as the Americas), when they can slaughter the wildlife at will, seemingly without consequences. Um… weren’t many of the Native American tribes agrarian rather than hunter-gatherers? ---
**Author:** ![jbaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jbaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbaker)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/42 "2010-11-05T02:00:57Z")
> [@Shmendrik](#): > > Um… weren’t many of the Native American tribes agrarian rather than hunter-gatherers? Yes, that’s true, not so much in what is now the United States (where agriculture was an emerging technology), but in Central and South America. But I don’t think I’ve seen anyone on this thread arguing that Native Americans were destroying their environment with excessive agriculture. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/43 "2010-11-05T02:12:50Z")
Also, i think the long hair on men, and the peyote/other drug use tied the hippies in with the Indians. Also, when the counter culture was blossoming in the 60s, the historical revisionists picked up on some treaties with some buzz words, and, whenever the jabbers started when one was high, they would start on about the white man’s/US Govt’s abuse of the noble red man, and, since drugs were ubiquitous, so was the talk, and that phalanx of the concept was burgeoning. Carlos Castaneda was also influential, methinks. Let’s see, what else…oh, yes, the legendary primitive lifestyle tied in with the hippie communes, or at least the popular conception of it. People also made up ULs about the Indians, to either make themselves feel exalted on some plane, or to justify their actions for whatever…who could check out their stories??? That’s about all I got, for now. Best wishes, hh ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/44 "2010-11-05T02:17:34Z")
> [@jbaker](#): > > Any cites for the claims that Native Americans deliberately poisoned rivers, destroyed ecosystems, engaged in wasteful and destructive practices, had no knowledge of ecology, and overharvested bison? So we don’t hijack this thread, [here’s a previous thread on that subject](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=437515) or you can start a new one of you want more references. None of this is particularly controversial. > [@](#): > > As for the claim that Native Americans exterminated thousands of species (surely an exaggeration) Probably an underestimate. There is something in the order of 400 mammal species alone that became either totally or regionally extinct if you include the Caribbean islands, so it would be astonishing if there weren’t at least as many plants, reptile birds etc. affected. > [@](#): > > it can only refer to the initial period after the Clovis people first came to the Americas, more than ten thousand years ago. I’d say that’s long enough for a fresh start. If you wish. I’ve certainly heard this before, that once the Indians had exterminated everything they possibly could, they no longer exterminated anything else, and this is evidence of living in harmony with nature. It makes no sense of course, but it maybe enough for you. > [@](#): > > Generally, hunter-gatherer peoples are forced to be good ecologists in order to have a sustainable lifestyle. 1. Nobody is talking about HGs. We are talking about Native Americans, 99% of whom were not HGs 2)The statement is provably untrue. HGs were responsible for catastrophic extinction in Australia, far worse than anything ever seen anywhere else at any time in the history of the world. 1. The statement is a non-sequitur. Why are HGs forced to be good ecologists in order to have a sustainable lifestyle any more than agriculturalists? > [@](#): > > Agricultural and industrial peoples, in contrast, tend to take over more and more of the landscape for those purposes. And what, HGs don’t exploit some of their land, or what? What is your point here? > [@](#): > > The grand exception is when a hunter-gatherer people enters a large new area (such as the Americas), when they can slaughter the wildlife at will, seemingly without consequences. And how does this differ from agricultural people? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/45 "2010-11-05T02:22:08Z")
> [@jbaker](#): > > Yes, that’s true, not so much in what is now the United States (where agriculture was an emerging technology)… :eek: Tell me you are joking? That you do know that agriculture had been established over almost all of the United States for thousands of years, that there were massive cities throughout the Mississipi valley and huge networks of towns and roads in the north east? > [@](#): > > But I don’t think I’ve seen anyone on this thread arguing that Native Americans were destroying their environment with excessive agriculture. I am. How do you think Indians supported the massive populations that allowed them to burn out the natural closed forest systems to the point where virtually no natural ecosystem remained on the continent south of the treeline?? ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/46 "2010-11-05T02:26:11Z")
> [@jbaker](#): > > I have heard that Native Americans were excellent environmentalists. Is this not true? Through western New York, the New York State Thruway is almost entirely free of billboards. Except for the stretch that passes through the Seneca Indian Reservation. The tribe also cut down hundreds of trees to improve the visibility of the billboards they put up. “But billboards aren’t pollution!”, you say. Bullshit. It’s visual pollution, as offensive to the senses as any stink-belching refinery. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/47 "2010-11-05T02:32:05Z")
To give this a more literary spin than anthropological, the noble savage concept doesn’t just involve Native Americans. It exists in quite a few forms just in American literature alone. Consider also the Magic Negro, the Chinese medicine man, or the Cajun Witch Doctor. It’s common to set up foreign people as possessing some trait that an author wishes to exemplify. Often times, it’s wisdom, and that’s why we make our sages foreign and distant by putting them on the mountain (oracle in _300_), in the desert (Obi-Wan Kenobi), or in the woods (Rafiki in _The Lion King_). Other times, the foreigner has magic powers like the ability to heal people. So if you’re a 19th century author and you have to have a wise/noble archetype, you have to look around for someone foreign to project it onto. Otherwise, the hero could just ask his next-door neighbor for advice, right? And where’s the quest in that? And so who’s the most easily recognized, yet distant, isolated group in America? The Native American. That’s why they always get those traits. So eventually, you go from “noble people are Indians” to “Indians are noble people.” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/48 "2010-11-05T02:50:42Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > :eek: > > Tell me you are joking? That you do know that agriculture had been established over almost all of the United States for thousands of years, that there were massive cities throughout the Mississipi valley and huge networks of towns and roads in the north east? Blake is basicly correct but we have to take “Massive Cities” into context- the largest city in Pre-Columbian what is now the USA was likely Cahokia, near what is now St Louis, and it then had a estimated max pop of 40000. BUT to put that in perspective, that was more people than in any City in the USA from the birth of that nation until about 1800, when Philadelphia reached that figure. Cahokia was more populous than London for centuries, in all likelyhood. So, “massive cities for their time”. The “empire” stretched from the Gulf to the Great Lakes, from the Atlantic to Texas. The area was heavily set into agriculture. True, there were still HG tribes around, such as on the Northern Pacific. But most of what is now the USA was agricultural since about AD1000. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/49 "2010-11-05T03:29:17Z")
I think you can’t really ascribe common philosophies or even technologies and behaviours to “Native Americans” as a whole. The Mexica didn’t behave the same as the Sioux who didn’t behave the same as the Inuits etc… The Arawak never saw a buffalo, never mind hunted one 😉 Which I think is a part of the whole “Native Americans = far out, man” meme, because positive or remarkable practices of one tribe get ascribed to all of them. You often hear than Native Americans had no concept of property and shared everything for instance, but that’s only true-ish in some of the nomad plains tribes I believe [citation needed]. Or similarly, that they resolved inter-tribal conflicts via mock battles and counting coup instead of killing each other, which is a) bogus (the idea was that touching an enemy warrior with your hand or coup stick without harming him then getting away unharmed yourself proved you were skilled and had massive balls. Because the other guy _was trying to kill you_ _the whole time_) and b) only true in the Northeast and the Plains. A Navajo wouldn’t have known a coup stick from a ceremonial pig tickler. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/50 "2010-11-05T07:28:15Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > Native Americans (Indians) had territory, whaled Really? I didn’t think they had particularly large boats and/or harpoons. How did they whale? Not a philosophical objection, just a pragmatic one. I _have_ heard that their environmentalism is wildly exaggerated, but I’ve never heard that their ability to hunt ridiculously large oceans mammals was under exaggerated! ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/51 "2010-11-05T07:57:54Z")
[QUOTE=jackdavinci] Really? I didn’t think they had particularly large boats and/or harpoons. [/QUOTE] What, you never heard of muktuk ? (Not to be confused with mukluks. Far as I know, the Inuit didn’t eat their boots) Anyhow, they didn’t have big boats, but managed to bag themselves some whales anyway. They relied on small and nimble boats, the better to get out of the way if the whale tried to ram them, jump on them or surface from under them.[Apparently](http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/ancienttech/whaling.html), they harpooned them on the surface and stuck seal-hide balloons into them so the whales couldn’t escape by diving and exhausted themselves trying to, all the while being harpooned some more until it keeled over from exhaustion and blood loss. So, kind of like a corrida, only with a big fish. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Duality](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.duality/32/4098_2.png) [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/52 "2010-11-05T14:30:22Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > You just didn’t _see_ them. Those Noble Savage types are masters of stealth, you know. But wouldn’t they have an irresistible urge to come out of hiding and dance around in a circle during the traditional mid-concert drum solo?😉 ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/53 "2010-11-05T14:48:08Z")
I don’t see how climate change could possibly explain the extinction of mammoths. They were highly adaptable and wide-ranging creatures whose remains have been found at least as far south as Guatemala. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/54 "2010-11-05T15:06:39Z")
Thing is, any mythology built around “the Indian” is almost bound to be false, because there wasn’t just one Indian nation or culture or ethos- there were dozens, maybe hundreds. Some Native American races were nomads; some were urban. Some were hunters and gatherers, but others practiced large-scale agriculture. Some lived in a state of near-anarchy, but others had complicated, elaborate legal codes. Some were primitive and superstitious, but others had skilled mathematicians and astronomers. Some were largely peaceful, but others were cruel warmongers. Some held all property communally (socialists, if you like)… but many others were merchants and traders (capitalists, for lack of a better term) ANY single description of Native American cultures as a whole will be woefully inaccurate. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/55 "2010-11-05T15:14:25Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Really? I didn’t think they had particularly large boats and/or harpoons. How did they whale? ! My Dad grew up with the AK Eskimo, and he was there for a whale hunt. They hunted smaller Grey Whales. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/56 "2010-11-05T15:58:18Z")
This section should give a quick idea: > **[History of whaling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_whaling#Prehistoric_to_medieval_times)** > > This article discusses the history of whaling from prehistoric times up to the commencement of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. Whaling has been an important subsistence and economic activity in multiple regions throughout human history. Commercial whaling dramatically reduced in importance during the 19th century due to the development of alternatives to whale oil for lighting, and the collapse in whale populations. Nevertheless, some nations c... Whaling was hugely important to many coastal groups. As for agriculture, it’s funny because every American knows the canonical story of the first Thanksgiving, with the Indians teaching the Pilgrims how to grow corn, so they didn’t starve to death. And yet the same people turn around and somehow think that almost all Indians were hunter-gatherers. Where did the corn come from then? I guess this contradictory idea comes about because by the time of the classic “Cowboy and Indian” era after the Civil War, it became true that most surviving Indians were forced into a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. After population collapse due to disease and genocide, Indians were forced out and productive agricultural land was expropriated by settlers. The so-called “Five Civilized Tribes” of the American South certainly weren’t hunter-gatherers before the [Trail of Tears](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_tears). ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/57 "2010-11-05T22:41:01Z")
I know at least one tribe in Florida (I think it was the Seminole) also engaged in whaling. They did so without large boats of any kind. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/58 "2010-11-06T10:30:21Z")
The Eskimo routinely harvested whales up to the bowhead whales (second largest animal in existence) using skin boats and harpoons; occasionally the harpoon head was poisoned for greater effect. Not to say every harpooned whale was always bagged, but it was a viable way of getting fed. ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439/59 "2010-11-06T16:22:38Z")
[This was linked to from Slashdot today](http://scienceblog.com/39940/moved-by-religion-mexican-cavefish-develop-resistance-to-toxin/). Apparently, in a annual ritual ceremony that has continued from pre-Columbian times, a local tribe of Indians in Mexcio has been poisioning the water in a cave during their spring rites. What happened is that evolution kicked in over the centuries, and now the ‘Altantic Molly’ fish in that area have developed a high resistance to the toxions used in the Indian ceremony. In other words, religion has yet again provided a situation which proves evolution is real. Apropos of this thread, a relevent quote from that article: > [@](#): > > In fact, he says, it’s been happening since the beginning of mankind and that the idea of the “noble savage” is passé. > “We tend to have this wonderful Pocahontas idea that before Europeans came in, everything was pristine and in harmony with nature and that all of the changes in our environment have been post-industrialization,” he explains. “No. People have been changing the environment forever.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-idea-that-native-americans-hippies-come-from/559439.md?page=2)