Portal talk:Indigenous peoples of North America

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Contents

[edit] Updates and maintenance

As of July 9, 2006 and since its creation in June 24, the sections of this Portal are being updated with the following frequency:

Phædriel ♥ tell me - 13:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Starting on August 1, 2006, and after adopting a rotating contents system, all sections (with the exception of News) will be updated every month. The update frequency for News will remain within the same criteria currently in use. Phaedriel ♥ The Wiki Soundtrack!♪ - 22:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section Listing

As of 25 June 2006 the portal consists of the following sections:

New sections have been added on July 9 to archive previously selected contents:

[edit] Stalking Turkey

In the "did you know" section, Stalking Turkey redirects to Oconastota; according to the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, these are two different people. Whoever merged the two articles might want to recheck their sources. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 20:02, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concerning the Hupa

They believe that they lived in the Hoopa Valley for over 400,000 years, but their language suggests that they are relatively recent immigrants from what is now western Canada.

Based on this statement you would hope for a clarification of "they" as opposed to the linguists; those that also remain unreferenced. Perhaps somewhat saddening is how a writer can, by mere mention, imply that given research into a certain matter outweighs the popular opinion of an entire tribe. This type of writing parallels that of Catlin, Brown and many others that claim to be fact-based but have rather strong and condescending undertones.

From a more spiritual perspective, and reflecting on my own experience in dealing with Natives, I question the validity of concepts such as time and territory. More specifically the Indian does not acknowledge time in the same sense as most of us would, and the concept of ownership (incl territories) is largely unknown since everything is owned by the Creator.

I just hope that these type of articles be written with a heightened sense of sensitivity as we're dealing with cultures that are largely bound to disappear over the next 10-20 years, as most have already or have been reduced to much in their present form. From this perspective it would seem imperative that we capture the Indian legacy in spirit, within a medium that reaches out for mutual respect and an understanding of their value system.

I apologize for making this point specific to the Hupa, it may apply to this topic in general. In all cases I would hope for the involvement, advise and counsel of an elder to have these passages rewritten. They're unacceptable in their present form

--Horn66.174.79.226 22:39, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

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