The Geronimo video isn't my white whale, the Karankawa are

There's no way to discuss them, but I feel morally obligated to, which I hate. I hate when people treat knowing Native American History or learning about it to be some charitable act. It's silly. I learn and teach this stuff because it's interesting. Get over yourself.

The Karankawa certainly are! They rescued those conquistadors, developed a reputation as cannibal giants and great babysitters. They fought a pirate, they kicked the French out of Texas and caused the abandonment of two Spanish Missions. They are a study, also, in the tribes which did not get treaties.

The fact is there is not a single "pop history" book on them, which makes me feel obligated to communicate some actual stuff about them. I have read too much about them to let them be as ignored as they are by broader culture. But I have continually failed to find an angle, all I have is a bunch of disconnected stuff. Here's some stuff:

What is the joke here? I've read this a dozen times and sent it to friends, asking for their help. I think a sentence is missing, what is the god damn joke.

Anyway, I have once again abandoned my Karankawa video for something that, frankly, you're probably more interested in.

Tenskwatawa was a Shawnee Prophet who belonged to a proud tradition. Always at the American frontier, there were one or more Indian prophets who claimed that they had received a vision prophesying the end of the white man. You just gotta return to the old ways! Stop drinking liquor, using a flint-and-steel, and wearing the white man's clothes! Don't marry white men or women! Also, kill your dogs and cats. They stink!

I'm going to use Tenskwatawa's colorful life story (alongside his more famous brother Tecumseh's) to examine the history of Native religious movements, pan-Indianism, and the absurdity of returning to TRVDITION. It's just silly. Don't kill your dogs.

The discussion cannot avoid the Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee, for obvious reasons. In that place, I'll be more tactful.

Of course, the Shawnee (and all the others) were right and justified in romanticizing the past. They were, unmistakably, right to lament their circumstances and pine for an earlier time. I want in this video to NOT take the (incorrect) position that, actually, the whole past was terrible! Any and all "progress" (a very poisonous, loaded term) is great, actually! Eat the bugs!

Rather, I want to criticizing larping an idealized and poorly-understood past. Tenskwatawa, famously, used information taken from a white man about an imminent solar eclipse to his benefit, foreseeing the sun being swallowed up, to the amazement of his followers. Very Cremony of him!

Tenskwatawa had predecessors and successors, but is among the more colorful of this cast of characters. Although I've developed a soft spot in my heart for another one. Do NOT judge me if this next portion is in the video, verbatim.

Among Indian prophets there was also Smohalla of the Wamapum, a band closely related to the more well-known Nez Perce.  Like Tenskwatawa, he too utilized foreknowledge of eclipses to advocate for a return of the old ways.  How did he know of these eclipses which he used to support returning to the old way?

He owned an almanac.

“[Smohalla] showed me [Major MacMurray] an almanac of a preceding year and asked me to readjust it for eclipses, as it did not work as it had formerly done. I explained that Washington (the Naval Observatory) made new ones every year, and that old ones could not be fixed up to date. He had probably obtained this one from the station agent at the railroad, now superseded by a new one, who had cut off Smohalla's supply of astronomical data. My inability to repair the 1882 almanac for use in prognosticating in 1884 cost me much of his respect as a wise man from the east. (MacMurray MS.).” -page 720 Mooney

A note on Smohalla: I sort of love him.  He said the Chinese had tails and that the white man ruined horses.

"He repelled the idea that the Indians had profited by the coming of the whites, and especially denied that they had obtained ponies from this source. His statement on this point may be of interest to those who hold that the horse is indigenous to America:

"What! The white man gave us ponies? Oh, no; we had ponies long before we ever saw white people.

The Great Spirit gave them to us.

Our horses were swifter and more enduring, too, in those days, before they were mixed with the white man's horses." - page 724.  

Horse race-mixing.

It’s no good!

Tenskwatawa, despite decrying the malevolent influences of flint-and-steel, muskets, white man's clothing, food, and everything else, didn't have a bad word to say about horses either. The point of the video will be nuanced, but I suspect, since it'll deal with a trendy topic (tradwives and the less-trendy primal influencers) it'll attract a broad audience who may miss the nuance. Liquor had been (and unfortunately remains) a brutal corrosive agent in Native communities, and Tenskwatawa and other prophets had great success in reducing its influence. Not everything Tenskwatawa and his ilk said was wrong, in much the same way that just because we progressed to something, doesn't mean it's an improvement.

The video will be out by mid-June and is the last video before I finally do Geronimo. This, then, will be the penultimate Yeehaw hoedown.

Thanks for your patience and support as always! Know that even when something doesn't pan out (fucking Karankawa) I am always working and trying to give you the best video I can. Timothy F. Seiter is making a book on them, I hope it's the missing piece.

• DJ PC