Indian Givers How Native Americans Transformed the World

We also talk about Jack Weatherford's book Indian Givers which I also enjoyed. I put in the reading list email this month and we're carrying in the store and people really love as well.

I just read this fascinating book um by Jack Weatherford called Indian Givers it's not a great title is actually written in the 80s but it basically it's it's a look at all of the sort of things that we got from the native americans um who we also you know uh if you want to talk about a holocaust we perpetuated a holocaust here in america against the the uh aboriginal people and and and what what he was talking about in the book is all these things and it really hit me because i'm from i'm from california now live in the south but you know race is native americans it's more of a part of the sort of cultural conversation and history in california than race is because it wasn't a slave state um and you know what not really part of the civil war but but you know i've i've had a bit clearly had a bit of a blind spot as to the severity and the the horrific tragedy of of what we perpetuate against native americans and reading this book it was very eye-opening and inspiring and interesting and anyways the one of the things he concludes the book with and i encourage everyone to read it is he's talking about it's it's not just all the things we got from native americans um that we should be grateful for but he says the cautionary tale is what our racism and our fear and our sort of insatiability took from us you know he talks about all these things that you know native americans discovered that they brought us all these modern medicines at the root of this and that ways of hunting ecological preservation and he's like as the last of these people die out they are taking with them knowledge and understanding in a way of living that is lost to us forever and that's been happening he said for 500 years

another book called indian givers of his that's fantastic about what i don't think it's the greatest title but it's what the native americans gave to western society incredible incredible book