MovieChat Forums > How the West Was Won (1963) Discussion > Primitive man...

Primitive man...

posted 10 years ago by jondoe888
25 replies | jump to latest

'During his narration at the beginning of the film, Spencer Tracy refers to Native Americans as "primitive man". This statement is still on the DVD version, although it could be considered racist today.'
With so many gripes about the lack of blacks and other minorities in this 1963 movie, I'm surprised there aren't more about this statement.

Racist? Really??? Maybe elitist. To the white settlers, and to whites in general, Natives were thought to be primitive. No horses, no metal, no real industry. I'm willing to give the movie a pass on this.

But what did the Natives think of the Whites? I've read they rarely bathed, and they smelled. They knew little about the new land. They killed Natives, and had their own army to campaign against them. And they had no interest in sharing the 'new' land!

And what do we really know about those pre-invasion days? Not much! I've read America had a vast network of roads and routes, for trading. Medical knowledge may have been better than the Whites, in some areas. There was education, trade, societies, buildings... In fact, the Natives were very well organized and strong. Nordic landing parties were quickly repulsed - and those guys weren't pansies!
Then, there was a plague that crippled the land. (14th century?). Just as it was recovering, the Whites appeared. Millions of Natives again died. The virus spread so quickly that most never saw the White man. The deaths were a mystery, and their nation never recovered.

I'd love to read a detailed book about those days, before the Whites came.
(any suggestions???)

[–] thbryn 10 years ago

Well it was harsh. And I don't know if it was meant to be 1250ad native americans or the mid-1800's during the great west migration? It wasn't a comment on their organizational abilities.

The definition of the phrase could be loosely meant to be relative isolation, an inability to read a major language of the West (Eng,Fr,Span), lack of sustained record keeping, or a sense of individual freedom (probably no Habeas corpus rights in a tribe).

Kisskiss, Bangbang

[–] bastasch8647 10 years ago

For me, the worst part of the sentence is "first it had to be won" - from primitive man. Won! With superior European weaponry, technology, means of travel, communications, industry - and most of all, the rapid and rabid proliferation of European infants that followed wave after wave of whites "yearning to breathe free". The Natives never had a chance, and to describe their defeat as a "win" for the white side is revolting beyond belief.

[–] cwente2 10 years ago

"... revolting beyond belief."

My guess is that there have been hundreds (perhaps thousands) of historical events involving competing cultures and violence which might be considered "revolting" to just about anyone. Some of these events involved competing Indian tribes (the Iroquois and the Sioux "invaders", for example), or "native Americans" -- if you prefer. Throughout the bulk of recorded human history most disputes involving wealth, power, and space were solved through combat, and the victors were, predictably, the ones whose "weaponry", "technology", "communications", etc. were "superior" to that of the losers.

Your revulsion, therefore, should, it shall have been hoped, encompass this human condition in a broader (and more accurate) sense -- regardless of simple racial or geographic considerations. I.e., "Whitey" ain't the only culprit in such analyses. Everyone, practically, has had a hand, at one time or another, in such "revolting" behavior (Eg., the Commanche who were yearning to acquire plunder and slaves from other "native American" tribes as opposed to "yearning to breathe free").

[–] bastasch8647 10 years ago

Your revulsion, therefore, should, it shall have been hoped, encompass this human condition in a broader (and more accurate) sense

Not a question of broader or more accurate. The issue is the film How the West Was Won, and its stupidity and moral murkiness in claiming the West was "won" from "primitive man". I stand by my statement without modification.

[–] gkleps (6) 10 months ago

100% agree. I almost turned it off in the first 3 minutes because of this phrasing. Like genocide of an indigenous people was a game of chutes and fucking ladders. Smh

[–] murad23 10 years ago

"revolting beyond belief"

The Native Americans were no less violent. We know they themselves came in waves killing prior residents. We also know native Americans committed mass genocide on other tribes, had endemic slavery and perhaps the single fastest destruction of ecosystem with their broad and wasteful extinction of all of the megafuana that existed for million of years and were all killed en mass within a few centuries of the arrival of "native Americans."

And the OP is confused by a bunch of PC nonsense. The native Americans did not have roads, they had tracks. They had no alphabet, no books. They in FACT were a stone age people. That is primitive.

The OP does not need a book on native Americans but one on human history where superior cultures and civilizations all have take over from more primitive ones. Native Britain's were dancing around fires and eating each other before the Romans came. The romans conquered and civilized a primitive people

[–] bastasch8647 10 years ago

The Native Americans were no less violent.

Irrelevant because the issue isn't their violence, but that their entire culture was mutilated by Europeans with superior arms technology and the willingness to commit genocide via any means possible including distributing smallpox-laden blankets to Natives.

[–] joekiddlouischama 9 years ago

The OP does not need a book on native Americans but one on human history where superior cultures and civilizations all have take over from more primitive ones. Native Britain's were dancing around fires and eating each other before the Romans came. The romans conquered and civilized a primitive people

The question of superiority is certainly open to debate; greater sophistication does not necessarily mean superiority, morally or aesthetically.

[–] heaver2000 8 years ago

Native Britain's were dancing around fires and eating each other before the Romans came. The romans conquered and civilized a primitive people

First off, it's "Britons" if you're referring to the occupants of the British Isles, and there should be no apostrophe in a plural.
Secondly, you're talking boll ocks. Britain was a civilised agricultural and industrial society for a thousand years before the Romans invaded. The Romans "conquered and civilized a primitive people" in the same way the Nazis "conquered and civilized" the Poles and Russians.

[–] joekiddlouischama 9 years ago

And I don't know if it was meant to be 1250ad native americans or the mid-1800's during the great west migration?

... clearly the latter, I would say. The film's narrative begins circa 1837.

[–] murad23 10 years ago

"This statement is still on the DVD version, although it could be considered racist today.' "

Only if you are utterly ignorant of history due to a PC mis-education. Native Americans were in fact stone age. That was primitive and about 4,000 years behind Europeans in civilization

[–] bastasch8647 10 years ago

Native Americans were in fact stone age.

Not all the Plains tribes, some of whom moved from a post-stone age agronomist culture to a nomadic horse culture. Moreover, the point still stands that the Europeans did not "win" the West from Natives. They stole it in a series of genocidal battles and broken treaties.

[–] cwente2 10 years ago

Kind of a silly point, isn't it? Could be said of any conquest by force. Everyone knows what "won" means in this context.

[–] dollvalley 9 years ago

I think this "dispute" has been settled, the replies to the OP are quite clear.

Can I ask about some subjects brought up here:

1) what is megafuana?
2) I had no idea there were previous "native Americans" (1800s, 1250s...) while of course man must have lived on there since man existed.... but what movies lead us to believe is that the so-called Indians were the rightful owners of that land.
Where can I get more reading on this?

[–] cwente2 9 years ago

I'm no expert, but I understand the earliest known "Americans" were the "Clovis people", about 12-14,000 years ago. Of course, the question must be asked -- were they here first, or did they come here from somewhere else?

This "native American" idea has changed under pressure from the PC crowd (so, what else is new?). It used to refer to anyone who was born here (making me, of German descent, a "native American"). Now, it refers neither to me nor to the Clovis people, but, rather, to American Indians -- who fit nicely in-between.

Could "megafuana" ("megafauna"?) mean "large animals" (deer, moose, bear, etc.)? . . .

[–] joekiddlouischama 9 years ago

... more "ethnocentric" and "politically incorrect" than "racist," I would say (yes, there is slippage between "ethnocentrism" and "racism," but the distinction is nuanced). It is more a matter of perspective; How the West Was Won emerged before the healthy revisionism of alternative perspectives became mainstream, so the use of "primitive" in this context is to be expected. As I have written elsewhere on the board, this film represents the cinematic apotheosis of Manifest Destiny and the traditional, triumphalist narrative of Western settlement, marked by the victory of 'civilization' over the 'wilderness.'

[–] Andrew_S_Hatton 9 years ago

I think the megafuana mistype of megafauna has been answered & I note Wikepedia has a referenced article on the subject.

As to the question about previous native Americans - or perhaps even more relevantly previous civilisations anywhere - I think this is a rapidly developing area of human knowledge and understanding and there is not yet a settled opinion as who came first, where did they settle and migrate and what happened to them in the end - accepting that some of our civilisations have not reached their end, YET - FORTUNATELY - for devotees of IMDB as well as other social communicating human beings!

The study of DNA is helping but is a bit complex for me and I became rather bemused at the links to the DNA references on Wikipedia from the article about Clovis people - who are mentioned earlier.

Most recently I gather that there have been findings of a much, much earlier, human related creature who seemed to be deposing of their dead in a 'civilised' and organised way - that has introduced more uncertainty into the debate.

I (in the UK for the time being*) subscribe to the National Geographic Magazine - it is comparatively cheap under about £25.00 (British pounds) a year for 12 editions of a magazine delivered that costs £4.99 a month at the news stands. They are writing for a general audience and so explain things in ways that even I can normally understand. Often articles are available online along with their stunning photographs - but I like having a magazine to hold.

I mention this because there is in the latest issue a feature - I have yet to read it fully - about those dead body disposals in Africa many, many thousands of years ago from a human related species.

I say dead body disposals rather than burials, because they were found at the bottom of a deep pit, the relevance being that they were actually dropped or thrown there rather than just abandoned elsewhere (I think)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/

*I say I subscribe for the time being - because I am uncertain about continuing now the nemesis of Liverpool and business integrity Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp; has recently purchased The National Geographic Magazine and I wonder whether now to sustain my own integrity I should unsubscribe.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] joe_538 8 years ago

some of whom moved from a post-stone age agronomist culture to a nomadic horse culture.

Horses brought by the Spanish in the 1500s.

[–] barjo4 9 years ago

What do the critics of films made 50 years ago want to do about it? There are some who want to ban films like this - and like "Gone With the Wind." Ban them, burn books - what is next? It's funny that nobody wants to talk about one of their classic heroes Woodrow Wilson, the big time racist in the 20th century.

As for Indians, what is so sophisticated about running a herd of buffalo off of a cliff? Primitive? I think so. No written language, little of progression at all compared to the Europeans who arrived later.

[–] lakealice 8 years ago

Would you rather that whites had retreated to Europe, and what is now the U.S. would have stayed as it was with this vast land left to the natives? Since you are writing this comfortably from your computer in the U.S. in the 21st century instead of from whatever country your ancestors came from, I assume you prefer it the way it turned out.

[–] okc_rn 7 years ago

Sadly, as indians did not have paper, or even an extensive written language until Sequyoia, AND to have told an epic story like this with epic native american songs and ledgends would have required the skins of more buffalo than existed at the time.

Novels and story writting were not their high points.

[–] liscarkat (16483) 3 years ago

American Indians were still living in the stone age when Europeans arrived. They were primitive.

[–] Redsfan001 (6004) 10 months ago

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[–] Otter (24464) 8 months ago

I do not know of such a book, although there are probably books about the history of some of the mre important pre-colonization nations. -+6But probably remarkably few, because publishers didn't consider the subject commercially viable until fairly recently (at best, how often do books about anthropology sell big), and so much history has been lost.

There's a theory that if more than a certain percentage of the population of any given society dies off in a plague or a disaster or something, then a society is doomed or forever altered, because so much knowledge is lost. The number may be something around 50%, or more or less, but in some parts of the Americans something like 90% of the population died within a comparatively short period of time. With that kind of mass death whole fields of knowledge can be lost, like imagine that more than 90% of the plumbers died and there was nobody left to repair or teach new plumbers, and in a few years society would be without indoor running water.

And well, in the Americas, there had to be a lot of places where the history of a people was lost, because the people who knew the history in detail all died in a plague brought by the white people.