A Positive Image for Native Americans, Yes.

G'day Stalzz,

I wonder if there's a single culture anywhere in the world that doesn't rest upon a foundation of conquest and stolen lands. The problem comes when, instead of trying to work out how to preserve and respect the best from past cultures, today's white people who have no connection to sins of the past are made to feel guilty for the sins of far removed generations, and are expected to somehow recompense people who also are far removed from their pillaged ancestors (I don't include those who are directly affected by gross wrong-doing, such as the victims of Australia's "stolen generation").

When you start to ask for compensation and restored lands, where do you end? For example, who should own Angle-Land (England)? Who stole it from who first? Should it be stolen from those who own it now to be returned to the descendants of those who stole it generations, or centuries ago?

In the scheme of things, we should begin at the present, learn from the past and move on into the future.

You said this movie shows us white people how the indians lived. Do movies like this *really* show how indigenous peoples live? No, they don't.

As a point of interest, how do indians ("native Americans") live who have been given reserves? I don't know the answer, but I am curious: Have they maintained their own traditional ways of living? Of housing (teepees), clothing, diet etc etc? Or do they try to mix their culture with the apparently desirable aspects of white culture? I could be wrong (and perhaps someone can educate me here) but I'm guessing the latter because I see it here in Australia, and it doesn't work. Trying to mix a bit of western culture with a bit of indigenous culture invariably results in poverty, drunkenness and squalour.

Certainly "white" culture is fast losing its way as we eat ourselves to death on junkfood, as we allow truth to be slaughtered by powerful economic interests and give our governments the trust and authority they crave to build totalitarian regimes. But don't allow the ethics and practices of indigenous cultures to be romanticised to your children, because deep down human beings are, and have always been the same regardless of the amount of melanin in their skin. The barbaric practices of indigenous peoples wouldn't be allowed under "western" law. For example: 1) the practice of suffocating a weak baby by filling its mouth with sand was practiced by Australian aborigines. 2) the barbaric "payback" system of law enables an innocent man to be speared for his brother's crime. These things, and the war-like tendencies of indigenous peoples are being wiped from our children's history books. Why? So that they can be portrayed as maternal, gentle, peace-loving and spiritually sensitive, compared to the now very politically incorrect and so-called "paternal and bigotted" christianity that has always taught "love thy neighbour as thyself" and "do unto others as you would be done unto". In fact, so-called indigenous cultures have generally been oriented around "earth-centred sprituality" and cultures that abandon christianity drift in this direction. The more these pagan "earth-centred spiritualities" characterise a culture, the more barbaric become its spiritual rituals and ceremonies, culminating in human & child-sacrifice.

No, Stalzz, this movie and others like it definitely don't show how indigenous peoples live. Far from it.

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Don't forget that the Sioux were "empire builders" of a sort, and were actively engaging in land-grabbing wars against the Crow, among others. The reason that the Crow were willing to serve as scouts for the U.S. Cavalry was to pay the Sioux back for taking the Paha Sapa, or Black Hills. No one has entirely clean hands.

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by - stalzz64 on Sat Jan 13 2007 19:42:20 This and another film released by the same production company in 1970, Little Big Man, really show us white people how the Native American people lived, and how we stole their land from them. I saw Little Big Man in school, and this film on TV many times before I finally bought the DVD. The time these two films were made was the end of the 1960's, and the beginning of the 1970's, a turbulent time in the USA as the USA WAS (and are again, unfortunately,)at war.
The Popular Culture was all about peace and love in the USA in those days, and that is what A Man Called Horse is about at its' core. America declared war on the Native American tribes and either killed them outright or shuffled them off to reservations. War is bad in any form.
Too many people have to die. That's one reason why I think that this film and Little Big Man struck such a chord with movie audiences in 1970, and how both films still do today.

R.I.P. Richard Harris and all the war dead for all time.
PEACE NOW AND FOREVER.

Did we watch the same movie? In this movie an old Sioux woman's husband is killed. The rest of the tribe instead of taking her in - rip her tipi apart and take all their possessions. They leave the old woman starving and to the elements. She has to fight a dog for a bone and she finally freezes to death. So much for the Lakota/Dakota Oyate. *Yeah these people are a proud noble people - alright*.

And as far as the land goes the land was never theirs to begin with. It originally belong to the Cheyenne and was stolen by the Sioux.

I decided to be a kinder-gentler Rimeshot.....

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[deleted]

Being human is complicated. Even when we mean well, we often get things all wrong. Let's take the question posed here as an example. I'm sure the OP meant well but the question itself illustrates why we run tend to run into problems.

First, let's talk about 'Native Americans'. I guess Indian is no longer the acceptable term. That's fine but whatever we call these people, we have a tendency to lump them all together as if they were all the same; one group of people who all belong together. That is far from the case.

The movie shows us that one group of Native Americans were at war with other groups. Much in the same way some 'cowboys' were shooting and killing other cowboys in the wild west. The movie is not about Native Americans; it's about one man's experiences living among a group of Sioux Indians.

Second, why would this movie improve our image of Indians in general or the Sioux specifically? Things start off with an unprovoked attack on a group of men. Most are killed and one is taken hostage. Two cords are wrapped around his neck and he is dragged behind a horse. He is treated like an animal; much worse in some ways. When he arrives at their camp, he is left tied up to a post and has to withstand the elements without shelter. He is used as a slave or beast of burden.

Within their own group, we watch them ignore an elderly woman, depriving her of food and shelter until she dies a miserable death steps outside of several homes. We watch one man take up with the wife of another. We watch a series of ceremonies that, according to our standards, can only be described as barbaric and cruel.

Later, the guy wins the respect of his hosts by killing and scalping a couple of, wait, other Native Americans. Do they not matter? Do they factor into the answer to the question?

Horse is welcomed into the group and given high honors but before he can take a wife, he's subjected to a painful ordeal that could easily kill him. With all the breaks in his skin, if nothing else, infection alone poses a serious threat. Just as he's settling in to life with the group, expecting a child, and thinking of the future, they are attacked. It’s another unprovoked attack that leads to the deaths of many; including John’s brother-in-law, his wife, and his child.

Horse and Batisse are the only white men in the entire movie yet you ask if we get a positive image of Native Americans? Why must we have a better image of Native Americans than we do of other groups? What happened to them was sad and shameful but we cannot change the past; we can just learn from it and hope to do better in the future.


Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]

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