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Originally Posted by SerenityLives
The debate over marriage in American society and the fears expressed by some conservatives that allowing diversity will somehow destroy the institution of marriage is ever evolving. While there appears to be some who feel that there is only one kind of marriage, in reality there are many options regarding marriage. Traditional Native American marriage is one of the unique types that is interesting to explore.
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We forget everything. What we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely that hackneyed dotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories by incessant hammering. ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago," 19181956
Funny thing about history is that you can make it say most anything you want, and such is never more true than with indigenous history. Nothing has ever been more diverse than the thousands of American tribes over thousands of years. Pick a time and pick a place, take a snapshot, and characterize the whole with whatever you have selected. Such is Native American history. Study the horrible revisionist movement called the
1619 Project for implications today.
In 1990 Kevin Costner starred as John Dunbar in the epic post Civil War classic "
Dances With The Wolves" glamorizing the Sioux Nation and won 7 Oscars for Best Picture, etc. Viewers left the movie with disdain for the "villainous" Union Army white man and compassion for the plight of Native Americans. "Dances With The Wolves" has been called a "white savior" film. Lost in the memory of the story, however, was the treacherous Pawnees whose power hungry chief was hell-bent on Sioux genocide. So, do we characterize all Native Americans as Sioux or Pawnee? Lost also in the film was that the Union Army had just paid an enormous price to liberate the slaves under President Lincoln.
Such is the case with all aspects of Native American life, culture, character, worship, economics, etc. Take a snapshot in time to say anything you want. Truth is they were as diverse as the rest of the world is today. Truth be told Lieutenant
John Dunbar was a compassionate missionary who loved God and man. He left his New England home to bring the Gospel of Christ to the Pawnee people. Now why do you think they left that inconvenient fact out of the story?