intermixing of cultures

[David Lewis]

This discussion has been interesting and reveiling of where some
listmembers are in terms of understanding Northwest history. I would like
to write some challenging things which are going to make some angry. But,
too much I have heard seen and heard discussions about native peoples,
without them being involved... this reminds me of one of the big problems
with anthropology and archaeology...

Continually I have heard of the stabilization of CJ after white settlement.
This position needs to be further defended and fully cited in order to
satisfy my doubts. Of course all recorded CJ is historic, it is the nature
of how science has divided the time and event line. However, many
linguists, including Hymes have written that CJ crystallized before white
contact. I have written on this before. How else can the prevelance of
Indian words and phonology be accounted for.

In Oregon, the native people mixed very well with all other peoples. If you
look at the details of how many people remained alive from acts of  White
settler genocide on Indians you will find that of individual bands and
villages, usually about a dozen people made it to the reservation. And, the
reservations were built as much to keep the Whites out as keep the Indians
in. Of course I can not speak for all Indian tribes or reservations in
Oregon, Warm Springs, Umatilla, and Klamath had a somewhat different
experience than Western Oregon. Cities like Portland and Eugene are what I
call "bubble communities" in the midst of a sea of racism. What I have
learned is don't be caught alone off the I-5 corridor or anything can happen.

While I am not a CJ speaker, many of my family were and are, we are all
mixed blood. But why is this an issue? From all I know neighboring people
intermarried with one another readily in all areas of the world. Indian
people intermarried with Indian people of other nations all the time. This
is the same for English, French, Germans etc. The term White seems to refer
to a political and national stance more than anything else. It is not a
race to me, how would anyone define it? So my point is mixing and
intermarriage is not something out of the ordinary. In America it is
focussed on because of the history of racism and scientific theories of
racial purity. But who really is racially pure? What does that mean? Is
purity actually stagnation?

In Spirit
David