Pre Colonial American Culture Essay

Mark Twain once remarked: “The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.” Living in the very interesting times of counter narratives, revisionism and paradigm shifts, long-standing assumptions regarding people and nations have undergone revolutionary modifications. Individual and collective histories that shaped world views and attitudes are now seen for what they are – not mere recordings of facts and reality, but rather the victor’s version of the reality they deemed to construct. The European master narrative of history has been rejected as a sham that generated false representations and pejorative stereotypes of “Others” to cover up their violations and suppress variant subcultures. But the resurgence of the

Thousands of years before the arrival of the European colonizers, these communities thrived in forests and along shorelines, amidst the abundance of resources and gradually developed a complex ritualistic life comprising language, law, customs and spirituality, all based on their kinship with the land. But the arrival of the British and other European settlers brought in its wake widespread devastation and depravation through confiscation of land and resources, large scale hunting and fishing and diseases like smallpox to which the native tribes were not immune. Eventually this gave way to social exclusion, ghettoization and sabotage of aboriginal cultures. The attempt of the Native American tribes to arise phoenix-like from the ashes of near-extinction has been pioneered by writers from among the ethnicities whose works offer an inside and intimate view of their existence and challenge the white man’s derision. Among the many crusaders who strived to restore lost dignity and relevance to the indigenous cultures, the Mohawk writer Maurice Kenny has carved a niche of his own. He is a leading figure in the Renaissance of Native American poetry since the