What do we know about the Iroquois?

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Fiera


Who knows, in the end she may pretend that we are all part of a Roman Catholic conspiracy!

What makes it even more funny is that I am actually a leftist atheist human rights lawyer. I have never before been a part of catholic conspiracy!

[sastre]

Originally posted by Ribannah
Nothing is gained by having both the Aztecs and the Incas in the game, as they were basically part of the same civilization.

No tienes ni puñetera idea de historia, estudia algo de esas civilzaciones antes de decir tamaña tontería.

[orange]

Originally posted by Ribannah
Nothing is gained by having both the Aztecs and the Incas in the game, as they were basically part of the same civilization.

oh man, Rib didn't really say that, did she. No one can be that sutpid, can they?

OH MY SHE DID!

[Fiil]

Originally posted by Martinus
I do not discount amateurs. But every one - be it amateur or proffesional has to conform to certain standards when making claims and theories. Among them are accountability and validity of your sources.

But it is Ribannah, not me who makes claims without any validated proof. I use the word "validated", because as far as weblinks are concerned, I could just "proove" to you that European Union is just a templar conspiracy and the pyramids were built by aliens - this, and more you can find on the web.

And you speak wisely about specialisation. Yet by specialising we cannot loose the broader picture.

True, I agree. But I would like to add that when you try to draw the broader picture it can be hard to validate it.

Btw imho if you want a debate with amateurs, quotes and references to conclusions and theories aren't that great because they will have to spend all of their time checking your sources. This way only one person will end up debating - the person who knows the most books.
Also how can I ever quote my sources (danish primarily).
My suggestion is to rely on logic (I know this can be tricky) and facts.

Originally posted by Martinus
So do not attack me, as I simply started by refuting Ribannah's claims - the claims which anyone would simply find ridicuolous, and which basically rebuke all European achievements (she actually said Europe had no diplomacy or rhetorics in the middle ages).

I'm not defending Ribs statements, that she will have to do herself. But IIRC she said that she knew of no rhetorics in Europe in the middle ages. It is not exactly the same. Here's the difference in how we read it: You assume she's making nonsense and I'm giving her the benefit of doubt.

Originally posted by Martinus
I asked about her training, because I have never seen anything like this.

OK I know I'm guessing here, but:
This is what I would call a leading question, you already assumed you know the answer when you first asked it. So you're not really interested in the answer, but only wanted to use it against her.
I truly am sorry if I'm wrong!

Originally posted by Martinus
And I am sorry, but if you find Ribannah's theses about European culture to be "a bit incorrect" than I have no comments really.

When I write something like "a bit incorrect", I have chosen to use this kind of phrase because it can be read in several ways. The obvious and as an understatement. This way I refuse to show my opinion on the matter - because this would only make it harder to understand the point I'm trying to make. It is like saying 'in any case'.
I hope you understand this, as it maybe a Danish phenomenon.

All of this is my opinion, and I hope it can open the discussion again. I use a few rules when I debate:
1) Allways try to be very exact in statements.
2) Seperate facts from conclusions.
3) Be careful not to make conclusions on other peoples statements. (If you do anyway, ask them if you're correct)
4) Never exaggerate to proove your point.

I'm not saying I follow these rules always and make no mistakes - only that they are my criteria.

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by orange
(Aztecs and Incas)

You're quoting out of context. It's really a matter of scale. Go further back and all Amerind tribes are one single civilization.
As Boris and I agreed (at least I think so - let's be careful!), the similarities in civilization between Incas and Aztecs are comparable to the similarities between Germans, French and British. I was talking about diversity as one of the reasons to include the Iroquois. Including both the Incas and the Aztecs would in my opinion add less to the game than picking one of them (and then I'd prefer the Mayas) plus the most significant northern Amerind tribe, given the fact that there are only so many slots. Unless, of course, someone is going to show that the Aztecs and Iroquois had really much more in common than the Aztecs and the Incas.
Since, as we all seem to agree, the Europeans had relatively more influence on human civilization, the same could not so easily be said about including three similar European tribes. But I agree with Firaxis that including more of them would give the Europeans too much weight.

[Guynemer]

Boris... sorry, I'm too lazy to actually quote ya, but again I gotta disagree re: Egypt...

The 50,000 people over 20 years theory is the leading theory but that's about all it is right now--a theory. Probably the best (or at least the safest) theory we have at the moment, but like every other theory that has been offered re: the Pyramids, it has problems. I'm sure you're aware of them, and lord knows I don't want to go into that with an exam looming on Monday, so let's leave it there. If we really want to have it out on this one, I humbly request we wait until next week.

I think you missed my point re: Egypt being isolated. Or, perhaps, I just misunderstood you. Since it had such imposing physical barriers, Egypt never had to develop the highly military culture that various peoples from Arabia did. Instead, it developed other kinds of culture--scientific, social, governmental, religious. I don't understand why a more highly developed military should be valued more than Egypt's relative strengths in these other areas.

I'm glad that there appears to be some intelligent discussion on these boards... you just have to dig a little (or a lot, in the case of OT ).

Guynemer

[Roman]

Originally posted by Martinus
I am actually a leftist atheist human rights lawyer.

Power to the atheists - there are far too few of us around. Leftist though??? After what happened to your country over the past 50 years or so???

[Sarxis]

How did we get from Iroquois to Leftist Atheist Lawyers?

Ahh.. too lazy to find out....

[Boris Godunov]

PREFACE:

I have had a few drinks.

PREFACE II:

I am p*ssed! Not in the drunk sense, but in the angry sense. I decided to walk home from work (takes me 1/2 hour to do so from Midtown Manhattan to the E. Village--nice walk, and pretty much wherever you are, you can turn around and WHAM there's the Empire State Building, breathtaking as always), and I then stopped into a Narnes & Boble book store (my name for them, don't ask) in Union Square. I was perusing the history section, and lo and behold some security people come over telling me to get out, thier closing the section. Turns out Caroline Kennedy was having a book signing and the History section was being roped off for security reasons. I was ticked. Who the hell cares about Caroline Kennedy? Who at a Barnes & Noble would suddenly decide to run and attack her, from the history section, no less!!!

AnyHOO...

The 50,000 people over 20 years theory is the leading theory but that's about all it is right now--a theory. Probably the best (or at least the safest) theory we have at the moment, but like every other theory that has been offered re: the Pyramids, it has problems.

What problems? Every source I've read has clearly indicated the mystery of the Pyramids are their meaning/function, not their construction. Their engineering is very straight-forward. Their purpose? We don't fully know. There is reason to believe they were not the oversized tombs we think they were (since never, in all of history, has a corpse actually been discovered in an Egyptian pyramid).

Instead, it developed other kinds of culture--scientific, social, governmental, religious. I don't understand why a more highly developed military should be valued more than Egypt's relative strengths in these other areas.

Military, shmilitary. Not a gauge of strong culture. Governmental? Yes, Egypt had a massive bureaucracy. This is how they were able to organize such massive works projects as the Pyramids. Scientific? Not really. See my previous posts about their lack of scientific advancement. Religious? Well, the problem there is that 1) Egyptian Religion never permeated other cultures, and 2) eventually died out itself without sparking any antecedent forms.

Egypt was a dead-end culture, with no predecessors or antecedents. Unique? Yes. Fascinating? Absolutely. Complex? To a degree. Scientifically advanced? Nope. Mathematically advanced? No. A major contributor to shaping world history? My conclusion is, not really. Her influence was peripheral at best. Unit fractions aside, she takes a back seat to the civs of the middle east.

I think we should start moving away from Egypt...am beginning to regret I brought her up. But I do stand by my statements that, while indeed unique, she is very overrated in terms of achievement.

Cheers.

[orange]

Originally posted by Ribannah
You're quoting out of context. It's really a matter of scale. Go further back and all Amerind tribes are one single civilization.

'Go further back' and we're all living in a cave in subsaharan Africa

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ribannah

Let's see if I can salvage something from the mud.

I'm puttin' on my hip boots, 'cuz it's my turn to wade.

First, I don't really care about "authority". I make my own judgements from the basic material I find and by applying logic.

I see. So you reject the research of an Historian, but accept as fact information you garnered from Web pages compiled by non-scholarly sources? Your choice of sources is telling about your use of logic.

Where? And what do you think you refuted?

To give a summary:

You: Incas shouldn't be in Civ3, because they are same as Aztecs.
Me: No, they aren't. Very different for reasons x, y, z.
You: Oh, but there are enough similarities and they share a common origin.
Me: Well, Germans, French, English share common origin, but we can hardly call them the same.
You: We can trace all civs back to Neanderthals and common origins, so that's no basis for excluding a civ.
Me: Um, that was my point in the first place.

Here we do. Tell this to the Nubians, the Phoenicians, the Jews, the Arabs.

I see no dramatic cultural impact on these peoples by the Egyptians in terms of disseminating their cultural ideas to them. Was there conflict between them and the Egyptians? Sure. Certainly the Egyptian enslavement effected the Jews a good deal. Did Jewish culture subsequently adopt Egyptian religious, philosophical and social ideals? Nope, they actually rejected them. Hebrew cultured demonstrated its remarkable strength under extraordinary duress in doing so, and showed how weak Egyptian culture was. Arab culture is not based on Egypt, it's based on Hellenistic influences post-Alexander (see below). Many historians actually believe the Nubians effected Egypt more than she effected them. Egypt's encounters with the Phoenicians were superficial, and the Phoenicians were more effected by the Hebrews than any other civ.

I said they contributed - and to a different list of fields than you are mentioning here. So again, no argument.

And again I say, from historical facts, her contributions were limited to two things - medicine and papyrus. I will even throw in unit fractions just to be nice.

Really? They only moved into the river region around 3500 BC. At that time the Egyptians (or their ancestors, if you wish) had already been living in Nile territory for quite a while. From 4000 BC the nomadic tribes in the region started to cluster, so it would make sense that around that time they discovered the basics of irrigation, as they had the need.

This is quite false in your facts and implications. You insinuate there was a lively culture along the Nile from 4000 BC, but the Tigris and Euphrates was bereft of life until 3500 BC.

Let me correct you. First, Jericho was known to have been an inhabited, largely populated center since 6000 BC. The first urban centers that qualify as "cities" in Mesopotamia have been carbon dated back to 4100 BC. There is solid archaelogical evidence that irrigation was being used in this region as early as 5700 BC.

Conversely, the earliest forms of "urban centers" appearing in Egypt did not do so until c. 3100 BC. There is no archealogical evidence of irrigation prior to c. 3800 BC.

There is a good reason for this. It is because your statement, "as they had the need," is false. The Egyptians did NOT have the need for irrigation, as they could rely on the regular flooding of the Nile. However, Sumerians DID have the need, as the flooding cycle there was more haphazard and far less convenient for methodical agriculture:

"The flooding times [of the Tigris and Euphrates] were unpredictable and varied in nature...After flood the lands were marshy and if they were to be utilized to advantage, they had to be drained. On the other hand, the area was dessicated during summer droughts and some form of irrigation was essential for successful agriculture. The knowledge was grasped as early as 6000 BC by the inhabitants of Sumer and Akkad. Their canals and reservoirs were the source of wealth to the region until they were destroyed by the Turks in the modern times." (Michael Chelik, Ancient History: From Its Beginnings to the Fall of Rome, pp. 9-10)

So you are incorrect.

Nope. Hopefully you were now able to find the links I gave.

As I and others pointed out, your sources are poor. Web sites built by biased sources are neither scholarly nor known for accuracy, yet you accept them and dismiss reknowned scholars as if they are liars. You'd make a great Republican in this country!

Let me tell you about your Iroquois source. No citations. I can list for you the literally tens of dozens of scholarly sources used by Roberts, Toynbee (introduced below) and Cheilik. Not one source is given on this page, EXCEPT...

Jordan Dill's First Nations page.

Oho, there's a source! I don't know if you're aware of this, but his is a notorious site. See the quote on the page from the editor of Indian Country Today. Better yet, see this page:

http://www.dickshovel.com/snel.html

This is advocacy for terrorism. In light of September 11, are you still prepared to used him as a reliable source? is site has propogated uncountable lies and half-truths to support his positions. Sure, I will judge you by your sources.

Continuing with Egypt:

They still lasted a very long time, and aren't really that backward even today.

Another wonderful historian, Arnold Toynbee, states:

"This notable society emerged in the lower valley of the Nile during the fourth millenium B.C. and became extinct in the fifth century of the Egyptian era. It was without 'parents' and without offspring; no living society can claim it as its ancestor." (Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Volume I: A Comparative Study of Civilizations, p. 32

The people living in Egypt today are not the people of Egypt 2000 years ago, as you infer. Your inference is incorrect. As for them lasting a long time:

"We spoke of this society as existing for some four thousand years, but for half that period the Egyptiac Society was not so much a living organism as an organism dead but unburied. More than half of Egyptian history is a gigantic epilogue." (Toynbee p. 32)

"The best proof that the restored [following expulsion of the Hyksos] Egyptiac Society was void of life was the complete failure of the one attempt to raise it from the dead. This time one man, the Pharoah Akhnaton, sought to repeat by an instantaneous gesture the act of religious creation that had been performed in vain by the Osirian Church . . . By sheer genius Akhnaton created a new conception of God and man, life and nature . . .; but dead societies cannot thus be brought to life. His failure is the proof that we are justified in regarding social phenomena of Egyptiac history from the [16th] century B.C. onwards as an epilogue rather than as the history from cradle to grave of a new society." (Toynbee p. 33)

Their endurance was a product of their physical isolation, not their cultural strength. Their culture vanished.

Now, back to the Iroquois...you say they should be in the top 16.

Toynbee has nicely and very conveniently given his top civilized societies of the world (in no particular order):

1. Western European (which would encompass English, French, German, Spanish and derivatives, so America too)
2.) Hellenic (Minoans, Greeks and Romans)
3.) Western Orthodox-Byzantine (Eastern European)
4.) Eastern Orthodox (Russians)
5.) Iranic (Persia)
6.) Arabic
7.) Indic (Indians and Hindus)
8.) Sinic (Chinese)
9.) Japanese-Korean
10.) Egyptiac (Egypt, sans predecessor or successor)
11.) Sumeric (encompassing Hittites and Babylonians)
12.) Mexic (Aztecs)
13.) Yucatec (post-Mayan)
14.) Mayan
15.) Andean (Incas)
16.) Syriac society (encompassing Turks and northern Middle-east, caucus peoples)

I was a bit surprised at these delineations myself, but he goes on at length about criteria for differentiating these cultures from the "650-odd" primitive societies that also exist. He is lumping the Iroquois in with those 650, I suppose.

I know, I know. He's an established, reputed historian who is published and his work is regarded as an achievement without parallel in modern scholarship. But I suppose Web sites can prove him wrong.


As for attitude, this medium is ineffective at conveying accurately one's feelings, despite emoticons. I don't feel I've been disrespectful or rude, but if you feel that way, I regret that you misinterpreted my demeanor (how's that for a fully American non-apology?)

Cheers.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Roman


Power to the atheists - there are far too few of us around. Leftist though??? After what happened to your country over the past 50 years or so???

Well, it was an exageration. I am a centrist libertarian

[Ribannah]

Boris, thanks for the apology, I really needed that. Sometimes it seems like we are surrounded by Barbarians and for a moment there I feared they were dragging you down, too. You are a good debater and while we may not think alike, I very much appreciate your input.

Despite Toynbee I still don't agree about Egypt. Toynbee seems to use specific criteria and while from there on his analysis looks decent enough, different criteria about what constitutes a civilization may lead to different conclusions. But I would like to hear other people's opinions, so I am challenging you to open a new thread called "Do the Egyptians belong in the top 16?". After all, this thread is about the Iroquois .

About Roberts, I have no info on his research. For all I know, he may have been the greatest history researcher of all times. I still take his conclusions at face value.

With regard to irrigation, my guess is that it was invented (and lost) many times in the prehistoric age. I did not (intend to) claim, that the Egyptians were the first to discover it, just that they discovered it independently and thereby helped advance human skills in agriculture. If some inland Amazone tribe would invent it independently tomorrow, I would still put it on their record, and it would still be there if they would die out without ever making contact. From the civilizations included in the game, however, it seems to me that the Egyptians were first (3800 BC sounds good enough), but that may be open to interpretation: again, we don't all share the same definition of what constitutes a civilization or specifically when it starts (and ends).

I'm not sure what you are trying to say about my Iroquois sources. Are you claiming that the text of their constitution was fabricated? Is the description of their territory incorrect, or of their way of life? Did they not trade extensively with the Dutch and the French? Is their part in the Beaver, Canadian, and American independence wars a myth?
Should the Dog Soldier be their special unit after all?

I'm sorry (or, rather, I'm glad) to say that I see no advocacy of terrorism by
Jordan Dill on the page you gave. Maybe you can supply a specific quote?
But please, don't judge people by their sources. We don't all have access to all that is available, or the skill to find the most trustworthy when there is so much. Judge people by their reasoning and behaviour!

LOVE HIAWATHA!! LOVE HIAWATHA!!

[Martinus]

Ribannah, your talent to insult your opponents while actually pretending it is you who are attacked raises different reactions in me, from amusement to pity.

Upon inspecting other threads however I noticed that your historical knowledge and discussion skill made you quite famous among a number of people, so I will not bother to continue. Good luck and good bye. It must be an interesting world you are living in

[Adrien]

Constitution

Actually, the reason people say that the US Constitution was inspired by the Iroquois was that it might have been, indirectly.


The first plan for unification came in the wake of the French and Indian war (7 Years War), proposed by Benjamin Franklin.

This idea was called the Albany Plan of Union. While it was widely ignored during its time, delegates at the First and Second Continental Congresses looked back to Franklin, the elder statesmen, and his Albany Plan for ideas.

Franklin was known to be a great fan of the Iroquois. He may very well have based his Albany Plan off the Iroquois Confederacy; many historians credit this as a possibilty.

Hope this helps?