{"article":{"id":170645,"heading":"Solving ecological problems by restoring indigenous wisdom","author":"fried green nopalitos","created":"2006-07-26 21:41:05","modified":"2013-11-11 00:42:31","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:42:31","article":"

This report written for a Mexican-american anthropology class explores shared indigenous wisdoms as providing modern people with answers to today's ecological problems including petroleum dependency (US military occupation of Iraq, Israel\/Palestine conflict, etc..).

It is generally recognized that by reducing our consumtion and living in harmony with the Earth's ecosystems we can help making the planet an easier place to live. This involves adjusting our consumer based lifestyle and (re)learning the collective ecological wisdom of our ancestors. This includes all immigrants and indigenous people who call the USA their home. We're all pretty much in the same boat with climate change, peak oil, etc..

This primarily focuses on indigenous peoples of the southwestern US and northern Mexico's interactions with Spanish (and some German) immigrants, none of whom used English as their native language..

Effects of European Immigrations on North and Meso-American Indigenous Ecology

The history of immigrants into the American continent occurred in several different waves, with the earliest documented entry being 40,000-10,000 years ago via the Bering Strait from Asia into Alaska. Most recent immigrants are Europeans of various ethnicities following Columbus in 1492 CE. An indigenous American is considered to be any person with an Asiatic lineage who inhabited the American continent prior to the arrival of Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus).

Currently the dominant European immigrant group in North America is the English speaking Anglo-americans, though several other European immigrant nations were also involved in the colonization of the American continent. This report will compare and contrast some of the effects of three different European immigrant groups, Germans, English and Spanish, on the ecological practices of indigenous Americans. The focus of the Spanish group will be on their entry to the southwestern US through Mexico. Specific examples in recent history of German immigrants will include author’s anecdotal family history. The report will be weighted with more information on the effects of Spanish and English immigration.

To begin we need to discuss basic origins of the groups based on their geographic origin. We will include any hybridization from contacts with other peoples from migrations. The two land masses include the American continent with the original inhabitants believed to have crossed the Bering land bridge and are of Asian origin. Without any other interactions people in North and Meso-america evolved independently from Eurasians and Africans until the arrival of Columbus. There is a possibility of an interaction with African immigrants during the time of the Olmecs in the Yucatan Penninsula since there are statues of heads carved in stone that show obvious African features. It is not clear why the Asiatic featured Olmec peoples would carve African features into stone unless they had physical contact with these people. It is physically possible that Nubian sailing vessels could have crossed the Atlantic and reached the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico where the Olmecs lived.

Within both North and Meso-america there exists a great diversity of cultures among the indigenous populations. Following the Olmecs were the Toltecs, Mayans and Aztecs among the developed societies and countless other smaller tribes that were not as significant to historians as the developed groups. Some lesser known groups include the O’odham, Seri, Cocopa, Yaqui, Zapotec, and many others. Mexican ancestry is believed to contain genetics of many lesser known cultural groups besides the famous Maya and Aztecs (I & D 17).

Mayan agricultural needs brought about the concept of zero to multiply crop counts for their urban population centers of the Yucatan Penninsula. During this time the Teotihuacanos were living in their city further north called Teotihuacan. Mayan society was very advanced with precise records and predictions of significant events (ie., 2012 CE) documented on stone tablet astronomy based calendars. It is believed by some that the overuse of agriculture, loss of forests and resulting soil erosion may have contributed to the decline of the Mayan empire around 900 AD (Iber & Deleon 15-16). Following the Mayan’s disappearance and relocation into smaller tribes, Aztec society became the next consecutive dominant civilization.

According to Aztec mythology, their people’s homeland is called Aztlan, the land of white herons. This land is believed to have resembled paradise and is located to the northwest of the major Aztec city Tenochtitlan. During the time between these two culture’s peaks there may have been several migrations between Meso and North-america. Combined with the interactions between Meso-american people there were also trade relations between North and Meso-americans. This is evidenced by the appearance of traditional Meso-american building structures, artwork and food crops like maize being adopted into North-american cultures of Cahokian mound builder societies of the Mississippi and Ohio River floodplains (Meier & Ribera, 11-12). In addition there were several peoples of similar language groups that migrated along “Tepiman” trade corridors stretching several miles along both sides of the border (Sheridan and Parezo, 118).

Prior to the invasion of the Spanish imperialists led by Hernando Cortez, the Aztecs had their own system of slavery that involved capture and assimilation of neighboring people. However, the Aztecs system of slavery forbid abuse of their slaves, as slaves had the protection of the powerful Aztec god Texcatlipoca who could ruin the lives of cruel slave-owners, sometimes even reversing the social strata and causing former slaves to become masters. This contrasts with the Spanish slave-owners view that indigenous peoples were inferior and were mistreated with no consequence.

Overseas during the early stages of the Roman Empire what is now considered Germany was not very populated except for the nomadic peoples of pre-Christian times dubbed “barbarians” by Roman imperialists for their harsh, guttural language unintelligible to the Romans. A variety of migratory cultural groups included the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Alani, Aryans, Vandals, Celts and many others. The people often fought with one another, captured and assimilated each other into their conquering culture. Their vagrant hunter and gathering lifestyle and polytheistic Earth-centered religion continued until the arrival of the Roman imperialists who forced Christianity and sedentary lifestyle on the polytheistic nomadic Germanic peoples. The British Isles were home to the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic peoples who also lost their pre-Christian culture to Roman imperialist expansion. This forced conversion to Christianity also occurred following the Aztec culture’s defeat by Spain. In all cases certain indigenous beliefs, mostly symbolic were allowed to remain in order to make the conversion less difficult (Meier & Ribera, 17).

Spain was originally populated by Basques, Celts and Iberians before waves of immigrants entered from many different directions. The Roman Empire’s northern and westward expansion influenced the modern Spanish language as a Latin based and Christian Catholic culture. Christian converts from Visigoth dominated Germany invaded from the east and reinforced the Christian religion’s support by the Spanish state. Muslim Moors from Africa entered from the south and settled in the southern half of Spain, introducing Arabic terms into the Spanish language, Muslim mosques and architecture. Several North African food crops were also introduced (Meier & Ribera, 17).

Following the invasion of the Spanish and the defeat of the Aztec empire, the Spanish and their enslaved Aztec converts began the northward migrations into what is now the Southwestern US. Similar to the Aztecs, many other indigenous tribes also adopted Spanish customs and assimilated their culture into Spanish culture or a hybridized version of their original indigenous traditions.

Hybridization of Aztec and other Meso-american indigenous peoples with Spaniards occurred when Spanish conquistadors seized indigenous women as concubines and later as wives. The descendants of these unions were considered mestizo, mixed between two ethnic gene pools. Following the invasion of the Roman Empire into northern Europe, Mediterranean people and Semitic people also mixed with the gene pool of the European tribes. However, the Spanish and to some degree the French remain unique among European immigrant cultures to the Americas with the majority of Spaniards mixing their bloodline with indigenous peoples. The Spanish also included many indigenous ecological practices and food plants in their diet also.

In addition to genetic mixing the merging of two different cultures also introduced new food crops and agricultural technologies to one another. In some cases the exchanges were mutually beneficial or symbiotic though often one group experienced greater losses than the other. Changes occurred in ecosystems following the introduction of a new style of agriculture or hunting. The migration of Jews into the Rhine Valley of Germany brought with them grape vineyard technologies for making wine. Wheat from the eastern European grasslands also became a new staple crop grown in recently clear-cut fields. However, the increased agricultural transportation corridor with the expansionist Roman Empire also resulted in the loss of Britain, Spain and Germany’s lush oak forests, many of which were considered sacred for providing food and medicine.

The British Anglos landed near Massachusetts a few years after the Spanish Empire financed Columbus’ arrival to the Caribbean. Over the next few decades the Anglos fought and defeated the French for influence in the mid-Atlantic region. When Germans began coming to the Americas they were like the British, Spanish and French also already under the influences of expansionist imperialism, Christianity, and the beginnings of mechanized agriculture. Their principle crops were barley, wheat and other grains for brewing beer and making bread. Germans settled primarily in the eastern and Midwestern regions of the US and most arrived centuries after the Spanish had already settled Meso-america and the southwestern portion of North America. In some cases the deciduous forest ecosystems of indigenous peoples had already been cleared away by westward pushing Anglo settlers. Upon their arrival to the Atlantic coast, the Germans found themselves foreigners in an Anglo dominated country. The British Anglo culture dominated the northeast coast and continued expansion south and west until meeting the Spanish influenced Mexican territories of Nueva Mexico and Nueva California.

Spanish settlement of the Americas began with Columbus in 1492 landing on Hispaniola in the Caribbean and continued with Cortez and many others through Meso-america, now considered Mexico. Following the Aztec collapse, the Spaniards introduced new weapons and horses to the remaining fragmented Aztec society. Lacking any cohesive society, the Aztec survivors were reduced to waging war against other indigenous peoples further north as the Spanish imperialists pushed on into the southwestern desert.

The early stages of imperialism resulted in alterations to regional ecosystems and lifestyles. The indigenous peoples of the Americas in the path of Spanish colonization lost their cultural traditions in the process of assimilation. This parallels German people’s loss of their indigenous cultures following the expansion of Christianity of the Roman Empire. Certain symbolic sacred symbols were allowed to continue, for example the oak trees were carried on in symbolism, though significant portions of sacred oak grove forests were lost to road building and conversion of land to plantation agriculture. The Christmas tree is carried over from pagan traditions of celebrating the winter solstice (Dec 21) with lighting and decorating an evergreen tree on the darkest day of the year. Aztec and indigenous symbols remaining in modern Mexican culture include the eagle on the Mexican flag and the nopales cactus in the diet and gardens of Mexican Americans.

In the Americas the unique cultures of the southwestern US desert were relocated and forced into slavery, thus losing their knowledge, experience and learned skills in growing maize, beans and squash as symbiotic partner crops. In addition the complex Earth-centered spiritual beliefs of indigenous Americans were interwoven with their ecological relationships. When Spanish Christian imperialists forced natives to abandon their beliefs their relationship with the ecosystem also deteriorated. The conquistador Juan de Onate entered the Sonoran desert with an expedition of soldiers, priests and mineral prospecters en route from Mexico City. The shared goal of religious conversion of “heathen” natives and economic quest for gold, silver and other mineral resources resulted in unification between the Catholic church and military. Antonio de la Ascension claimed the locations of mineral deposits were predetermined by God as “heavenly lures drawing Spanish expeditions into the wilderness” for the conversion of heathens to Christianity (Simmons, 61).

Juan de Onate led the Spanish invasion and settlement of the Pueblo village renamed San Gabriel, Nuevo Mexico. Protein was acquired through hunting native game, competing with nearby hunting tribes like the Comanche and Apache for limited animal resources. The increase in Spanish settlers resulted in newer crops less adapted to harsh desert conditions and the resulting need for more intensified irrigation. Over a few decades time this altering of the desert ecosystem effected many indigenous peoples of the desert, especially the O’odham.

The O’odham people referred to themselves as the desert people (Tohono O’odham) or the river people (Akimel O’odham) based upon their ecosystem. The O’odham are members of a larger group of Piman linguistic speakers with their home stretching from the Salt River Valley near Phoenix, AZ southwest to the mountains of northern Jalisco, MX (Sheridan & Perizo, 117). Prior to settlement by Spanish the Tohono O’odham relied on desert summer thunderstorms to replenish the underground aquifers and numerous springs. The arroyos would also overflow their banks, depositing nutrient rich detritus onto the alluvial floodplains. The floodwater fields were quickly sown with squash, beans, melons and maize for a short growing season, called temporales by the Spanish. The shifting arroyos in the floodplain ecosystem required mobility on the part of the Tohono O’odham. In addition to seasonal temporales farming, genetic variation through evolution enables certain plants like tepary beans (Phaseolus acutifolius) to thrive in dry desert conditions. In addition the saguaro cactus fruits were fermented into wine and included as major components in complex rain inducing rituals (S & P, 121-122).

Following the 1880s immigrations of both Spanish expansionism from the south and Anglo expansionism from the east, intensive agriculture systems became established upstream of the Tohono O’odham. Over the next several decades industrial agriculture increased their need for water and droughts became progressively more severe for the O’odham every year. Deeper ditches were dug in attempts to divert more water, though the results were tragic for the O’odham’s traditional floodplain agriculture. The temporales floodplains were left dry while the ditches were downcut deeper from erosion, rushing water carried soil off to the ocean and the water table dropped, leaving springs dry and O’odham land barren (S & P 126 – 127). This process continued until the construction of large concrete dams along the rivers.

Both the Akimel O’odham and the Gila Pima who live along the Gila River ecosystem were greatly altered by the construction of Coolidge Dam. Prior to the dam the Akimel O’odham and Gila Pima were able to practice their irrigation systems by using diversion canals from springs connected to their underground alluvial aquifer. The aquifers were replenished by seasonal floods and the dam prevented the river from flooding. The resulting drop in the aquifer’s water table gave the O’odham nothing but drought and dry springs (S & P, 136-7). Further to the west along the Colorado River delta the Spanish expeditions and later Anglo settlements also decreased the quality and quantity of Cocopa fisheries.

Along with the Quechan, Mohaves and Maricopas the Cocopa were part of the Yuman language speakers along the Colorado River. The Cocopa have lived at the mouth of the Colorado River between Baja California and mainland Mexico for at least a few centuries. Further south the Colorado delta opens into the long southern stretch of high saline waters of the nearly landlocked Sea of Cortez. Prior to the construction of the Colorado River dams the salinity of the delta ecosystem was lowered by vast amounts of freshwater inputs, giving the Cocopa enough fresh water to support a thriving estuary ecosystem.

Following the construction of Colorado dams, the delta ecosystem increased in salinity and many native fish, including the endangered vaquita were no longer able to tolerate the saline conditions. The resulting decline in the fisheries and edible river plants like wild rice caused the Cocopa to leave their homes along the delta and find work in cities. Usually the only jobs available are in maquiladora sweatshops where they lose their language and culture.

Mexican immigrants into the southwest often brought their desert traditions along with them or adapted to regional conditions with little difficulty and ecosystem alteration. Since many Mexicans have a mestizo ancestry, indigenous cultural roots are often infused into their lifestyle. Teresa Mendivil Gradillas and her family continue the seasonal floodplain farming tradition of “el temporal” by planting maize, beans, chiles, tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, and melons along the arroyos. Since her grandfather came from Sinaloa, Mexico, adapting to desert ecosystems in Arizona wasn’t very difficult (Martin, 81).

Another difficulty faced by Mexican immigrants into the US is the loss of medicinal and edible plant harvesting traditions due to the toxic intrusions of industrial agriculture and urban sprawl. Agatha Cota Gastellum remembers harvesting watercress from the Santa Cruz River as a young girl, though today she no longer collects watercress from the river because of pollution from agriculture runoff. The elderberry trees near the highway are also not harvestable from toxic fumes and dust. However Agatha continues to grow herbs in her garden and harvests wild greens like amaranth (bledo) and purslane (verdolagas) for stir fry (Martin, 116).

Over the decades as agriculture became industrialized the diet of indigenous peoples included refined flours and sugars, resulting in increases of obesity, diabetes and heart disease among people conditioned to healthier food sources. The O’odham now have one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world. This is a result of replacing complex carbohydrates of tepary beans, cactus and other native foods with slow rates of sugar breakdown with refined wheat flours and sugars that break down rapidly and enter the bloodstream without warning. The loss of their aquifers, temporal floodplain fields and traditional foods has resulted in the near extinction of O’odham culture and surges of epidemic illnesses (S & P, 130-1).

Today the modern reality of the loss of drought tolerant tepary beans as a sustainable food crop in the Sonoran desert is replaced by temperate climate accustomed iceberg lettuce being grown in the Sonoran desert and nearby Imperial Valley desert of California. The previous crop of cotton was replaced with iceberg lettuce due to lower prices for cotton. Again the economy dictated the ecology with little regard for traditional ecological knowledge of indigenous peoples (Meier & Ribera, 125). In addition, the temperate climate lettuce requires large amounts of irrigation water and heavy applications of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. These ecological toxins enter the aquifers and render the spring water undrinkable and not available to indigenous agriculture crops.

To top it off, the O’odham’s must also contend with an artificial concrete border wall between the US and Mexico that dissects their home in half and separates them from their kin across the fence. To visit their family across the fence they are required to go through customs and because of Asiatic features shared with Mexicans the O’odham are routinely questioned and interrogated by disrespectful border patrol guards.



There is also the possibility that native foods like tepary beans were sometimes frowned upon by ethnocentric Anglo-americans. When Anglo-americans express dislike for another culture, they often mock them by referring to their food. This trait of “food mockery” is experienced by many other cultures that interact with Anglos-americans. For example, my grandfather arrived in the US just a few years before Hitler’s fascist Nazi party entered into power in Germany. He was ashamed of Hitler’s nationalist Nazi hate speech and forbade my father and aunt to learn and speak German for fear of being called “krauts” by Anglo-americans in Philadelphia. The derogatory term “kraut” refers to German-americans cultural food of sauerkraut, cabbage pickled in vinegar. In addition he changed his surname from the German “Mueller” to the Anglo language version “Miller” in attempts for his children to fit in and not be teased at school. The surname Mueller describes his family trade as dye-miller of beer stein artwork stained with deep blue berry paint to represent the background sky. During the industrialization of Germany around the 1920s many traditional plant based medicines and dyes were replaced by synthesized compounds made in factories by chemical conglomerate IG Farben. Loss of culture and complete assimilation into Anglo-american life was the only realistic option for my grandparents around WW2. The hidden fact remains that Hitler’s ascent to power was financed by wealthy Anglo-american (Rockefeller, Ford) and German (Thyssen-Krupp) corporations, though working class German immigrants in the US were scapegoats for the Nazi regime’s crimes against humanity. The current US president’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, also financially supported the Nazi campaign early on through Harriman Bank. The cultural food based insult of calling German’s “Krautheimer” during WW2 is similar to Anglos calling Mexicans the derogatory term “beaners”, referring to the variety of beans in their diet. However, now German-americans are accepted in Anglo society and some Nazi scientists and military officials were recruited by the CIA following WW2 during “Operation Paperclip”. Today the head of the FBI is named Robert Mueller and nobody calls his children “krauts” unless they want to wear concrete shoes. There are also some Mexicans and Latinos like Alberto Gonzales in positions of power viewed favorably by the Bush administration. However, these are exceptions to the rule and the majority of working class people remain subjected to Anglo “food mockery” whenever convenient. If either Germans or Mexicans called Anglos “lettuce-heads” there would certainly be a negative response from the dominant cultural group in North America.

Name calling aside, the loss of traditional food crops also adversely effected the health of indigenous peoples. Similar to the O’odham of the Sonoran desert, local indigenous peoples in California also lost their land and native food sources. The Sacramento River Valley in northern California prior to European settler immigration was filled with wetlands, oak savannahs and other sources of wild foods. The Penutian language speakers called Wintu, Miwok, Maidu and others inhabited the low lying regions and surrounding foothills. Acorns from oaks (Genus Quercus) were plentiful and provided people and wildlife with food and medicine. Most years there was enough for all people and their neighbors the woodpeckers (carpinteros) who coexisted with people. The woodpecker’s acorn stash was left in peace by indigenous peoples as the woodpeckers helped distribute acorn seeds for future trees (Hendrix, 17). Many tribes understood the protein rich acorns as important food sources and the oak trees became sacred providers. The nearby wetlands provided people with tule reeds for boats, tall houses and starchy roots for food, also habitat for hunting waterfowl (Hendrix, 20). The vast grasslands in the oak savannahs provided people with harvests of grasshoppers caught by beating or burning grass in a tightening circle with a pit in the center to catch the protein rich insects (Hendrix, 17). Seasonal flooding of the Sacramento River valley was not a problem for the natives who easily migrated into the drier foothills during the rainy months. The yearly flooding cycle deposited silty topsoil that became a mineral food source for the roots of countless medicinal and food plants and trees that returned in the summer ready for when people left the hills. The native valley people were left living in peace and abundance with their neighbors until the Spanish and later arriving Anglo settler began to want their lands for mining, agriculture or both. Gabriel Moraga is nicknamed “Conquerer of the Great Valley” for his role in leading Spanish military incursions against the valley natives (Hendrix, 33). John Fremont is the Anglo colonialist most responsible for waging the “war of extermination” against indigenous peoples under the orders of California Governor Burnett around 1850 (Hendrix, 41). Part of this planned genocide of indigenous peoples included the destruction and removal of remaining native oak trees. This contrasts with the Spanish immigrants who, though they tried to force religious conversion and slavery on natives, initially respected the oaks and compared them to their oak species found in the Mediterranean climates of Spain. Sebastian Vizcaino landed in Monterey Bay in 1602 and held mass under a large oak tree. Many later Spanish explorers named places after the oaks, like the town called Encino. During the transition from Spanish to Mexican control of California, the oaks were taking a toll from introduced cattle and sheep that grazed on seedlings and did not migrate like native antelope and elk, thus giving the oak seedlings a chance to recover. Cattle hide tanning with oak bark rich in tannins continued to take a toll on native oaks. This loss of oaks remains somewhat insignificant when compared to the gold rush of the 1850s and subsequent clear-cutting of native oaks by Anglo-american settlers hungry for profits.

By this time the Mexicans had recognized the Anglo settlers as the greatest threat to both Mexicans and native Californians and they joined forces with the remaining natives in attempts to repel them. When the Anglo dominated US government gained control of California, the indigenous peoples were herded away from their native lands to miniscule reservations like Round Valley during the Nome Cult Trail relocation. Treaties were signed to guarantee indigenous land rights remained, though 139 treaties were never ratified by the US government following the mass deportations of the Nome Cult Walk.

Following the relocation of most of the Sacramento Valley’s native population the ecology underwent additional drastic changes. Mining released massive sediments into riparian creek beds and flooded downstream wetlands, releasing many toxic metals into the ecosystem. When agriculture replaced mining, several large dams were constructed on the Sacramento River’s tributaries that prevented seasonal flooding and also blocked the migrations of anadromous migratory fish like salmon and sturgeon. Many indigenous peoples of the valley, coast and foothills depended on the salmon for their cultural and nutritional survival. After several decades of industrial plantation agriculture and flood prevention the soil has not gained any new material and required additional input of petrochemical fertilizers for increased yields.

In addition the conversion of wetlands and riparian floodplains to agriculture and levees resulted in the loss of extensive oak woodlands (Pavlik, 103-107). Once the land was converted from oak woodland to agriculture plantation few if any oaks were replanted. Ironically the community college in a valley town called Woodland does not have a single oak tree on its’ campus. However, many indigenous Californians and their environmentally aware allies are now attempting to restore oak woodlands and savannahs throughout their former habitat. Maybe nature can return the oaks to their former glory if only European immigrants can stop themselves from being so destructive and disrespectful to the cultural ecology of the native peoples of the Americas. The Maidu song about acorns shows their determination to survive.

Maidu acorn song (Pavlik, 102);

“The acorns come down from heaven

I plant the short acorns in the valley

I plant the long acorns in the valley

I sprout; I, the black acorn, sprout; I sprout”

What is lost to industrialization and development cannot easily be replaced. The indigenous people of the Americas utilized a science of adaptation to ecology with better results for their long term habitat than the modern version of Anglo-american dominated market driven industrialized economy that favors short term corporate profit above human dignity and sustainable ecology.

The progression of industrial market driven agriculture has entered its’ newest phase in the form of genetic engineering. In Oaxaca, Mexico the diversity of land races of maize were recently contaminated by pollen drift from genetically engineered corn grown following replanted seeds distributed in USAID food programs throughout Mexico. Ignacio Chapela, professor at UC Berkeley, discovered the contamination of Oaxacan maize by Monsanto corporations’ genetically modified (transgenico) maize and has alerted activist groups to this serious side effect of NAFTA globalization programs. The results of free trade globalization agreements further sever the connections of the remaining indigenous Zapotec people of southern Mexico with their tierra y liberdad, their land and liberty. Instead of indigenous food sovereignty we have corporations like Monsanto attempting to patent the genetic code of the maize plant, claiming illegal ownership of living beings.

In conclusion the pattern of adaptation to ecosystems by indigenous peoples was broken and altered by the series of Spanish, French, Anglo, German and other European immigrants to the American continent. Each immigrant group arrived at different times and experienced their assimilation into the dominant Anglo group. The later arriving Germans were represented by Amish farmers fleeing religious persecution and more recent immigrants who settled in already developed east coast and Midwestern cities. Compared to the Spanish, the Germans had little if any interactions and genetic mixing with indigenous Americans who were already mostly relocated before their arrival.

What is evidenced by both German and Spanish immigrants under Anglo dominated society is a pattern of assimilation and general disregard for indigenous cultures and languages. If more Spanish immigrants would have chosen to learn a Penutian dialect and adapt indigenous ecology for food gathering instead of converting Penutian speakers to a European language and culture then maybe there would be a different world outside our doorstep with natural desert ecosystems remaining intact. If German immigrants would have revived the nearly extinct languages of east coast peoples like the Delawares instead of being ashamed of their culture and converting to English, maybe the factories that pollute the skies of Atlantic seaboard cities would have fallen apart and been replaced by thriving wetlands and forests with berries, deer and other wild foods to be shared by all humans. Today we can only strive for protecting the remaining indigenous cultures, ecological practices and languages before they disappear to the forces of Eurocentric assimilation.



Sources:

“The Native Peoples of North America” Vol. 2 edited by Bruce E. Johansen 2005 Praeger Publisher; Westport, CT

“Mexican Americans\/ American Mexicans” by Matt S. Meier and Feliciano Ribera 1993 Hill and Wang; New York, NY

“Sutter Buttes: Land of Histum Yani” by Louise Butts Hendrix 1980 Normart Publishing Co.; Marysville, CA

Series “Cultures Inside American West”, “ Hispanics in the American West” edited by Jorge Iber & Arnoldo DeLeo`n 2006 ABC CLIO; Santa Barbara, CA

“Paths of Life American Indians of Southwest and Northern Mexico” edited by Thomas Sheriden & Nancy J. Parezo 1996 University of Arizona Press; Tucson, AZ

“Beloved Land Oral History of Mexican Americans in Southern Arizona” edited by Patricia Preciado Martin 2004 University of Arizona Press; Tuscon, AZ

“The Last Conquistador: Juan de Onate and the Settling of the Far Southwest” Marc Simmons 1991 University of Oklahoma Press; Norman, OK

“Oaks of California” by Bruce M. Pavlik, Pamela C. Muick, Sharon G. Johnson, and Marjorie Popper 1991 Cachuma Press, Inc.; Los Olivos, CA

“Family History of Marcus Mueller” by Mark Miller 2006 From the Corazon Press; Davis, CA

online topic resources;

Akimel O'odham (Pima) floodplain farming;

http:\/\/www.uapress.arizona.edu\/onlinebks\/prophet\/foreword.htm<\/a>

Tohono O'odham; Racism at the border;

http:\/\/www.indiancountry.com\/content.cfm?id=1096413326<\/a>

Maidu restore mountain oaks;

http:\/\/www.redlodgeclearinghouse.org\/stories\/maidustewardship.html<\/a>

Histum Yani; Middle Mountain land restoration;

http:\/\/www.middlemountain.org\/body\/buttes\/index.html<\/a>

Maize, beans & squash symbiotic polyculture;

http:\/\/www.agroecology.org\/cases\/cornbeansquash.htm<\/a>

Cahokia, maize & Mexico;

http:\/\/www.cabrillo.edu\/~crsmith\/mississ.html<\/a>

Jack Forbes, Cahokia\/Mexico \"Ethnocide by Exclusion\";

http:\/\/www.weyanoke.org\/jdf-EthnocideByExclusion.html<\/a>

Ward Churchill, \"Little Matter of Genocide\";

http:\/\/www.citylights.com\/pub\/catalog\/BClittlematter.html<\/a>

IG Farben, Rockefeller, Ford, etc.. funded Hitler;

http:\/\/www.reformed-theology.org\/html\/books\/wall_street\/chapter_02.htm<\/a>

Oaks benefit all people (medicine, food, etc..);

http:\/\/www.druidry.org\/obod\/trees\/California_Oak.pdf<\/a>

Celtic oak groves, spirituality;

http:\/\/www.daramolloy.com\/DaraMolloy\/Writings\/CelticSpirituality.html<\/a>

German Ale, Roman Empire;

http:\/\/beeradvocate.com\/news\/stories_read\/668<\/a>

Cocopah's loss of Colorado delta wetlands;

http:\/\/americas.irc-online.org\/borderlines\/1997\/bl38\/bl38colo_body.html<\/a>

Local food in Sonoran desert;

http:\/\/www.discover.com\/issues\/may-01\/features\/feateatlocal\/<\/a>

Nopales, tunas, y otras edible cactus;

http:\/\/www.mexconnect.com\/mex_\/travel\/jrbaccon\/jrbcactus.html<\/a>

Tepary beans, drought tolerant Sonoran staple;

http:\/\/www.lunehaven.com\/teparybeans.html<\/a>

Native foods comeback;

http:\/\/www.organicconsumers.org\/btc\/native120105.cfm<\/a>

Zuni stew (tepary bean soup);

http:\/\/www.motherearthnews.com\/library\/1983_July_August\/Tepary__The_Bean_that_Laughs_at_Drought<\/a>

Ignacio Chapela, Oaxacan maize & GMO pollen drift;

http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/tonak06262004.html<\/a>

Chapela's edited website;

http:\/\/www.pulseofscience.org\/<\/a>

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