Chapter 1

Before I read chapter 1 I assumed the context was going to be similar to the readings from high school although in high school we never really went into depth about the Native Americans. So I was looking forward to reading what this Enduring Vision book had to say about the Native Americans. As soon as I read the book the topic I found interesting was how the Native Americans migrated. I did not know there was two theories to how the earliest migrates traveled to the new world. I do not recall learning about the Bering land bridge and how it linked Northeast Asia and far Northwest America. The other thing that I liked was how the book separated each different tribe into their own categories and describing each tribe. The book did not categorize all Native Americans into one tribe because they all had the same concept but different techniques to survive. I also enjoyed reading how the Archaic Americans developed their roles and techniques on their own. For example the men fished and haunted while the women searched for wild plant products and learned how to use different plants for medical reasons and food. I found it interesting how Men and women roles started from a long time ago and didn’t necessarily change throughout time. What I dislike hearing about Native Americans is how “uneducated” or “uncivilized” people they were. In my opinion they are very smart, sophisticated and organized people. Back then they did not have technology or examples of how a good society is supposed to run. They had to adapted to their environment and discover what the best way to grow crops was and which crops can grow in those weather conditions. They also had to develop their own government system for instances the Aztecs collected taxes, built an irrigation system, the Mayans created a calendar and the Inca’s were successful farmers.  To me it looked like the Native Americans had things under control and were living a civilized lifestyle. They all were equal, they saw themselves as a single people (: it was the Europeans who brain washed and emphasized the differences between themselves and the Indians. In my opinion the Europeans didn't civilize the Indians but rather destroyed and made it more complicated for the Indians.