Indigenous person or European colonist - Essay Example

It roots from an ethnocentric belief, that one culture is better than the other. It is important, though, to consider that each culture believes in things differently because of the nature of how they were brought up. With this paper, I will try to place myself as part of an indigenous group. In this manner, I will try to explain the differences in both cultures and how one group accepts and rejects other cultures and values. It is important to note that the common ground of both indigenous and colonists is the desire to maintain their own culture and beliefs.

When it comes to property, indigenous people have a sense of group ownership and free land. Land is not owned by one but by the entire group. They roam around the land and gather whatever they can gather, they hunt whatever they can hunt, and bring it back to the tribe. And they share it. The roles within the community are exact and defined. Men hunt, women tend to the village. Men are protectors, women are caretakers of the village. They gain additional land and property, including slaves, when they fight another tribe and win.

They tend to use violence in order to increase their land, property and people. The value of their properties depends on how strong the other tribe is. The stronger the tribe they defeat, the more they value the things that they gather from that tribe. The reason for this is the loss of lives they have sacrificed in order to gain these properties. Although the European colonists have the same thirst for expansion, they have a different method of doing it. Violence is not the primary key to gather property and land.

They use diplomacy, education and religion to expand their property and land. This, the indigenous people can accept and incorporate in their culture. Tribes tend to use violence, which increases the loss of their tribe with the death of their warriors and protectors. To lessen this, indigenous people can learn to use diplomacy in gaining hold of other tribes. Instead of just going off to war, they can learn how to talk peacefully first and use wealth, power and numbers to defeat the other tribes.

The same as European colonists, by which they buy off the other indigenous groups and immerse them into their society as slaves. In the sense, there is a trade-off. One main characteristic of the European colonists is their ethnocentrism. This should be rejected. European colonists believe that indigenous people are stupid, ignorant and easy to be swayed. They see indigenous people as puppets that can be swayed easily because of their lack of modernization. What they don’t understand is they have their own perspective of civilization.

That’s why there is an improvement in the indigenous people’s lives. They have their own sense of civilization. They just have a different understanding of it. What is important to them may not be important to the European colonists. An example of this is the value of accessories and clothes that were made from animal skins. European colonists have a high value for animal skin clothes but have little value for glass beads. Indigenous people treat glass beads and other accessories because it is a sign of wealth and power for them.

We remember that the daughters of tribe leaders wear more accessories and head gears than the others. This goes the same for warriors, the more body paint or accessories they have, the higher their rank is. This is the same concept as with soldiers and their medals. When trading,