native american martial arts

Discussion in 'Western Martial Arts' started by Jordan, Nov 14, 2006.

  1. disgruntled

    disgruntled Not so Valued Member

    how can you win a war by doing anything but winning the battles you are in charge of? i mean look at Custered, they won the war but he was horrible. he once shot his own horse in the head while aiming for a buffalo. and he lost battles against the natives who had no guns while he had tons.

    maybe i am just using the wrong ranking term.
     
  2. fire cobra

    fire cobra Valued Member

    knock up a girl called tracy! he he he lmao polar bear! :D
     
  3. Pitfighter

    Pitfighter Valued Member

    I'm sure that at least regarding unarmed combat Native Americans did wrestling. Read most articles on Catch wrestling and you'll see that some of it was influenced by Native Americans at least as any other ethnic group in the America.

    I used to be a boy scout and scouting does burrow some authentic traditions from Native Americans. I learned a style of wrestling that involved locking our lead hands and ankles and trying to knock the other down. Don't recall what tribe it was from. I'm sure though wrestling styles varied from tribe to tribe and had different rule sets.

    As far as Crazy Horse goes. He was in fact a brilliant general IMO but he wasn't a great political leader. In fact if anything that has always been the downfull of Nativa Americans and their struggles with Manifest Destiny. They rarely had leaders who could unite the various tribes against growing European/American populations and armies.

    Some chiefs did like Crazy Horse, Tecumseh, Pontiac, etc. but unfortunately they did not have strong successors who could keep various tribes united. I mean it really isn't all that surprising name any continent besides Australia that is composed of a united political entity. You gotta remember every tribe was like a seperate nation, maintaing alliances between them would be just as hard as say unifying Europe.
     
  4. slipthejab

    slipthejab Hark, a vagrant! Supporter

    I think if you do a bit more research you'll find that one of the major problems for Native Americans was actually disease - many of which Europeans brought with them which wiped out vast amounts of Native Americans and the intentional introduction of diseases like small-pox into the Native American communities by the U.S. Cavalry. Disease decimated the Native American population in a way that the American army could have only have dreamed of.

    So much of what many Americans have come to believe as the 'history of the west' is nothing more than propaganda - and poorly written propaganda at that.
     
  5. Polar Bear

    Polar Bear Moved on

    Absolutely right slip, cultural and physical genocide. The Native Americans didn't understand the cultural weight sitting behind the invaders by the time they realised they were already beaten. European Imperialist machine was too experienced and well trained at conquering indigenous peoples all over the world. The Native Americans made the fatal mistake of fighting fair.

    The Bear.
     
  6. Louie

    Louie STUNT DAD Supporter

    Native American Death Touch!!!!

    I have read an account of a native american ability to 'touch' certain areas of their opponents body either with the hand or a stick which could cause faintness or even death. Similar to the Hawaiian kahuna and oriental martial art 'death touch' stories.

    This may have been down to the power of suggestion rather than martial ability similar to the 'trick' performed by hypnotists and certain religious/martial art groups who touch a person and they collapse into a heap.

    Louie :Angel:

    PLEASE KEEP THE DISCUSSION ON THE SUBJECT OF MARTIAL ARTS AND THE QUESTION IN HAND. CHEERS!!!![/B]
     
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2006
  7. Polar Bear

    Polar Bear Moved on

    Read about the American Revolutionary War. The number of battles actually won by the Americans were few but their tenacity and fighting spirit (not to mention a MASSIVE helping hand from France) won the war.
    Something Americans of today should remember when toting terms like "cheese eating surrender monkeys" about. If not for France no United States of America. Sprinkle that on your "freedom" fries.

    The Bear.
     
  8. Stolenbjorn

    Stolenbjorn Valued Member

    Just to supplement and to stay go off topic as well; this is why USA lost the vietnam war despite winning all the battles except one that was a draw, and this is why they will loose in Iraq. When you fight people that not only doesn't care if they die, but who actually know that THEY WILL DIE, you will loose the war. Now; USA isn't (officially) trying to conquer Iraq but I was not aiming at starting a discussion on americas post WW2-politics here, just mentioning two examples of wars where one side keeps winning the battles, but loose the war -just as the english fighting the americans in the war of independence some 300 years ago.
     
  9. Stolenbjorn

    Stolenbjorn Valued Member

    THis post duplicated itself due to a little disagreement between the MAP-server and the computer at work
     
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2006
  10. Polar Bear

    Polar Bear Moved on

    Sorry Louie. I think we answered in initial question and the discussion moved on to discussing why there are no native american martial arts. Which is a broad subject though I feel is still within a martial art context. i.e. why some martial systems die out. An issue that is very close to your own heart.
    Since there are no documents to work from like Hope's treaty on the highland broadsword we would run out of something to say very quickly on the subject if we didn't broaden the subject. I for one would prefer people were posting rather than not.

    The Bear.
     
  11. Louie

    Louie STUNT DAD Supporter

    Hi Bear

    As your probably aware the MAP 'powers that be' will pull the plug on discussions (if I don't) which have the potential for decending into flame wars & negativity, already we've went from a simple question on Indian fighting to the wars of Independance, Vietnam & Iraq.

    hi Stolenbjorn
    Yes, I thought about this before seeing how it would develop, :woo: :bang: :cry:
    obviously you have a culture who had not been influenced by karate, kung fu or Indian MA but may have had some influence from western arts - from the earliest viking settlers & Scots and French in the North. The Spanish in the South and the later European influences before and after the wars of independance.

    As to it not surviving, weren't N.American techniques taught to American rangers during the wars (or have I been watching too many John Wayne films)

    Louie
     
  12. disgruntled

    disgruntled Not so Valued Member

    thank you because you said it better than i would have! :p
     
  13. disgruntled

    disgruntled Not so Valued Member

    how does this answer my question?? if anything it supports my claim that they weren't good military leaders and that it was the circumstances that bailed them out
     
  14. disgruntled

    disgruntled Not so Valued Member

    it was my understanding that it was mostly survival skills that were taught, not fighting techniques.

    one problem with the question that started this thread is how we conceptualize MA. personally i think of it as a peasant fighting system that was developed to combate a dominate ruling class that controled weapons. granted i do not know enough about the history of MA, and i don't think that my statement would be true for the Ninjas. but i am inclined to put a class like the samurai who used weapons and were government run in the class of military and not MA. and if that is the case, classifying any Native fighting system as MA is hard. for the most part, in North America, their were few tribes that had any kind of ruling class that people would need to learn to fight against. if they did not like the person in charge they just left and lived with a new band, or ostrasized the disliked person until they left. thus, any fighting system they had was run by the leaders and therefore i would classify it as warfare/military and not MA.

    but then again my history of MA is not strong. hopefully someone who knows more will explain to me why i am wrong :p
     
  15. Polar Bear

    Polar Bear Moved on

    Defining what a martial art is, is probably one of the most difficult things to do. However your idea of a peasant fighting system is an extremely narrow definition and would only fit a very small number of modern martial arts. I like to think of martial arts as any skill taught specifically for fighting other humans. It may be broad but it describes how I see it.

    The Bear.
     
  16. disgruntled

    disgruntled Not so Valued Member

    fair enough. then do you define military trainning like navey seals and the like as MA? or combat trainning with weapons?
     
  17. Langenschwert

    Langenschwert Molon Labe

    No offence, but this is an overly narrow, moreover a grossly inaccurate definition of Martial Arts. The word martial, as defined in dictionary.com:

    Note the origin, derived from Mars, the Roman god of War. In the English language, the first literary use of the term "Martial Art" was in the 17th Century rapier manual called "Pallas Armata", which refers to the "noble Martial Art of fencing". Previous to that, the combat arts were referred to as the "Arts of Mars". So by extension, using a firearm is certainly a Martial Art. So is using a bow, or a fighter jet. They're just modern martial arts. You know, I think I'll just make a form reply to post in order to rebut someone who defines martial arts as "unarmed asian fighting arts". :D

    Best regards,

    -Mark
     
  18. Langenschwert

    Langenschwert Molon Labe

    Absolutely, without hesitation.

    -Mark
     
  19. disgruntled

    disgruntled Not so Valued Member

    thanks Mark... i figured i was wrong, but you have to say your opinion before you can figure out where you went wrong! :p

    with your definition then the Native definately do have a traditional MA. so how do we define it?
     
  20. Langenschwert

    Langenschwert Molon Labe

    No prob. ;) I hope I didn't sound harsh.

    Yeah, I'm positive the Natives had indigenous MA. I don't know if we can define those that are no longer extant. For instance, in the European MA, we don't have any manuals on how to use a full sized shield. We know they had MA for it, but we don't know how it worked exactly. We can infer from later sword and buckler traditions, and duelling shield traditions, and accounts from the sagas, but that's it. The best we can do is use the principles of fighting with swords (which are practically universal) and try to use the shield to the greatest effectiveness and see what happens. Great strides can be made that way.

    Martial Arts that were used in real combat are very similar all over the globe. For example, when the Potuguese went to Japan, they saw the Samurai in action. Westerners are very ready to borrow anything that works in combat, but none of the Japanese techniques were imported to Europe while there was an extensive swordsmanship tradition there. Why? Because the Portuguese didn't see anything they didn't already know. German Ringen and jiu-jutsu are nearly identical, though they were developed separately, and the list goes on.

    Using that principle, I think the best bet is to find extant tribal cultures that use similar weapons to native North Americans, and see how they fight. Chances are the techniques would be very similar, since people are smart and find out how to best kill each other very quickly. :)

    -Mark
     

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