Author breaks myths of native America to overcrowded MVR

Faith Swymer

Everything that you know about Native Americans is wrong.

Well, at least everything you were taught in public school. The same public school errors you know - such as the notion that small human tribes rode horseback and hunted large mammals - Charles Mann experienced and in return was shocked to find the same regurgitation passed down to his son.

So, what do you do? Mann wrote a book about it.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas covers Mann's journalistic travels throughout North and South America, detailing the myth busters behind the traditional Native American knowledge of the pre-Columbian era.

In a packed Mountain View Room that had students flooded out the doorways and others crunched up sitting on the floor, Mann brought his findings to an enthusiastic audience in an event hosted by the English, history and American Studies departments along with the School of Arts and Humanities and the Diversity Commission.

"We just didn't anticipate that we would draw so many people," said English professor Robin Dizzard, who helped organize the event. "Lots and lots of people have heard from this book."

Released in August 2005, 1491 - as well as Mann's presentation - explained how typical stereotypes of Native Americans and their history are just that, stereotypes.

Taking an artistic graphic from a school textbook of Native Americans on horseback near mountains and wearing traditional feathered headdresses, Mann commented, "It's hard to find a picture where every single thing is wrong."

The testosterone-driven hunters that are often portrayed aren't logical, according to Mann. Fighting large mammals is a dangerous task and Mann asked the crowd if fishing or focusing on a vegetarian diet would've been more plausible.

"Very few people in the field today believe all three (Natives accessing the Bering Strait 20-35,000 years ago, traveling through small tribes and having little effect on the environment) are correct," said Mann.

Instead, Mann offered alternative theories, none of which have yet to be proven. Among these are philosophies that Natives came over the Bering Strait closer to 80 million years ago, when ocean's waters had receded due to an increased ice shelf covering Canada. He called "the standard theory" that humans crossed down through Canada during a magic moment when the ice gave way enough to create a passage that Natives accessed on foot.

As with the assumption that Native Americans often stuck in small packs and migrated, Mann points to architecture to negate that theory and gives crop circles in South America, foot highways throughout and construction of Mayan and Aztec temples.

"This takes organization. As our president would say, it takes a decider," said Mann. "They can't be simple societies."

When asked by journalism student Tim Bradshaw if history would have been different if the European impact was delayed by 200 years, Mann said, "Something would've happened I imagine, but whether it would've made a difference in the outcome is hard to say."

Although Mann's book, which has recently been published in paperback and is being adapted for adolescents, is not required reading for KSC classes, Dizzard said faculty do have a fondness for it.

"That's always an individual faculty member's decision, but a dollar to a donut, it will be in classes," said Dizzard.