As is the case for others in the class, I too have been intrigued by what we have learned so far about the Native Peoples of North America. Much of the information lectured over has been new to me, especially that of the Cahokia Mounds. Prior to the lecture, I had not even heard of such a large civilization existing in North America, which is a disappointment, considering its close proximity to home.
I would venture to guess the reason we learn so little, or nothing at all, about such past civilizations as Cahokia Mounds is simply that, they are past. For this reason, greater effort needs to be exercised in creating awareness of such places among the general public. Perhaps if more people were to visit the contemporary Cahokia Mounds, a greater interest could be cultivated for the people that created them. Since learning of the Cahokia Mounds, I now have an interest in visiting them, and plan to in the near future.
3 comments:
It seems like there a lot that history classes are leaving out these days. I have heard that some schools are starting to leave out even events like the revolutionary and civil wars because people feel that there is too much history to cover in just one required history class during high school. Maybe there should be different classes now; history is important to all of our lives and shouldn't be forgotten. History that includes things like the Cahokia Mounds is also important; it seems ridiculous that I'm just now learning about things such as those in college.
You were talking about history so close to home. Haskell Indian nations University has a lot of history to it. I know that we will talk more about it further into class. But Haskell was built in the 1884 for Native children that were taking away from thier families to be raised "civilized". They children were abused by speaking thier own language. There is the Cultural Musuem on campus that I suggest you visit. It's very intresting.
I think another reason we never learned about Cahokia Mounds before is that many people view it as an insignificant part of American history. Until college, anything I learned about Native Americans was somehow linked to their relationships with European settlers. I think that the lack of knowledge about sites like Cahokia Mounds is disturbing but it won't change because many people aren't interested.
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