Proceedings Colloquium on World History - Waldorf Research Institute

ninth grade, but it’s precisely that quality. Then we have the farming
Iroquoian people on the south bank of the Saint Lawrence. And, of course,
as in most places in the world, they’re at war. If you would read an Iroquoian
complaint about the Algonquins, the way they are, and what they come
and do (they come and smash all our grain jars) you could be reading something
from Ancient Persia.. . . This is from right up until the Europeans
arrived. And the Europeans, actually, in this case the French and English,
ended up getting caught up in this conflict sort of by default.”
“There are similar issues in the Mid-West too. The song ‘Cowboys
and the farmers should be friends!’ from the musical Oklahoma describes
that issue also.”
“One of the important things is to make a relationship to our own
native, or our own ancient history or pre-history in North America. We
have to go down to Central America to get to ancient history, to begin to
differentiate. It’s interesting because I’ve met people who study this and ask
them about the difference between the nomads and farmers and it apparently
has not occurred to them.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“Our challenge with the students is to illuminate and differentiate
the different forms of living so that the question starts to have contours and
a landscape. The key is to distinguish between different qualities.”
“Not only do we begin to distinguish between qualities, but questions
of bias rise up. Rather than thinking, Oh, they’re just Indians, the
students begin to realize they are a whole different people.”
“Another question that is not resolved is the path of migration. It’s
been traditionally explained that the migration went across Siberia and
down North America. This year an article in the New York Times quoted
the Smithsonian Institution as stating that there is a relationship between
some of the Eastern Native Americans and the ancient Spaniards.’
“Also the Mayans speak of coming from the land across the sea and
use words beginning with atl which means ‘from the water.’ The understanding
of history is changing so quickly with new discoveries being made.”
“Yes, Atlantic Monthly carried an article about the Diffusionists in
which the question is raised as to whether or not there were people in
North America from the ancient Asian world. The author does say that
conservative historians do not even want to look at the evidence.”
“An issue that arises is how to approach the rituals in ancient history.
How does that get presented so that it’s not so much superstition? You
know, in the same way that we can say that there’s a tribe over in New
Guinea that every day goes over and brings up the sun. How do you know
it’s not true? How can you prove it’s not true? How do you present the
ritual in a way that makes the students say, ‘Ah, there was something to that
time?’”
“I definitely have a thought on that, and just for the record, I think
it is interesting to compare the idea of Ma-at, which is sort of an internal
principle with, for example, Mesopotamian laws. I think there’s a relation-
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