Native American opinion about Bering Strait bridge

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   Some Native Americans seem to have mixed feelings about the talk about that their ancestors arrived into America over the Bering Strait landbridge: 

"Bering Strait Theory

Why do American Indians get so mad when you say their ancestors migrated across the Bering land bridge from Asia? 

Well, there are several reasons. First of all, that contradicts the religious tradition of many native peoples, which claim we have always been here. Surely you know some white people who claim that the earth can't be thousands of years old because it conflicts with the Bible. It is the same principle--except that the Christian fundamentalists get a lot of attention and even nice mentions in textbooks, whereas the Indians are ignored. That gives them an extra reason to be mad.

However, though there is a wide spectrum of native religions in the Americas, most of them tend to be less hierarchical and more flexible than Christianity. If you asked most Indians in some respectful manner, I think you'd find most of them wouldn't have a problem reconciling a philosophical belief that we have lived here since time immemorial with natural evidence that we arrived here at least 20,000 years ago. Why shouldn't they both be true? The Creator is great, we don't always understand the whole world.

But now the problem is, most of us have not been asked this in a respectful manner. Instead, a lot of people have used this Bering Strait bridge theory to belittle Native Americans as "not really native" (a claim that is stupid as well as insulting, since the same scientific facts they use to show the immigration theory also clearly show we have been here at least 20,000 years--longer than men have inhabited England.) Furthermore, missionaries in the past commonly ignored our religious traditions and oral history as inferior to scientific findings-- while at the same time touting their own religious traditions as superior to science. Is it any wonder that this sort of hypocrisy makes Indians angry?"

(Orrin Lewis)

http://www.native-languages.org/bering.htm

Edited by Carcharodon - 07-Jun-2009 at 20:01