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[Guest]

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[_moksha]

Do you think it is merely coincidence that Salt Lake City has infinitely more tanning and bronzing salons than back in the Joseph Smith era?

[_bcspace]

I'd hazard that Red Jacket did not mean skin color would literally change but he is speaking of customs/habits etc.

[Guest]

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[_bcspace]

I don't know if the comments of someone who is perpetually raising the middle finger to God (in a Ugandan sort of way) can be considered valid in any sense.

[_MCB]

I read something interesting that I thought I might share and see what opinions people on the board had about it. Here is a quote from the 1822 speech of Native American Apologist Red Jacket about Native Americans turning into black men:

And I say that it is a fact, that whenever you find a tribe of Indians that have been christionized and have changed their custom or habit, which the Great good Spirit gave them, you will see that they are a poor, worthless, lying, ragged, miserable and degraded set of beings; and instead of becoming white men, as they expected to have become by changing their customs and habits, they have formed connections with the blacks, and have become black men in their actions and conduct. I say, therefore, that the Great Spirit will not suffer his Red Children to change their religion or custom. But when they attempt to do it punishes them by turning them into Black Men.

Christianity in that time was used as a way to "tame the savages," making them subservient, particularly to white Christian preachers. A form of slavery.

[_Quasimodo]

Do you think it is merely coincidence that Salt Lake City has infinitely more tanning and bronzing salons than back in the Joseph Smith era?

Born brown, bad. Turn brown, good. What does it all mean?

[_Quasimodo]

I don't know if the comments of someone who is perpetually raising the middle finger to God (in a Ugandan sort of way) can be considered valid in any sense.

Ugandan? Any chance this might be a racist comment?

[_moksha]

Ugandan? Any chance this might be a racist comment?

Sounds more like a Parkerstonian comment based on the name of a song titled
Hasa Diga Eebowai which translates exactly as "Pahoran, meet me in a dark alley. I will be the one with a pink bullseye painted on my naked back. Don't forget to bring your Crocodile Dundee knife".

[_MCB]

Pahoran especially, since he is an excellent example. He claims Maori ancestry, yet he is enslaved to the LDS church.

In case someone does a CFR on this, I already got it. http://www.eacfaculty.org/pchidester/Am ... eeches.htm

Thank you, Hasa Diga. It appears that the early Mormons were familiar with his speeches. I believe that it was

a deliberate change by the author as a result of a comparison with the story in the Bible about Cain.

I have seen other misinterpretations of what Native orators said. Believing Natives stupid, the early Mormons interpreted Native metaphors literally.