Bison in Canada Discover Ancient Petroglyphs, Fulfilling an Indigenous Prophecy | Hacker News Reader

Bison in Canada Discover Ancient Petroglyphs, Fulfilling an Indigenous Prophecy

smithsonianmag.com

74 pointspseudolus11 comments

3h of CBC Radio (1992) documentary on Buffalo in Canada, including relationships with indigenous people through to genetics (hint: <matrix>“there is no plains bison”</matrix>). I found it fascinating.

Part 1: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/1579960...

Part 2: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/1580079...

Part 3: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/1580205...

I am delighted that plains bison are making a return here. I'm especially happy that this private ranch is now a restored heritage park with revealed petroglyphs. I am not as excited that Smithsonian Magazine is giving pretend clickbait headline credence to a "prophesy". To me, it's clearly the hard work of conservationists and activists who worked hard to restore this area to the rightful equilibrium that existed for six millenia.

>To me, it's clearly the hard work of conservationists and activists

Not just to you, but everyone including Smithsonian, it's unlikely anyone believes in prophecies literally. However those prophecies are part of animistic traditional beliefs, and if you have a little bit of good faith you can see how respect for biodiversity, nature and animal life ties into the good fortune of traditional tribes who often have a closer and more direct relationship with wildlife and intact ecosystems.

You don't need to be superstitious to understand why animals and the natural world have a privileged place in the beliefs and history of native peoples.

I know, and this actually crossed my mind. It's probably the case this writer doesn't actually believe the Wahpeton Dakota Nation prophesy is real. They are just giving respect to indigenous peoples and not actually propping up horoscopes or Nostradamus, or whatever.

The prophecy was that when bison came back, it would bring better times for the Indigenous people. That's hardly a stretch as predictions go.

Edit: fixed prophesy -> prophecy

I think you both mean prophecy. Prophesy, whose last syllable sounds like "eye," is the verb form.

From the article: For thousands of years, Blackfoot, Cree, Ojibwa, Assiniboine, Nakota and Dakota...

A bit more about each of these and what else you might have heard them called:

The Sihásapa or Blackfoot Sioux are a division of the Lakota people, Titonwan, or Teton.

https://meilyngift.com/qa/what-are-some-interesting-facts-ab...

Known as the Ndooheenou (“nation of hunters”), the Cree...

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/cree

The Ojibwe people, also known as Anishinaabeg or Chippewa

https://www.thoughtco.com/ojibwe-people-4797430#

The Assiniboine or Assiniboin people (... Ojibwe: Asiniibwaan, "stone Sioux"; also in plural Assiniboine or Assiniboin), also known as the Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota (or Nakoda or Nakona), are a First Nations/Native American people originally from the Northern Great Plains of North America.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assiniboine

The term Nakota (or Nakoda or Nakona) is the endonym used by those native peoples of North America who usually go by the name of Assiniboine (or Hohe), in the United States, and of Stoney, in Canada.

They are Dakotan-speaking[2] tribes that broke away from the main branches of the Sioux nation in earlier times.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakota

In addition to the political subdivisions, the Native Americans of the Dakota tribe identify with one of seven distinct tribal groups: Mdewakanton, Sisseton, Teton, Wahpekute, Wahpeton, Yankton and Yanktonai Sioux. The tribal differences are largely cultural. The Indian tribes may prefer to call themselves Dakota, Lakota, Nakota or Sioux. While the first three monikers are the same in meaning in the Dakota Indian nations' language: “allies,” the fourth is an Ojibwa word meaning “little snakes.”

https://www.infobloom.com/what-is-the-dakota-tribe.htm

I always wondered what prophecies were in pending status

I think I saw a list that somewhat showed that, some time ago

But I would love to be aware of more

Who knows, maybe one could get me to convert to an obscure sect!

Not pending anymore, but the best one so far for me has been that the jews should come flying back to their homeland "on eagles" or something.

That must have looked pretty insane for anyone reading it the first 3000(?) or so years of that prophecy.

well there's this one https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/27/western-men-wh... which seems to have conveniently managed to convert some guys.

now, I'll admit I'm no expert.... but I don't see any petroglyphs!!

All I see is a stone with some scratches on it! It seems as plausible to me that a bison (or something else) got a rock and scratched it against another rock...

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