Give us this Day – Native Americans and pandemics

Rather than the White Man civilising the Red Indian he all but obliterated him… and not at the point of a gun but through disease.

From 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, the indigenous peoples of the land mass we now know as America have had to endure…

The importation of smallpox, bubonic plague, chicken pox, measles, cholera and malaria among others.

Bandanaman and his cheerleaders at Denver Broncos’ Mile High Stadium

All of which they had no immunity to, whereas the Europeans had built up a resistance to many diseases.

Shamans

Smallpox was particularly rampant with the Lakota people calling the outbreak of 1518 ‘the running face disease’.

And their belief in shamanism proved unsatisfactory in confronting this assailant.

On the range… in Colorado

Today’s Native American and Alaska Native is more likely too to contract our latest pandemic because of their poorer socio-economic status.

Their struggles though drew them instinctively to others in trouble.

An Irishman’s friend

And the Choctaw Indians who suffered in the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma donated money to the Irish in the Great Famine of 1847.

Buffalo Bill’s grave in Colorado

The Irish, of course, have never forgotten and are now contributing to a fund for Navajo and Hopi communities hit by Covid-19.

An act which the Native Americans call iyyikowa.

Just the job

We can learn more about the First Nation from visiting their reservations, their association’s website www.aianta.org where they have a vacancy just for me.

Tee-hee, tepee… at the Mile High Stadium

And the best Smithsonian in Washington DC, the American Indian Museum https://americanindian.si.edu and Easy DC.

I knew I was in the America of my childhood Saturday movies when I walked through Denver Airport and was met by Freckled Face and Eats No Meat… Go West.

And went on to see the Native Americans at dance at Mile High Stadium http://www.denver.org and https://www.denverbroncos.com/stadium/.

And me as a Bronco

Before paying tribute to the Native Americans’ favourite White Man (before me) Buffalo Bill… http://www.buffalobill.org.

And rode off on the Plains www.colorado.com and The New Frontiersmen.

MEET YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE