American Indian Contributions to Science and Technology
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Portland Public Schools Geocultural Baseline Essay Series American Indian Contributions To Science and Technology By Chris R. Landon Portland Public Schools American Indian Baseline Essays 1993 Chris R. Landon Chris Landon served in the Portland Public Schools as American Indian Resource Specialist from 1989 to 1993. Educated at the University of Washington (B.A. in General and Interdisciplinary Studies, M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction), Chris is a doctoral candidate in Educational Administration there. Chris has taught a variety of subjects as well as serving as an administrator in public and tribal schools in Washington State. Version: 1995-07-14 PPS Geocultural Baseline EssaybSeries AMERICAN INDIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ............................................... 7 An Overview of Indian Agricultural Contributions............................................. 7 American Indian Agricultural Technology......................................................... 9 Impacts of American Indian Agricultural Technology on Other Cultures..... 15 American Indian Food Processing Technology .......................................... 20 American Indian Animal Husbandry................................................................. 22 Observatories, Medicine Wheels and Instruments........................................... 32 ENGINEERING ..................................................................................................... 39 Hydraulics ........................................................................................................ 39 Hohokam Irrigation and Water Systems ..................................................... 41 Pre-Incan and Incan Irrigation and Water Systems .................................... 42 Mesoamerican Irrigation and Water Systems............................................. 45 Transportation Systems ................................................................................... 48 Trails and Road Systems ........................................................................... 49 Inca Roads and Bridges ............................................................................. 50 Mayan Roads ............................................................................................. 52 Land Transport Technology........................................................................ 53 American Indian Navigation and Vessels ................................................... 54 Urban Design................................................................................................... 60 MINING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.............................................................. 67 MEDICAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY........................................................... 69 American Indian Pharmacology ....................................................................... 73 Psychology ......................................................................................................81 Surgery and Related Techniques..................................................................... 85 AMERICAN INDIANS IN CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE....................................... 92 The American Indian Science and Engineering Society .................................. 99 Science Education Programs for American Indians......................................... 100 APPENDIX A CHRONOLOGY........................................................................... 105 APPENDIX B AMERICAN INDIAN PHARMACEUTICALS................................. 135 REFERENCES...................................................................................................... 140 Science Chronology......................................................................................... 140 Footnotes......................................................................................................... 141 Index ................................................................................................................149 American Indian Baseline Essays SUBJECT: Science INTRODUCTION This Essay is principally concerned with the discoveries, innovations, technical practices and contributions of American Indian science. American Indians are not often given credit for having a scientific culture; indeed, numerous popular books, texts and other outsider accounts of American Indian cultures have depicted Indians as invariably superstitious, ignorant and helpless in the face of the powers of Nature. Such an inaccurate picture has sometimes been used to justify a belief that American Indians are something less than fully human and thus not entitled to full human rights worthy of respect by all. It is important for teachers to have an understanding of the characteristics of American Indian scientific thought and accomplishments so that their students may be taught to appreciate the true stature of Indian people as one of the Four Colors of the Medicine Wheel of humanity. We should begin by indicating something about the traditional frame of reference used by American Indians as they conducted their investigations of the world and decided which uses of their discoveries were appropriate. (In philosophy, the concept of a frame of reference combines the concepts of epistemology - ‘ways of knowing’ - and axiology - ‘ways of valuing’.) American Indians and Alaskan Natives (the term refers collectively to the Inuit (‘Eskimo’), Aleut and American Indian peoples of Alaska) have long been careful observers of reality from a vantage point of great intimacy with Nature. From what they have learned over centuries of observation, empirical experiments, technical discoveries and continuous questing for visions to show the appropriate relationship of humans to those truths, American Indians have produced a distinctive body of scientific knowledge. American Indian scientific and technical knowledge is profoundly imbued with a great sense of ethical responsibility. It marries knowledge and wisdom (knowing what S 1 American Indian Baseline Essays SUBJECT: Science can be done and what is appropriate to do) to produce a holistic sense of virtue (limiting oneself to doing the appropriate thing). This sense of virtue in making choices about how to apply knowledge has persisted to a great extent even after 500 years of continuing contact with a different system of beliefs and understandings about the world. The system of beliefs brought to the Americas by Europeans was similarly drawn from observation, experiment and reflection upon the nature of reality, but it differed (and still does in some ways) from Indian views in several important respects. Many of the developments of the modern European-American system of scientific thought took place after Contact between American Indian and European cultures. However, the basic features of both systems were in place at the time Europeans and American Indians learned that the world had a larger physical and cultural dimension than either had experienced prior to Contact. The generalized distinctions between the European-American and American Indian scientific worldviews are briefly compared in the table below. Traditional American Indian Scientific Traditional European Scientific Worldview Worldview Circularity of spacetime as a unified Linearity of both space and time as quality of reality separate qualities of reality Unified view of material and spiritual Dichotomous view of material and spiritual reality; organic worldview aspects of reality; mechanistic worldview Synthesis the predominant cognitive Analysis the predominant cognitive process; holism the predominant scientific process; reductionism the predominant paradigm scientific paradigm Humans seen as equals to all the other Humans seen as a distinct and superior beings in reality type of being as compared to others American Indians today use many symbols to express the fundamentals of their S 2 American Indian Baseline Essays SUBJECT: Science worldviews. The different symbols result from the enormous diversity that exists between the hundreds of Indian cultures and languages and between environments separated by hundreds and thousands of miles across two great continents. Differences also arise from the degrees to which traditional worldviews have survived among Indian cultures subjected to a variety of destructive and assimilative pressures over the past 500 years. Space does not permit an exhaustive survey here of the major traditional Indian worldviews. However, it is appropriate to offer one illustration. A symbol that is widely used and to which many references exist in the literature on Indian cultures is introduced below. Consider the Medicine Wheel. This symbol is used by many tribes, particularly on the Great Plains of North America. It is well-known elsewhere in various forms. The illustration of the Medicine Wheel given here presents two variants in the form of a hoop and of a disc. There are S 3 American Indian Baseline Essays SUBJECT: Science numerous variations in the choice, orientation, positioning and interpretation of the symbolic colors, so the representation here is not intended to be definitive or exhaustive. The four colors and their orientation to the cardinal (or semicardinal, as shown in the disc) directions, sometimes called the Four Quarters, represent many things in addition to the meanings suggested above. Among these other