Very interesting.

Len Neal: “Childbirth was codified in statuary as equal to the male warrior against his enemy and the more abstract enemy, Fear. Women inside those societies were not chattel, they were protected as the birth-carriers of more future warriors and their birthers. Childbirth was regarded as a ‘test’ identical to the warrior tests.”

Wow!

I had no idea that they were so cucked.

Correct. During that entire thirty year period from around the American Civil War when the American Indian and U.S. Army did battle, a total of about nine hundred “bluecoats” killed in combat.

The danger of a soldier being killed in battle with American Indians probably not a whole lot worse than being kicked in the head by a horse and killed or struck by lightening while in the saddle.

Women’s roles in America in war societies were struggle-based. Childbirth was codified in statuary as equal to the male warrior against his enemy and the more abstract enemy, Fear. Women inside those societies were not chattel, they were protected as the birth-carriers of more future warriors and their birthers. Childbirth was regarded as a ‘test’ identical to the warrior tests.

Anyone really dealing with these societies eventually has to do some real gymnastics to accommodate the Hippies Of The Plains idea.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Great book.

With the previous comment, one of the striking things about Prairie/Steppe conflicts is the paucity of people. Rather small numbers of mobile warlike people are able to control vast tracts of land.

The Red vs. White Civil War conflict in Siberia and Mongolia, Tibet, etc., which arguably fixed the relations of Russia and China into the present day, involved mere thousands of people, mostly horsemen.

The combatant numbers are laughably low by Western War standards. Yes, the casualties were in the hundreds, and the warring parties in the low 5-digits, but the influence was incredible. It’s hard to believe that such small numbers of people could control such vast spaces, and the conflicts could be so influential, but that’s what the evidence shows.

I suspect historical master horsemen were less tank-like blitzkrieg things and more like semi-autonomous A-10A Warthogs, temporarily self-sustaining and grouped into incredibly destructive packs in a power vacuum.

That is, the modern equivalent to the Comanche horseman isn’t a tank, but a heavily-armed and acrobatic ground-attack aircraft.

Really great post, thank you!

Combat was rather sparse; casualties for the whole epic in the hundreds.

A buffalo fueled war machine with no off button. Cain on horseback.

Lakota were originally from Wisconsin , but thrown out to die on the bleak High Plains, for cause. But they didnt die. Too tough.

In the days of no horses, women were very important. You died without one.

In the wagon burning scalpaholic phase, society changed drastically.
Violent horseback incels got no love. Until they proved their worth, meanwhile the satisfied oligarchs of the day had many wives

The women became chattel. And the warriors (who used EVERY part of the buffalo) turned their frustration on their neighbors, white and red.

Being the baddest tribe also meant hordes of alienated haters from other tribes, very willing to serve as US Army scouts.

The perverse incentives inherent to the human condition caught up with them.