How the fur trade killed Iroquoian pottery.
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- čas přidán 29. 02. 2024
- Capitalism is good at making things cheap. This is a pity.
All image credit goes to the online archive of the Royal Ontario Museum.
Link to patreon if you are so inclined.
www.patreon.com/user?u=3998481
This alienation from art and craft is one of the reasons I despise AI generated images. It's clearly a move at turning art into a consumer commodity.
Art was already a consumer commodity, AI 'art' is a way to get it without having to pay the artists, thus (probably) eventually killing that profession.
@@princecharon i see it killing a lot of uses and disciplines of art but not all of them, and only for as long as capitalism continues
Ai art can literally only replace consumer art. Nothing is stopping anyone making art for arts sake, it only impacts the commodity value of art for sale.@@pupyfan69
@@princecharonConsidering the various creators of ai platforms have openly admitted to stealing and categorizing artists’ artwork to profit from, such as the massive list made by Midjourney, and the ongoing case against them? I can’t see them existing in the long term.
It’s not like any of the generated crap can be trademarked or copyrighted. Hence why pretty much everyone can theoretically use all the characters from the knockoff Wonka experience in any way they like. If not just distribute the ai crap themselves. It’s all basically public domain.
Especially with the massive national security risk they pose towards crime, politics and the slander it’s already creating.
I disagree. Mass produced art does not require AI. It's not like an advertisement billboard is gonna look any less soulless because some intern photoshopped it together instead of prompting it. AI art can be similarly finetuned by the artist if they're actually willing to put in the effort rather than treating it as a shortcut to compensate for a lack of art skills.
I live in Connecticut. I found a load of indigenous pottery in a box in an old 1700's house. I called the Pequot museum to see if they wanted it and never heard back. I was hoping a museum would want it to for research or display rather than remaining in a box in a forgotten closet.
Poor form for them not to respond, but they likely have rather a lot already, and more shards are not particularly useful if they don't know where specifically they were found.
There's like 3 museums with closets full of my great grandmothers woven baskets. Just hers, not even counting her daughters' or other tribal members. There is a lot of this stuff floating around, and it costs to store, maintain or display it. @@MalcolmPL
I worked in the Smithsonian National Anthropological Archives in Washington DC many years ago, and the best description was like the ending scene in Raiders of the Lost Arc. There are endless warehouses (albeit air-conditioned ones) all over the place holding onto every shard, pelt, archeological sketch, and animal ever stuffed. Consider the actual value of your box of pottery. If you put it out at a yard sale, how much money could you realistically get for it? Would anyone willingly buy it at all?
@@ThatHabsburgMapGuyI am not looking to sell it. I would want it to go to someone who would at least appreciate it for what it is. Maybe research? I was shocked that a museum devoted to native American culture would want it but no. It is a shame.
@@johnbauby6612 They weren't trying to convince you to sell, they're making a point about how the museum sees it. They're not more willing to buy it than some guy at a yard sale.
I'm from Yap island, Micronesia, which is the farthest east into remote Oceania you find ceramic manufacture (bows and arrows, too). Same thing happened, but with the copra trade. Pottery was a major part of local craft and interisland trade, but cheap iron completely supplanted it by the end of the 19thc.
Today I'm a part timer at an archaeology agency in the US and we get all these beautifully preserved Mississippian potsherds (some are gigantic) and I can't help but admit some wistfulness every time I'm cataloguing one.
A big, bitter headnod to you, Malcolm. One grumpy indigene to another.
I remember being a kid and asking my mom why she didn't make clothes anymore and her telling me the fabric alone was more expensive than buying premade clothing. There's so much more memory with the things she made, the dresses were carefully handed down and photos of me wearing something she made are so much more valuable. You really hit my heart at the end.
The same is happening with local print. Here in Arkansas we only have one news paper printer in the state. And they have only one back up press from the italain copany that forges the parts. That spare was consolidated down to Little Rock for the replacemnt parts. Because of the cost of buying new. Soon we may not even have mass produced print in Arkansas. What a strange thing to think about.
Oof that ended hit like a truck. Im trying to learn how to sew and alter clothes with the goal of making the majority of the stuff I wear although it feels kinda pointless knowing that whatever I make will take longer cost more and won’t really minimize exploitation in any way but it’s preferable to walking into an old navy
As someone who sews, embroiders and is learning woodworking I can tell you that even if your finished products aren't up your ideal quality standards, you will still love them way more than anything you buy.
The first shirt I made, I wore constantly until i couldnt patch or darn the holes anymore. The first Suit I made is still proudly displayed in my closet.
It is definitely worth it to make stuff yourself, purely for the emotional reward and how it will make you feel afterwards for years to come
It is worth it to do it. It will last longer, like decades longer. It allows you to express your tastes and interests. It will also fit better, especially if you have a nonstandard body. Fabric doesn't have to be new. Sheets, bedspread, curtains (watch out for fibreglass) are great to learn on. Second hand saris provides you with 5 yards of exotic fabric that no one else has.
But it will fit. That, and your buttons won't fall off, you will learn what fabrics last, and you won't hesitate scavenge old buttons.
That end bit sure hits close to home. The modern world feels kind of soulless and mediocre in many ways and it’s all because our economic system values efficiency over artistry and humanity. My hope is that channels like yours are evidence that people are pushing back and want to get back in contact with material culture.
This video reinforces a goal I have for this spring, once the weather thaws a bit, which is try to sample and work with local clay. When I make some headway on it, I'll update you.
Do you happen to know the primary tempering agent used by Haudenosaunee potters?
Best of luck to you. If memory serves, in my period of study it was crushed river mussel shells.
One famous fur trapper was Grey Owl (Archie Bellaney) although he was from Britain he wanted to be a Native American and was adopted by the Iroquois and he lived as one. He learnt that, then, modern methods were wiping out the beaver and with the loss of the beaver the landscape was being affected. No dams and pools vanished along with animal watering places etc. .The European didn't just affect the Iroquois. A tipi takes about 16 buffalo hides to make, is heavy and lasts about 15 years. But buffalo hides can be traded for sailcloth which is lighter. Also a canvas tipi lasts longer, about 30 years. Being lighter meant that tipis could be bigger for the same weight.
Thank you for this on how seemingly minor things can either change culture or be a bellwether of changes
Awesome video! I was surprised to hear those exchange rates for skins and kettles. Very interesting, thank you
yes sad but as my good friend from the Fond Du Lac band says "We are still here because we adapted to new technology" just like you can use a bow and arrow or a gun which increased you chances at getting food and not starving to death or use old method of trying to boil down maple syrup into sugar and using hot rocks hollow logs and bark containers or use a cast iron kettle or pot
I remember as a teenager as a kid and even in my early 20's wanting my mother to teach me how to sew by hand. I was always fascinated with leather making and that and I never had a lot of money, so fixing what I have made more sense. I was told that it was "woman's work" by my mother and that men didn't sew. I could never get past explaining to her about tailors. It wasn't until my wife and I were married, and she makes her own things, repairs her own things because like me, she never had much money growing up and that's just what was done. So she taught me how to sew, and now with the cost of things, I've made a lot of my own things and repaired what others would probably have just thrown away. It's sad that it appears technology in a way helps to make people lazy, and it isn't just in our modern age. New things come along making life "easier" and then something is sacrificed because of it. The old adage about failing to learn from history and being condemned to repeat it.
The smooth area around the neck of pot 3142 is interesting to me. It looks like it would have had some cordage around it.
CZcams seems to have deleted my first reply. Let me try to word that differently.
Yes, it is for suspension above a fire or in the rafters for storing food.
Copper pots are more convenient for the cook than pottery, I think. Haven't tried either so far. But afaik you place ceramic pots beside the fire and turn them regularly. Copper pots can be hung over the fire or placed on a grill.
The rounded base of these pots is designed to be nestled into a bed of coals, the rounded shape diffuses the heat from the bottom to all sides of the pot evenly, while the thermal mass of the pot regulates the heat, meaning you don't have to be as persnickety about long term fire maintenance.
The pronounced neck on many of the pots is for suspension by a rope in certain other applications.
They are not very good for boiling water quickly, but they are very good for cooking, we still use ceramics in slow cookers.
thanks for raising such unique topics
True facts. But, we can choose to relearn and reinvigorate all of those crafts!
Good thing you take the viewers to an online database of authentic material culture. In an age of AI- painted imaginations, showing sources becomes ever more important.
Malcolm , great videos as always. Strange question but would you want to live in the 1800s?
Heck no. Unless you were an immigrant farmer or a wealthy industrialist the 1800s mostly sucked.
Wow. I learned something in the first few seconds of this video. I really had no idea of this ancient pottery tradition.
I wish I could've been born 1000 years from now either after capitalism was finally put to rest or its logical conclusion of making everything fall apart has been realized. Being contemporary with capitalism is getting on my nerves.
I blame the French.
Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind
And this applies to almost every product
Now I like copper! It's malleable, and you can alloy it to make bronzes. Cheap copper is a better trade than clay imo. Why didn't native peoples add decorations to the soft copper? They had a long history of copper working. All those lovely decorations could easily be punched into soft copper?
For the same reason we don't embroider our cheap costco shirts.
Depressing but interesting.
Brass kettles?
Kettle just means metal pot for boiling water, in this era they didn't have spouts.
We do have nice videos though
Yeah, things change and I guess we loose something for everything we gain. Mostly what we have gained is "free time" but then bordom becomes a crisis. Mostly commenting for the algorithm.