So some males do lactate?!? I'd never heard that before - thanks! I say more of 'em need to try it. This world might become a more nurturing place! Wish I'd have known that when I had my twins - four nipples would have been better than two at those 1am feedings ... and 4am feedings ... and 7am feedings ...

And those dogs, well they just have it made now don't they Ebbie?

Mudlark, I'll attempt to respond to your comments re 'Hanta Yo'.

The author says that "The American Indian, even before Columbus, was the remnant of a very old race in it's final stage, a race that had attained perhaps the highest working concept of individualism ever practiced.    Neither the word 'free' nor any corresponding term appears in the root language, in the primal concept: there was never anything for the Indian to free himself from. His was the mind not seeking truth but holding onto truth. And his was the mind nurtured on choice. Whatever he needed to know, nature sooner or later revealed to him. And that which he desired to know - the best way to achieve his maximum spiritual potential - was the only mystery he chose to investigate".

Perhaps that explains the absence of the word 'how'! And I think using 'how' as a greeting was a Hollywood practice...

About the absence of the words/concepts "us" and "them" and "we" - I think this was because their world-view was totally individualistic. Hill says "But the rhetorical was the only form of questioning the Indians used; he never answered to anyone but himself, never answered for anyone but himself. He conjugates the verb 'think' in the first person singular only; he never presumes... His language is rich in expression of relationships but lacks the relative pronoun and the neuter 'it'. 'He' and 'she' were incorporated with other parts of speech. 'I', the sacred word; 'I and you' if and when an affinity is determined. His was the language of the ego, cultivated in the idiom of the premise by which he lived".

What you said about their inability to sign treaties if they had no concept of a 'promise' is entirely correct. The intent behind the treaties was incomprehensible to them - that's why they ended up signing such ridiculous agreements as trading the whole of what is now New York State for a few blankets and trinkets. The notion of 'treaty' was totally foreign, as was the notion that anyone could 'own' the earth in the first place. They really didn't understand what they were being asked to do at all - they thought the treaties were a sign of goodwill and safe passage through their homeland. It's a wonder the courts, knowing that today, still consider the treaties valid at all!

Also, if a culture had no concept of 'guilt' (because they could never 'presume' or 'assume' or 'expect' anything of another person) then they certainly didn't need 'forgiveness' or 'mercy' either. Minds nourished on individual freedom of choice have no room for the limiting 'should' or 'expect'.

I remember thinking when I first read that surprising list that it sounded like a list of words the natives would have first encountered as they were being arrested and tried in front of the whiteman's courts of law, military or otherwise. Another social institution totally foreign to them ...

I do find these differences amazing ... and thanks for your response!

daylia