ntermation

Hey there,

From australia, never met a native american. If I ever went to the usa, whats the best way to meet native americans and learn about the culture directly from the source- without coming across as an 'asshole tourist'?

Is visiting a reservation an option? Or is that not a good idea?

That was part of my concern really. In australia, we have a similar situation with original inhabitants, and a troubled history. There are places you can go to learn more, and it is part of our education system... but sometimes even that feels like a secondary source. At the same time though, there are places I wouldn't want to just go to, and try and experience it- because the poverty and social issues make it not only dangerous, but also a shitty thing to do to people just trying to get through the day.

Return to Magic Mountain

He is talking about the Disney ride that only celebrities and the extremely wealthy get to use. You wouldn't have heard about it. Unfortunately, disney have now released a crack team of mouse assassins to silence him.

I thought that's what it meant too. But now I'm not so sure

I guess? Some good, some bad. In some ways I get the sense the Native americans have a stronger historical connectedness to their tribes than aboriginals. Though, I have met some really knowledgable people with direct ties to the tribal history of the area I now live in. Where I grew up was pretty different though- it was a difficult/horrible situation of tribes being nearly entirely wiped out, mass graves and so on, and many, if not most of the locals weren't necessarily 'local' in the tribal context.

There were sites around out in the bush with paintings etc on the rocks, but most of them were just local 'knowledge' and the legitimacy was never really established, or much looked after - I recall being taken by my dad to a place to see some rock art he knew about... we found they had been intentionally defaced/removed/obscured by - Im guessing the current land owner, who was worried I was told- that the outcome of Mabo might jeopardise his ownership.