Camel's Noses, Trojan Horses, and Cultural Aggression

They must have been slacking off.Previous missionary efforts in central New Mexico among the Piro Indians resulted in a virtual 100% extermination rate in little over a century.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

This Wiki article: Population of Native California and what I was taught in the California school and junior college system tend to support Coyote's position.

quote:

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Pre-contact estimates range from 133,000 to 705,000 with some recent scholars concluding that these estimates are low. Following the European people's arrival into California, disease and other factors brought the population as low as 25,000. It is estimated that some 4,500 Native Californians suffered violent deaths between 1849 and 1870.

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Normally I greet Wikipedia articles with some skepticism but this one is well referenced.

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The decline of Native Californian populations during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was investigated in most detail by Cook (1976a, 1976b, 1978). He assessed the relative importance of the various sources of the decline, including Old World epidemic diseases, violence, nutritional changes, and cultural shock. Declines tended to be steepest in the areas directly affected by the missions and the Gold Rush. Other studies have addressed the changes that occurred within individual regions or ethnolinguistic groups.

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The Native Californian population reached its nadir of around 25,000 at the end of the nineteenth century. Based on Kroeber's estimate of 133,000 people in 1770, this would represent a decrease of more than 80%. Using Cook's revised figure, it would constitute a decline of more than 90%.

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Considering Cook published his research during the same time I was attending the local JC, I can see why it was discussed in several of my classes.As to the continued existence of any Piro Indians, I offer the following:

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Sandia Pueblo, 14 miles north of Albuquerque on the east side of the Rio Grande, and Isleta Pueblo, 14 miles south of Albuquerque on the west side of the river, are both Tiwa-speaking pueblos. Their native names are Nafiat (dusty) and Tuei (town). Sandia Pueblo lands comprise 22,884 acres, (93 km2) and the village itself seems to have been occupied continuously since about 1300. Isleta's lands comprise 187,826 acres (760 km2) and the present village site cannot be dated earlier than 1500. The core population of both villages is probably made up of descendants of Puebloan peoples living in the Rio Grande Valley long before European contact. Both pueblos probably also received population increments from the now extinct Piro Pueblos, which existed before the conquest along the river south of Isleta and from the abandoned Saline Pueblos (Abo, Gran Quivera, and Quarai) of the Estancia Basin.

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Emphasis mine.Source: Albuquerque's Environmental Story
Educating For a Sustainable Community
Heritage and Human Environment
Pueblo Indian Influence
by Linda Cordell, with material by Matthew SchmaderThere are more sources, if deemed necessary.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

Whether or not the mortality rate was direct from murder and enslavement, or indirect through destruction of culture and disease, it is the contact that caused the vast majority of deaths.California has always had periods of drought, the effects of which are greatly magnified through the recent population explosion. Are you suggesting that periods of drought, affecting a much smaller amount of people, is the sole or even major cause of the decline in the Indian population?

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

I took death rate to mean population decline rate rather than mortality rate for the very reason a 90% mortality rate makes no sense in this context. However, I can easily see how there could be some confusion over exactly what Coyote meant by "death rate."At any rate thanks for clearing that up.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen