Hi hilgren,

Sunday, December 24, 2006, 1:46:45 AM, you wrote:

> The village of On-a-slant was about one sixth white.
> La Verendryes 1738 eyewitness account" the nation is mixed white and
> black. The women are fairly good looking especially the light colored
> ones, many of them have blond or fair hair."
> NO missionarys in these parts at this time yet.Others have made that
> assumtion too.

But the 'arc' wasn't mentioned by Sieur de la Verendrye, so that's irrelevant.
It still looks as though you picked the one sixth out of the air.
Unless you are picking and choosing the bits you like, you are arguing that the
village was one sixth European (white), and one sixth African (black).

Have you seen http://www.legendsofamerica.com/NA-Mandan.html which suggests that
de la Verendrye probably wasn't the first European to visit. In fact, their
friendliness and eagerness to trade suggests that they may have been familiar
with Europeans, maybe 'very familiar'.

And http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/metis10.htm
casts a bit of doubt as to whether he made this visit at all.

If he did, I wouldn't be surprised if he thought that such a sophisticated
culture couldn't have been truly native.

Anyway, before we go any further, there are various problems that have to be
faced.
1. There could have been Europeans there before de la Verendrye.
2. He might not have been there.
3 -- and the biggest -- do you think, if he was there, that you can take his
observations at face value? That there really were blacks there?
and from there you have to take into account and respond to views such as Rudolf
Kurz's comments on the 14 year old Mandan girl, Washington Matthew's comments,
and more importantly Marshall T Newman's article. I presume you are aware of
all of these and will be interested in what you have to say.
Doug

--
Doug Weller Moderator, sci.archaeology.moderated
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