Talk:Natchez people

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[edit] History section

The article doesn't describe any history between the colonial era and modern times. How did the culture survive while living among other tribes?, etc. Rmhermen 14:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The writing style of the history section sounds to me like it was probably written in the colonial era (and cut and pasted wholesale here), which would explain it. I certainly can't imagine any 21st-century Wikipedian writing, "The death of a Chief sometimes resulted in that of an hundred persons, who considered it a great honor to be sacrificed upon his death. Indeed few Natchez of note died without being attended to the other world by some of their relatives, friends or servants. So eager were persons to sacrifice themselves in this way, that sometimes it was ten years before their turn came, and those who obtained the favor, spun the cord with which they were to be strangled." —Angr 07:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The article brings up the curious notion of "voluntary suicide". Aren't all suicides voluntary? Perhaps ritual suicide is the better context. ENScroggs 16:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IPA

I don't see something to transcribe, so have removed the tag. --Slp1 22:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major overhaul

I finally got around to overhauling this page. At first I was only trying to organize the text better, find sources for various claims, copyedit, etc. But as I looked for sources I ended up finding a lot of new material to add. I ended up expanding the article quite a bit. If it is too long the history section could be made into its own page, as could the section on "Descent system".

I tried to keep as much of the information that was already here. Hopefully I didn't hack anything up too badly. There are undoubtedly some typos if nothing else. Also, I added a great many footnotes -- probably way more than necessary. But I figured I might as well indicate the sources used for various statements and sections.

In the "Descent system" section I tried to explain Swanton's frequently-cited description as well as various other interpretations. I'm no expert on the Natchez people and am not sure how well I described the "Descent system" -- or how well I understood the stuff I read about it. Also I suspect there are "oral traditions" on the topic. I only used a few sources (they seemed pretty thorough though). I'm not sure how Natchez people today understand the "descent system" (or whether the name "descent system" is appropriate!). Hopefully all this stuff about "researchers" and "theories" are not disparaging to Natchez people today.

On that topic, I read the Natchez Nation webpage as well as the discussion threads on the MSN Natchez group. But I was unable to get a very good sense of the current situation of Natchez people. So again I hope I didn't step on any toes. Wikipedia pages on Indian groups like the Natchez can be tricky to write well, especially when most of the information is historic stuff from long ago. One needs to balance a "past tense" style that suggests a long-vanished people with a sensitivity to people alive today. On one hand it is probably insulting to ignore the continued existence of a people to present times, while on the other hand there can be privacy issues, especially if the present population is small. Anyway, I'm just trying to say that I hope my edits to this page are not disparaging to Natchez people today. Please fix any mistakes I made!

A final comment. In the language section it says that Watt Sam and Nancy Raven were the last fluent speakers. It used to say that they spoke it into the 1950s. But in trying to find sources and confirm some of this, it seemed that both Sam and Raven died in the late 1930s and that there may have been other speakers who lived into the 1950s or so. It was quite difficult to find the answer since a great many websites that mention Sam and Raven are mirrors of wikipedia or have obviously copied the info from wikipedia. If anyone has better information, please add! Also, the page had what I'm guessing are Natchez language names for Sam (watih) and Raven (naNcih). It was unclear what these words were. And why the capital N in naNcih? My web searches turned up nothing but wikipedia mirrors, so I left them out. If anyone can explain what they are, that would be great. A couple other examples: Natchez (našceh) and Sun Woman (Natchez: uwahšiL tama∙L). I left out the first because I don't know what it means. Is it a pronunciation guide? What does the letter š mean? I left out the second, reluctantly, because I was not sure if the Sun Woman was the same as the White Woman. The sources I found used the term White Woman but not Sun Woman. If anyone can clarify, feel free to put the Natchez terms back in. Thanks. Pfly 21:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)