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David Boozer's avatar

Hi Daniele, I appreciate this article! I do have a couple of questions:

1. Any idea why the Comanche Nation only recently made the decision to denounce the book?

2. In your paragraph accusing Gwynne of racism, you seem to quote his book without citing page numbers. (Everywhere else you do cite page numbers.) Could you add those page numbers please? Again, many thanks for this!

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Daniele Bolelli's avatar

For the "premoral, pre-Christian, low-barbarian versions", it's p. 46

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Daniele Bolelli's avatar

Thank you!

1. No idea

2. Which quote? I'm seeing I listed the quote about 'human settlement' as being from p. 41. Which other quote would you like to know about?

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David Boozer's avatar

Thank you!

In that same paragraph, you also seem to be quoting Gwynne calling the Comanche "savage" and "filthy."

Also, you seem to quote from the book that Gwynne describes Native religious worldviews as having "no tendency to view the world as anything but a set of isolated episodes, with no deeper meaning."

I appreciate your time!

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Daniele Bolelli's avatar

The deeper meaning quote is from p. 45. Here’s the exact quote: “There was no dogma, no priestly class to impose sys- tematic religion, no tendency to view the world as anything but a set of isolated episodes, with no deeper meaning.“ He uses the terms ‘savage’ and ‘filthy’ on p. 46

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David Boozer's avatar

Great, thank you for the clarifications. And thank you again for the work you put into this Substack.

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Daniele Bolelli's avatar

Thank you! Any time

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ado's avatar

And he has a short passage regarding it. He seems to attribute to the agents not fulfilling there promise as well as lack of troops due to the war. As an aside ,Fehrenbach , points out the long time blood fueds the various tribes had.

It seems that local newspapers at the time would be pretty good sources.

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Tom's avatar

History shouldn't be subjective.

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Daniele Bolelli's avatar

right?!?

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Tom's avatar

Have you ever written a book Daniele? Being an expert on Native American culture, maybe you should consider a fact based novel. I'm sure you know of many stories you're surprised haven't been reported on or written about.

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ado's avatar

Have you experienced the book massacre in Minnesota by Anderson?

Wondering if it is worth it?

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Daniele Bolelli's avatar

If I remember correctly, it was pretty good. But don't quote me on it since I read it a while back, and it's kind of mixed in my memory with other books I read on the topic.

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ado's avatar

Just like me listening to the rest is history podcast about Custer while reading a book about the Comanche

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ado's avatar

No I do not. I recently read the Fehrenbach book , The Commanches

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Daniele Bolelli's avatar

Did you like it?

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ado's avatar

And torture was common among the Comanche.

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ado's avatar

I thought it was great as I was always interested in the Comanches. They were the empire of the Indians. They were brutal. They were at war with the Spanish forever and killed more Mexicans than Americans and prevented the settlement of the border areas. I also came to think I understand their religion as being one of personal medicine and how this led to no tribal leadership as like my medicine is stronger then yours. They were brutal as a matter of course.

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ado's avatar

I have seen 20000 for the Mankato massacre. I do know that activists have hijacked Wikipedia and put the number at 300. Pretty subjective.

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Daniele Bolelli's avatar

Do you have any sources for something like that? I've read about a dozen books on the topic and never seen anything above 800

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