来自：查字典高考网 2014-12-25
Native Americans in the popular imagination
An American tradition dating back to early times is *Thanksgiving. When the English arrived in Jamestown many died during the long cold winter, but in the following spring Native Americans showed them what local foods they could eat. In the autumn, well-prepared for the winter, settlers and Native Americans had a special dinner together, the first Thanksgiving, to thank God and the Native Americans for all the food they had.
Another story describes how the Native American princess *Pocahontas saved the life of John *Smith, the leader in Jamestown, when her father, *Powhatan, wanted to kill him. She later married another Englishman, John Rolfe, and went to England with him. The story of Pocahontas is widely known and many Americans are proud to have her as an ancestor.
But Native Americans were more often seen by white settlers as the enemy. *Westerns, i.e. films and books about the *Wild West, use the threat from Indians as their central theme. In this context Native Americans are still called Indians. Children often play cowboys and Indians and pretend to kill each other. When *Buffalo Bill, began touring the US with his Wild West show, the chief Sitting Bull was one of many Native Americans in it, and many people went to see this former great enemy.
Many Americans have an image of a typical Indian, a chief who lived in a teepee with his squaw (= wife), smoked a peace pipe after signing a treaty with the white man (whom he called pale face), sent smoke signals to communicate with people far away, and spoke broken English full of colourful expressions such as big heap wampum (a lot of money) and speaks with forked tongue (is lying). Most of these ideas have some basis in Native American culture, but it is wrong to put them all together and believe that that was how Native Americans lived.
Americans make such mistakes because they have little interest in Native Americans. Having succeeded in pushing them out of the way onto reservations, most Americans ignore them. This may be because the Native Americans who are left are living proof of a hard truth: America wants to be, and often is, a land where everyone has a chance and where the government behaves fairly and honestly to all, but this America is built on land stolen from the people who lived there first.?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office
【阅读辅导：托福考试阅读背景知识(十一)】相关文章：
[标签：海外留学,语言考试,托福,,]
张雪峰高考志愿填报指南 第47集 高考志愿，令人头疼的数学系，才是专业万金油，毕业后机会多
探秘历史 第二季 第479集 河南叛逆高考生，写下8000字批判作文，现状如何？
amc传媒音乐影像 第一季 第598集 西安原创乐队走进英泰青卓 用音乐助力高考学子
高中语文知识清单高考语文总複习工具书第5次修订五全綵版五三曲一线科学备考基础知识手册知识大集结资料书参考书导书高一高二高三
学渣儿子高考，英语选择题全选B！老师通报成绩的那一刻父亲懵了
广州早晨 2019 山西一高中班主任带学生骑行1800公里去上海
葛军大爷怒了：高考我出了个小学数学送分题，你们跟我说不会做？
一边扔试卷一边玩摇滚？这个学校的高考减压方式，真是帅到没朋友
NBA流言收割机 第6集 神预测？高考数学试题暗示猛龙勇士4
探秘历史 第二季 第211集 此人高考数学考了0分，因作文写3句话被重点大学录取
衍声高考琴行2019高本硕学生暑假音乐会 张俊瀚《陕北民歌主题变奏曲》《阿根廷舞曲》第三乐章
高考体育四项生的日常训练——深蹲移动跳：发展膝关节，踝关节力量。
