Thread by @Helenreflects

I've read this book by Lahontan (Dialogues de Mr le Baron de Lahontan et d'un sauvage (1704) that Graeber and Wengrow (Dawn of Everything) discuss as being foundational to the Enlightenment.

I'm very intrigued by this book. I think Graeber and Wengrow are right to argue there is a clear influence of Indigenous thought in western philosophy, notably the notion of freedom but also critiques of religion etc. 2/

Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce de Lahontan (1666-ca 1716) was a French nobleman who served in the military. His interlocutor in these dialogues is the Wendat diplomat "Adagio" (real name prob Kandiaronk) 3/wyandot.org/kandiaronk.htm

Now, there is a whole discussion relating to authenticity. One standard scholarly assumption is that these dialogues aren't fictional retellings of real discussions that took place but Lahontan merely using Kandiaronk as a sock puppet for his own ideas on freedom and religion 4/

Graeber and Wengrow think that the dialogues (though they are stylized and have influences from ancient rhetoric etc) do contain actual ideas by Kandiaronk. It's interesting but most Native authors I read on this share the idea that the dialogues contain Indigenous ideas 5/

Example: George Sioui (who is also Wendat, like Kandiaronk).
Also, as Burkhart argues in his Indigenizing Philosophy through the Land, a lot of discourse on Native philosophies focuses on authenticity at the expense of the content
6/amazon.com/Histoires-Kana…

Anyway, putting that debate on the side, the book is really fascinating. The first part is all about Christianity. Lahontan takes the role of defending French status quo and Adario challenges him, for instance, about the Fall (which God foresaw but yet let happen) 7/

Also, "If there was only one true religion on the earth... how could humans be able to discern this unique and divine religion among so many different others?"

The next section is "Des Loix" (on laws). Here it's a bit confusing bc Adagio keeps on saying that they (Wendat/the term used by Lahontan is "Huron" but this is a derogatory term) do not have laws, but clearly they have political organization and customs, so it's definitional 9/

Here, Adario is pitying Lahontan, because in spite of all these laws, he is not free--he's not master of his own body, he cannot do as he wishes, all those laws do not protect him against false witnesses, assassins, or thieves 10/

After Lahontan defends the French by going on about how wonderfully the wealthy live, Adario responds that the laws are very punitive, basically making it impossible for them to subsist and maintain their families 11/

There is a whole back and forth between L and A about the problems with money and wealth. Does it give freedom, or deprive people of freedom? A thinks the former. Here's an interesting sketch of how L thinks of Native life, being a Frenchman in the early 18th c

"Do you call it living happily if you are obliged to lodge in a miserable hut of bark...to only be dressed in animal skin...to walk three hundred miles on foot in thick and inaccessible forests to find the Iroquois?" (p. 77) 13/

While A thinks that it would indeed be hard for French because they live "like animals, only to eat and drink", what difference is there sleeping in a nice bark cabin or in a palace? "We are not more ill or inconvenienced than French who have palaces, beds and cooks" 14/

A major theme is tranquility of the soul, which you can only attain if you do not wallow in wealth. This is of course a major Enlightenment theme and the place where I wonder to what extent this is Lahontan projecting or genuinely Kandiaronk... Here's a key passage 15/

Lahontan defends the French lifestyle by talking about how good the wealthy live (this has some Locke echoes, who wrote that wealth and ownership are ways we get out of the state of nature and that it was OK to appropriate land of Native ppl bc they do not generate wealth) 16/

But Adario says (pp 61-62) "In short, their soft lives are crossed by ambition, pride, presumption and envy. They are slaves of their passions and their king, who is the only happy Frenchman, because of that wonderful liberty he alone enjoys" 17/

(sorry for the hasty and undoubtedly inaccurate French translations, I'm sure there's somewhere a better translation of this book in English out there).
There is also a lot on medicine, the life cycle (on what older and younger people do), on the skills people learn 18/

Interesting bits on marriage and divorce. Adario says his daughter is getting married. Though he doesn't like the prospective son-in-law he does not interfere, as it is sufficient that she likes him (he's "as good a warrior as he is as bad a hunter". 19/

If A wanted to suggest another husband, his daughter would say "Dad, what are you thinking of? Am I your slave? Do I have to marry for you? Should I wed a man I don't like to satisfy you?" So, says A, it's not my business, it's my daughter's choice 20/

Interesting bits about divorce (p 97)--French do not have free partner choice but yet their marriages cannot be dissolved. A. think this is cruel, and that a boy and girl who love each other need parental consent for the French in order to get married 21/

The ending is about how Lahontan still thinks this freedom that Adario preaches is disruptive and would reduce people to live in a constant debauchery. It ends with Adario asking who is the savage, the Frenchman or the Wendat /end

Some thoughts: the topic of freedom and of liberation of people from e.g., the customs of marriage sketched above was of course central to Enlightenment thought. The idea that Native philosophies were instrumental in centering these ideas is intriguing /PS1

I wrote about a less direct but I think still very compelling influence of Native philosophies here /PS2.
It's intriguing how long it took Europeans to e.g., liberalize their divorce laws though clearly they made so many people unhappy.
helendecruz.substack.com/p/the-richness…

Funny how the autocorrect turned many of my "Adarios" into "Adagios" but you get the picture. I think that this text by Lahontan is very subtle and multifaceted. Moreover, even clearly fictitious accounts like Thomas More's Utopia are influenced by early modern exploration /PS3

Maybe just the fact of being confronted with so many different ways of living and organizing society which was such an eye-opener to early modern Europeans. Also, people like Lahontan in 1704 didn't have the military prowess and infrastructure in place later colonists had /PS4

So, they were often *out of necessity* negotiating and interacting with Indigenous local communities. They just could not afford to wall themselves completely in or (alas) commit mass genocide as becomes common in the 19th c. So some cultural exchange strikes me as plausible /PS5

And we know from many other domains that Europeans were in fact influenced by Native musical traditions, visual art, and of course, by science (see this great book)
If you read the European sources at the time, they say they're influenced /PS6amazon.com/Horizons-Globa…

So while it's legitimate to worry about sock puppeteering it's also important to try to make an accurate historical reconstruction of this early colonial period. Lahontan's text is multi-layered, certainly worth more exploration /end for real

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