A half true story about war with the French.

A good pseudo-historical story.
I've heard this one a couple of times, but I've never seen it written, so I can't give any sources.
I don't know how close to the truth the version I was told was, And I know for a fact that I've misremembered or exaggerated certain sections of the story. So make of that what you will.
Furthermore. I have used Champlain's image to represent the french officer. I've heard conflicting versions of the story. In one, Champlain is the officer. In the other he is someone whose name I have forgotten. I only used his image because it's hard to find royalty free relevant images.

[@mox3909]

Haha, that Grinch quote caught me off guard. As somebody who grew up in the Northeast US, native history from this era is seriously undertaught. You do a great job retelling it and keeping it alive.

[@neepgang4091]

Imagine this Frenchman taking the same trail home and having to pass back through every village again "Hey, how'd your war go?" "I don't wanna talk about it"

[@LotharTheFellhanded]

Well, he's got all his skin and it's still attached to him so you can't say it went that bad.

[@Cavouku]

I've been finding lately that many cultures engaged in what were essentially insult-wars, especially in cases where combat was risky. I knew the Norse had *flyting*, but it seems to have also been a practice among Greeks, Inuit, Arabs - all around. I wonder exactly how many battles were settled by this method (or the similar-but-different method of champions fighting on behalf of their war party). How much blood in history has been saved because groups agreed to settle things in a rap battle?

[@MalcolmPL]

I'd imagine that sort of thing is universal to small scale warfare, where you don't have some remote authoritarian overlords saying, "kill or be shot for cowardice." After all, battle is just the act of convincing your enemies that it is in their best interests to run away. If you can do that without personal risk. All the better. Among the six nations, when there was some international dispute that could not be resolved with words, we would play massive games of lacrosse, to resolve our differences, and thus keep the peace. Re, champion warfare. I have vague memories of a story where the war chiefs, before a battle said, "let us spare the blood of our men and the tears of our women, and settle this between ourselves." In short, I bet it happened a heck of a lot.

[@werewoIf]

This is a trait homo sapiens shares with most other animals. Or, at least we used to share it, before we turned ourselves into feral urban primates without any values... The ability to identify the risk of conflicts, is vital for the survival of all species on this planet. Life before modern medicine & industrial scale agriculture was nearly as dangerous for us as it is for wild animals. The tiniest injury can be lethal, even for the largest and healthiest animals in the forest. Even a grizzly bear or a mountain lion, solitary apex predators, will not engage in a conflict with an individual they believe they're evenly matched against. Both species are often seen sharing carcasses and hunting grounds with other individuals of their species, as they realize they're evenly matched and therefore the best outcome for everyone's survival is to coexist peacefully. for humans who rely on each other so heavily, even losing a few members of your community can have drastic implications for your ability to survive. I imagine that this behavior -- engaging in nonlethal warfare -- is a very old one for our species. We tend to think of previous homo species as being inherently more violent, but the fact is, they had much more motivation to avoid conflict than our species will ever have.

[@erlinacobrado7947]

Add precolonial Filipinos in the Visayan islands. Spanish missionaries documented that whenever they would go to war with each other, warriors would first recite all their pedigree of great ancestors, and then their own accomplishments, who they killed, and then insult each other before throw spears at each other.

[@conlinbryant5037]

Poxy Frenchman attempts to pull a Hernan Cortez by rallying a Native coalition army against the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Fails and gets called a Poxy Frenchman by his allies instead.

[@MalcolmPL]

If only all history had a sense of humour.

[@forestgiest1380]

OOF! “99999999999” Critical damage

[@oso8146]

I guess every tribe have their own traditional enemy just us Navajo our traditional enemies were the Utes, Comanches, Kiowa, and zuñi and sometimes the Apaches worse we're the New Mexicans and before that the Spaniards Great story I'm learning a lot from your history of your people I'm glad I found this channel

[@MalcolmPL]

The Hurons were the traditional enemies. The others like the Algonquins and the Neutrals were more like rivals. Sometimes friends, sometimes foes. Then the French came and became the new ultimate enemy.

[@therealhistorybuff990]

"Yeah well you never had one" That line killed me 🤣

[@KaChowAndTheGang]

As an Irishman, this is one of my favorite stories from a different culture. Good on you guys for sticking it to them froggy Frenchman.

[@shuvanispiritualsoldier8173]

It sounds like a parable lmao. History is great.

[@MalcolmPL]

Some of it is.

[@Lucius1958]

*"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!"* The Frenchman might have understood that... ;-)

[@zekeseda]

Excellent storytelling! Love all your vids

[@trikepilot101]

I haven't heard anyone be told to "take off" since Bob and Doug were big back in the 80's. :)

[@MalcolmPL]

Are Bob and Doug not big anymore?

[@hotzenplotz4077]

That is a beautifull story well told, Sir!

[@bern1228]

Found your channel. Was always facinated by the club weapons and dress of the first nations. I got confused though. I thought you were Iroquois, but you said "we", referring to the Mohawk. Just curious. Thank you.

[@MalcolmPL]

Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) is a confederacy of six nations. These include the Mohawk, as well as the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Tuscarora. I am Mohawk as well as Iroquois. The same way an Ontarian is also Canadian.

[@bern1228]

@@MalcolmPL Thank you. I thought that might be the case. Wishing you much success and looking forward to more content.

[@johnp.5841]

and the chief goes "o take off man ya bug me"

[@zen4men]

John Buchan wrote some very good novels ==================================== that covered these times. A good read!

[@overtoast1105]

pretty excellent story

[@daveburklund2295]

This is one of those great stories you really hope is true!

[@threblog]

A wholesome story

[@noahfranks2892]

this is why i love history

[@MalcolmPL]

Some of it anyway.

[@jessegreene3208]

This is some great story telling 😂

[@MalcolmPL]

Glad you enjoyed.

[@FriendofOnas]

All is fair in love and comedy.

[@dnaseb9214]

I mean they were right about the british

[@gopherasoda2492]

As someone from Wisconsin, I can say that the French weren't the greatest to the natives. Just guess where the name Butte De Mortes comes from

[@MalcolmPL]

Almost the first thing the French did was make enemies of the Five Nations.

[@MrBottlecapBill]

The problem is.......the french(and all of europe) wanted the flow of furs above all else. The problem is the eastern nations(or strategically placed nations to the trade ports), started depleting their supply of furs by over hunting. This made them desperate and greedy for more furs because they heavily depended on those european trade goods by this time. The result was many native nations going to war to expand their zone of influence and supply of furs. At first this wasn't much of an issue but after a while there was so much war and raiding and insecurity for everyone hence the flow of furs actually began to suffer. It's difficult to trap and tan when you live under constant threat of being killed. This is when the French changed their somewhat neutral stance and wanted to force a peace.........so everyone could get back to business instead of war and murder. It kind of worked eventually until the Brits came along and changed the game pieces yet again. At that point the French supported the nations who opposed the brits......and it goes on and on and on. lol. Politics is wonderful.

[@timothyadams1844]

This is the first time I've seen where your words sound false, but if your words are true it certainly doesn't make the first nations sound good. I am one of your biggest fans of your channel but I must be honest hope you understand.

[@fightingcock8096]

This poxy Frenchman 😂

[@MalcolmPL]

But of course.

[@leemason4024]

I thought you would have ended with "and so it goes...", eh?