It is tempting to look back at Bear's people from the perspective of this modern world and see them as changeless and pure, authentic people in ways impossible for anybody to be anymore. We need Noble Savages for our own purposes. Our happy imaginings about them and the pure world they occupied do us good when incoherent change overwhelms us. But even in those early days when I was first getting to know Bear and his people, I could see that change and brutal loss had been all they had experienced for two centuries.
In the modern perspective, there is a tendency to romanticize Bear's people, viewing them as timeless and unblemished, embodying an authenticity that feels unattainable today. This idealization serves our need for "Noble Savages," allowing us to escape the complexities of contemporary life. Such comforting images of a pure past can be soothing amidst the chaos of change and loss we experience in our daily lives.
However, the reality I observed as I got to know Bear and his people was starkly different. For two centuries, they had been subjected to relentless change and devastating losses. Their history is marked not by an unchanging existence but by suffering and adaptation, revealing the harsh truths that counter the myth of a blissful, untroubled past.
