Savages Poem by David Welch

You see it in the old movies,
when Indians come into play,
somebody calls them, "savages, "
and it seems to fry people's brains.
They flip out, demand censorship,
know nothing of real history,
can't empathize with either side,
to see how that all came to be.

It's obvious that most regret
how things happened in these past times,
and they're not wrong to regret that,
it isn't that hard to go find
broken treaties and agreements,
politicians playing their games,
most wish that things had gone better,
but history never can change.

Yet this does not change stubborn fact,
and looking back it is well seen
that some things the Indians did
were barbarous to the extreme.
Ritual torture was practiced
on captives by most of the tribes,
and done long before Columbus
ever had the new world in sight.

Like burning people at the stake,
or things that were much more foul,
like tying intestines to trees,
forcing souls to self-disembowel.
Making people run the gauntlet,
to be beaten by hard-swung staffs,
make it through and you might be safe,
if you didn't…well, that was that.

Now by any modern standards
this is savage, that much is fact,
but honestly, were they alone
when you take the time to look back?
Europe had its iron maidens,
and the rack in medieval days,
and the Turks once were infamous
for leaving many captives flayed.

The Japanese in World War II
treated captives like they were trash,
Britain used to ‘blow out the guns, '
for your sake, please, don't look up that.
Islamists rape and mutilate
in ways that would leave you disturbed,
and savage Chinese socialists
do awful things to the Uighurs.

But somehow, in this PC age,
we give the Indians a pass,
try to forget what they once did,
this really does strike me as bad.
No people should be above sin,
we see our mistakes from our scars,
to stay at peace none can forget,
must understand all that we are.

It's important the we know this,
noble savage myths do no good,
especially since we'd forget
if there was a way that we could.
This evil lurks in all mankind,
and it should leave us all non-plussed,
Were the Indians savages? Yes…
but no more than the rest of us.