It Keeps Showing Up!

I have no idea by now how many times Ive seen the topic of deceit or trickery as a form of Native American tradition. When we started the Popol Vuh it was probably one of the most obvious factors and it just kept going until the end of the story. The same can be said for Lucy Thompson's book. She herself mentions that not all the stories she says are necessarily "real". These "fairytales" as she calls them, when do we know when the narrator is making up a story or when he/she is telling the truth. This same idea followed us the entire quarter and showed itself up again in Mabel's story and finally in the stories that Nanapush tells us. What really grabs my attention, is that maybe its just that these "lies" are not meant to trick us or deceive us in any way. Sometimes stories are just wat the are, stories and they constructed in a certain way for a purpose. After all, some of the most important lessons learned come from fairy tales that have the purpose of teaching us something positive. Also, we need to remember that European-style literature is very different from American Indigenous literature. There are different values and beliefs that we cant understand unless we belong to that certain group. Interesting stuff...

The Power of Words

In this week, "The Warriors" was a reading that had a pretty strong effect and message on me. This story character of Uncle Ralph played the soul of Native Americans since after the time of colonization. Throughout Native American history, tribes all over the US have experienced times in which their pride and sense of peoplehood has been torn down by the pressure and dislocation caused by white colonization. In essense of all Native Americans who have tried surviving and resisting both assimilation and oppression, Uncle Ralph had an amazingly strong pride of his culture and old rituals. Little by little we see how his heart begins to break down and he resorts to alcohol as a way of escaping the hardships of his life. For him, there was nothing worse than seeing his people live their lives in ways that were not really "theirs". Assimilated people live their lives according to the way that the dominant group has imposed the way that life "should be", and for Uncle Ralph, this was not a choice he was going to follow. Although, Uncle Ralph had his moments of sadness and hopelesness, he was able to pass his message to his nieces, specially Pumpkin Flower, thus ensuring that it will be passed down through generations to come. Uncle Ralph was fighting and ressiting, and at a point seemed to have lost the battle, but in the end was able to pass his survivance to his niece. By doing this, he was much more successful than he would have thought.

Oh, Sarah...

So this reading, "Poor Sarah", has been by far the only reading that has actually bothered me. I am still not too sure as to whether Boudinot or someone else wrote this story, but to me, it was very negative toward Native American's traditional beliefs. The entire story made Native Americans looks like neglective, stealing, abusive people (Sarah's family and lack of community), and it also made it very clear that only by being Christian can anyone truly "be saved". Although there was never any reference to Sarah's past beliefs, its obvious that to her these ideas were not good enough. I just think its very sad that this is the first real Native American text work and it also happens to be one of the most degrading ones. I cannot think what is the purpose to this story, but so far the only one i see is the negative one just described. If this was written by Boudinot, its strange how this is not like his other texts. The other readings in this class by him were somewhat degrading to Natives but it was more of a way for Whites to accept them as people. In this story, I dint feel it is even about that; it is more about telling Native people that they have bad hearts and the only way to reach salvation is by converting. Sad stuff...

The End of the Indian Wars?

I had already known the events that took place in the Wounded Knee massacre, but watching the Wounded Knee film made my thoughts stir again and become quite angry. According to the US, the event that took place that day was labeled as the "End of the Indian Wars". yet i think its interesting to see that whoever came up with that title was inhumane enough to even call it that. The people that died that day were not warriors and fighters, but elders, women, and children, who did not deserve to die in cold blood. Although this massacre was nothing more than an act of cowardness, the US still named it as a war. One of the things that bothers me the most, is knowing that children will grow up reading US History books, and will never know the truth of events such as this one until much later in life; and even then, the majority won't. Some because they might not have the resources to know about it, and some because they simply dont care about the past. The thing is, although events happen in the past and people expect others to simply "forget" about them or "move on", these have a greater effect in peoples lives and are handede down from generation to generation, creating a never ending struggle. Wounded Knee is now a historical event that if someone was to visit and not know the history, they would never even guess about the attrocity that took place there. In my opinion, this truly shows who the real "savages" were. It is amazing to see what people are capable of doing to others when they are blinded by pure ignorance.

Why the tricks?

This title is the name that the Japanese have given to one of my guitar idols, Michael Angelo Batio. He is considered to be the fastest guitarist in the world, and after playing in one of his shows in Japan, it was thought that he played so fast that his hands had no shadows! Anyways, this being about the first few readings, i think its fair enough to talk about the Popol-Vuh. So Id like to talk about the fact that the first two parts we read are all about tricks being played on eachother. More than actually discussing about them, I would really like to know what is the idea behind them. I mean, really, it seems that for the Mayans, the entire world was created due to tricks being played on others, whether they are for a good reason or a bad one. Im not too familiar with the Mayan culture, but Im wondering if its possible that playing tricks on eachother is something more of an "inside" thing. Can anyone expand on my idea?