Cherokee trip!

One of my most favorite places we went to was the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. Not only did they have super awesome mugs (which I just *had* to take one home with me of course...) but I felt like I actually learned a few things that will stay with me for a while.

The first being, that I had no idea what a real traditional Cherokee outfit for men and women looked like, and I found that they are beautiful! I thought it was such an unusual juxtaposition with the outfits of not only the tourists outside, but the locals as well. I wonder why their beautiful outfits were mostly confined to the museums and those already in the know about them?
I also really enjoyed learning that the title "Mankiller" is one of the highest honors a woman could receive in this traditionally matriarchal society. I really would like to have that title...

 The second most memorable part of the trip was just the beauty of the land around us. I really felt like our respectful walk around Keetoowah cemented some of the harder to imagine parts of the literature. I think as I read American Indian literature in the future I'll have a better mental image of just how important a space can be for a people. I also thought that it was fascinating that one of their better methods of preserving the space was downplaying its importance to outsiders. The modest sign on the side of the road was something I would have never noticed had I not realized it was there in the first place.

Lastly, how can I leave out the infamous Indian Taco.

Never have I become so full so fast. Even if we had just gone to the Spokane Diner alone, I think the trip would have been worth our while! Mmmm....

What I've learned so far

I think that the main idea that has stood out to me all along is the realization of how little I really know. (If that makes any sense...)

By learning so much about a culture that is geographically so close to mine, I realize how very much I am in the dark about them. This class has brought to light not only my unintentional racism (I had no idea they did not like being called "Native Americans"), but also it has served to round out my knowledge of their world views and cultural practices as well. I feel like being exposed to a wide range of literature, from colorful trickster tales to more cut-and-dry accounts of their unjust treatments has served to give me a much broader understanding of what the American Indian experience entails.

I think without this class I never could have imagined the complexity that comes with talking about American Indians. The politics of a displaced people, the longing to cling to the past while needing the ability to remain relevant to the present, the drama of living confined as a nation unto itself on land that was not their home to begin with, and the real human face to a people often too ignored.

Photo of a Cherokee Indian from our local region

Another thing that has stood out to me in my experience in this class is just how much I can relate to a people and an experience that I have had no previous interaction with. The humor found inside the trickster tales is not lost, (especially when we performed them out loud in pantomime). The blending of the spiritual with the graphic humor of the body and human interactions, is an art form that I find extremely relevant to modern people!

Another striking familiarity was the silencing beauty of the ancient cave paintings in their immediacy. Even from only seeing them on film, I could easily throw myself back to the "cave man days", imagining my hand casting shadows on the rocky walls, while rendering the animals so important to my daily life. This place was clearly spiritual to the people who used it, and the fact that the spirituality was so tangible 30,000 years later is astounding.

Silko on Landscape as a Character in Fiction

   Silko begins this section with the notion that many of her stories include landscapes that "featured the presence of elements out of the landscape, elements that directly influenced the outcome of events," and it seems that she didn't even realize at first that landscape was so important to her work. She had been so influenced by her personal landscape and the presence in her own life, that the inclusion of it in her stories became second nature.

One particular work she hones in on is a short story called "Storyteller". The landscape here is a specific place in Alaska in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, and she gives a clear image of a harsh but beautiful wilderness. I took the liberty of googleing this site and here are some pictures from the places she describes:

One of the most powerful sections from this story is right after the murder scene where she says:

"For the Yupik people, souls deserving punishment spend varying lengths of time in a place of freezing. The Yupik see the world's end coming with ice, not fire. Although the white trader possessed every possible garment, insulation, heating fuel, and gadget ever devised to protect him from the frozen tundra environment, he still dies, drowning under the freezing river ice, because the white man had not reckoned with the true power of that landscape, especially not the power that the Yupik woman understood instinctively and that she used so swiftly and efficiently. The white man had reckoned with the young woman and determined he could overpower her. But the white man failed to account for the conjunction of the landscape with the woman. The Yupik woman had never seen herself as anything but a part of that sky, that frozen river, that tundra. The river;s ice and the blinding white are her accomplices, and yet the Yupik woman never for a moment misunderstands her own relationship with that landscape."

She basically makes the landscape the partner of the antagonist, an equal member in the plot, and of equal importance to her storytelling. I love how you can easily picture this landscape character as a living breathing component that holds its own place in her stories.

What school is best for white people?

What school is best for black people? Brown people? What do you "others" look for in an education? How may we entice you into enhancing our rosters?

Sometimes I feel like UNCA's search for a truly diverse campus, while well-meaning, can become a dangerous thing. When we think that diversity is  restricted to visuals like skin color we become a part of the problem. Even when you search the word "diversity" this is the first image to come up:

When they give in to the "collect all five!" mentality people become a commodity to be gained, and they lose their human face. I feel like when we disregard what diversity even encompasses, and stick to a predominantly "white" curriculum, focusing on gathering people of varied skin tones, we will be no more closer to becoming an open-minded campus than we would have otherwise.

Thoughts on our group discussion questions

I was assigned to group one and the question that made me most think was this:

5. In the story "A Drug Called Tradition," the narrator talks about skeletons that represent the past and the future. How does he describe these skeletons and how must a young Indian relate to them?  What is he saying about tradition in this selection? 

I'd like to begin with my favorite section of this story, the description of the skeletons

There are things you should learn. Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you, and your future is a skeleton walking one step in front of you. Maybe you don't wear a watch, but your skeletons do, and they always know what time it is. Now, these skeletons are made of memories, dreams, and voices. And they can trap you in the in-between, between touching and becoming. But they're not necessarily evil, unless you let them be.

What you have to do is keep moving, keep walking, in step with your skeletons. They ain't ever going to leave you, so you don't have to worry about that. Your past ain't going to fall behind, and your future won't get too far ahead. Sometimes, though, your skeletons will talk to you, tell you to sit down and take a rest, breathe a little. Maybe they'll make you promises, tell you all the things you want to hear.

Sometimes your skeletons will dress up as beautiful Indian women and ask you to slow dance. Sometimes your skeletons will dress up as your best friend and offer you a drink, one more for the road. Sometimes your skeletons will look exactly like your parents and offer you gifts.

But, no matter what they do, keep walking, keep moving. And don't wear a watch. Hell, Indians never need to wear a watch because your skeletons will always remind you about the time. See, it is always now. That's what Indian time is. The past, the future, all of it is wrapped up in the now. That's how it is. We are trapped in the now.

       This really spoke to me because I took it as a metaphor for the modern American Indian experience, and even someone such as my experience when we consider the events of the past and our future. The skeletons, while seemingly menacing, are with us no matter what. They are neither wholly for good nor for evil, they are what we make of them. I took this to mean the skeletons of our past can be what happened to our ancestors, or what our ancestors inflicted on others.
      The skeletons of the future could be how we use that information and experience given to us. When we are tempted to "slow-dance" with them, we are willingly becoming bogged down by what happened, either something in or out of our control. It can be so easy to lose sight of the here and now when we become overwhelmed with guilt for our ancestors. The fact that Alexie said our skeletons will be with us always I took to meaning that we never leave the past behind, and in some small way this is a comfort.
     There is a delicate balance between remembering the past and honoring what happened, but also moving on into the future, and by being reminded of the importance of walking on. "We are trapped in the now."

my favorite part of Smoke Signals

This section of the film I think most fully represents the "Indian Humor" often ignored by outsiders. While the two are uncomfortably stared at on the bus, they decided to have a loud discussion about John Wayne and how the Indians in the movies always lose. This leads them to notice how you never see John Wayne's teeth. I love the blending of their made up song into a "real" one towards the end of the scene, where the rhythm of the song changes and older men's voices are added in.

The real humor of this scene to me is when you see the faces of the white passengers on the bus, twisted in confusion. It's like they are taking everything so seriously that they don't even know what to make of the joking song, and so they become frustrated.

(Where are his teeth?)
 

James Luna is a (pardonmyfrench) Badass.

 Who wants to take a picture with a Real Indian?
How about now?

How about now?

What about now?

The contemporary artist, James Luna, identifies with both his Mexican and Pooyukitchum heritages. In one of my favorites of his pieces he forces a (from what I can tell) a mostly white audience to face their prejudice and assumptions about America's "real Indians". Wearing several different outfits he invites them to step forward into the camera and photograph themselves with him, invoking ideas of the old "curiosity cabinets", the rare, voyeurism, tourism, and the souvenir. Guests are welcomed to keep a photograph as a memento of their encounter. You can see the whole experience in this video here:

My favorite line he says is this:
"American's like romance, more than they like the truth."
I just wish that the camera had been turned on the audience when he said it.

a short video of a Cherokee storyteller circa 1960(ish?)

Slightly older quality, but still lovely to watch.

Nez Perce

Just a sort of side note while browsing the internet I came upon this photo here

"Nez Perce's Chief Joseph (left) & Red Thunder pose with Edmund S. Meany, Washington, ca. 1903"
 
I also found quite a few compelling quotes from Chief Joseph himself, here are a few of my favorites:

"All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases."

"I am not a child, I think for myself. No man can think for me."

"It does not require many words to speak the truth." 

 "The earth and myself are of one mind." 

 As moving as these quotes are, their power is often lost to time. I'm surprised that it was hard to even find myself reading Chief Joseph's words, and how much easier it is to look up famous quotes from many well-known "white" leaders. Why is it that I feel so uneducated in the areas of American history when it comes to the people that were here before my family? It makes me sad to think that a huge part of the story is being continuously left out, and at the same time glad that I am able to at least now learn more about the important history of these people who are so seemingly foreign to me, and yet live (lived?) on the same land as I do.

I won't lie to you, after viewing the film in class all I could think about was this video I had seen through an NPR interview with a man named Ryan Red Corn, who was quoted as saying "The prevalence of humor in any country is just right here on the surface,"... "All the Indians I know are smiling Indians."

One of my favorite things about this video is its tongue-in-cheek dedication to Edward S. Curtis (a known early 1900s photographer who we have to thank for much of our earlier photos of some very serious looking Indians.) And I believe it pretty much speaks for itself. So here it is:

Also something else I didn't notice the first time was the name "the 1491's"...Hohoh.