I hope everyone has an awesome Indigenous Peoples Day. It only seems like yesterday that our pioneer ancestors landed on the shores of BabaKiueria and learned to peacefully coexist with the local pale-skinned population.
Enjoy!
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Native Americans tell their stories in book
Title: “Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans”
Author: Alison Owings
While driving along an unremarkable two-lane country road, Alison Owings passed a simple road sign that caused her to stop. It read “You are Entering the Navajo Nation.”
As a best-selling author from New Jersey, Owings thought she knew America, but her short jaunt through rural Arizona made her realize just how much she did not.
Shocked and compelled by her own ignorance about Indian Country, Owings set out to write the book her exhaustive library search proved did not yet exist.
“Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans” unfolds as a series of chapter length interviews with tribal members from across the United States. In these candid discussions, Native Americans of all backgrounds reflect on what it means to be Native in America today.
From the Passamaquoddy blueberry harvester to the Yup'ik educator to the Lakota woman's activist, Owings travels far and wide to converse with her subjects. Stories of hardship and survival, humor and celebration, tradition and modernity are told by the likes of an incarcerated Yurok artist, female Osage lawyer, and Lakota/Navajo urban activist.
Even the most hot-button issues are not off limits; Indian mascots, repatriation of remains, tribal corruption, and spousal abuse all make appearances.
Owings' writing can be summed up in one word: enthralling.
Her vivid prose and penchant for lengthy block quotes bring the scenes and stories to life in vivid detail.
“Indian Voices” has the feel of a documentary film with the camera fixed squarely on the subject.
Owings' musings as the wide-eyed outsider, however, can awkwardly break up the narrative. Indeed, at one point, I found myself wondering if a better subtitle for the book would have been “Listening to Alison Owings Listen to Native Americans.”
Overall though, Owings succeeds in recreating the sense of intimacy she herself must have felt during these long interviews.
The best part about “Indian Voices” is the sheer range of thoughts, feelings and opinions elicited from her subjects; a true reflection of Native America if there ever was one. Even among families, differences exist.
Take the case of Emma George, Lemhi Shoshone and closest known blood-relative of famed Lewis and Clark guide Sakakawea. Emma was always reluctant to acknowledge her famous kin unlike her two sisters who enthusiastically took part in bicentennial activities.
While this book only scratches the surface of America's varied Indigenous communities, it is a welcome addition to the very scant literature on Indian people today.
In addition, while her writing is clearly aimed at a non-Native audience, I feel “Indian Voices” would be a compelling read for both Native and non-Native readers alike. Universal themes of pain, hope, and humor abound.
Having now heard so many truly unique and original voices, I can honestly say I will never look at Native people and culture the same way again. Such is the power of giving one community the opportunity to speak so candidly with the world.
Set in Vermont's National Forest, your kids will walk past acres of valuable timber property before arriving at our authentic shtetl. They go through a Jewish naming ceremony where they receive a Jewish name which reflects who they are as a unique individual.
“The naming ceremony was just the most magical thing,” notes camper Timmy. “I heard this weird chanting from behind me when all of a sudden a white shawl was thrown over my shoulders as I was lifted into the air still sitting in my chair! Everyone was chanting 'Levi! Levi!.'
The boys choose the activities for the day which range from investment strategy to stock market analysis. The campers will also be regaled with stories of famous rabbis and the triumphs of the Jewish people.
Camp director Stephen Bridenstine notes "No, I'm not Jewish. I just have the utmost respect for the Jewish people and culture and how they connect on a deeper level with financial issues."
"Rango is a chameleon who lives in a terrarium and constantly seeks to fit in with his surroundings. He finds himself removed from his contemporary American southwest surroundings and ends up in an Old West town in the middle of the Mojave Desert called Dirt, which is populated by various desert critters garbed like characters out of Western fiction. Thinking himself a hero, Rango establishes himself as the town's sheriff, not knowing that people who have held that title do not fare very well in Dirt."
"The film plays like a classic Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western crossed with a Nickelodeon kid's comedy with a little Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas thrown in as well. As a Western, the movie has everything from high noon gun battles to bitter fights over water rights to the stereotypical stoic Indian who once again seems incapable of speaking in complete sentences."
"A solid creature of the Crow Nation. Wounded Bird draws his inspiration from Native American Indian principles of harmony and quiet observation. His tracking skills are legendary and he's big in Finland for some reason."
tvtropes.org |
"Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite." In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them."
"A common cause for supernatural goings-on in America, commonly seen in movies: A house is haunted or Cursed due to being built on an Ancient Indian Burial Ground. The disturbed spirits of the ancients of the land then enact their bloody vengeance against those who wake them by turning off the lights, making hooting noises, creating flies and maybe, if they feel up to it, killing people."
"A character who is portrayed as nobler or of higher moral fibre than the norm, due to their race or ethnicity, which is that of a barbaric or savage tribe. (Often regarded as living the Good Old Ways). The savages in question are quite often American Indians, so you could probably call them Mary Sioux. Rare nowadays, except as a Sci Fi alien- though it has made something of a comeback with the idea of Magical Native American people being more in tune with nature than the greedy white people."
"There are plenty of people who believe that modern life is rubbish and would like to escape it and go live off the fat of the land. The Going Native trope plays to this fantasy by having a character lifted out of his typical environment and thrust into a new one, only to become a part of that new world. "
"American Indians (also Red Indians, Native Americans, Amerinds, or First Nations) discovered America by walking across a gigantic land bridge from Russia into Alaska. For a few thousand years they just took up space until Europeans rode massive wooden buckets across the ocean and crashed into the eastern shore. After a friendly 'getting to know you' dinner party, the killing started, and lines were drawn between the Civilized World and Injun Country."
"After centuries of various atrocities (smallpox, Columbus, Custer, the Trail of Tears) perpetuated against "the savages", white people finally came to realize that Native Americans have rich identities and cultures. Furthermore, Native American tribes have their own rich and varied beliefs, many of which hold close to the idea of the value of everything on the earth...Of course, many non-Natives, especially those Hollywood types, saw a complex faith with a focus on ritual and spirits and broke it down to "magic." So, whenever someone needs to bring in a spirit guide, or magical superpowers, they bring in the Magical Native American."
"Indigenous people tend to be, well, poor. Indigenous people also have a tradition of war, unlike the rest of the world. So of course they're badasses. No matter what era, you're in, if you live in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, or Australia, indigenous people will be badasses. Rarely seen in the rest of the world, though. The American version of the Badass Native has costuming and prop elements as well. Note that this is Always Male, will often be magical. Overlap with Noble Savage."
"A common trope in 18th and 19th century adventure fiction, when vast swathes of the world were being explored and properly documented by Europeans for the first time, Mighty Whitey is usually a displaced white European, of noble descent, who ends up living with native tribespeople and not only learns their ways but also becomes their greatest warrior/leader/representative. Extra points if he woos The Chiefs Daughter along the way."
"Even in Darkest Africa, Injun Country, or the land of Wild Samoans, Everythings Better With Princesses. The Chief's daughter, in her Fur Bikini or Braids Beads And Buckskins, is often the first to greet or trust Mighty Whitey during his visit to the strange new land. She'll be inexplicably beautiful by Western standards with just enough racial traits to be exotic, and will be a Noble, Nubile Savage compared to the rest of her Barbarian Tribe, and a Friend To All Living Things."
"Under Hollywood History, all historical Central/South American nations are lumped into one exotic and barbaric people: the Mayincatec, featuring aspects of the Maya, Inca and the Aztecs, plus many others. It's a salad of exciting bits from all their histories, with a topping of myth and fiction. And the dressing is blood."
"And hopefully now we're all a little less educated on our own history. And the movie leaves us with questions like, 'Why are there moose in Virginia? Where did all those majestic cliffs go in the interim 500 years? Why doesn't listening with one's heart bridge language gaps anymore? Why does Pocahontas lack a real nose — was she really fathered by Lord Voldemort?' Really, it's best not to think about it — the great mouse in the sky certainly doesn't want you to."
"Welcome to Hunting the Rez Magazine, a magazine that is written with the non-enrolled sportsman in mind. Hunting the Rez is a quarterly publication, its aim is to provide the general public with a directory to 52 million additional acres of hunting and fishing opportunities right here in the United States. With hunting grounds getting harder and harder to find due to a myriad of reasons, we believe that Indian country is the biggest best little secret hot spot for sportsmen all across the globe."
"...for example; many tribes have rifle seasons during bugling season as opposed to the states. Some tribes even offer extended seasons for non-enrolled sportsmen.
Many tribes are reintroducing animals on our respective lands, such as wild turkey, big horn sheep, buffalo and moose, a management strategy that serves as a base from which we can build and sustain a renewable natural resource."
"Native American tribes have the resources and management means to realize the responsibility that stewardship of these lands carry and work with wildlife biologists for quality game management, and are implementing sound strategies for protection and promotion of resident wildlife."
"Much of what we use today in our tactical strategies to drive deer we have learned from the first Americans... I think our knowing how this hunting technique of man-drives has evolved is important. It's another part of the rich history of the sport of deer hunting."