Amercan Indians-The fogotten

Where Will Our Children Live…A lonesome warrior stands in fear of what the future brings,
he will never hear the beating drums or the songs his brothers sing.

 

Our many nations once stood tall and ranged from shore to shore
but most are gone and few remain and the buffalo roam no more.

We shared our food and our land and gave with open hearts,
We wanted peace and love and hope, but all were torn apart.

All this was taken because we did not know what the white man had in store,
They killed our people and raped our lands and the buffalo roam no more.

But those of us who still remain hold our heads up high, and the spirits of
the elders flow through us as if they never died.

Our dreams will live on forever and our nations will be reborn, our bone and
beads and feathers all will be proudly worn.

If you listen close you will hear the drums and songs upon the winds, and in
the distance you will see….the buffalo roam again.

Submitted by Tommy Flamewalker Manasco

http://www.nativeamericans.com/

 

According to Stannard (1992) the most cautious scholars now agree that the pre Columbian (1492) population of the Americas was at least 75 million, with about 10 percent living north of Mexico. Others project a population as high as 145 million, with consensus that population losses, mostly due to exposure to new diseases like smallpox, reached as high as 95 percent.

We take for granted the survival of the hundreds of American Indian societies scattered across the United States.

From what we know of American history, however, it is quite remarkable that any Indian communities managed to weather the many assaults on their viability mounted during the past half- millennium (Nagel, 1996). Contradictory views of Indians, from gentle and good to terrifying and evil, stem from a Eurocentric ambivalence toward an entire race of people that Euro-Americans attempted to destroy. Deloria (1995) contends that the stereotypical image of American Indians as childlike, superstitious creatures – a subhuman species that really has no feelings, values, or inherent worth – still remains in the popular American mind.
The pride and satisfaction derived from in-group membership are types of ethnocentrism, the notion that one’s in-group is more superior to other groups. Teaching from the Eurocentric perspective that a few brave Europeans defeated millions of Indians is highly inaccurate. Mostly diseases brought to this continent from Europe referred to as genocide defeated Indians. Stannard (1992) contends that close to 100,000,000 Indigenous peoples were exterminated in the American holocaust.

The effect of this holocaust on North American Indians, like that of the Jews, was millions of deaths. In fact, the holocaust of the North American tribes was, in a way, even more destructive than that of the Jews, since many American Indian tribes became extinct (Thornton, 1987). The white man’s superior technology, hunger for land, and ethnocentrism seemingly knew no bounds. The white threat to Indians came in many forms: smallpox, missionaries, Conestoga wagons, barbed wire, six gun revolvers, and smoking locomotives. The final threat came in the form of schools; early American Indian education was truly an education for extinction.
_____Many Indian students come from a culture that doesn’t challenge authority; therefore, expressing an opinion may be an issue. Others have already been in several classrooms in which their ideas were not respected or used, but were criticized by the teacher or ridiculed by other children. Eventually, if you listen well enough, students will share their feelings with you. Then you will know that you have developed real communication

Teachers should be aware of and examine the misuse of the English language. A short play on “black” and “white” words accents good and bad. Perhaps the most obviously bigoted aspect of racism in language would be terms like redskins, prairie nigger, savages, squaw, squaw man, papoose, Little Beaver, chief, brave, buck, the only good Indian is a dead Indian, kill the Indian, save the man, nits turn to lice, bottom of the totem pole, let’s have a pow-wow, and many more invented phrases that denigrate indigenous peoples. While these may be facing increasing social disdain, they certainly are not dead. Thousands of Americans continue to utilize these terms.

American Indian English
The type of English spoken by many Indian children today has been influenced by the geographical region in which they reside and exposure to predominantly English speakers. For example, many Indians who live in the western United States have acquired a “western” English accent or dialect The same goes for other regions across the country. Indian people wanting to keep their tribal languages from disappearing have integrated their tribal languages with English and have been able to use both languages interchangeably. They naturally culturally code-switch their speech to fit the social or educational situation.

Developing the student’s self-concept is critical. To do well in school or life, each person must know who they are and be proud of their background. They must have a positive self-image. Much of the curriculum and reading material of the typical school are designed to build this positive self- image on the part of the middle-class white culture. American Indian students may not get any of this positive reinforcement.

It is important to note that awareness of ignorance and willingness to admit ignorance are two separate issues. My experience has shown me that most teachers are unaware of their ignorance (dysconsciousness) about American Indians. After all, they have “lived among them,” “their best friend is Indian,” or they are “part Indian” themselves.

We know that the white man’s images of us have little or nothing to do with the reality of Indian life. Most of these images are fictional creations of the white imagination and ignore what we are truly like. Children, and children now grown, have at best a mixed conception of these mysterious peoples whom they meet through history books and the mass media. The Indian portrait of the moment may be bellicose or ludicrous or romantic, but almost never is the portrait that of real persons.

From Native points of view, there are no real Indians in America, only tribal people, gradually forming into a hybrid tribal culture, trying to hang on to what little sacred knowledge is left.

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 THE TRUE POCAHONTAS ……………………………

The “Indian Princess” stereotype is rooted in the legend of Pocahontas and is typically expressed through characters that are maidenly, demure, and deeply committed to some white man. The powerfully symbolic Indian woman, as Queen and Princess, has been with us since she came to stand for the “New World,” a term that in and of itself reflects a Eurocentric value judgment.

Pocahontas, however, was no myth (Mills, 1995). The daughter of Tidewater Virginia’s legendary chief Powhatan, Pocahontas (c. 1595-1617) was lured aboard a British ship in the Jamestown area and held captive for more than a year (see Roundtree, 1990). She was dressed in the English fashion and took religious instruction, becoming baptized as a Christian. In 1615, Pocahontas married British colonist, John Rolfe. In 1616, as part of a plan to revive support for the Virginia colony, the couple traveled to England with their infant son. There, Pocahontas met King James I and Queen Anne. Just as she and Rolfe were setting-sail back to America the following March, Pocahontas died, perhaps because of smallpox, perhaps because of the foul English weather. She was buried in an English churchyard a few miles from London on the Thames River, far from her tribal homeland of the Mattaponi people (Sharpes, 1995).

The Mattoponi speak of Pocahontas as a remarkable young woman (Almeida, 1995). Her real name was Matowa. Unfortunately, she has been unjustly portrayed in history as a supporter of the invading English settlers, thus giving her the reputation amongst American Indians as being an “apple and a sellout”. The reality is that she was a strong supporter of her people, and at a young age was put into the position of acting as an interpreter and ambassador between two cultures. The importance of her political position must have been recognized by the English, since they kidnapped her and held her as a political prisoner.

Pocahontas showed Britishers of two lands how remarkable an Indian woman could be. Further, in a country which doted on princesses, she exemplified just what the savants were looking for- an American one (Stedman 1982). It is unlikely that the “celestial princess” concept was known to the Indians before Englishman bestowed that title upon Pocahontas. Yet the images and roles generated by a misinformed Europe continue to dominate the popular concept of who Pocahontas was. These images force young viewers to internalize white middle class standards of beauty and value, much of which denies the cultural beauty of students of color (Bonilla 1995).

Native American cultures is something for which Euro-Americans have had no responsibility. In these films, Indian women are generally portrayed as sexually more free than white women, as in the case of Pocahontas.

In the movie, Pocahontas disobeys her father and goes out to meet Captain John Smith. This most likely would not have happened during the time period in the movie, as it was a cultural norm for all tribal members to adhere to any strict directive from a parent. In contrast, Disney has created a marketable “New Age” Pocahontas to embody our millennial dreams for wholeness and harmony, while banishing our nightmares of savagery and emptiness (Strong, 1995). In this regard, how Indian women are portrayed in the movies is an extension of white America’s attempt to cope with a sense of cultural guilt. It is too bad that these portrayals do not reflect real American Indian women of today, such as those found by Yellow Bird & Snipp (1994), who describe how Indian women have assumed, and continue to take on, great authority and status within Indian family structures.Indians remain marginal and invisible, thereby ironically being “strangers in their own lands” – the shadow Indians. They fight desperately on the silver screen in defense of their asserted rights, but die trying to kill the white hero or save the Indian woman.  Many historians say that Pocahontas and John Smith had no romantic contact whatsoever. She married a tribal member in her early teens and was captured later at the age of eighteen and put on a ship to England, where she fell in love with and married John Rolfe. None of this is reflected in the animated movie. Today the stereotype has shifted to that of the “noble savage”, with Indians- viewed as part of a once great but now dying culture that could talk to the trees like Grandmother Willow and the animals, like Meeko and Flit, that protected nature;;;=========

issues in Indian country are ready to be addressed, it seems we fall back on old battles about the literary canon. Indian people have so many other critical issues that need resolution, such as the federal Indian budget, gaming agreements, loss of tribal languages, land claims, impact aid, access to higher education, standardized testing, environment exploitation and degradation, freedom of religion and protection of sacred sites, treaty rights, repatriation of artifacts, and protection of burial sites and return of Indian remains. Yet we cannot really move on when people do not want to learn the truth about United States history.

 

Hirschfelder contends that a debate persists over the proper designation for hundreds of nations of peoples who were (and are) the original inhabitants of the North American continent. The following excerpts suggest that Indigenous and non-Indigenous People hold differing opinions about the use of the general terms American Indians and Native Americans. Over the last few decades, we can see that tribal nations have started to take back their original names for themselves: Diné (formerly Navajo); Ho-Chunk (formerly Winnebago); Anishinaabe (formerly Chippewa); and Tohono O’odham Nation of Arizona (formerly known as the Papago Tribe of the Sells, Gila Bend, and San Xavier Reservations in Arizona). Therefore, it is generally agreed that, whenever possible, individual tribal names should be the precise terms used.

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How I loathe the term ‘Indian’ …Indian is a term used to sell things…souvenirs, cigars, cigarettes, gasoline, cars …’Indian’ is a figment of the white man’s imagination.”

—Lenore Keeshig-Tobias (Ojibway), in Stolen Continents: The Americas Through Indian Eyes Since 1492, by Ronald Wright 1990)

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I grew up in a time when Indians became American Indians. I have witnessed the popular saying “I is for Indian.” Then American Indian was transformed to Amerindian. The word “native” was important, thus, the capitalizing of Native American. Today in a new millennium, I have heard discussions in Canada, which uses the term First Nations People, and to the southern borders of the United States, where the more commonly used term is Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. So I have seen the cultural and social transformation of the way we structure and reconstruct the English language. It is ever changing to meet our needs

Indigenous Peoples do not need and should not have an oppositional ethnic identity. Indigenous People are not a “civil right” people, even though we, too, fought heroic struggles for our human rights. Indigenous Peoples do not exist merely because we are oppressed. Indigenous Peoples existed long before our oppressors. Indigenous Peoples experience oppression; however, our identity is not “the oppressed.” The essence of our identity does not depend upon our oppressors. Who would we be if they did not exist’? Our condition may find us, in disproportionate numbers, poverty stricken; however, our identity is not “the poor.”

Indigenous Peoples have never lost their ethnic and tribal core. Even though modified and developed, the core is still there. Only our awareness of it has dimmed. Only our embracing of it has waned. Many tribal members have left their tribal identities altogether following the assimilation policies of American education. Yet the core chooses to remain, to wear their tribal identities with pride and work with and for their own tribal communities and nations. In various places around the world there are small initiatives that are providing Indigenous People with space to create and be indigenous.

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Here are some links to sites that are very informative for info on the past …

http://www.native-languages.org/kids.htm

http://www.indians.org/Resource/FedTribes99/Region7/region7.html

 

 Many young people are interested in learning more about their roots these days, and in the process of researching their family tree, it is natural that many of them will come across an American Indian ancestor, and wish to learn more about him or her. Others have always been told there was Indian blood in their family and are understandably curious to know whether this is true and which tribe it may have been. Sadly, some other people have the misguided idea that if their great-grandmother was a Blackfoot Indian this will somehow entitle them to money, scholarships, citizenship, or special rights. If this is your hope, you might as well give up on it right now and go buy a lottery ticket. Very few American Indian tribes have any money at all–in fact, most reservations have standards of living similar to third-world countries–and none of them will give you any money even if you could prove great-grandma Rose belonged to their tribe. (Shame on you for asking them to, anyway… what kind of long-lost relative shows up at the door with his hand out demanding things?) The US government provides very few scholarships and assistance programs for American Indians, and they are extremely strict about reserving them only for members of federally recognized tribes, their spouses and children. I would not recommend seeking any special assistance from the government unless you live on a reservation and/or are at least 1/4 Indian with the records to prove it. Even then, I wouldn’t hold your breath. The government hasn’t even got working phone lines coming in to some of our reservations yet, much less paying for our kids to go to college. And as for tribal citizenship, the requirements for that vary from tribe to tribe, but unless your parent or grandparent was actually a Native American tribal member  the tribe will not be able to “look you up” and see if you are a descendent of theirs. You will need to do this work yourself. Once you have all your genealogical information including your ancestor’s full name, presence on any Indian rolls, and exact relationship to you, then you may contact the tribal enrollment office and inquire about their citizenship laws. Please do not bother them before you have obtained this information–if you can’t even find this information about your own family, then how could they?

 sO… your not just looking for money and really want to find out more,GREAT!!!we all need to know where we come from and keep our heritage alive and proud…here is a good starting place….

http://www.native-languages.org/home.htm

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