Post by Okwes on Sept 6, 2006 17:59:44 GMT -5
American Indian view of history: Anthology created by local author by
Rob Neufeld published September 3, 2006 12:15 am
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"America has amnesia," says UCLA professor and leading American Indian
writer Paula Gunn Allen in MariJo Moore's landmark book, "Eating Fire,
Tasting Blood: An Anthology of the American Indian Holocaust." Allen
goes on to indicate the healing way out of American loneliness to
reclaim our "lost unconscious" and a native "belonging."
Americans have engaged, many of the anthology's contributors point out,
in what Jay Hansford C. Vest calls "the greatest episode of genocide in
world history." Statistical as well as historical accounts bear this
view out; yet it seems too painful to comprehend.
"The writings in this anthology," says Moore, Candler author and
Cherokee descendant, "present perspectives of Indian history that should
be incorporated into modern day history lessons. Blame is not a reliant
contingent here ... (But) we need to be aware of what human beings have
done to each other, and are still capable of doing."
Twenty-eight of the 39 entries in the anthology are original; 11 are
well-chosen reprints. In every case, the contributions are offerings of
conscience. The publisher, Thunder's Mouth Press, is not a big budget
operation.
Teaching history
You can begin with dates. That's the way history is often taught. Out of
the huge, tumbling mass of human activity, what do we highlight for
remembrance?
Nov. 27, 1868. The Battle of Wamonkeya. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's
regiment killed and mutilated - in an unspeakable way - 150 Cheyenne
men, women, and children in their homes.
Feb. 8, 1887. Congress passed the Dawes Act, dividing up Indian lands
into lots in an attempt to civilize Indians through property ownership.
Along with this intended good deed, the late great Vine Deloria Jr.
recounts, came the sale of much more "surplus" Indian land to
non-Indians and the use of loopholes to transfer much of the allotments
to non-Indian ranchers.
Nov. 16, 1907. What Don L. Birchfield calls "the illegal state of
Oklahoma" was formed, breaking four clear treaties.
In addition to dates, there are statistics and sites - two other
favorite devices for boiling history down into memorable bits. The
Indian population of Espa�ola - modern Haiti and the Dominican
Republic - declined 99 percent from 1494 to 1518. Similar decimation
occurred on the American mainland.
Potosi Cerro Rico is a place name that should resonate in people's minds
as one of the most nightmarish settings in human existence. That's the
place in Bolivia to which the Spanish Crown had sent 8 million Indians
to their deaths, working silver mines. "Mothers killed their children to
save them from the torture of the mines," writes renowned Uruguayan
author, Eduardo Galeano in his essay, "A Flood of Tears and Blood: And
Yet the Pope Said Indians Had Souls."
Tear-soaked pages
That sentence about mothers killing their children is the second one in
the book (after Moore's introduction). Reading it, I put the book down,
consumed with sadness. And I wondered if I would be able to read on.
As it turns out, a spirit of faith fills the volume - without
bitterness. Along with the necessary "eating fire, tasting blood,"
there's a sense of survival and rebirth.
Many pieces get personal. Moore herself talks about her inheritance of a
calling from her grandfather, who had also been an alcoholic. Moore's
journey from drink and despair to responsible motherhood and a
spokesperson's role is well portrayed in her fiction, and put in hopeful
context in the anthology.
Linda Hogan - whose novel, "Power," is on my top 100 contemporary
American novels list - contributes a beautiful description of a trip
with her father to their homeland in Oklahoma. Her Chickasaw ancestors
had traveled the Trail of Tears. (The famous Chickasaw ponies had been
exterminated in the process.)
The awakening of the old ways will emerge, Hogan writes, in "the same
way a frog wakes up beneath mud, smells water, feels rain, and digs out
of the safe depths toward life and daylight, its internal fire still
burning." Earlier, she had written, "The stories we know and tell are
reservoirs of light and fire that brighten and illuminate the darkness
of human night."
Moore lets the stories be told. A couple of them are mentioned briefly
in the current Asheville High School history text, "The Americans," I
see. They can be expanded on. The anthology is an invaluable and
extremely potent distillation of a must-be-heard point of view; and
Moore has taken a great leap into the light with the service she has
provided.
Rob Neufeld published September 3, 2006 12:15 am
citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006609030306
<http://citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006609030306>
<http://www.citizen-times.net/cgi-bin/forums/asheville/YaBB.pl?action=re\
gister>
"America has amnesia," says UCLA professor and leading American Indian
writer Paula Gunn Allen in MariJo Moore's landmark book, "Eating Fire,
Tasting Blood: An Anthology of the American Indian Holocaust." Allen
goes on to indicate the healing way out of American loneliness to
reclaim our "lost unconscious" and a native "belonging."
Americans have engaged, many of the anthology's contributors point out,
in what Jay Hansford C. Vest calls "the greatest episode of genocide in
world history." Statistical as well as historical accounts bear this
view out; yet it seems too painful to comprehend.
"The writings in this anthology," says Moore, Candler author and
Cherokee descendant, "present perspectives of Indian history that should
be incorporated into modern day history lessons. Blame is not a reliant
contingent here ... (But) we need to be aware of what human beings have
done to each other, and are still capable of doing."
Twenty-eight of the 39 entries in the anthology are original; 11 are
well-chosen reprints. In every case, the contributions are offerings of
conscience. The publisher, Thunder's Mouth Press, is not a big budget
operation.
Teaching history
You can begin with dates. That's the way history is often taught. Out of
the huge, tumbling mass of human activity, what do we highlight for
remembrance?
Nov. 27, 1868. The Battle of Wamonkeya. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's
regiment killed and mutilated - in an unspeakable way - 150 Cheyenne
men, women, and children in their homes.
Feb. 8, 1887. Congress passed the Dawes Act, dividing up Indian lands
into lots in an attempt to civilize Indians through property ownership.
Along with this intended good deed, the late great Vine Deloria Jr.
recounts, came the sale of much more "surplus" Indian land to
non-Indians and the use of loopholes to transfer much of the allotments
to non-Indian ranchers.
Nov. 16, 1907. What Don L. Birchfield calls "the illegal state of
Oklahoma" was formed, breaking four clear treaties.
In addition to dates, there are statistics and sites - two other
favorite devices for boiling history down into memorable bits. The
Indian population of Espa�ola - modern Haiti and the Dominican
Republic - declined 99 percent from 1494 to 1518. Similar decimation
occurred on the American mainland.
Potosi Cerro Rico is a place name that should resonate in people's minds
as one of the most nightmarish settings in human existence. That's the
place in Bolivia to which the Spanish Crown had sent 8 million Indians
to their deaths, working silver mines. "Mothers killed their children to
save them from the torture of the mines," writes renowned Uruguayan
author, Eduardo Galeano in his essay, "A Flood of Tears and Blood: And
Yet the Pope Said Indians Had Souls."
Tear-soaked pages
That sentence about mothers killing their children is the second one in
the book (after Moore's introduction). Reading it, I put the book down,
consumed with sadness. And I wondered if I would be able to read on.
As it turns out, a spirit of faith fills the volume - without
bitterness. Along with the necessary "eating fire, tasting blood,"
there's a sense of survival and rebirth.
Many pieces get personal. Moore herself talks about her inheritance of a
calling from her grandfather, who had also been an alcoholic. Moore's
journey from drink and despair to responsible motherhood and a
spokesperson's role is well portrayed in her fiction, and put in hopeful
context in the anthology.
Linda Hogan - whose novel, "Power," is on my top 100 contemporary
American novels list - contributes a beautiful description of a trip
with her father to their homeland in Oklahoma. Her Chickasaw ancestors
had traveled the Trail of Tears. (The famous Chickasaw ponies had been
exterminated in the process.)
The awakening of the old ways will emerge, Hogan writes, in "the same
way a frog wakes up beneath mud, smells water, feels rain, and digs out
of the safe depths toward life and daylight, its internal fire still
burning." Earlier, she had written, "The stories we know and tell are
reservoirs of light and fire that brighten and illuminate the darkness
of human night."
Moore lets the stories be told. A couple of them are mentioned briefly
in the current Asheville High School history text, "The Americans," I
see. They can be expanded on. The anthology is an invaluable and
extremely potent distillation of a must-be-heard point of view; and
Moore has taken a great leap into the light with the service she has
provided.