pointing, and Rhodes comment

[Amy Dahlstrom]

Thanks, Mary Ann, your comments are very valuable and most welcome!

On 3/6/2013 5:28 PM, Mary Ann Corbiere wrote:
> Like Rhodes, I too wouldn't read too much into differences in pointing 
> mechanisms, at least for purposes of interacting with this Nishnaabe-kwe.
>
> The various reasons posited for the apparent discouragement of 
> pointing with the finger were perhaps culture-specific but many of 
> "us" in the Nishnaabe-land of today also likely simply consider it 
> rude. I've never heard any explicit rationale from my family or other 
> community members for not pointing with the finger. I can't pinpoint 
> when -- likely during my gradual acculturation  (maybe during high 
> school in a non-native town) -- when I just got the message  that it's 
> rude to point with the finger.
>
> Among those of "us" who don't behave in ways considered "traditionally 
> Native", etc., I suspect it remains simply a matter of not being rude 
> or obvious. Given the occasional need to point and to do so in a 
> manner that's not rude or as obvious, it seems to be simply a 
> practical matter of what we use if not the finger, the only other 
> option being the lips or the head. (This master gesticulator --me -- 
> has at times used the latter too. Even over the old-fashioned phone, I 
> gesticulate madly as I explain directions etc. to someone.)
>
> If my comments aren't all that enlightening, bear in mind that I'm not 
> an anthropologist and that the Native culture I know is that of a 
> 5,000-member plus First Nation most of whose members accepted 
> Catholicism in the mid-1800s.
>
> :) M. Naokwegijig-Corbiere
>



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