Harjo: Who's making up Indian culture myths? (fwd)

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Harjo: Who's making up Indian culture myths?

Posted: December 08, 2005
by: Suzan Shown Harjo / Indian Country Today
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412072

The one true thing we used to know about Indian culture myths was that
they were born in the non-Indian imagination, but some of the newer
ones are being invented by Native people.

We learned from movies that Indians walk without making a sound - even
in the woods on those crunchy, noisy leaves. We read in history books
that Native peoples ceased to exist at the end of the 1800s and lots of
people believe it, despite living evidence to the contrary. And,
politicians declare that all Indians are casino-millionaires, but they
can't explain away the pesky fact that Indians are the poorest people
in the United States.

The culture myth that Indians have no concept of ownership started off
as a story about how easy it is to get something for nothing - as in
the one about Indians selling Manhattan for $24 in beads - and morphed
into a story about how there's enough land for everyone and Indians are
just greedy, so non-Indians are justified in stealing it.

Some Native writers are building on that culture myth and asserting that
Indians don't even have a word for ''ownership.'' I would be surprised
if there were any Native heritage languages without words that mean
''belong'' and ''mine'' and ''ours'' and ''yours'' and ''theirs.''

Another culture myth that seems to have come from Native, rather than
non-Native, people is that Indians have no word for ''art.'' That
cropped up in the early 1990s at a Native art conference, where you'd
expect people to know better, and arose from an older one invented by
anthropologists and archeologists: everything in Indian life is
functional.

There are all sorts of nuanced words in Native languages that mean art.
Some stand for art combined with purpose, such as spiritual beauty; and
some are stand-alone words for art for its own sake, such as drawing and
design.

It is odd that artists would have come up with such a loopy notion, when
there is so much art in Indian life, past and present. Native artists
would have to be ignorant about both their tribal art heritage and
their traditional language in order to come up with that concept or to
agree with it.

I was appalled to see Native reporters on a panel at a national
journalism conference a few years ago invent the culture myth that
Indians have no word for ''news.'' No word for news? Native languages
have many words for news, more than are found in the European
languages.

Some Native languages have words and phrases for emergency news, old
news, news you can use, news that's being fact-checked and gossip that
isn't news but the people believe it. Most Native nations have
traditional positions and job titles for news gatherers and news
reporters.

In order for Native journalists to have invented this culture myth, they
must not have spoken or understood their heritage languages or ever
asked any of their Native language speakers anything about a tribal
context for their chosen profession.

Two popular and interlocking culture myths are that the Europeans are
''linear thinkers'' and Indians are ''circular thinkers.'' This is
supposed to mean that European thought is rigid and analytical, while
Native thought is natural and intuitive.

Some have used linear thinking versus circular thinking to illustrate
the difference between European and Native American cultures, but both
linear thinking and circular thinking are too simplistic to describe or
explain away whole peoples. They actually represent the same kind of
thinking, except that the straight line never makes a point or connects
with anything and the circle keeps covering the same ground over and
over again.

The linear and circular models are fine to describe one-track minds and
the simple-minded. To represent complex thinkers - healers,
philosophers, physicists, cartoonists and the like - you need to
advance to spherical models, with interlocking satellites (think
ecological interconnectedness), or to lines moving at different levels,
angles, directions and rates of speed (think Einstein's parallel
universes and theory of relativity).

But, here is something I offer at the risk of creating a new culture
myth and sending non-Indian linguists scrambling. It seems that we
really have no word for ''mascot.''

That is, in the few Native American languages I've surveyed, there are
no words or concepts for ''mascot.'' For my survey, I asked Native
language experts if there is a word for mascot in their heritage
language.

''There's no word in Tsistsistas [Cheyenne] for mascot,'' said Dr.
Henrietta Mann, who is Cheyenne and a leading Native educator. ''The
closest concept we have to 'mascot' is 'pet,' but that's not a
traditional concept.''

Virginia Beavert, who is Yakama and is editing the Heritage University
Yakama Language Dictionary, said that the ''Yakama people do not
actually have a mascot.'' She described Coyote as culture hero, but not
a mascot. ''Coyote 'Spilyay' made predictions to where certain kinds of
roots, berries, medicines and other important survival foods were to
grow to benefit the people. He was a trickster who made the laws.''

Dr. William Demmert, who is Tlingit (which means ''people'' or ''human
beings'') of the Eagle/Wolf clan and a well-respected educator and
language expert, said, ''I am not aware of any name for a mascot or pet
- no such animal - animals would have been referred to as 'beings.'''

Albert White Hat, whose nation is the Sicangu Lakota Oyate (Lakota Burnt
Thigh Nation or Rosebud Sioux Tribe), is a Lakota language instructor at
Sinte Gleska University. He said, ''I don't believe we have a concept of
a mascot. We have different societies that use the name of an animal
nation, like Elk Society. These societies are for any need or request
of the tribe. They also compete in sports and other activities. The
animal-nations they use[d] were their spiritual guides or
inspirations.''

''There is no name for mascot in Tewa,'' said Dr. Tessie Naranjo, who
speaks Tewa and is from Kha P'o Owingeh (Singing Water Village or Santa
Clara Pueblo).

Dr. Ofelia Zepeda, who is Tohono O'odham and a professor of linguistics
at the University of Arizona, answered the question about the existence
of a word in her language for mascot with a resounding ''No.''

Jimmy Arterberry, who is a Numunu (meaning ''the people'' or Comanche)
tribal culture and arts activist, answered in the same way.

Bill Means, who is Oglala Lakota and one of my co-plaintiffs in the
lawsuit against the name of the Washington football club, responded to
an assertion by a non-Indian linguist that one mascot - ''Redskins'' -
came from Indians.

''The word 'redskin' is strictly from the interpreter,'' said Means.
''The literal translation to Lakota would be 'Ha Luta' or 'Ha Sha,'
which I have never heard used. After contacting several family members
and one Lakota language expert from Oglala Lakota College, we have all
come to the same conclusion: that the word 'redskin' can only be the
word of the translator.''

This may be news to the National Football League, but we do have words
for ''news'' and we don't have any for ''mascots.''

Suzan Shown Harjo, Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, is president of the
Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C. and a columnist for Indian
Country Today.