Names

[Mia Kalish]

Hi, Richard, 

It is a hard, hard book to read; things you know as evil in the aggregate
become things that tear your heart in the individual. 

Very insightful pottery. Very philosophical. (Also very sold :-) ). 

One of the things I notice, and find curious, is that everyone shows up in
Ñdn country sure that they have the answer to all the problems. In all my
travels, I have only seen a few people who think that Tribes should develop
the skills and gather the resources to actualize their ideas, hopes and
goals. I find, working with people, that once they find out they can do it
themselves, for themselves, they do very well, even with challenging and
scary technology. 

Maybe some of the difference in views happens because in systems analysis,
if you walk in and tell a client what he needs without first asking and
looking carefully at the situation, you get thrown right out. :-) 

And I know what you mean about the children. There are people who write
about pleasing, and the joy of reward, but usually in the context of
manipulation at the boarding schools. I mentioned Dave Stephenson because
his piece made me cry, and this was really hard. You go around the world,
you see and talk to numerous people, you see things that maybe no one should
have to see, and then, one small chapter in a new book tears your heart out.


'z too bad someone hasn't thought of doing a movie story - instead of a
documentary - on life in the boarding schools. It could have "real people"
or be an animation. [On a slightly different note, the 10 year old child of
a friend of mine was talking about ScoobyDoo, which has been re-released as
an animation. She said, "Oh, yeah, you know that was an Ooolllddd movie
because it had real people in it." I was floored! This is how far things
have come. I wasn't there, but I know stories of how getting real people in
real movies with real voices was an enormous challenge. Getting things in
color was another major advance; now its all passé. 

Surprising, huh?
Mia 

-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
On Behalf Of Richard Zane Smith
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 9:13 AM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ILAT] Names

Mia,
 
Genoicide of the Mind sounds like a very insightful book
i've been also concerned about these things for years.
 I  created a piece of pottery which depicted an anthropologist and a 
missionary tumbling in a knock down fistfight
the pot can be seen ,
http://blueraingallery.com/art_details/3895

The missionary has on his tee-shirt "Jesus is is Life"
the anthropologist is wearing a "DNA is life" tee-shirt

It is a battle for soul-capture....and neither realize the damages
they themselves inflict because each is working from deeply mindset 
 presumptions of intellectual or spiritual superiority,even without
realizing it.

Anthropological fascination over a given culture is not necessarily
 flattering .There is one anthropologist  ( swearshe was Wendat in a past
life) 
has intimidated elders till he was "named" 
and then uses it as status to invite himself to sacred ceremonies
because he wants to "help" us.

it wasn't ONLY the punishment of children for speaking their indigenous 
languages that caused so much damage .
Gratifying REWARDs and FLATTERY  for "correct" student behavior were 
devestating 
because children are hungry to please an adult and often yield more
to the smile than to the whip

Richard Zane Smith
Wyandot

> 
> From: Mia Kalish <MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US>
> Date: 2006/04/24 Mon PM 10:51:08 CDT
> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [ILAT] Names
> 
> You know, Andre, I really hate to do this. I know how important William
> Bright is to the documentation of Northwest languages, but I think that
this
> is an incorrect interpretation of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. What Bright
is
> saying is very similar to the idea popular in the 1970s that cognitive
> conceptualizations in the brain resembled the objects themselves. This
still
> shows up in philosophy and psychology of consciousness. However, the 
idea
> has been debunked. Walter J. Freeman demonstrated that when creatures 
create
> meaning, the conceptual meaning structures are unique to the individual, 
not
> to the stimulus.  
> 
> Thus, while language and culture are closely linked, intertwined for all
> time, how they EXPRESS is a function of the relationship, not of the
> linguistic forms. What Whorf was saying parallels the theories that Lakoff
> began to develop relating to cultural metaphors. Thirty or forty years
> later, Fauconnier and Turner, and Nuñez and Lakoff have developed 
structures
> that show these relational structures. Whorf was saying that semantic
> objects are not going to spring up like mushrooms after a rain if there is
> no need for them in the culture. He was also saying that language will
have
> references for all the things, physical and conceptual, that are needed in
> the culture. Hence the discussion of snow and sweet potatoes. 
> 
> There was a lot of misunderstanding because of the Hopi-Time fiasco. Hopi
> has words for Time. So does Diné Bizaad. They just show up in ways very
> different from how they show up (express) in English, and so English
> speakers who have no idea of the differences in internal structure miss
> them. Margaret Mead said something very similar to this, except she was
> talking about humor. 
> 
> Looking at anthropological aspects is a bit tawdry these days, in poor
> taste, rather. How about the register of boat construction? House
> construction? Tool making? Navigation? 
> 
> I am reading the hardest book I ever read. It's edited by Marijo Moore and
> its called Genocide of the Mind. The hardest, hardest chapter so far is by
> Dave Stephenson. He's Tlingit. He writes, "These are our memories, and we
> struggle to retain them against a ferocious undertow of cruelty and
> mass-marketed sophistry. Material pursuits and solitary avarice are
> methodologically engendering a great forgetting. We are slowly losing our
> memories and sections of our souls" (p. 96). His chapter is called,
> America's Urban Youth and the Importance of Remembering. 
> 
> So I have to say, this isn't right, describing languages as being composed
> of some "unanalyzable morphemes", some descriptive combinations in 
warning
> quotes, and some other combination of both of these <presumably 
undesirable>
> characteristics. Further, there is the really questionable premise of
> "status" being constructed of "areas". Math --> social psychology. (Not).
> And what does that mean, anyway, "status of native northwestern California
> not as a linguistic area in a strict sense, but as an ethnolinguistic
area".
> 
> Maybe we could retitle the abstract, Karuk Resonances And Pre-modernity. 
> 
> Mia
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology 
[mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
> On Behalf Of Andre Cramblit
> Sent: Sunday, April 23, 2006 3:16 PM
> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject: [ILAT] Names
> 
> “ANALYZABILITY” OF NOUNS IN NORTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA
> William Bright
> University of Colorado
> www.ncidc.org/bright/
> 
> Abstract
> 
> Three American Indian tribes of northwestern California — Yurok,  
> Hupa, and Karuk — share a nearly uniform culture, but they speak  
> entirely distinct and unrelated languages. This is problematic for  
> the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which sees language and culture as  
> closely linked. In an earlier paper, the matter was considered in the  
> light of names for animals in the three languages. It was found that  
> the majority of such names in Yurok consist of unanalyzable single  
> morphemes, while the majority in Hupa are “descriptive” combinations  
> of several morphemes; the Karuk language lies between the two others.  
> A possible explanation was proposed in the historical operation of  
> verbal taboo in the usage of hunters and on the names of the  
> deceased. In the present paper, the analysis is extended to plant  
> terms and to “basic vocabulary”,  but problems are noted in the  
> latter concept. It is suggested that the patterns presented here form  
> part of the status of native northwestern California not as a  
> linguistic area in a strict sense, but as an ethnolinguistic area.
> 

Richard Zane Smith
18474 S.Cayuga Rd.
Wyandotte Oklahoma
                                  74370