article

Sun Nov 8 05:50:18 UTC 2009

Richard...I would really like to use some of your ideas as springboards 
in my classes for further discussion. I think you make an important 
point with the idea of 'gradual change....' A very important point 
tribal/indigenous peoples all over the globe are faced with and must 
somehow deal with. I like the identification of your people in your 
signature. I guess mine would read something like:

Rolland
Potowatomi - political refugee in Canada :)

-------
wahjeh
rolland nadjiwon

Richard Zane Smith wrote:
> Kweh omateru,
> (greetings friends)
>
> oh yeah,this "blood-quantum" issue is bound to come around ...kinda
>  like those panicky fwd.fwd.fwd. internet hoaxes that keep returning.
>
> What is said here is true though about assimilation.
> Most of our first nations peoples were great assimilators ourselves.
> Our ancestors recognized a new useful tool when they saw it,
> and even welcomed a good-minded strong young person ,regardless of race.
> But then our ancestors lived in an age of gradual change....
>
> Everything has its price
> In the past, with a crafted stone tool , a person could fell a tree.
> today it takes a million people to fell the same tree.... 
> when using a chain saw.
> but the effort and the resulting ease is   ....inescapeable
> and such a cost is really ....immeasurable
>
> In the past our adoptees(of other people) were given clan mothers and 
> equal status 
> as those "born in". Marrying outside became almost ....traditional, 
> and it continues....
> Today "marrying outside" isn't the same as assimilating into the tribe 
> as it once was
> so...yes, there there is a cost to that too. A "white" spouse is not 
> an accepted tribal member and as a result there can be a split along a 
> strange foreign line called "race"
> which fractures more and more tribal identity and its own infrastructure.
>
> What would our ancestors think? I guess i like to speculate....
> Would our ancestors look at future grandchildren becoming less and less
> grandchildren? and measure them by blood? or would our ancestors be more 
> concerned about grandchildren (no matter their skin) becoming 
> desensitized 
> about their tribal identity and loss of their language?
>
> Our ancestors might be glad our children are hearing so many stories 
> from so many people. But they might be upset knowing there are some 
> people trying
> to /replace/ our own traditional stories with some of those foreign or 
> dominant ones.
> They would probably be glad the children are learning a good universal 
> language,
> but they would be extremely concerned if that language was becoming 
> dominant
> and edging out all the languages of the land.
>
> We live on a racetrack of instant and continual rapid change and this is 
> disconcerting and difficult to study, or make any worry-free predictions. 
> This plugged in greater society is becoming more and more "world 
> dependent"
>  just as it is becoming more and more fragile and delicate in its own 
> infrastructure
> But despite all that...sure,I can make a stone axe
> but it sure aint gonna be used for cutting firewood.
> I'll grab my chain-saw 
> and for now
> I guess my million helpers around the world will be glad I did.
>
> ske:noh
> Richard
> Wyandotte Oklahoma
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 3:45 PM, Heather Souter <hsouter at gmail.com 
> <mailto:hsouter at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Taanshi, hello....
>
>     Rolland, your words are very powerful!  Thank-you!  (I hope you
>     will allow me to quote you....)
>
>
>     I am presently trying to work out my dissertation proposal and am
>     struggling with issues of identity, relation to land and language
>     for our people.  Many in positions of power focus on genealogical
>     connection and acceptance in a "community" as the most important
>     markers of who we are.  However, as indigenous peoples we did not
>     come to be except through our relationship with the land and the
>     practices that are based on that relationship.  Our languages
>     express that relationship in their
>     processes/structures/content....   The land is the place from
>     which our languages spring forth and through our
>     connection/symbiosis with (and/or impact on) the land  and then
>     develop, change and--in many important ways--help reproduce the
>     relationships many of our Elders enjoy and our ancestors before
>     them.  I see the need to speak our languages, to practice the ways
>     of our ancestors and to renew our relationship with the land while
>     incorporating---when and where appropriate for our collective
>     survival as distinct peoples-- the new technologies of the
>     modern/digital age.  How do we promote co-present learning
>     from/with Elders and other knowledge keepers as well as best use
>     digital technologies to promote the
>     maintenance/stabilization/revitalization/renewal of our languages
>     and communication practices? Can we do both?  Are they mutually
>     exclusive?  How do digital technologies affect our relationship
>     with the land and with the others (the plants, the animals, etc.)
>     who inhabit it with us?  How does digital technology--especially
>     computer mediated communication--effect our relationships in our
>     emplaced human communities?  With Elders, family and friends who
>     live near us?  Does digital technology promote the
>     decontextualization of our relationships and therefore
>     fundamentally change them and who we are as peoples?  Is there a
>     way to balance the present-day "need" for digital technology with
>     our need to be co-present with with others in order to maintain a
>     sense of who we are as Indigenous peoples?  I have so many
>     questions and no answers....
>
>     Thanks for listening....
>     Eekoshi pitamaa.  That is all for now.
>     Heather
>
>
>
>     On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Rolland Nadjiwon <mikinakn at shaw.ca
>     <mailto:mikinakn at shaw.ca>> wrote:
>
>         Thanks Jim...this one has been rattling around Indian country
>         for a few days. I paid attention at first but the discussion
>         itself is paradoxical, so if you read it 30 years ago, it is
>         still the same oroboro... Some of the discussions along the
>         lines of cultural alchemy are infuriating. Marriage does not
>         threaten culture but what you do with culture after you marry
>         can. It is one thing to take a foreign item and integrate it
>         attaching our own cultural meaning. It is entirely something
>         else when we take in a foreign item and bring with it its
>         foreign cultural meaning...one is integration the other is
>         assimilation. These are two very distinct and subtle
>         processes. We can have any kind of blood that will keep us
>         living but if that living is not the daily activities of our
>         people/relatives which keep the living memories of our
>         ancestors, culturally we have become something different.
>         Blood be damned...it will not give the knowledge of where our
>         people hunt, how they hunt, what the hunting medicine/rituals
>         are, what medicines to use where, or the ancient knowledge of
>         our own cosmology. All that is only possible though relatives
>         and ancestors. What can a narrative, a recording, a video, a
>         map tell us of how we relate to the 'little people' in ritual
>         and prayer.
>
>         Most of the language is gone from the communities where I now
>         live, my mother's people. Few people remember the traditional
>         geography of this place and the names that tell you what it is
>         all about. Young people now go to places with snow machines,
>         ATVs, four x fours and run rampant over places made sacred by
>         the generations of our ancestors repeatedly and repeatedly
>         doing offerings and ceremonies far beyond a single memory of
>         that place. Without that knowledge there is not even the
>         knowledge of violation by unknowingly urinating or defecating
>         on a sacred spot where our people made prayer and talked with
>         the spirits.
>
>         And now we are going to discuss the age old  blood quantum, no
>         longer because of the colonizers, but to identify amongst our
>         own people to determine who qualifies for the largest
>         payout.... In my opinion, I will stop here as I see this
>         discussion having no solution...unless, of course, someone
>         else can please post one.
>
>         -------
>         wahjeh
>         rolland nadjiwon
>
>          
>>
>>
>>           Oregon family at heart of sticky issue: Does intermarriage
>>           threaten Native American culture?
>>
>>
>>                 By Richard Cockle, The Oregonian
>>                 <http://connect.oregonlive.com/user/dcockle/index.html>
>>
>>
>>                   November 06, 2009, 5:10PM
>>
>
>
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