article
Rolland Nadjiwon
mikinakn at SHAW.CA
Mon Nov 9 19:46:50 UTC 2009
I had an interesting conversation, in the sauna, with a non-Native
person a few evenings ago. He suggested that evolution was a slow
process over a long time and the everything in the world had time to
move along and adjust at the same pace as evolution. He suggested
everything, today, is moving so incredibly fast in comparison, nothing
has had time to peacefully integrate that change. He suggested man has
not had the time to mentally, physically or spiritually adjust to the
rate of advancement in modern technologies. He suggested technology has
moved into a future without human advancement and left humans with the
emotional and mental capacity of cavemen(persons :) His was, in my
opinion, a very astute one and very much in line with what you are
saying. Anthropology has long discussed and pondered the question of
rapid advancement through technological introductions and its untested,
unverified effects on any culture.
Speaking with a good friend from Harvard Anthropology, I said to him,
'...okay...we have tribal culture, folk culture, urban culture and what
is next...' He very quickly replied, '...bureaucratic culture....' I
responded that, '...bureaucracy is not a culture...' and he responded,
'...not yet but its getting there...' That was about twenty years ago.
My friend is no longer with us but I often wish I could have more
conversations with him along such lines of though. I think, now, that he
is indeed correct.
I don't have a great handle on it yet but I have been working it over
for some time and its implications for tribal/indigenous peoples.
Incidentally, we often spoke of how 'the tribe' is the longest surviving
form of human collective and the most conducive to human
survival...excluding contemporary associations of tribalism with gangs,
interest groups and ethnic cleansing...those have nothing to do with
'tribe'. Those appear to be a modern phenomenon of rampant social and
cultural deterioration brought about, in many cases, by constitutional
nationalism, juridical boundaries and melting pot theories.
I can sure use all the great ideas people have been contributing and I
will use them in the construction of ideal types for analysis and
placement on a continuum from tribal to bureaucratic...try and look for
a 'fit'.
Someone asked me in a conversation, 'What is the greatest thing you
learned from your grandfather...' I could hear my grandfather saying to
me again, '...leave it alone...just keep walking...' and I think that is
it but, of course, not the only. I think so many have lot the 'leave it
alone' and the 'just keep walking' in our lives.
I appreciate your comments and information...megwetch
-------
wahjeh
rolland nadjiwon
Richard Zane Smith wrote:
> Kweh Rolland, Potawatomi political refugee in Kanatah :-)
> /once upon a time in some galaxy somewhere there were no border lines..../
> wow..I'm glad you discuss this kind of stuff in the classroom.
> yeah,
> I think this is an important issue and i didn't want to offend anyone who
> is a believer in all these cool technologies for Language revitalization,
> I'm one of those who enjoys technology(email and my chain saw) but am
> a little
> concerned because these gadgets are so dang new and haven't been tried,
> tested for sustainability past a measly 100 years or less.
> They haven't a long presence and/or history on earth as say,
> the stone tool has and village life,nations and confederations....
>
> I mean ...can we even imagine /ten thousand years of chain saws/?
> maybe If we /think/ that way...it gets more serious if not damn scary.
> I'm not sure we today we give ourselves time to consider that kind of
> cost.
> Otr maybe we've decided its impossible to deal with,so we shrug it off
> and keep going.
> But if we are to look to our 7th generation...we gotta do a little
> thinkin.
>
> about my signature; yes its my tribal affiliation, but its also the
> town nearest
> to where we live!
>
> ske:noh (peace/well-being)
> Richard
> Wyandotte, Oklahoma
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 11:50 PM, Rolland Nadjiwon <mikinakn at shaw.ca
> <mailto:mikinakn at shaw.ca>> wrote:
>
> 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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