A century later, Ishi still has lessons to teach (fwd link)

Wed Sep 14 18:59:21 UTC 2011

Nice to hear from you MJ
yours sounds like a great idea too...
lets view the " studier" through our own lenses and make our own conclusions
about what kind of creature must gather and file so much information, often
so far from home where family and relatives are.

So often i've heard "outsiders" make the classic assumptions that average
school acquired knowledge equals universal truth.  eg.  *"....so when you
people came over on the land bridge, this was at a time...."*
and i stop them and say...*"uh, remember, that is YOUR creation story...but
its not ours."*

should we assume there is ONE SIZE FITS ALL creation story?
anthropologists say we have constantly revised ours by outside influences.
well ... it seems science is always revising its own creation stories as
well.

-richard

On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 8:43 PM, Dr. MJ Hardman <hardman at ufl.edu> wrote:

>  I do agree, and in this case I would be one of the ‘studied’.  Way back
> when half a century ago in Bolivia I had students studying the paceños
> (‘white’ folk with power), both Aymara and others to give the Aymara
> knowledge to cope with such people.  It didn’t get very far, but there was
> some good that came from it.  I wish it could have been able to continue.
>  That is a little different from what you are suggesting, but in the same
> line — who studies and who is studied.  MJ
>
>
> On 9/13/11 8:49 PM, "Huang,Chun" <huangc20 at UFL.EDU> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Richard,
>
> "I think its OUR time to study the studiers, do anthropology on the
> anthropologists, archaeology on the archaeologists
> linguistic studies on you "expert" linguists!   Might be a new field in and
> of itself --- especially within Native colleges!"
>
> I agree, and I have been thinking about it. Especially now there are more
> and more of us so-called "heritage linguists" (indigenous people working
> with their own language/culture). We should do something...
>
>
>
> Jimmy
>
>
>
> Chun (Jimmy) Huang
>
> Assistant Professor, Department of English and Applied Linguistics
>
> De La Salle University - Manila
>
> On Tue, 13 Sep 2011 08:36:41 -0500, Richard Zane Smith wrote:
>
>
> It was reading the book Ishi in the 70's that sparked me and made me take
> notice
> of how anthropology,a brand new field, was studying people as rare
> specimens in a dish.
> The article is good, and it was good to hear aboriginal people respond.
> I'm not sure I agree with one of the last comments quoted in the article:
> *One reason for the persistence of the “last wild Indian” trope, Myers
> speculated, is the comfort to be found in the belief that if “the last one
> is gone,” then “we’ve done our job.”
> *
> well...Though, this might have been the attitude of land grabbing U.S.
> government, where any other "nation" is a threat,
> Other forces were at work that are STILL having a detrimental effect on our
> survival as indigenous cultures.
> One was(and is) cultural ignorance from popular novel induced infatuation
> with  * "the last of....(fill in the blank")
> *feeding a kind of wistful sentimentalism that was being applied
> widespread upon traditional cultures facing violent opposition
> and even extinction. "aww...the poor little indians" .
> Feeling pity is dangerous because it often supplants itself as a substitute
> for real action.
> "I feel sorry...therefore I'm not the oppressor , and because i feel
> sorry...I've done what i can."
>
> there are OTHER forces at work on the powerful down stream flow against ALL
> of us working on cultural revitalization efforts.
> I think its OUR time to study the studiers, do anthropology on the
> anthropologists, archaeology on the archaeologists
> linguistic studies on you "expert" linguists!   Might be a new field in and
> of itself --- especially within Native colleges!
> Sohahiyoh (Richard Zane Smith)
> Wyandotte Oklahoma
> On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 4:40 AM, Derksen Jacob <jieikobu at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Thanks for sending that along. It was the 1978 tv movie, Ishi: Last of His
> Tribe, that acted as the spark that ignited my interest in endangered
> languages. Just last month I had occasion to be in San Francisco and
> happened to find a copy of Theodora Kroeber's book of the same name.
>
> > Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:37:46 -0500
> > From: cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU
> > Subject: [ILAT] A century later, Ishi still has lessons to teach (fwd
> link)
>  > To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
>
> >
> > A century later, Ishi still has lessons to teach
> >
> > By Barry Bergman, NewsCenter | September 12, 2011
>  > USA
> >
> > BERKELEY - They came both to bury Ishi — at least the outdated notion
> > of Ishi prevalent in pop culture — and to praise him. They came to
> > learn from him, to remember him not as a research subject but as a
>  > teacher, not as an artifact of a vanishing culture but as a survivor
> > and, as Berkeley law professor Karen Biestman put it, “a pioneer of
> > indigenous intellectual property protection.”
> >
> >
>  > Earl Neconie, right, gave the morning's traditional blessing (Peg
> > Skorpinski photos)
> > Joseph Myers, a School of Law graduate and lecturer in Native American
> > studies here, put it more simply.
>  >
> > “I like the idea of celebrating Ishi,” Myers said. “But let’s
> > celebrate him as a human being. “
> >
> > Access full article below:
> > http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/12/century-of-ishi/
>
>
>
> Dr. MJ Hardman
> Professor of Linguistics and Anthropology
> Department of Linguistics
> University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
> Doctora Honoris Causa UNMSM, Lima, Perú
> website:  http://grove.ufl.edu/~hardman/
>

-- 
*"this language of mine,of yours,is who we are and who we have been.It is
where we find our stories,our lives,our ancestors;and it should be where we
find our future too"   Simon Anaviapik ... Inuit*

richardzanesmith.wordpress.com
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