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Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
New York : Vintage Books, 1993.
Description
Illustrated essays on the history and cultures of American Indians. Covers geographic locations, languages, spiritual beliefs, customs, and art.
User reviews
LibraryThing member mdobe
Introduction: The Center of the Universe by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.
Beginning with a brief accounting of their history, Josephy praises the bravery and persistence of the tenacious Carib peoples. It is from them that we have the word Cannibal, Columbus having been told by their enemies (Arawaks) that
Of all the depredations visited upon the native peoples, perhaps the most enduring has been the obscuring of their history through a persistent Eurocentrism. The purpose of this collection is to recover, to the greatest extent possible the Indians' world of 1492. We are all the richer for the effort.
The Becoming of the Native: Man in America Before Columbus by N. Scott Momaday
When Columbus sighted land in the "new world," he was in fact coming into first contact with a very ancient land. This was a land peopled by native populations that had existed there for centuries and had developed
untold numbers of human societies in the New World, untold numbers of languages and dialects, architecture to rival any monument of the Old World, astronomical observations and solar calendars, a profound knowledge of natural medicine and the healing arts, very highly developed oral traditions, dramas, ceremonies, and - above all - a spiritual comprehension of the universe, a sense of the natural and supernatural, a sense of the sacred. Here was every evidence of man's long, inexorable rise to civilization. (pp. 15-16)
Telling the story of the Kiowa's physical migration, Momaday (himself of Kiowa ancestry) brings to life their spiritual world by recounting their creation myth in which the first man came from a hollow log. To a written culture like that of the Europeans of 1492, the sacredness of the spoken word was unrecognizable. For the Europeans, not having written words they had no voice. Telling the story of the arrow maker, Momaday brings the oral tradition back to life and celebrates the power of an oral tradition to survive the 500 years since its encounter with Europe.
A Richness of Voices by Joel Sherzer
Using the techniques of historical linguistics to read backwards from exiting languages, Sherzer estimates that at 1492 there were approximately 2,000 different languages spoken in the Americas. Of that number approx. 250 were spoken in N. America, 350 in Mexico and Central America and 1,450 throughout S. America. These languages were all as complex as any European language of the time.
These native languages reflected the lived experience of the speakers. This could range from the concrete the the abstract, with language being both descriptive and metaphorical. For instance, the Eskimos had many different words for snow. The word for government in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs came from the combination of the words nose and lead, literally to lead around by the nose.
By studying the inter-relations of languages in language families, it becomes possible to map homelands and migration patterns. By finding a "center of mass" for language family dispersal, it becomes possible to estimate the location of original homelands. The Uto-Aztecan family, for instance, is dispersed in such a way as to suggest Northwestern Mexico as a homeland. The thinning out of language families as we move toward the Atlantic speaks for eastward migration.
Next, Sherzer turns to the relationship between language and religious/spiritual beliefs. The Hopi language, for example, is very detail oriented and may well have lead them to be very uneasy with the simple religious declarations of the Europeans. The Navajo cosmos was also shaped by and reflected in their language, in which details of shape and motion reflected a belief that human beings participated in a world in which objects and motions already belonged to set patterns that were greater than themselves. There were, for instance, twelve different ways to translate "he picks something up" depending upon the shape and texture of the object being picked up. (It is easy to see why Navajo Code Talkers would have been invaluable to the US Army in WWII)
Poetry and oratory were also major factors in many native languages. The classic Mayan epic poem Popul Vuh provides and example of "poetic and verbally artistic" language. The oratorical traditions of the Iroquois offer an example of the use of speech making in native politics. The opposite of loquaciousness, laconic silence, was also part of the native verbal world giving rise to the stereotypical "taciturn Indian." Apaches, for instance, observed silence when meeting new people, during curing rituals and as part of the initial courtship ritual. When reflecting on the spoken traditions of the Mayans and Aztecs, one recalls to mind the Sumerian culture of the Tigris and Euphrates.
In addition to the use of oratory in political ritual, language was also used in curing rituals. The Kuna people of Panama made effective use of both types of ritual speech. Leaders were chosen for their speaking ability and ritualistic chants were used to heal, to provide success in the hunt, etc. The chant for lowering the fever of a child was called the White Cayman, since that fish lay still in the water and never got hot. In North America, ritual chants were also common and used to similar ends. The Apaches' magical curing chants belong to this same category. Navajos had three-day and five-day forms of chants, known as "ways", which were used to heal the sick. The ritual speech in Navajo curing ways had to be repeated exactly and by heart in order for it to be effective.
Should also read Taking Care of the Earth and the Sky by Peter Iverson and A kinship of Spirit by Jay Miller
Afterward by Vine Deloria, Jr.
Deloria concludes the collection with a discussion of the negative images projected by whites on natives over the last 500 years. The Christian religion and the wisdom in ancient texts (Mandeville's creatures) were highly uncomplimentary toward native peoples. Calling them the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel could not cast them in a good light, nor could the search for a Northwest Passage. Casting the Land Bridge Theory for migration of native ancestors in the same bucket as these fanciful theories of the past. Deloria consigns this archeological theory along with that of the "Pleistocene Overkill" into the same hopper of Euro-centric historical fictions.
Consigned to a category of less-than-human, despite the efforts of men like Las Casas, the native populations' graves have been robbed and their land was stolen. Yet American Indians today view the conquest as a failure. Their insight is that the story of political freedom that is the narrative of US history is not only enabled through the subjugation of the African slave but also through the domination of the environment. Through an unbalanced and callously exploitative approach to nature, the white man is careening headlong to his own destruction.
At the time of this collection's assembly it was possible for a brief moment that the values of native cultures could help us go beyond what Francis Fukuyama called "The End of History"? With the end of the Cold War, however, we did not see the end of the Western World's dominance on the world stage. Instead we see the re-emergence of an age old conflict between East and West in the "global" war on terrorism. The values of the Western world are today pitted against militant Islam. We have our new enemy and we are proceeding in ways not dissimilar to those employed by the Cold Warriors of days gone by.
Beginning with a brief accounting of their history, Josephy praises the bravery and persistence of the tenacious Carib peoples. It is from them that we have the word Cannibal, Columbus having been told by their enemies (Arawaks) that
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they ate human beings. And it was with these people that Columbus initiated the American slave trade.Of all the depredations visited upon the native peoples, perhaps the most enduring has been the obscuring of their history through a persistent Eurocentrism. The purpose of this collection is to recover, to the greatest extent possible the Indians' world of 1492. We are all the richer for the effort.
The Becoming of the Native: Man in America Before Columbus by N. Scott Momaday
When Columbus sighted land in the "new world," he was in fact coming into first contact with a very ancient land. This was a land peopled by native populations that had existed there for centuries and had developed
untold numbers of human societies in the New World, untold numbers of languages and dialects, architecture to rival any monument of the Old World, astronomical observations and solar calendars, a profound knowledge of natural medicine and the healing arts, very highly developed oral traditions, dramas, ceremonies, and - above all - a spiritual comprehension of the universe, a sense of the natural and supernatural, a sense of the sacred. Here was every evidence of man's long, inexorable rise to civilization. (pp. 15-16)
Telling the story of the Kiowa's physical migration, Momaday (himself of Kiowa ancestry) brings to life their spiritual world by recounting their creation myth in which the first man came from a hollow log. To a written culture like that of the Europeans of 1492, the sacredness of the spoken word was unrecognizable. For the Europeans, not having written words they had no voice. Telling the story of the arrow maker, Momaday brings the oral tradition back to life and celebrates the power of an oral tradition to survive the 500 years since its encounter with Europe.
A Richness of Voices by Joel Sherzer
Using the techniques of historical linguistics to read backwards from exiting languages, Sherzer estimates that at 1492 there were approximately 2,000 different languages spoken in the Americas. Of that number approx. 250 were spoken in N. America, 350 in Mexico and Central America and 1,450 throughout S. America. These languages were all as complex as any European language of the time.
These native languages reflected the lived experience of the speakers. This could range from the concrete the the abstract, with language being both descriptive and metaphorical. For instance, the Eskimos had many different words for snow. The word for government in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs came from the combination of the words nose and lead, literally to lead around by the nose.
By studying the inter-relations of languages in language families, it becomes possible to map homelands and migration patterns. By finding a "center of mass" for language family dispersal, it becomes possible to estimate the location of original homelands. The Uto-Aztecan family, for instance, is dispersed in such a way as to suggest Northwestern Mexico as a homeland. The thinning out of language families as we move toward the Atlantic speaks for eastward migration.
Next, Sherzer turns to the relationship between language and religious/spiritual beliefs. The Hopi language, for example, is very detail oriented and may well have lead them to be very uneasy with the simple religious declarations of the Europeans. The Navajo cosmos was also shaped by and reflected in their language, in which details of shape and motion reflected a belief that human beings participated in a world in which objects and motions already belonged to set patterns that were greater than themselves. There were, for instance, twelve different ways to translate "he picks something up" depending upon the shape and texture of the object being picked up. (It is easy to see why Navajo Code Talkers would have been invaluable to the US Army in WWII)
Poetry and oratory were also major factors in many native languages. The classic Mayan epic poem Popul Vuh provides and example of "poetic and verbally artistic" language. The oratorical traditions of the Iroquois offer an example of the use of speech making in native politics. The opposite of loquaciousness, laconic silence, was also part of the native verbal world giving rise to the stereotypical "taciturn Indian." Apaches, for instance, observed silence when meeting new people, during curing rituals and as part of the initial courtship ritual. When reflecting on the spoken traditions of the Mayans and Aztecs, one recalls to mind the Sumerian culture of the Tigris and Euphrates.
In addition to the use of oratory in political ritual, language was also used in curing rituals. The Kuna people of Panama made effective use of both types of ritual speech. Leaders were chosen for their speaking ability and ritualistic chants were used to heal, to provide success in the hunt, etc. The chant for lowering the fever of a child was called the White Cayman, since that fish lay still in the water and never got hot. In North America, ritual chants were also common and used to similar ends. The Apaches' magical curing chants belong to this same category. Navajos had three-day and five-day forms of chants, known as "ways", which were used to heal the sick. The ritual speech in Navajo curing ways had to be repeated exactly and by heart in order for it to be effective.
Should also read Taking Care of the Earth and the Sky by Peter Iverson and A kinship of Spirit by Jay Miller
Afterward by Vine Deloria, Jr.
Deloria concludes the collection with a discussion of the negative images projected by whites on natives over the last 500 years. The Christian religion and the wisdom in ancient texts (Mandeville's creatures) were highly uncomplimentary toward native peoples. Calling them the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel could not cast them in a good light, nor could the search for a Northwest Passage. Casting the Land Bridge Theory for migration of native ancestors in the same bucket as these fanciful theories of the past. Deloria consigns this archeological theory along with that of the "Pleistocene Overkill" into the same hopper of Euro-centric historical fictions.
Consigned to a category of less-than-human, despite the efforts of men like Las Casas, the native populations' graves have been robbed and their land was stolen. Yet American Indians today view the conquest as a failure. Their insight is that the story of political freedom that is the narrative of US history is not only enabled through the subjugation of the African slave but also through the domination of the environment. Through an unbalanced and callously exploitative approach to nature, the white man is careening headlong to his own destruction.
At the time of this collection's assembly it was possible for a brief moment that the values of native cultures could help us go beyond what Francis Fukuyama called "The End of History"? With the end of the Cold War, however, we did not see the end of the Western World's dominance on the world stage. Instead we see the re-emergence of an age old conflict between East and West in the "global" war on terrorism. The values of the Western world are today pitted against militant Islam. We have our new enemy and we are proceeding in ways not dissimilar to those employed by the Cold Warriors of days gone by.
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Language
Physical description
xii, 477 p.; 21 cm
ISBN
0679743375 / 9780679743378
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