Sunday, July 13, 2008
outsmarting the europeans
There were many topics from last week that interested me, and gave me information that I was not aware of. I was particularly impressed after reading the article I presented in class on Thursday. I would say it has been a bit more uplifting than a lot of events we have heard about lately. I enjoyed reading the article on the Tlingit people because it was a great example on how europeans really failed to christianize or force native people to adopt european culture. The Tlingit were very clever on first allowing Orthodoxy into their religion in culture, but manipulating people so it appeared that they had christianized; in the end, they were really able to keep a lot of their traditional ideas and culture. After hearing so much about allotment, christianization, and the horrible ways in which most natives were treated by europeans settling in the United States, it is nice to hear a story in which that didn't entirely happen.
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3 comments:
This is a theme throughout the course. Yes it is more a bit more uplifting, but if we look at what we have read we see that the US failed to do what they set out to do.
I think that this topic is the most positive one we have addressed in class. I especially liked the idea that the natives were obstructing the process of their "assimilation" peacefully by acting like they didn't know what was expected of them or manipulating things to their own advantage.
I also find it very interesting how the native americans were able to keep the, now, americans off their back by visually giving into the ideas of christianity. It also is cool to know that this tactic seemed to be the most effective, even in the past when it was used in small situations.
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