This week was interesting because I learned a lot about the education of Native peoples. I especially enjoyed reading and presenting my article. I learned alot about the Columbia River Indians and how they were an example of how they resisted allotment and reservations through diplomacy and their own unique understanding of the treaties that had been settled with them. I thought it was interesting how there was conflict between the reservation indians and the Natives who chose to stay on the outside of the reservations. The ones that chose to stay were catching all the heat from the ones that were resisting allotment and the reservations. 

Our talk in class about peyote and its uses in the Native American Church reminded me of Sherman Alexie's book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven. The work is basically a collection of short stories centering around Alexie's experiences growing up on a reservation in
Washington state. In one chapter, he and a few friends stumble upon some psychosylabic mushrooms and head off into the woods to try to reconnect with their ancestors in the spiritual world, or as his friend says, "do some real Indian shit." The point of the story was to show how disconnected his generation had grown from their tribal roots, reverting to popular drugs to try and reaffirm their Indian identity.
I think drugs such as peyote and other natural psychedelics carry with them a misconception about tribal life before the Native American Church. Alexie's tribe had no history of ceremonies involving psychedelics (only tribes in Mexico and Texas, where the cactus grows naturally, involved the drug in their religion), yet he felt that to truly be an Indian he had to trip into some other dimension and talk with spirits and ghosts. I know that I have had multiple discussions with my friends about trying peyote, going out in the woods, and doing some real Indian shit, man. Just last week I was watching Reno 911 and the guest character, who was an Indian, tripped peyote with the officers.
I am not trying to smear the tenants of the Native American Church or anything, but I think popular culture has embraced an incorrect image of pan-Indian drug use. Regardless of geographic location or tribal history, peyote has now become synonymous with all native spiritual practices, and that is wrong. I think it's just another example of how society at large ignores the diversity of native culture, and instead just lumps them all together as "Indians."

Boarding School Concept

I was fortunate enough to get to attend the museum at Haskell last year with my diversity class in the school of Social Welfare. The exhibits were extremely interesting especially the one regarding the history of Haskell University as a boarding school. There were letters posted from children at the school to their parents asking to go home and telling their families that they miss them. We also walked to the cemetery on the Haskell campus and looked at the many graves of children that had died while they were there of various diseases. I recommend going to the museum because it was a really good experience.
I found it rather interesting that the government demanded these children attend boarding schools but the children were not learning anything of any significance there. They were simply being trained to do jobs that they could not do after leaving those schools anyway. These schools were extremely traumatic for these children and it seemed that they served very little purpose.

My meeting

I thought I would talk a little about Peyote and Native American Church or "NAC". I attended one of the "meetings" a few years back with my boyfriend, now my husband. My husband was rasied NAC and started to attend when he was 3 or 4 years old. He knows and sings Peyote songs.
The reason for this meeting was to pray about a 50 year old man who suddenly couldn't walk anymore and doctors couldn't help.
Meetings do not start till evening, when the sun goes down and ends when the sun comes up in the morning. But the peyote keeps you up so you don't get tired. I personally did not feel anything psychedeclic about the whole experience. Maybe I didn't eat enough Peyote but I think i did. Peyote does not go down well, it does not taste well and makes you want throw up.
I guess the meeting was a sucess because this person is walking today. Other reasons why people put on a meetings is for special occasions such as birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, funerals, people who are sick and etc..
This video that I posted is not a meeting but it is peyote singing. Alot of songs are christian influenced, you can hear them say Jesus Christ in this recording. If you really intrested you can find CD's of peyote songs at Hastings or Borders.

Peyote!

I'll be the first to admit that I did not know peyote was specifically associated with the Native American Church, in fact I had never really even heard of the Native American Church before. Where was that segment in social studies class on the "religions of the world" unit? Yet another letdown. I think peyote is really interesting because it is another hot-button issue with the U.S. government. I have heard about many court cases involving peyote use and the question of its legality. Someone's blog today mentioned reservations being soveriegn nations, which I think is such an important point to make-especially in terms of peyote use. I have always thought that peyote use is perfectly legal on reservations because they are "soveriegn" (what a loaded word). Looks to me like yet another way for the government to try and play puppet master with supposedly free and independent Indian Nations.

Athletics + Assimilation

When learning about how much emphasis was placed on athletics at Haskell in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I was not sure how I felt about this. Obviously there were many positive things that came from the success of Haskell athletics, but the very nature of having them seemed weird to me. Whether Native Americans used to hunt and gatherer, practice sedentary agriculture, or a mixture of the two, the main focus of native peoples throughout history was to keep intact their culture and beliefs. Since Americans have had a drastic impact on their culture they now are restricted in their practices. Going from a lifestyle of trying to meet basic needs, to a culture that competes in athletics at an international level shows how much influence Americans have had on their culture. To me this seemed like the last straw, what else can the United States take away or add to their culture? The assimliation that was talked about in the article which talked about schools was also quite amazing. The reference that was made about how the United States even wanted the Native Americans to go by "clock time" rather than "natural time" was mind boggling. I am overwhelmed with how ignorant people can be. Wowzers.

Wounded Knee

By far the most disturbing and eye-opening stories we have talked about in class is the massacre(and yes, I feel confident using that word in this situation) at Wounded Knee. I could not believe the callousness of the U.S. troops in that situation, to open fire on a group of unarmed Indians who are blatantly waving a white flag of mercy. The fact that over 250 women and children were present makes this event all the more savage(oh, how the tables have turned). I was also staggered by the reporter's account of the massacre in the video we watched during class. He was very obviously shaken to the core, amazed at the brutality he witnessed. Even the doctor, who had served during the Civil War, turned ghostly pale. And I have yet to even mention the forlorn silence which fell over that church, the silence that told the whole story.

Schoolin'!

As a future elementary school teacher, I really enjoyed learning about the advent of schools for Native Americans. Despite their horrible central purpose, to remove Indians of their culture, schools were actually really interesting.

Richard Henry Pratt, who was apparently a jerk as well as an educator, got the idea for educating Native Americans from his experience with prisoners in Florida. How strange that an idea for designing a heavily regimented school that strips students of their heritage and individuality came from an implementation used with prisoners. This is terrible. Students clearly are not prisoners and should not be treated as such. I cannot see how a school that separates student from parents for years at a time ever was approved.

Despite all the horrible attempts to "Kill the Indian, Save the Man," providing Native peoples with educational opportunities could have been a great idea. The problem was that the schools focused so heavily on vocational skills and cultural assimilation. I feel if the schools had not been mandatory and so heavily regimented, and also didn't attempt to completely strip the parents of access to their children, they actually could have been very successful. After seeing some of the successful tribal leaders who were products of the school and were able to assist the tribe in legal dealings and such, you would think that parents would be more than happy to send their children to such a school. Unfortunately, the schools sole purpose was to remove the children from their native culture, and education was secondary at best.

What's in a name?

I saw a license plate yesterday that said TGRLILY, obviously referring to the Indian Princess of the Piccanniny tribe in Peter Pan. It got me to thinking about how Native Americans received their names.
At boy scout summer camp a little while ago, they have an Indian based brotherhood called Mic-O-Say. In joining this I had had to perform certain rituals and put through work and at the end of all of it I was officially inducted as a member of the tribe of Mic-O-Say. I could go more into it, but that's not really the point of my post. As part of our trials we had to spend two nights sleeping and meditating out in the forest. At the end, we were supposed to choose our Mic-O-Say name. My name? Swift, Stealthy Cheetah in Nearby Meadow. It's ridiculously long, I know. Most people's names were like, Broken Arrow, Night Star, Standing Oak. Cheetahs are my favorite animal so I decided to go along that route. I decided I might change my name and I got questioned about it quite extensively because apparently, at the end of our meditation, once we realized our purpose in life, we would see a sign, and this sign was an indicator into what our name should be. I didn't realize this at the time. My friend, named himself Deer Hoof, because he woke up in the night and a buck was standing right next to his sleeping bag. This was his sign, consequently his name. I decided to keep the name, but hopefully noone questions my sign too much.
It has me wondering though how real Native Americans choose their names. Is it just something that is passed down through a generation, or do they have similar experiences that lead to their naming?
In class we learned how at the boarding schools, kids would be given an English name and then adopt their father's as a last name. This is revolutionary for me because I sat next to a kid in home-ec who's name is Matt Yellowbird. This must be why Yellowbird was his last name.
And a funny point is that, these obviously aren't even real, because an Indian word for "yellow bird" would not be spelled or pronounced like that. It must be subversely English.

I was surprised this week to hear about the history of Haskell University. I had heard "rumors" about it but was unaware of how it began and the harsh reality of the students there. I had not realized that it was a boarding school for such a long period of time and was not prepared for the stories I heard about children who tried to escape. In my previous studies of history I have rarely run across stories from this area that were so widely known like the story of the school and the athletes who were trained there.
I also wanted to comment on a portion of the article I presented this week "Schooling the Hopi". It was absolutely amazing to me the different comments made by several agents who scouted out the Hopi people to see if they would be receptive to a school in the area. All of the agents went there with the same objective yet several reported of a civilized people who were intelligent, settled and peaceful, while others criticized everything they had seen in the villages. They said the people were dumb and especially focused on the "immorality" of the Hopi people. Leo Crane commented several times on the impropriety of dress between males and females even as children which makes me curious as to what he dressed his little kids in and why it mattered what the Hopi children were wearing.

30 days

As we were talking about reservation life, I got to thinking about how life was today on the reservation for Native Americans. In coincidence, FX was showing the T.V. show 30 days, which was created by Morgan Spurlock (the guy who did supersize me). On this particular episode, Morgan spent 30 days on a Navajo Indian reservation that is situated on the four courner region of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and I think Nevada. This show seemed very relvant to what we have been discussing because it shows that life on the reservation is tough and still full of hardships. Many of these people see very little opportunity on the reservation itself, but they are pulled to stay their so that they can remain with their people. They very much seem to live in two worlds. Most have to go off the reservation for work, which to some of the elders is a negative because they feel they should be contributing to the Indian community. It was amazing to see that even though they had been encroached upon by western ideals and products they still were able to maintain their Navajo traditions. They still got together for native ceremonies, and still practiced Navajo rituals. One of the more upsetting aspects of the show was that they were losing their native language because so many were no longer trying to learn it. As said in the show, it is a difficult language to learn, however there were some schools on the res. that specifically targeted the language during their early years of schooling. However, because of the multiple english influences, the students usually lost it by the time they graduated. Also sad to see was the Grandmother. She spoke only Navajo and she lemented on the fact that she could not talk to her grandkids like she wanted. This was a great programm and really eye opening. the Navajo are still fighting the U.S. Government over water rights. Most of the people on the res. do not have running water. There are like 200,000 people on this res! The are fighting with the Govt. because they are not able to build water lines and take the water from rivers that run through the land because the Govt uses it for other lands. Upon learning of this, Morgan asks "isn't the Navajo nation a soveriegn nation?" in which the navajo reply something like "tell that to the Govt." This shows that although we have made some strides, we are a long way away from treating the Native people with the respect they deserve. They are still fighting and in my opinion they shouldn't have to.

Adverse Allotments

Prior to studying the allotment period in our class, my understanding was that allotment was something that would boost assimilation into western culture and wasn't something that had corrupt aspects to it. I was very wrong however and it seems that the allotment periods on many reservations, although aimed with good intentions never fully played out. White settlers craved many of the reservation lands because of their prime agricultural properties with little to no care for the people or culture that they were removing from the land. Anglo settlers did everything they could to cheat and move Indian peoples off their land including illegal grazing practices and stealing allotment claims.
I was also alarmed to learn that another central practice to converting the Natives, namely education, was also very corrupt. Amongst all the segregation and racism, Native numbers at schools started to decline which led to the formation of all white schools on reservation land payed for by Indian money. Its hard to believe that this ideal of allotment with its good intentions of assimilation could go so wrong and have almost the exact opposite effects than intended.

Haskell

I find the evolution of the Indian boarding schools very interesting. Haskell started as a typical Indian boarding school that taught traditional, American, gender roles and had the equivalent of grades 1-5. Increased enrollment led to new curriculum and according to the Haskell website the first typing class taught in Kansas occurred at Haskell in the late 1890's. Haskell evolved into a state accredited high school, then a junior college followed by the University in 1994. Haskell offers free tuition to registered Native American tribes with the payment of required student fees, which are about $315. 

Haskell began with the intention of destroying Native culture and assimilating Native children. Children were treated poorly and disease spread easily within the student population. Children were not allowed to speak Native languages or practice any rituals, but the school eventually became the institution it is now, that respects Native culture. Does anybody know at what point did the curriculum at Haskell began to respect Native culture instead of suppressing it? I'm assuming it occurred during the Civil Rights movement, which coincides with the end of the high school and the beginning of the junior college.

Impressed with Bill Cody

I was also really impressed with the Bill Cody story. Mainly because he managed to use indian work not only for his own benefit, but for their benefit as well. While we were talking about it in class, I kept wondering whether Bill Cody did it for the right reasons. Did he know he was giving he natives so much by allowing them to be indians? Or was it all self-driven? Either way I was very impressed with the whole story and I wished we could have learned more about it.
It was one of the few moments during class where there was, for lack of a better phrase, a beacon of hope. Finally the natives were getting a chance to be themselves, even if it was for a performance. It shows how incredibly important their culture and traditions were that they were willing to put them on display for white Americans.

Billy Mills

I thought I might add a bit to the Billy Mills story from class. Mills, an Oglala Lakota, was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Mills grew up in poverty and was orphaned at the age of 12. Soon afterwards, he moved to Lawrence to attend the high school at Haskell and began his running career (Mills didn’t even make the freshman track team!). Mills received 18 scholarship offers and ultimately chose KU. Even though Mills was a two-time All-American, the Big 8 cross country champion and a member of 1959 and 1960 outdoor national championship teams, Mills faced racial discrimination from his teammates and even Coach Bill Easton. I remember hearing Mills tell a story about how at a team picture of all the Kansas All-Americans, the team took two pictures; one with Mills and the team, and one without him in it. Mills had suicidal thoughts after this incident but fortunately decided to channel his anger and frustration through running.

After graduation, Mills enlisted with the Marines where he continued his running and in 1964 he made the US Olympic team in the 10,000 meters. Once in Tokyo, Mills was barely noticed. When he tried to pick up a pair of running shoes from the company rep with the American team, he was told, “We only have shoes for potential medal winners.” Mills said quietly, “But I think I’m going to win.” To which the rep replied, “That’s a bunch of bull.”

Despite all of this, Mills went out with the leaders during the race. He passed through the halfway point (5000meters) faster than he had ever run a 5000meter race before. Despite this, Mills kept up with the leaders and with one lap to go he was one of four men that still had a chance to medal (if you watch the video on youtube, which I highly recommend, all of those other runners are being lapped). With about 300meters to go, Australian Ron Clarke elbowed Mills which knocked him almost out to lane three. Mills regrouped and made a heroic sprint towards the finish, winning in an Olympic record of 28:24.4. Many track and field experts still consider Mills’ victory the greatest upset in Olympic history. To this day, no other American has ever won an Olympic gold medal in the 10,000meters. A year later, Mills set a world record for the 6mile run and retired shortly afterwards.

Besides Mills’ ferocious training (he ran up to 90miles a week), he also maintained a traditional Lakota diet that was based on a 4 day cycle. One day, he ate something from “on the ground” (buffalo, deer, lamb, or beef); the next day “from the water” (fish); the next “from the air” (birds, chicken, or turkey); the next day from “in the ground” (vegetables). Each day, the diet also required foods of five colors: red, green, yellow, brown, and white; and they had to be “live” foods like fruit and grain.

Today, Mills travels the country giving various speeches. He works for Running Strong for American Indian Youth and with Wings of America, which promotes Native American running. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend attending one of his speeches. They are truly inspirational. There is a movie about Mills’ struggles called Running Brave that covers his struggles as a Native American all the way through his Olympic victory. Mills has also written two books, “Lessons of a Lakota” and “Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding”.

(Sorry for such a long post, but I am a huge Billy Mills fan and I find his story truly remarkable and inspiring. I got most of this info from Marc Bloom’s “Run with the Champions”. In the book, Bloom ranks Mills as the 6^th greatest American runner ever.)

Personal Experience

This week we talked about clock time versus "natural time." I went to the Navajo reservation with my church to help build a gazebo. It was a lot of fun, but the thing that was hardest to get used to was the fact the people on the reservation really did not care what we did. It was a weird feeling. They would say things like we will start at such and such a time and they would show up like a half hour late.

This goes to show that the schools that we have been talking about in class did not do their job of making the students that went to them to teach others, nor did time and society change the way people felt about time. In Kansas City, there is a program called SNAWS which stands for Sharing Native American Ways Seminar. Some of the people that are invited to this program do not even show up because they just don't have the same idea of time as "main stream" America.

Wild West Shows

Before this week, I was well aware of the fact that Wild West Shows existed, and still do to the present. However, what I did not know is the benefits that Bill Cody offered Native Peoples through his shows. By hiring Native Peoples to act in his shows, Cody gave them the opportunity to earn wages and travel the world. The wages earned by working in his shows were considerably better than the stipends offered by the federal government, and travel would have otherwise been out of reach. Travel also introduced Native Peoples to foreign dignitaries, as well as other cultures that they would otherwise have not known.

I found this bit of information about Bill Cody’s Western Shows to be interesting, particularly because of the positive tone. Although, according to an Encyclopædia Britannica online article, Cody ultimately lost all of his money through mismanagement of funds. Despite this apparent downturn, he was still able to help native peoples before he lost his wealth.

should pay attention to what is around us

I grew up in a town a few miles away from Chilocco Indian School. When I was a teenager, the school was closed. I remember reading about the parents protesting, but I didn't pay much attention. I had Native American classmates and friends. I had ancestors and other relatives with Indian blood. I heard stories about my great great grandfather petitioning the government to prove his Indian bloodline to receive land or payment, but even though I intently listened, the story didn't matter much to me at the time. I wish now I had paid more attention to the stories and the news as it's part of history. The Land Rush took place nearby my hometown, too, and there is a museum commemorating it. There's all this history around my hometown, but it wasn't taught to us in school. We were taught a "whitewashed" view of history. The Union won the Civil War, and then there were ugly Jim Crow laws, but we weren't taught about the lynchings of the innocent. We were taught the Indians were hostile, but not about Sand Creek or Wounded Knee. We were only taught history which portrayed our ancestors in a good, positive, patriotic light.
We should pay attention to the history around us, such as Haskell. How many have visited the museum at Haskell? I know I haven't after 20 years in Lawrence, but I should and will.
Although this post and this comment doesn't directly relate to anything we discussed in class, what I have learned for the past 5 weeks about the mistreatment of Native peoples by Euro-American settlers and the U.S. government is not surprising or shocking, as we knew it occurred, but sad and disturbing. And as you look at history, with Jim Crow laws, and the Civil Rights movement, you wonder why no one learned anything with 150 years of history to gain knowledge from. And as a sidenote, I have read that Billy Mills wasn't always treated nicely during his years at KU, even though he went to high school at Haskell. I hope we have learned better since then.

This week the ghost dance and other “new” native religious movements was one of the big topics of discussion. I just don’t quite understand why the army and white settlers got so riled up about all the different dances. I guess the more “established” things like the peyotism or Smoholla’s message would be troubling for the white simply because it was not at all Christian. There was defiantly no Jesus love there. But why were the many dances such a huge problem? These don’t seem like a set religion, more of a way of expression. The Ghost dance was making a connection to people’s ancestors, and the powwow dances were just community event. Were the whites so paranoid that they thought these mighty savage Indians would scalp them in their sleep after doing these dances?? Seriously, it really makes the settlers out as rather cowardly people.
Also, one of the presentations today was over the Nez Perce tribe. My grandpa was really into westerns and he had this one about Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce trying to escape the reservation/escape to Canada. I guess Chief Joseph was a rather highly respected chief, and I was just wondering if the article mentioned if he was involved early on with the allotment process. I am not really sure if he was even still around by that time, but it would be interesting to know.

The Gold Rush: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Growing up in Colorado, we learned all about the Gold Rush. We'd take field trips up to Leadville and Minturn and other old mining towns, walk through the crumbling mines, learn how to panhandle in the creek, etc... At eight years old, it wouldn't have mattered if you told me that we were on sacred Indian burial grounds taken illegally through government trickery and bold-face lies. I mean, this was cool! For years, I thought the Colorado Gold Rush was some romanticized wonderland of every western stereotype; overnight millionaires losing their fortunes in gambling saloons filled with drunks and prostitutes, huge dynamite explosions echo in city streets lined with gunslingers and lawmen. I thought it was like the Wild West on acid, but now I realize I was dead wrong.
Everything about the Gold Rush was a lie. The journalists advertising the discovery of gold were lying; there was no gold under the grass "just waiting to be plucked up." It was scarce, and those that did manage to find it had to work hard to get it. The American Government lied to the native tribes and invaded the territory granted them in treaties. How ironic that these treaties were infringed upon based on faulty reporting. It seems that all parties involved misunderstood the value of the land.
Taking from COverstreet's blog, I would also like to know if the native peoples ever caught on to importance gold held in white society. I know that native cultures were not as materialistic, but could they not have adapted and used America's obsession with the mineral to their own advantage, as the plains tribes did with the horse? How would the history of the west be different if the Lakota and Hunkpapa realized their Black Hills contained something of incalculable value to the white man? Or did they already realize it? Just some ideas.