Native American Customs - Help Needed

I think it must be kept in mind that the religious practices of the Plains Indians -- Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Crow etc. -- were often of a very personal nature. No "state religion" was imposed. Outside of a few simple taboos, there was no compulsion to either worship or even believe in a particular way. Thus, the Sun Dance was a strictly voluntary ritual. No man was compelled to pierce his chest and swing from a pole in this manner. Most did because it gave them status. But they would not have been shunned or ostracized in any way if they declined. A lot of these things which we think of as compulsory rituals were actually spontaneous expressions of a personal nature.

That's by way of preamble to saying that the mother chopping off her finger to commemorate her dead son may well have been a very personal way of expressing her grief. If it had been common practice, most Indian women would have had maimed hands. And there is no record of this being the case.

<interrupts rudely> Hey, dyslexia. Welcome to a2k!

I knew about Sand Creek. Oddly, in an American History class, we covered the battle of Glorietta Pass and I had to ask if it were the same Chivington. It was.

Not taught in our history - it should be, to be fair.

Hasn't it been said: "History is written by the winners"?

It has, and generally it is.

<sigh>
I don't know why I always have to be the devil's advocate and balloon-puncturer, but ... here goes ...

The saying that history is written by the winners is generally attributed to Napoleon, and, in my opinion, it is nonsense. The truth outs, sooner or later. Nobody has been able to hush up the Sand Creek massacre. It is common knowledge to anybody and everybody who has ever studied the history of the white man's conquest of the American west. If history truly whitewashed the winners, Co. Chivington would be touted as a hero in our history books. He isn't. We're ashamed of Sand Creek, so it is barely mentioned in most high school level histories. But it isn't suppressed. It hasn't been whiteashed or sanitized.

History is written largely by objective historians.

Ouch! - quit poking the balloons!

We are ashamed and don't teach it. It's learned by those who look more carefully. How many people do you know who'd peer that deep into history? Winners can be ashamed and omit their faults as well as flaunt their prouder moments.

I had to get the Sand Creek massacre story from fiction, which drew my attention to the very few historical mentions. It was described in Centennial, one of Michner's books.

Now, did the woman cut her fingers of in some sort of self-expression, or were we lead to believe, in the movie, that it was tradition?

It was sort of described in Centennial. Michener changed all the names and fictionalized the whole thing. There is nobody named Chivington in Michener's book. In fact, Michener's garbling of history is one of the things which made me not like his books too well. They're readable, that's all.

I had read all about Sand Creek by the time I graduated high school, along with the massacre at Wounded Knee and other atrocities that we have committed in the name of 'progress.' Granted, this was not required reading in high school. In fact, we were told very little about the settlement of the West beyond the well-worn cliches. But that wasn't because anyone was hiding anything. It was because our teachers didn't know very much themselves.

My point is that the information is there, available in any one of literally hundreds of texts.

history
MerryAndrews, going back a ways to the discussion of Indian custom, you say that the dictum, "history is written by the winners," is nonsense, and that eventually "the truth will out", and that history is written by objective historians. I see each proposition as partially, even mainly true. BUT you must admit that if the Nazis had won the war, "the truth" would have to have given way to propaganda--at least for a long time. But I would argue that history also has a degree of propaganda in it. That is to say, the OFFICIAL HISTORY is to some degree ideologically tainted. I refer to the history taught in elmentary education--at the graduate level in history departments it's a different matter (and there is probably always an UNOFFICIAL history lurking in the shadows waiting for the day to come into the light). The very idea of an "objective historian", or an objective any-kind-of-thinker is very problematical. I DO agree that social scientists (I was one for decades) TRY to be objecitve as much as possible,and that social science disciplines DO try to guard against unbridled subjectivity or dishonesty, but INTERPRETIVISM is the prevailing model (meaning everyone has a perspective on reality and that our DATA is always SELECTIVELY accumulated to build "cases" ABOUT reality, not direct demonstrations OF it). Of course, I do not want to overstate this case. It's always a matter of greys, ratios, and degrees. And in that regard you are right to a large degree.

JLNobody -- I totally agree that complete objectivity in the so-called "soft" sciences, i.e. the social sciences, is probably a pipe-dream. There ain't no such thing, nor can there be. In reporting historical events, each writer will, inevitably, have his/her own viewpoint and ax to grind.

My main objection is to the over-use of catch-phrases as though they were clever insights. In one sense, of course, the statement that history is written by the victors is so obvious as to be a banal and trite observation of a self-evident fact. But (there is always a BUT) too many people extrapolate from this the notion that therefore, ipso facto, history must somehow be a propagandistic lie, concocted by the victors. It is this perceived corollary that I find wanting.

Josephus, a Jew and a Roman citizen, wrote admiringly of the Roman conquest of Judea. That was because his work was meant for a Graeco-Roman readership. Later generations were grateful for the existence of the work, not for its slant, but for the facts it presented. The same is true of American history. The Sand Creek massacre (since that's the event which has been brought up) was initially hailed by the citizens of Colorado as a great victory over the "savages" and Col. Chivington was lionized for a time. But the facts could not be hidden and it didn't take long for many people to be horrified by the events.

The battle at the Little Big Horn -- better known as Custer's Last Stand -- was always related with Goerge Armstrong Custer as the noble hero back in the antedeluvian days when I was a kid. Today, most historians are apt to say, "The jerk got what he asked for," or words to that effect. My point is that the facts remain the same in either case. It is awfully hard to distort those. The interpretation changes with the public mood.

In fact, MA, you bring up a point which makes it considerably easier for historians to avoid agendae in their studies. The first French colony in the "new world" was at Cape Canaveral, Fort Caroline. The colonizers were Heugenots, i.e., protestants. The Spanish certainly didn't want the French "horning in" on their territories, but were in a quandry, as they also didn't want a continental war. When they learned that the colonists were protestants, however, the problem disappeared. The commander of the Spanish expedition bragged about how they had tricked the French into surrendering, and then slaughtered them. They had estimated that the catholic French at home wouldn't care much, and they were correct in that estimation. For Francis Parkman, whose seven volume history of the French in North America was his life's most important work, the account of the destruction of Fort Caroline and it's colonizers was a gift--a detailed account of the shameless conduct of the Spaniard, but one of which the Spaniard of 1564 was not ashamed.

The Custer idiocy, by the way, has been re-opened by those who had perused the bills of lading for supplies ordered, and believed that lead solder used in canned goods may have meant that the entire command was suffering from dementia caused by low-level, pernicious lead poisoning. Several years ago, excavations were done at the battlefield, and researchers have reported that the bodies of troopers found there show signs of pernicious lead poisoning. This is the same thing that made the Franklin expedition to find a northwest passage go mad, and it is likely that much of imperial roman society suffered from the same condition, due to the soft lead used to make pipes for aqueducts. When Custer had decided to attack the "hostiles"--whose ad hoc village housed from 5000 to 10000 (depends on whose account), with his regiment of hardly more than 600 troopers, his last message (whatever his last words may have been) to Captain Benteen was to bring on the trains (pack trains with food and ammunition), he was driving the enemy and had their village in sight. Certainly sounds demented to me, given the circumstances and the outcome.

These acts don't seem too hard to understand. Native Americans raised their children to be TOUGH. Recall the first of the movie where the mother takes her newborn and dunks it into the icy cold river. This would, supposedly, help her son to survive. Who is to judge? Study English history, Irish, Scots? What was happening there?

JoanneDorel, scalping was taught the Native Americans by the Spanish.

THANK YOU, ASHERMAN!
I am full-blood Native American, 33, from the Warm Springs Reservation in Central Oregon. So far, Asherman has it...when you speak about Native Americans, you're not speaking about one set of people.

In college, I used to answer all kinds of questions about Native Americans, some of them you wouldn't believe! "Do Indians really eat dogs?" "Do Indians really chew through the umbilicle cords of their babies?" "Do Indians still live in teepees?" I'm not making fun of these questions, as they are genuine. And...uh, no. We don't eat dogs.

Man Called Horse is not a historical documentation. If you really wanted to have fun with your class and teach them something about Native Americans, try another film - one written by a Native American. Rent Smoke Signals or Pow Wow Highway. If you can get your hands on it, there's even a film featuring my own reservation, which was largely accepted by the tribal membership, Three Warriors. Even then, make sure that the kids know that what one tribe does, another tribe may do differently.

The reason fingers were chopped off in the movie is because the author wrote it into the script. Everyone in my family still has all their fingers. Hollywood has, until just recently, had great liberties with the Native American culture. That's why I was approached so many times during college with the dreaded, "How" and "Ugh" welcome. Often, what is written into a script didn't even have to pass a researcher's desk. There are several reasons for this, I believe: One, there are people out there who actually believe that there are no more Native Americans - that we're extinct. And if they're gone now, why try to be accurate now? I've met a few of these people. Two, until just recently Native Americans quite often were played by non-Indians in film. Today, Adam Beach would probably question why he was chopping off any fingers. Three, there are so many tribes on the continent, surely one of them must have done it this way. That may be true - but I've seen some pretty bad examples of this thinking.

Consider, if you would, each tribe being its own separate nation. And then realize that anywhere in the world, each nation does its own thing. Ancient Egyptians mummified their dead. Some African tribes burn their dead. Other nations seal their dead in tombs, or even eat their dead. The same goes for the nations of Native Americans. In my tribe, we ceremonially bury our dead. Another tribe - no more than twenty miles downstream from ours, wrapped their dead tightly in buck skin and laid them to rest on an island in the Columbia.

When asking why Indians or Native Americans performed a certain rite or ceremony, it's as foggy as asking why humans do a certain thing. And even then, you have to look at your source of information and consider: Is it a reliable source?

Hollywood isn't very reliable. Today, I wouldn't watch Dude, Where's My Car? and make my assumptions about caucasians on that one movie.

I commend you for including Native Americans in on your lessons! Take care!

Teepees? I wouldn't know, Wondercookie, though they still enjoy some ceremonial usage in northwest New Mexico, if nowhere else. There are still people living in hogans, and the sweat hogan is still in use.

Hey, I'm glad to see you as a member and look forward to many more interesting posts.

Welcome to A2K Wondercookie. As small as the world has gotten, its a wonder that so much ignorance remains about cultures other than our own, whatever that might be. Why should the culture of a fishing society in the Northwest be anything like that of subsistence farmers in the Southwest, or the nomadic hunters of buffalo in the Great Plains? The intertribal agreements that bound the Five Nations may have played some role in the development of the U.S. Constitution. Spanish military doctrine and technology easily conquered Meso-Amerian civilizations that were in other ways far superior to Europe. Neolithic warriors have little chance of withstanding firearms and smallpox.

It is, however, a mistake for folks to believe that all Indian tribes and cultures were idilic, peaceful and in harmony with nature. There were as many deceitful, cruel and greedy Indians proportionately as there were Anglos. There were just many, many more Anglos than any Indian group could imagine. Some Indian tribes lived amid relative abundence, but others were constantly at death's door. Competition for tribal territory could become quite violent, but the lethality of weapons small relative to firearms.

Indians have unfortunately been the victims of stereotyping. Sometimes Indians themselves form romantic ideas that have little to do with their actual heritage. Indian languages are dying off at an alarming rate, and the number of elders able to pass on the oral traditions is declining faster than the veterans of WWII. As we enter the 21st century, Indians continue to be torn between traditional ways, romanticized Indianness, and some sort of assimulation into the dominant culture. I don't know many Indians, but those I do know have some foot in all three of those approaches. They retain some of their traditional ways and language, they are at least occasional participants in the modern Pow-Wow, and they make a living like most other Americans.

In Taos, I think I made a friend of a guy about my age. We both retired from pretty good careers in California and came home to live closer to our childhoods. He was a retired Aerospace Engineer helping a son who is in the entertainment business by selling CD's out of their Pueblo home. The family actually lives near town where electricity and running water makes life a lot easier. I retired from municipal service and moved to Albuquerque. We had a lot of things in common, and just incidently he was Indian and I am an Anglo whose family came into the Southwest before the Civil War. Just a couple of old guys comparing experiences, looking at photos of our grandchildren and huddling over a warm fire. He plays golf on a course near my home, I hope he takes me up on my invitation to come by and share a beer. Actually make that a couple of non-alcoholic beers since we both suffer from diabetes.

HI Wondercookie! Good response, good message.

BTW -- I loved Pow-Wow Highway... one of my favorite alltime movies... oh my gosh, when he gets his "war pony" and when he's up on the mountain and leaves the Hershey bar... heart-rendingly beautiful and funny and touching. I haven't seen Smoke Signals, though I've read some Sherman Alexie, so maybe I'll look around for it. What about the movie, Medicine River? I'd just come back from the Blackfeet Reservation when I saw that and I was totally amazed. Great flick!

Hope the Warm Springs is doing OK... you were hard hit by fire, right? I went to the museum there a few years ago... it was practically brand new and v. nice. The hoop dancer video was amazing!

Howdy Piffka
Yes - there are years when fire becomes a major issue on the reservation. We were blessed with enough sunshine to kill a camel (we're actually on the high desert), and that comes with consequences. A few years back, huh? I think you're talking about the Simnasho Fire? If the museum was brand new then, I think that would be the fire you're thinking about. If it is, I lost my house in that fire, ha ha! I was working at the tribal radio station, 91.9FM KWSO. I was just returning from vacationing in Nevada with my ex-wife and we saw the enormous cloud of smoke. Anyway, our home burned to ash, and all that we had left in the world were the belongings in our vehicle (which we had packed when we went to Nevada). Oh, and we had each other, too, of course...at least for another year or so, he he he.

If you ever make it back this way, let me know...I'll save you form hotel rates.

Roger - we don't live in teepees. Once a year, we put up our teepee at our Treaty Days Celebration "Pi-Ume-Sha". But there's not enough room in my teepee for my computer, my ipaq, my piano, my entertainment center, my remote controlled car, my Michael Crichton collection...so I'd rather just live in my apartment.

Asherman: I'm an Oral History Technician for the Confederated Tribes. On our reservation, our native language, Sahaptin Ichishkiin, is on the rise. Nearly any little boy or girl that you pick out of a classroom is able to speak it. Our dominant form of religious is the Longhouse Religion, or Washat - practiced even before Lewis & Clark drifted downstream. 95% of our elders have been documented in our oral history studies. I'm working on the other 5%. On the reservation, we are the "dominant culture". I see Native Americans every day.

Interesting note: the same band of Cheyenne that were victims of the Sand Creek Massacre on Nov 29th, 1864; were involved in the Nov 27th, 1868 Battle of the Washita; almost exactly four years later. This time it was George Custer who led the attack. Chief Black Kettle, who had survived Sand Creek, was killed at Washita. Black Kettle had already agreed shortly before the battle to move peacefully to a reservation. 21 cavalrymen and approximately 100 Cheyenne died in the battle. Custer ordered the village's herd of 800 horses and mules killed, so that the survivors would be forced to go to the reservation.