This is a small town, a cow town you could call it. We have one high school, 2 Starbucks, and the west coast's largest three day rodeo. Its a culturally isolated place.
One story that I heard was growing up what that of Ishi, the last of the Indians. It was a name that was always followed by that phrase(or some version of it), and said with a sort of quiet reverence. What little I gleaned thought many years of sub par social studies and history classes is that somehow a person had grown up, and lived most of his life outside of what we consider "society". This "wild man" was taken in by the scientific community of the times and studied. Beyond that I didn't know much, to be perfectly honest I didn't care.
This blog post is about our choice of name for this blog. I chose No People to Name Me. Purportedly this was the explanation that Ishi gave to the researcher Alfred Kroeber when asked why he had no name. Ishi was the last of his kind. This single living link to his history and his people. I cant even began to imagine the burden that must have been. How crushingly and oppressive the knowledge that you are it. The last holdout against the invasion. How do you continue? How do you go on?
I think that most people have felt alone in their lives. Depression, death, a breakup, however trivial it is human nature to feel isolated. It is what drives us to be social. It is what forces us to interact. I can not sympathize with Ishi. Nothing that has happened in my life could allow me to understand that depth of emotion. I can only take what I have experienced and try to empathize.
We all feel alone, but what does alone truly mean? With this blog I want to expand my own knowledge of a culture that I admittedly know little about. I strive to expand my knowledge of peoples lives and peoples experiences. Even if it is not something that does not relate my my own people and history it is my job to learn as much as I can, if for no other reason but to understand more.
From the readings that we have done so far I think the most striking aspect is the format of the literature. Coming from a traditional western perspective reading though a non linear text for the first time can be a little confusing. Despite the confusion the stories themselves are really interesting. Reading a creation story is a really good way to learn about how a culture views the world an themselves. The fallibility of the gods is really interesting to me. Viewing the creators as entities that make mistakes shows a level of self awareness that seems to be lacking in traditional "western" culture.
I completely agree with the fact that reading a story that is told in a non-linear form can be really hard to follow, especially since we western-worlder's are not used to this type of text. I also agree that western culture really lacks any awareness of the fact that everyone makes mistakes.
ReplyDeleteI too hope to expand my knowledge on the cultures of indigenous people. Most of us have never even met a person from these cultures such as the Mayan, Inca, Menominee, Powhatan-Renape, Chippewa and so on. We are reaching out to absorb what cultural aspects we can from a few pieces of literature that we read. It is almost strange to think this is all we can gain in terms of a sense of who they are, from people we've never seen before. We cannot (most of us) go to where they live, cannot see what their life is like and hear how they interact with one another. As westerners we tend to have this impression that our culture will be around forever. Yet we as a culture just got here, we just became more civil and somewhat tolerant of each other. These indigenous cultures have been surviving here thousands of years before us. That sounds like a good reason to learn from them, to me.
ReplyDeleteTo start off, I really like the name of your blog. I wish that I had thought of something that is as meaningful as yours. It is quite sad to not have a name for yourself because you are the last of your kind. When I think about my own culture, I feel as if it is also dying and it scares me to even think about that. What's funny is that my people is still around and the culture is still alive but the teenagers of this generation do not seem as if they will past on the culture to their children. It saddens me to see that happen to other cultures, but mostly to mine, especially one that is already struggling to survive.
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