Post your answers to these questions as a comment to today's blog post:
1. What does this DNA research tell you about the way the first people got to Alaska and how they lived? Link to http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/rural/southeast/story/636254.htmlRead each other's comments. We will discuss in class Monday.
2. What does this story about Raven tell you about the way the first people got to Alaska and how they lived? Link to http://www.indians.org/welker/beginnin.htm
Here's today's (Friday's) original post:
How did human beings get to North America? Depends on who you ask.
Ask Larry J. Zimmerman and Brian Leigh Molyneaux, authors of our textbook "Native North America," and you'll get the discussion on pages 14-17. I don't want to deprive you of the joy of reading it, so I'll just point it out to you. It'll tell you about archaelogical evidence of human activity dating back about 15,000 years, giving rise to a theory that human beings migrated from Asia across what is now the Bering Strait to America. But it'll also tell you about Native American origin stories that say "people have occupied the land since the beginning of time" (16). In a word, it's a controversial subject.
It's even more controversial if we try to frame it in terms of science vs. traditional mythology.
Here, for example, is a myth about some of the Northwest Coast Indians received food and drink from Raven in the time of creation. Raven is sort of a trickster god, and it's a great story. Raven is a favorite character in Northwest Coast and Eskimo mythology, in fact, but his stories are not a scientific exploration into the origins of culture along the coast.
(Tangent: Diane Tipton, a Montana fish, wildlife and parks information officer, has an interesting article suggesting ravens are pretty cool birds, and suggesting the "Raven Myths May Be Real." They are cool. When they caw, they sound almost human. It's eerie. Tangent No. 2: I really like ravens.)
In almost every one of these Native American origin or creation myths, the people have always been in the same place. And in most, the Creator specifically put them where they are now. There's nothing in them about migrating from Asia, and traditional storytellers resent it when they're told their stories aren't true simply because there's not scientific evidence for them.
In a website on Native American Languages that I recommend highly, Orrin Lewis discusses how he reconciles science and mythology surrounding the Bering Strait theory. Lewis, who is Cherokee, compares the myths to the Hebrew creation story in the Book of Genesis and says:
If you asked most Indians in some respectful manner, I think you'd find most of them wouldn't have a problem reconciling a philosophical belief that we have lived here since time immemorial with natural evidence that we arrived here at least 20,000 years ago. Why shouldn't they both be true? The Creator is great, we don't always understand the whole world.The main thing, to me, is the science and the mythology can be reconciled. Link here to a post on this blog suggesting some of the Northwest Coast Indians came from the sea and followed the coast to South America. It doesn't disprove the Bering Strait theory. It just adds to it.
But now the problem is, most of us have not been asked this in a respectful manner. ...
Important footnote. Zimmerman and Molyneaux also discuss a different attitudes toward time held by people in cultures derived from Western Europe -- including ours as Americans -- and most traditional, or indigenous, peoples worldwide. We see time as kind of a straight line. It started way back then, and it keeps going up to now. And it'll keep on going into the future. But indigenous people including "many Indian groups conceive of the passage of time not as linear but as circular, marked by the birth, growth, maturity, death and regeneration of all things that share the earth -- plants, animals, people" (12). Past and present don't mean, in a traditional world view, exactly what they mean to us. It's not that one's right and one's wrong, they're just different.
18 comments:
1.It tells us that everyone originates from Africa and slowly spread out all across the world. they moved across the berhring strait from asia to alaska.
2. it tells us that Raven is the whole reason why rivers are crooked and how he created the earth.
1. The article talks about all life originating in Africa and migrating from there. The people would have come from Asia, but it does not specify whether it was by a land bridge or by sea. The body was accompanied by tools that a mariner would have, so it is likely he came by sea.
2. In the Raven story it just says there was a beginning. There is no mention of a migration. The Raven supplied the water and fish to the people. The Raven used to be white but was blackened by the smoke when he was stealing water. These people worshipped the Raven like a god.
Heaten Team had recovered bones and by this they were able to indicated what the people did, what they ate , and also the age it said this in paragraph 12-13
1. The research suggests that the Tlingits were two separate populations, one in Washington state/British Columbia, the other in Alaska. The people in Washington/B.C. were pushed north by white people moving in on their land.
2. The story about the Raven showed us that they lived a very superstitious life and they believed the Raven gave them everything in the world.
it tells how the raven and the crow symbolizes two didfferen groups
1. The DNA shows that these people did exist at one time and shows what they do to survive. There are many theories, but no one can be 100% sure on what they did or do to survive in Alaska.
2. The story of the Raven shows the Alaskans values and culture. The Raven showed how the people expanded because the Raven gave them rivers of water for them to migrate.
1.What does this research tell you about how the first people got to Alaska?
-Some of the people may have migrated by accident. For example, the man who died in his prime was found to be a long-distance traveler or a mariner. When researchers found his remains, they found that his primary food source came from the sea. Some scientists say that some that first Alaskans stayed behind in the North.
2.What does this story about Raven tell you about the way the first people got to Alaska and how they lived?
-In the story called "In the Beginning", it's told that Raven flew into Ganook a great,white creature but left black as the endless sky. In a sense, this story tells how selfish the first people may have been coming to Alaska. In the story, Raven comes looking for water. And when it's finally found, he treats himself without thinking of anyone else. I believe that's how most of the first people ended up setting onto Alaska in the first place. It could have been for another reason/resource that they set, but whatever the resource was it had to be scarce. In my opinion, even though the resource may have been extremely scarce, it wasn't necessarily right for Raven to only think about himself. He had to think about, at some point, that other settlers would come. In the end, maybe that's the reason why we're finding their remains to this day, because of scarcity and a bit of selfishness.
1)The article is about life first was in Africa before spreading across the Berhing srait from Asia to Alaska. The article didn't mention how they came here. But I assume they came by water, from reading the story.
2)In the Raven story it talks about the beginning. It talks about how the Raven the supplied the water and also the fish. These people believed that the Raven supplied everything.
1. From the DNA research, they have came to find that the migrations originate from Africa. Artifacts show that the humans had a knowledge of marine skills from the tools they have found buried.
2. In the Raven, the humans are shown more as the animal while the raven is symblized as almost a "god" to them. The raven is who supplied the fish to them, and soon the water. Humans are shown as being helpless in this story. As far as the migration, I do not see anything except for the story of the men that Raven tells Ganook, but no location or point seems to be discussed.
1.Different populations that mirgated to different places carried different sets of mutations which were categorized into to differnt groups.
2.The people basically started out with nothing,eating nuts and leaves livin gin a soft darkness. Until the raven com e along and rescused them and supplied with anyhtinhg that they needed or wanted to live better.
1.) People migrated north from africa then spread east and west across asia and europe. They then spread to the americas by traveling on glaciers from asia to alaska. They then migrated south from there. These people ate mostly fish and lived by the sea.
2.) The raven story doesnt give great detail about how the people got where they were. It just says they came soon to live on the coast. These people ate nuts and leaves and drank from the roots of trees. They did this until the raven gave them fish and stole water and used it to make rivers for them to drink from.
1.It states that everyone originates from Africa and spreads out across the world.
2. The Raven is superstitious and believes in his values and made the Earth.
1.) the article tells us that everyone comes from Africa and they have spead across the world. they went across the berhring strait from asia to Alaska.
2.) In the Raven story it just tells us about the beginning and how the raven supplied the water and fish to the people.
1) The main topic of this article talks about how the people migrated from Africa and then some ended up in Alaska because of exploration. The article also mentions the Bering Strait and how they used that to travel.
2)The Raven story talks about how it supplied the people with water and fish. They worshiped the Raven because of how it helped them out it many different ways.
1. The people that migrated to Alaska came from parts of Africa. The Tlingits were made up of two differend populations. There is nothing that shows for sure how they lived, but they got to Alaska by the behring straight.
2. The Raven showed how there was a beginning. The people recieved everything that they had from the Raven. The people looked up to the Raven as their creator of all.
1. The DNA says that at one point people really did live there at that point in time. They migrated from Africa and the best way for them to get around is by walking.
2. They talk about how in the beggining there was nothing and then the raven came along to help to create the rivers and streams so the people could survive.
1. what i got from this article was that although there are many types of people we all originated from Africa. Most migrated north out of Africa, then east and west across Asia,Europe, and eventually into North America.
2.The Raven was like a god in their culture. They worshipped him to make thing right when they where goin bad.
Post a Comment