HUM 221: Russian Orthodox Natives in Alaska

Today we'll complete a circle. One of the first Native cultures we looked at, back in the winter, was that of the Unangan Aleuts who live on islands in the Bering Sea. Today we will read -- and post journals to the blog -- about the related Yup'ik Eskimos of western Alaska and the Alutiiq people of Kodiak Island and other points along the coast of Southcentral Alaska.

The Alutiiq are also known in their native language as Sugpiaq and in English as "Aleuts" (which is what the Russians called them), and many Alutiiq, especially older people, still prefer the term. Alutiiq or Sugpiaq culture was strongly influenced by the Russians, and they are still Russian Orthodox even though Alaska hasn't been Russian for 150 years. The Smithsonian Institution has an online exhibit on Alutiiq culture that gives the basics. The first section, called "About the People," is an especially good overview. Also click through the pictures in the section on "Our Beliefs," for a survey of traditional beliefs before the Russians came.

In Alaska, Russian missionaries behaved differently than Americans did in the "Lower 48." The Russians left after Alaska was sold to the United States in 1867, but many Native Alaskans are still Russian Orthodox. "At the sale of Alaska, everyone thought that orthodoxy would disappear because all the Russians left," Bishop Nikolai, the Russian Orthodox bishop of Alaska, told BBC News. "Actually quite the contrary has happened - we are now the largest church in Alaska." An online Library of Congress exhibit on The Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures explains how Russian schools embraced Native languages instead of trying to eradicate them like American schools did. After the Americans came, Alaska Native children were punished any language other than English in school -- just like children in the Lower 48 -- and the other languages are dying out now. But for many years they flourished because the Russians encouraged literacy in more than one language:

Local parish schools offered reading, writing, and arithmetic, Biblical history, penmanship, music, and, at times, as many as four languages simultaneously: Russian, Old Church Slavonic, English, and a Native language. Indeed, the stories of the many remarkable graduates of the Church system, mostly Creoles [people whose mothers were Native Alaskan and whose fathers were Russian] like the priest Iakov Netsvetov ... are among the most moving in the history of Russian America.

Netsvetov is also known as St. Iakov or, more commonly, St. Jacob. He is, to my knowledge, the only Native American who has been canonized in a Christian church.

Russian Orthodox churches put a lot of emphasis on art and music, and Native Alaskans were soon composing hymns for the Russian Orthodox liturgy. We will hear a couple of selections. First, go to the page of links to Alaska Orthodox Texts compiled by All Saints of North America Orthodox Church in Hamilton, Ont., and scroll down to Aleut Orthodox Liturgical Music collection recorded in Anchorage in 1980-1981 and on St. George & St. Paul Islands in 1980. Click on the hymn "Christ is Risen." (It's near the bottom of the page, in the first set of links under "Audio Resources." To listen in class, you'll have to use earphones.) The language is Unangan Aleut, but the hymn sounds very Russian, especially in its complex harmonies.

Our other musical selection is a "troparion" (a type of Orthodox hymn) to St. Jacob Netsvetov (click on the mp3 file included in the CD "Yup'ik Orthodox Liturgical Music from the Kuskokwim, Vol. 2). In another window, you can see an icon (holy picture) of St. Jacob and read the troparian in English translation.

Do the melodies of the Easter hymn "Christ is Risen" and the hymn to St. Jacob remind you of anything? Congregational hymns in the West, the portions of Catholic (and some Protestant) services that are sung? Gregorian chant? What is the purpose of music among groups of people? How does Western music function like the singing and drumming we heard on the pow wow video? How is it different?

Another Russian Orthodox saint, St. Herman of Alaska, came to this country from Russia in 1794. But he is revered by Alaska Natives, and he is considered the father of Orthodoxy in America since the Russians were in Alaska before Russian immigration began to the Lower 48 in the late 1800s. The Rev. Andrew Tregubov, an Orthodox priest in New Hampshire, tells of a pilgrimage to St. Herman's shrine, when he sailed

... on a fishing rig made up primarily of Alaskans. Over the roar of the giant engines and the ocean wind came a spontaneous singing of the tropar [hymn] “Blessed Herman of Alaska, North Star of Christ’s Holy Church,” that went on during much of the trip across the open sea. The deck was covered with over a hundred people singing with joy to their beloved Herman. They sang and talked about him in the present tense, as if, no – not as if, but because he was with them and for them right then and there.

On the website with his sermon, Fr. Andrew shows an icon of St. Herman, and cites two people who believe St. Herman appeared to them. One was a fishing boat skipper who says St. Herman guided him out of the water when he got drunk and fell overboard, and the other was a hiker who believes St. Herman appeared to him on Mount Denali (McKinley), warned him of bad weather coming and thus saved his life.

Do the stories that are still told about St. Herman today suggest anything about the role he and other Russian missionaries played in the transmission of Native cultures? Why do we tell stories about saints, anyway? How are they like the stories that Native Americans tell? How are they different? What role do stories, in general, play in the transmission of culture?

Painter Helen Jane Simeonoff, who is of Sugpiaq or Alutiiq heritage, has her artwork on sale in the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository in Kodiak. She consciously tries to restore traditional forms of expression, including the Sugpiaq langauge which was repressed in the schools after tbe American education system came to Alaska. So her work features seals, puffins, masks, hats, Russian Orthodox churches and other traditions. Study her work, and answer the last question.

How does an artist like Simeonoff blend Native, Russian and 21st-century American artistic traditions in their work. What does this tell you about the transmission of cultural expressions?

HUM 221: Art of the Northwest Coast

Unlike any other Native American cultural area is that of the Northwest Coast, which would include Oregon, Washington, the Canadian province of British Colombia and the Southeast coast of Alaska. They consisted of several tribes, of whom the Tlingit (pron. KLINK-et) of Alaska are perhaps the best known in the United States. But they all had certain cultural traits in common. They had plenty of food available, and a technology well suited to deep sea fishing. Their canoes, were for example, were seaworthy and beautifully ornamented. And the artistry they put into the marine technology whereby they earned their living extended into other parts of their lives. Their culture was complex, and their totem poles in particular are known worldwide as examples of the highest artistic achievement.

For background, pay a virtual visit to the Grand Hall of the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. There you will see replica housefronts and totem poles of four Canadian people in this cultural area. Click on the housefronts for more information about the houses and people, and on the links below for a variety of other information. Notice the painted decorations, the carvings, the design that goes into the Haida "button blanket." (It is related to the Chilkat blankets of Alaska.) For more background on the Northwest Coast cultures, you can read this University of Washington overview of the Tlingit and related peoples of Alaska and British Columbia. It will tell you how climate and geography affected the culture Be sure to click through to the pictures of totem poles (one is mislabeled, it shows you a man and a dog, but the others show a remarkable art form). Pay special attention to sections on housing and the matriarchal clan system.

Then visit the the website for Totem Poles: An Appreciation by Canadian author Pat Kramer. She's plugging a book, but she has a good explanation of what totem poles are, and what they mean. Some good thumbnails, too. Totem poles are still being carved. For links to several Alaskan and Canadian artists doing totem poles todaygo to the Native Languages website. The website (one of the best on Native American subjects) advises, "If you're looking for something less expensive, why not visit our Native American sculptures page instead, where there are some nice collections of beautiful Indian woodcarving ..." Good advice. Let's go there and see what we find.

But first a tangent, an important one: Are you getting a good feel for how important a traditional art form woodworking is for the First Nations of the Northwest Coast? Good. In that case you're ready to read this from the report of the superintendent of the Siletz Indian Agency in Oregon on Aug. 28, 1882. He was especially proud of a new sawmill:

... The labor in the mills is all performed by Indians with a single exception. I am pleased to say that a number of Indians, so far as I know for the first time, cut their timber, drew their logs, and sawed their own lumber without the aid of government, thus proving themselves on the road to self-support and independence, a thing of which they feel a pride.

He added:

The Indians here I find are not very unlike white people; some are willing to labor for what they have and others think they ought to be supported in their idleness. ... The Indians here as a rule learn the trades easily, perhaps more readily even than farming. There are goodly numbers who can perform service in the shops or mills, and show evidence of rapid advancement in mechanism.

No wonder! They'd been building cedar plank houses and working with wood for centuries.

In the 21st century, the art of the Northwest Coast peoples is still alive. Visit the Coghlan Studio and Gallery near Vancouver, B.C., for a highly commercial but culturally aware approach to the art. Be sure to read the history of carving and other arts, the essay on raising a new totem pole at the Royal Museum Of British Columbia in Victoria. But most Northwest Coast art now is smaller, and it branches out into other media. Surf around the Coughlan Gallery's website, visit the gift shop and the gallery to see more. Click on the thumbnails to see larger pictures of the art, or to read artist's biographies. How much are the artists charging? (Prices that say "$ ... cdn" are Canadian, and "$ ... usd" are U.S. dollars. But you would have figured that out anyway.) Think about it, review what you've read and answer this question: How have Native American artists of the Northwest Coast adapted their traditional art forms to a market economy? What strikes you most about their art? What in your background and/or taste makes you feel that way? What specific features in the design and execution of the art speak to you across cultures? What suprises you about it? Post your answers as comments to this blogpost.

HUM 221: People, architecture of the desert

We're not even going to try to cover the different styles of architecture evolved by Native American peoples in the week we've got left. Instead, I'm just going to link to a few generalizations ... and then to some examples of especially distinctive styles of architecture. Today we'll look at some adaptations made to a desert environment in Arizona.

And, of course, I'll ask you a couple of questions. Post your answers as comments to this blogpost.

Generalization. MSN's online Encarta encyclopedia says this about Native architecture: "In traditional Native American culture, the dwelling was far more than a physical shelter or what Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier called 'a machine for living.' For many Native Americans the house was a physical and spiritual representation of the universe." That's true, and it's important. But there's an endless variety of ways the universe can be represented.

Here are a few:

In Arizona, the Hohokam people developed irrigated communities with cities on platform mounds. One, along Salt River just off the Hohokam Expressway ("the 143") in what is now Phoenix, Ariz., is called "Pueblo Grande" (which means big town in Spanish: We don't know what the Hohokam called it). But here's an artist's conception of what it looked like. It's on the title page of a book that tells, in a lot of detail, how the Hohokam adapted their agriculture to the Sonoran desert. Notice how green the picture is. That's how green it was back in the day. Really.

In 1998 a Science, Technology and Culture class at the University of Denver constructed a virtual Hohokam village that explains their farming, irrigation, housing, religion, crafts and recreation. (It's ingenious. Click on the irrigation canals, for example, to read about how they watered their crops.) The Hohokam vanished during the 1400s or 1500s and left no written records. So we don't know how they saw the universe. Study the virtual village, and give it your best guess. Based on what you've learned about them, how do you think they saw the universe?

(The Hohokam, by the way, gave their name to the baseball park in Mesa where the Chicago Cubs play during spring training. The name we use for them comes from the Tohono O'odham people, who may be descended from them, and it means "the old ones" or "the ones who are used up." Cubs fans will have to decide for themselves what to make of that fact.)

Another remarkable style of architecture emerged in the same part of the country when Spanish priests founded missions where they taught Christianity and European methods of cattle ranching to the indigenous people. The mission of San Xavier del Bac (pronounced "sahn hahv-i-yer") on the Tohono O'odham reservation near Tuscon is both a functioning Catholic parish and a monument of Spanish mission architecture. The official mission website tells the history of the mission, and of the Tohono people. Read especially how Native culture and Catholicism coexist today. There's a striking set of photographs by Helga Teiwes, with text by Bernard Fontana, that shows the outpouring of artistic and religious expression at San Xavier. Read about the mission, look at the pictures and answer the question: What does the mission art tell you about the way people at San Xavier see the universe?

HUM 221 -- research project

Guidelines for paper:

1. Length is 3-5 pages, typed, double-spaced, 12pt.

2. Documented. Either MLA or APA style. Don't get obsessive-compulsive about it, but do indicate the sources of your information with a signal phrase. For example: According to the Cherokee Nations website, ..." or "Osage poet Duane BigEagle writes ..." List Works Cited at the end at least by by author, title, address.

3. Give your reaction, your response to whatever poem, story, legend, dance, type of jewelry, etc., you write about. There are several tip sheets on reader response linked to my blue faculty page.

4. Have a thesis. Make it say something. You'll never get away from English 111-112.

5. It is due Friday.

HUM 221: Cultural traditions, grandparents

Here's a website I just discovered that gives reaction to Navajo traditions by students at Huafan University in Taiwan. The traditions are in Luci Tapahonso's "Remember the Things They Told Us," which we have written about. English language students in instructor Chang Hong Bin's class were asked to journal:

Think about the stories youu have been told by your parents and grandparents, advice , stories and
rules you have been given to live by (especially if the rules were not
explained... see [stanza or paragraph] #5 in the poem). List as many stories, advice, rules as you can think of and write them down ...

The students' comments are posted below the poem. A student who gave his/her name in Chinese characters posted this:

When I was a child, elders ever told to me at the dinner table about that I should make away with rices in my bowl, or I will marry a cat-wife. I didn't ask them why they speaked so in that time, but now I realize that rice is what to them that the effort of hard working all years without rest, so we shouldn't squander it and we should treat it as precious.

I'm not sure what a "cat-wife" is (and Google wasn't any help). But it sounds like a folk tale about kids who didn't clean up their plates and married cats. Click on some of the other comments, and see what Chinese children are told by their grandparents.

How does the Chinese lore compare to the traditions in the poems by Tapahonso and Duane BigEagle we have read. How do all three compare to what you were taught from your grandparents? (My grandfather, for example, taught me the only kind of poker men ever played was five-card draw, and only girls and wimps ever called a hand with wild cards. I'm not sure what he would have thought about watching Texas hold'em games on television, but I think it's probably a good thing he didn't live to see it.) How do traditions, values, etc., handed down in families differ from those of popular culture?

HUM 221: Values, dance

Here are the questions:

1. How does "My Grandfather Was a Quantum Physicist" raise the same issues as a powwow?

2. How does the poem relate to Luci Tapahonso's poem about Navajo traditions?

3. What values do all three have in common?

Post as comments to the blog.

HUM 221: Reader response/assignment

Write a 3- to 5-page paper (750-1,200 words double-spaced in 12pt type) in which you give your response to the poem "Sháá Áko Dahjiníleh: Remember the Things They Told Us" by Dine (Navajo) poet Luci Tapahonso. We will read the poem in class today, and you can get started on your response. Linked to my faculty page are a tip sheet on how to write a reader response and a sample essay I wrote as a model of how I would do one.

As you read the poem, be asking yourself what stands out in your mind. That may be the main point of the poem, but it doesn't have to be. In "Remember the Things They Told Us," Tapahonso seems to be talking about a wide range of things she heard from her elders. Some of them are important, others I'm not sure about. That's OK. I'd focus on the ones that meant something to me. (I like the part about praying at dawn, but that doesn't mean you have to. You're not me, and the paper is about your response to the poem, not mine.) Then I'd ask myself what it is in my background that makes me feel that way. And I'd be sure to quote the passage in my analysis of the poem.

There's a three-part outline that I find helps my students engage with a poem, a painting, a song or any other work of art. (Think "engage" like gears meshing.) You'll see it in more detail as you read my tip sheets, but here are the basics:

1. Circumstances. Since you're writing about your response to a work of art, your mood and surroundings enter into the response. Do you feel the same about a song when you hear it by candle-light or when it's on the car radio in rush hour traffic? I like it, because it helps you focus on what you're feeling about the work instead of parroting what the book says about it.

2. Background. Especially when you're responding to a work of art from a different culture, you ought to say a little about the artist and his/her cultural traditions. Here it's probably enough to say Tapahonso is Navajo (with some detail about her career, etc.), and she's talking about Navajo traditions here. If you follow the link to her website, you'll find more information about her.

Analysis. This is the main part of the paper. Quote from the poem, explain what it means to you and analyze your response to it. Remember to back up your generalizations with quotations, examples and detailed analysis. Remember: An unsupported generalization is SUDDEN DEATH in college writing. You'll get more ideas for how to do the analysis part by reading my sample essay on Kinky Friedman's song.

The final paper is due the day after Easter break, April 9, at the beginning of class.

HUM 221: Proposals due Wednesday

On Wednesday, April 4, we will do two things:

1. I will collect your term paper proposals. Details below.

2. You will write the first draft of your reader response to a poem that I select for you.

But first, your proposals. Here is what I want you to do for them. In a page of double-spaced 12pt type, please tell me:

Who and/or what you plan to write about. In other words, what's your topic? If you know what you're going to say about it -- i.e. your working hypothesis -- be sure to let me know what it is. If not, a research question will do just fine.

Why did you choose that topic -- in other words, why does it interest you? Notice that this question is very similar to the first and second of the three questions I suggest that you ask yourself when writing a reader response.

You may get some ideas for what to say in your proposal by consulting an assignment sheet for the research proposal in Humanities 223, the roots music class I offer fall semesters, although it calls for a longer and more elaborate paper than I'm asking you for this semester in HUM 221.

HUM 221: Quiz on Duane BigEagle

Review Duane BigEagle's poem "Pull" on pages 59-60 in today's reading for class. Write a brief reader response and post it as a comment to this blog. Answer these questions:

1. What do you get out of the poem? What does it say to you? What stands out in your mind (which may or may not be the main theme of the poem)?

2. What in your cultural background, taste, values, etc., helps you respond to the poem? What stands as a barrier?

3. Analysis: What specific passages in the poem make you feel that response?

Take about 5 minutes to think it through, then post your answers

HUM 221: More research paper ideas

One thing I want to encourage you in your papers is to do a reader (or listener or viewer) response. Here's a tip sheet on writing one about literature and one on writing a listener response to music. Both are linked to my faculty page, and both are absolutely brilliant -- right? -- because I wrote them. Both tell you when you engage, or respond to, a work of art, you ask yourself three questions:

1. What stands out here? What's my main impression? What do I get out of this work? What speaks to me? It may be the main theme of the work, or it may be something else that's particularly relevant to your experience.

2. What in my background makes me feel that way? Especially if you're responding to something from another culture, what is there in my culture, my world view, etc., that enables me to reach across cultures and respond to it?

3. What, specificually, in the work do I respond to? This is where you get into your analysis. Especially when you're responding to it across cultures, you may want to get into its meaning in its original culture (a healing chant, for example) and its meaning in ours (perhaps an aesthetic statement).

Here are some more writers that would lend themselves to a reader response:

Joy Harjo. She's of Creek/Muscogee heritage, writes poetry and plays tenor sax in what has been described as a "tribal, jazz, reggae, and rock" style. Often she strikes a note of self-discovery and reconciliation.

Simon Ortiz. A Pueblo Indian from New Mexico, a lot of Ortiz' poetry on line. For what it's worth, he's my favorite poet. Also the only poet I know of who has published a poem that is also a chili recipe. Maybe the two facts are connected.

Sherman Alexie. A Spokane and Coeur d'Alene novelist, poet, filmmaker and satirist of . Very funny, with a sharp edge to his humor. If you can't laugh at yourself, you may not enjoy him. But if you keep reading (or watching), you'll learn to laugh at yourself. And that's a skill we all need to develop!

Tony Hillerman. He isn't an Indian, but he writes mystery novels about the Navajo Tribal Police in northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona. Some Native writers think he expropriates their culture and doesn't give back enough. (Alexie is one of his critics.) But his novels are critically acclaimed, and they're based on careful research into contemporary Navajo culture.

Navajo Blessingway. This is a traditional Navajo (Dine) song that brought blessings to those for whom it was sung. It has influenced many writers (including Joy Harjo and Tony Hillerman), and is often found in translation as a poem. It has also been expropriated as sort of a New Age baby shower, especially in northern California, but without the approval of traditional Navajo people. The traditional blessingway is deeply grounded in Navajo spirituality, as Sr. Pamela Clare CSF points out in Franciscan magazine.

HUM 221: Research paper topics

We're going to have two papers in Humanities 221 this spring. Each will be about five pages in length, although you can go longer if you want to.

The first will be a reaction paper or response paper to a poem or other piece of creative writing that I will assign you in the next few days. In it you will do three things: (1) write about the circumstances in which you read the work of literature; (2) give some background on the work and its cultural milieu; and (3) analyze your response to the work and what specifically in the work caused you to feel that way about it.

The second will be a five- to eight-page research project. You can take an artist (a term I use to include artists, writers, musicians and anybody else who is "doing" art), a work of art, a genre (like totem poles for example) or the way a historical theme like the Trail of Tears is reflected in the arts. I would urge you to use the same general outline -- i.e. circumstances, background and analysis -- that you did in the response paper. It is due in class Friday, April 20.

One last written project: Our final exam will be in class the last day of classes, Monday, April 30. If you have a solid A in the course, you don't have to take the final.

Here is a link to some suggestions I made last year for papers in HUM 221. (Scroll down till you get to February 2006. Be patient and keep scrolling -- the first post you see on the new page will be this one, followed by something about an ice storm back in the fall. The blogposts you want will be toward the bottom and they'll have something about HUM 221 term papers in the headline.) They'll work just as well again this year.

Pozole luterano (Lutheran potluck posole)

Posted here to the blog so I won't forget it is a recipe for what I like to call "Lutheran Potluck Posole" and Pastor Jon Berg of Springfield's Atonement Lutheran Church calls "Taco Soup." His name is no doubt more accurate (especially since it's his recipe), but I like mine because the recipe does taste a lot like authentic New Mexico posole.

Here's the ingredients:

• Hominy (pozole in Spanish, whence the name), a can
  
• Ground beef, a pound or so
  
• Beans, a can or two (red, black and/or pinto)
  
• Tomato, a can
  
• Chopped onion
  
• Hidden Valley ranch dressing, a dry packet
  
• Taco seasoning
  
• Garlic and pepper to taste

Combine ingredients in a slow cooker, and turn on the power switch. Easy enough? Like any other soup or stew, the longer you let it cook the better it will taste.

If you're looking for something more authentic, there are several good recipes on the World Wide Web. Do Google keyword searches on both "posole" and "pozole," the Spanish spelling. Posole is a traditional Mexican food with a long history. It is traditionally served during the holidays.

HUM 221: Quiz on Gogisgi

Please answer these questions ... post them as comments to this blogpost.

1. How did Gogisgi get his name? What does it mean?

2. How is his life story typical of what you'd expect for an American Indian? How is it different?

3. What surprised you about the reading?

We will read some of Gogisgi's poetry in class today. Be ready to compare and contrast to: (1) the traditional Cherokee stories we looked at Friday; and (2) the poems in Native American Songs and Poems, edited by Brian Swann, that I asked you to bring to class today.

HUM 221: Introductory links, Cherokee stories

We'll start the second half of the semester by studying the Cherokee people. Several of you said on your midterms you have Cherokee Indians among your ancestors and/or you're just interested in learning more about them.

The Cherokee are important for several reasons. More than most Indian nations, they adapted to the white man's culture as early as the 1830s. After they were removed from their ancesteral home in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia to Oklahoma, they continued to assimilate their culture to white norms. Did you know, for example, the first college for women west of the Mississippi River was founded by Cherokee Indians? It is now Northeastern Oklahoma State University in Tallequah.

In the beginning ...

Most standard histories will tell you the Cherokee are a branch of the Iroquoian family of nations, that they probably migrated south from the same general area occupied in historic times by the Iroquois Confederation, perhaps farther west, and that their culture at the time of contact with white explorers (Hernando de Soto in the 1540s) was Mississippean. That means it was similar to that of the Cahokia mounds in Illinois.

This is all true, but it's not the way the Cherokee tell their history.

Let's start with the best source(s). The federally recognized Cherokee Indian tribal governments both have collections of stories, myths and legends on their websites. Read a creation myth told by traditional Cherokee people in Oklahoma. Does anything in it remind you of other stories of how the world was created? Compare it to the creation myth told by Cherokee people in North Carolina, whose ancestors hid in the mountains and weren't removed on the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee Nation has an extensive collection of traditional stories. In addition, the Eastern Band Cherokee have collected several as well.

Some more sources (good to remember since you have term papers coming up). If you want to know more about Cherokee beliefs, a valuable resource is the summary of Cherokee religion in the Overview of World Religions maintained by St. Martin's College in England. It's kind of dry, but very, very factual. By the way, St. Martin's also has links to similar overviews of Inuit (Eskimo), Choctaw, Navajo, Hopi, Blackfeet, Cheyenne and Sioux religion, as well as the Native American Church.

If you're interested in stories of how the world was made, there's a very complete set of links on the Indigenouspeople.net website. Check out how many of them involve a great flood. How many bells do these stories ring?

HUM 221: Commodification, expropriation

Two key concepts in our study of Native American cultural expression this semester are commodification and expropriation.

Of the two, commodification is the easier to define. It means just about what you'd expect it to by analyzing the word roots: It's making a commodity out of something, turning it into something that can be bought and sold. If you get great-grandma's old butter churn down out of the attic and sell it to an antique dealer, you're commodifying it. To some degree, it's inevitable in a market ecomomy. It can get to be a problem, however, if the buyer isn't sensitive to -- or aware of -- its original use. Or when religious values hold that some things shouldn't be sold. Some Iroquois masks, for example, are used only in healing rituals. To offer them for sale would violate Iroquois spiritual and religious traditions. (The word also applies to espresso stands, apparently. Follow this link to see how Starbucks "commoditizes" its retail outlets, at least according to one company exec.)

Expropriation is a little tricker. Basically, it means taking an art form out of its original culture. If a homeowner from Chicago buys great-grandma's butter churn and turns it into a lamp stand, for example, he's expropriating the art form -- turning it into something different. If a white college gymnast performs American Indian dances as halftime entertainment an athletic event, he's expropriating them and turning them into something different by removing them from their culture. Like commodification, some degree of expropriation is inevitable in a free market society. Elvis Pressley and Emimem both made music history by expropriating African American art forms. Again, however, it can be controversial.

Here's a passage from Chicago gospel singer Mahalia Jackson's autobiography that shows a common reaction to expropriation and commodification by more traditional artists.

One evening not long ago I was in New York City doing some shopping. As I walked down a street in Greenwich Village where I like to go look for peieces of ebony statuary, I suddenly heard this singing with a gospel beat.

I looked in the door of a nightclub and there was a Negro girl with her hair bleached red-blond swinging a gospel song that I had first heard as a little girl in a Holiness Church in New Orleans. The place was packed with white people who were laughing and eating and drinking and hand-clapping. Barteners were beating out the rhythm of the song on church tambourines and waitresses were even using tambourines as trays to serve drinks!

It was a sight and made me so sad and so sick that I'll never forget it. The dignity of a colored church and of all religion was being debased so that a few people soulc make some fast money.

When they take gospel singing into nightclubs and put out "pop gospel" records, they are blaspheming against the Holy Ghost. I make two kinds of gospel song records -- one for Negroes who like to tap their feet, and one for those who like religious songs sung to them. But I would never sing a song to be laughed at or to help sell a bottle of whiskey! (105-08).

Not everyone would agree with Mahalia Jackson here. In fact, some evangelists prefer to go out in the world to spread their message. But her attitude is common, and I think it has to be respected.

At the same time, I have to wonder about those ebony statues Jackson was shopping for in Greenwich Village. They sound to me like an African art form; if they were, and they were on sale in New York, there had to be some expropriation and commodification going on. Maybe the key to it, all way around, is respect.

Works CitedJackson, Mahalia, and Evan McLeod Wylie. Movin' on Up. New York: Hawthorn, 1966.

Black Hawk War -- your questions

Please post your answers as comments to this blog ...

1. Were there any preconceptions, stereotypes or just plain wrong ideas the Indians had about the whites that helped lead to the conflict?

2. Were there any preconceptions, stereotypes or just plain wrong ideas the whites had about the Indians that helped lead to the conflict?

3. Were Was there any point where someone could have headed off the fighting? Who? When? Why? What could they have done or said to do so?

HUM 221: Values (Attention, Kmart shoppers ... midterm writers)

I promised you some heavy-duty, industrial-strength hints about what's going to be on the midterm ... which is in class Monday, March 5. It'll be an essay test, open book (which means you can bring in notes, use the Internet, just about anything short of bringing in a ringer to write it for you)!

If we're still having trouble with the wireless connection, BTW, you might think about photocopying the stuff ¥ou need from the Internet.

There will be three questions. All essay questions.

A 50-pointer. I don't have the question framed yet, but it will have something to do with the "First Thanksgiving" myth and the webpages on values of the Haudenesaunee people, Alaska Natives and especially a page from Blue Cloud Abbey in South Dakota on the differences between Lakota and European-American values. What were the Pilgrim's values expressed in the historical fact, in the legend? What were (are) the Wampanoag people's regarding Thanksgiving. What purpose does the myth serve in helping us sort out our values now as 21st century Americans?

A "self-reflective" 25-point question. In this one, you talk about what you knew about Native American cultures when you started the class, what you know now (clearest point so far) and what you want to learn next (or the most confusing point). Here's what I say in a tip sheet on reflective essays linked to my faculty page. (You can find it way down on the blue page, under "Writing and Editing" links. It mentions other courses I teach, since it's written for all my students, but you can adapt it to our course content in HUM 221:

A "content" course is a course in which you learn about a subject area -- like American Indian cultures and the history of their interaction with European-Americans, for example, or the basic principles of advertising and public relations. So you focus on the course objectives: What did you know about the mass media, U.S. history, the newspaper business, advertising, public relations or integrated marketing strategies at the beginning of the semester? What, specificaly, do you know at the end? What, specifically, have you learned? How does it fit in with what you already knew, as a media consumer or a college student?

To get ready for this, think about what we've learned so far. What was the clearest point? What still needs to be explained?

A second 25-pointer. This one will have something to do with the Trail of Death. What does the information we read in class, especially the Sangamo Journal article from 1838, tell you about the attitudes of European-Americans toward the Potowatami people at the time of the march, and during the commemorations in recent years? How have attitudes changed? What does this history tell you about America as a multicultural society?

Extra credit? Sometimes I'll add a goofy little question to see if people have been listening in class. Sometimes not.

You'll be writing a lot in class Monday ... 750 words (2-3 pages typewritten) on the 50-point question and 250 words (1 to 1-1/2 pages) on the 25-pointers. To study for this kind of test, read over the material and be ready to find it fast so you can quote it when you start writing. These midterm essays are like English 111 essays -- if you make a point, you have to back it up with facts. Unsupported generalizations are sudden death in college writing.

HUM 221: Kickapoo village and pow wow

Not far from Bloomington in McLean County, a pow wow, or Native American dance competition, is held every year to commemorate a Kickapoo Indian village located there before the Kickapoo were moved out in 1832. It began with a McLean County farmer and his wife, who wanted to block a hog farm on the adjacent property, and has evolved into a 501(3)(c) corporation called the Grand Village of the Kickapoo Park. Since 1998, Kickapoo Indians from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Mexico have returned to the ancestral homeland for the Grand Village pow wow. You can read all about it on the Grand Village website. But there's more.

In 1998 an anonymous member of the Midwest SOARRING Foundation (a public education and advocacy organization which stands for Save Our Ancestors Remains & Resources Indigenous Network Group) posted an account of the Homecoming of the Kickapoo Nation Pow Wow and Dedication of the Grand Village of the Kickapoo Park. And syndicated newspaper columnist Patrisia Gonzales, who is of Kickapoo heritage, wrote about what it felt like to return to her ancestors' home for the pow wow. Watch the Grand Village website and the Midwest SOARRING Foundation's calendar of events for more information about this year's pow wow, which is scheduled June 2-3.

Background.One of the main bands of Kickapoo Indians lives now in Texas. And Texas anthropologist R.E. Moore has a website on Texas Indians that profiles several peoples, including the federally recognized (since 1983) Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas. Moore points out the Kickapoo started out in Michigan, and kept moving south and west rather than blend their culture in with that of white Americans. Other bands live in Kansas and Oklahoma, but none in Illinois. Today theirs are considered one of the most traditional of American Indian cultures. Says Moore:

... the Kickapoo still spend a lot of time on their traditional land [adjacent to the Texas community] in Mexico. It is in Mexico that they are able to maintain their traditional way of life. They perform all their important ceremonies there and their houses are set up according to tribal custom. The Kickapoo have come a long way in order to maintain their own customs and beliefs. Kinda like the pilgrims did.

Pilgrims. Indians. Customs and beliefs. Something to think about. How are the Kickapoo like the pilgrims? How are they different?

An important footnote (parts of which are very, very likely to be on the midterm and final). Moore's website is for elementary school kids, but his writing isn't too annoying, and he tells the kids some things that most adults don't even try to learn. If you want to know how Native American cultures are organized (and you do, because it's absolutely basic to HUM 221), read his introduction to anthropology and Native cultures. It wouldn't hurt to read his introduction for teachers, too. It's good on stereotypes, and equally good on writing for the internet.

Another question. As you read about the Kickapoo Grand Village Pow Wow, does it suggest anything a state university in Illinois might have considered doing if it really wanted to "honor" Native American dance?

HUM 221: Indigenous people in Russia

Some of the history we are studying this semester played out in other nations worldwide as Europeans fanned out over the globe after the 1400s, established colonies and over the centuries dominated the indigenous people -- that is, the people who lived there before. Read this report by British Broadcasting Corp. foreign correspondent Chloe Arnold on what's happening to indigenous languages in Siberia. She sums it up like this:

The vast expanse of the Russian Federation, from the Kola Peninsula in the north west to the Sea of Chukotka in the north east, is home to 41 indigenous peoples.

They have evocative names like the Saami, the Nganasan, the Itelmen, the Ulchi and the Tuvinian Todzhins. The area they have traditionally inhabited makes up more than half of the entire territory of Russia.

But today their numbers are dwindling, and their languages are dying out. Some have never even been written down.

One of the problems is a Russian-only policy in the schools. Arnold continues:

In most of the tribes ... it is now only the older generation that still speaks the language. Over the last few decades, many of Russia's indigenous people have given up their traditional lifestyles and moved to towns and cities instead.

But Rodion Sulyandzige, the director of the support group [mentioned in the BBC report], says that the rigorous education programme of the Soviet period is also to blame for the demise of so many languages.

"At the beginning of the school year, the authorities would round up all the children of the native tribes and pack them off to boarding schools," he told me.

"They had no contact with their parents or their families, and so they quickly lost their mother tongues and picked up Russian instead."

Keep this in the back of your mind as we learn about boarding schools for American Indians and read what American Indian writers have to say about the experience.

The "Beeb" (as the BBC is also known) had a report on Saami people on Kola Peninsula back in December. (Their name is also spelled "Sami," as it is in the December story.) Read it, too, and compare it to Native American peoples. What is the same? What's different?

HUM 221 -- links -- Trail of Death

Links to some resources on the Potawatomi Trail of Death below. But first, the questions for today's quiz:

1. At what restaurant in downtown Springfield did people eat lunch while they were retracing the Trail of Death in 2003?

2. Why was the Trail of Death called by that name?

3. What were the Indians promised if they looked presentable when they marched through Springfield?

4. Who was Fr. Benjamin Petit? Where and when did he die? What does he tell you about Potawatomi culture of the 1830s? Why is he important to the story of the Trail of Death?

Now, here are the links ... in no logical order (unless Google has some logic to its directory that escapes me at the moment).

The Prairie Band of the Potawatomi Nation has a map and a list of historical markers commemorating the Trail of Death. Look for markers near Springfield and nearby cities. Also take a look at the official website of the Prairie Band, and follow the links to their history and the flier for their 2006 pow wow. Notice all the dance contests.

The Fulton County (Ind.) Historical Society's diary of the Trail of Death has a brief, but detailed account of the journey. Read it from start to finish to get an idea of the hardship involved. What do you make of the treatment the Potawatomi received in Jacksonville?

An educational project from Urbana School District 116 has several first-hand or primary sources on the Trail of Death. Read especially the story in The Sangamo Journal (which is misspelled on the website, incidentally). What does the Journal's description of the Potawatomi and their fear of the Cherokee tell you about white attitudes toward Indians during the 1830s?

Indiana's Fulton County Historical Society has posted an account of its commemorative caravan across Illinois in September 2003. What does their caravan tell you about attitudes toward Indians today? The historical society's website also has accounts of the caravan in Indiana, Missouri and Kansas.