Four Souls.

I thought it was a very interesting book. Something that really interested me was narrative portions of Nanapush. It's difficult for me to know how I feel about him. Sometimes, especially when telling Fleur's story, he seems like a very wise man, a paragon of wisdom. At other times he acts like a fool. Especially in his relation with Margaret, he seems childish. He has this incredible grudge against this blind old man that appears rather harmless. His narration also made me wonder how much the story is supposed to bear into reality. He describes many mystical things that don't make much sense events that involve medicine powers. It makes me wonder what genre is this book? I know it is fiction, but should we go so far to believe that it is a fictional tale in a real world? Or a fictional tale in a fictional world? Just a few thoughts.

Another part that is on my mind is the whole dress. A dress with healing powers, born from a vision caused by Nanapush's malice. Made by parts untouched by the white man and therefore given great healing powers. These all have bigger themes riding on them, I'm not sure what to make of it. The idea that something completely untouched by the white man has power of healing can mean a number of things. That white man hurt, that culture heals, that nature heals. This separation from white men and healing is weird coming from a woman who is probably sewing on a linoleum floor.

Funny. Quite.

Throughout the class there has been an common emotion that keeps turning up. That emotion is anger. From Apes to the film, native americans everywhere know that there is injustice being done, and therefore they are angry. This week has been an odd change of pace from that anger, we've been looking at humor. Requiem for a Leg was just absurd, a legal battle over the possession of a lost limb. It begs the question, whether or not humor and absurdity is an effective way to convey a message. I think it does. It's great by showing the inconsistencies in the legal system through the mock trial, a message is made from mockery. The judge is so kind as to allow Native traditions pass (like the honor song and the offering to pledge on a different object) but not to honor the possession of a leg. Who would want a leg if it wasn't meaningful to them in some way? The whole battle doesn't make much sense, it feels much more like a cultural one than a legal one. Hard Riding wasn't much better. Everyone is scratching their heads trying to fit their concepts of value in a hole that doesn't fit. Appointing fools to nullify their own purpose seems counterintuitive.

Snakepeople

In "The Woman who loved a Snake" the question is brought up about the true nature of the snake. Was it a snake? Was it a person? Was it literal or metaphorical? Mabel wasn't clear about it at all, and wasn't corporative in clearing up the confusion. It leads us to believe that perhaps this snake is both a man and a snake.

But this is unlikely. Mostly because it is commonly accepted that snake people do not exist, and if they did the story would be a lot more than just about adultery. In class we explored that perhaps it is our concepts of storytelling that is the real problem. Personally, I believe that the entire story wasn't real. I don't believe her husband closed the door at night, I don't believe that a man came inside her house just they way she described it. The entire story was a metaphor but reflected behind a very real like story. But at the same time there were points of realism in there. There was obviously a man. And they obviously talked at times away from her husband. The story stands in some sort of middle ground between reality and metaphor. That's why defining the snake as real or metaphorical was so strange to Mabel, it would be inconsistent with the rest of the story.

The fact that another perspective on storytelling exists, forces us to think about stories in general. What are our expectations of stories, especially personal accounts? How is Mabel's different? Why is it so difficult for others to understand her method? In class this brought up more complex concepts of linguistics that simply made my head spin. I am aware that language plays a huge part on how one organizes the world cognitively. How Mabel's language has given her a different perspective on storytelling and perhaps even the world, I can't even imagine.

Wounded Knee

I really enjoyed the film. I loved how it looked, the found footage was amazing. I wonder how they got such good footage, the Natives probably realized that this was history they were making and that recording it was a very valuable thing to do. The only thing that bothered me was how the end became a triumph. The Natives did not get what they wanted, and ended up paying the price. Perhaps it was worth it though. Sometimes it's better to fight and lose than not to fight at all. An act of defiance reveals that the status quo is not alright and that pushing envolope will only cause problems. Is this one of those situations? I'm not so sure. The natives did gain publicity, but it was much less than it could have been because of watergate. It was violent, and people did die. It did however, establish enough publicity to create classes like this one. There is a lot more questions I would need to ask before I can properly decide if this was successful. Need to find out how the status quo changed because of this.

To the American Indian

The other day in discussion an idea came up that bothered me. Was it possible to exhibit survivance without any clear conflict? More specifically, how can one resist when it isn't clear what one is resisting from? To the American Indian seems to be written to document, and it's not clear in its purpose. Does documenting counts as survivance? If that was the case, then almost everything would be survivance, which would be redundant and problematic. The author in the American Indian makes a point to tell certain stories over others, perhaps this concept exhibits survivance better. I'm not so sure.

Popil Vuh

If there is anything I'm not good at it's names. Usually to get around this problem, I usually try to remember the first syllable of each name or connect actions with faces. This method proved problematic when reading the Popil Vuh. Thrust in a world with similar first syllabled names, repetitive actions across generations and the lack of physical descriptions, I don't believe I've ever been more confused. Most of the time I was trying to remember which boy whose name started with H was doing what at what time.