Interesting.
Is this another version of
backsliding on the part of individuals who come to Indian communities
enthusiastically write books and make assertions and then go away and become
more conservative (Western) in their thought? Not a noun but a
verb. An attitude, just a sense of mood that stirs a feeling and
creates an action.
It was Peat who wrote on page six of
his book about the validity of "Indigenous Science."
He said that "Indigenous Science can never be reduced to a catalogue
of facts or a database in a supercomputer, for it is a dynamic and living
process, an aspect of the ever-changing, ever-renewing processes of
nature."
Subject: RE: NYTimes.com Article: Indian Languages:
Tending the Flame
Arthur said:
> The wonders of the net. I sent this to
David Peat who wrote the bio of
> David Bohm and he sent back as follows:
>
> ===========================
> Arthur
> somewhat garbled.
> The Rheomode part is correct. I invited Bohm to a dialogue between
> Native American elders and Western scientists. It was there that Bohm
> learned about the Algonkin family of languages - Micmac, Blackfoot, Cree,
> Ojibwaj, Cheyenne. These are strongly verb-based and present the world
> as a flux. Bohm realised that they used something similar to his
> Rheomode.
> David Bohm and he sent back as follows:
>
> ===========================
> Arthur
> somewhat garbled.
> The Rheomode part is correct. I invited Bohm to a dialogue between
> Native American elders and Western scientists. It was there that Bohm
> learned about the Algonkin family of languages - Micmac, Blackfoot, Cree,
> Ojibwaj, Cheyenne. These are strongly verb-based and present the world
> as a flux. Bohm realised that they used something similar to his
> Rheomode.
You can be the judge about
"garbled"
I said: David Bohm
the physicist was trying to invent a language that could admit the
realities of quantum physics. He called it
Rheomode. Before he died he found an extant language that
did. It was the Algonquin of the Mic-Mac people and
he found it because of a Mic-Mac physicist who visited him in the hospital.
he found it because of a Mic-Mac physicist who visited him in the hospital.
Peat said: (my
underline)
"A few months before his death, Bohm met with a number of Algonkian speakers and was struck by the perfect bridge between their language and worldview and his own exploratory philosophy. What to Bohm had been a major breakthrough in human thought --quantum theory, relativity, his implicate order and rheomode--were part of the everyday life and speech of the Blackfoot, Mic Maq, Cree, and Ojibwaj." Lighting the Seventh Fire, F. David Peat pg. 238
Peat continued:
> The MicMaq man would be Sa'ke'je Henderson (actually Cheyenne but living
> on the MicMaq reserve. He never visited Bohm in hospital. Probably this
> is a garbled version of the bio I wrote where Sa'ke'je and Leroy Little
> Bear said Bohm was ill and during the passing of the peace pipe they
> would give some of their energy to him.
> The MicMaq man would be Sa'ke'je Henderson (actually Cheyenne but living
> on the MicMaq reserve. He never visited Bohm in hospital. Probably this
> is a garbled version of the bio I wrote where Sa'ke'je and Leroy Little
> Bear said Bohm was ill and during the passing of the peace pipe they
> would give some of their energy to him.
I asked: Do you
think American physicists will study Algonquin? Dream
on.
If Peat speaks
Algonquin I have only one thing to say: "Migwetch" or as my people say Wado
(Thank you). It is always better to speak the language that
you write about if possible. I would be interested in how he
has found it to match the quantum issues that Bohm was concerned
about.
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
(founded the NY Museum of Natural History) and Louis Cass
(Governor, Secretary of War and Indian "expert") were
unable to master the Anishnabe Algonquin and still wrote about it even to the
point of inventing the term "Hunter/Gatherer" and sending Western science off in
the opposite direction of Indian culture in relation to Agricultural and
Forestry technology that was highly developed by Indian people throughout the
Americas. It still hasn't recovered and Anthropology has
fallen in love with the term Hunter Gatherer until it is now included in the
current American Heritage Dictionary. (as of Am Her.
II) Cass's description of Algonquin is the complete
opposite to Peat's in that he claims that it can never be
"scientific." Of course Cass's science is not
Quantum Mechanics. History is
tough.
The Bohm event's
actors were garbled in my memory but not the process. Books are
a way of remembering just such facts but memory is for process and underlying
systems. I don't believe that was garbled at
all. The process is that in the flow of time the Elders came
from Pam Colorado and Leroy Little Bear, as I understand it.
That was a seamless line which led to Bohm's
meeting. Page 238 is also the prior page to Peat's
complete exposition of what he understands Indigenous Science to be, which was a
pretty good chapter.
But I'm an Artist and
my "Science" holistically serves that talent not the
reverse. I never read the "bio" Peat refers to, in fact
I haven't read anything else that Peat has written except something on a
web site a couple of years ago and I don't remember that.
Cuckoos plant their eggs in other birds nests, kick out the original bird's eggs
and then leave while the bird roosts and feeds the Cuckoo's children
to maturity. That is the way to the extinction of many
species. I'm a little tired catching worms these days for
those strange children.
Ray Evans Harrell
P.S. I have now wasted too much
time on this documenting thing. You have to do it because these
things end up all over the net and if you don't then it can be hell to pay in
the future. But, I have a paper to read on "From
Mockingbirds to Cuckoos, the History of Interaction from 1491 to the
Present" for American Indian History Month at a college on Long Island and
they can't find a projector for my graphics, so enough. REH
Pp.Ss. a further note for F.
David. If the 7th Fire book goes into revision, excise that
terrible metaphor about the Wizard of Oz on page 39. We all have a
problem with L.Frank Baum. Read his Newspaper around the time
of the Wounded Knee Massacre and you will understand. A
Sundancer with my father wrote that Artists are the Indians of the White
world. I would suggest that enfolding and unfolding is something
that is done all the time in the arts and if the Western Man understood his own
culture better he might have less of an issue with verbs, processes and
flexibility. That is what people in the theater do when they
move works from one era into another and composers do implicate, enfold and
unfold and many other things as well in the use of structure in Western
music. But first find another metaphor for that toxic Dorothy
and her tutu. REH
>
> ================================
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ray Evans Harrell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Sunday, November 17, 2002 11:32 AM
> To: futurework
> Subject: Fw: NYTimes.com Article: Indian Languages: Tending the Flame
>
>
>
>
> Ah, for the future of some real value work. Selma sent this to me and I
> thought I would forward it to the list with this comment. David Bohm the
> physicist was trying to invent a language that could admit the realities of
> quantum physics. He called it Rheomode. Before he died he found an
> extant language that did. It was the Algonquin of the Mic-Mac people and
> he found it because of a Mic-Mac physicist who visited him in the hospital.
> Do you think American physicists will study Algonquin? Dream on.
>
> I suspect this will be known as one of the darkest ages of history when the
> knowledge of thousands of cultures was allowed to just disappear because of
> the stupidity of the current civilization who just complains that their
> children can't do a Latin version of grammar for the English language.
> Only God knows what was contained in the language of the Etruscans.
>
> Oh well!
>
> Ray Evans Harrell
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 8:58 AM
> Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Indian Languages: Tending the Flame
>
>
> > This article from NYTimes.com
> > has been sent to you by [EMAIL PROTECTED].
> >
> >
> > Ray, I thought you might be interested in seeing this.
> >
> > Selma
> >
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> >
> > Indian Languages: Tending the Flame
> >
> > November 18, 2002
> > By DULCIE LEIMBACH
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > NAME: Intertribal Wordpath Society, Norman, Okla.
> >
> > FOUNDED: In 1997, by Alice Anderton, a former Comanche
> > language teacher; Margaret McKane Mauldin, a Creek language
> > expert; and other Oklahomans.
> >
> > MISSION: To advocate the teaching and elevate the status of
> > Oklahoma-Indian languages in the state through classes in
> > schools and universities, cable television, community
> > groups and individual efforts. Part of a broader national
> > effort to keep American Indian languages alive, Oklahoma's
> > 24 indigenous tongues, all endangered, include Choctaw,
> > Muskogee, Shawnee and Cherokee, which predominates with
> > about 9,000 fluent speakers. The two Apache tribes in the
> > state have three speakers between them. "These languages
> > are endangered because of the demographics," Dr. Anderton
> > said. "Only the elderly speak it. There are the Cherokee,
> > Kickapoo and Choctaw tribes where children are still being
> > raised with the language, but that is only a small
> > minority."
> >
> > Dr. Anderton was teaching temporary jobs in linguistics at
> > Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma,
> > but when the work disappeared, she set up a board
> > consisting of linguistic experts and Oklahoma Indians, and
> > designated herself executive, thus Wordpath was born.
> >
> > As chief gruntwork person, Dr. Anderton's main job is to
> > help devise alphabets, write dictionaries and develop
> > curriculums for language programs at other nonprofits in
> > Oklahoma. Through her membership on the Ponca Language Arts
> > Council, for example, Dr. Anderton was instrumental in
> > putting together an alphabet for Ponca, because it lacked a
> > standard form.
> >
> > "The language I'm most familiar with is Comanche," Dr.
> > Anderton, who is not an American Indian, said. A Comanche
> > hallmark is its singular, dual and plural way of addressing
> > people. For instance, the most common way to greet someone
> > is, "Tell it," which involves three grammatical endings,
> > depending on whether you are talking to one person, two
> > people or more than two people.
> >
> > FINANCING: Dr. Anderton is unpaid (she survives on speaking
> > engagements and help from her family); Wordpath's $6,000
> > annual budget comes mostly from Oklahomans and small grants
> > from sources like the Endangered Language Fund at Yale
> > University and the Oklahoma Humanities Council.
> >
> > LATEST PROJECT: In addition to "Wordpath," a cable
> > television program about native Oklahoma languages, Dr.
> > Anderton is writing brochures, starting with the topic
> > "What Is Fluency?" "The idea is to try to encourage people
> > to do more work in their own language, before it's too
> > late," Dr. Anderton explained. As Richard A. Grounds,
> > director of the Yuchi language program in Sapulpa, Okla.,
> > said, the languages "are tied to ceremonial traditions and
> > offer cultural knowledge." The surge in interest in
> > medicinal plants among non-Indian groups, including
> > pharmaceutical companies, could benefit from such
> > information. "The languages represent thousands of years of
> > close interaction with the environment," Mr. Grounds said.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/18/giving/18LEIM.html?ex=1038627909&ei=1&en=a
> b79246a7f514b1a
> >
> >
> >
> > HOW TO ADVERTISE
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> >
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> >
> > Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
