There are groups across Canada that are doing it. The problem is the wisdom of the non-Indian population that would just as soon see them disappear. How do you deal with the jerks that claim that such programs are stealing from them and their children?
It could be done if the rest of Canada and the US realized that these Native groups are some of the most important and Unique Intellectual Capital that they have in the world. Instead they play with widgets as if that was a real reason for existing on the planet. This is not Europe and ignorance of what Ben Franklin said does not mean that they can avoid the issues. The issues are cyclical. The problem here especially is that Americans think that simple minded drivel, crime stories endlessly repeated like Scooby Doo and Bedroom Comedies constitutes cultural capital. Only the dancers, some ethnic music like jazz and the painters seem to have escaped and that is because they are too small to shoot at. Small ensembles get by. You should have a talk with America's greatest composers, a rare exotic breed. I spoke to one today who said simply, that he wouldn't write except in English because no one else does and it is needed. There is almost NO American Art here. It is all European and derivative. The minimalists and a couple of really fine geniuses like Ned Rorem do not make an artistic life for the third largest country on the planet. I went to a concert last night and heard one aria and duet after another and not a single American work on the program. There is only Europe here. HOME. Nothing unique compared to Vienna, Paris, Berlin or Milan. We are Mockingbirds singing everyone else's song. What they demanded of Indian people in the Boarding schools of America and Canada has now come home to roost. America doesn't exist as a unique cultural unit. There is no American identity apart from a 32 bar song form endlessly repeated for entertainment to people who shun complexity. When Indians confront that reality most feel they may as well drink or sniff gas. But there is another way. That way is a cooperation between groups. Trade. I'll trade you something of value for your trading me some special thing in your culture. There has always been trade. Powwows are trade. Teach language classes in reverse. Make the English and French speakers have to learn one native language in their schools. Teach native dance as well as ballet. Send salsa teachers to the reserve. Don't just teach one thing, demand that people be fluent in both sides of the river. One side is genocide and the other is starving but together you can have a life with dignity and you won't have that devil knock on your door demanding you pay for what you signed away when you were younger. The problem was when Daniel Webster got that guy off after he had already signed up and been a creep for all of those years. Christianity has to deal with that side of itself that denies responsibility through confession or a cathartic new birth. I tell the Christians that they don't have to sing at the Metropolitan and do all that practice. All they need is to have a cathartic experience, believe they can sing and then give it all to Jesus. Jesus has already sung for them and so they can now go on with their lives doing something they don't want to do. I'm sorry Ed, I don't mean to be offensive but I "get" this regularly. If there is not an equality of respect then the rule is the rule of Alpha dominance and we are the meek that the Alphas are after. Teach your own children the language, the quantum realities that Peat learned about. If a physicist can learn then so can the average high school student. It doesn't hurt and your students will be helped as much as I was by learning Beethoven and Mozart. Teach the artistic equivalence of calculus in high school so they can grow up emotionally. Do the same in the native schools in reverse. Get over the idea of one culture in ascendancy and the other in decline. If yours is in the ascendancy what right do you have for that? Who are you? Where did you come from? Fire all of the incompetent ethnocentric "teachers." Let each side decide who are the teachers and who aren't and then trade. My old school of Tulsa University, sitting in the middle of Cherokee country, and founded as a Cherokee missionary school, has a department of Jazz but not a sign of anything having to do with Indian Music and they graduated one of America's greatest Native composers no less. I refuse to send them any funds because they are so stupid about it all. Meanwhile the Traditional Keetoowahs are fighting off the Baptists in the backwoods country as all of that Intellectual Capital is given up for the simplicities of "Come to Jesus and B flat." What do you have that is of such value that you could find your way across the North in the deep snow or that your children can do the things that traditional children learn almost from birth if they are not subverted by the Capitalisimos. Catholics could trade spiritual capital with the Holy men and each could teach each other without chauvinism or the need to proselytize. When America banned our religion in 1883 the Holy People took a group of youngsters to the woods and taught them. On Sunday they all showed up in church, took communion and when the Priest went home to his nice house away from the reservation they went back to the woods and talked about religion and what the Priest had said. They did this for years and some even joined the church as Ben Black Elk did. But Black Elk being a reader didn't mean that he was a White man and his knowledge of both worlds made him one of the great spiritual minds of the 20th century as he related the Lakota religion to the world. The elder Crow Dog dazzled the Washington, D.C. audiences with his knowledge of spirituality and the world while John Fire Lame Deer turned writer Richard Erdoes into a follower. They weren't the first. This was the 20th century. In the 19th century it was John Ross and the Cherokee writers who fanned out across the West in the Diaspora and started newspapers like the Sacramento Bee. In the early 20th century a whole generation, the first American generation of Ballerinas would produce five world class Ballerinas. FIVE and most from the same small area. The first singers "of color" to sing at the Metropolitan were American and South American Indians. But there were singers in the American Opera company that toured the country and the Concert Band of the Carlisle Graduates was considered on a par with Sousa and Fillmore with glowing reviews from Carnegie Hall. So why did it all stop? Genocide. The writer Ward Churchill (Cherokee) documents it in his many books. There are plenty of books by Indians but they have been smothered by the Anthropologists and others who were simply in competition with them. Let the Whites speak for the Indians. So you certainly couldn't have Indians explaining Whites to themselves or doing "white" things better than Whites. But that is exactly what you have to do. You have to help each other to see the uniqueness of this place and the possibilities beyond the old models. It starts with the respect from and for the Elders. Quit worrying about Old People who are going to smother you in Medical bills and start planning to use the knowledge that they have to impart. If they want to work let them be available as consultants and make their life a little better than Social Security for doing it. It is hard to plan such things given the current economic mentality but you might have to imagine something else as being more important then the Gray World. We wait to die before we go there, you guys choose it as a profession. Got to get back to work on the Cuckoo. Even in Europe the Cuckoo is a symbol of death. The Cuckoo cries to the lover when her lover leaves at the end of the night. That means that he came from the battlefield as a ghost to spend one last night with her before he went into the Gray World himself. Ray Evans Harrell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Selma Singer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "futurework" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 6:09 PM Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Indian Languages: Tending the Flame > > Selma Singer: > > > Ed, > > > > Did you ever consider the possibility that the very languages that are > > becoming obsolete contain ways perceiving the world that include a sense > of > > connectedness, the lack of which is the reason why kids often sniff glue > or > > alcohol or whatever ? > > Yes, of course. But too many of the communities I've seen are disconected > at both the adult and the kid level. The adults drink and the kids sniff > gas. Only the elders retain the connectedness --- and despair about it all. > Social workers, both Native and white, work hard to try to patch things up, > but they can't do it. It's too hard. One woman from northern Alberta told > me "We'll worry about culture and language after we get this place cleaned > up!" > > > Not that we can easily or simply transfer the values of lost cultures to > our > > own, but they can certainly make us aware of human experiences from which > we > > may have a lot to learn. > > Indeed. I've often wondered what it would have been like to be a mammoth > hunter. I've not wondered what it would be like to be a Native hunter and > trapper in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. There is plenty > of literature, and most of it is very painful. Hoping that your family > would not die of starvation and disease while you were away at the trading > post to beg for food and medicine could not have been very pleasant. > > Ed > > Ed Weick > 577 Melbourne Ave. > Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 > Canada > Phone (613) 728 4630 > Fax (613) 728 9382 > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "futurework" > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 4:51 PM > > Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Indian Languages: Tending the Flame > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Ed, > > > > > > > > You sound like an economist. My former student and my daughter's > God > > > > mother Jane Lind is Aleut. She is a world class actress who has > > > performed > > > > all over the world including Peter Brooks "The Birds" and the Serban > > > "Greek > > > > Trilogy" in Athens and in the amphitheater at Epidoris. Theater > > > > Communications Journal called her one of America's treasures. She > has > > > > recieved most of the awards in the business. She has spent the last > > few > > > > years working with and rescuing the indigenous theater and art forms > as > > > well > > > > as the music and language in Alaska. There is a great wealth there > > and > > > it > > > > would be crime to let all of that experience and richness disappear. > > > Like > > > > I said it is a dark age akin to the burning of the library at > > Alexandria. > > > > (I'll probably catch hell for that comparison.) > > > > > > > > Ray Evans Harrell > > > > > > > > > > Ray and Selma, > > > > > > I don't mean to sound like an economist and, deep down inside, I do > mourn > > > the passing of languages and of culturally different lenses for seeing > > > reality. When I spent a lot of time in the Mackenzie Valley, the Yukon > > and > > > other northern places during the past four decades, I tried very hard to > > see > > > the world the way Native people of those places saw it. I couldn't of > > > course, at least not completely. What ever so many young Native people > > were > > > trying to do at the same time was see the world as I saw it. They had a > > > much easier time of it than I did because things were loaded in my > > direction > > > and the direction of my society. Their society, at least in its > > traditional > > > forms, was passing, mine was ascending. Many of them became politicians > > and > > > bureaucrats able to operate in my world far better than I could ever > have > > > hoped to operate in theirs. They are still able to operate in their > > world, > > > though it is no longer the world in which they work or depend on, so it > > may > > > be fading for them. > > > > > > That is the upside story. The downside is something else that I've seen > > > many, many times as well. It's young kids, laughing at a grandmother, > > > because she is giving them hell in a native language they no longer > > > understand. Or it's teens, trying to be oh so cool, oh so modern, just > > like > > > they've seen on TV. Or it's far, far worse than that: sniffing gas, > doing > > > drugs, and not really being able to see reality through any kind of lens > > at > > > all. > > > > > > Things pass. It's sad, and one can only hope that the outcome is not > > > destructive. Often it is. > > > > > > Ed > > > > > > Ed Weick > > > 577 Melbourne Ave. > > > Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 > > > Canada > > > Phone (613) 728 4630 > > > Fax (613) 728 9382 > > > > > > > > >
