Indian Comics Irregular #77 The book "Was" is a fictional account of the "real" Dorothy. According to author Geoff Ryman, she was a girl named Dorothy Gael who lived in Kansas with her aunt and uncle and met a substitute teacher named Frank Baum. It's must-reading if you're an Oz fan.
In the story, Ryman imagines how Baum transmuted the local Indians into the various races of Oz. Here's an impressionistic passage explaining the connection as Ryman sees it: "Are there any Indians?" Dorothy asked. Not anymore, Etta told her. But near Manhattan, there had been an Indian city. "It was called Blue Earth," said Etta. "They had over a hundred houses. Each house was sixty feet long. They grew pumpkins and squash and potatoes and fished in the river, and once a year they left to hunt buffalo. They were the Kansa Indians, which is why one river is called the Kansas, and the other is called the Big Blue. Because they met right here where the Kansas lived." Dorothy saw it, a river as blue as the sea in her picture books at home. The Kansas River was called yellow, and Dorothy saw the two currents, yellow and blue mixing like colors in her paint box. "Is it green there?" she asked. She meant where the blue and yellow mixed. "It's green everywhere here," Etta answered. So Munchkin blue and Winkie yellow merged to create the Emerald City. And the Kansa Indians, who were either relocated or dead by Dorothy Gael's time, were the mythical "others" who inspired her fantasies. If you believe "Was," L. Frank Baum used Dorothy's Indian reveries to create his Oz books. Although the connection (probably) isn't true, we can't be sure about Baum's inspirations. He may have modeled Oz unconsciously on the things he saw and knew. That Indians inspired him is a nice thought, anyway. What is true is that the Indian represents something fundamental to most Americans. I've argued before (see http://www.bluecorncomics.com/amroots.htm) that Euro-Americans absorbed many of their values--the love of freedom, individualism, and justice--from the Natives they pushed aside. Some claim America is a Christian nation, but Christianity has always been authoritarian, orthodox, and oppressive. More than anything, the land of the free and home of the brave is a "pagan" Indian country. Baum: Beloved or Bigoted? Readers of PEACE PARTY #1 know there's more to the Oz story. If Baum was inspired by Indians, he certainly didn't like them. As editor for the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, he wrote two virulently anti- Indian editorials before and after Wounded Knee. In one he said: The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. As with Mark Twain (ICI #59), Baum's bigoted writings belie his popular image as beloved storyteller. Native people have opposed attempts to honor Baum for just this reason. For more on the story, go to http://www.bluecorncomics.com/baum.htm. More Images Online I've added more photos of Southwest Indian country, where our stories take place, to my online gallery. Check them out at http://www.bluecorncomics.com/gallery.htm. I've also linked to more than 100 images of Indians in comics on my page devoted to that topic (http://www.bluecorncomics.com/nacomics.htm). Check 'em out. Rob Schmidt Blue Corn Comics ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/k6cvND/n97DAA/ySSFAA/bGIolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message archive: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianComicsIrregular/messages Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ----------------------- Internet Header -------------------------------- Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] com Received: from n25.grp.scd.yahoo.com (n25.grp.scd.yahoo.com [66.218.66.81]) by siaag2aa.compuserve.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/SUN-1.12) with SMTP id FAA15094 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Wed, 17 Apr 2002 05:07:41 -0400 (EDT) X-eGroups-Return: [EMAIL PROTECTED] com Received: from [66.218.67.192] by n25.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 17 Apr 2002 09:07:37 -0000 Received: (qmail 85393 invoked from network); 17 Apr 2002 09:07:29 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m10.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 17 Apr 2002 09:07:29 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n21.grp.scd.yahoo.com) (66.218.66.77) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 17 Apr 2002 09:07:28 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from [66.218.67.158] by n21.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 17 Apr 2002 09:06:02 -0000 X-eGroups-Approved-By: rvsjr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> via web; 17 Apr 2002 07:35:03 -0000 X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Apparently-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_3_1); 17 Apr 2002 07:15:30 -0000 Received: (qmail 49074 invoked from network); 17 Apr 2002 06:36:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 17 Apr 2002 06:36:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n24.grp.scd.yahoo.com) (66.218.66.80) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 17 Apr 2002 06:36:51 -0000 Received: from [66.218.67.191] by n24.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 17 Apr 2002 06:36:50 -0000 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster From: "rvsjr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> X-Originating-IP: 216.192.37.34 X-Yahoo-Profile: rvsjr MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list [EMAIL PROTECTED]; contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] Delivered-To: mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 06:36:50 -0000 Subject: The Indian-Oz Connection Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Visit and show your support for the Grass Roots Oyate http://members.tripod.com/GrassRootsOyate Clemency for Leonard Peltier. 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