Before Taking Zendejas’ Native Studies Class
Posted on September 5, 2007 - Filed Under Uncategorized |
These are all actual quotes from college student’s papers on the first day of class when asked to write an essay entitled…. What I know about Indians…..
- They are spiritual people
- They love the Earth and take very good care of it
- Their world does or at least used to revolve around animals
- Respect elders
- Polytheistic (multiple gods)
- “As a country, we pay those of Native American descent for the wrong we have done to them in the past”
- Get scholarship money for college
- Get tuition paid for and also housing if you live on the reservation
- Nowadays, Indians are given some land, which they have some rights to do pretty much what they want to
- Most get a stipend from the government to live off
- Just the basics… they were pushed off the good land to west land and have been trying to survive ever since.
- We screwed them over hardcore
- Reservations
- Most live on reservations where money and decent living is out of reach.
- No electricity
- I don’t understand why reservations still exist.
- Have sweat lodges
- I think tribes and reservations have grocery stores so there is no need to live off the land anymore
- Casinos
- Reservations have casinos and are not taxed
- Have a long history of building casinos and only have to be 18 to gamble
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- Some receive millions from legalized gambling
- Casinos were a way to pay back Indians for whites taking their land
- I’ve been to WinnaVegas a few times, but I wasn’t exactly there to learn about Indian culture
- Where they live:
- They live in tents
- They live in teepees
- Some live in igloos
- Have the ability to live on reservations
- Live outside
- Tribal structure
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- The white man forced Indians into small tribes
- Almost everyone within the tribe has a role, whether it’s the chief, hunter, warrior or otherwise
- They have a “king” type figure that they look up to
- They are headed by a chief
- They have witchdoctors
- There were many rankings amongst the tribes, chief being the highest
- Arts and Crafts
- Popcorn
- Make goods (jewelry, clothing, etc…)
- Came up with the concept of dream catchers
- Ladies used to weave baskets
- Totem poles
- What they wear:
- Some dress in fancy feather dresses
- Headdress with feathers
- Wear things like feathers and animal skins
- Naked people
- Physical descriptions:
- Dark skinned
- Don’t grow body hair
- Have high cheek bones
- Dark haired
- They have face and body paint
- My boyfriend is Chippewa, it is hard for him to grow facial hair, it grows back in different directions and is very patchy with spots missing hair. To me this is kind of interesting.
- Traits
- A lot of Natives turn to alcohol to solve their problems
- Suicide
- They smoke tobacco
- Did peyote and then left and had visions
- Recently overweight in some parts of
U.S. - Some used to smoke a peace pipe
- Relaxed on time
- Important events
- Participated in the holiday Thanksgiving
- “Trail of Tears” is the only name of an event that I can recall, and to tell you the truth, I don’t even know if that’s right
- They had to walk the trail of tears to get to their new land
- When a young man is grown they visit the medicine man and receive their tribe name and smoke a peace pipe
- Hunters and Fishers
- Some tribes actually found better ways of living by settling down and fishing, farming, trapping and gathering
- Kill buffalo (using all parts) and maybe deer
- They made balls out of buffalo bladders
- They used to shoot with bow and arrows and spears
- Have pow-wows
- Have a dance to make it rain
- Have dances for other reasons
- Ghost dances
- Dance around fires
- Like music and dance
- Some names I know:
- Sacajawea helped Lewis & Clark across
America - Geronimo
- Sitting Bull
- Crazy Horse
- Sacajawea helped Lewis & Clark across
- Ignorant:
- “How!”
- Some enjoy the cool, refreshing taste of Budweiser
- They don’t use sun block
- Were initially used as slaves in early
America, but they were too susceptible to the white man’s diseases, so the Americans took African people instead - Adjusting to new way of living still haunts them to this day
- They used to skin heads
- If the mean tribes caught whitey they skinned his scalp
- White people (mostly children) were kidnapped from their homes and were adopted into the tribes way of life
- We killed most of them, many tribes met their ends years ago
- They rode bareback on (usually painted) horses
- They were savages
- Most Indians were peaceful, only a select few were vicious tribes (I learned this part from movies).
- The Indians were read proclamations in Spanish, which they had no hope in understanding, telling them to “obey”.
- “To tell you the truth, I really don’t know very much about Indians except for what I saw on TV and in the movies”:
- “The Last of the Mohicans”
- Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto”
- “Dances With Wolves”
- John Wayne movies
- “Pocahontas”
- “Smoke Signals”
- “Indian in the Cupboard”
- “Simpson” episode of a scene where there was an Indian casino
- “Family Guy” episode with the same idea
- And from books and songs
- I learned some Indians did lure white people with the promise of gold and kill them.
- “Reservation Blues” by Sherman Alexie about Indians forming a rock band
- “Cherokee Nation”
- “Ceremony” about Southwestern Indian who joined the army in WWII and had flashbacks
- “Calapes: by Jared Diamond
- “Some are proud and some are upset about sports teams being named after their tribes”
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Kansas City has a football team the Chiefs - I went to a Chiefs game once
- The Winnebago RV is presumably named after the Winnebago tribe
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- “If they knew what would eventually happen to them, they would have killed all Europeans as soon as they arrived”
