What else do kids dress up as at Halloween? I don’t mean animals or superheroes, but people-costumes. They can be policemen, firefighters, cowboys, doctors, nurses, pilots, astronauts, baseball players, cheerleaders, soldiers, football players, princesses, belly dancers. ... All these are occupations or positions one can, in fact, be at some point, with the proper training.
Now--what about an Indian? You can’t train to be an Indian. You can’t become one. It is something you are born into.
Is that the theme song for the Village People? Never mind.
ReplyDeleteYes, I know. The mini-series was Rich Man, Poor Man and I watched it. I was just kidding.
ReplyDeleteCan't say I've seen many trick-or-treaters as Indians recently. Of course, if I put on a smoking jacket (or even ribbon shirt), turban and leggings, I'm betting most people in the neighborhood would guess "fortune teller" or "Arab" before they got to "Cherokee," since we don't dress like the "cool Indians" (i.e.,no warbonnets or breech clouts).
ReplyDeleteYou don't even see many trick-or-treaters these days. They're all attending neighborhood parties so they won't get razor blades in their apples.
ReplyDeleteI had a debate once with someone about "training" to be an Indian. He was part-white, part-Indian and had learned his history and culture at a late date. But when we discussed something, he told me I could never comprehend the Indian viewpoint. He used a variation of "It's an Indian thing...you wouldn't understand."
ReplyDeleteI found this ironic considering his mixed background. My response was something like, "If you can learn about being an Indian, so can I. Even though I'm not Native, maybe I'm a better learner than you are. Maybe I get it and you don't."
Didn't I say this person was raised as a white? He didn't get his Indian knowledge from some "genetic racial memory," which may or may not exist. He learned it.
ReplyDeleteHillerman also was raised as a white, obviously. The difference is, he didn't live in a Native culture for a decade or two when he was younger. If he had, he would've gained the same inside knowledge as my correspondent.
That's my theory, anyway, and I'm sticking with it. You don't know my correspondent and neither do I, so we don't know how well he learned to be an Indian. For all we know, I know more about Indians than he does.
If you're saying that a "genetic racial memory" trumps learning, I refer you to your earlier postings about John Herrington. He's in roughly the same position as my correspondent. So is Herrington a bonafide Indian or isn't he? If your theory is right, he is and your previous comments about him were mistaken.
Wasn't there some question about whether David Seals, the author of Powwow Highway, was a real Indian? Maybe I'm thinking of something else.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, a non-Indian directed the movie, I believe, and undoubtedly shaped the material. And A Martinez, a Latino, performed the scene you described. If a non-Indian director can direct a non-Indian actor to produce an authentic Indian scene, it's more evidence for my position.
Is there really any question that culture is learned, not inherited? What about a white child raised from infancy by an Indian tribe? Are you saying you could pick him out by his faux behavior even if he spent his entire life with the tribe?
Most tribes would accept this adopted baby as a full member of the tribe--a genuine Indian. And recall the Supreme Court's ruling that tribal membership is political, not racial, which most tribes have embraced. Is it your position that you have to have some amount of genetic material--some quantum of blood--before you can be a real Indian?
Then I presume John Herrington has this racial memory also and is therefore a full-fledged Indian. And that the scene in Powwow Highway wasn't authentic after all because a non-Indian performed it.
ReplyDeleteAssuming each person is raised in the opposite culture, the answers to your categorization questions are:
Adopted white babies are white racially but Indian culturally. Abducted Indian children are Indian racially but white culturally.
I know several acculturated urban Indians who have the same values and beliefs as mine. If you had no visual cues and went only by our writing, I doubt you could distinguish us.
Let's note that you think writer John Fusco can channel the Native mind accurately while I presumably can't. Even though we're both 100% non-Native. Do you have any explanation for this discrepancy, or is it just some silly belief with no basis in fact?
ReplyDeletewe are all natives. we are all of the same blood. we are all brothers of the fox the crow and the mighty bison. we still live in villages under the stars. walk out side at night. the stars have not changed since the time of yaweh or jesus or manitou. expository is just something to prove we are educated beyond our own needs. we seek the things that we only need to find in our hearts. to often we make the journey last a life time. sit under a tree. life will show itself in abundance.
ReplyDeleteisa
I'm not sure what your point is, Isa. Or what it has to do with playing Indian on Halloween. Try again?
ReplyDelete