Young-adult fiction too dark?

A essay about contemporary fiction for teens has launched a controversy:

Darkness Too Visible

Contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity. Why is this considered a good idea?

By Meghan Cox GurdonHow dark is contemporary fiction for teens? Darker than when you were a child, my dear: So dark that kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18.

Pathologies that went undescribed in print 40 years ago, that were still only sparingly outlined a generation ago, are now spelled out in stomach-clenching detail. Profanity that would get a song or movie branded with a parental warning is, in young-adult novels, so commonplace that most reviewers do not even remark upon it.Gurdon presents both sides of the argument in a biased fashion:The argument in favor of such novels is that they validate the teen experience, giving voice to tortured adolescents who would otherwise be voiceless. If a teen has been abused, the logic follows, reading about another teen in the same straits will be comforting. If a girl cuts her flesh with a razor to relieve surging feelings of self-loathing, she will find succor in reading about another girl who cuts, mops up the blood with towels and eventually learns to manage her emotional turbulence without a knife.

Yet it is also possible—indeed, likely—that books focusing on pathologies help normalize them and, in the case of self-harm, may even spread their plausibility and likelihood to young people who might otherwise never have imagined such extreme measures. Self-destructive adolescent behaviors are observably infectious and have periods of vogue. That is not to discount the real suffering that some young people endure; it is an argument for taking care.What Gurdon considers "likely" is what I consider a made-up argument without substance. Show us the evidence, Gurdon. Put up or shut up.

I've argued before that glorifying violence, racism, misogyny, and so forth helps normalize them. But that's a far cry from presenting "pathologies" in an objective or realistic way. There's a huge difference between showcasing murderers, rapists, and vigilantes and showing the ugly consequences of their actions. It's all the difference in the world.

Sherman Alexie responds

Gurdon mentions The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Alexie's fictional take on his childhood, as an example of the books she's talking about. As we've seen, some schools have banned the book because they can't handle its "adult" themes and language.

Apparently Alexie was asked or volunteered to respond to Gurdon's essay. I'd say he nailed it:

Why the Best Kids Books Are Written in Blood

By Sherman AlexieWhen I read Meghan Cox Gurdon’s complaints about the “depravity” and “hideously distorted portrayals” of contemporary young adult literature, I laughed at her condescension.

Does Ms. Gurdon honestly believe that a sexually explicit YA novel might somehow traumatize a teen mother? Does she believe that a YA novel about murder and rape will somehow shock a teenager whose life has been damaged by murder and rape? Does she believe a dystopian novel will frighten a kid who already lives in hell?

When I think of the poverty-stricken, sexually and physically abused, self-loathing Native American teenager that I was, I can only wish, immodestly, that I’d been given the opportunity to read “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.” Or Laurie Halse Anderson’s “Speak.” Or Chris Lynch’s “Inexusable.” Or any of the books that Ms. Gurdon believes to be irredeemable. I can’t speak for other writers, but I think I wrote my YA novel as a way of speaking to my younger, irredeemable self.And:When some cultural critics fret about the “ever-more-appalling” YA books, they aren’t trying to protect African-American teens forced to walk through metal detectors on their way into school. Or Mexican-American teens enduring the culturally schizophrenic life of being American citizens and the children of illegal immigrants. Or Native American teens growing up on Third World reservations. Or poor white kids trying to survive the meth-hazed trailer parks. They aren’t trying to protect the poor from poverty. Or victims from rapists.

No, they are simply trying to protect their privileged notions of what literature is and should be. They are trying to protect privileged children. Or the seemingly privileged.My childhood reading

I haven't read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian yet, but I have read Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. It's a great book about the consequences of teenage rape. Other than a moment of violence when the girl finally confronts her rapist, there's nothing objectionable. Unless you object to talking about rape rather than keeping it a secret, as many people do.

In high school, I read such works as:

Macbeth
Hamlet
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
To Kill a Mockingbird
Catcher in the Rye
A Separate Peace
1984
Darkness at Noon
Crime and Punishment
Billy Budd

To Kill a Mockingbird is about a rape, and the other books include murder, prejudice, homosexuality, political executions, and other "adult" topics. They all offered serious discussions of the issues, not pandering or sensationalism. Some were a little scary to my young self, but I managed to get through them. And I'm undoubtedly better for having read them.

Speak is probably in the lower half of "darkness" compared to the books I listed. I bet Absolutely True Diary is too. I wouldn't give them to elementary-school kids, but we're talking about teenagers. If high-schoolers could handle Crime and Punishment 35 years ago, they can handle the dark, "scary" books published for teens today.

For more on the subject, see Absolutely True Diary Challenged Again and Absolutely True Diary Still Banned.

Pequot Lives: Almost Vanished

Mashantucket Pequot tribe's survival is focus of museum exhibition

By Brian HallenbeckA tribe with less grit than the Mashantucket Pequots would hardly be around to tell its own story--certainly not a story like "Pequot Lives: Almost Vanished," the exhibit that debuted this spring at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.

The exhibit, the first permanent one introduced at the museum since its opening in 1998, focuses on 100 years of tribal history, beginning in 1855, when the Connecticut legislature formed a committee to investigate the condition of the "Pequot Indians of Ledyard."And:"We wanted to tell a story that hadn't been told," Jason Mancini, the museum's senior researcher, says, and the museum wanted to tell that story as dispassionately as possible. "We do have a perspective," Mancini acknowledges, "but we want people to come to their own conclusions. ... It's a much more nuanced approached to Indian history."

Through documents, artifacts and photographs--many on display for the first time--retrieved from tribal members' personal troves and the museum's archive, the exhibit illuminates the tribe's struggle to survive and maintain its identity. It would repeat that process in the 21st century in the much-better-known struggle that culminated in the tribe's gaining federal recognition, expanding its reservation and building Foxwoods Resort Casino.Comment:  It's not clear if this exhibit addresses the controversial decision to recognize the Mashantucket Pequots based on the few remaining members. It probably should, because that's an issue many people will be curious about.

For more on the Pequots' history, see Taking Sides on Pequot Massacre and Marino Attacks Pequots and Wampanoags.

Below:  "School groups, left and below, take in the Mashantucket Pequot Museum's new exhibit 'Pequot Lives: Almost Vanished.' The show plays inside a mock-up of the historic reservation home of Martha Ann Langevin, or 'Aunt Matt,' who became a key figure during the fight for Native American rights."

ZZ Top plays for Native charity

ZZ Top And George Thorogood To Headline Cruise

Classic rock and southern rock well represented on this outing

By Greg PratoRock cruises are becoming more and more common nowadays (as evidenced by the recently-reported Kiss Kruise, among others). And another has just been announced, the Rock Legends Cruise. But unlike many of the other similarly-themed cruises, this one will benefit a good cause.

The organization presenting the Rock Legends Cruise lineup is the Native American Heritage Association, with proceeds from the cruise going to underwrite NAHA's work--providing emergency assistance and self-help programs to the Sioux Native Americans living on reservations in South Dakota.

Headlining the cruise will be renowned classic rockers ZZ Top and George Thorogood and the Destroyers, with quite a few other classic rock/southern rock bands rounding out the line-up.Comment:  For more on Native music, see Ojibwa Rapper Plex and First Indian Chamber Music Festival.

Below:  George Thorogood.

Native Youth Film Academy

Native Youth Make Films To "Tell Their Own Stories"

By Michelle Theriault BootsTinker and her partners, Reed McWilliams and Sheila Evan, are aspiring filmmakers, in Anchorage for a weeklong workshop that aims to give Western Alaska youth the tools to tell their own stories on film.

Today, they’re scouting locations for a short film about a Yup'ik teenager who gets separated from her friend on her first trip to a shopping mall and uses tracking skills, developed on the tundra, to find her at the end of a trail of dropped Skittles.

They are among 14 students from Western Alaska participating in the Pilinguaq Project's Native Youth Film Academy, held this week in Anchorage.

Each wrote and scripted stories on the theme “survival,” to be told onscreen.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Ho-Chunk Players Make Short Films and The Best Indian Movies.

Indians had no way to worship God?!

Florida Seminole pastor says God’s book is for ‘all the races’

Wonder Johns first Native American moderator of Big Lakes association

By Joni B. HanniganWonder Johns remembers his mother cooking over an open fire in the swamp near Okeechobee, before the Seminoles were given land, in the 1930’s and 40’s.

“We had no houses, we lived in the Chickees,” Johns said softly, describing a palmetto thatch roof over a cypress log frame—with open sides. “The mosquitos ate us up.”

Sleeping on a table-like platform with primitive nets to keep out all manner of bugs, Johns remembers a “wild” childhood, hunting, fishing and playing—and taking baths in ponds or canals—but rarely going to school.

And then the pesky missionaries would visit camp.

“Us little kids, we would run away,” Johns, 77, smiled slightly. “‘Here comes the preacher,’” he recalls children telling each other. “We would take off in the woods and stay there until he leaves and then come back out.”Now that Johns is a Baptist pastor, people are running from him:Johns said the Green Corn Ceremony is still practiced today within the Seminole Tribe along with the use of herbal medicine—“they think it’s power”—and he believes it is what makes it difficult for the church to grow.

“They start coming to church and they’ve been baptized and they still go out to the Green Corn Ceremony and dances,” Johns said. “They think they can come back and still worship the Lord and nothing’s wrong.

“In my service I tell them God gave us something when we didn’t have anything, but now we know better,” Johns said. “Like the Bible says in Acts 17:30, God winked at what went on, but now we know better [and] God expects us to repent and worship Him because God has given us something because [before] we didn’t have any way of worshipping God.”

Last year Johns retired as pastor of First Indian Baptist Church of Brighton, just north of the Brighton Seminole Reservation in Okeechobee. Recently he finished a term as moderator of the Big Lake Baptist Association, and served previously as the associate moderator. According to Florida Baptist Convention records, he is the first Native American to have served in that capacity in Florida.

Comment:  Really? Indians are famous to the point of stereotyping for their religious ceremonies: dances (e.g., rain dance, Snake Dance, Sun Dance), vision quests, sweat lodges, purification rites, etc.

But they didn't have any way of worshiping the Creator? What were they doing until Christians came along and hit them over the heads with their Bibles? Playacting? Doing fake dances for the tourist trade? While worshiping trees and rocks, not God?

Because the only way to contact God is sitting on hard benches in a squarish building while a man in a robe drones on? Yeah, because the Bible is so specific about how one should worship. If you don't kneel and genuflect in exactly the right way, you'd damned to hell.

Coming from an elder in the Seminole tribe, this sure sounds like an ignorant comment to me. I suspect your average 5-year-old has a better understanding of how worship works.

Indians know God

In reality, many Indians are Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons while also holding to their traditional religious beliefs. It's not hard to do. You just pick and choose from the Bible--as Christians have always done.

Jesus was one holy being...but there are others all around us. You can reach them by praying, singing, meditating, dancing, or helping others--anything that shows you have good intentions and a good heart. If God exists at all, you can bet he doesn't care about the petty details of your religion.

There's your theological lesson for today, Pastor Johns. Learn it so I don't have to repeat it, okay?

For examples of what many Christians think about Indians, see Catholic Church Abuse on Frontline, Fischer Worships "God" of Racism, and God Good, Father Sky Bad?

For more on the subject, see The Gospel of the Redman, Christians Reject Christ's Message, and 10% of Indians = Christians.

Below:  Worshiping God at the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo.

US = "baby country"

The U.S. as an Immature State

By David E. WilkinsRecently, the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, visited Egypt. As part of her visit, a number of Egyptian youth were encouraged to submit written questions to Clinton for her consideration. Nearly 6,000 were sent in by inquisitive Egyptian youth. Many of the questions were quite astute, but one in particular caught my attention. The question pitched was “Why do you [Secretary Clinton] insist on talking about our interior business? You are the baby country.”

That youngster’s sharp comment coincided with thoughts I’ve been having on the recent Geronimo/Bin Laden pairing. The tsunami of newspaper columns and editorials across Indian country—though practically nowhere else—complaining about the U.S. equating of the great Apache leader, Geronimo, with the notorious fugitive, Osama Bin Laden, has given me pause to ponder and reflect. For as a native, I, too, felt an initial surge of deep irritation and frustration at the U.S. military’s poor choice of terminology.

But as I’ve given this more thought I realize now that I should not have been surprised, given the checkered history of interracial and intercultural relations between Native nations, who have lived on this continent for untold millennia, and those who arrived only a few hundred years ago and who have yet to develop a clear and consistent cultural identity as “Americans,” and have not yet been able to forge a fair and humane relationship with the resident indigenous peoples or the lands, waters, and flora and fauna we are all dependent upon.

Why do we as aboriginal nations with such a lengthy and far more mature tenure on these lands insist on expecting that our much more immature non-native neighbors and their policymakers at the local, state, and national levels understand and appreciate the manner in which we remember our important historical figures?

Is it because we see occasional, if brief, glimpses of qualities in the American character that we admire–an intense passion for the moment; a knack for technological inventiveness; a strong belief in personal liberty; and a periodic recognition that justice, fairness, and perseverance matter?

Or is it because we remember the sincere entreaties of some of our ancestors who insisted that we show patience to our non-native junior treaty partners by helping them get situated in our homelands as acts of generosity and humanity, while at the same time taking it upon ourselves to teach them about the land, liberty, and freedom because they, too, were human beings?Comment:  The US is a big baby...hee hee hee.

As I noted in a debate on Western civilization, the Egyptian and Chinese civilizations have been around for thousands of years. So have Native civilizations. Compared to that, who cares what the whiny baby has to say about anything?

For more on the subject, see Indians, Terrorists = US Enemies and Conservatives Want to Nullify Laws, Indians.

Adam Beach as Superman?

Why not Adam Beach as Superman? Based on Hollywood's "bottom line" thinking, I expect them to cast Adam Beach as the Man of Steel in the next Superman movie. Here's why Beach is a sound and logical choice:

Beach undoubtedly has as much "white" blood as Brandon Routh has "Indian" blood. If Routh's blood qualifies him to play a Native lacrosse coach, Beach's blood qualifies him to play Superman.

Routh's pale skin is just as suitable for a Native athlete as Beach's dark skin is for a Caucasian superhero.

Beach has immersed himself in "white" culture and knows how white people think and act. That puts him well ahead of Routh in terms of cross-cultural casting.

Routh was a complete unknown when he was cast in Superman Returns. For some reason he's considered a "big name" now, despite his notable lack of success, but he wasn't then.

In contrast, Beach has starred in Windtalkers, Flags of Our Fathers, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Comanche Moon, Big Love, and Cowboys and Aliens. He has much more of a track record--a proven ability to carry a movie or TV series. If Hollywood cares about results, Beach is a much better choice than Routh was.

Note: If Routh is a "star" rather than a non-hit wonder, tell us what his second and third biggest roles are. Without looking them up, that is. I've got a prize for anyone--besides Routh, his agent, or his family--who can answer that question successfully.

For all these reasons, I'm sure Hollywood will cast Beach as the next Superman. Because apologists assure us that race and bigotry play no role in casting decisions.

For more on the subject, see Oprah Winfrey the Indian? and Denzel Washington as JFK?

Below:  Note the obvious resemblance.

Thunderbird in future X-Men movie?

London Comic Con--X-Men: First Class panel

By Calvin PeatOne of the most interesting parts of the MCM Expo last weekend was the X-Men: First Class panel with two of the screenwriters, Zack Stentz & Ashley Miller (Thor, Fringe, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), where they answered questions from the audience, taking in a wide variety of topics surrounding the movie, X-Men, and the writing process, among other things.The key bit:Someone then asked who we can expect to see in future X-Men movies that we haven’t seen yet in the movies.

They don’t want to ruin it, but admitted that there is the potential for some familiar faces to show up in future movies.

As a final question, they were asked which were their favourite X-Men.

Ashley Miller said that he’d always been fascinated by Thunderbird: the first X-Man to die, and stay dead. Also, treating mutants as metaphor, Thunderbird is a Native American. He then said that he wants to do a Cable/Deadpool crossover, finishing with “Cable is awesome.”Comment:  The Terminator TV show had at least half a dozen Native references in its two seasons. Perhaps Ashley Miller was responsible for them.

For more on the subject, see Thunderbird in the Comics.

"Barefoot college" for Venezuela Indians

Barefoot college helps Venezuela Indians fight back

By Frank Jack DanielOn a campus that sprawls from grassland into thick jungle, 100 students drawn from many of the country's 44 recognized tribes are trying to fight back at the university, which teaches ancient customs alongside modern law and technology.

"This university is the best hope for saving our cultures," said Najiru, working on a plan for a forest farming thesis on a laptop in a dirt-floor hut.

The goal is to create leaders who can defend land rights and prevent a headlong rush into modernity from destroying thousands of years of knowledge about forest and river life.

Students and teachers are also racing to put into writing the wisdom of elders that is not being handed down orally as in previous generations and may soon vanish.Comment:  Needless to say, this story crushes the stereotype of today's Amazon Indians as half-naked savages: impaling and torturing people, boiling and eating them, shrinking their heads, etc. The ratio of modern to "primitive" Amazon Indians is probably something like 50 or 100 to one. But movies, TV shows, and comic books inevitably feature barbaric spearchuckers unchanged from their pre-Columbian ancestors.

For more on Amazon Indians, see Amazon Indians Petition Brazilian Government and No Indians in Off the Map.

Native Canadians in South Park

Here's a brief clip from a recent episode of South Park (airdate: 5/11/11):

Season 15:  Royal Pudding

Mr. Mackey loses it, while Scott the Dick leads Ike to the Native Canadians.Comment:  As with past South Park episodes, this clip is a mixed bag at best.

On the one hand, the "Native Canadians" are rendered with slanted eyes, which is patently offensive. They're all wearing fur-lined parkas, which are apparently some kind of tribal uniform. (The non-Natives aren't wearing fur-lined parkas, so the clothing must not be necessary for the climate.) And they're not using anything more modern than a harpoon. No high-powered rifles, radios, or snowmobiles--nothing like that.

On the other hand, they're speaking some sort of Native language(s), not gibberish. The non-Natives' stupid comments are designed to make the non-Natives look bad. And the show is sensitive enough to label the Natives "Native Canadians" rather than "Eskimos" or something less pleasant.

The Native language(s)

I asked a friend if she knew what language the Natives were speaking. This led to the following discussion:They are speaking two languages--Athabaskan dialect (the female speaker) and a Plains language (Blood? Or the plains languages spoken in Canada) by the male speaker respectively. (Which means the two conversation topics may be divergent.)Does Athabaskan include Navajo? Does the Plains language include Lakota? I'd guess producers Stone and Parker, who live in the LA area, found two local Native speakers and recorded them separately.

On the one hand, it's kind of lame that they didn't find two Inuktitut speakers. On the other, at least the "Native Canadians" weren't speaking gibberish. Stone and Parker probably did more than many producers would have.I would say the upshot was they did not speak gibberish. My money is on Navajo really, as the cadence and pronunciation leans more that way. As for the male's speech, I do not thing it was Siouxan nor Slavey. Even though I say "Plains" I would guess Blood.I'd also guess the producers recorded the Natives without telling them about the episode. They may have asked the Natives to say something about fishing, or to say anything. If they were carrying on a real conversation in two different languages, I'd be surprised.

The rest of the episode

Royal Pudding's plot involves the kidnapping of a "Canadian princess." The Inuit play a bigger role than the scene above indicates:When it turns out that Scott has been wrongly accused of taking the princess, most other Canadians go home, but Scott persuades Ike and Ugly Bob to follow him as he accuses the Inuit of kidnapping the princess out of his racial prejudice towards the "Native Canadians." However, while admitting that his people do have a grudge against the Canadians for taking their land, the Inuit tribe leader reveals that the princess' abduction was foretold, and that the true kidnapper is one who attacks people of all nationalities. With an Inuit mother leading the three, they find a large dark castle, where the princess is held captive by the abductor: Tooth Decay. Eventually, after the monster hurls Scott and the Inuit woman across the room, Ike turns Tooth Decay to stone by exposing Ugly Bob's face to him.That doesn't sound too bad. It could be a decent role for these cartoon Natives. Except for their slanty eyes and nonstop parka wearing, of course.

For more on South Park, see "Tardicaca Indians" in South Park and "Indians" in Cannibal! The Musical.

Tupac named for indigenous leader

I don't think I've posted about Tupac Shakur before. Here are the basics about him:

Tupac ShakurTupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971–September 13, 1996), known by his stage names 2Pac (or simply Pac) and Makaveli, was an American rapper. Shakur had sold over 75 million albums worldwide as of 2007, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. In the United States alone he has sold 37.5 million records. Rolling Stone Magazine named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time.

In addition to his career as a rap artist, he was also an actor. The themes of most of Tupac's songs are the violence and hardship in inner cities, racism, other social problems, and conflicts with other rappers during the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry.

Early life

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born on the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City. He was named after Túpac Amaru II, a Peruvian revolutionary who led an indigenous uprising against Spain and was subsequently executed.

His mother, Afeni Shakur, and his father, Billy Garland, were active members of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s; he was born just one month after his mother's acquittal on more than 150 charges of "Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks" in the New York Panther 21 court case.This came up because someone asked the following question on Facebook:Here, I got an anthropological question for YOU: why the hell does Tupac Shakur appeal to so many indigenous ppl, worldwide??? For serious, I don't get it. Some kinda universal language of oppression???I don't know about his music, but his parents were Black Panthers. They clearly saw a parallel between the Inca stand against European conquest and their stand against American racism and oppression.



Which Tupac?

Actually, I thought Tupac was named for Tupac Amaru:Túpac Amaru, also called Thupa Amaro (Thupaq Amaru in modern Quechua) (died 1572), was the last indigenous leader of the Inca state in Peru.Not his descendant Tupac Amaru II:Túpac Amaru II (José Gabriel Túpac Amaru b. March 19, 1742 in Surimana-Canas, Cuzco, Viceroyalty of Peru–executed in Cuzco May 18, 1781) was a leader of an indigenous uprising in 1780 against the Spanish in Peru. Although unsuccessful, he later became a mythical figure in the Peruvian struggle for independence and indigenous rights movement and an inspiration to myriad causes in Peru.

Túpac Amaru II was born José Gabriel Condorcanqui in Surimana, Tungasuca, in the province of Cuzco, and received a Jesuit education at the San Francisco de Borja School, although he maintained a strong identification with the indigenous population. He was a mestizo who claimed to be a direct descendant of the last Inca ruler Túpac Amaru.I guess his parents were really going for the "mythical figure in the struggle for independence and indigenous rights movement" thing.

For more on black-Indian connections, see Thoughts on IndiVisible and Virginia Classified Indians as Blacks.

Why Outsourced and Native shows fail

Outsourced was a workplace comedy about an American running an office in India. As you may recall, I mentioned it in Halloween Comedy on NBC.

Now blogger Monique explains why the show failed. Although her comments are about India's Indians, they also apply to any TV show or movie about American Indians.

Outsourced Weekly:  What went wrong with “Outsourced” pt. 1–Dealing with the premise

First, what the show did wrong:1) Todd and other Western characters had an air of entitlement, while the Indian characters were secondary in an Indian/American comedy; the Western characters were the foreigners needing to learn about Indian society, but the native Indians were treated as sidekicks, or worse, like children needing to be educated in the Western ways.

2) India was treated as a backwater country, whereas America was held on a slightly higher pedestal.

3) The humor of the show–particularly the pilot–was crude to both countries involved. The humor made Americans look like self-absorbed idiots and the Indians look like simple-minded country folk. Neither of which is true.Second, what the show should've done instead:1) Make sure to eliminate any part of the Western characters that would give the characters that odious air of entitlement. One of way of fixing this, aside from doing through characterization of Todd and co., would be to have more Indian writers on staff.

2) Understand India fully. I touched on this with the suggestion of an Indian bible already. This is where such a book would come in handy for writers, as would that trip. In order to write about a certain group of people and their country, you have to have immersed yourself in it for quite a long time.

3) With the above research suggestions completed, the humor would have come naturally. There’s a bevy of things in both countries to choose from that would make compelling television. Such a rich bounty of harvestable material should have provided scores of ideas.Comment:  Substitute "the reservation" for "India" in this analysis and it would work for any Native-themed fiction. Kind of ironic that a posting about Indians can teach us about Indians.

You can apply these lessons to countless productions. For instance, failed TV shows such as Off the Map and Running Wilde. Failed movies such as Jonah Hex and The Last Airbender. Without creators who understand Native cultures, these productions inevitably miss the mark. They're about as satisfying as "coffee" made with brown crayons dipped in water.

You can bet that the Natives in upcoming movies--Cowboys and Aliens, The Lone Ranger, Crooked Arrows--will be stereotypical or superficial too. I wouldn't risk a plugged nickel on these ventures. Unless I could bet on their underperforming rather than overperforming. Then I might place a wager.

For more on TV Indians, see Navajo Cops Stereotypes Indians and Colonial Indians in It's Always Sunny.

Crooked Arrows seeks "authenticity"

'Crooked Arrows' team casting lacrosse players in tri-state area

By Anthony Sulla-HeffingerThe film, titled "Crooked Arrows," will tell the fictional tale of a Native American prep school team and its unlikely rise to the league’s championship game.

Casting for the film has been a success so far--Ellis and the film’s team recently visited Baltimore--and they will be coming to the tri-state area this weekend to pick the best of the best in terms of lacrosse athletes.These people really seem concerned about authenticity:“When you need to turn an actor into an athlete, it is a little more difficult but the more athletic they are the easier it is. In both cases, our goal is to make the product look credible and authentic,” Ellis says.

Ellis and the team behind "Crooked Arrows" will face their biggest challenge in finding Native American lacrosse players to fill the roles on the “hero team.”

“The hero team is all in itself will be a difficult task both act and play lacrosse. We had a similar issue with 'Miracle.' We asked ourselves, do we find skaters and teach them how to act or vice versa. Here we want the Native American team to be able to do both,” Ellis says.

In addition to casting, authenticity is a must, especially when you are going to be the pioneer, as "Crooked Arrows" will be.Comment:  We can tell how concerned about authenticity they are by their hiring of Brandon Routh to play a tribal chairman's son. Similarly, all the Native lacrosse players must have at least one Cherokee princess in their background. A good tan is also acceptable.

For more on casting decisions, see Wannabes Audition for Native Roles and Routh Is a Native?!

Indians, terrorists = US enemies

Legal Scholar Matthew Fletcher on Government Slurs of Indians and U.S. Law

By Gale Courey ToensingComing on the heels of the Geronimo/bin Laden Incident, what do you make of the government’s expropriation of indigenous history—using Geronimo as the code name for Osama bin Laden, and then citing the Jackson’s murderous actions against the Seminoles and Brits as a precedent for the prosecution of Al Qaeda suspects?

Generations of West Point officers learn about war from studying the “Indian wars,” and so it would make perfect sense for them to draw an analogy between Indians and al Qaeda. The military tradition is that the Indians were the bad guys, they were savage and engaged in non-traditional, even scary warfare, and that they had no rights under the U.S. Constitution. As such, they were fair game for anything—anything at all—the U.S. military wanted to do to them. Preemptive attacks on unarmed women and children like Wounded Knee, indefinite detention in concentration camps like Fort Sill, mass executions for trumped up war crimes like at Fort Snelling all of it legally justifiable from the point of the view of the military. Same is true in the Department of Justice, where in the days following 9/11, Bush Administration attorneys like John Yoo (now a Berkeley law professor) and Jay Bybee (now a Ninth Circuit judge) argued that the President needed no authorization from Congress to engage in torture, establish military jails and commissions to house and try al Qaeda suspects, etc., through extensive reliance on Indian war-related “precedents” involving self-serving legal opinions about the Modocs, the Seminoles, the Dakota at Fort Snelling, and others. It was Yoo and Bybee who authored so many of the so-called “torture papers” who first explicitly compared the Seminoles and other tribes to al Qaeda. The military prosecutors are just cribbing from them.Comment:  This analysis nicely summarizes how the US military really feels about Indians. It's a good reason for discounting the talk about "honoring" Indians because they're brave and noble. Yeah, they're brave and noble...terrorists.

We killed them for terrorizing, scalping, and murdering us. Now that they're dead and (mostly) gone, we salute them for their terrorist-like abilities. If you want to frighten al-Qaeda, what better way than with an Indian missile or helicopter or codename? It takes a terrorist to scare a terrorist.

It's like honoring a grizzly bear or another deadly predator. When it's about to eat you, you don't "honor" it for its bravery and nobility. You shoot it and kill it. Once you skin it and turn it into a rug, then you honor it. It's brave and noble because it took you, someone even braver and nobler, to conquer it.

For more on the subject, see How People Get Labeled "Terrorists," Obama:  Bin Laden Was "Geronimo," and Seminoles Compared to Al Qaeda.

The Aztecs ruined it

Just a thought:

The Aztecs ruined it for other Indians. Most anti-Indian arguments end up with, "Just look at the Aztecs and their practice of human sacrifice." Without that argument, the Indian haters would have nothing.

A quick recap of Aztec history:The Aztec empire ... originated in 1427 as a triple alliance between the city-states Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan. ... The empire reached its maximal extent in 1519 just prior to the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors led by Cortés who managed to topple the Aztec empire.Let's put this into proper perspective. The Aztecs ruled for fewer than 100 years out of the 10,000-year Native history. They ruled only part of the modern territory of Mexico, which is only 1/20th of the area of North and South America.

So the Aztecs represent less than 1% of Native time x 5% of Native space. In other words, the Aztecs represent less than 0.05% (1/20th of 1%) of Native history.

To put that into perspective, it would be like understanding US history--the Revolution, the Constitution, westward expansion, commerce, foreign policy, slavery, the Civil War, immigration, etc.--by looking only at California from 2000 to 2001. It's about as close to irrelevant as you can get without being totally irrelevant.

And this doesn't begin to address the reasons for the Aztecs' human sacrifice. For many if not most of them, it was a deeply held religious conviction. I'm not sure we can prove a single Aztec felt an unhealthy lust for blood or a depraved indifference to human life.

For all these reasons, citing the Aztecs in a Native debate is ridiculous. It's like citing one white man who gave an Indian a hand to counteract 500 years of conquest and genocide. It's a joke.

For more on the Aztecs, see The Origin of Yaomachtia and Alternatives to Dark Horse's TUROK.

Charges against Kilcher dropped

Prosecutors dismiss charge against actress arrested for White House protestProsecutors have dismissed a charge against the actress who played Pocahontas in the film “The New World” and was arrested after chaining herself to the White House fence.

Q’orianka (kohr-ee-AHN’-kuh) Kilcher and her mother Saskia Kilcher were arrested last June after the actress chained herself to the White House fence and her mother poured a black substance over her. The actress was charged with disorderly conduct and her mother was charged with defacing government property.

The 21-year-old, whose father is a Peruvian Indian, was protesting the sale of land in Peru to oil companies. Peru’s president, Alan Garcia, was meeting that day with President Barack Obama, and Saskia Kilcher said their goal was to disrupt his visit.

Prosecutors dropped the charges against both women Monday after they completed community service.Comment:  For more on Q'orianka Kilcher, see Kilcher Arrested at White House and Kilcher Is Passionate for Activism.

The Gospel of the Redman

Here's a report on the book The Gospel of the Redman (1935) by naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton.

Some required reading for Indians

By Doug George-KanentiioSeton emphasizes the need to work for the people as a cardinal rule of indigenous America. He cites hospitality as a universal custom, along with generosity, honesty, friendliness and patience. He praises the Native tradition of simplicity and how they avoided becoming encumbered by material possessions.

Above all, Seton notes, was the Native attitude of respect for all living things as expressed through the many social and private rituals of thanksgiving. Humility was valued as an essential characteristic of all true leaders. He also noted the resources of any given Native community were directed at providing for the needs of the young and old.

Seton also had great respect for the Iroquois, citing the Great Law of Peace as an example of what the Native mind had accomplished prior to European colonization. Seton concludes his book by observing “the civilization of the whiteman is a failure; it is visibly crumbling around us. It has failed every crucial test. No one who measures things by results can question this fundamental statement. Apparently, the money-madness is the main cause of it all.”

Wise words from a man who was fortunate enough to know us as we once were.A key quote from the beginning of The Gospel of the Redman:The culture and civilization of the Whiteman are essentially material; his measure of success is "How much property have I acquired for myself?" The culture of the Redman is fundamentally spiritual; his measure of success is, "How much service have I rendered to my people?" His mode of life, his thought, his every act are given spiritual significance, approached and coloured with complete realization of the spirit world.

Garrick Mallery, the leading Smithsonian authority of his day, says: "The most surprising fact relating to the North American Indians, which until lately had not been realized, is that they habitually lived in and by religion to a degree comparable with that of the old Israelites under the theocracy. This was sometimes ignored, and sometimes denied in terms, by many of the early missionaries and explorers. The aboriginal religion was not their [the missionaries'] religion, and therefore was not recognized to have an existence or was pronounced to be satanic."

"Religion was the real life of the tribes, permeating all their activities and institutions."Comment:  I've skimmed The Gospel of the Redman. It's a great corrective for people who think Indians are savage and uncivilized.

Indian casino in The Killing

The Killing (U.S. TV series)The Killing is an American crime drama television series based on the Danish television series with the same English title, but known as Forbrydelsen (The Crime) in Danish. The American version was developed by Veena Sud and produced by Fox Television Studios and Fuse Entertainment. The series' first season, consisting of 13, hour-long episodes, premiered on the cable channel AMC on April 3, 2011, with a two-hour premiere.

Set in Seattle, Washington, the series follows the police investigation, the grieving family and the suspects, after the homicide of a young girl, Rosie Larsen (Katie Findlay). Each of the 13 episodes chronicles one day of the investigation.Here's a recap of episode 11, Missing (airdate: 6/5/11):

The Killing Recap:  Cigarette BreakAt the open, Linden strolls through a casino floor populated exclusively by Mrs. Belkos. It seems the joint is run by two wildly unfriendly Native American ladies who seem to be hiding something and also seem to have received character notes from the director consisting of one word: “asshole.” Anyway, it’s an Indian casino so no jurisdiction, yada yada. The ladies toss Linden out, partly for her nosiness and partly for the crime of wearing jeggings (fine, running pants) near a baccarat table. But our heroine is nothing if not a cop: Once outside, she smartly notices the one other thing that is also outside: an ATM. Not only that: an ATM with a full-color security camera inside! She arranges a warrant to gain access to all the casino’s ATMs. Very good! Still, the whole thing seems a bit flimsy: Rosie is now connected to this heretofore unheard of casino solely because she had a keychain with a bird on it? Maybe she just spent a lot of time in Portland?Comment:  I haven't seen The Killing, but this episode sounds stereotypical. Indian casinos are run by tribes, not individuals. Professional managers with MBAs and business experience are in charge, not surly ladies. The customer service is the same as you'd find any non-Indian hotel, resort, or casino.

This portrayal sounds like a mild version of past portrayals of savage and uncivilized Indians. It sounds like it has racist undertones. The suddenness of the casino's appearance suggests that someone has an axe to grind.

Yes, most Indian casinos are on sovereign land where tribal law applies. That includes the ATMs outside the casinos. Because of overlapping jurisdictions, it's possible that nontribal police could get a warrant for a tribal ATM. But I don't think it's very likely.

For more on the subject, see TV Shows Featuring Indians.

Wannabes audition for Native roles

A blast from the past--an article published March 16, 1991:

Wanna-Bes:  Auditions for Indian Roles Bring Out Least Likely of the Mohicans

By Bob PoolThere were more than a few actors acting like Indians among the 100 performers who turned out for the auditions. People like brown-haired, blue-eyed Lance Patak.

"I'm Indian," insisted Patak, 18, of Hollywood.

"I'm 7%. What was that tribe--let me think. It starts with Ch. Say something with Ch," he said, shrugging.

Was he Cheyenne? Chumash? Chippewa?

Patak thought it over a moment before finally answering. "It's Czechoslovakian," he said. "I'm 7% Czechoslovakian."

Patak wasn't the only one at the Hollywood audition for whom American Indian culture may have been a foreign commodity.

"These people are just taking away jobs from a lot of Indian people," said Delbert Pomani, 30, of Oceanside, a full-blooded Sioux who worked in the film "Powwow Highway."

"I lived on a reservation all my life. I know what being an Indian is all about," he said.

Other aspirants said they were willing to try to learn.

"I'm an Indian in disguise," said Mike Haney, 35, of Glendale, who has had roles as drug agents and a Marine in past films. "Maybe I can be a cowboy."Comment:  I'm not sure much has changed since then. For every producer who seeks authentic Native actors, another is willing to hire a Johnny Depp, Taylor Lautner, or Brandon Routh.

For more on casting decisions, see Routh Is a Native?! and Tavare on Hollywood Indians.

Leschi play mirrors woodcarver's killing

Play tackles fears of young Native Americans after woodcarver killed

By Charla BearIt’s been more than nine months since a Seattle police officer killed First Nations woodcarver John T. Williams, and tensions are still running high among Native Americans. They say the shooting brings up the long history of brutality Native people have faced.

The anxiety has also affected children, who’ve had a tough time putting Williams’ death in perspective.

This coming weekend, a local theater group will debut a performance to help young Native Americans move forward, starting with a look at the past.

In the play, A Right to Justice, 17-year-old Dylan Elwood plays Chief Leschi, who led the Nisqually tribe until he was put on trial for killing a white soldier in the mid 1800s.

Leschi was hanged to death and labeled a war criminal in history books. That’s until 2004, when a historical court unanimously ruled it was wrong to try him for murdering an enemy soldier during wartime.

Elwood says the Chief Leschi story parallels what happened to John T. Williams:“They both, in essence, were murdered for no reason,” he says. “And it sort of gives hope that maybe someday, probably not soon, but sometime in the future, the John T. Williams, we could feel some kind of closure with it.”Comment:  For more on Native theater, see Klamath, Modoc Tales Become Plays and The Colors Started It.

Below:  "Young Native American actors portray prisoners in the Red Eagle Soaring production, A Right To Justice. The play aims to help youth work out their feelings about police since Ian Birk, a former Seattle officer, shot woodcarver John T. Williams." (Charla Bear/KPLU)

The Inside Out Project

Inside Out:  Fort Yates expresses itself through art project

By Teri FinnemanA French artist and British filmmaker are helping to transform this rural community into an outdoor art gallery and are planning to share it with the world.

Throughout this town on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, large photos of local residents and historical figures such as Sitting Bull are plastered on outdoor walls and surfaces.

Known as the Inside Out Project, the goal is to transform messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work, according to insideoutproject.net. People around the world are taking part in the project to share a message about their city.

The man behind the movement is known simply as JR, a Paris native who recently won the TED prize. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and provides a cash prize to “an excep-tional individual” with one wish to change the world.Comment:  I think this project is conceptually better than Aaron Huey's billboard project. One, photos on random buildings and walls are more eye-catching than billboards. Billboards are easy to ignore when you're driving by at high speed.

Two, the photos show historical as well as modern Indians. This gives viewers a hint of who the modern figures are. It also suggests a continuity between the two. This is more dynamic than a single image with the message "We are still here."

They're both worth a try to raise awareness of Indians. But if the two projects cost the same and I could fund only one, I'd probably go with this one.

For more on the subject, see Billboard Advocate Seeks Donations.

Ojibwa rapper Plex

Plex, Ojibwa Rapper:  From the Streets to the Suburbs

By Wilhelm MurgIn 2009, Plex released his first solo album, the socially conscious Brainstorm, which concerns itself with both local and global issues. His new album, Demons, is being finished now and is due out later this year on the Canadian label Urbnet.

While the once-underground hip hop movement has become mainstream pop music over the decades, Plex sees the involvement of Native people as still something relatively new, and thus Native hip hop resembles old school rap, which wrestled more with social and political issues. “Hip hop has been in African-American culture for over thirty years, but for Natives, as hip hop artists, it’s something new to us,” he says. “Some of us have been doing it for years, but we really just got on the radar. Because it’s so new, we’re kind of where African-Americans were with hip-hop thirty years ago, when it was about the message. These are intelligent people, they see how the world is run, they come from low income areas with a lot of poverty and abuse, carrying shame, fear, and guilt along with them, and this is how they express themselves, this is how they let that stuff go. We’re still in the beginning stages, because with the exception of one artist—Yelawolf, who is working on his first studio album with Eminem—none of us have hit the mainstream.”Comment:  For more on the subject, see Hard Rock Promotes Native Musicians and Natives in Flying Wild Alaska.

Mohawk NASCAR driver

Mohawk Race Car Driver Dexter StaceyDexter Stacey was going 162 miles on the track in the city of Trois-Rivieres (Three Rivers), between Montreal and Quebec City, in a NASCAR Canadian Tire Series event when he encountered a small problem—a wall. Thankfully, the young Mohawk racer survived, and has gone on to become a promising contender to reach the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for the WJS Motorsports company that sponsors him. “My dream is to drive in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, the highest league,” Dexter told us. So far he’s off to a good start. The ultimate goal, however, isn’t just to qualify for NASCAR’s elite racing series, it’s to become the first aboriginal or Native driver to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.

The Mohawk owned and operated company, located in Kahnawake, 9.3 mile south of Montreal, supports and promotes drivers in the Dirt Modified, Ice Racing, Karting and the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series. For the past 30-years, the company has sponsored and promoted drivers, but Stacey appears to be their best shot at getting to the highest level of NASCAR.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Mohawk International Raceway and Mohegan NASCAR Champion.

Below:  "Dexter Stacey talking strategy with his dad Wallace Stacey Jr."

Apocalypto in It's Always Sunny

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia continues its streak of Native references with the 12th episode of its fourth season. Titled The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition (airdate: 11/13/08), the episode has "the gang" remaking a Latino family and its home.

Mac and Sweet Dee dress up the Juarez family in wigs and leisure wear to make them look "American." Then Mac says:Now, while we wait, I was thinking: We expose them to some good old-fashioned American cinema. Apocalypto. They can learn about how their ancestors used to be savages, until Mel Gibson and the Catholics came in and saved everybody.Comment:  If a serious pundit had said this, I'd say it was stereotypical and insulting. But since Mac and his friends are idiots, his comments reflect badly on them, not the Juarezes.

This shows the importance of context in determining the meaning of words. Depending on who's saying it and why, almost anything can become an attack.

For more on the subject, see Colonial Indians in It's Always Sunny and Tim Sampson in It's Always Sunny.

A Man Called Horse reviewed

A Man Called Horse (Blu-ray)

By Stuart Galbraith IVA Man Called Horse is daring in that, except for the opening sequence, the entire picture takes place within a "primitive" Sioux community, and most of the dialogue is in the Sioux language and not subtitled. Bored English aristocrat John Morgan (Harris) is hunting for game that, he sighs, is not all that different from that found back home in England. As the picture begins Sioux braves sneak up to Morgan's camp to steal the horses, killing his guide (Dub Taylor, with his teeth out) and his two helpers (James Gammon and William Jordan). The white men are graphically scalped, and in a grimly amusing bit, the Indians are disappointed to find the guide quite bald, making his scalp hardly worth the effort.

Morgan is taken alive and made sport of by his captors. The leader of the tribe, Chief Yellow Hand (Manu Tupou, actually Fijian), declares Morgan a "horse" and treats him like one, leading him around on a kind of leash. Morgan is made a slave of Yellow Hand's crotchety mother, Buffalo Cow Head (Judith Anderson), and the white man bides his time, hoping for a chance to escape his captors. He learns more about the tribe from its only other Caucasian (and only other white character in the film), Batise (Jean Gascon), a French-immigrant who, five years into his captivity and after being deliberately hamstrung after trying to escape, has become its fool.

The film compares unfavorably to Arthur Penn's outstanding Little Big Man, released later that same year. They operate from the same premise, of a white man captured by Indians, who in both films is initially terrified but who gradually comes to respect and even admire his captors. (There are several other plot points nearly identical that I won't spoil here.) Stylistically the films are miles apart, however, with Little Big Man singularly picaresque, mixing satire with tragedy while drawing parallels between the genocide of the American Indian and the war in Vietnam, particularly the My Lai Massacre. It's still one of the five or six best Westerns ever made.

By contrast, A Man Called Horse is nearly humorless, uneasily mixing apparently authentic Sioux traditions with pseudo-mysticism, drawing obvious parallels between Morgan's search for meaning in his unhappy life ("I'm looking," he says at the beginning of the picture, "Just looking") with similarly dissatisfied late-'60s youth.And:In the film's most celebrated scene (note the poster above), Morgan willingly subjects himself to a Sun Dance ritual in order to obtain warrior status. The strange ritual includes piercing Morgan's chest with the meat-hook-like talons of a large bird, which are then attached to ropes raising Morgan several feet into the air, the skin on his chest nearly ripped from his body in the process.

The medicine man supervising this ritual is played by actor Iron Eyes Cody, symbolizing the film's alternately authentic / phony air. Cody was for years one of the most instantly recognizable Native American actors, best known for a famous series of "Keep America Beautiful" public service announcements. Only problem was Cody was actually the son of Sicilian immigrants and born Espera Oscar de Corti, though Cody's wife was an Indian, as were their adopted children, and Cody himself was a tireless advocate of Indian causes. (And, to be fair, back in 1970 Cody's real roots would have been unknown to the filmmakers, not that it would have mattered.)

This mix of the authentic and inauthentic seriously damages the film, though by 1970 standards only real Indians and historians recognized its inaccuracies. Judith Anderson (wearing black contact lenses) is believable as the crusty, crabby Buffalo Cow Head, but Harris's love interest, Running Deer (Greek actress Corinna Tsopei) looks ridiculous, like Ann-Margret in a black wig.

The film's emphasis on grisly ritual--versus the wisdom expressed by Old Lodge Skins, played by Chief Dan George, throughout Little Big Man--make its supposed respect for Indian culture at least appear slightly disingenuous. Further, the idea of a white man winning over his captors and (mild spoilers) rising to great heights within the tribe is pure fantasy, a backhandedly arrogant and imperialist notion perpetuated to the present day in movies like Dances with Wolves (1990) and The Last Samurai (2003). Little Big Man, for all its tall tales, is much more realistic; Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) is accepted into his tribe (his being captured in childhood helps), but he's always regarded as an adopted outsider and never fully embraced or truly accepted by Indians and, later, whites alike.Comment:  For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

First Lady, Indian kids plant crops

First Lady and American Indian Children Plant Traditional Crops in the White House Kitchen GardenOne week after the launch of Let’s Move! in Indian Country (LMIC), and as part of the regular seasonal harvest, Mrs. Obama and American Indian children began the process of planting the “three sisters”–corn, beans and squash–in the White House kitchen garden. This traditional Native American planting technique grows crops in a mutually beneficial manner: the corn provides a structure for the beans to climb, eliminating the need for poles; the beans provide the soil with nitrogen that the other plants use; and the squash spreads along the ground, blocking the sunlight and preventing weeds. The Cherokee White Eagle corn, Rattlesnake pole beans, and Seminole squash seeds used today come from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.And:The American Indian children who joined Mrs. Obama today come from a variety of tribes including Jemez Pueblo, Skokomish, Cherokee, Sault Ste. Marie, Navajo, Turtle Mountain Chippewa, St. Regis Mohawk, Tlingit, Oglala Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, and the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. Mrs. Obama was also joined by leaders in the Native American community, including Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk, Indian Health Service Director Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service Director Dennis Concannon, Bureau of Indian Education Director Keith Moore, President of the National Congress of American Indian Jefferson Keel, National Museum of the American Indian Director Kevin Gover, NFL quarterback Sam Bradford and basketball player Tahnee Robinson.First Lady Remembers Native Youth

Comment:  For more on Michelle Obama and Indians, see Michelle Obama's Mentors Include Erdrich and Blackfeet Ornaments at White House.

Graham Greene does sketch comedy

Graham Greene goes Nuts for local sketch comedy show

Spoofs his famous Dancing with Wolves role for APTN network program

By Ben GelinasLegendary aboriginal actor Graham Greene was in Edmonton on Friday, hamming it up on the set of a local sketch comedy show.

Edmonton-produced Caution: May Contain Nuts is shooting its third season for APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network).

Greene filmed multiple sketches with the cast Friday, including a spoof of the CBC reality show Dragons' Den.

Called Grizzly Bear's Den, the anachronistic bit has white people pitching concepts like "currency" to a panel of elders when Europeans first came to Canada.And:Naturally, Greene will also feature prominently in a scene inspired by Dances with Wolves, specifically the role that garnered him an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.

In the scene, Greene tends to a wounded cowboy, played by the show's head writer Matt Alden. Everything Greene provides Alden is made of buffalo, from the fuzzy blanket to the campfire.Comment:  For more on Graham Greene, see Who Are the Great Native Actors? and Interviews for The Wild Child.

Below:  "Graham Greene finds himself in the middle of comic mayhem with cast members of the Edmonton-produced show Caution: May Contain Nuts." (Candace Elliott/Edmonton Journal)

Hobbit tar sands story is hoax

Turns out the Native Tar Sands = Mordor? story wasn't true after all:

One hoax to rule them all:  The Hobbit movie tar sands story revealed

By Judy RebickTravellers at Terminal 3 in the Toronto airport were astounded Tuesday morning to see Gandalf the Grey and several hobbits march their handcuffed prisoner Stephen Harper, dressed as the evil lord Sauron, into a Syncrude Ltd. recruiting meeting. They demanded that Synacrude take him back to Mordor aka the Alberta tar sands, "the hell on earth that he created."

The performance was the culmination of a series of media reports that director Peter Jackson is shooting scenes from "The Hobbit" film in the tar sands. In a press release issued today, a troupe of Toronto activists calling themselves Black Flood, working alongside the infamous pranksters of The Yes Lab, confirmed their role in the events for "the purpose of stirring up some hot and bubbly controversy on the Alberta tar sands."Comment:  As this article notes, Mordor doesn't appear in The Hobbit. I thought that was the case, but I wondered if Peter Jackson might have rewritten Tolkien for his movie.

Alas, the whole story was a hoax. But my point still stands: that comparing a Native-owned wasteland to Mordor is ironic.

For more on the subject, see Cameron Criticizes Oilsands "Curse" and Canada's Avatar Sands.

Edmonton Walk of Honour inducts Eyre

Aboriginal filmmakers to receive places on Edmonton Walk of Honour

By Catherine GriwkowskyTwo Aboriginal filmmakers will be inducted into the Edmonton Walk of Honour at Beaver Hills House Park as part of the Dreamspeakers Film Festival.

Smoke Signals director Chris Eyre took home awards at the Sundance Film Festival, while Edge of America won a Director’s Guild of America Award.

In addition to television, Eyre has directed Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Friday Night Lights and Mystery.

“As a Native, I’d rather be immortalized in a park than in a museum,” Eyre said.

Documentary producer Dr. Allen Benson is the CEO of both Native Counselling Services of Alberta and Bearpaw Media Productions.

The pair join actor Tantoo Cardinal and filmmakers Gil Cardinal and Gordon Tootoosis.Comment:  For more on Chris Eyre, see Variety Reviews A Year in Mooring and Entertainment Panel at RES 2011.

Belly dancing in Indian country

Belly dancing gaining ground in Indian territory as form of exercise an entertainment

By Bernie DotsonThe sultry music sounds like a snake charmer's flute, and synchronously the five women begin to dance.

A glimpse of belly jewelry is revealed as colorful, sheer scarves float across their midriffs. As the flute winds through a scale of notes, the symmetry of the group becomes evident with each rhythmic roll.

It's one of the world's oldest dance forms, used to celebrate the harvest, pay homage to religious occasions and to help prepare the body for childbirth. It's an exercise and entertainment trend that is quickly gaining ground in the Indian Capital.

"People get into belly dancing for a lot of reasons," Leaf Ashley, 35, who teaches the classes once per week in Gallup, said. An Alamosa, Colo., native who lived a long time in Chinle, on the nearby Navajo Nation Indian Reservation, Ashley said of interest in the ancient art form, "Some of its curiosity. People come into it with an open mind. They want exercise and to see what belly dancing is all about."Comment:  The article claims belly dancing is "gaining ground" in "Indian territory" or "the Indian Capitol." But it doesn't present any evidence that the art is popular or growing more popular among Indians. These claims may be nothing more than a newspaper "trend" made up to justify the article.

For more on Native dance, see Tlingit Dancing in Afterschool Class and Cheyenne River Glitter Girls.

Routh is a Native?!

A reaction to my "Superman" Star to Play Native Coach posting:I dont like that the article says "Wikepedia confirms that Routh is mainly non-Native". That's so rude. He is a confirmed Native, even if it is a small portion. Why should he have to throw that ancestry away just because he doesn't "look" Native? Now if he was FULLY Caucasian then I'd be able to understand the controversy, but he is in fact Native.Routh is a "confirmed Native" if someone actually confirms it. That is, if he's a member of a recognized tribe. Or he participates in a tribal culture. Or his tribal peers accept him as one of them.

None of these are true in Routh's case. That makes him a non-Native with a small amount of Native blood. Same as tens of millions of other Americans, none of whom qualify as "Native."

We're talking about why the role didn't go to one of the talented Native actors out there who looks and acts Native and represents his Native culture. Why are you defending Routh when he's taking a job from a real Native actor? Should Adam Beach, Chaske Spencer, et al. stand on the sidelines and applaud Routh the "Native"?

Someone else added:Let's flip it. Common, the entertainer, has White ancestry. There's no denying that. Look at his freckles. So since his great grandaddy may have been an Irishman, he can play Abe Lincoln.I don't think anyone considers Common "white" because he has a few white ancestors. The same applies to Routh and his Native ancestors.

For more on casting decisions, see Tavare on Hollywood Indians and Depp's "Dilemma" Over Playing Mexican. For more on who counts as an Indian, see Indian Identity Matters to Indians and "Actual Indian" Defined.

Below:  The next role for Common the "white" actor?

Beaded Volkswagen shows Huichol art

Mexican Indian tribe covers VW bug with bead-art

By Adrienne BardA Volkswagen bug decorated with more than 2 million glass beads glued on by hand by Mexico's Huichol Indians is soon to embark on a world tour.

"The point is to raise awareness of the centuries old tradition and the native culture," said Cecilia de Moctezuma, president of the of the friends' association of Mexico City's Museum of Popular Art.

"We wanted to dignify them, because we love what they do," said de Moctezuma.

The beaded bug took native craftsmen and women, who live in the Western Mexican states of Jalisco and Nayarit, more than 8 months to complete and required 200 pounds of beads and a special polymer glue.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Indians = Hippies.

Below:  "The full-sized version of the beaded bug will be auctioned after a world tour while mini beaded bugs like this one will also go on sale soon at the museum's store." (Adrienne Bard)

Twilight ruining Indians' reputation?

Chris Eyre posted the following note on Facebook:‎"Twilight...is ruining our names!!" --UnknownThis led to a cute exchange between me and "Jason":It's getting to the point where I don't even feel like turning into a wolf anymore, cause it just plays into people's stereotypes.We know y'all have secret wolf and eagle powers. Don't try to deny it. <g>Yeah, but nobody knows about the 1/2 and 1/2 "Weagle" form that Indians can turn into...flying all around, dropping wolf poop on all our enemies....For more on the subject, see Wolf Pack on Bronzing and Are Good Native Werewolves Okay?.

Klamath, Modoc tales become plays

Klamath, Modoc stories adapted for plays

The Klamath Union Theater Workshop students practice for “Coyote in Love with a Star,” an adaptation of four traditional Klamath and Modoc stories.

By Sara HottmanPrancing, roaring, flapping, squealing, the Klamath Union Theater Workshop, an advanced acting class at the high school, will tell a series of four American Indian myths in "Coyote in Love with a Star."

The original short play is an adaptation of four myths from the Klamath and Modoc tribes.And:The fables are primarily about creation--the beginning of the world, the formation of Crater Lake--and were written by students in the class. The performance is their final semester project.

Students will act out four myths: "Coyote in Love with a Star," "How Coyote Brought Fire to the People," "The War between Lao and Skell: A Legend of Crater Lake," and "In the Beginning of the Modoc World."Comment:  For more on Native children's theater, see The Colors Started It.

"Superman" star to play Native coach

Another day, another travesty of a casting decision:

Routh takes aim at 'Crooked Arrows'

'Superman Returns' star set for sports pic

By Jeff Sneider"Superman Returns" star Brandon Routh is set to topline "Crooked Arrows," an underdog sports pic set in the world of lacrosse.

Steve Rash ("Can't Buy Me Love") is directing from a script by Todd Baird.

Story follows a rag-tag Native American high school lacrosse team that is forced to join the local prep school league, which is comprised of better trained and equipped rivals.

Routh will play the tribal chairman's part-Native American entrepreneurial son who is tasked with coaching the reservation's motley lacrosse team in the hopes that he'll reconnect with his fellow tribe members. An unlikely and uplifting journey to the prep league's championship game ensues.

J. Todd Harris and Mitchell Peck are producing, while Sports Studio ("Miracle") will co-produce with a focus on authentic athletic casting, outfitting and choreography. Reebok is the film's first athletic corporate sponsor. Production is scheduled to start this July in the Boston area.

Over Memorial Day weekend, Routh attended the NCAA Lacrosse Final Four in Baltimore, where "Crooked Arrows" held an open casting call. "I was moved by the script," said Routh, whose ancestors hail from the Kickapoo Tribe. "While it has all the ingredients of a classic underdog sports movie, it actually appealed to me on a deeper level. I think the father-son and brother-sister dynamics of the story are compelling, as is [the] more spiritual Native American aspect."

"We couldn't be happier," boasted Harris. "Brandon is a highly recognizable and well-liked actor around the world, and he brings authenticity to the athletic and Native aspects of the film."Wikipedia confirms that Routh is mostly non-Native:

Brandon RouthRouth, the third of four children, was born in Norwalk, Iowa, on October 9, 1979, the son of Catherine (née Lear), a teacher, and Ronald Ray Routh, a carpenter. Routh's family, which is Methodist, has German, French, English, and Native American ancestry.Comment:  How bad is this casting choice? Routh doesn't look much like a Native. He has no known connection to Kickapoo Indians other than a few drops of blood. Neither Iowa nor the Kickapoo Tribe is near the center of Native lacrosse.

Moreover, Routh's main claim to fame is starring in Superman Returns, which is widely considered a disappointment or a failure. So how does a little-known "star" with one flop to his name get a major Native role? It certainly can't be because of his box-office potentially, which is effectively nil.

What's going on here is sadly obvious. Hollywood's cowardly executives have cast someone with a hint of Native ancestry (see Johnny Depp and Taylor Lautner) so they can claim "authenticity." They think a white actor without significant accomplishments is more marketable than a talented Native actor. They've made the character "part Native" in a feeble attempt to inoculate themselves from criticism.

Of course, a tribal chairman's son is likely to be a member of the tribe regardless of his "blood." He's likely to live with the tribe and participate in its culture. All of which leaves the non-Native Routh out. The guy has zero "authenticity" as a Native except in a racist's mind.

Haynes gets criticized

I believe Rene Haynes is the movie's casting director. She's done good things in the past. I think she hired Native actors for New Moon after the Twilight fiasco. But she may have been responsible for hiring Julia Jones, Boo Boo Stewart, and Tinsel Korey also.

I gather she's taking some heat for this casting decision. If so, good. Anyone who thinks Routh is "authentic" shouldn't be involved in casting.

For more on the movie, see Financing Crooked Arrows. For more on casting decisions, see Tavare on Hollywood Indians and Depp's "Dilemma" Over Playing Mexican.

Hopi origin of Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Someone asked me if the group of women known as the "Ya-Ya Sisterhood" was connected to the Hopi Indians. I haven't read the book or seen the movie, so I couldn't say much about it. But I knew the name came from the Hopi, at least, and said so.

Other than book and movie reviews, there isn't much information on the Ya-Ya Sisterhood online. But here's a bit that hints at its Indian origin:

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (film)The film opens in 1937 Louisiana with four little girls out in the woods at night, each wearing a home-made headdress. The leader, Viviane Walker, initiates them into a secret order she dubs the "Ya-Ya Sisterhood," which they seal by cutting their palms and taking a blood oath of undying loyalty.Yeah, because the Hopi wear headdresses and do barbaric things like cutting themselves...not.

Verifying the Sisterhood's origin

With all the New Age nonsense on the Web, I thought it would be easy to verify the Ya-Ya/Hopi connection. But it wasn't.

Fortunately, I'd read Frank Waters's Book of the Hopi. It devotes a chapter to the Ya Ya ceremony, which the Hopi consider a form of evil. Writing in 1963, he said:If the Ya Ya ceremony is finally and formally extinct, it is only because its beliefs and practices have gone underground, spreading throughout all Hopi villages in widely prevalent forms of witchcraft.I imagine this is the source of the Sisterhood's name. So the "sisters" gather in the night, don headdresses, and perform blood rituals. Because if you want to escape the narrow confines of civilization, becoming a "savage Indian" is the way to go.

Summing up Waters's book

Book of the Hopi was one of the first books I read about the Hopi 20 years ago. Initially I was impressed with the depth and breadth of Waters's knowledge. In retrospect, he sounds like a New Ager or Castaneda disciple who swallowed what he heard uncritically. And you have to suspect an outsider's ability to understand another culture.

I wonder what the Hopis think of his deconstructing their religion and revealing their sacred beliefs. It would be interesting to read their critique of his book. Somehow I doubt they appreciated it.

Anyway, I trust people who search for the origin of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood now will find this posting. The Sisterhood is another of our millions of words and ideas appropriated borrowed from Indians.

For more on Hopi beliefs, see Hopi Mask in American Dad! and Rainbow Gatherings Based on Hopi Prophecy?

Blame burial grounds for economy?

Report:  Economy Failing Because U.S. Built On Ancient Indian Burial Grounds

Comment:  This Onion satire is mostly innocuous. It mocks non-Indians for believing in the "curse" of Indian burial grounds. And not the Indians or their burial practices.

Note also that it's basically true, which robs it of some of its sting. Indians did own the entire land. They are buried everywhere. Everything we built sits on top of Indian bones, either literally or figuratively.

For some stories dealing with burial grounds, see Mound Supporters Compared to Violent Protesters and Wamapoke Curse in Parks and Recreation. For more on the subject, see Indian Remains = Specimens and Digging Up Indian Graves Okay?