By Matthew YglesiasConservative commentators like George Will like to portray their outrage over the Ricci case as a principled stance in favor of racial blindness, writing of "the predictable price of failing to simply insist that government cannot take cognizance of race." But looking at the record quickly reveals that Will, like most conservatives, rarely if ever bemoans instances of racial discrimination against nonwhites. They oppose racial classifications for the specific reason that they fear such classifications are being used to disadvantage white people, and seek to advance this pro-white agenda through, among other things, activist judging.Conservative and liberal judges alike overturn previous decisions. Unlike conservative judges, however, liberal judges don't lie to themselves or others about being activists.
Yglesias continues:This judging is all, in some sense, "activist" and all involves overturning the will of democratically elected legislators. The difference is not in the means but the ends. Liberal cases seek to advance the rights of racial minorities, women, gays, etc., Conservative jurists have sought to advance the interests of white people, corporations, gun owners, and perpetrators of domestic violence. As a theoretical matter, there seems to be a clearer case for the use of judicial review to protect the interests of traditionally disenfranchised groups who may not be able to use the political process to defend their legitimate claims. (Admittedly, wife-beaters may face this same problem.) But if conservatives don't see it that way, they're certainly entitled to articulate their alternative vision of a judiciary that heroically wields the 14th Amendment to protect America's overburdened corporate executives from the will of the people.Comment: A lot of racial issues have bubbled up to the surface recently. For example:
Therefore, the message behind these incidents bears repeating. For the most part, conservatives don't care about racial discrimination or the plight of nonwhite minorities. What they care about is protecting their white privilege.
Latitude Festival, reviewImpressive crowds gathered to catch contemporary ballet and new orchestral works by the river, while sheep with fluorescent fleeces munched the grass.
People enter into the spirit with colourful costumes: there were parties of American Indians, Smurfs and an engaging posse of pensionable old dears dressed as fairies. The audience is, it has to be said, overwhelmingly white and middle-class (and probably predominantly middle-aged).Comment: In Brits and Americans, Imagining Indians, educator Debbie Reese notes how Indians are sometimes grouped with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. They're also grouped with pirates and cavemen, not to mention talking animals. As Reese put it, Indians are cast in "that particular framework---of things-not-real."
It's a shame that we haven't shamed Oxford's officials into stopping the destruction yet. But the level of activism gives hope. Carolyn Chambliss has recruited more than 1,000 people to her Facebook group, and a few dozen people are protesting the destruction in person.
On the Tonight Show Friday (7/24/09), Conan O'Brien told a joke about Indians:What else is going on?
A big victory for Native Americans. I don't know if you heard this. A federal appeals court ruled the government must pay millions of dollars in land royalties to Native Americans.
[loud cheers and applause] Yeah, which is good. That's good, yeah. Yup.
Yeah, the ruling was a triumph for top Native American lawyer...Chief Golfs with Dershowitz.Comment: On the plus side, Conan brought the Indian trust case to people's attention. It's probably the first and last time most of them will hear about it.
On the minus side, he undercut the information with a lame "Indian name" joke. Probably the only thing people will remember is the chief with the funny name.
Indeed, the Mtdna (mitochondrial) studies strongly support the hypothesis that paleoamerican and Eurasian domestic dogs share a common origin, both evolving from the Eurasian gray Wolf. No evidence of a separate domestication of dogs from North American Grey Wolves was discovered. Although the haplotypes found in paleoamerican dogs were closely related to Eurasian dogs, some of them formed a unique clad within the main genetic group, (clad 1), which is found only in paleoamerican dogs. This indicates that dogs were present and isolated in the new world for a considerable amount of time. This long period of isolation led to the appearance of a group of genetic sequences (haplotypes) that are similar but very easily distinguishable from dogs from other parts of the world, or from any modern dog population in America today. Indeed, no surveyed modern population of dogs in the United States carries these unique genetic markers in their DNA. American Indian Dogs were extinct early on by the inbreeding and replacement by European dogs. Only the Eskimo dog has survived. Dna evidence links the Eskimo Dog with the Australian Dingo, the New Guinea Singing dog, and the Shiba Inu. The Mexican Hairless or Xoloitzcuintle was present in the Americas long before Europeans arrived, but the genetic lineage shows extreme mixing with European dogs and may not genetically resemble its pre-Columbian ancestors anymore, although reduced dentition and hairlessness are extremely dominant traits, so the dogs strongly resemble their forebears in appearance.
Dogs, Wolves, and Coyotes
At the time of European contact, American Indians were groups of diverse and widely dispersed nations. It is common yet inaccurate these days for them to be discussed as one single population and their dogs do not escape this inaccuracy. In fact, there were many different types of Indian dogs and they were used for a variety of reasons that were as diverse and unique as the people they inhabited the land with. It is also common for modern researchers to site early explorers from the late 1600s to the late 1800s and their anecdotal interpretations of Indian dogs as being almost impossible to distinguish from the wolf. This is also a common mistake and misinterpretation today. Countless times I have heard children, and adults refer to my Alaskan Village dogs as wolves. In fact, Eskimo dogs, huskies and other sled dogs may have fur and vocalizations that resemble their wolf ancestors, but that is about it. Dogs have a shorter stockier build, wider chests and shorter faces and muzzles, with short steep "stops" or angle from forehead to the bridge of the nose.
In all, many dogs filled roles within Indian cultures. Some tribes had rather loose associations with their dogs, some were extremely attached and involved with dogs as pets and or using them for various tasks. Dogs probably tracked game, and packed meat after a hunt. Dogs were eaten by some groups as a food source and some were only consumed ceremonially. Dogs were the playmates of young children and companions to the elders.Comment: For more on the subject, see Indian Dog Steals Baby.
By Gale Courey ToensingIn a first-of-its-kind action in the Christian world, the national Episcopal Church has passed a landmark resolution repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery and urging the U.S. government to endorse the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Organizers of the bill hope it will lead to the overturning of a 19th century U.S. Supreme Court ruling and Congress’ assumption of plenary power over Indian nations they say are illegitimate and immoral, and continue to strip American Indian nations of their inherent sovereignty.And:The Doctrine of Discovery was a principle of international law developed in a series of 15th century papal bulls and 16th century charters by European monarchs. It was essentially a racist philosophy that gave white Christian Europeans the green light to go forth and claim the lands and resources of non-Christian peoples and kill or enslave them--if other Christian Europeans had not already done so.
The doctrine institutionalized the competition between European countries in their ever-expanding quest for colonies, resources and markets, and sanctioned the genocide of indigenous people in the “New World.”
The resolution renounces the doctrine “as fundamentally opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our understanding of the inherent rights that individuals and peoples have received from God,” and promises to share the document with its churches, governments within its boundaries, and the U.N.
It resolves to eliminate the doctrine within the church’s contemporary politics, programs and structures, and urges the U.S. government to do the same. It asks Queen Elizabeth to publicly repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, and encourages all Episcopal churches to support indigenous peoples in their ongoing efforts for their inherent sovereignty and fundamental human rights as peoples to be respected.
Johnson v. M’Intosh, an 1823 U.S. Supreme Court case, held that because of the Doctrine of Discovery American Indians have a mere right of occupancy to their lands. The ruling is foundational to federal Indian law.
Dieffenbacher-Krall, the executive director of the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission and originator of the resolution movement, said the ultimate goal is to overturn Johnson v. M’Intosh, and dismantle Congress’ claim to plenary power over Indian nations.Comment: For more on the subject, see Those Evil Europeans.
By Kaitlin ManryA 16-year-old boy with a red-and-black-checked bandana knotted around his neck leaned over a notebook and penned rap lyrics.
“I went to over 10 funerals in 1 year people had O.D.,” Kyle Moses wrote. “Running around getting keyed/Are they thinking it’s going to be better for them/80 bucks for 1 pill …”
Around him, other American Indian teens sat on a porch overlooking Port Susan Bay and wrote their own lyrics about prescription drug abuse and problem gambling.
“It’s really easy to rap about because I’ve seen a lot of it,” said Moses, a Muckleshoot. “I usually rap about the truth. I think it helps me because I like putting it out there and having other people see how it is.”
He spent the last week at Warm Beach Camp, attending a music academy for Indian teens that focused on ending prescription drug abuse and problem gambling. Around 50 teens participated, including a few from the Tulalip Tribes. They recorded their own CDs in a bunk-room-turned-recording-studio, helped create music videos about gambling and drugs, and bounced lyrics and poems off each other.
The camp, called the Tribal Youth Music Academy, was organized by the Evergreen Council on Problem Gambling with grants from the state Attorney General’s Office and the state Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, along with support from several Northwest tribes.Comment: For more on the subject, see Short Dawg Tha Native on Tour, Eekwol Raps for Native Rights, and Rapper's Rez-Centric Reality.
Below: "Fourteen-year-old Daryon Casady works on a song while Ella Adams looks on during a writing session Wednesday. About 80 kids spent the week at the Warm Beach camp writing poetry and songs about drug abuse and gambling." (Kevin Nortz/The Herald)
By Diane RechelA difficult economic era in American history that positively affected Native American art is explored in a new book by a Northern Arizona University professor.
A New Deal for Native Art: Indian Arts and Federal Policy 1933-1943, by Jennifer McLerran, an assistant professor of art history at NAU, examines how the U.S. government influenced Native American art production during the New Deal economic reform programs.
The New Deal was the name President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a package of economic programs he initiated between 1933 and 1935 with the goal of helping the unemployed and promoting financial recovery during the Great Depression.
"The New Deal programs had wide and significant impact on Native artwork, but little is known about them," McLerran says. "It's important for people working in the field today to know about past models that can be adapted to current needs."
In this first book to address the ways the New Deal policy advanced Native art forms, McLerran cites a number of successful Native-run arts and crafts cooperatives still in existence and presents case studies that demonstrate the revived success of selling Native artwork.
McLerran, who is also a curator at the Museum of Northern Arizona, describes the federal policies that sought to generate an upscale market with a "demand for high quality" Native American arts and crafts.
The New Deal set out to ensure that arts and crafts designated as "Native" were in fact created by Native Americans and made with real silver, gold, stones and gems.Comment: For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Books.
By Dr. Dean ChaversI had not given any thought to what the Stanford mascot was. In fact, I may not have even known it was an Indian. I certainly did not know that Tim Williams, Ronald Reagan’s in-house Indian when Reagan was governor of California, got dressed up every Saturday in the fall and danced around the Stanford football field, putting curses and hexes on the opponents.
Tim met with us once during the fall of 1970. He promised not to conduct a sham religious Indian ceremony where he put a hex on the other team, but he would not stop being the “Stanford Indian.” It was like his whole life was taken up with doing his stupid dances after each Stanford touchdown. More specifically, he dressed up in Plains Indian regalia, with the full headdress, the buckskin shirt and pants, and moccasins. The problem was he was a Yurok Indian from northern California. The Yuroks have never had a tradition of wearing Plains Indian headdresses.
However, he would not agree to give up being the Stanford mascot altogether. It took a vote of the Student Senate, with the administration sitting on its hands and mostly doing nothing, to make the change happen. The vote by the Student Senate was 18 to 4 to drop the Indian mascot. Richard Lyman, the president, did not object.Comment: Funny how a Yurok Indian was so adamant about defending his stereotypical Plains costume and dance. I guess the attention and applause were more important to him than doing the right thing.
By Emily SacharFlames leap from rocks heating for the sweat lodge experience. Framed by tepees and tall trees, dressed in tribal regalia, Kakwiranoron, a Mohawk/Lakota Sioux, greets me. Formerly a massage therapist in Hawaii, he now shares his heritage at Turning Stone Resort's world-class Skaná Spa.
Sweat is part of ancient healing rituals: Roman thermae, Finnish sauna, Russian banya, Turkish hammam, and Mexican temazcal. But the American Indian sweat lodge is interactive, awakening the senses.
Kakwiranoron certainly knows his way around this healing ritual: He tells me his family gathers twice a week in the sweat lodge at their South Dakota home on a Lakota Sioux reservation.
Drumming and chanting, Kakwiranoron invites me to enter the lodge. We strip to bare minimum, preparing to cleanse body and soul. Slipping between buffalo hides onto a wooden platform around a fire pit, my young guide directs me to clear my mind and let the heat open thoughts of the past and future.Comment: For more on the subject, see Native-Themed Spas.
Aboriginal director shoots sci-fi film in Tsilhqot'in languageCameras will roll in Prince Rupert, B.C., on Monday on a science-fiction film shot entirely in the Tsilhqot'in language, which its director says will be the first time an indigenous language has been used in the sci-fi/fantasy genre.
The film, whose title translates to Cave, will be directed by Tsilhqot'in filmmaker Helen Haig-Brown and produced by Leena Minifie, a Tsimshian woman originally from Prince Rupert, B.C.
Minifie said more than 25 people from the Tsilhqot'in community around Williams Lake, B.C., are in the cast.Comment: For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.
Someone who recently saw the movie Older than America had this to say about Native filmmaking:It's difficult for me to evaluate Native films these days without taking into consideration whether or not the project has the potential to reach beyond a niche audience. Perhaps this is an unfair burden to place on Native filmmakers who for the most part are mostly concerned with working out historical and current socio-economic grievances in the "personal filmmaking" mode, but for Native cinema to truly grow from its insular indulgences and achieve interest from mainstream audiences, it eventually has to show some crossover potential.
That said, I've recently seen two films, "Older Than America" and "Rez Bomb," both of which demonstrate the promise and often frustrating limitations of Native cinema. Out of four stars, I'd give both films two and a half. They both held my attention during their running times, but I don't see how either of them would generate much interest from the multiplex mentality. If I were a major theatrical distributor, I'd take a pass. The future of these two projects is probably relegated to the film festival circuit and possibly a cable outlet like the Independent Film Channel but more likely an eventual modest DVD release. This is just another reason investors are so reluctant to fund Native films.
Looking at the films on their own merits, "Older Than America" is the more ambitious of the two efforts, wearing its sometimes preachy agenda on its sleeve of bringing to light past abuses in Indian boarding schools. Director/co-writer/actress Georgina Lightning assembles a recognizable cast, including Adam Beach, Wes Studi and Bradley Cooper (recently gaining career momentum from "The Hangover") and surrounds them with a tale of supernatural visions, family secrets, murder, small-town political and religious corruption, and sweat lodge healing ceremonies.
The story of the systematic abuse of Indian children in boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries is powerful enough material on its own, but in "Older Than America," it's almost as if the writers felt they had to make the history more palatable by surrounding it with every genre convention they could think of: Supernatural mystery at old abandoned boarding school, check. Romance between tribal police officer (Beach) and local teacher (Lightning), check. Introduction of out-of-town white guy (Cooper) for mainstream audience to identify with, check. Hissable villains in the forms of corrupt priest and mayor, check. Wise old Indian man who helps bridge the supernatural world with traditional ceremonies, check.
The overall result is too many characters, too many dangling plot threads and not enough of a "real world" sense of what the Indian boarding school experience means or should mean to American society as a whole. I applaud the effort of trying to reach out to a wide audience, but in trying so hard to do so much the filmmakers may have ironically marginalized the film even more.
Story issues aside, as a filmmaker, Georgina Lightning acquits herself quite well. She scores solid performances from her actors across the board, the tech credits (as Variety would say) are very professional for a low budget effort, and as a director of action and suspense, she stages her scenes effectively. However, when it comes to scenes of intimacy, this is where she falls a bit short. Her bedroom scenes with co-star Adam Beach are particularly awkward and squirm-inducing in their obvious lack of chemistry. This could be attributed to rumors of on-set friction between her and Beach, since she seems less self-conscious in scenes with the other actors, but Lightning might have been better off concentrating on directing and casting another actress like Tonatzin Carmelo (who, as you know, covered similar supernatural territory in "Imprint"), DeLanna Studi or Tamara Feldman in the lead role.
Speaking of Tamara Feldman, she is one of the pleasant discoveries of "Rez Bomb," the other Native-themed film I saw this month. The film was actually written and directed by a non-Native (Steven Lewis Simpson) and it's essentially a young-lovers-on-the-run film set near the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. Feldman (her bio says she's part Cherokee) plays a young Lakota woman who falls for a ne'er do well white guy and gets swept up in his drama of treachery and violence in which they both find themselves pursued by a sadistic loan shark. The film on paper actually has more crossover potential than "Older Than America," but is ultimately undone in its execution by its ultra low-budget trappings. The performances range from painfully amateurish to passably competent and the tech credits range from sometimes serviceable to pretty much non-existent. Feldman sometimes has trouble elevating her performance above the cliched script, but she's really the only thing worth seeing in the film (she shines in scenes where there is no required dialogue), and one wonders if she'll become to the go-to actress when it comes to Native roles for women.Comment: It may be tough if not impossible to make an accessible movie about boarding schools. Or other heartrending Native topics. How do you avoid saying "This is wrong!" and "People like you in the audience are to blame!"
I've seen Tamara Feldman in some roles. E.g., Poppy Lifton in Gossip Girl. She seems a decent enough actress.
But I hope she doesn't become the go-to girl for too many Native roles. Unless the roles are only part Native, that is. People such as Delanna Studi, Tonantzin Carmelo, Misty Upham, and Tamara Podemski should be getting these roles, not a part Cherokee with starlet looks.
Hour 3: Limbaugh Refers To Native Americans As "Clowns"Rush got the final hour started with "one more thing" about Sonia Sotomayor--a mental exercise: "She said that because she is a Latina, because she is a Hispanic woman, that she'd--because of the richness of that experience, she'd be a better judge than a white guy. What if she had said because of her rich experiences as a Latina, as a Hispanic woman, that she'd be a better judge than a black guy? What do you think the reaction to that might have been?" Doesn't matter what race you shoehorn in there, that's not what she said. What Sotomayor did say, while discussing the importance of judicial diversity in race and sex discrimination cases, was: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." And that's not too different from some praise John Yoo heaped on Clarence Thomas, or comments Thomas made himself.
Nonetheless, Limbaugh broke out the racial shoehorn to reinforce whatever point he was trying to make, and in the process insulted Native Americans: "If we want to talk about richness of experience, there's a group of people that were here before we got here, gang: the Indians, the Native Americans, the chiefs, the redskins. I don't see any of them being put up on the courts. Talk about a richness of experience--hell, these clowns beat Custer. They have cred. You don't see them being put up, do you?"Comment: Yes, we don't seen Native judges nominated to the Supreme Court. At least not yet. The reason is because of conservative racists like Rush Limbaugh. They can't tolerate someone as mildly unconventional as Sotomayor, so they certainly won't tolerate an Indian.
Note that even though Limbaugh is nominally sticking up for Indians, he's really insulting them. He calls them "chiefs" and "redskins." He talks about their defeating Custer as if "they" were all involved in that and "they" haven't done anything noteworthy since.
Most important, he calls them "clowns," which in his mind is similar to "chiefs" and "redskins." No doubt he's gotten all his "information" about Indians from dancing Indian mascots.
It's funny that the defenders of the word "redskin" don't understand what many Americans think about it. To these Americans, a "redskin" is a "clown"--i.e., a primitive savage in gaudy feathers and warpaint who did nothing but kill Custer in battle. And after being defeated by the US Army, refused to work, received welfare, got drunk, and died out.
Tea Party Leader To McKalip: "We All Have Your Back My Friend!"The national coordinator of the American Tea Party movement is standing behind David McKalip and has pledged her help as he struggles with the fallout over the racist email he sent showing President Obama dressed as a witch doctor.
In an email exchange on the Tea Party listserv, obtained by TPMmuckraker, Amy Kremer wrote:
Robin, I couldn't have said it better myself.
David, we all support you fully and are here for you. I can assure you of one thing and that is we will protect our own. We all have your back my friend!
On Sunday night, Dr. David McKalip forwarded to fellow members of a Google listserv affiliated with the Tea Party movement the image below. Above it, he wrote: "Funny stuff."Racist Signs at Tea Parties
Comment: Amazing that some people don't see the racist hypocrisy in protesting Obama's economic-stimulus deficits but not Bush's tax-cut deficits. In fact, racism is evident throughout the conservative movement--e.g., in Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, and the Senators questioning Sonia Sotomayor.
My pal Victor Rocha and I spent a few hours on the Comic-Con floor Thursday with Victor's young friends Eric and Rebecca. Other than our Twilight adventure (which I'll describe later), here's what we saw.
Alas, things haven't changed much since my report on Comic-Con 2008. Read that to get a baseline of the Comic-Con experience.
Fewer comics dealers and independent publishers than ever. If there was an artists alley or art show, I didn't see them. The organizers may have moved them somewhere else.
No minorities worth mentioning--either behind or in front of the booths. Even the Japanese manga and anime presence seemed muted. Comic-Con is a lot whiter than the real world.
Lots of Boba and Jango Fett statues and toys. Since when has the Fett family become the most popular Star Wars figures?
Some Michael Jackson merchandise but no Farrah Fawcett merchandise.
Fewer zombie products than last year.
A big display for the upcoming movie 2012, but only one hint of its basis in the Maya calendar.
Displays for The Last Airbender, which features white actors playing Asian and Inuit roles.
Displays for James Cameron's Avatar, which features an alien but indigenous humanoid tribe.
A few celebrity sightings--including the inevitable Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) but not the inevitable Lou Ferrigno.
By Matthew PutesoyThe Grand Canyon is a national treasure, inviting 5 million people every year to explore and be inspired by its beauty. To the Havasuw 'Baaja, who have lived in the region for many hundreds of years, it is sacred.
As the "guardians of the Grand Canyon," we strenuously object to mining for uranium here. It is a threat to the health of our environment and tribe, our tourism-based economy, and our religion.
Thank you, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, for announcing a two-year moratorium on new mining claims in the 1 million acres of lands around Grand Canyon National Park.
But existing claims, such as those pursued by Canadian-based Denison Mines Corp., still threaten the animals, air, drinking water and people of this region. Denison, which has staked 110 claims around the Grand Canyon, is seeking groundwater-aquifer permits that would allow it to reopen the Canyon Mine, near Red Butte on the South Rim, as well as two other mining sites.Comment: For more on the subject, see Hualapai to Represent Grand Canyon and Havasupai Tourist Spot Closed.
Piers–who's less chatty and inclined to "get-down-with-the-tribe" than Bruce Parry, but sweet nonetheless–has flown to Ecuador to try to find out whether a film made by an explorer in 1961 really does show a head shrinking ceremony.
We see the film. It's fascinating. And there's even a step by step guide to how to do it, right down to boiling times (30 minutes, in case you were wondering) and the tricky problem of how to sew it up.Comment: Alas, the article doesn't answer the question of whether the ceremony is real.
Frank McCourt, the author of Angela's Ashes who recently died, visited the Hopi reservation. Here's a bit on that.
A Gathering of ReadersTribal schools promote reading and writing through author and storyteller visits. Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt visited students at Hopi Jr/Sr High School's new literature club. Source: Navajo-Hopi Observer, 21 October 2004.
Celebrity sightings at Comic-Con: Edward James Olmos and Michael Hogan of Battlestar Galactica, Bruce Campbell of Burn Notice, and Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner of Twilight. As for Kiowa Gordon of the Wolf Pack, we got to spend a lot of time with him. More to follow.
By Chris Cook of the Forks ForumHe said when called in to cast for a role he read all four "Twilight" books prior to being interviewed. "It was ambiguous" which character I would read for, Trimble said.
Having visited his aunt Liz Sanchez in Forks as a child helped him, he said, for he knew the area where "Twilight" is set. He said through their close family connection Sanchez provided him with the first inclination that the "Twilight" books were going to be a big hit.
Sanchez and Ann Penn-Charles from La Push traveled to Portland during the filming of "Twilight" in 2008, Trimble said, to help coach him and actor Taylor Lautner, who is portraying Quileute Jacob Black in the "Twilight" films.
Trimble said fluent Quileute language speaker Charlotte Kalama provided insights into the tribe's language. The actor said he wanted to make sure he represented them in an appropriate way.
These family ties led him to serve as an unofficial technical consultant on Quileute dress, culture and modern-day ways of life for the young people at La Push.
Trimble read for the role of Jacob Black, Bella's Quileute love interest, he said, adding that there was a huge turnout of Native American actors seeking the role.
"Twilight "director Catherine Hardwicke was "amazing" on the set, he said. "We had a lot of fun on the set," Trimble added.
He said in acting before the movie cameras his lines stuck closely to the "Twilight" books as written by author Stephenie Meyer, whom he met on the set. With the author Trimble discussed details of how she would handle the "shape shifting" of her fictional Quileute werewolves in various situations he thought up. They included asking what would happen if a Quileute werewolf ate a squirrel but didn't fully digest it before he returned to human form. The author told him she thought the wolf would quickly digest the squirrel so it wouldn't be a problem.Comment: Trimble wasn't rehired to play Sam Uley in the sequels. Perhaps that's because he's "working on a master's degree in statistics and holds a math degree from Portland State University." Did he ask too many questions and provide too much advice on Twilight's portrayal of Indians?
Below: "Actor Solomon Trimble stands next to Quileute Tribal Council Secretary Anna Rose Counsell as he holds a robe that he wore in 'Twilight.' The actor presented the robe, made by his mother from a Pendleton blanket, to the Quileute Tribal Council." (Photo by Chris Cook of Forks Forum)
