-=> Quoting Sondra Ball to All <=-
 SB> "I must admit that, instead, I was shocked and surprised at the sight
 SB> that met my eyes.
 
 A very telling statement... All _visual_. It says nothing about "lifeways",
 "worldview", etc.
 I would expect much the same reaction from someone that was removed from
 East India, sent to the U.S. (or England) for several years to school
 and returned home. The young lady is returning to a poverty-stricken area.
 If an East Indian came to the U.S. to medical school, should not they be
 appalled at the poverty conditions of their homeland?
 I would also expect that even today, someone from, as an example, the
 Oregon Willamette Valley visiting Harlem in New York. Their first reaction
 is going to be _visual_. And... I strongly suspect that _most_ people would
 say Harlem (or any other poverty-stricken area is "inferior" to the relative
 "affluence" of the Willamette Valley of Oregon on a "visual" basis.
 
 SB> But the book continues in this vein: condemning the tribal
 SB> governmental system as being brutal and dictatorial, expressing the
 SB> hope that these "circumstances gives those interested in Indian
 SB> education the hope that a brighter day may now be dawning, when the
 SB> home conditions will be so changed that there will be no more tribal
 SB> tyranny, but all will be under the protection and enjoy the priviledges
 SB> of our good government."
 Do we know for a fact that the tribal government _wasn't_ "being brutal and
 dictatorial"? Had the tribal government in this case already been 
corrupted"
 by the white man?
 SB> It condemns the Hopi dances as being evil. 
 
 I knew some Baptists that will tell you ALL dancing is evil.
 SB> And, in the end, our heroine persuades her family to leave the pueblos,
 SB> and build a small, white style house, elsewhere; so they could live in
 SB> a more healthy and more cultured way.
 Was that "more healthy and more cultured way" bad? Should she have let them
 continue to live in what she perceived to be unclean and impoverished?
 
 I can think of at least two other books/authors that look upon the "Indian
 school" period (or education or civilization) as a positive thing in their
 lives.
 "They Called It Prarie Light" by Tsianina Lomawaima and one of the books by
 Luther Standing Bear. It also seems to me that Jim Thorpe attended Carlisle
 _voluntarily_ because of the sports programs.
 SB> Yet, despite all the negativity of this book, I do recommend it to you
 SB> for reading.  In its 115 pages, it manages to give one of the best
 SB> pictures I have read of how the "liberals" of the 1880s, who were out
 SB> to "save the Indians", really felt about Indians.
 Ever read "Century of Dishonor" by Helen Hunt Jackson? Originally published
 in 1881.
 
 I think that it is interesting that in 1881, the "American public" faced 
uch
 the same dilemma as today. What _is_ the solution?
 There was a BIG article in the newspaper the other day about the Lakota in
 the Dakotas. O.K., now after reading the article, I know all about the
 high unemployment, the poverty, the corruption in the tribal government, the
 fact that their casino doesn't bring in as much wealth as the tribe would
 like and casino expansion construction is halted due to some contractual
 dispute, and some program to start a cattle industry failed because beef
 prices have fallen, etc. I now know ALL of that. I also know that many of
 the same phenomena are present ALL over the U.S. and the rest of the world.
 The BIG question, however, is:
 "What's the _practical_ solution?" 
 SB> genocide. I would not recommend it at all for white kids, because I do
 SB> not believe that most white parents would have the energy, the love, or
 SB> the knowledge to offset the damage this book could do to their
 SB> children's already distorted image of "Indianness."
 
 What is distorted about the newspaper article I mentioned above? If I were
 to drive my children (assuming I had still had school-age children) to 
 _almost_ any reservation in the U.S. would they not _visually_ SEE exactly
 what Stiya _saw_ when she stepped down off that train?
 
 Oh, in the book "Neither Wolf Nor Dog", the "elder teaching the white man"
 has an interesting philosophy on what most "mainstream culture" people
 would call "trash" or "litter" or "junk".
 
 The people in the 1880s had _only_ "visual" images (for the most part) to
 base any attempt (on their part) at a solution. What would have been an
 alternate solution in the 1880s besides "education"? (Helen Hunt Jackson
 goes a liitle deeper into governmental actions that we would probably
 define as genocide.)
 I don't have all the unemployment statistics or poverty statistics for the
 Warm Springs Reservation or the Grand Ronde Reservation here in Oregon, but
 I _strongly_ suspect that they are MUCH different than any I read in the
 article about the Dakotas. What's the difference between those reservations?
 
 What do we do with immigrants today in order to help them cope with 
American
 culture"? We educate them in American schools.
 Jim
--- Blue Wave v2.12
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