Margaret may not be a cracked out lady after all...

Not going to lie, my first impression of Margaret was not a good one. She seemed obsessed with assimilation. She sold her son's land for linoleum! If I recall correctly, houses that now have linoleum are considered cheap but that's an entirely different discussion all together. I was ready to write Margaret off as being rude, selfish, and mean since she teased Nanapush relentlessly. I will say she definitely gained my respect in Chapter 14, The Medicine Dress.

I started to give Margaret a second chance after I saw Nanapush fall off his rocker completely. I want to focus specifically on Chapter 14 because it shows a whole new side to Margaret's intelligence and depth to her personality. She tells the story of how she would hide under her grandmother's dress to avoid being taken from home and sent to the government schools. She then leads into discussing the use of names and of women.

Margaret associates the changing of Native names to Christian names as the shift from living to dying. She then talks about how she withdrew within herself and became "mean" to avoid the death of what she sees as her soul. She says, "Some may think I am mean, but that is why I'm with the living yet." Maybe that's why we can then view Fleur's renaming as a rebirth and a way to live. She is abandoning the Christian name, the death, and taking the Native name, the life. She also tells Fleur, "For you have been lonely so long, you nameless one, you spirit, and it will comfort you to finally be recognized here upon this earth." Fleur wasn't nameless, her name was Fleur. So why does Margaret tell her that? I think it is because she viewed Fleur as empty and synonymous to death.

Gender Questions

So this blog may be a little off tangent but just roll with me here. It was brought up in class about Zitkala-Sa taking the role of a male narrator in "The Soft-Hearted Sioux". Gina compared it to Boudinot possibly being the true author of "Poor Sarah". When the class had the discussion about Boudinot being the author, the entire class kept insisting that no he couldn't be the author since the story clearly was written by a female. But why can't he be the author? I guess what I'm trying to get at is why can a female personify a man but Boudinot not personify a woman? Is it because of generic gendered stereotypes or does it have to do with Native American stereotypes? In class Gina mentioned how the Sioux are known for their warfare and were pretty badass. So what does that say for Sioux women? Are they badass as well? Or are they dainty and prissy and however else society views women as? I'm not trying to sound like a feminist but I think it's an interesting idea to consider. I brought up that "The Soft-Hearted Sioux" couldn't be from a woman narrator because then it wouldn't be taken seriously because women are already stereotyped to having "soft hearts". But, if Sioux women are known as badasses then maybe the story could have been written from a female perspective. It is just interesting to consider how different cultures view their women and how it can sometimes be the only thing that different cultures agree upon.

Cultural Identity and Old Lady Stories

I must say I connected with Peterson's article "What Part Moon" because I have always had issues with identifying myself. I am very fair skinned. That's no major secret. What makes me resent the color of my skin is the fact that I am Mexican American but no one believes me. I know that there has to be some type of European in my bloodline, but that is so far down the line that every time I bring it up no one in my family can answer me as to where it came from. As far as I know, I am Mexican. That is who I am, and that is all I know. It just frustrates me when people ask me "What are you?" and when I respond they reply with "No you're not." I guess it's up to you who or what I am. I like how Petersen explained that cultural identity comes from who you really see yourself as and who you feel most comfortable with.

As for Mabel and her entire story, that was really confusing. But i don't think Mabel herself was confusing. What confused me the most was how Greg went on to explain the entire middle ground thing. I think he slightly overkilled it. I believe that the take home message is this: Oral stories are an entirely different form of stories within themselves. Due to oral traditions there are so many different ways to interpret the story lines depending on the time and place that the story is told. Greg should have simplified his argument because he lost me in the middle. If anyone has any different interpretation to this article PLEASE feel free to set me straight.

Is he? Or is he not?

After reading The Ghost Dance War by Charles Eastman, I have a few questions that need to be cleared up before I can fully dissect this article. I am not sure if I am the only one who saw this but I noticed that during the beginning of his article, Eastman's tone gave me the idea that he was not Native American but instead a white man. I may be reading too far into this but I think he sounds almost dissociated with the Indian people. Was Eastman a part of the Sioux tribe? If he wasn't then that would explain the dissociation. But if Eastman was in fact a part of the Sioux tribe, he sounds as if he does not consider himself to be Indian. What I mean to say is when he writes about the Indians that were involved in the events leading up to Wounded Knee, the diction used clearly puts up a barrier between the Indians and himself.

Was our narrator assimilated? I should assume so, seeing that in some sentences he refers to the Native Americans as "the Sioux". With that observation, I would even guess that he is not in fact Sioux but of another tribe and just happens to live in the vicinity of the Sioux people. As the chapter goes on, I noticed a shift in this tone. As Eastman comes closer and closer to describing the massacre, he changes his tone and seems more connected to the Sioux people. He even mentions "For me, at that critical time, there was inward struggle as well as the threat of outward conflict..." (Page 97). It seems to me that this man had huge identity issues and was having trouble deciphering who exactly he wanted to be.

Like I said earlier, maybe I'm reading way to far into this. For all I know, Charles Eastman took great pride in his culture. But as far as I'm concerned, I read his tone to be very distant. Maybe this could have been a coping mechanism, a way of blocking out a very tragic event that hurt him. Whatever the reason may be, Eastman's tone throughout the chapter made it interesting to read.

Underlying Message...Maybe?

Winnemucca wrote us an autobiography. She wanted us to see into her life, to see how she saw when in her youth. Right? Sure maybe, but maybe not. What was the most striking thing that she talked about in her writing? The suffering that her sister had gone through. So what was she trying to tell us? A story? Or that her sister was raped? I'd like to take the time to argue neither.

If you read carefully, Winnemucca's writing deals a lot with women. She puts a lot of the emphasis on her mother's emotions and her sister's emotions. Even when discussing her grandfather's trusting nature, she always related it back to how it put her mother and sister in hard situations. Winnemucca is highlighting the struggles of the female Native American. While it makes sense that Winnemucca is talking specifically about women since she is a woman writer, I think that we overlooked the true survivance message of her writing. No one tells the story of women, it is all told from the aspect of the man. Having Winnemucca write about her struggles and women's struggles is survivance because it is getting the message out about what happened to women during hard times. She is allowing women to find their own survivance within her story, to remember how they fought hard for what was right.

Very First Blog Post...Ever!!!!

I can easily say that I have never written a blog in my entire lifetime...which isn't that long if you consider how young I am but that's besides the point. So now that I have my own blog about NAS 5, I decided to title it "But Why...?". This is because the point of this blog is to discuss the readings and what they mean. A common question asked during interpretation is "why" so why not include that in my title? I am constantly asking questions for everything, so this is also one of my most commonly used phrases. I think that asking why is a great way to help dissect readings that are most difficult. When you have multiple people asking for explanations on one reading then you end up with a better understood meaning.

I missed the discussion on the second part of the Popol Vuh. What I would really like answered about the Popol Vuh is whether or not the two brothers were magical? Also, what were they? If these characters were not man, then what are they? The way I read it, the brothers were definitely some type of magical spirit. There is no way that they could have escaped multiple times from challenges that were meant to kill them. Also, they came back from death multiple times. One of the brothers had his own head chopped off and yet he somehow reattached it! I don't understand how that could be possible without some type of voodoo assistance. That in turn means that these brothers were not man, as we picture man today. Man would not be able to do that. But are the brothers made of wood or dirt? What is the material they are made out of since we are in between this whole man made of wood before man is made of corn time frame? Other than that, I found the reading highly entertaining because it was just an extremely interesting creation story.