My Native American Heritage reading month

So, yes, this should have been for November 2010, and it ended up really going from January to May of 2011, with multiple interruptions. We already covered why that happens, and actually, it is a good thing that it happens. I find that a lot of the books that I feel I need to read end up wearing me down a little. I do think it is important to know about societal problems, but then you know about the problems, the impact, and the difficulty of fixing them, and often I end up kind of sick of humanity. So, if I can have that interspersed with some light-hearted fiction and comical narratives, it helps me maintain an even keel.

When I started planning these reading months, back in February 2010, that Black History month consisted of several books that I had been meaning to read for a long time. There were two books (The Slave Community and Time on the Cross) that I owned from browsing at the PSU bookstore, which would have happened while I was working at Clear Connections, which would have been in either 1995 or 1996. I had started browsing through “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” in the Knight Library at U of O the summer after my first year there, so that was 1991. Finally, my friend Rose had recommended “Beloved” to me back when the movie had come out in 1998, when I was still fairly new at Intel. So really, I was overdue to read them all.

The creation of the Native American reading list had some similar origins. I had first intended to read A Century of Dishonor back in junior high. We had to create newspapers for various years, there was a passage in the textbook about this book coming out. I wanted to read it, but could not find a copy. I did find Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel Ramona in our library, and ended up reading that. My newspaper had a blurb about one of the books coming out, along with other relevant articles. I think it was Ramona, for 1884, and in the blurb I mentioned her previous book from 1881. You know, 25 years later, the details get a little fuzzy.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee was just one I had always heard of, and of course I first heard of Open Veins of Latin America when Hugo Chavez gave a copy to President Obama, but reading a little more about it made it seem worth reading—regardless of any issues with Chavez.

Finally, when 500 Nations came out, it got good reviews, and I had been interested. It was not strictly a book of course, but I spent six hours on it, and there’s nothing wrong with some multimedia.

Being fairly recent, 500 Nations was probably the only one that did not suffer with age. I already mentioned that Jackson’s book is from 1881, and the other two are from the 1970s.

I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee first, and initially it felt a little abrasive. Of course we get that it was wrong, and that in many ways the Indians were maligned. Then I remembered, in that time period, it was not an “of course”. This book was groundbreaking, and had an influence, and could be worth reading for that reason alone. And it did turn out to be pretty even-handed.

It was not what I expected at all. I initially thought it was a narrative account of Wounded Knee specifically, when actually it covers many events and many tribes. Perhaps because of that, it took me a while to get into it, but I did, and it was really good.

A Century of Dishonor covered very similar ground, with a lot of overlap, but there are some key differences. Jackson started with a legal argument for the property rights of the Indians based on the earliest treaties. Brown does not make those kinds of arguments, probably because he assumes that as you get to know these people and what happened, you will feel the immorality of the treatment of the Indians, regardless of points of law.

In addition, so much of Hunt’s argument focuses on the response to Christianity of the Indians as they converted and started to adopt the ways of the whites, where Brown would appear to want them left more to their own culture. I’m saying this clumsily, but it totally makes sense that one book is by an elderly devout maternal woman of the late nineteenth century, and that one is by a probably left-leaning librarian who had recently been through the sixties.

One other key difference is that Brown was writing when it was all over. Jackson still believed things could be turned around. Brown’s title made sense, because the Battle of Wounded Knee was the last major confrontation between the natives and the military. It was done. Jackson was dead before Wounded Knee happened, and it would have broken her heart.

Probably the most important thing to take from the books is seeing how many times the various tribes had to start over, and then be moved again. They reached a point where they began to be afraid to make any efforts. That, and the removal of children from their families may be the crux of a lot of the problems that they face today.

Interestingly, I ended up seeing two plays during this time period that related, which would not have happened if I had actually gotten it done in November. One was Ghosts of Celilo, which is specifically about some children who were taken away to school, and what happens with them, and also the adults who got them there. There are parts where it is a little clunky, but it was still very moving, and of course it added to my reading.

The other was One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, which I did not even think would relate, but the reason Chief Bromden is in there has a lot to do with what has happened to his people, and his father’s role in that. Anyway, that all worked well.

For 500 Nations, the part that interested me most was that on the Mound Builders, which did not go into as much detail, but November will come around again. You know, or May, because of that easily distracted thing.

Finally, Open Veins of Latin America. Again, age may be an issue. One of Galeano’s complaints is how the Western World pushes birth control on his people, and I am a big believer in letting women control their own fertility as something that helps families escape poverty. But one thing the age of the book does do is let me hope that things have gotten better, because there are some awful things in it, and they come from greed, and it really shows the evils of colonialism, and explains how the US was different. Really, really fascinating book, and richly written. This book has inspired some passionate devotion, and I can see why. It can be a good companion piece to “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, and it makes me wish I had tried harder with “Sweetness and Power”, even though it seemed unreadable. Well, maybe I will try it again some other year. And it really makes me wish I had seen Josh in “The True History of Coca Cola in Mexico”, but I have other reasons for that.

I have not decided what I will do next year (well, this year) yet. I feel like the story of what happened to the children sent away to school is important. How much of their identity was stripped away? Did they have children who don’t even know they are Indians? Rabbit-Proof Fence relates as well. Still, most of the books I have on my reading list are farther back in history. Still, I have some time to decide. I may read Windwalker, because I don’t mind a novel now and then if it captures things well, like Beloved, and maybe I will read 1491.

There is always more to know.


32 minutes walking outside
Alma 16-19 (with family)