Anthropologist and other Friends is an article by Vine Deloria. This article is about Native Americans and their struggles – mainly with anthropologists. Deloria is very quick in this article to express his hatred towards anthropologist because of the way they “study” the Native Americans. After reading this article one may find three main points to focus on: the significance of the writing, the criticism one may feel towards the writing, and the arguments against the anthropologist laid out in the writing. There are many significant points and findings in this article. The first being that Deloria makes this writing very entertaining to read because he makes fun of the anthropologists which is not something one may see often because most people believe that anthropologists are some sort of “higher being” that seems to know no wrong. He also points out extensive flaws in the way anthropologist performed their research. One way being how anthropologist seem to treat the Indians more like test subjects rather than the actual human beings that they are. This article also appeared to open many anthropologists’ eyes because modern anthropologists seem to hold a better understanding of the responsibility they have concerning the people that they study. …show more content…
One of the faults being that Deloria tends to put a great deal of blame on anthropologist when it may not be entirely their fault. Deloria also ignored the fact that some anthropologists’ information and research did give a very good insight into the lives of the Native Americans, he mainly focused on how corrupt other anthropologist research are. Deloria also comes off very extreme in this article because he seems to reject almost every finding made by the anthropologist whether good or
In the story “Listening to Ghosts” Malea Powell talks about the native Americans on challenges and educational practices. The story is about the native American living in America before the British came to ruin their lives. This effect caused the Native Americans to disappear for good and became shadows. Afterwards there were different theories about the beliefs such as white guy philosopher's theory and western culture theory.The white guy’s philosopher's theory states that the stories were special and central civilized.Western culture, people thought that they were “savages” and “civilized”.
Pages one to sixty- nine in Indian From The Inside: Native American Philosophy and Cultural Renewal by Dennis McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb, provides the beginning of an in-depth analysis of Native American cultural philosophy. It also states the ways in which western perspective has played a role in our understanding of Native American culture and similarities between Western culture and Native American culture. The section of reading can be divided into three lenses. The first section focus is on the theoretical understanding of self in respect to the space around us. The second section provides a historical background into the relationship between Native Americans and British colonial power. The last section focus is on the affiliation of otherworldliness that exist between
Another method that the organisation uses in this piece is emotive language. Words such as "devastation" in "devastation of the native peoples" and "brutally" in "many were brutally murdered" are examples of this. These words and sentences make you feel sorry for the Indians and make you want to help. The literature also has a plethora of quotes from the native people included in it. These quotes s... ...
Nevertheless, in the author’s note, Dunbar-Ortiz promises to provide a unique perspective that she did not gain from secondary texts, sources, or even her own formal education but rather from outside the academy. Furthermore, in her introduction, she claims her work to “be a history of the United States from an Indigenous peoples’ perspective but there is no such thing as a collective Indigenous peoples’ perspective (13).” She states in the next paragraph that her focus is to discuss the colonist settler state, but the previous statement raises flags for how and why she attempts to write it through an Indigenous perspective. Dunbar-Ortiz appears to anchor herself in this Indian identity but at the same time raises question about Indigenous perspective. Dunbar-Ortiz must be careful not to assume that just because her mother was “most likely Cherokee,” her voice automatically resonates and serves as an Indigenous perspective. These confusing and contradictory statements do raise interesting questions about Indigenous identity that Dunbar-Ortiz should have further examined. Are
...that actually experienced it. The author gives a good background of the relationship white settlement and Indian cultures had, which supported by the life experience. An author depicts all the emotions of struggle and happiness at the times when it is hard to imagine it. And it actually not the author who is persuasive, but the Black Elk himself, because he is the one that actually can convey the exact feeling and images to the reader.
The article, “Native Reactions to the invasion of America”, is written by a well-known historian, James Axtell to inform the readers about the tragedy that took place in the Native American history. All through the article, Axtell summarizes the life of the Native Americans after Columbus acquainted America to the world. Axtell launches his essay by pointing out how Christopher Columbus’s image changed in the eyes of the public over the past century. In 1892, Columbus’s work and admirations overshadowed the tears and sorrows of the Native Americans. However, in 1992, Columbus’s undeserved limelight shifted to the Native Americans when the society rediscovered the history’s unheard voices and became much more evident about the horrific tragedy of the Natives Indians.
The author starts the chapter by briefly introducing the source in which this chapter is based. He makes the introduction about the essay he wrote for the conference given in at Vanderbilt University. This essay is based about the events and problems both Native Americans and Europeans had to encounter and lived since the discovery of America.
As a scholar invested in the progression of the field of Native American material cultural studies, I consistently recondition my understanding of both epistemology and the appropriate ways to approach cultural circumstances of the so-called “Other” through personal encounters and the shared experiences of my contemporaries. My own ethical position is forever fluid, negotiated by both Native and non-Native sources as I attempt to find ground in what exactly I intend to do (outside of an occupation) with the knowledge I accumulate. Perhaps the most vulnerable facet of existence in the world of academia is the ease that comes in the failure to compromise one’s own advancement for the well-being of those being studied. Barre Toelken is an encouraging exception to this conundrum, considering his explicit analysis of both Navajo and Western ethics in the case of the Hugh Yellowman tapes. His essay argues for an approach that surrenders the fieldworker’s hypothetical gain to the socio-emotional needs of subjects’ epistemological structure and, most intriguingly, he treats ethnographic materials as praxis rather than data. After years of apprehension with the objectifying habits of cultural anthropology, a discipline internally dithered by the bickering of Science vs. Humanities, I am finally moved to disengage from such authoritatively based methods altogether as a result of Toelken’s example.
This paper addresses the results of interviews, observations, and research of life in the Ottawa tribe, how they see themselves and others in society and in the tribe. I mainly focused on The Little River Band of Ottawa Indian tribe. I researched their languages, pecking order, and interviewed to discover the rituals, and traditions that they believe in. In this essay I revealed how they see themselves in society. How they see other people, how they see each other, what their values were, what a typical day was etc. I initially suspected that I would have got different responses from these questions but in reality the results in the questions were almost completely the same. I studied this topic because mostly all the people that are close to me are associated in the Ottawa tribe. I additionally love the Native American culture, I feel it is beautiful and has a free concept.
The implementation of the NAGPRA has provoked a ranging conflict in interest between two groups, the scientists on one hand and the Native American tribes on the other. As expressed by Burt, scientists have held that the skeletal remains are a source of information that helps in relating the early and the new world (304). They argue that understanding the human evolution is beneficial to the modern communities as they are able to appreciate their history and origin. Conversely, the Native American tribes are of the views that preserving human remains prevents their spirits from resting. Unrest of the spirits may bring misfortune on the current and future generations. In terms of learning their history, the Native Americans bel...
Robbins Burling, David F. Armstrong, Ben G. Blount, Catherine A. Callaghan, Mary Lecron Foster, Barbara J. King, Sue Taylor Parker, Osamu Sakura, William C. Stokoe, Ron Wallace, Joel Wallman, A. Whiten, Sherman Wilcox and Thomas Wynn. Current Anthropology, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Feb., 1993), pp. 25-53
In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will discuss the major themes of the book and why the author wrote it, it will describe Native American society, its values and its beliefs and how they changed and it will show how Native Americans views other non-Natives.
...ing revelation of the greed, covetousness, and desire that dwells in humankind. It really makes you think that almost entire races of people were wiped out just for gold and land. This article by Hagen brought back to me the realization of how the American Indians were treated. I am a non-traditional student, so I have studied what happened to the American Indian in other history classes and I am familiar with much of the information in the article, although I did not know that it happened in such a small amount of time
Chagnon and Neel’s violation of the principles of informed consent, the ethic of “do no harm”, and offering just compensation initiated a reevaluation of their significance. These principles permit more ethical anthropological fieldwork by ensuring complete knowledge of the study by the subjects, conveying what role the anthropologist plays in relation to their subjects, and allowing for both parties to equally benefit from the information gained. If another anthropologist were to conduct an ethnoarchaeological study involving the Yanomami, they would have to conduct their research differently to avoid another controversy. First, the anthropologist would have to extensively outline the purpose and effects of the research. This complete research outline should be explained to the Yanomami and if this is not possible then the outline should be rewritten for clarification.
Miner’s “Nacirema” and “Far-Side Anthropologist!!” relates to each other with the idea of anthropologist feeling entitled when studying people of other background. Both these example help resurface the idea of the white man privilege and how because they are white the believe that they are required to change everyone to their belief and custom because it's the “more progressive”. This mindset is still seen even today when for example Alt right and their resurface to the mainstream. Overall, there’s a sense of bias resulting of this privileged mindset. All in all, “Nacirema” and “Far-Side Anthropologist!!”