The Power of Alcohol

In four souls, Alcohol does play some role. Fleur got pregnant because drinking whiskey, Nanapush been like a fool because drinking wine. Other Indians had been fool by the whites because of Alcohol too. Alcohol is not good if too much drinking, and it seems Fleur, Nanapush and other Indians know that but just cannot get away from it. In "The Warriors", Uncle Ralph got kick out from his family because drinking too much. He is in trouble with alcohol too. In To The American Indian, the Klamath Bluffs store owner got in trouble because selling whiskey to the Indians too. From these, I realize the relation between alcohol and the Indians. In these works, it seems the alcohol troubles the Indians much and cause them lost mind and judgment. Some Indians in these works seem to know it is bad to drink, but they just can't help it so they drink and got themselves into trouble. Even though To the American Indian is kind of non-fiction, and "The Warriors" and Four Souls are fictions, I still can relate them in terms of Alcohol. All three of them outline how alcohol affect Indians, how the characters got into trouble because of alcohol. They are different stories but they all have the bad image of alcohol. They try to tell the audiences not to drink alcohol too much and alcohol is a bad thing. They tell that by showing how fool a person can turn out to be when they drink alcohol. They tell the audience they do not want to be just like Uncle Ralph got kick out from his family, or like Fleur got pregnant and the child be mental ill, or like Nanapush show up it a meeting wearing a woman's dress. (Oh, I wish I could write about this topic more for my Essay 3 and make some researches on alcoholism, but it's too late to change my topic for Essay3, too bad :( )

The "Leg"

I think the "Leg" is all about humanity because it's about people's wishes. We I read about this, I also think about the issue of organ donation after death. Even though donation will help out other live ones life, one should respect to the death one's wishes and his or her family's wishes. It's not about live or death, it is about the live family's feeling and the death one's wishes. No one wants his or her death body be handle against his or her wishes. It is funny that the professor only sees the leg as something to display and put his name along with it, and not realize it is a human leg. It is irony that he said that he is working with Indians for many years and gain respect from them, but himself is not respecting the four bears because he did not even think the leg maybe meaningful to anyone. They did not know the significance of the leg and did not know the meaning of the dressing, but they still want to keep the leg for display. It is funny that their reason is so weak but they still want to fight for the belong of the leg.

(sorry this blog is a bit late because I was studying for my other class's midterm overnight on Thursday, and I am so sleepy after class on Firday so I went home and sleep and I thought I will be awake whenever I am hungry since I had not eaten yet so I did not set an alarm and sadly I was sleep until now....)

Thoughts about "Poor Sarah"

"Poor Sarah" is a wired story, and also Sarah, the main character, she seems weird too.
I think the story is wired because how Sarah acts is wired.
When I read about how Sarah want to be a good Christian so badly, she seems has no thoughts of anyone, anything. The only thing in her life is god. I wonder if her life is just so awful so she ignored all the bad things and totally trust in god to gain spiritual peace, or the believe in god makes her feel happiness and do not think is suffering at all. More, When reading the story, I keep thinking what had been said in "The Woman Who Loved a Snake", different people have different interpretations of one single story. I am trying to understand what this story is all about. Does some part of the story base to truth and others in imagery, or this story is written on a particular purpose? It is interesting that in class someone points out Sarah is actually Boudinot. Evidences makes me kind of believing that, but there is no way to prove it. But I have one thought, whatever it is written by Boudinot or not, the text is the way that Boudinot wants it to be (since he is publisher, I image he has the power to edit the story or even not publish it if he think this story is not meaningful). This story is not much meaningful to me, since I think it is a weird story and the story has kind of bad ending. But I image maybe someone in that time, will think this story is meaningful, and probably why Boudinot wrote it or publish it.

We Shall Remain: Wounded Knee

Even thought I hate all documentary films because they all have the monotonous voice that makes people want to sleep, "We Shall Remain: Wounded Knee" had become one of my favorite documentary films. It makes to a point that a person not only have to survive but to gain resistance. The Indian in the film are surviving, but they have no resistance at all. The Schooling makes Indians to be "Deindianlization" and to be "Americanization". The education is a good idea but it turns out to be a bad idea because what it does is Brain-Washing. Because of that, relation to their family and friends had lost. The ability to speak one's language had lost. They can't speak the language, they don't know their culture and religion. They all turn out to be "non-Indian". The movement they did is trying to reconnect the religon and culture, and to be "remain Indians". They use the media to let the world knows what happen to them. And they try to use media as a weapon toward government so no one would kill them all because all over the world is watching. And by that they also telling the world that they are existing. They done all these and willing to sacrifice themselves just to pass on the traditions, and teaching them from generation to generation.
Because of this film, I am thinking about the purpose of sitting in a NAS 5 classroom. It is not about to satisfied a major requirement or a GE requirement; it is about to learn those histories, and know about these people and their culture. That's why they are fighting for, to be exist and remain, to let us know about they are the real people, not just some past old history.

Culture and Tradition

It is interesting to read To The American Indian by Lucy Thompson. I know more Indian Cultures by reading stories from the book. It's interesting to read about how different people operate the Klamath Bluffs Store. Successful and failure cases are told by stories. I think Thompson is making a point that people have to be wise when they run business otherwise they will get themselves into trouble. When she talks about how Indians build their houses, it is sort of boring because I hardly image the actual physical subject that she talks about. It would be better if she provides more pictures to show how it looks like. It's also interesting to read about that they have a weird tradition that for a girl to become a doctor she have to do all the dancing torture. The story of Creation is really appealing to me because I found many things that is similar to the bible. For example, men is created before women, the creator is using men to create women, and others.
I think Thompson writing this book because she wants more people to know about Indians and their culture. And I think she is successful because I am amusing by those stories.

New Blog for NAS 5

A New Blog for NAS 5!
I chose the title "Survival + Resistance" because this is the main subject for NAS 5. This course is generally studying the writing of Native American survivance. How they survive after all the hardship they have been, and how they remain resistance so will be remember in the history. So I think this should be a good title for the blog, because in the following posts I will comment on writings related to Native American survivance.
For the readings so far, I was interested on Popol Vul. There are many interesting stories in it. One thing I might write about for the first essay of the class would be the tricks that done by different living things. Interestingly, I notice that someone is usually defeat others by tricks in the stories. Even characters that have power to overrule others (like the lords), they use tricks to defeat others. I think the stories is trying to say wisdom is more powerful than strength. Also, some small animals in the stories are seem to be powerful they have wisdom. So for the first essay, I might write about how wisdom can make big difference in Popol Vul.