Hey Ya'll!

Well I guess this is my final blog, and I'd like to give everyone a good job for such an awesome class! Well I have a few final thoughts. First I wanna say I enjoyed "Four Souls" very much. I was totally surprised when Fluer won! I was like :O mouth open and all. I don't mean she won as in she achieved happiness. I say she won because she didn't die and even got her land back. that normally doesn't happen; so I thought she won. But as far as being happy goes, I do not think she found happiness. Nor do I think she will ever find happiness, she has far to many wounds that need to be healed. Who knows how long that will take. I believe when Margaret was making her take the bath and instructing her on what to do with the medicine dress she was telling Fluer how to repair much of the damage done to her soul. As we all know, Fluer was so bent on revenge, to the point where it was her obsession. but of course white society corrupted her judgement with alcohol and commodities.

Yaateh,

Well this week we've had some pretty interesting works of literature. Then I noticed that as we progressed in these tales, they steadily got sadder, I guess that would be the right word. But we did have a little bit of humor thrown in there. "Requiem For a Leg" is one of the stories I found amusing. I just thought it was a silly and pointless to hold a court hearing over the ownership of the leg, when clearly you could tell to whom the leg belonged to. But of course, the other party was determined to keep the LEG. Did it ever occur to them that it was a wee bit creepy wanting to keep a leg? A piece of another human being, some one who was precious to someone else. I wonder how would they feel if a museum kept their mothers arm? I know I wouldn't be too happy about that. Its all common sense in my opinion. I thought it was funny how they tried so hard to keep the leg, and the judge was all like "ok just give it back to the family." Then they tried even harder, like wanting to dig up the rest of the body. And the judge shot them down like nothing! hahha!

Hagone!

Yehyek Netayoba!

Well I would just like to say that the discussion we had in class yesterday totally left my brain fried and pensive! Great job every one! Well I'd like to talk about Poor Sarah, it was definitely an interesting story. Strange even, how the most pious person was killed off at the end. Yea, not exactly the story that makes me wanna convert to Christianity. I kind of wished the author for this tale was known, it would be nice to see where this tale came from. I've thought about it more, and i came up with an idea. What if the author was a white person, and he/she specifically made this story to point out that (to Native peoples) even if you become Christian, you still won't be saved, because you are Indian. It was like it was saying whites will always be superior even if you try to be like us. This is just a random thing I thought of; I don't have any evidence to back this up or anything. Asides from that, I thought it was a very pitiful tale. Not as in the story sucked, but the ending was not happy. Sarah's life was horrible from the beginning, and it ended in misery. Even if she found comfort in Christianity, she was still treated like crap. No one cared what happened to her; the author had a mild concern, but what else did he or she do?

NOTHING.

This story just made me pity. It just seems like suffering and suffering was a repeating theme, something that could not be escaped. There is truth in that, life is full of suffering. It just can't be helped. Wow this is getting kinda depressing, but thats how the story is. Well this was my rant for this post!

Niyawa!

Yaateh!

For this post I have chosen to talk about the Wounded Knee film. I found the movie really interesting, I knew AIM had been one of the more militant movements during that era, but I did not realize how big of an impact they had on the American public. I realize that AIM was big, maybe not as big as the MLK and Malcolm X, but still pretty important. And I totally agree with their tactics. During that era, people wanted to be heard, and the corruption at Pine Ridge was getting out of the control of the citizens. And it was the Oglala Sioux who were suffering the most, it was unfair. I thought that standoff was similar to the First Wounded Knee. Although it was not a massacre the cause was kinda similar. The people of Wounded Knee I were unhappy with being pushed into the reservation, they were not able to get the resources that they needed, so they turned to spirituality as an outlet (the Ghost Dance). Unfortunately the settlers, the white men, believed that this was a form of rebellion, all because of a few unruly members. I totally think they were over reacting. But of course I cant really have a good ol opinion of how it was back in the day. But for Wounded Knee II, I give them props! Not only did they get Dick Wilson (total jerk, reminds me of Hugo Chavez) out of there, but they also did a cultural revitalization! Thats what I liked the best, they were once again the people, connected to their ancestors. I kinda wish some thing like that had happened in El Salvador, where my family is from. A lot of the natives were obliterated, and the ones who remained were fearful for their lives. They left their culture to assimilate into mestizo culture, language and traditions were forgotten. Some times you can catch the fragments of our peoples past, but thats rare. So I am glad the Lakota are closer to their old ways. :D yay for them! well this has been my rant for the night!

Hagone!

P.S. Yaateh means hello in Dine and Hagone means good bye.

Yehyek Netayoba!

Well I guess I shall start off by writing about why my blog is called "Thinking on the Past". Now that I think about it, this should have been posted long ago... oops! So I will just make this one extra long. I decided to call my blog "Thinking on the Past" because most of the texts that we are reading are about past events, even though some of these might be questionable (Popol Vuh?). I like to think about what has happened, like just think. It could just be a jumble of emotions with words; anger, confusion, pity, pride and happiness. Or have coherent thoughts, I ask why? and answer them myself on what I have read. My head just gets full of randomness, but if I sit and sort them out, I can see my deeper thoughts.

Out of all the texts we have read so far, my favorites so far have been the Popol Vuh and To the American Indian. The Popol Vuh in its self a form of surviavance in its entirety. Just the mere fact that the Maya have written their own creation story and other cultural stories is their way of saying "Hey! We have our own story and we shall share it! And we can spread it all over just like you did!" And I believe that they had a good point, of course my reaction would be a little less scholarly, I'd probably go into rampage mode (no I won't try to destroy you if you tell me I'm wrong or disagree with me. XD). I also liked how one could pick up the message that was trying to be conveyed, even if some were harder to figure out. An obvious one would be don't mess with zompopos, trust me they are no fun to have around. One that requires a bit more pondering would be arrogance and that it will be you doom. I know I've talked about this a lot in class, but it something that was constantly on my mind as I read the text. Anyone who displayed arrogance was immediately struck down, in some cases literally! I believe these stories were told this way in order to spook children and give them important life lessons. It just wouldn't have the same affect if the adults had bluntly said "don't be arrogant, its bad". And this is pretty much true for many, if not all, cultures. La Llorona among Latinos and Mexicans is a lesson that would scare the bejeezus of kids! So I can see where they're coming from. well this has been my rant for the night or day or watever you wanna call it!

Niyawa!