by Kyle
There are numerous factors impacting the challenge to a broader public understanding of Native American Women’s history. The two most influential are the residual effects of colonialism on the relationships between Native Americans and European Americans and the mediums for which historical information is transferred from generation to generation. Colonialism created lasting negative effects on Native American cultures and Christian culture’s view of Native Americans. Native Americans are aware of the past relations with Christian cultures and some are resistant to sharing their cultures with anyone tainted by the Christian ideals. Christian culture does not believe in the validity of oral history, so the biases of the Colonial age still linger in the documentation of Native American history today.
Colonial Americans forced Christian culture on Native populations affecting tradition amongst the native tribes in the form of confusion within the gender roles of women. Mihesuah argues that Native American Women lost their prominent roles in their tribes as the Native American Men were drawn towards the benefits of a patriarchal society. The effects of this culture clash vary from tribe to tribe and woman to woman. Mihesuah makes note that Native American cultures are not transposable with one another. She says, “there is no such thing as the culturally and racially monoliths Native woman.” Today’s Native American Women range from full blooded culturally orthodox women to “mixed-heritage” and/or “mixed-blood” women who retain some cultural values but have combined them with the Christian culture. Both see themselves superior towards the other and this conflict can span between tribes and even within families.
Full blooded Native American Women view themselves as unblemished and true to their culture. Their close relatives or even their children who have left the reservation and indoctrinated Christian culture into their lifestyle, such as the use of technology or the written word, creates a lack of trust between the family members. Full blooded Native Americans feel they are “more Indian” then the mixed-heritage “sellouts.” This expressed concern to avoid dilution of traditional values creates a cultural gap making it difficult for the broader public of the primarily Christian cultured America to study Native American history. The only chance for oral history to be transferred to written language for Native American Historians is through the mixed-heritage Native Americans. The obstacle between full blooded and mixed heritage remains a challenge to overcome due to a lack of trust.
The mixed-heritage Native Americans feel they are part of a “superior class” given their white blood. However, the mixed-heritage Natives were riddled with the struggles of the dichotomy of the two cultures. Away at college, Native Americans would play the role of the Christian culture. They would read history as written from the perspective of the Colonial Powers who create an image of an inferior race being civilized. Their college professors would reject the validity of oral history. Oral history is not objectionable in the western culture because there is no provable science behind personal accounts. The western style of history, therefore, is comprised of written word. The written word being authored by members of the western culture creates a bias towards Native American culture. Mihesuah describes the western method of pursuing historical knowledge as being strongly exaggerated due to this bias and the historians will approach interviews with a set goal in mind.
When mixed-heritage Native Americans return to their respective tribes they would play the part of a Native American in accordance with the traditions of their tribes. The knowledge they learned at college would be invalid in the eyes of their peers and families because of the break in traditional education. Native Americans are fully aware that the Christian culture looks upon their traditions as crazy and when approached by a Historian, they are hesitant to divulge their culture.
Kyle, after reading your post and reflecting upon the text; I definitely understand better how colonialism has served as a disadvantage to the broader understanding of Native American Culture. Women not only became less valued in their culture but the men became violent toward them as well. Also, whereas once women were thought of as spiritual figures/leaders and where the determiners in the inheritance and the future of men; post contact with western ideals and christianity, they were no longer esteemed the same in their culture. As, you’ve stated, this created a major issue with including them in Native American history, and the use and consideration of any of their oral accounts.
I like to think about the Native American Women in terms of a ven diagram where every circle represents a group that were oppressed, and the Native American Women were represented by the overlapping of all of the circles. Oppressed because they were women, discredited because of their oral history methods, and under the biases of early colonialism’s views on Native Americans.
Great Job! I enjoyed reading your post as well. You touch on some interesting issues, some of which we disagree with. One thing we disagree on is this: “Christian culture does not believe in the validity of oral history, so the biases of the colonial age still linger in the documentation of Native American history today.” First, this is a large assumption for all of Christian culture. I would argue that a lot of Christian culture is propagated by ‘oral history’. Most church services are not replications of historic religious law. Most church beliefs and doctrine are supported by oral history – bearing one’s testimony, speaking in church, Sunday school – these are all ways Christianity is propagated via discourse and speech. “A scholarly religious academic” seems like an oxymoron. However, your statement is still partly correct. Some Christian cultures do not believe in the validity of oral history. And most of these cultures are where you see the historic or fundamentalist interpretation’s of religions doctrine. You draw the relationship between no oral history and biases of the colonial age. I draw the relationship between no oral history and fundamentalism. I find these relationships interesting. The lack of an oral history seems to reside in ignorant, non-adaptive, fundamentalist beliefs.
Second, I like your observation about language and oral histories. However, I find it a little too simple. I feel other obstacles are at play besides “the obstacle between full blooded and mixed heritage remains a challenge to overcome due to a lack of trust. One of my favorite philosophers – Slavoj Zizek – in his book Violence argues “This violence operates at multiple levels. Language simplifies the designated thing, reducing it to a single feature. It dismembers the thing, destroying its organic unity, treating its parts and properties as autonomous. It inserts the thing into a field of meaning which is ultimately external to it. (Pg. 61). I feel like the inherent differences between indigenous languages and English were the largest obstacle to conveying the accurate meanings of oral histories. Language is truly a word game. It is an art. Language is the very thing that lets us live on the same street but live in different worlds.
The concept of Christian culture I referred too wasn’t Christianity. I could definitely have clarified that a little better in my argument or used different terminology. I agree with your objection. The concept wasn’t religious but rather based on historical cultures. Western cultures used writing to pass history from generation to generation. When western cultures colonized this historiography clashed with the tradition of oral history. And food for though Jason, you say much of the Christian religion is propogated through speech, but the conversation is either based off of the bible or validated with specific verses. Also, the fact that they took oral histories and then wrote them into the bible could be due to illiteracy throughout the time period that the bible was writtten.
As far as the language is concerned, it was definitely a barrier between the cultures. I faced this challenge during my time spent outside of the country. It’s an obstacle indeed and misudnderstandings are common place. But as far as the Native Americans and the Western Colonies are concerned, there were no prior accounts to draw information from causing biases.
Kyle, I think you’ve done a good job here of capturing the complexities of discourse by and about Native American women. Mixed-race and “full-blood” individuals, religion, colonial patriarchy, variations among indigenous cultures and individuals, and varied access to education all complicate the issue of self-representation of Native peoples, let alone the issue of outsiders’ representations of indigenous women.