From History to Disney

While reading The World Turned Upside Down I read a section and it had to do with John Smith.  Naturally, while reading I started to doze off and think back to watching Pocahontas and remembering her relationship with John Smith.  While going off on this tangent in my head I began to wonder how historically accurate can this Disney movie truely be? So, I decided to use the wonderful world of Google to do some research. 

From To

Matoaka, or more known as Pocahontas, was the daughter of Powhatan, the ruler of the land called Virginia.  To change history into a kid's cartoon is a hard thing to master and along the way some things must be sacrificed.  Disney had to eliminate all of the "bad" things that John Smith did in order to more concisely state the love story that occured between Pocahontas and John Smith.   In the Disney cartoon John Smith and Pocahontas met in the woods and immeadiately fell in love.  In reality, they met when Pocahontas rescued him from his execution.  The movie also showed that John Smith was captured one night when he went to sneak out to see Pocahontas.  The true story is that he was captured when him and his Indian guide split up during one of their expeditions.   Then the Powhatan adopted him as their son where he was widely accepted in the tribe.  In reality John Smith went back home to England so she got engaged to Kocoum  and she actually married John Rolfe instead.

Although Disney created a great love story, the story was fairly accurate. It had most of the love between John Smith and Pocahontas accurately represented but, unfortunately you could not use the movie for educational purposes.  I would of loved to watch this movie for funsies :)

FANCYDANCING

Trailer for "The Business of Fancydancing"

"The Business of Fancydancing" provided me with a new insight about the American Indian culture.  Overall, the movie was not one of my favorites.  The movie was very choppy and presented the facts in a fashion that I did not find interesting to follow.  The movie would be in the present time then flip to a flashback very often, then ocassionally switch to a moment of dancing and chanting.  Although it presented moments of heartfelt moments that touched the heart, I am not a super emotional person so the movie did not keep my attention.  I also found the movie to be very provacative, the language and open sexuality of the movie made me feel uncomfortable. 

The movie was about Seymour, the main character, conflict between his heritage and his life with his white boyfriend.  The movie begins as Seymour returns to the reservation for the funeral of his friend Mouse.  His friends from the reservation begin to question his motivations for writing his poems and making them public.They say that their culture should not be open to the public. 

Trail of Tears



The National Hisotric Trail

Since the beginning of this class we have discussed the many unfortunate things that the Native American Indians have been through.  Completely uneducated about most of these events I decided to look further into something I have heard about and become more educated upon the subject- The Trail of Tears.



The Trail of Tears by Robert Lindneux

   The Trail of Tears is a name given to the forced relocation and movement of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. They faced hunger,disease and exhaustion. This journey resulted in a loss of over 4,000 of the 15,000 Cherokees. Jefferson hoped to create a dependancy upon trade with white Americans, therefore thinking they would leave the lands in exchange for goods.
Although just just giving a very brief overview of of the Trail of Tears, the manipulation of these people for American selfishness is completely outrageous.   
To help realize what these people went through I found a poem that explains, in detail, the amount of pain and suffering that was encountered during this event. 

The Trail of Tears

I look to the long road behind

My heart is heavy with my people's sorrow

Tears of grief I weep - for all that we have lost

As we march ever farther from the land of our birth

On the Trail of Tears

Mile after mile and day after day

Our people are fewer with each rising sun

Disease and starvation they take their terrible toll

And though we suffer still we march on

On the Trail of Tears

I watch my beloved weaken and fall

Upon the road like so many before

With tears in my eyes I hold my wife to my breast

And in my arms she breathes her last

On the Trail of Tears

Mile after mile and day after day

We march to a land promised us for all time

But I know that I can no longer go on

I know that is a land that I shall never see

On the Trail of Tears

As my body - it falls to embrace the earth

My spirit - it soars to greet the sky

With my dying breath am I finally set free

To begin the very long journey towards home

On the Trail of Tears

Brian Childers

The poem touches the senses and helps to completely submerge ones thoughts into the situation in hopes to relate to the awful tragedy that was forced upon these innocent people. 
I disagree with the awful acts that was put upon them, but the past can no longer be changed, in can only be used to enlighten and help to prevent similar actions from occuring in the future.  The path to prevention is through a path of knowledge. 


Trail of Tears Documentary

Vizenor and the trickster tales

Gerald Vizenor
(information about himself and his works)
http://www.hanksville.org/storytellers/vizenor/

Vizenor's video on the trickster tales helped me to go into further depth about understanding the tales themselves.  However, he states that every trickster tale has certain characteristics that qualify them as a trickster. I find this to not be entirely true while studying a couple of trickster tales from the book American Indian Trickster Tales by Erdoess and Ortiz.  Vizenor's definition of a trickster tale states that they are truthful stories that give meaning to contradictions, love and humor to mortality and flaws.  Tricksters always have a mythical character but they are never an evil character whom plays on human disorder.  He also says that these tricksters can do whatever they want but in the end they came to nothing.  In order to study his definition on the trickster tales I analyzed the tales by Nanbuzho and Whiskey Jack;  more specifically, "Why Women Have Their Moon Time."

The tale "Why Women Have Their Moontime," explains why things are the way they are with women.  (I don't wanna go into specifics in telling the story, so I will just give the main themes in comparison to Vizenor).  The contradiction holds true in this tale- the love/ hate relationship that is encountered with Coyote and his grandma.  This is the main similarity in Vizenor's definition and the tale.  The tale as a whole leaves a painful effect that  happens to every woman.  However, Vizenor emphasized that the trickster comes to nothing in these tales and I did not see that in this tale.  It actually happens that the /trickster ends up winning in this story by cursing every woman with a moon time because of grandma's selfish actions.

The second tale I analyzed was, "Why We Work so Hard to Make Maple Sugar."  This tale showed compassion and foreshadowing.  Foreshadowing that he loves his people and would do anything for them.  It also shows the consequences that could happen to people, whether they happen or not.  This part in particualr fit Vizenor's definition.  Human disorder comes into action in terms of consequences.  Humans decide whether or not they do something based on the consequences alone.  In some ways this inhibits people from doing what they want, and in others it helps keep people in line.  It is a sense of morale that helps keep people civil.

Although I had a brief summation of what Vizenor's thoughts on the american trickster were, I think the two tales I analyzed had some similarities and differences in Vizenor's definition.  I do not think that one can set an absolute guideline to what a trickster tale is, but I do think he described most of them very well.  In order to be more precise one would have to study almost every tale and come up with their own thoughts, ultimately, that owuld change depending upon the person who is interpretting these tales.