Fictions of American Prehistory: The origins of Native Americans (Lexy Becker)
I’m assuming that everyone read the article and instead of recapping, I would like to introduce some new ideas and focus more on origins. The article hints that perhaps the predecessors of the current day Native Americans traveled from Asia to North America when the land was still connected. It’s more then likely that other civilizations throughout the ages brought their customs and intelligence over to share before the Euro-Americans. However, Asia was one of the earliest and most scholarly civilizations. Since the beginning, everything in Asian (especially Chinese) culture has meaning especially their writing formation. They write in symbols and their words take on specific depictions, similar to that of the hieroglyphics.
Mongolia is right next to China. Try to compare and contrast some traditional Chinese beliefs with those of the 18th century Native. They match up far more then any other faith of other civilizations. It’s possible before the culture could be written down, they parted with similar ideas to different places. Some examples include: in a traditional Chinese text, Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu refers to the Tao (“way” in English) as being brought by Mother of the universe. Sounds a lot like “Mother earth”, doesn’t it? In china, the force with the natural environment and the spirit within is called “Chi.” You must align yourself with nature to experience it and must not try to fight against it. Doesn’t it start to sound familiar?
My questions for you if you choose to post on this are:
1.Can you list an example from any one culture that you think the Native Americans derived from?
2.What do you think about Asian culture and do you think there are any similarties?
Kolodny, Annette. (2003). Fictions of American Prehistory: Indians, Archeology, and National Origin Myths. Project Muse. Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.eduDass, Dr. Rhonda. (2009). AIS 230 American Indians in Minnesota. Class Lecture. Sept 2, 2009
Lexy- Interesting questions! As you know, I have an oral history from my family that gives us our origins here to start with. But - and this is a big consideration - most Native nations have the same cultural trait of adaptation to new cultures. We pull things from other groups that we encounter and adopt them into our own cultural understandings and oral traditions. How can we trace the origins rather than later influences?
Lexy- Interesting questions! As you know, I have an oral history from my family that gives us our origins here to start with. But - and this is a big consideration - most Native nations have the same cultural trait of adaptation to new cultures. We pull things from other groups that we encounter and adopt them into our own cultural understandings and oral traditions. How can we trace the origins rather than later influences?
ReplyDeleteDr. Dass