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Her er du: NRK > Undervisning > Språk og reiser > Engelsk | Oppdatert 31.10.2001 19:01 |
| NATIVE AMERICANS, part 1 Ancestral Voices Publisert 31.10.2001 17:43 A Native American Retrospectiveby Claes NordenskiöldWhen European colonists first arrived on the North American continent, it was already occupied by about 2,5 million Indians or Native Americans. About 300 years later, in the mid 19th century, the number of Indians had dwindled to a mere 50 000. The meeting with European civilization proved too much for the Indians. The white man’s diseases, his greed and his guns robbed an entire continent of its way of life. The following programme takes a closer look at the differences between the Indian attitudes and life-ways and those of the European intruders. The Native American tradition was basically oral – stories were told and retold, poems were recited, songs were sung, legends and myths were handed over from one generation to the next on an oral basis. Fables, heroic tales and prophecies about what was to come were all parts of this oral heritage. These were their ancestral voices. MUSIC: “Ancestor Song” Utali and the Silvercloud Singers “There was a white man. He went through the forest where he met another white man who sat on a branch up in a tree. Then the first one said: “I’m going to chop down the tree that you sit in.” And he began to chop. After a while he said: “You have to go down, otherwise you’ll fall.” But the other one said: “I won’t fall.” The first one continued to chop, and the tree with the man in it fell.” MUSIC: “Ancestor Song” Utali and the Silvercloud Singers Speaker: This kind of simple but wise stories like this are very common among Native Americans. This story was told among the Kutenai Indians of the Northwest, but it could just as well have been a Seneca, Commanche, or Navajo story. In this program we’ll take a closer look at the historical differences between European values and Indian ways of life. Simplified it can be said that: different ways of looking at social, cultural, and environmental issues met and clashed in a violent way when Europeans arrived in North America in the 1500s. MUSIC: “Squaw Dance Song” Northern Cree Indians Speaker: It is estimated that man first cut across the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia some 40,000 years ago. At this time, large areas of the American continent were covered with ice. Later on, a path was cut along the western coastline down into South America; generation after generation they slowly spread across the vast continent. The Indian tribes that inhabited the North American continent spoke very different languages. Some say that there may have been as many as 1500 distinct forms of speech around the 16th century. And in contrast with European tradition, Indian tradition was almost exclusively oral – stories were told and retold, speeches and poems recited. Most East coast Indians welcomed the pilgrims from Europe at first, but many Indian descendants have later called this ’the greatest mistake’. “We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth, as “wild.” Only to the white man was nature a “wilderness” and only to him was the land “infested” with “wild” animals and “savage” people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery. Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families we loved, was it "wild" for us." MUSIC: "Squaw Dance Song" Northern Cree Indians Speaker: When we think of Indians, we often see Plains Indians, the Sioux or the Cheyenne, in front of us. They are usually portrayed as proud but fierce and warlike tribes, and almost always as the ’enemy’. Through films and books, this very stereotypical idea has been drummed into our heads. And we also think of horses. The horse existed in North America some 20,000 years ago, but it became extinct. It was reintroduced in the 1500s by the Spaniards, but tribes like the Cheyenne, the Sioux or the Kiowa, didn’t start using the horse until the mid 1700s. The horse changed the lives of the Plains Indians, and altered their social structure in less than 100 years. All at once, it took only a couple of hours to supply an entire family with food and many other articles by killing a buffalo. Before they had horses it could take days or weeks to kill a single buffalo. A hundred years later, buffalos had become extremely rare, but not because of Indians. This is how Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux, described the Wasichus, white men, and their attitude towards the buffalo. "I can remember when the bison were so many that they could not be counted, but more and more Wasichus came to kill them until there were only heaps of bones scattered where they used to be. The Wasichus did not kill them to eat; they killed them for the metal that makes them crazy, and they took only the hides to sell. Sometimes they did not even take the hides, only the tongues; and I have heard that fire-boats came down the Missouri River loaded with dried bison tongues. You can see that the men who did this were crazy. Sometimes they did not even take the tongues; they just killed and killed because they liked to do that." MUSIC: "Coyote Dance" Robbie Robertson Speaker: But the Indian’s respect and love for the earth that they lived upon, the air that they breathed, and the living creatures which they felt they were a part of, did not change. Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux stated: "One does not sell the earth upon which people walk." MUSIC: "Coyote Dance" Robbie Robertson Speaker: The oral tradition varies from myths to trickster stories, from tales of heroes to prophecies. There has always been an important story-telling tradition among Native Americans, and the existence of a trickster figure is very common. Tricksters appear in various guises, shedding light on issues by playing tricks in a comic or demeaning way, and generally, trickster stories are short. Native American writer Scott Momaday, a Kiowa, explains it like this: "The trickster figure is fairly common in Native American literature. In the Southwest coyote is the principal trickster. In the Plains, the Kiowas, for example, have a figure who is a human figure, they call Saynday, and he’s the trickster. I think it’s other animals in other societies, but the trickster figure is an interesting one because he’s a comic figure in one sense, he always gets into trouble, and he’s the butt of all jokes, but he’s also powerful. He is possessed of extraordinary and supernatural powers. He can transform himself frequently, Saynday can turn himself into a tortoise, a wolf, or a horse, if he wants to. So he’s a kind of ambiguous figure. Half man, half divinity." Speaker: Coyote and Spider are two of the most common tricksters, and in the following story they appear together. Because even a trickster can be tricked... MUSIC: "Coyote Dance" Robbie Robertson "Some pheasants danced around in a circle Spider saw them and said that if they didn’t close their eyes, they’d become red-eyed and ruined. So the pheasants closed their eyes and kept on dancing Then Spider picked up a stick and killed them When Spider was roasting the pheasants he heard a wailing sound from a grove of trees Curious he went over and pulled some heavy branches apart But as he did so, he got caught between them And then Coyote came and ate all the birds." MUSIC: "Coyote Dance" Robbie Robertson Speaker: Native Americans perished from the white man’s diseases, guns, and greed. It has been estimated that there were about 2.5 million Indians in North America in the early 1500s, but some researchers claim that there may have been as many as 10 million. By 1860, the number of Indians had dwindled to a mere 50,000. In spite of this genocide, and a destructive program to relocate Indians to urban areas, where they often end up on skid row, many Indian tribes have managed to survive and hold on to traditional values. Chief Seattle of the small Duwamish tribe in the Northwest said these wise words in the late 1800s. "Every part of this country is sacred to my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove has been hallowed by some fond memory of some sad experience of my tribe. When the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among the white men shall have become a myth, these shores shall swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not altogether powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds." MUSIC: "Ghost Dance" Robbie Robertson & The Red Road Ensemble Vocabularyancestral fra forfedrene/frå forfedranesimplify forenkle oral muntlig/munnleg recite deklamere descendant etterkommer/etterkomar winding buktende/buktande tangled growth buskas, kratt infested with full av savage vill bountiful rik frenzy villskap, galskap heap injustice upon overøse med urettferdighet/overause med urettferd Plain Indians ie Indians living on the great plains of America extinct utryddet/utrydda alter forandre/endre hide skinn, hud fire-boat dampskip trickster story narrefortelling/narreforteljing guise forkledning shed light on kaste lys over demeaning uverdig coyote prærieulv butt mål, skyteskive tortoise skilpadde ambiguous uklar divinity guddommelighet/guddom pheasant fasan wailing klagende/klagande grove treklynge perish dø/døy greed grådighet/grådigskap researcher forsker/forskar genocide folkemord relocate omplassere skid row slumkvartal sacred hellig/heilag hallow gjøre hellig/gjere heilag invisible usynlig/usynleg After the programme1. Check what is said in the programme about- when and how the American continent was settled by Indian tribes - the number of different forms of speech in North America around the 16th century - what happened to the North American Indians between the early 1500s and the mid-19th century - how the horse changed the lives of many American tribes 2. What were some of the differences between the Indian way of life and that of the European settlers? What made it difficult for Indians and Europeans to live side by side in peace? 3. Explain the role played by the trickster figure in Native American literature. What purpose did it serve? 4. The so-called "ancestral voices" were importyant to the Native Americans. "What "ancestral voices" are important to you? |
31.10.2001 19:01 SO MUCH TO TELL YOU – part six 31.10.2001 19:00 SO MUCH TO TELL YOU – part five 31.10.2001 18:59 SO MUCH TO TELL YOU – part four 31.10.2001 18:58 SO MUCH TO TELL YOU – part three 31.10.2001 18:57 SO MUCH TO TELL YOU – part two 31.10.2001 18:56 SO MUCH TO TELL YOU – part one 31.10.2001 17:58 Urban Indians 31.10.2001 17:51 Powwow on the Reservation 31.10.2001 17:43 Ancestral Voices 28.08.2001 08:12 On the Information Highway |
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