Indian Books gone wrong......

I know what you mean, books about Aboriginies are the same. They are based on a fairytale and heavily altered version of a telegraph operator's book about the Arrunta people (where Alice Springs is now).

If there is any truth in it, it would only apply to the Arrunta.

For that matter the same is true for books about Islam & the middle east (or all Orientalist material) written by "whitemen" they bear very little or only coincidental facts.

You have to bear in mind that when this attitude was developed facts didn't need to be included in the book. Sensationalising and making other cultures conform to European stereotypes (ie, outright lying) was what made a successful book. Those books are now used as reference material, and so the educated masses get fed alot of crap, which they believe because of the references. Even in the case that the original researcher was an honest intelligent man, the secondary scholarship is often a load of crap. Misunderstandings are doubled by people totally removed from the original culture.

Its the old saying, practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Practice may enforce bad habits. No education is bad, but bad education is worse.


Edited by Omar al Hashim - 28-Apr-2009 at 10:41

Depends on which Indian group. In my country, for instance, there are several books written by the Mapuches. One of them, "Testimony of a Mapuche Chief", by Pascual Coña, it is a full 400 pages, billingual Spanish Mapudungun, which describes very clearly how were the Mapuches of late 19th century and beginning of the 20th.

There is a lot of material that is not sound on North American indigenous populations. However, The Middle Ground was a decent attempt at getting to a sound academic piece on Native Americans years ago. Furthermore, there has been a lot of research with a heavy dose of credibility in recent years. One more recent example is Indian Women and French Men by Sleeper-Smith. To conclude I agree with you on the abundance of bad scholarship, but there is a strong movement for decades to amend that, too.

Originally posted by The Canadian Guy Ok, there is allot of books that talk bout Indians of the Americas, but allot of these books are racist and stereotypical. I noticed that these books are completely wrong in knowledge and are biased. So, if anyone out there find books bout my ancestors, they are written from the "whiteman"and I am not trying to offend anyone and I expect arguments, but  my culture has no written documents and we tallk in stories and tales. We do not know much of our ancesterial past and the little we know is what we use in ceremonies and are not told outside of them. Our ceremonies are sacred and never told to anyone. P.S. This is only my expressions and complaints of these book, so please try to argue back and prove me wrong. I am open to debate. I know what I was taught by my elders and what I read are like water and fire, they just don't work together.

But you could write a book about language, customs, legends, cousine, etc.. You don't need to reveal secret ceremonies to show the rest of mankind your people.

For instance, who is writing the books to learn the language? how to build a canoe, make a flute, follow prey tracks, make a flute and play it, and thousand of other cultural things that are valuable not only for your people, but to all the educated people of the world that appreciate the produce of mankind.

Edited by Omar al Hashim - 29-Apr-2009 at 08:46

I was just copying The Canadian Guy's phrase

Edited by Omar al Hashim - 29-Apr-2009 at 12:18

Originally posted by eaglecap   When I worked at Old Mission State Park in Idaho I read the Roman Catholic catechism to missionaries who were going out west to convert natives...

You are old! You convert the missionaries then they converted the Indians. I see! (I would insert the word "about" between 'read' and 'the' in your sentence.)

Originally posted by Jams Exactly - someone's got to do it, and it better be an insider, IMHO. Outsiders will always have some kind of tinted glasses which they view a culture with. They will never be neutral, even if they try to be. It is unavoidable that they use their own values and meanings to interpret whatever they may see.