I
reviewed three of the books within the Series We are the People; The
Arapaho, The Wampanoag, and The Ojibwe . A
very impressive colorful layout is used through out the series.
The books start off with a seemingly shocking true tale of 1) the
death of Metacom, of the Wampanoag 2) The Death March of the Ojibwe and 3)
the Sand Creek Massacre of the Arapaho people.
Almost every page has colorful drawings or photographs to help
illustrate the people and the culture.
One of the wonderful things the author has done is to give
recognition to the tribal groups still in existence, and numbers of their
current membership and their locations.
The books cover description of the name used to describe the
people, for example Wampanoag
are a native people of the Northeast coast and their name
“Wampanoag – refers to People of the Dawn
or people of the East.”
Chapters cover: Food
and shelter; Family life and culture; a Glossary; a Did you Know; a Time
line; Important People; Want to know More section; and an Index.
The books could be a good series if teachers/readers know that they
should discuss some of the bias that is embedded in the language of the
book.
In the Ojibwe book:
1)
page 4 – “It was December 1850 – that bitterly cold time of
year the Ojibwe people call Small Spirits Moon.”
Why do they call it the small spirits moon?
Do they actually call it “small Spirit Moon” or is that a
translation? Use the Native
language if possible, otherwise you are reinforcing a stereotypes of
childlike ideas, and romanticizing a mystical Indian.
2)
Page 4 – “Several thousand Ojibwe were gathered in Sandy Lake,
in what is now Northern Minnesota.”
What was Sandy Lake? A
US Government Military Fort? A Reservation?
Why did the entire tribe go to Sandy Lake to get the food,
couldn’t just some of them go?
3)
page 8 – “Chief Hole-in-the-day later described Sandy Lake as a
“grave-yard” for his people.” Is
the Ojibwe leader’s name actually Hole in the day or was that the
translated version? There are
many people that have Indian names and we do not tend to translate their
names to English… Xthlixan may be called buck, but Tis Mil is not called
eagle, or Tavoochi is not called cotton tail.
To keep the stories and books useful and real for Native and
non-Native students do not translate the names from their original forms.
4)
page 12- Night flying woman? again
is this a translation or do people actually call her this?
5)
page 27 – “Native people hunted and trapped so many animals,
particularly beaver, that some became scarce.”
The Hudson bay company or other trapping agencies didn’t pay
non-natives for these furs too?
The
French had a different plan than the Europeans or the Spanish explorers.
The French actually married into the tribes, rather than raping and
pillaging until they had a home to bring their wives to.
6)
page 29 – “When the American Colonies fought England for their
independence, the Ojibwe were again on the wrong side.” They may have
chosen the loosing side, but the British crown actually took an active
part in trying to protect Native land rights.
Please see American Indian
Law by William Canby, jr.
7)
page 33 – The Dawes act – was set for all Indians not just
Ojibwe. 160 acres was given
to the head of house hold, but if you were unmarried you received 80 acres
that was not truly in your ownership for 25 years.
This act also enabled land speculators to buy land cheaply from
niave, dispirit Native individuals. The primary effect of the Allotment
Act was a precipitous decline in the total amount of Indian held land,
from 138 million acres in 1887 to 48 million in 1934; in which 20 million
acres were desert or semidesert areas. Please see American
Indian Law by William Canby, jr.
8)
page 35 – “Yet positive changes also took place. In 1934, the
Indian Reorganization Act became a national law.”
The most important and effective provision of the Indian
Reorganization Act was that it ended the practice of allotment and
extended indefinitely the trust period for existing allotments still in
trust. It assured water and
land rights, and was overwhelmingly successful in preventing further rapid
erosion of the tribal land base. In
reality the Act itself had limited success because the tribal governments
that were to be set up and approved by the US Secretary of the Interior,
followed a non-native pattern of divided executive, legislative and
judicial authority which were unsuitable for most tribal needs and
conditions. Please see American
Indian Law by William Canby, jr.
9)
page 36 – “The 1973 takeover ended with the surrender of the
protesters, but it brought worldwide attention to the problems of native
people.” Two FBI agents
were supposedly shot during this incident and one man Leonard Peltier
remains in Jail for their deaths… Wounded
Knee may have brought attention to the Native communities as did the take
over at Alcatraz, but the problems they were trying to expose still exist.
10)
page 37 – “The Ojibwe Today”
What is the current poverty rate for the Ojibwe people? We see that
they have 40,000 tribal members how many of them are homeless, job less,
educated, degreed? Since the
Red Lake Reservation has been listed we know that the school and people
are still in trouble by the school shooting that took place three weeks
ago.
Missing from each of the
books is:
1)
A bibliography section that lets the reader know the original
documentation for the quotes being used in the text.
2)
The European / Spanish Manifest destiny giving the “god given
right to the land.”
3)
Any creation stories of how each people came to be.
4)
Native input on the timelines. It would have been more important for the tribes to list
droughts, floods. It seems very ego-centric to think that all of the
Native Timelines would include only interactions with the US government or
Europeans.
5)
Current Important people for the tribes.
Maybe they have Winona LaDuke nominated by the Green Party for Vice
President of the US, or because she is an Indigenous activist, the tribe
is still functioning show the reader by giving them people that are still
alive.
Marlette
Grant-Jackson – ITEPP-CRC
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