Native American Heritage Month

Heritage and tradition are often tied together inaccurately with assumptions that the two words are proportionate to each other, however, heritage of a family is what inspires and conceives traditions. In the story ‘Two Kinds’ by Amy Tan, she goes into depth about how strong family heritage lead her to be unique in a new world of exploration. In the story Jing-mei explains the stress of overcoming disliked aspects of heritage, “If felt like worms and toads and slimy things crawling out of my chest, but it also felt good” (Tan 231). A strong understanding of family values will allow alteration for the benefit of other family members and future generations. Expressing how simple things can infringe on a person's own characteristics in ‘By Any Other Name’ the narrator says, “If one’s name is changed, one develops a curious form of dual personality” (Rau 44).

Identity in Native America is directly associated with culture and language. As a result, some of the issues today which are important in shaping the identity of modern Native Americans include: representations of native people by the media in sports and popular culture; how indigenous languages are being revitalized and maintained; and identity reclamation. The Native American lifestyle has changed significantly during the last half of the 20th century and that is because views on the Native people have drastically changed over time. They have had many hardships that have greatly impacted their culture over the past few centuries leading up to today.

Have you ever wonder how the world was created from another culture’s perspective? Native Americans used creation myths to explained to their people how the world was developed overtime. Creation myths are a big part of the Native American culture. they have been passed down from generation to generation. In the creation myths, harmony with nature, rituals, and strong social values are shown in each myths. The purpose of having strong social value in these myths is to teach younger Native Americans valuable lesson if they ever do something bad. These myths reveals how the rituals were created and their intentions for doing it. Creation myths has harmony with nature in it to show a very close kinship between them

In this article, “ From Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey Through Reservation Life,” by David Treuer, he talks about the struggles that Native Americans have gone through. Mr. Treuer brings to the reader’s attention the struggles that most people don’t even realize have happened. Mr. Treuer has one big struggle that is still happening today that needs help to change, which is the lack of Native American language. This is such a high priority struggle due to the fact that without Native American language, there is a loss of heritage.

The history of the Native Americans after the arrival of the Europeans is a history of wars, treaties and agreements, and broken treaties and broken agreements. As late as 1994 the governing bodies of tribal communities have signed treaties and agreements with the U.S. (Niles, 1996). As recently as 1999 the U.S. Supreme Court almost overturned treaty rights of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota.

In American Indian life, they believe their life is interconnected with the world, nature, and other people. The idea of a peoplehood matrix runs deep in Indian culture, in this essay the Cherokee, which is the holistic view of sacred history, language, ceremony, and homeland together. This holistic model shapes the life of the American Indians and how their sense of being and relationship to their history is strong and extremely valuable to them. This essay will try to explain how each aspect of the peoplehood matrix is important and interconnected to each other and the life of the Native Americans.

In modern day society, we often overlook key points in history. For example, Columbus Day, why do we celebrate it? Well, from one’s point of view, we celebrate this holiday for several reasons, one of these reasons are because it recalls Christopher Columbus' entry to the Americas on October 12, 1492. This occasion is questionable on the grounds that the European settlement in the Americas prompted the downfall of the history and culture, of the indigenous people groups. What are some of the pros and cons from naming Columbus Day to Indigenous Day? That is what you will learn in this essay.

The Native Americans once thrived on the rich land of the Americas, and they built a long-lasting civilization with the help of nature, gods, and organized roles within the tribes. However, the thriving population plummeted after their encounter with diseases and forced labor brought upon them by the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores. Although at first the conquistadores mistreatment of Native Americans seem shallow and unethical, their conquest of the Americas only partially reflects the claims of the English Black Legends..

Native American culture originated in some parts North America. These countries are known as the United States of America and some parts of Canada. In the United States, there are 6.6 million Native Americans, which form about 2.0 percent of the population (Bureau, 2016). Europe had realized there were about 50 million people already living the “new world” and these people were called Native Americans. Native Americans were originally called Indians, but later through history they formed a new name. These people were called this because of them being native to the “new world” and the American part came after the colonist named the United States. Throughout history, Native Americans believed that using raw material in nature was the best way to provide for their people. Their culture thought no part of an animal should go to waste. They would eat the meat, use the skin for clothing, and make jewelry from the bones. Over the years a lot of their culture and customs were lost due to conforming with society. Their languages were referred to as “Indigenous Languages” because of them being extremely complicated and diverse. Some important factors that help understand the foundation of Native American culture are their rituals/practices, death ceremonies, holidays, family, and stereotypes.

In Lakota Woman, a biographical account of Mary Crow Dog, there is established a reoccurring theme centered around Native American women and their outlasting strength as they play their roles of wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters. Especially so in trying times, which Crow Dog illustrates, that have spanned for centuries and are as inescapable as they have ever been. Remarkable are her feats of bravery fueled by strength she’s derived from other influential women in her life and her love for her people and their traditions. Without a doubt, Native American women had and always will play a large role in keeping the ardor behind their fight for equality and justice lit. Whether it be physically, such as it was in Wounded Knee, spiritually, in their participation in keeping up rituals and religion, or traditionally, as they help uphold old values beloved by their people for centuries.

Coming from a town named after the shoshone tribes old Cheif Pocatello, and living near a Indian reservation, my town has a deep background and history of Indians.My town of Pocatello honors the Shoshone tribe that is close by:building a tribute of Cheif Pocatello, naming a town after him, building a replica of the old fort of the tribe,

A Native Americans identity is deeply rooted in his culture, “it’s a particular way one feels about oneself and one’s experiences as an American Indian or tribal person” (Horse 65). Without his Native American culture, a person can feel lost in the world, disconnected from everything. Throughout history, there have been moments where Native Americans were forced to lose part or all of their culture, of their identity. There was the termination era in the 1950’s and Indian boarding schools that both were ways to strip Native Americans of their culture. In Joy Harjo’s poem, The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window, the woman hanging experiences the termination era. In Sherman Alexie’s book, Reservation Blues, Junior Polatkin experiences the lasting effect boarding schools have on Indians. In LeAnne Howe’s book, Miko Kings, Lena learns that you can always come back from to your Native identity.

In Miranda’s narrative, “Novena to Bad Indians”, it is clearly indicated that the title “Bad Indians” serves as a point to combat the negative connotations against Indians who resisted and rejected colonialism. The depiction of Native peoples is not only dehumanizing, but by employing irony, Miranda reveals a dominant narrative of mission history through the prayers of the novena in order to reject the narratives that define native people as

Traditions and old teachings are essential to Native American culture; however growing up in the modern west creates a distance and ignorance about one’s identity. In the beginning, the narrator is in the hospital while as his father lies on his death bed, when he than encounters fellow Native Americans. One of these men talks about an elderly Indian Scholar who paradoxically discussed identity, “She had taken nostalgia as her false idol-her thin blanket-and it was murdering her” (6). The nostalgia represents the old Native American ways. The woman can’t seem to let go of the past, which in turn creates confusion for the man to why she can’t let it go because she was lecturing “…separate indigenous literary identity which was ironic considering that she was speaking English in a room full of white professors”(6). The man’s ignorance with the elderly woman’s message creates a further cultural identity struggle. Once more in the hospital, the narrator talks to another Native American man who similarly feels a divide with his culture. “The Indian world is filled with charlatan, men and women who pretend…”

In Jeannette Armstrong’s poem, History Lesson, she writes in perspective of Indigenous people reacting to the first encounters with European settlers. Historically, Indigenous people did not have a positive encounter with the first settlers due to their clash of beliefs and values of how communities and structures should run. Instead, they had many disagreements which caused the partial destruction of their whole culture. It is clear that Armstrong uses the theme of history to portray the destruction that the first European settlers had on the Indigenous way of life through various points in history. Armstrong imbeds the theme of history throughout her poem to further emphasize her stance on the assimilation of the Indigenous people with the restricting and destructive effects the early settlers had on them throughout history.