Rites Of Passage In The Medicine Bag

Beginning with “The Medicine Bag” , the main character is Martin. His Grandpa, who is an Indian on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, came to visit him and his family. When Martin's sister, Cheryl, saw their grandpa, she got extremely excited and couldn't wait for her friends to come and meet him. Martin on the other hand was not too excited. He

One of the similarities between the text of “The Medicine Bag” and the Apaches Girls rite of passage video is that both groups start at a certain age for their rites of passages. For example, in the Apache video, Dachina is 13 years old when the ceremony began. At the age of 13, you are starting to grow into your “adult” years and no longer

There are so many rites of passage for kids, have you ever wondered what native american kids go through? Many people go through rites of passage but Dachina is going through a very important time in her life where she becomes a women. In the Medicine Bag, Martin is going through an important time in his life where is receiving an important object. There are lots of ways that the Apache girl and Medicine Bag are similar as well as, different. Likewise, there are many disadvantages and advantages of text versus video.

Although both Native tribes have rites of passages, they are very different and can be easy to find the contrast. In the Apache native American tribe the young women have to go through a four day ritual on July 4th for their right of passage. These days are filled with dancing, small amounts of sleep, and the need to set aside emotion. This if different from the Lakota boys’ rite of passage. The Lakota boys’ rite of passage doesn't take a whole four days to complete, and certainly did not include an all night dance to test his endurance. Also, from what the book has stated the boy didn’t need to set aside emotion. Although, for the boy to accept the medicine bag, his great grandfather passed. Which can cause different results in emotion. This is different from the Lakota girls’ rite of passage because from what was stated, she didn’t experience loss in her ritual. There are plenty more differences due to native tribes having different rituals, but these are the ones that stick out the most.

Another reason that the medicine bag’s rite of passage is most significant to me because when his

“A Worn Path” is a short story written by Eudora Welty. It is based on an elderly African-American grandmother named Phoenix Jackson, who goes for a walk to the town of Natchez on a cold December morning to get some medicine for her ailing grandson. This story speaks of the obstacles Phoenix endured along the way and how she overcame them. The theme, central idea or message that the author wishes to convey to his or her readers, in “A Worn Path” is one of determination. Phoenix Jackson is determined to get to Natchez, in order to get medicine for her grandson; she does not let any obstacles get in her way. The theme of determination is shown in many ways throughout this short story.

Lives for Native Americans on reservations have never quite been easy. There are many struggles that most outsiders are completely oblivious about. In her book The Roundhouse, Louise Erdrich brings those problems to light. She gives her readers a feel of what it is like to be Native American by illustrating the struggles through the life of Joe, a 13-year-old Native American boy living on a North Dakota reservation. This book explores an avenue of advocacy against social injustices. The most observable plight Joe suffers is figuring out how to deal with the injustice acted against his mother, which has caused strife within his entire family and within

Martin is an average teen that lives with his parents and his younger sister Cheryl when his life is interrupted when his Lakota Grandpa comes to visit. Grandpa tells the story of his culture and life as an Indian, but Martin was afraid that his grandfather might not live up to the expectations he implemented into the minds of his friends. Sadly his grandfather was sick and tired, so he gave Martin the medicine bag as a passing gift to remember his family’s culture. In the end, Martin visited the Iowa sanctuary as a way to commemorate his grandfather and the medicine bag. The hardships of judging your family, culture and those around you are difficult to do unless experience, the description, and events experience by Martin explain these events and the meaning of the discovery changed him for the better. In the story, “The Medicine Bag”, the remarkable events during Grandpa’s visit enlightened Martin of the importance of family culture and the acceptance of others.

In the novels Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich and The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday, the reader gains views of Native American culture, both past and present, through two disparate means of delivery. Both authors provide immensely rich portrayals through varying literary devices in efforts to bring about a better understanding of problems contemporary Native Americans face, especially regarding their own self-identity.

Storytelling is a large component of Native American’s culture. Storytelling has the ability to connect people, events, and things to each other which transcends racial and temporal boundaries. Van Camp transcends the binary’s boundaries through storytelling, bringing Native traditions and events into the modern world. For example, Larry is a Dogrib, yet he is not living on a reservation and more or less seems to know little about his Indigenous identity, “Due to the novel's multiethnic small-town setting and his parents' residential schooling, Larry seldom receives cultural knowledge that might explicate... a traditional Dogrib social structure” (McKegney). However, through storytelling, specifically oral storytelling, Van Camp sets up a connection between Larry and his tribal knowledge. Larry is told his tribe’s creation story which serves as a vessel to deliver tribal knowledge into Larry’s modern world. The creation story can also be seen to transcend boundaries between the different Indigenous tribes of Jed, Larry, and Johnny. Larry is also seen to share stories with the readers as well as the characters of Juliet, and Johnny. Juliet is white and learns of an Indigenous story through Larry, “I closed my eyes and decided to let the story lead. I was just the voice, and I knew the story would tell itself.” (Van Camp 113). The story connected Juliet with

Throughout this book, the struggle to come to terms with who she is in relation to these two different families. She never feels complete, fit in, or fully part pf the family after recapture and she has been separated from her Native American family. But there are moment when she remembers her life before the capture, and the memories help understand memories of her white family.

Like a coin dropped between the cushions of a couch, traditional oral storytelling is a custom fading away in current American culture. For Native Americans, however, the practice of oral storytelling is still a tradition that carries culture and rich history over the course of generations. Three examples of traditional oral stories, “How Men and Women Got Together”, “Coyote’s Rabbit Chase”, and “Corn Mother”, demonstrate key differences in perspectives and values among diverse native tribes in America.

In "The Man to Send Rain Clouds," and "One Holy Night," Leslie Marmon Silko and Sandra Cisneros discuss the traditions and myths of their cultures. Silko states her beliefs in the rituals or ceremonies that her culture performs when one of her own has passed on. On the other hand, Cisneros explains the struggles of being a teenage girl of another culture in American society. While both writers agree that keeping their traditions and myths alive is important, Silko’s story of Native American rituals gives awareness on the tradition in the pueblo world that even in modern times they practice, Unlike Cisneros, who’s story of an unplanned teenage pregnancy after a short-term relationship with a man she barely knew, surveys what can be believed either an unfortunate or simply a typical tradition that all teenagers are in a personal phase of rebellion against people of parental authority, and often end up wanting to experiment with other cultures or figurative patterns of behavior, to interchange the traditions they were raised with.

The construction of identity in Native American literature tends to be contingent on the trope of alienation. Protagonists then must come to terms with their exile/alienated condition, and disengage from the world in order to regain a sense of their pre-colonial life. In utilizing the plight of the American Indian, authors expose the effects decolonization and how individuals must undergo a process of recovery. Under these circumstances, characters are able reclaim knowledge of a tribal self that had been distorted by years of oppression. Through Welch’s Winter in the Blood and The Heartsong of Charging Elk, and Alexie’s Flight, we can see how the protagonists suffer from the tensions of living on the margins of conflicting societies, and

Alexie Sherman’s The Absolute True Diary of a Part Time Indian tells a very interesting story about a boy named Junior, who throughout the entire novel, is trying to gain the acceptance of those around him while telling a story about Native Americans as a whole. There is a very comical tone that is very consistent throughout the entire novel that makes it seem much more personal, and allows to reader to relate to junior and understand his situation. This coming of age story brings about many themes and main ideas that are related to Native Americans of past and present. Themes such as imprisonment, overall acceptance, poverty, education, stereotypes, and race.