{"id":2900,"date":"2016-11-19T02:49:02","date_gmt":"2016-11-19T10:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/?p=2900"},"modified":"2016-11-16T22:43:43","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T06:43:43","slug":"native-american-heritage-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/featured\/native-american-heritage-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Native American Heritage Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid, \u00a0westerns were the most popular shows on television. \u00a0Often these shows pitted cowboys against Indians. \u00a0That led to kid’s play along the same lines. \u00a0In my case, \u00a0I was an Indian. \u00a0We didn’t actually have many gun battles, but we did dress up in our best native imitation and wander far and wide among the forests in our area. \u00a0We practiced moving stealthily and quickly through the forest and up the hill then spying on those ‘cowboys’ (actually anyone wandering around) below us.\u00a0We also practiced woodcraft, mostly learned from\u00a0\u00a0The Golden Book of Camping and Camp Crafts<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Hiawatha's<\/a>

“Hiawatha’s Friends” by Frederic Remington<\/p><\/div>\n

In those days I didn’t have much contact with real Native Americans, but as I got older I maintained an interest in native culture. \u00a0In\u00a0college I\u00a0took an archaeology course and\u00a0would research Indian Mounds in the school library then set out to visit them and soak in their surroundings. \u00a0There are a lot of Indian mounds scattered around, and protected, within the city of Madison, Wisconsin, where I grew up. \u00a0 I now live in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and around here there are also lots of reminders of the prior caretakers of this land, from pictographs and petroglyphs<\/a> to prayer seats and vision quest sites. \u00a0 Not only that, but many of the descendents of those ancient\u00a0Native Americans live here still.<\/p>\n

In honor of the\u00a0Native Americans\u00a0that built the foundation for our country, \u00a0the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have gotten together to proclaim November as Native American Heritage Month<\/a>. \u00a0A variety of events have been scheduled through the month. \u00a0You can find a list on the website of the National Museum of the American Indian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Nez<\/a>

Nez Perce Canoe<\/p><\/div>\n

Whether it is the oil and gas leases in the homelands of the Blackfeet Nation, that are being cancelled, or the pipeline going through the homeland of the Standing Rock Sioux, that is currently a battleground, reconciling the respect Native Americans deserve with the peculiarities of European culture continues to be\u00a0difficult for the nation. \u00a0At the very least, serious consideration of Native American Heritage Month and even redirecting Columbus Day into Indigenous People’s Day will help people of all kinds better understand the importance of and effects upon those who came before and those that remain here still.<\/p>\n

In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, \u00a0I recommend that everyone take the time to read or reread Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha (read online<\/a> or buy a book<\/a>). \u00a0While not written as an historical document, \u00a0Longfellow did an excellent job collecting Native American legends and wrapping them into a moving story of tragic love that can be understood by all.<\/p>\n

For a realistic and thought-provoking look at some of the mis-representations perpetuated about Native Americans, \u00a0including those depicted in the westerns on TV and the books I read as a kid, check out this 2008 lecture by Edwin Schulman<\/a>, author of Do All Indians live in Tipis?<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid, \u00a0westerns were the most popular shows on television. \u00a0Often these shows pitted cowboys against Indians. \u00a0That led to kid’s play along the same lines. \u00a0In my case, \u00a0I was an Indian. \u00a0We didn’t actually have many gun battles, but we did dress up in our best native imitation and wander […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,2,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-featured","category-places-and-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2900"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2907,"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2900\/revisions\/2907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explore.globalcreations.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}