Good news! Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery will be running Study Abroad in the Cherokee Nation for 2010 and is expanding it to 6 credit hours over 5 weeks, traveling from NC to OK. More details to follow but this is the website prospective students should look for:
Monday, November 2, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Welcome to the Cherokee Nation
I'm pleased to let everyone know that the Cherokee Phoenix just published an article on UNC's Study Abroad with a video, and just in time for the opening of this blog to the public eye.
Congrats and Wado to all of the participants of the course as well as the Cherokee People who made this such a rich and wonderful experience for us all.
See ya next year, and if you're in the course in '09, stop by my office sometime for your capy of the Cherokee Phoenix paper with an article on us.
- Tol
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Final Blog
So I know many of you have probably never even seen Gossip Girl, but NY Magazine does a hilarious review of it after every episode. I thought I’d do my final response in that format…it’s basically a pro/con list with point values. Here goes…
(Almost) Better than Boo Radley:
- The National Heritage Museum. It was a good way to start of the course. The exhibit about the syllabary was awesome and the one about the history of the Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears was informative. Plus 5.
- Immersion School and Cherokee Animators. From my previous post about these topics, you can tell that I loved this part of the course. I think what these guys and the school are doing for future generations is amazing. Plus 25.
- Indian Child Welfare Visit. I loved this part of the course! The women who talked to us seemed so passionate about their work and helping out children. Plus 5. However, we definitely could have used more time there. Minus 2.
- Stickball. AWESOME! I usually shy away from sports, I’m not terribly athletic and I have horrible hand-eye coordination. Luckily, stickball didn’t really require that. I have never had so much fun getting muddy, sweaty, and bruised. Plus 20.
- Stomp Dance. My “Course up to this point” blog says my feelings about this. Seriously one of the best all-nighters I’ve pulled. Plus 25.
- Films. I love Sterlin Harjo’s films and I am so glad that we got to meet him! I also enjoyed The Doe Boy and the documentaries about the stomp dance and Tar Creek. Each one of these films helped me to understand Indian culture and practices better. Plus 10.
- Coates Course. Dr. Coates was extremely intelligent and knowledgeable and seemed passionate about the history of her people. I learned so much from this class and I’m glad to have the manual they gave us to refer back to. Plus 10. The days were SUPER long, and it was kind of a bummer that the class took up two of our weekends. Minus 5.
- Meeting Wilma Mankiller. During lunch, Wilma said: “Sorry, I’m allergic to my cats and dogs, but I refuse to get rid of them.” Although that seems totally irrelevant, I’m in the same boat as her and it made me like her that much more. She’s an animal lover and the former Chief of the Cherokee Nation. I also really love hearing her speak about the Bell Project and visiting other indigenous people. Basically she is just an awesome person and I’m really glad that we had the opportunity to meet her. Plus 20.
- Float Trip. I had so much fun on the float trip! We played games, swam, tanned, and attempted to paddle our way out of danger. Plus 15. We also got super sunburned. Minus 3.
- Will Rogers, Gilcrease, And Philbrook Museums. All three of these were beautiful museums! I especially liked the paintings in the Philbrook and the exhibit about the wood artist. Plus 10.
- Phyllis, Ed, Wyman, Dede, Travis, Kinsey, Chris, and Dr. Foster. Every single one of these people gave up their time and energy to help us learn and I could not be more appreciative! I loved learning the language, history, and culture of the Cherokees. I want to say thanks to everyone for making it such a great learning experience! Plus 40.
- Staying busy. I am so happy that we stayed busy during those three weeks! Even though we were pretty tired and maybe a little cranky by the end of the trip, I feel like we got a well-rounded view of the Cherokees and that it couldn’t have been accomplished if we had cut things out. Plus 20.
- The people. I had so much fun with the other students on this trip! We had a really remarkable mix of backgrounds, majors, ages, and interests, and this made the experience much more exciting! Plus 20.
Slight Drawbacks:
- Blogging and Reading. Because we did stay so busy, it was pretty hard to get all of the assigned work done during the course. Most of the readings were pretty useful, especially Wilma Mankiller’s autobiography and Robert Conley’s Cherokee Thoughts. I have to say though that I ended up skimming a lot of the other assigned readings because I simply didn’t have time to do it all! Minus 10.
- Reading again. Having the readings in a course pack would have been much better. I hate reading things on my laptop because you can’t highlight or make notes. Having a course pack would have made reading on the way to things much easier as well. Minus 10.
- Sequoyah’s House. Although the story of how Sequoyah developed the syllabary is unique and impressive, his house wasn’t really either of those. I’m not sure if I would recommend going there again…there just wasn’t that much to see and the information provided there wasn’t anything I hadn’t read previously. Minus 5.
- (Lack of) Free time. I know I said I was glad that we stayed busy, but one entire free day would have been nice. I would definitely suggest having it after the stomp dance. People were tired and grumpy, which made the amount of complaining escalate. Having a free day would have given people the alone time they needed. Minus 2.
- Not enough language instruction. It would have been great if we could have learned more of the language. We barely skimmed the surface! We also didn’t have any language instruction the last week, so it felt slightly crammed in the first two. Minus 4.
- Only going to the Bible Study. Although it was neat to hear a Bible Study in Cherokee, I feel like it would have been much more beneficial to actually attend a church service. Since so many Cherokees are Christians, it would have been useful to see how their services are run. Minus 3.
- Visiting the UKB. Although it is great to get perspectives from both the Cherokee Nation and the UKB, I left our visit with them angry and saddened. They seemed very immature and defensive. It was not a positive experience! Minus 12.
TOTAL: 149
Judging from the astronomically high positive number, I would have to say that this course was awesome! I have seriously never learned so much in such a short amount of time, and I am so grateful that I had this opportunity!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Final Report
The experience was outstanding. I cannot remember a time that I have learned so much, so fast, in such an experiential way (the best way to learn). I loved learning about the contemporary Cherokee up close, face to face, with legitimate contemporary Cherokees and making lasting relationships with them as it went. I look forward to informing my friends about this quasi-sovereign culture working within our country's borders and hopefully aid the American Indian cause because knowledge is power, baby. That reminds me of one aspect of the course I wish was slightly different. That would be the tunnel vision focus on strictly the Cherokees. I would have liked it if we were at least informed upon most everything we learned about the Cherokee whether or not other tribes did the same, because there is a lot of overlap. I feel that incorporation of this global approach would make the course fuller and more useful.
The stomp dance was absolutely the best experience of the trip. That was amazing, I wrote about it in another blog though so I'll leave it at that. The other two experiences that stand out brilliantly were the stickball game and marbles. Genuine Cherokee/Indian activities, and getting to do them ourselves, just as Indians past and present do (for the most part). And the Coates lectures were outstanding as well. As for the language, I'm glad we learned it, and it is important that we learn it, but something felt lacking or wrong about the way we went about doing it... can't put my finger on it. The last week was really cool with the higher level topics such as the freedmen and the child welfare and the UKB splinter. Learning about the superfund site on Quapaw grounds was absolutely awesome to see. Meeting with other groups such as the UArkansas and the UGA kids really gave some personality and juice to the trip. Made it better. Some of the 'higher level' topic didn't seem quite as relevant such as the Optometry school and the Will Rogers tour, but all the same, those were two of my favorite events, and variety is the spice of life/learning/avoiding boredom.
Negs- The biggest negative was probably having too much stuff and getting burnt out starting around the middle of week two (a lot b/c week one was so intense). At the same time, I'm glad we did so much, but I would still consider it the biggest issue that was obviously pretty universal for most of us during the trip. Aside from fatigue, it made some of the smaller readings due within the trip very difficult to complete. Other negs... Many of the speakers/learnings were biased. On the whole, I think there should be more guidance/explanations of what is going on and perhaps quizzes of information not necessarily for a grade but for self-checks and reviews.
The stomp dance was absolutely the best experience of the trip. That was amazing, I wrote about it in another blog though so I'll leave it at that. The other two experiences that stand out brilliantly were the stickball game and marbles. Genuine Cherokee/Indian activities, and getting to do them ourselves, just as Indians past and present do (for the most part). And the Coates lectures were outstanding as well. As for the language, I'm glad we learned it, and it is important that we learn it, but something felt lacking or wrong about the way we went about doing it... can't put my finger on it. The last week was really cool with the higher level topics such as the freedmen and the child welfare and the UKB splinter. Learning about the superfund site on Quapaw grounds was absolutely awesome to see. Meeting with other groups such as the UArkansas and the UGA kids really gave some personality and juice to the trip. Made it better. Some of the 'higher level' topic didn't seem quite as relevant such as the Optometry school and the Will Rogers tour, but all the same, those were two of my favorite events, and variety is the spice of life/learning/avoiding boredom.
Negs- The biggest negative was probably having too much stuff and getting burnt out starting around the middle of week two (a lot b/c week one was so intense). At the same time, I'm glad we did so much, but I would still consider it the biggest issue that was obviously pretty universal for most of us during the trip. Aside from fatigue, it made some of the smaller readings due within the trip very difficult to complete. Other negs... Many of the speakers/learnings were biased. On the whole, I think there should be more guidance/explanations of what is going on and perhaps quizzes of information not necessarily for a grade but for self-checks and reviews.
Indian humor
When we met with Sterlin Harjo to view his film Barking Water, he told us that Indian humor is "hard to explain, but you just know it" if you grew up with it. It's a combination of coping with the struggles Indian people have faced and continue to face, a sometimes bleak, dry, and merciless wit. It's a wit most often aimed at one another, constantly ragging on your friends. As one of us observed, "to keep people in line," to remind them they are no better than anyone, they're all in this together. Almost like an inside joke, or story. The attitude is reminsicent of Janelle Adair recounting the story of the Possum, whose vanity caused Rabbit to take him down a notch by making his tail into the ugly bald tail it is today. Humility is important to Cherokees. Given names are not usually noble, as we learned from Professor Coates, but come from everyday events and are sometimes even embarrassing, as we noticed on one treaty signed by a man named She Reigns (probably a Hen-pecked husband), or another chief Standing Turkey because he had a limp. It's even evident in the "names" our friends Ed Jumper and Travis Wolfe bestowed on us--Becky earned the name Ulvnotisgi, or "Crazy," Caroline earned a name meaning "Crybaby," while Ben earned the illustrious Asaki (sp), or "Fart."
From watching Sterlin's films, and other films by native people (Smoke Signals, Skins, Atanarjuat), I think the films' bouts of humor serve as a reality check--they serve to deflect stereotypes, and serve as reminders of the humanity and reality of the people they portray.
One night I heard Kinsey laughing uproariously in the other room. When I went to investigate it turned out she was watching this Youtube video:
"Sacred talk," shows a guy walking through the forest, talking in the stilted, spiritually-heavy manner of stereotypical Indians. His friends, just regular Indian guys messing around, think he's nuts as he loudly yammers on.
Kinsey and Chelsie (Creek) and I watched various videos by these guys over a few nights. The stereotypical Indian is always contrasted to modern, everyday Indians for hilarious results. These videos, along with Sterlin's films who have drawn such a following in the area, are perfect examples of Indian people using forms of modern media to show who they are. Sterlin and other Indian filmmakers are very important for determining how people view Indians, as many popular ideas of who Indians are have stemmed from years of romanticizations or misconceptions in movies. Now that Indian actors and filmmakers can control their own modes of media, they can start controlling how people perceive American Indians.
As we also stopped to look around in the Will Rogers museum and Will Rogers homestead, and saw how he kept Presidents like Silent Cal in line or Franklin Roosevelt in stitches, just with a few snappy remarks, we are reminded that Indian people are doing this today and have been doing it since the first films, in which Will Rogers was a star. The immensity of Will Rogers' stardom can't be underestimated, as we saw in the museum, supposedly the single biggest museum devoted to any one person. Satirists and huge public personalities like Will Rogers had and continue to have enormous influence on politics and popular opinion. Today that legacy is followed by Stephen Colbert, who is partly Chickasaw (and shares his last name with prominent Chicksaw Chief Levi Colbert).
They are also important for redefining who an Indian is in the eyes of others. Will Rogers showed that Indians weren't stereotypical; many are still surprised that he was Cherokee because he didn't "look" Indian, but his unique brand of Indian humor made him into the star and popular commentator that he was. For Will, being Indian was a state of mind, a wily eye on the world, keeping leaders in check, and giving an honest, humble voice.
Indian humor continues to be a powerful tool for Indian people to reach non-Indian people, continuing just as Will Rogers started when he began in the first silent films.
From watching Sterlin's films, and other films by native people (Smoke Signals, Skins, Atanarjuat), I think the films' bouts of humor serve as a reality check--they serve to deflect stereotypes, and serve as reminders of the humanity and reality of the people they portray.
One night I heard Kinsey laughing uproariously in the other room. When I went to investigate it turned out she was watching this Youtube video:
"Sacred talk," shows a guy walking through the forest, talking in the stilted, spiritually-heavy manner of stereotypical Indians. His friends, just regular Indian guys messing around, think he's nuts as he loudly yammers on.
Kinsey and Chelsie (Creek) and I watched various videos by these guys over a few nights. The stereotypical Indian is always contrasted to modern, everyday Indians for hilarious results. These videos, along with Sterlin's films who have drawn such a following in the area, are perfect examples of Indian people using forms of modern media to show who they are. Sterlin and other Indian filmmakers are very important for determining how people view Indians, as many popular ideas of who Indians are have stemmed from years of romanticizations or misconceptions in movies. Now that Indian actors and filmmakers can control their own modes of media, they can start controlling how people perceive American Indians.
As we also stopped to look around in the Will Rogers museum and Will Rogers homestead, and saw how he kept Presidents like Silent Cal in line or Franklin Roosevelt in stitches, just with a few snappy remarks, we are reminded that Indian people are doing this today and have been doing it since the first films, in which Will Rogers was a star. The immensity of Will Rogers' stardom can't be underestimated, as we saw in the museum, supposedly the single biggest museum devoted to any one person. Satirists and huge public personalities like Will Rogers had and continue to have enormous influence on politics and popular opinion. Today that legacy is followed by Stephen Colbert, who is partly Chickasaw (and shares his last name with prominent Chicksaw Chief Levi Colbert).
They are also important for redefining who an Indian is in the eyes of others. Will Rogers showed that Indians weren't stereotypical; many are still surprised that he was Cherokee because he didn't "look" Indian, but his unique brand of Indian humor made him into the star and popular commentator that he was. For Will, being Indian was a state of mind, a wily eye on the world, keeping leaders in check, and giving an honest, humble voice.
Indian humor continues to be a powerful tool for Indian people to reach non-Indian people, continuing just as Will Rogers started when he began in the first silent films.
Final Post
I got back to North Carolina late last night, and I've spent the past couple days thinking about what I would write for my final blog post. I decided that I should keep it as academic as possible--if I wander too far into the personal, this could get awfully sentimental, and nobody wants that.
While turning over the past three weeks in my head, I tried my hardest to find some strand of unity in all the diversity of the Cherokee experience. What, I wondered, makes Cherokee culture unique? It is not, as some outsiders assume, some kind of living, breathing cultural relic. Nor is it, as some policymakers past and present would like to believe, obsolete and fully assimilated. Rather, it seems to me that the Cherokee have not been assimilated, but are the products of an assimilative system. In short, the Cherokee are able to incorporate elements of European-American culture without being incorporated in it. They have been able to twist around elements of other cultures and make it distinctly Cherokee.
At the Philbrook museum, I saw an early piece of evidence for this idea in Indian material culture. In one of the collections, our group was shown a pair of Delaware moccasins that used trade beads as part of its design. Though the moccasins were not Cherokee, it demonstrates the principle that Indian cultures are able to incorporate the "non-traditional" into the "traditional."
In spiritual life, the same idea holds true. While at the stomp dance at the Echota grounds, I saw this assimilative system at work yet again. For example, I stomped behind a young woman wearing a set of tin-can shackles, a long skirt, and an Army T-shirt. I'm not sure I could have found a better representation of the modern Cherokee experience. This spiritual blending is also present in the Cherokee Christian tradition, as we observed at the Sunday School session at the Indian Baptist Church. Although these particular Cherokees were firmly devoted to a Western religion, they gave it a Cherokee twist, using the bible as a vehicle to teach Cherokee language and literacy.
This trend is present in media as well, as Will Rogers pretty clearly demonstrates. Rogers, an enrolled Cherokee who received allotment land, crafted a public persona that made him one of the earliest and most successful figures of modern American mass culture. Though he used the mainstream media, his jokes and commentary drew on distinctly Indian humor, and he made more references to his Cherokee membership than most Rogers experts acknowledge.
I have come to believe that the Cherokee system is an extremely elastic one. From the development of a centralized tribal government, to the invention of a Cherokee system of writing, to the founding of the modern-day Cherokee immersion school, the Cherokee people and government have found ways to make their culture adaptive, without losing the kernel of Cherokeeness. As Chief Smith likes to emphasize, the Cherokee are not a backward-looking people. They venerate their ancestors and their heritage, but they generally do not view their culture as a relic to be preserved and coddled. Cherokee culture and modernity grew up together and influenced one another: American modernity is in many ways as Cherokee as Cherokee culture is modern. Cherokee culture is living, breathing, and changing, but it is rooted.
While turning over the past three weeks in my head, I tried my hardest to find some strand of unity in all the diversity of the Cherokee experience. What, I wondered, makes Cherokee culture unique? It is not, as some outsiders assume, some kind of living, breathing cultural relic. Nor is it, as some policymakers past and present would like to believe, obsolete and fully assimilated. Rather, it seems to me that the Cherokee have not been assimilated, but are the products of an assimilative system. In short, the Cherokee are able to incorporate elements of European-American culture without being incorporated in it. They have been able to twist around elements of other cultures and make it distinctly Cherokee.
At the Philbrook museum, I saw an early piece of evidence for this idea in Indian material culture. In one of the collections, our group was shown a pair of Delaware moccasins that used trade beads as part of its design. Though the moccasins were not Cherokee, it demonstrates the principle that Indian cultures are able to incorporate the "non-traditional" into the "traditional."
In spiritual life, the same idea holds true. While at the stomp dance at the Echota grounds, I saw this assimilative system at work yet again. For example, I stomped behind a young woman wearing a set of tin-can shackles, a long skirt, and an Army T-shirt. I'm not sure I could have found a better representation of the modern Cherokee experience. This spiritual blending is also present in the Cherokee Christian tradition, as we observed at the Sunday School session at the Indian Baptist Church. Although these particular Cherokees were firmly devoted to a Western religion, they gave it a Cherokee twist, using the bible as a vehicle to teach Cherokee language and literacy.
This trend is present in media as well, as Will Rogers pretty clearly demonstrates. Rogers, an enrolled Cherokee who received allotment land, crafted a public persona that made him one of the earliest and most successful figures of modern American mass culture. Though he used the mainstream media, his jokes and commentary drew on distinctly Indian humor, and he made more references to his Cherokee membership than most Rogers experts acknowledge.
I have come to believe that the Cherokee system is an extremely elastic one. From the development of a centralized tribal government, to the invention of a Cherokee system of writing, to the founding of the modern-day Cherokee immersion school, the Cherokee people and government have found ways to make their culture adaptive, without losing the kernel of Cherokeeness. As Chief Smith likes to emphasize, the Cherokee are not a backward-looking people. They venerate their ancestors and their heritage, but they generally do not view their culture as a relic to be preserved and coddled. Cherokee culture and modernity grew up together and influenced one another: American modernity is in many ways as Cherokee as Cherokee culture is modern. Cherokee culture is living, breathing, and changing, but it is rooted.
Cherokee Study Abroad Final Blog Post
Today, I had my first experience attempting to correct misconceptions that people have about the Cherokee. I found myself attacking each misconception with a flood of the information I took away from this course, but I really didn't have a central point to my arguments. It is much too soon for me to reflect on what I did, what I saw, what I learned in the Cherokee Nation and to see some central theme to it all. I'll have to think about the experience a lot longer before that becomes apparent to me.
As an academic overview, I think we definitely covered as many of the bases of Cherokee culture and history as we possibly could have in three weeks. We learned about Cherokee history, government, law, social services, sports, religion, infrastructure, economy, education, health care, and current controversies. As someone who knew nothing about the Cherokee except for the limited (and somewhat incorrect) facts I was taught in middle and high school, I feel that after three weeks, I have a solid grasp on Cherokee culture, history, and how that history has led to the current issues in the Cherokee Nation.
For next year, I would incorporate a couple of hours more of language instruction, with some of that time devoted to writing in syllabary. I felt that was the only element missing academically. Also, I would incorporate more free time next year. I think anyone who spent a significant time with the folks from NSU would agree that the interactions with them are some of the most important things we'll be taking away from this trip. And the students next year should not be surprised when people talk to them on the street or in restaurants.
It will probably take me a month, or a few months even, to be able to put everything that I learned and that happened in Oklahoma, on the way there, and on the way back into some sort of perspective. But if I have to end with something right now, which I do, it's that almost every day something happened that by itself would have made the entire three weeks worth it.
As an academic overview, I think we definitely covered as many of the bases of Cherokee culture and history as we possibly could have in three weeks. We learned about Cherokee history, government, law, social services, sports, religion, infrastructure, economy, education, health care, and current controversies. As someone who knew nothing about the Cherokee except for the limited (and somewhat incorrect) facts I was taught in middle and high school, I feel that after three weeks, I have a solid grasp on Cherokee culture, history, and how that history has led to the current issues in the Cherokee Nation.
For next year, I would incorporate a couple of hours more of language instruction, with some of that time devoted to writing in syllabary. I felt that was the only element missing academically. Also, I would incorporate more free time next year. I think anyone who spent a significant time with the folks from NSU would agree that the interactions with them are some of the most important things we'll be taking away from this trip. And the students next year should not be surprised when people talk to them on the street or in restaurants.
It will probably take me a month, or a few months even, to be able to put everything that I learned and that happened in Oklahoma, on the way there, and on the way back into some sort of perspective. But if I have to end with something right now, which I do, it's that almost every day something happened that by itself would have made the entire three weeks worth it.
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