Introduction to Native American Studies

Dawna Heiliger

Introduction to Native American Studies

Final

12/06/2015

The importance of knowing ancestors, cultural practices and heritage is different for everyone. Professor Finley’s class Introduction to Native American studies has provided me with the insight to understand this importance of ancestors, cultural practices and heritage. Where we come from and what we practice and hold onto from our culture is important not only in knowing your past but that of understanding others and how this affects the world around us.  There is priceless knowledge in respecting and honoring our differences and there are impacts both negative and positive when we negative these differences.

I have chosen to discuss the following from Professor Finley’s class for part one of my paper: Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities written by Eve Tuck, The concept of soul wound from the book Yakama Rising by Michelle M. Jacob and Decolonization is not a metaphor by Tuck and Yang .  The ancestor whom I have chosen for part two of the paper is my mother Wanda.         

In the book Yakama Rising by Michelle M. Jacob she talks about the concept of “soul wound” and its importance in decolonization as it addresses the root cause of social issues that can be dated back to early and present settler colonial violence. This approach is a way to address issues of colonization within the self. Michelle Jacob also shows us how the Wapato Indian Club youth group has allowed them the platform to express culture traditions through dance. This club in return spreads the knowledge of the culture to others, engages the community, and carries on the traditions of its people. Several positive things from this club help to decolonize the Yakama people. In the book Michelle Jacobs writes about the effects of the Wapato Indian Club on healing the male student Haver. “The Wapato Indian Club gave him an opportunity to begin healing it uniquely connected him with his own culture and with other cultures” (Jacob 44).

The Wapato Indian Club model “provides an example of a decolonizing praxis that emphasizes the importance of the local context and the connection to place based teachings. It encourages all peoples to build a relationship with the special beings/relatives with whom they share the land. According to indigenous teachings, the Creator has placed important teachers, like the swan, in our presence, and we have the honor to learn from these beings/relative” (Jacob 46). This is an important example of healing through cultural practices. Haver was able to heal himself from within through the use of the knowledge of his ancestors. This is an important example of healing through cultural practices. Haver was able to heal himself from within through the use of the knowledge of his ancestors.

In the first article, Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities the author Eve Tuck challenges us to rethink our research to embody that of a desire-centered research that reflects knowledge, and hope instead of damage, “desired based frameworks are concerned with understanding complexity, contradiction, and the self-determination of lived lives” (Tuck 416) and “desire is about longing, about a presence that is enriched by both the past and the future. It is integral to our humanness” (Tuck 417). A desire-center framework points instead toward wisdom and hope, as Tuck says, “so that people are seen as more than broken and conquered. This is to say that even when communities are broken and conquered, they are so much more than that—so much more that this incomplete story is an act of aggression” (Tuck 416).  

When indigenous communities have the opportunity to share the wisdom of their ancestors, knowledge, and cultural practices in an accurate light history can be documented truthfully. The opportunity to share and focus on the positive aspects of indigenous communities creates a positive picture versus that of focusing on the damage. Ancestors of indigenous communities can feel good about where they come from when educators share more than just the history of damage that is regularly documented. “Because so many outsiders benefit from depicting communities as damaged, it will have to be these same communities that hold researches accountable for the frameworks and attitudes they employ. It is too tempting to proceed as usual” (Tuck 412). When one does not know the truth of their ancestors from within their indigenous community and the only information available is from researchers who report the damage, history becomes inaccurate and damaging creating a sense of shame of ones heritage.

Tuck and Yang in their article Decolonization is not a metaphor talk about “moves to innocence” which are ways we do away with our guilt and how we enact a “settler move towards innocence” (Tuck and Yang 10) when we focus on colonialism as something that only happens elsewhere. When we do things like claim a native ancestor or donate money to a cause we are as stated in the article “diversions, distractions, which relieve the settler of feeling of guilt or responsibility” (Tuck and Yang 21). “Directly and indirectly benefiting the erasure and assimilation of Indigenous people is a difficulty reality for settler to accept. The weight of the reality is uncomfortable; the misery of guilt makes one hurry toward any reprieve” (Tuck and Yang 9).