The Word "Papoose"

[Hunter]

Can we discuss the word "papoose"? I didn't find much when googling.

 

Papoose is a New England nations word for Baby carrier? Sometimes people of those nations used the word to mean baby, but rarely. Papoose is generally an ENGLISH word for Native American baby/child? Now the word is not PC? But no one really has a reason WHY it's so politically incorrect, other than we shouldn't call a person after an item? Or is it politically incorrect to use any term that refers to babies of just one race?

 

What do you all do when reading Hiawatha? Or is Hiawatha no longer acceptable?

 

Or are just textbooks using the term unacceptable, but not literature?

 

Or is the term okay to use, but we have just gotten so oversensitive we are afraid to use any older English words for Native Americans?

[Hunter]

And while we are at it, what about wigwam?

[Crimson Wife]

I grew up in New England and only ever heard the term used as part of the phrase "wrapped up like a papoose". It meant swaddled or otherwise tightly wrapped up in something. I never heard it used as slang for a baby.

[Ravin]

A wigwam is a specific type of native hut.

 

Also, cradle board, as I understand it, is a more generic word for the baby carriers.

 

I think the non-PC of it is about pejorative use. Also, "papoose" is a word from one language. It would make as much sense to generalize it to all NA babies as arbitrarily referring to all babies of European extraction as "bambinos" when one does not speak Spanish, because Spanish is a European language.

[Farrar]

I've also heard it's not PC, but am unsure exactly why...  though I thought it just referred to the specific baby carrier.  I didn't realize it was slang for Native American baby...  in that context, that is sort of offensive.

 

I admit that I find some of the PC or not PC stuff with Native Americans really difficult to understand sometimes, and I consider myself someone who is usually reasonably savvy about this stuff vis a vis other cultures.  But I feel like I get really mixed PC messages about how to "do" Native American studies in history.  On the one hand, there's a lot about being specific - talking about specific cultures instead of making over-generalizations.  On the other hand, since we live near the Museum of the American Indian, we have been many times and the message there is quite the opposite - many of the artifacts have their cultural identity sort of shrouded because they're grouped to emphasize the similarity of cultures.  It's very confusing to a layperson.  I once read something about teaching Native American studies and the gist of it was "all craft projects are offensive."  But that's the bread and butter of elementary history for us.  Sigh.  We barreled ahead (using More than Moccasins) but I pretty much felt like every single thing we did was "wrong."

[momma2three]

I think it probably depends on the context.  I can't really imagine a context where it would be used in the modern world in an unoffensive way, but I guess it's possible.  It's the word for "baby" in one dialect of one American Indian language, which became the English word for all American Indian babies at a time when said babies were considered sub-human and nearing extinction.  I'd day that it's a step above "pickaninny" on the offensiveness scale, but both terms were historically used to stereotype and belittle entire races that were considered inferior, by connoting children basically as adorable animals.  I'm not sure it's a word that's ready for reclamation.  

 

That said, it does show up in plenty of historical literature, so obviously children should be taught the meaning of it.  However, its use does "other" the character in question, usually in a "noble savage" kind of way… which is a very different stereotype than the pickaninny stereotype, but still a stereotype based on some pretty ugly attitudes… it was largely based on the idea that the American Indians were literally going to go extinct to make more room for Europeans.

[Hunter]

but I pretty much felt like every single thing we did was "wrong."

 

This is how I feel. Like I can do no right.

 

Because there ARE so many nations, the modern nations disagree with each other about what is proper, but each expects me to do it their way, or I am bad, bad. bad.

 

Some nations are offended by ANY generalizations. Others demand it. What am I supposed to do?

 

I was reading through Public School Methods and realized how much more Native American emphasis there is, than modern curricula. To teach American history with such a deemphasis on Native Americans is the worst discrimination of all, I think. And I realized that is what I have been doing. In my effort not to do something wrong, I and others have been doing something worse. I've been acting like they were barely here at all. LIke they are not the very fiber and backbone of America and an American curriculum.

 

In the past, I avoided the wigwam lessons in Augsburg Drawing, feeling like any generalization is wrong. I don't think wigwams were usually erected in a forest. Skip, skip, skip, is what I have been doing.

 

As I'm looking at the older courses of study, I'm realizing how the curricula were just inundated with Native American everything. I know that offends some Native Americans.

 

I know many Native American are offended by ANY pagan religion that does anything similar to their pagan rituals, saying it's stealing the last of what they have left, even though these rituals were conducted in Europe for thousands of years. They have no right to claim that as exclusively theirs, but they do anyway.

 

I don't know. I've just had another one of my rebellious moments. I'm just sick to death of being so afraid, that I don't teach at all. I can't even write the previous sentence properly, because I'm so afraid of what words to use. This is ridiculous! REALLY! We are in America, and many of us are not teaching American history.

 

Disabled Americans have been pushing to be included in advertisement  and EVERYTHING. To be SEEN. They don't scream that every appearance is a caricature or generalization. Every kid in a wheelchair in the science text book is welcome.

 

I'm not sure if I'm being clear. I just think…that we have gone too far, and done more harm than good.

[Ravin]

The problem is that there's a difference between something authentic, intended to teach information based in fact and portray people realistically, and the caricatures/generalizations.

 

"No crafts" doesn't make much sense to me. For us, it helps that we live in an area where the Native history is very apparent, and there are plenty of contemporary Native people around us. I'm just a few miles from more than one reservation. Where I grew up in TX, that was very much not the case. In TX, Native America was shoved off the landscape and into the museum closets. But the Heard Museum, for example, has a bunch of crafts in the child-oriented exhibits. They're simplified and done with cheap materials, but based on actual Native crafts and arts either historical or that are still practiced today.

 

They also have excellent exhibits for older children to learn about Native life and art. There are public pow-wows and other cultural events in the area open for anyone interested to attend. The public library has plenty of books on Native culture and daily life, past and present. One picture book I checked out and read to my kids recently, for example, told a story about a Navajo girl and her life on the reservation, and what it was like to leave the reservation on a school trip.

 

Ultimately it's about respect. Are you teaching about historical Native American life and culture in a way different from the way you teach about, say, Colonial American culture?

 

DD is reading Little House in the Big Woods right now for literature. You can bet I am making Native people part of the conversation. One of the first things I did was talk to her about who lived in the woods of Wisconsin before the settlers arrived--nothing but bears and wolves is NOT the correct answer. We pulled out a map of Native America (showing many tribes' historical homelands rather than the standard political map). We're talking about the commonalities between how native people lived in Wisconsin, and how the settlers did. We'll have a conversation about viewpoint and its role in historical fiction.

 

This is a discussion to have any time a culture is stereotyped or villain-ized in literature. For example, when we talked about the persecution of the early Christian church, we talked about the Roman point of view as well as the Christian one for why the persecution took place. We talk about how the winners write history, etc., and that every society has its own standards and its own triumphs as well as its own horrors. It's something that should always be actively confronted--our own assumptions and how we view those not like ourselves, and why.

[Hunter]

Ultimately it's about respect. Are you teaching about historical Native American life and culture in a way different from the way you teach about, say, Colonial American culture?

 

Great question!

 

Yes! I'm teaching Native American culture SOOOO differently than colonial history! In my attempt to be respectful and accurate, I'm so afraid that I'm frozen, and I have removed almost everything fun, hands on, living, written from a white perspective, etc. from my lesson plans. All I have left is a couple picture books written by Native Americans themselves.

 

I would NEVER limit any other part of history to ONLY books written by descendants of the people being studied. I'd never be that narrow. I'd never entirely remove my culture's perspective of the other culture. I'd never remove all--I don't know what to call them, but--symbols--Maybe? We aren't afraid to let the kids draw a horned viking hat, even if we have been told it's not accurate.

 

Have you seen the recent Toaster Strudel commercial? No one bats an eye at that, but I think it goes too far. Can you imagine if that commercial was for a product that used a Native American child? Why can't I teach Native American culture like every other culture? Why can't a draw the line in the same places.

 

The level of respect that most people expect me to give Native American history, forces me to teach it totally unlike any other part of history. I'm muzzled with my hands behind my back.

 

I'm just done with this! It's ridiculous. This isn't respect. I don't know what it is, but it's not respect.

[MBM]

I'm part Sioux and once lived in a reservation town. I know the good and bad all too well. Problems run deep and are complicated and many are caused by neglect and abuse. There are a lot of good people, too. Also a lot of intermarriage.

 

I don't remember anyone in my former reservation town being offended by the word papoose (Fort Peck Reservation area). It wasn't used in a bad way. Guess you'd be okay there, ay? LOL. ;)

 

We called ourselves Indian, too, maybe because Native American has too many syllables. In Chicago I once told one of my son's young classmates that I was part Sioux Indian and he gasped in horror. He thought saying "Indian" was so disrespectful. I can't speak for all reservations but if you were to head out to Montana you'd see signs welcoming you to, for example, "The Home of the Blackfoot Indians." (We also said "rez" and "ay?" which I imagine is the wrong thing to say nowadays, but it was the cool thing to say back then.)

 

 

 

[MBM]

Draw a tipi! Better yet, make one out of sheets and wooden garden stakes, the big ones. There you go.

[Ravin]

The way I see it, being PC and being respectful aren't the same thing. Right now I'm taking a class called Federal Indian Law I. We had a whole section on who is an Indian, which depends on the law being applied. It's a legal term of art, and usually has more to do with political relationships between governments and tribal citizenship than race.

 

If you want to build a wigwam, do it. But learn where they were used, by region if not tribe, and why. Also talk about tipis, pueblos, hogans, etc., and relate it to how houses reflect culture as well as environment. Talk about how settlers' houses did this as well, etc.

 

As for papoose, address it in the context of borrow words from various native languages into English. Talk about names of animals, places, and other such things.

[momma2three]

I've never heard that "American Indian crafts aren't allowed."  I HAVE heard "sticking a construction paper feather in a construction paper headband and telling kids that's how Indians dressed isn't allowed."  And I agree with that.  Someone above mentioned that the issue is that teaching American Indian culture is akin to teaching European culture.  There are some things that are shared, but you wouldn't dress your kid in a dirndl and make pasta and say "this is how Europeans dressed and what they ate."

 

Similarly, I don't think it's possible to completely avoid a European voice in American Indian history.  it's just a fact that the Europeans were the ones who recorded contact.  There are plenty of excellent books out there for kids about American Indian history that use primary sources.  Homes in the Wilderness is an excellent book for younger children.  Mary Rowlandson's diary would be fine for a high school kid.

[ElizaG]

It's funny -- I've just started reading Hamlin Garland's A Son of the Middle Border, which describes his childhood in Wisconsin in the 1860s and 70s.  This was a famous book in its day (its sequel won the Pulitzer Prize), and it used to be commonly found on middle school reading lists. 

 

This is from the end of chapter 1:

 

"Only two families lived above us, and over the height to the north was the land of the red people, and small bands of their hunters used occasionally to come trailing down across our meadow on their way to and from LaCrosse, which was their immemorial trading point.

 

Sometimes they walked into our house, always without knocking—but then we understood their ways. No one knocks at the wigwam of a red neighbor, and we were not afraid of them, for they were friendly, and our mother often gave them bread and meat which they took (always without thanks) and ate with much relish while sitting beside our fire. All this seemed very curious to us, but as they were accustomed to share their food and lodging with one another so they accepted my mother's bounty in the same matter-of-fact fashion.

 

Once two old fellows, while sitting by the fire, watched Frank and me bringing in wood for the kitchen stove, and smiled and muttered between themselves thereat. At last one of them patted my brother on the head and called out admiringly, "Small pappoose, heap work—good!" and we were very proud of the old man's praise."

 

This is supposed to be a work of non-fiction.   And both Wikipedia and Indians.org (The American Indian Heritage Foundation) say that "papoose" comes from a Native American (Narragansett) word for "child."  From their descriptions, it sounds as though the meaning of "child carrier" is the secondary one. 

 

So there are a few more data points.   For myself, I wouldn't teach the children to use the word in that way, but I wouldn't skip a work of literature over it, either.   I'd just explain that it was used to mean "child" by some groups, but not others. 

[momma2three]

 

 

Once two old fellows, while sitting by the fire, watched Frank and me bringing in wood for the kitchen stove, and smiled and muttered between themselves thereat. At last one of them patted my brother on the head and called out admiringly, "Small pappoose, heap work—good!" and we were very proud of the old man's praise."

 

I think that this is more a case of literary function meeting actual historical happenings.  The author has established a scene where these mysterious other people, practically animalistic, wander in and eat their food and do strange things and have strange customs.  And then he comes up with a line of dialog, and there are basically two choices: he remembers EXACTLY what some old man said to him lord knows how many years ago, grammatical errors and all, or he's using literary license to further the scene.  My bet is on the second one (and not only because it doesn't make sense for the guy to call the boy who is doing manual labor a "small baby").  The man's speech is poor English, with the only "Indian" word (using that term loosely) happening to be one that the reader knows, and which conjures up a cute image.  This simple line of speech, with its "foreign" word and imperfect construct, further define him as a foreigner and stranger.

 

I certainly wouldn't throw away any literature because it has the word in it.  But the above example is actually a great opportunity to talk about how authors use dialog as a tool when setting a scene and telling a story.  I absolutely would not use it as a lesson about a literal conversation.

[athomeontheprairie]

when I first read the title of your post, I looked at my baby and called him my Papoose. this is not an uncommon term here, particularly among older generations (60+). Or if a mom is wearing a baby or wears a baby on a regular basis

[Hunter]

Thank you all for your so interesting contributions and opinions. I love this forum and the people at it. There is nowhere else like this online.

 

I have noticed that western tribes are more likely to use the terms indian and tribe, where many eastern nations INSIST on nation and the actual name of their nation, frowning even on the term Native American. My boys spent part of their childhood in Plymouth MA, and the Algonquin were very active in the schools and adamant about the children learning some pretty rigid vocabulary, and insisting on the complete abandonment of the standard curricula that had been in place for decades.

 

It was free for us to go to the Plimoth Plantation, and I took my youngest almost every week. The Algonquin village would have been more fun if the main man there wasn't so angry all the time.

 

I am part Native American from Canada, but don't know much about that. The Native American heritage is the least dramatic aspect of this part of my history, and the specifics were quickly lost in the rest of the drama. :lol: People tell me that once they get over how light skinned I am, that my Native American heritage really explains how I look. That's what they say anyway, when I mention it years after I've met them.

 

According to some nations, it's rude to even say I am part Native American. Sigh! How can it be rude to discuss your own lineage?

 

As for Native American politics--that is SO confusing. One of my step-brothers married a very light skinned red-head that qualifies as a member of I don't remember what nation, and I was always confused about things she was saying, and how it all affected my nephew.

[Ravin]

There are some things that are shared, but you wouldn't dress your kid in a dirndl and make pasta and say "this is how Europeans dressed and what they ate."

.

You've obviously never been to a Society for Creative Anachronism event.

[momma2three]

You've obviously never been to a Society for Creative Anachronism event.

 

That for real made me laugh out loud.  That is an excellent point.   :lol:

[Hunter]

You've obviously never been to a Society for Creative Anachronism event.

I had to look up dirndl. I have seen parades with kids dressed up in those costumes.

[Ravin]

I think that this is more a case of literary function meeting actual historical happenings. The author has established a scene where these mysterious other people, practically animalistic, wander in and eat their food and do strange things and have strange customs. And then he comes up with a line of dialog, and there are basically two choices: he remembers EXACTLY what some old man said to him lord knows how many years ago, grammatical errors and all, or he's using literary license to further the scene. My bet is on the second one (and not only because it doesn't make sense for the guy to call the boy who is doing manual labor a "small baby"). The man's speech is poor English, with the only "Indian" word (using that term loosely) happening to be one that the reader knows, and which conjures up a cute image. This simple line of speech, with its "foreign" word and imperfect construct, further define him as a foreigner and stranger.

 

I certainly wouldn't throw away any literature because it has the word in it. But the above example is actually a great opportunity to talk about how authors use dialog as a tool when setting a scene and telling a story. I absolutely would not use it as a lesson about a literal conversation.

I'd be interested in the etymology of the word, because it could have been adopted into the trade pidgin English that was the only common language between them.

 

 

This portrayal also doesn't strike me as animalistic, but rather gives culturally based explanations for differences in behavior as understood by the author. Fairly sensitive ones for the time, sounds like. They didn't say thank you because neighbors or travelers routinely shared meals, something that would have been reciprocated rather than just offered thanks for.

[Hunter]

You've obviously never been to a Society for Creative Anachronism event.

I had to google this too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Creative_Anachronism

[Ravin]

I have noticed that western tribes are more likely to use the terms indian and tribe, where many eastern nations INSIST on nation and the actual name of their nation, frowning even on the term Native American. My boys spent part of their childhood in Plymouth MA, and the Algonquin were very active in the schools and adamant about the children learning some pretty rigid vocabulary, and insisting on the complete abandonment of the standard curricula that had been in place for decades.

 

It was free for us to go to the Plimoth Plantation, and I took my youngest almost every week. The Algonquin village would have been more fun if the main man there wasn't so angry all the time.

 

I am part Native American from Canada, but don't know much about that. The Native American heritage is the least dramatic aspect of this part of my history, and the specifics were quickly lost in the rest of the drama. :lol: People tell me that once they get over how light skinned I am, that my Native American heritage really explains

According to some nations, it's rude to even say I am part Native American. Sigh! How can it be rude to discuss your own lineage?

 

As for Native American politics--that is SO confusing. One of my step-brothers married a very light skinned red-head that qualifies as a member of I don't remember what nation, and I was always confused about things she was saying, and how it all affected my nephew.

It can be confusing but also fascinating. Being of Native ancestry and being a citizen/member of a recognized tribe aren't necessarily the same thing. For instance, depending on the tribe/nation, your nephew may or may not be eligible for membership. It could depend partly on lineage on one or both sides of the family, descent from a person on a specific historical tribal roll, blood quantum of that nation or Native generally, or some combination.

 

It's complicated but fascinating.

[momma2three]

I'd be interested in the etymology of the word, because it could have been adopted into the trade pidgin English that was the only common language between them.

 

 

This portrayal also doesn't strike me as animalistic, but rather gives culturally based explanations for differences in behavior as understood by the author. Fairly sensitive ones for the time, sounds like. They didn't say thank you because neighbors or travelers routinely shared meals, something that would have been reciprocated rather than just offered thanks for.

 

No, it was a pretty standard depiction for the time.  It's pretty much exactly the same in Little House on the Prairie, for example.  It's the very standard, for the time, "noble savage" imagery… savage and uncivilized (they don't even say thank you!) but noble in their bearing, and with the subtext that they accept and understand that their ways are ending, that the Europeans are moving into their territory, and that they will just fade away into history.  One of the three major arguments for the reservation system was that the American Indians were going to die out anyway, because that was God's will, so they might as well do it out of the way.  I believe that even makes its way into LHotP, which is more fiction than historical, but certainly shows how widespread the opinion was.  Many important people subscribed to this belief, believe it or not.  In my former, pre-kid, academic life I researched and wrote a bunch on this subject.

[Farrar]

Yeah, the ancestry thing is odd too.  Dh's grandmother's grandmother was Choctaw.  His grandmother had a photo of her and she was quite lovely with strong features and dark skin.  So that's a tiny part of the kids' heritage, but we've never talked much about it the same way that we've talked about other parts of their ancestry.  I think I have a feeling of how tacky it always seemed when someone claimed to be related to an "Indian princess."  Not that that's this story at all, just that there's a certain way I've encountered that and it's odd.  Like, many "white" Americans have all kinds of mixed heritage way back but somehow it's only these tenuous Native American connections that are remembered.

 

Thanks for this thread, Hunter.  I'm with you that I have found this the most awkward of historical and geographical topics to teach.  There's still a lot of difficult issues to address there.  I didn't, by the way, mean to imply that I thought all craft projects were actually wrong, more that I have been given that impression and that's the point at which I just gave up trying to think about the "right" way to do it and just did it.  It's like that article (or was it a book?) from a few years ago that had a title that was something like "Awkward Conversations about Race with White People" and it was basically about how talking about race is really difficult and you're bound to screw it up sometimes, but we should all do it anyway.  Teaching about Native Americans is kind of the same.

[ElizaG]

I think that this is more a case of literary function meeting actual historical happenings.  The author has established a scene where these mysterious other people, practically animalistic, wander in and eat their food and do strange things and have strange customs.  And then he comes up with a line of dialog, and there are basically two choices: he remembers EXACTLY what some old man said to him lord knows how many years ago, grammatical errors and all, or he's using literary license to further the scene.  My bet is on the second one (and not only because it doesn't make sense for the guy to call the boy who is doing manual labor a "small baby").  The man's speech is poor English, with the only "Indian" word (using that term loosely) happening to be one that the reader knows, and which conjures up a cute image.  This simple line of speech, with its "foreign" word and imperfect construct, further define him as a foreigner and stranger.

 

I certainly wouldn't throw away any literature because it has the word in it.  But the above example is actually a great opportunity to talk about how authors use dialog as a tool when setting a scene and telling a story.  I absolutely would not use it as a lesson about a literal conversation.

 

It seems to me that this sort of assumption -- that the author has fabricated this "cute" dialogue in order to "define" the old man -- is a way of defining the author.   He can't just be someone who's describing the scene as he remembers it (with whatever degree of accuracy).    Instead, he's become the "other" who does strange things, and warrants a mixture of distrust and condescension. 

 

We don't know this man, and we weren't part of his cultural context.   And yet somehow, because we're so enlightened, we're supposed to be qualified to evaluate his hidden motivations, his thought processes, and the liberties he's supposedly taken in describing his own childhood experiences.  

 

I agree with Hunter that there's a real double standard prevalent on this topic. 

 

There seems to me to be no particular reason to disbelieve Garland's account, given that some Native American groups did use the term -- and for children, not just babies.   Susanna Moodie's Roughing it in the Bush has a mother using the word "papouse" for her sick and frail twelve-year-old.   (Of course, if we're using a hermeneutic of suspicion, we should probably throw her book out, too.   But for what it's worth, I don't think Mrs. Moodie had any particular antipathy for First Nations people.   She pretty much couldn't stand anyone in the backwoods.   On the up side, there's nothing of the "noble savage" projected into her descriptions.   ;) )

[momma2three]

Of course he's not just "someone describing a scene that happened."  He's an author who wrote a piece of literature, and should be treated as such.  It would be a pretty boring piece of writing (which I doubt would count as any sort of literature worth reading) if there were no moral values assigned anywhere.

[ElizaG]

Of course he's not just "someone describing a scene that happened."  He's an author who wrote a piece of literature, and should be treated as such.  It would be a pretty boring piece of writing (which I doubt would count as any sort of literature worth reading) if there were no moral values assigned anywhere.

 

Yes, it's literature, and the author expresses his values.   But autobiographies are also primary sources of historical information. 

 

If we come across multiple such works that have Native American characters using the word "papoose," "papouse," or "pappoose" to describe a child who's beyond infancy, and the authors are generally considered to give an accurate portrayal of their times in other respects (as Garland and Moodie are), then I don't think it's good history to assume that the authors are making these bits up.  

 

I get that it can be seen as offensive when people of one ethnic background use(d) a specific word to label children of a different ethnic background:  "Look at the little papooses!"   But that's not what's being presented in these cases.  They seem to me to be universal, human situations in which people are communicating in caring ways across cultural divides.   For the purposes of our homeschool, Garland's scene is valuable in this very positive aspect -- not as material for an elementary school lesson in colonial discourse analysis.   But to each their own.   :001_smile:

[Hunter]

I was remembering when my son's first grade teacher called him an "asthmatic" and I was irritated and wished she hadn't. I remember multiple times being referred to as an "anorexic" and hated that. I think all of us want people to take the time to refer to us as " a person with ..." of " a ... person", or maybe not to single us out at all.

 

I don't think we have the right to EXPECT that, though, ALL the time. Sometimes people that are dealing with a group of people that are different from themselves, just call them "a ...". Sometimes for no other reason than it's less syllable to utter, and they are going to be saying it over and over and over.

 

When the Algonquins did their blitzkrieg reeducation program back in the 90s, I didn't question it at the time. I was used to others immediately redefining my life for me. Every time I switched countries, or my mother remarried and divorced, or switched churches, or I married, or I divorced, or I switched churches, there was immediate redefining of who I was. New home, new family, new friends, new foods, new clothes, new vocabulary, new everything. I was used to being told what to do down to the tiniest detail. So I just fell in line AGAIN.

 

I have switched cultures so many times, that I have no culture. As I try to stop being a robot, and become a real person, issue after issue arises. This is just one of them. No one Native American nation has the right to come into my life and redefine things for me, to the extent that this nation did. They wanted to take away Thanksgiving and institute a day of mourning for EVERYONE, and I would have fallen into line with that too, if others around me didn't call a line there and tell them no. Some people I know from Plymouth have stopped celebrating Thanksgiving. A very good friend of mine's dad fasts and spends the day at a reservation.

 

Thanksgiving Day is separate from the atrocities committed by booth sides. But according to some I am a horrible person to celebrate the holiday, and have no right to do so.

 

I'm realizing that I have the right to choose my vocabulary and decide for myself what is respectful to other nations and to people in history. I don't owe any one group to let them be the one to completely define my words and thoughts and teaching.

[Hunter]

Yeah, the ancestry thing is odd too. Dh's grandmother's grandmother was Choctaw. His grandmother had a photo of her and she was quite lovely with strong features and dark skin. So that's a tiny part of the kids' heritage, but we've never talked much about it the same way that we've talked about other parts of their ancestry. I think I have a feeling of how tacky it always seemed when someone claimed to be related to an "Indian princess." Not that that's this story at all, just that there's a certain way I've encountered that and it's odd. Like, many "white" Americans have all kinds of mixed heritage way back but somehow it's only these tenuous Native American connections that are remembered.

 

Thanks for this thread, Hunter. I'm with you that I have found this the most awkward of historical and geographical topics to teach. There's still a lot of difficult issues to address there. I didn't, by the way, mean to imply that I thought all craft projects were actually wrong, more that I have been given that impression and that's the point at which I just gave up trying to think about the "right" way to do it and just did it. It's like that article (or was it a book?) from a few years ago that had a title that was something like "Awkward Conversations about Race with White People" and it was basically about how talking about race is really difficult and you're bound to screw it up sometimes, but we should all do it anyway. Teaching about Native Americans is kind of the same.

On my ex-husband's side, my boys also had a bit of Austrian and Polynesian, as well as me contributing some Native American. My ex's family got annoyed and confused that I included any of that in their heritage. My ex said that all the daddy genes chased away the mommy genes and that they didn't count. He told the boys that they were 100 percent ... and that their last name proved it. There are family members sporting the read hair and other facial features and body types that prove that is not true. I don't know, I always though full disclosure of heritage is important. My oldest especially is too fair haired and skinned to totally pass as the ethnicity his father claims that he is, and that his last name suggests.

 

As for crafts, at least I knew exactly what you meant. I think others did too.

 

As for awkward conversations, this Grape Kool-Aide thing with my neighbors is still an issue. Sometimes I don't know when I am screwing up, and when the problem is with the people telling me that I'm screwing up. Why can I talk about Grape Kool-Aide in the grocery store to another white person, but have to whisper about it to a black person. And the black people can talk about to each other. Just I am forced to remain silent, even if it means them leaving without what we went there for. Sometimes I'm just sick of being told that I'm a screw-up, when I am so careful and afraid all the time. They aren't required to be so careful and afraid of me.

 

I find it hard to decide the lines, but I'm realizing I do need to decide them for myself and not let others be the ones to draw them for me.

 

We are going to draw the wigwam lessons in Augsburg Drawing! And I'm going to say, GRAPE KOOL-AIDE!

[Hunter]

And to everyone contributing, thanks yet again. I'm finding your posts so interesting.

[momma2three]

Yes, it's literature, and the author expresses his values.   But autobiographies are also primary sources of historical information. 

 

If we come across multiple such works that have Native American characters using the word "papoose," "papouse," or "pappoose" to describe a child who's beyond infancy, and the authors are generally considered to give an accurate portrayal of their times in other respects (as Garland and Moodie are), then I don't think it's good history to assume that the authors are making these bits up.  

 

I get that it can be seen as offensive when people of one ethnic background use(d) a specific word to label children of a different ethnic background:  "Look at the little papooses!"   But that's not what's being presented in these cases.  They seem to me to be universal, human situations in which people are communicating in caring ways across cultural divides.   For the purposes of our homeschool, Garland's scene is valuable in this very positive aspect -- not as material for an elementary school lesson in colonial discourse analysis.   But to each their own.   :001_smile:

 

I'm sorry, but one of the very first things one learns to do in history is to evaluate primary sources, including autobiographies, for biases.  Because they are all biased.  To pretend otherwise is just awful, awful history.

[Hunter]

I'm sorry, but one of the very first things one learns to do in history is to evaluate primary sources, including autobiographies, for biases. Because they are all biased. To pretend otherwise is just awful, awful history.

Maybe, if the primary goal of studying history is accuracy. Many people study history with other goals.

 

We'll never know what happened in so many cases. History is a STORY. I prefer not to pursue an unattainable goal, of looking for too many "facts", as my primary goal. A little cultural literacy and some moral education is enough for some of us.

[ElizaG]

I'm sorry, but one of the very first things one learns to do in history is to evaluate primary sources, including autobiographies, for biases.  Because they are all biased.  To pretend otherwise is just awful, awful history.

 

Nobody is pretending otherwise.  But we're not somehow above it all.   Bias can also be there when we reject historical accounts because they don't fit with our previous understanding, or just because they make us uncomfortable.  

 

I also don't see cause for alarm in the other points you've called out -- e.g., that the man makes some grammatical errors, and doesn't say "thank you" (at least, not in words).    In the context of his native language, and his people's customs around gratitude and obligation, these behaviors could be perfectly normal.  To me, it seems Eurocentric to take this as insulting.

 

I notice from your signature that your younger children are in Montessori preschool.  We try to follow the Montessori elementary approach of thinking about human cultures in terms of Fundamental Needs, which have been met in different ways at different places and times.   We can explore the unity and diversity of human experiences, without having to get wrapped up in judging the people involved, or judging the people we think are judging them, or (etc., etc.).  It works well for us.

[umsami]

It's tough. I honestly think that intent really does matter.  My Dad is part Lenape (Delaware Indian)--and knows pretty much nothing about his heritage.  Back when he was growing up (30s and 40s), it was something to be hidden.   When DS1 was studying Native American cultures earlier this year, we got the whole "House of ...." series--which he really liked.  We also found a book specifically with some myths/stories from his Grandpa's tribe--which was great.  

 

The word papoose never came up.   I think wigwam was in one of the "House of.." books, but I don't remember which.  If it does come up, I'd simply say "papoose" is an Algonquian word for baby.  Don't use it as a generic term for a Native American baby as some people might be offended.  We then might talk about other offensive terms, including some that they've heard me called (rag head), that their Italian relatives were called (WOP--stood for without papers), their Irish relatives were called, etc.  

 

DH is Egyptian.  Many people would call him Arab (or a derogatory term for an Arab).  His country is officially the "Arab Republic of Egypt."  They speak a dialect of Arabic.  But Arabic-identity didn't really occur until the time of Abdul-Nasser (1950s).  Prior to that, they viewed themselves as uniquely Egyptian...a country which developed its own culture, civilization, etc. separate from the "Arabic" world--which some Egyptians looked down on.  Genetically, when examined, Egyptians tend to be North African--nothing else--in spite of being ruled/conquered by pretty much everybody... Greeks, Romans, French, British, Turks, etc. 

 

Does he freak if somebody calls him an Arab? Nope.... but some Persian (Iranian) friends I have definitely take offense. ;)

[Hunter]

Egyptian anthropology/geography/history is so fascinating! I find Israel and Egypt to be the most fascinating countries to study, because of their unique places in, but not fully in, the Arab world. And how long they have survived. They are like science fiction.

[Hunter]

I did a little research on "wigwam". Okay, yet again, the vintage authors aren't as stupid as I thought they were. There were conical wigwams in forests. Wigwams usually had rounded roofs, but not always.

 

The reeducation lessons attacking generalizations, sometimes contain generalizations of their own, that are just as inaccurate as what they are attacking.

 

I'm not so sure the current bias is any better than the older bias.

[Hunter]

I researched the word "squaw". Yet more misinformation that I believed. Squaw never meant a female body part. It meant woman. Plain and simple, it meant woman in Algonquin.

 

This is all as ridiculous as the Kentucky Fried mutant Chicken rumors. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

[MBM]

The following is Harvard's program for Native American studies which might be helpful. A former classmate of mine who is Crow Indian attended this. She now works for an Indian-owned consulting firm that helps Native American tribes.

 

http://hunap.harvard.edu/about-hunap/welcome

 

I also remember going to an interesting exhibit several years ago at Harvard's Peabody Museum. They have a permanent exhibit called The Hall of the North American Indian.

 

https://peabody.harvard.edu/node/18/view

 

Btw, Harvard uses the word papoose in this example:

http://via.lib.harvard.edu/via/deliver/deepcontent?recordId=olvwork372475

 

[Hunter]

It was a standard educational practice in the 1800s and 1900s to use biographies and history to teach good morals. Famous men and women were used as examples of how children were encourage to grow up and be. These books have been removed from the curriculum as "inaccurate" and obscene.

 

Moral education has been replaced with accuracy, even though there is no such thing as accuracy. Eurocentric has been replaced with Nativecentric; one centric is no better than the other centric.

 

Native peoples were upset that their children were being taught a Eurocentric curriculum, but before they were done, they forced a native-centric curriculum on the entire area that I spent a good portion of my life in. I was lied to as much as their children were lied to. My children were raised on a curriculum no more fair or balanced than their children were raised on.

 

When I had one child in PS and one at home, I remember that my boys had a fight over George Washington. My older son believed Washington was a villain and a coward and a thief. My younger thought he was a complex human with many redeeming qualities and some weaknesses. It is wrong to teach children lies about their national heroes and leaders.

 

If there were such a thing as truly accurate, then I would focus more on it, but there isn't. It is not uncommon to find biography driven moral building curricula in the homeschooling community today. The practice is millennia old. It's "classical". I didn't make up the idea.

 

I'm sorry if there are people that don't want to watch me process and come to terms with the reeducation process that was forced upon me. The sins of the past don't sanction what is taking place now. I do not need to teach my students a native-centric curriculum, and that is what I've been doing. Balanced is best, but for European students, a Eurocentric curriculum is more fair than a native-centric one though. It is wrong to systematically remove all of a student's heroes and holidays, no matter what culture they come from.

 

Books have been removed from library shelves because the re-educators claimed that they contained an obsenity (the word squaw). Everyone believed them without checking it out. Everyone just hung their heads in shame and did what they were told. I'm done with this. Yes, I am mad. I was lied to, and I spent decades perpetuating those lies. I was not teaching an accurate and balanced curriculum. I was teaching a stripped down native-centric curriculum that was full of lies.

 

I'm not advocating returning to teaching a totally Eurocentric curriculum, but I am advocating returning to using some Eurocentric texts that are not as "inaccurate" and obscene as we are being told they are. If I'm going to use native-centric resources, I have EVERY right to ALSO use Eurocentric resources.

[Hunter]

I don't really understand the attitude I sense on this thread which seems to be that the Indian community and PC police has you all feeling so tripped up poor you.

 

What is so hard to get about this? I don't understand it at all.

I'm having trouble being SURE what you are saying. I think I understand, but I'm not SURE.

[Hunter]

calandalsmom, I'm really struggling with your long sentences and nonstandard grammar. I'm having trouble figuring out your tone and even the point you are making. I have strong assumptions about what you mean, but I'm just uncertain enough, that I'm struggling to reply. I'm thinking you are responding from a phone or tablet?

 

I am not unaware of the difficulties faced by modern day Native Americans. And maybe you don't know me well on these forums, but I have personally been homeless twice, and have lived in the most dangerous slum in my state, and continue to live among a very stigmatized and poverty stricken population. My life has been eclectic (downright surreal in fact) and I have lived in some diverse cultures in more than one country, and multiple socio-economic brackets. I've seen and experienced things you cannot even imagine.

 

But it all comes down to, two wrongs don't make a right. Stripping white children of THEIR culture doesn't fix the wrongs of the past, or provide a better life for current Native Americans.

 

Recently I attended a veterans parade. There were drone protestors following the parade and people were quite annoyed with them. "This is not the time or place," they said.

 

In Plymouth, every Thanksgiving there is a Native American protest to the holiday. Many of those same people were the ones leading the reeducation process in the schools.

 

Thankfully, at least I hope, the drone protesters will not be the ones to ENTIRELY decide what will be taught about the Middle East right now. They will not march into the schools with the same callous and singleminded attitude they displayed at the parade, and take over.

 

Sometimes people take things too far. And taking them too far is sometimes as bad as what is being corrected.

 

White children are not exempt from having the right to learn their culture, and to have their national heroes. And all Americans, no matter their race or ethnicity, have the right not to be lied to about their first president. These children were just stripped of their culture and systematically lied to. They have rights too.

 

I feel bad that I personally have perpetuated some of the lies, and have unnecessarily taken away some of their opportunities to learn more wholistically.

[MBM]

Your claim (I think it was you, right above) that we have replaced Eurocentric with Native-centric epitomizes what I think is a fallacy and the underlying negative tone of this thread which seems to be "woe to us the poor over educated white people who are burdened with being sensitive to the plight of the savage."  LOL

 

Possibly it would make you feel better about having to be sensitive to the wide variety of indian people if you had a quick google as to the sort of deprivation and quality of life the indian population still lives with here in the US thanks to our public policy.  I mean, I know if makes it a lot less hard on me to be sensitive to what people prefer wrt their culture being described when I see the staggering statistics about child mortality, alcoholism, food scarcity, housing and literacy.  Ot sort of puts into perspective the whole difficulty of life angle.

 

I am part Sioux and lived on a reservation. The problems are more complicated than public policy that Europeans set.

[BigMamaBird]

I have heard it used in reference to baby carrying, someone referring to a carrier like a sling, Ergo or Bjorn a Papoose.  I had never thought of it as a negative word.  

[Spy Car]

It was a standard educational practice in the 1800s and 1900s to use biographies and history to teach good morals. Famous men and women were used as examples of how children were encourage to grow up and be. These books have been removed from the curriculum as "inaccurate" and obscene.

As you must be aware, the supposedly "good moral lessons" many of these books were designed to impart was teaching that the "dark races" were blood-thirsty, violent, stupid, lazy, heretical in their religious beliefs, irresponsible, and in need of being subjugated and dominated by their moral superiors.

 

Who were these moral superiors? White Christian men (and to a lesser degree women). Especially those from the British upper-class. Most of the books you speak of teach that it was the god-driven duty of Anglo-Saxons to conquer, kill, subjugate, control, and convert "savages" and "heathens" around the world, and to organize their societies (by force) with British men in control.

 

If this meant wiping out indigenous cultures, great! The sooner the better. If it meant killing those who would resist domination, you gotta do what you gotta do. If it meant getting wealthy in the process (and strengthing the Empire), nothing wrong with that (it's what God wants after all).

 

These so-called European-centric books of which you speak teach that humans have varying degrees of "humanity." Some people are superior to others, and the prime factors are "race", "class", and religion. They teach that the less-humans should be dominated by the superior "race." and that even within the superior "race" (as in Britian) that there are higher orders of humans and lower orders of humans (that is pretty much based on genetics, and expressed as social class).

 

This is the world view you are getting misty-eyed about.

 

Moral education has been replaced with accuracy, even though there is no such thing as accuracy. Eurocentric has been replaced with Nativecentric; one centric is no better than the other centric.

Isn't accuracy preferable to nationalistic mythology that romantics the superiority of one group, while demonization everyone else? Why divide people into humans and sub-humans?

 

Native peoples were upset that their children were being taught a Eurocentric curriculum, but before they were done, they forced a native-centric curriculum on the entire area that I spent a good portion of my life in. I was lied to as much as their children were lied to. My children were raised on a curriculum no more fair or balanced than their children were raised on.

I don't know what the heck is going on where you live (native-centric education is something I've never experienced in the real world myself), but assuming it was the case, why put the choice down to selecting one supermicist mythology or another? "Accuracy" is not a dirty word. People (and human societies) are complex, and have both positive traits and problematic aspects. There are ways to aim towards accuracy when teaching history that don't require everything to be put into a "good guys vs bad guys" mentality.

 

When I had one child in PS and one at home, I remember that my boys had a fight over George Washington. My older son believed Washington was a villain and a coward and a thief. My younger thought he was a complex human with many redeeming qualities and some weaknesses. It is wrong to teach children lies about their national heroes and leaders.

I have no idea what your children are being taught about George Washington, but you might reflect on what you wrote here. You (rightly) say, "it is wrong to teach children lies about their national heroes and leaders." That's true. But don't you also see that is exactly what many history books and novels of the past (including ones that you seem strangely fond of) have done with intent? You think others don't fell the same pain being fed lies? Serious question.

 

If there were such a thing as truly accurate, then I would focus more on it, but there isn't. It is not uncommon to find biography driven moral building curricula in the homeschooling community today. The practice is millennia old. It's "classical". I didn't make up the idea.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. What does exist in the homeschool community is a strong sub-set of unrepentant Christian white-supremacists who embrace the old "morals building" materials to reinforce the racist-bigoted worldview they see as being under attack in the general culture. It is the elephant in the room in the homeschooling world.

 

It is more than possible to teach and learn using materials that attempt to treat history as something that resembles the whole truth. That means accepting that every nation is made of human being who are sometimes awesome, are sometimes complex, and sometimes wicked.

 

I'm sorry if there are people that don't want to watch me process and come to terms with the reeducation process that was forced upon me. The sins of the past don't sanction what is taking place now. I do not need to teach my students a native-centric curriculum, and that is what I've been doing. Balanced is best, but for European students, a Eurocentric curriculum is more fair than a native-centric one though. It is wrong to systematically remove all of a student's heroes and holidays, no matter what culture they come from.

The process is painful to watch because it seems you have somehow decided the answer to your problems is to retrench into a dark and ignorant past (one marked by racism and bigotry), rather than moving into a brighter future that is reality-based.

 

Two wrongs don't make a "right." Don't get trapped into thinking you only have two bad choices. Look for a third way.

 

Bill

[albeto.]

Can we discuss the word "papoose"? I didn't find much when googling.

 

Papoose is a New England nations word for Baby carrier? Sometimes people of those nations used the word to mean baby, but rarely. Papoose is generally an ENGLISH word for Native American baby/child? Now the word is not PC? But no one really has a reason WHY it's so politically incorrect, other than we shouldn't call a person after an item? Or is it politically incorrect to use any term that refers to babies of just one race?

 

It's a Narragansett word. Arguably, it's offensive to lump hundreds of cultures into one as if there are no important differences if a white person can't tell the difference. Would you call every Asian a Chinaman? In the 1940's you might have, but now you [hopefully] wouldn't. The reason it's no longer socially acceptable is because people stopped biting their tongue when offenses were easily pointed out and cultural habits changed. You don't need to be intimately familiar with all the various cultures throughout Asia to be polite and not use word that marginalizes them into one stereotype. So why not offer the same respect to Native Americans when they ask for it?

 

But it all comes down to, two wrongs don't make a right. Stripping white children of THEIR culture doesn't fix the wrongs of the past, or provide a better life for current Native Americans.

 

In what way are white children being stripped of their culture? 

[Hunter]

Bill! What took you so long to join this thread? Welcome! :party:

 

I don't have time to respond, as I'm leaving soon, but I'm so glad you joined. Your brand of consistent indignation grounds me. I don't know why, but it just does. I don't have to agree with you, I just like to read your consistency. It's like watching the tides come in and the sun setting. No matter what chaos is going on my life, Bill stays the same. :lol:

[MBM]

Quite.  It is complicated.  Public policy continues to fail to meet the needs of the indigenous people who live on reservations.  Canada does no better.

 

I am not trying to be snarky but in what ways is public policy failing to meet their needs?

 

IMO, what reservations truly need is guidance from other Native Americans who know how to work with government. HUNAP helps to provide some of that kind of education. The purpose of the Indian-owned consulting group that I mentioned before is to provide that kind of guidance -- economic development, sustainability, Tribal governance and leadership development -- to interested tribes. (Btw, they use the term *Indian-owned* and they are all Native Americans.) 

 

HUNAP's mission statement:

 

Our mission is to bring together Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students and interested individuals from the Harvard community for the purpose of advancing the well-being of indigenous peoples through self-determination, academic achievement, and community service.

 

 

As for the word papoose, it appears to be a word that offends some but doesn't offend others. It would be a perfectly acceptable word to use on my reservation but not others. Maybe it is a word in transition.

[ElizaG]

I don't understand this. Of course it's impossible to be 100% accurate about history, due to how much is lost and inherent biases, but after the elementary years, history isn't really a story so much as a journey to excavate facts and to try to be as accurate as possible in one's understanding.

 

This isn't a traditional idea, though.  (I think we discussed this in a CM thread.)   It's part of what was called the New History.  I don't know when it got started in the US, but it didn't become popular in the UK until the 1960s.   Before that, the "moral education" that Hunter mentioned was a major and explicit goal of textbook authors.   And before that -- from ancient times up to about 1830 or so -- history wasn't even taught as a  school subject.  In the classical curriculum, it was more of an incidental matter of explaining allusions that came up in the Greek and Latin literature (again, generally with an emphasis on behavior that was perceived as virtuous).  It was assumed that students who had a high level of literacy would choose to read about other topics on their own, because history is such an interesting and accessible subject. 

 

Even in the modern system, having K-12 students and teachers engage in research and analysis, in imitation of the methods of professional historians, is usually only done with a few selected topics.  It doesn't combine well with the idea of giving a comprehensive overview of events and people.   There's a reason why university professors tend to be specialists in a particular era.  It's not feasible for each of us to teach a survey of world history -- or even of national history, unless our country happens to be so young that a textbook would be the size of a pamphlet :001_smile: -- *and* personally do a significant amount of research on all of the tricky bits.  Which could be any of them.

 

I don't really understand the attitude I sense on this thread which seems to be that the Indian community and PC police has you all feeling so tripped up poor you.

 

What is so hard to get about this? I don't understand it at all.

 

This is actually a reflection of the dilemma.   On the one hand, we're supposed to respect "the Indian community" (singular).   On the other hand, we should never think in terms of lumping all the groups together.  :confused:

 

In Canada, school children were taught for decades that the word "Eskimo" wasn't to be used, that it was archaic and offensive, and that the real, respectful name was "Inuit."    Okay, fine.   Then I move to the US and begin homeschooling, and start diligently removing the word "Eskimo" from older books, and giving my children the same little speech I received.  Uh-oh... it's showing up in recent books as well!   Didn't these Americans get the memo?!  

 

That's when I learned something they don't tend to bother teaching in Canada:  internationally, only some of the peoples known as "Eskimo" are part of the group that calls themselves "Inuit," and the others, understandably, aren't happy to be called that.  In Alaska and Russia, the situation is almost the opposite to that in Canada and Greenland.  "Eskimo" is the default word, and saying "Inuit" might get you in trouble.

 

This isn't a question of being a self-pitying white person.   In some cases, there is no word / usage / depiction that's acceptable to everyone.    We could spend hundreds of hours researching the specific issues that we've come across, and still end up with lessons that include something that's offensive to someone, somewhere.   At some point (which is going to vary from one family to the next), we just have to pick some materials that look reasonable based on our existing knowledge (which is also going to vary from one family to the next), and move ahead.   And have faith that the future doesn't depend on our getting every word exactly right. 

 

[ElizaG]

Then you are creating a false dilemma.  If there is no one word to satisfy everyone then move on knowing you did the best you could.

 

The point is, it tends to take a lot of research just to figure this sort of thing out.   And in my experience, that takes time that, in hindsight, would nearly always have been better spent on other activities. 

 

"Where to stop" is a personal decision.