A person who writes and speaks about Indians from the conventional Western History Association and Western Literature Association http://www.usu.edu/westlit/ point of view, meaning a basically white point of view (whether or not the originator is Indian), called to ask me for my notes from the Piegan Institute August history seminars over the years. I’ve tried to take careful notes because after I write them up I put them into the books I sell on Lulu.com/prairiemary. Because these seminars are organized by Rosalyn Lapier and Darrell Kipp and the scholars are also academic Blackfeet, usually from Canada, they draw from a body of knowledge that is quite different and mostly invisible to white aficionadoes who as teenagers fell in love with “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” In short, the whites like being on the winning side but sympathizing with the noble victims, not that they mean to do anything practical about it. It’s the dream of a boy against adults, looking back, sadly reconciled to what “had to be.”
The same division is there in “cowboy” art versus “NA” art which is often abstract, maybe on objects like pots, blankets, jewelry. The NA or Aborginal view is best illustrated by a painting I saw that I wish I owned: buffalo going over a jump, tumbling to the scree below, then leaping to their feet unharmed and thundering up the cliff opposite, stampeding off across the prairie again. That is, Indians realize that the the prairie clearances were an interlude, a break in a long continuity that has a future.
There is another split that is within the WLA and WHA, not between red and white. This is between the professional historian within the academy and the amateur enthusiast who reads freely and widely, but “popularly.” As a possible illustration, consider James Willard Schultz who wrote for a popular audience with maximum whizbang, largely ignored by proper historians who work in an entirely different footnoted, peer-reviewed manner. Indians so far have not generated a very notable body of history books because publishers simply don’t believe in that point of view if they know it exists at all. In fact, much of what some local Indians tell interested inquirers comes from books written by whites, often the 19th and 20th century authors who really DID profit from raking off the Napi stories from the rez to sell in Manhattan.
This is why Piegan Institute in Browning, Montana, is so phenomenal, such an indicator of sea-change. Though their main focus has been restoring the Blackfeet language and though their immersion school has been running for twenty years and has successfully produced fluent speakers, one of their side activities has been finding and accumulating copies of all the master’s and doctoral theses that have been written about the Amskapi Pikuni without their writers ever bothering to return copies to the people who supplied the information. Only lately have people like Paul Rosier responsibly come back to explain what they learned doing research.
Partly the problem was finding a way to return the materials and to find a proper occasion and setting for discussing them. Recognizing this, Piegan Institute has for ten years organized a history seminar in August. The notes from the seminar have been posted on this blog as long as I’ve been writing it, but since I’m aggregating the notes by request, I’ll put them on lulu.com/prairiemary in book form, both separately and then as part of the book called “Blackfeet Trails.” I’ve taken notes every year that I’ve attended. The only year I missed was the History of the Women, which was too scary for me!
I attended these years and still might be able to locate notes, though I wasn’t blogging yet.
2001 “APATOHS-OHSOKOI” Blackfeet history and places along Apaatohs-ohsokoi. (The Old North Trail)
Ted Binnema, Scott Carlson, Sally Thompson, Bill Farr, Lori Falcon, Narcisse Blood.
2003 “Aakawattop’a” A Gathering
Darrell Robes Kipp, Dorothy Still Smoking, Paul Rosier, Richmond Clow, Bill Old Chief
2004 -- 2005 “Aki iaks” The History of Blackfeet Women
(One of those years was skipped and I didn’t attend the other.)
I attended the following years and have typed up notes that will appear in a “book” on www.lulu.com/prairiemary. They are also included in the book called “Blackfeet Time-lines,” which is also available on Lulu.com/prairiemary.
2006: “Innaihtsiiyi: Examining Blackfeet Concepts of Peace (and War)
Theodore Binnema, Hugh Dempsey, James Dempsey, Nicholas Vrooman, Narcisse Blood and Cynthia Chambers.
2007: “Aka” The Ancient Past
Hugh Dempsey, Eldon Yellowhorn, Wilena Old Person, Brian (Barney) Reeves
2008: “Sinaake” Images of the Blackfoot People
Dave Beck, Bill Farr, Darnell Rides at the Door, Valentina LaPier
2009: “Kiippippoistoyi” One Hundred Winters
Shawn Bailey, David R.M. Beck, Joe Gone, Louis S. Warren
2010: “Imitaiks” When the Spirit Moved with Us
Kaawa’pomaakaa Society, Martin Eagle Child, Eldon Yellowhorn, Tom Shawl
For much more information and background, go to http://www.saokioheritage.com
“Saokio is a Blackfeet term that describes the prairies as a space that is large, open and flat. At one time the Blackfeet called themselves the Saokio-tapi or the prairie people. On the prairies they used their creativity to change this wide open space into a unique place.
“Saokio Heritage was created to enhance the appreciation of the wealth of prairie peoples creativity. Our goal is to stimulate and preserve the history, language and traditional knowledge of prairie peoples.
“Saokio Heritage acknowledges the U.N. definition of traditional knowledge which encompasses cultural, technological, scientific, and artistic knowledge that originated from a connection to a specific territory or place which is transmitted from generation to generation within a group of people. “
Ironically, perhaps some of the most unaware Americans are some of the Native Americans themselves, whose grandparents and great-grandparents were forced into assimilation so harshly and thoroughly that they’ve felt that even learning the old languages was dangerous or “backward.” In contrast, the young ‘uns have become enthusiasts, hungry for information.
And then there are the bureaucrats, passing and sporadically enforcing legislation, trying to sort out claims and indignations and compensations against a great tide of re-assessments and realizations. Much of what seems highly theoretical turns out to have real-world consequences, sometimes unintended and unexpected. The tension between the abstract and concrete can be intense.
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