Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 2023)
~ Student lessons for the classroom ~ Kiksht class (from page 4) Apparently, movie people couldn’t find natives for movies so it’s wonderful that these students were born into a world where Indians play Indi- ans on screen but it did interest them that many White people played Native Americans, Chuck Connors, Charles Bronson and Sal Mineo just to name a few. All the big stars played the natives. When there were non-Indi- ans in roles meant to be por- traying an Indian speaking their language, many times in the shows they don’t use Native language: They just reversed English and played it backwards. There are some cases where Natives were able to turn the tables on screen. In at least one film the Indian characters in the film are played by Indi- ans who speak their language, and the Navajo get their sweet revenge by speaking poorly of the non-Indian actors in their Native Language on screen because the other ac- tors and crew didn’t under- stand their language. People would come up and touch Native people’s hair on set, which is a great example of how we are thought of as ‘not a real person’ and aren’t given the same respect non-natives give to other non- natives. Many times Natives were portrayed as ‘always drunk’. In Flags of Our Fathers Adam Beach played a ‘drunk In- dian’ character when he por- trayed Ira Hayes, the Native American who is pictured rais- ing the American Flag on Mt. Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. Usually, there is no context given as to why Indians might be constantly drunk but Clint Eastwood showed, in horrific de- tail, why Ira stayed numb to re- ality after combat. He was a man suffering with post-traumatic stress, and when you know the reasons why a person does the self- destructive things they do, they become a vulnerable human be- ing and easier to understand, this is how you put a human into a stereotype. Thankfully movies like Little Big Man have bril- liant performances that help change the stereotypes cre- ated by earlier movies. Individuals in Holly- wood have shined a posi- tive light on Indian Coun- try was Sacheen Cruz Little Feather, not accepting Marlon Brando’s Academy Award for his performance in The Godfather. The actor requested that Sacheen refuse the award because of how Hollywood treated Na- tive people and to show soli- darity with the members of the American Indian Movement who were, at that time, surrounded and under siege by the U.S. govern- ment in the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, protesting “the failure of an effort of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Or- ganization (OSCRO) to use impeachment to remove tribal president Richard Wilson, whom they accused of corruption and abuse of opponents. Additionally, protesters criti- cized the United States government’s failure to fulfill trea- ties with Native American people and demanded the reopen- ing of treaty negotiations to hope- fully arrive at fair and equitable treatment of Native Ameri- cans.” And for this the audi- ence booed her after her speech. She went up to rep- resent Brando and give a longer speech but it was shorted and she was threat- ened with being arrested if she read from it. The A.I.M. death rate was very high (during the siege at Wounded Knee). The Ameri- can Indian Movement got in- teresting when they started fighting the FBI. One of the storylines pre- sented was that in almost every movie containing In- dians we always lose in the end to the cowboys or white people, the “romance of the tragedy” is why it was in mov- ies. Indians would always be killed in the movies. People used anything they could to demean and treat Indians bad, they’d watch the Indi- ans getting slaughtered (a memory from an interviewee in movies as a child). “You will die and all your people” (a movie quote) was a reoccurring theme in Hol- lywood. In the documentary they showed kids old West- erns to see their reaction of how they were treated. People in the world still think Natives are old fash- ioned and still run around with horses and wear feath- ers. In those types of stories vio- lent acts were excused in movies. It was even okay when Bugs Bunny was killing In- dians (and keeping track) sing- ing “One little two little In- dians.” In another cartoon Pocahontas’s story was ma- nipulated to fit the American society. In the real-life ver- sion of history Pocahontas was only 9 and he (John Smith) was over 25 years old, definitely a troublesome prob- lematic story to tell children and the world altogether. The troubled and confused Hollywood story of the Ameri- can Indian got to the point where no U.S. citizen could even recog- nize an actual tribal member. Iron Eyes Cody was an Italian, which wasn’t allowed or well thought of in the U.S. and eventually he tried to fit the Native image. From the 1920s he was everyone’s fa- vorite ‘Indian.’ Even off screen he lived as though he were the Indian character in the movies he was in. He faked an identity and he be- lieved he was the character he saw on TV. His family cel- ebrates him as Native. He died in 1999. Not all stereotypes are nega- tive, per say Because of the movies people still think we ride horses, i.e. ‘All Natives are supreme horseman.’ While not necessarily true, it isn’t a bad one. Another observa- tion was that Native people in Montana still speak their language fluently daily. The Crow, they love horses, some Crow were living like the pio- neers and when it comes to hav- ing a connection with all things in the world, When a horse dies, some people cry. “I was growing up where being Native was a cool thing,” After years of mixed messages on the big screen later on, White people wanted to become Native. But even then, White people pretending to be a “tribe” (at a summer camp in the film) just ends up mocking Natives. This led to Hippies. Hippies were dressing the way they thought Natives dress and were supporting by doing things they think were done. They dressed like old Hollywood natives because, from time to time, they believed in their past life they were one. Some hippies labeled Indians as ‘hippies.’ They re- lated the two (ideas), Free- dom and Peace, and because of this people thought real Indians were hippies. A thing that can be trouble- some with motion pictures is the quote “a picture tells a thousand words”. For example, details, when someone is telling the real story of Crazy Horse. American people think of Crazy horse as a mythical person. Every photo of Crazy Horse is probably fake because he refused to have his photo taken, so there is a problem trusting in movies, tele- vision and other images. Movie making with Na- tive Americans has come a long way. Indians have started to fight back in the movies they were in and in real life, and those stories are brought to the silver screen. There are more Natives making movies about Natives. NDNs have become a symbol of free- dom, for many reasons and be- cause of the movie industry. Many times, a movie made by Indians for Indians we still see thr ough an “e ver y person lenses” but the stereotype of a drunk Indian or stoic Native is broken by movies like ‘The Free Runner’ where we see Native girls singing in their language in a story that is so authentically In- digenous Chris Eyre said, “It looked like an inside job.” Even with better, more conscious representation in Hol- lywood plenty of Native Ameri- cans still take issue with how other Indians tell their Native story on film. That was a highlight for me because I got to put the students in place to enhance their critical thinking and ob- servation skills as well as give them the chance to step out- side of a movie and look at it analytically that will likely carry over to any movie they watch from now on and don’t worry, Yes they are up to that task, as you have just read. I learned, as a trainer of soldiers, that people want a challenge. Whether large or small they want to succeed and they want to have some- one to be proud of them in their accomplishments; so please, tell our young war- riors that you are proud of them as often as you can. Re- enforce it by showing up and listening, ask them about their day and just listen. You will find that you have a lot in common and most of your ‘differences’ are in your head… They are the kids you raised after all and you just might learn some- thing new. Listen to the Kiksht words they learn, the sentences in our ancient language of the Big River… learn with them. For those of you who say things like, ‘I don’t have the time to learn Kiksht.’ If you were on Facebook, you had time to learn Kiksht. If you were watching TV or if you were on your phone, you have time to learn Kiksht. If you were at the casino (not if you work there duh!), you definitely squandered your Kiksht learning time! There are three Language classes at MHS and a department dedicated to teaching those languages; so if you haven’t learned your language it’s about allotting the time and making ‘the hard-right deci- sion’ vs ‘the easy-wrong de- cision.’ I have nothing but good feelings about these students and their future in Native language. They are dedicated, focused and smart. They are going to have their lives ex- panded and learn to see Warm Springs, Oregon and the greater Pacific Northwest Ichishkiin ~ Warm Springs in a way that non-speakers won’t and that makes me happy for them. It is hard learning a new language, the rules of Bashtenemt are confusing and infect all aspect of the speaking the Language of the Big River but doing things that are hard is what makes ev- erything we do, worth our time and these kids make it look easy. Being an Indian is hard. It’s hard holding on to our cul- ture and beliefs in a country that actively works against us, and has for centuries. It’s hard maintaining our collec- tive identity as Indians in a country that always wants us to assimilate. Kiksht is a hard language to learn: Word pro- nunciation, emphasis, compo- sition, sentence structure are all significantly different from other languages and just simi- lar enough to cause much con- fusion but, as one of my sol- diers taught me after her time in Basic Training: ‘If it isn’t hard, it isn’t worth doin’ Sargn’t,’ and your Datgup Iduihamax are working hard in Kiksht Class. Rain Circle.
