Collective Memory Literature Review
Annotated Bibliography
Critical Work on Indigenous Identity and Collective Memory
Confino, Alon. “Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method.” The American
Historical Review, vol. 102, no. 5, 1997, pp. 1386–1403. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2171069. Confino explores the most effective methods for using memory to articulate the connections between the cultural, social, political, and representative social experience.
While historical accounts often focus on distinct memories, a study of collective mentality is often missing. Collective memory can be examined by looking at objects produced by the common man, such as popular literature, and also studying its reception.
By connecting fields instead of isolating memories, collective
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“Native American Timeline of Events.” Legends of America, Mar. 2017, www.legendsofamerica.com/na-timeline.html. Kathy Weiser’s timeline helps to conceptualize the extent of forced migration and the cause and effect relationships between wars, laws, and removals. Her history includes information on the Indian Removal Act, the Trail of Tears, the Indian Indenture Act, the
Homestead Act, the Navajo Wars, the Sioux Uprising, etc. The Indian Removal Act of
1830 forced the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole to walk the 1,200 mile “Trail of Tears.” Other forced removals included the Navajo Long Walk and the
Sioux Walk to Fort Snelling. The California Gold Rush spurred much bloodshed due to the settler’s greed for resources, making it the site of the worst slaughter committed against Native Americans. Laws and treaties were used against native peoples. For example, the Mining Act of 1872 excluded Alaskan natives from claiming ownership of their own land. Other acts used to reduce native landholdings included The Dawes Act of
1887 and the Sioux Act of 1888. By 1953, the BIA persuaded large numbers of Indians to relocate into urban areas. Weiser’s timeline is very informative and emphasizes
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The most influential essays for my research were “Interior and Exterior Landscapes: The Pueblo Migration Stories,”
“Language and Literature From a Pueblo Indian Perspective,” and “The People and the
Land are Inseperable.” Landscapes to Silko are also geologic memories, characters, visualizations, stories, and maps. Like a spider web, the center is the land and “human identity, imagination, storytelling [are] inextricably linked to the land, to Mother Earth, just as the strands of the spider’s web radiate from the center of the web” (21). Pueblo people have always connected certain stories with certain locations as a form of identity.
Thus, Silko explores what that means for migrated or displaced peoples, how landscapes function as characters in fiction, and why there are controversies between the U.S. government and indigenous peoples over what qualifies a piece of land as sacred. She also discusses how the ancient Pueblo people depended on collective memory to maintain and transmit an entire culture; from the youngest child to the oldest, everyone
Tayo In Ceremony
1478 Words | 6 PagesThe power of stories manifests itself in literature, film, and more generally life. Stories inspire, provide hope, and bring understanding. Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony permeates the strength of stories. Ceremony follows the story of Tayo, a half white Native American plagued by the invasion of European culture, as well as his own past of war and loss. However, through the folk stories of his Laguna culture, as well as the advice he has been given to embrace his past, Tayo is able to see the world more clearly.
A Comparison Of The Lewis And Clark Expedition
1887 Words | 8 PagesThe migration of Americans to the west was a good thing for innovation and building up the United States as a country, but the Native Americans who lived in these lands were changed forever. Any Native Americans found in lands where United States citizens wanted land was immediately excavated from their land and brought to an Indian reservation of some kind. Overtime though, these Indian reservations began to limit due to the rising population in Americans during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. “They [Lewis and Clark] provided valuable information about the topography, the biological sciences, the ecology, and ethnic and linguistic studies of the American Indian. The mysteries of
Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine Analysis
255 Words | 2 PagesThe way that they are represented in the novel provides an insight into modern day native American culture unparalleled by any history book. The way women, children, men, religious figures, and senior citizens are represented in the book allow readers to see the way native Americans interact with others. These interactions allow us to see how native
The Indian Removal Act In The 1830's
726 Words | 3 PagesThe dispersing of the Indians, particularly the five civilized tribes of the southwest: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole fairly began before the approval of the Indian Removal Act. As the European-Americans were progressing the procedure of passing the Act was bound to happen. They were once a secluded society and now forced to a loss of war. The Indian Removal Act was signed on 1830 by President Andrew Jackson. The act allowed President Andrew Jackson to provide the states with federal funds to remove the civilized tribes and reject the Indians from letting them to be part of the European-American society.
Identity In Hilary Weaver's 'The Big Game'
282 Words | 2 PagesHilary Weaver argues in her piece of writing; that identifying indigenous identity is complex, complicated, and hard to grasp when internalized oppression and colonization has turned Native Americans to criticize one another. Throughout the text, Weaver focuses on three main points which she calls, the three facets. Self-identification, community identification, and external identification are all important factors that make up Native American identity. The author uses a story she calls, “The Big game” to support her ideologies and arguments about the issue of identity. After reading the article, it’s important to realize that Native American’s must decide their own history and not leave that open for non-natives to write about.
Reservation Blues Sparknotes
1225 Words | 5 PagesYears of being mistreated and living in poverty from generations to generations, engraves the harsh memories into the Indians from the early ages of childhood. Alexie provides the reader with brutal memories that Wright and Sherman, record company agents, have of the harming of the Indians: “Wright looked at Coyote Springs. He saw their Indian faces. He saw the faces of millions of Indians, beaten, scarred by smallpox and frostbite, split open by bayonets and bullets. He looked at his own white hands and saw the blood stains there” (244).
Comparing The Holocaust And The Trail Of Tears
305 Words | 2 PagesIn 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson 's Indian removal policy the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi and to move to an area in Oklahoma. The Cherokee called this journey the Trail of Tears because of its devastating effects. Cherokee lands were held hostage by the states and the federal government and Cherokees had to agree to move to preserve their name as tribes. So the government took there land and made them travel a 1000 miles just to keep there name. The Holocaust on the
To What Extent Was Andrew Jackson A Bad President
505 Words | 3 PagesQuestion 1 I think that Andrew Jackson was a bad president. He was bad because he was disrespectful to the native americans. Andrew Jackson declared federal tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional. The nation suffered a economic downturn through the 20’s. Politicians blamed the change in fortunes on the national tariff policy.
Is The Use Of Oral Tradition In Tall Hopi Basket By Leslie Marmon Silko
821 Words | 4 PagesBesides that, Silko has used different contemporary poetic conventions, and the author is able to capture the oral culture of the Native Americans in a written form. Consequently, the author could join the oral tradition and the printed one into a new way of storytelling (198). The book has a particular flow that conveys deeply personal stories of the author’s life together with history and myth. For example, the book starts with her memory of a “Tall Hopi Basket”.
Junípero Serra
1262 Words | 6 PagesLosing one’s cultural knowledge, and therefore the reality of their culture, allows others to have control over their collective and individual consciousness as well as their destiny. In this case, it is clear that the United States government has had the dominant relationship over the Native
Regionalism In Ceremony
706 Words | 3 PagesStorytelling includes words and actions to describe past events that get interpreted differently along the way. In the Southwest, cultures use regionalism (reflecting one’s sense of place in one’s stories) to connect with other communities (Anaya). In Ceremony the author Leslie Marmon Silko uses poetry to transition from chapters. The main character Tayo returning from World War II suffers from PTSD as he tries to save his reservation from a drought. However Tayo encounters a journey that he must save himself to be able to save his culture.
Bad Indians By Deborah Miranda Summary
1007 Words | 5 PagesThroughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.
The Man To Send Rain Clouds Analysis
545 Words | 3 PagesLeslie Marmon Silko, a brilliant writer who brings alive the Native American era throughout her works. She is considered a unique writer who not only revives that era but also transports the reader back to important marks in history. One of her most well written works is “The Man to Send Rain Clouds”. She skillfully uses the essentials of writing to relive the times when Native American beliefs were constantly threatened by the new beliefs and traditions of others around. The true question however, is how was Silko able to so prudently show her readers the underlying theme of continuity and change in “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” in order to portray the challenge Native Americans endured?
Blackfoot Identity In Thomas King's Borders By Thomas King
719 Words | 3 PagesModernity has been mainly characterized by its imperialistic policies and colonizing endeavors, which while creating the current legal organization of the world have largely marginalized the many indigenous groups who originally occupied the conquered lands (Andrews and Walton 600). Although post-modern societies have seen an increase in the awareness of these matters, American-Canadian author Thomas King has dedicated his work to throwing light on issues still not tackled. In his short story “Borders”, King tells the adventure of a Blackfoot mother and her child, who try to cross the border to the U.S. but refuse to declare their nationality. It is through his masterful choice of narrator and the careful depiction of the mother’s struggle to maintain her Blackfoot identity that the author conveys the many difficulties First Nations face in their effort to keep their heritages alive.
Stuart Hall Representation Theory
840 Words | 4 PagesGroups can even produce memories in individuals of events that they never experienced in any direct sense. The collective memory is shared, passed on and also constructed by the group. (Lavabre, n.d.) it is a dynamic cultural practice that sustains the cultural continuity of a community and in the meantime adapts to the cultural transformation of the community in a historical era. (Wang,
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