1. History and myth is an important part of any culture. History is a study of events that have already occurred and is comprised of stories from first-hand experiences. Myth is connected to history as it speaks to the stories and ideas passed down over time that are not true but widely believed by people. This paper will link myth and history together concerning Mount McKinley, more recently named Mount Denali located in the Alaskan mountain range. Then I will move into discussing the current day controversy in renaming Mount McKinley to Mount Denali. 2. As with anything there are differing ways to view information provided. With history the information needs to be validated for accuracy. Myths are not necessarily validated with the …show more content…
To place perspective on the size of Mount Denali, Aconcagua, Argentina is the tallest mountain in the world followed by Mount Everest in Nepal. Mount Denali is seen as the third tallest mountain and is the tallest mountain in North America. A wall street journal article, written by Elizabeth Williamson and Ryan Tracy on 30 August 2015, discussed President Barack Obama changing Mount McKinley’s name to Mount Denali.3 Alaska initially requested the name change in 1975 which the state of Ohio fought considering President McKinley was from Ohio. Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior Department utilized her position to change the name to appeal to Alaskan natives and was supported by the White House stating they “Generally believed to be central to the Athabaskan creation story, Denali is a site of significant cultural importance to many Alaskan natives.”3 Now that we have an understanding of changing Mount McKinley to Mount Denali, let’s look back at everything. 4. It is important to reflect on history and appreciate the myths that interweave and provide us with our customs. American’s lives change overtime but history and myth thrives and shapes our interactions in society. Myth is very much alive in historical accounts and is seen in the story of how Mount Denali became from a mythical creature, how a pioneer attempted to put his mark on an important landmark and how our government has recognized the importance of respecting the Alaskan history and how it is important to our
It was a time when people’s lives were at risk because families were scared they could not hunt ducks for food, a time when the Iñupiaq people came together as one to fight the law, and a time when taking pride in your culture could overpower the United States government. If it was not for the leadership skills the community and individuals portrayed, the Iñupiaq people’s way of life would be completely different due to the fact that the language, subsistence, and the way of living would diminish away or we would have to live accordingly to the urban way of
The first chapter of both APeople’s History of the United States (Zinn, 1980) andA Patriot’s History of the United States(Schweikart and Allen, 2004) tells the story of the discovery of the New World. Beginning with the landing of Columbus in the Bahamas, these accounts are told from two separate perspectives. Zinn often refers to the telling of history as a tale between victims and executioners, saying that in the “inevitable taking of sides which comes from selection and emphasis in History” he prefers to stand on the side of the victim, whereas Schweikart and Allen tend to stand behind the executioner. Much of APatriot’s Historyis spent arguing the accuracy of the number of natives murdered by invading European entities, attempting to minimize the blame reflected on these executioners.
“The Oregon Trail,” written by Francis Parkman is a description of the experiences traveling into the unknown depths of the American west in 1846. The story is told from the first person point of view of Parkman, a scholar from Boston who embarks on the great expedition of traveling into the west in hopes of studying the lives of the Native Americans. His journey is also one of the first detailed descriptions of the beauty and the bounty of a largely uninhabited North American territory. But one of the most critical elements of the story was Parkman’s encounters and recruitment of members to his band of travelers who ultimately play a major role in the success of the western journey.
At the time Columbus’s name rose to popularity, America was in need or an identity, and so the true nature of Columbus was omitted and his legacy was used as an icon symbolizing courage and unity. Through the surfacing of the true story behind the man, Columbus lost much of his fame. Yet in many ways the upstanding ideals he represented still carry
This podcast briefly summarizes the significance of role of Christopher Columbus as one of the founding fathers of the United States of America. Contrary to the beliefs in 19th and early 20th century of him as a hero and symbol of bravery and a visionary, they talk about how he was actually heading in the wrong journey and overthrowing the indigenous people. Along with this many of his characteristics were known to be whitewashed to show importance of certain agendas. His every memory is carefully scrutinized and is broken down into various incidence over the hundreds of years. Christopher was well known confidence and his distinct view of the world being round instead of flat are always in reference with his name.
It is a warm summer night and shades of orange, red, and gold appear in the sky over the pine-covered hills. The sun soon disappears beneath the dark hills and darkness settles over the land. The buffalo, antelope, and elk find places to rest for the night and all is quiet except for the creeks and birds. In several hours, the sky will again be lit with a multitude of colors and the animals will begin to rise. A new day will begin in the Black Hills, just like it did hundreds of years ago.
In Lost Mountain, Reece’s use of logos, and his personal experience helps his ethos builds a strong argument. He becomes a credible author through being a life, eye witness of the whole process, as well as his superior skills in research and presentation of said research. Throughout the book, the use of his statistics, comparisons and eye witness observations all add to his credibility. His use of pathos build his use of logos and ethos help the reader trust and view him as a credible source, as well as connect emotionally to the potentially distant topic of mountain top removal.
Inclusively, the professor explained that stories such as the flat earth, and the challenges Columbus faced while discovering America, only help to empower the concept of heroification. Surprisingly, Loewen explains that these and other erroneous stories are learned through history textbooks. Dr. Jendian explained that these misconceptions, keep students unaware of the real nature of history. According to Loewen (32), “The authors of history textbooks have taken us on a trip of their own, away from the facts of history, into the realm of myth.” As mentioned previously, Columbus is presented to us as a symbol of heroification, demonstrating how history textbooks contain errors about his real life.
In The Way To Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday, Momaday uses stylistic devices and rhetorical strategies such as imagery, sensory details, and alliteration. The use of alliteration helps Momaday create the vivid imagery of the piece by displaying the active environment with the “brittle and brown grass“, “willow and witch hazel” and “Great green” grasshoppers. Through this, the great plain in Oklahoma is displayed as a landmark with an overactive and lively nature. Furthermore, sensory details are used by Momaday listing the “steaming foliage”, “cold rains of autumn”, the sound of “the frogs away by the river” and feeling “ the motion of the air.” Such stylistic devices help the author write his eulogy to his grandmother, by describing all the sights he saw, that his grandmother Aho once saw.
Argue for or against a resolution in Congress to create as national monument for those who moved to the West in the 1850s and 1860s, also known as pioneers. The discovery of gold in the Sacramento area in early 1848 started the Gold Rush, which is one of the most significant events that shaped American history during that time. Thousands of prospective gold miners, mostly men, traveled by sea or over land to San Francisco and the surrounding area in search of wealth. Whatever the motivation, the pioneer men and women endured tremendous hardships and sacrificed a great deal to settle in the West Coast. For this reason, I feel that Congress should create a national monument for the pioneers who moved to the West in the 1850s and 1860s.
The Alaskan Bush is one of the hardest places to survive without any assistance, supplies, skills, and little food. Jon Krakauer explains in his biography, Into The Wild, how Christopher McCandless ventured into the Alaskan Bush and ultimately perished due to lack of preparation and hubris. McCandless was an intelligent young man who made a few mistakes but overall Krakauer believed that McCandless was not an ignorant adrenalin junkie who had no respect for the land. Krakauer chose to write this biography because he too had the strong desire to discover and explore as he also ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was a young man, but he survived unlike McCandless. Krakauer’s argument was convincing because he gives credible evidence that McCandless was not foolish like many critics say he was.
In the 2013 online article, “The Chris McCandless Obsession Problem”, author Diana Saverin describes the Alaskan wilderness travel phenomenon along with attempting to uncover the ‘McCandless Pilgrims’ “root of motivation. Sparked by the release of both Jon Krakauer’s and Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild”, numerous individuals pack their backpacks and eagerly step into their (sometimes newly-bought) hiking shoes and tramp into the Alaskan Wild to pay homage to their hero Chris McCandless. Filled with personal anecdotes and interviews, Severin’s Outside article takes a new approach Into the Wild commentary by directing attention to the lives McCandless’s story affected indirectly rather than critiquing on McCandless himself. In response to what appears to be a huge amount of troubled McCandless-inspired tramping stories, Saverin provides an unbiased rationale as a attempt to explain why so many are “willing to risk injury, and even death, to..visit the last home of Alaska’s most famous adventure casualty”. Saverin begins her article with anecdote- telling the unfortunate experience of young lovers and adept adventure seekers, Ackerman and Gros.
1. How is the purpose of urban legends of today the same as that of folktales that have been passed down for generations?the way that these urban legends can in some ways serve a similar purpose is that it has always keeped people aware of what's around them. The fact that people have scene or even talked about things that may seem unreal, well that idea even to the non believers, would still be aware. 2. Explain how superstitions help humans deal with the fact that so many things in life are outside of their control.
Marcus Garvey, once said, “A people without the knowledge of their past, history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”, to lose one’s culture is truly mournful. In an excerpt of his autobiography The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), N. Scott Momaday asserts that his Kiowa heritage has shaped who he is today and should not be forgotten. Momaday’s use of figurative language reinforces that learning about his heritage was essential for him in order to show readers that before they can truly understand themselves, they must first understand where they come from. Momaday writes a reflective narrative to the general audience on the importance of not forgetting one’s
Perhaps the most significant myth in American culture is that of the American frontier generated by the European encounters with the American West. The most noticeable part of the frontier myth is the mythic struggle between modern civilization and wilderness. Frontier is defined as “the meeting point between savagery and civilization”. Turner believes that the American frontier is closely related to American civilization and that frontier