has this been done yet?
vicious, implacable alien entity invades earth, spreads plague; indigenous peoples of the world laugh and laugh
Check out Mindscape by Andrea Hairston.
WILL DO
#indigenous
has this been done yet?
vicious, implacable alien entity invades earth, spreads plague; indigenous peoples of the world laugh and laugh
The constellation Orion—or, possibly, among some Mayan peoples, a turtle—rising over the temple of Kukulkan in the Mayan city of Chichen Itza. The orange star on the left is Betelgeuse and the brightest blue one is Rigel, corrupted English versions of the original names given them by medieval Arab Muslim astronomers.
(Via Phil Plait’s 2012 astrophotography roundup.)
Frozen: A Greenlandic Retelling of The Snow Queen Pitch
Imagine its the 1940s in a land that’s been considered almost untouched by time. Greenland, after the occupation of Denmark by Nazi Germany, is forced to become self-reliant and bring itself to the world stage. After centuries of colonialism, Greenland had been forced into restrictive trading agreements with Denmark that hindered the Greenlanders that occupied the large island that was better known for its large ice sheets rather that the beauty that it really held.
Greenlandic teenager Qila has been close to her friend, Malik, for as long as she could remember. The youngest child with several older brothers, snarky, inquisitive Qila learned how to hunt on the ice and in the waters from a young age. As she grows older, however, her mother has started to hold her back and her father states she’s too old to come along for a generally male activity.
Malik, her quieter, calmer friend, doesn’t like hunting. He and Qila typically sneak out at nights into a kayak to weave in and out of glaciers and hunt for seals and whale, or further inland for reindeer. Life for them would’ve remained perfect if they kept their secret hunts as Qila in the lead and Malik as the companion.
But the war changed things. Greenland had to defend itself. Even with help from America, it wasn’t enough. A small force was created to defend the Eastern coast, to keep an eye out for a German landing. Malik, more confident with the academic then the physical, still finds himself signing up in an attempt to prove himself and assure his family that he really was a ‘man’. He ends up leaving Qila alone, worried for his safety and bored with little to do and no friends to hunt with.
The world gets colder in the following months. It isn’t unusual, but something felt sinister about it. The days grow shorter like they’re supposed to, ice covers the landscape, Qila pulls up her hood a bit more. And one day, while she’s staring out at the water, a raven bursts from the depths screeching about approaching darkness and storms. Once he realizes that a human is listening to her, the raven freezes, and lets out a nervous squeak.
Qila forces information out of the raven, who she soon names Prunaq—or duck fat—and discovers that the gods of her people are angry for being forgotten and ignored. Instead of facing them, Qila sets out across the land of Greenland to find her friend, and to save him.
this is an amazing concept.
An Inuit retellling would be amazing!
Oh my god this is fantastic!!!!!!
omggggg
[@neiltyson: Hard to take seriously predicitons about the end of the world from the Maya, a culture that could not predict its own demise
@neiltyson: Hard to take science cues from the Maya, who never discovered the wheel, and who sacrificed animals to satisfy gods.]
Hey Neil deGrasse Tyson! Here’s some cool facts:
1) The Mayan culture *still exists*. There are an estimated 7 million people who consider themselves Mayans still living in Central America, with their own unique culture, languages and traditions2) Mayans never predicted the end of the world was going to come in 2012. Claims that they did were pretty much invented by people who didn’t understand their culture and wanted to sell shit. Perpetuating it is based on ignorant imperialist ideas.
3) A LOT of religions nowadays still practice animal sacrifice, including Hinduism and Islam. These alone take up approximately 40% of the world’s population. The contributions made by people of these religions to science in general have been immense. Dismissing an entire culture’s achievements because they perform animal sacrifice is bigoted, ignorant and gives an incredibly distorted view of the world
4) The wheel is not a mark of a “worthwhile” culture. It appears that the wheel was actually invented in one place and then spread throughout Eurasia and Africa, rather than being invented in multiple places, meaning by your metric it’s “hard to take science cues” from near every culture ever. Mesoamerican cultures had wheel-like objects but it’s likely they never developed it further because there were fewer uses for the wheel, as there was a lack of domesticateable animals that the wheel would be useful in conjunction with.
5) a) How could you *know* they didn’t predict their own *empire*’s (not culture) demise? We know virtually nothing about what people at the time thought and have too few examples of their writing to know. b) No empire ever has predicted its own demise as a mainstream view. What an absurd standard to hold
In conclusion, your comments are highly insulting and perpetuate racist myths about the Americas before the advent of European colonisation as well as the Native American populations today. Maybe do some research before you comment on these things again
Wow fuck you dGrasse Tyson
everyone fucks up
son I am disappoint
we are never ever ever getting back together
Publisher’s Weekly review: Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction, ed. Grace L. Dillon
Dillon’s superb anthology, the first devoted to indigenous SF, highlights long-overlooked authors alongside better-known figures such as Nalo Hopkinson and Leslie Marmon Silko. The categories include “Slipstream,” a genre Native American SF helped create, and “Apocalypse,” something many Aboriginal populations feel has already happened to them. Gerald Vizenor’s “Custer on the Slipstream” (1978) is the first of several stories dealing with Custer and Crazy Horse. Native views of space and time and reversing the notion of first contact are likewise recurring themes, with both appearing in an engaging excerpt from Gerry William’s 1994 novel The Black Ship. Another regular visitor is the Ghost Dance, meant to drive whites from the Americas; Sherman Alexie shows a world where this worked, albeit delayed, in “Distances” (1993). Every piece is a perspective twister and a thought inducer built on solid storytelling from ancient and newer traditions, and the anthology will encourage readers to further investigate indigenous speculative works.
random shit in my tabs
- giganotosaurus • benjanun sriduangkaew “woman of the sun, woman of the moon”
- strange horizons • rochita loenen-ruiz “movements: identity and the indigenous spirit”
ovaries.
I need to reblog this again to point out just why I love this particular picture so. That thing he’s holding? Yeah that’s a roll of packing tape in a plastic holder. That’s a thoroughly mundane, inarguably ‘modern’ artifact. Let me tell you why that’s important.
Many of the most famous and ‘iconic’ vintage photos of NDNs are from the body of work of Edward Curtis. You probably recognize some of them:
Thing is, Edward Curtis was a fucking lying liar about NDN lives.
Curtis documented some aspects of the customs and lifestyles of American Indians of the trans-Mississippi West. The publication of Curtis’s work, highly romanticized and most craftily staged, exerted a major influence on the image of Indians in popular culture. Curtis is reported to have retouched some of the photographs in order to remove modern objects, adding to the popular illusion of Native Americans as a primitive people.
VS
Yeah, see how that second photo is deliberately sepia-toned and how the clock between the two individuals has been removed because it’s ‘too modern’? Fuck that shit.
That image up there is of a child in full tradition regalia…carrying a roll of tape. Because that child exists today in the modern world where tape is a thing. That regalia exists -today- and is not a ‘historical costume’. My love for that image is the same as my love for things like this traditional elk hide hand drum painted to look like Captain America’s shield by NDN Etsy Artist JBear:
Or this kid in Superman Powwow Regalia:
(Photo of Brandon B at the Red Paint Powwow by R. Lohr)
Because NDNs are modern, living people influenced by modern pop culture. It’s what makes things like traditionally-beaded sneakers so awesome:
(Beaded sneakers made by Elizabeth Doxtater, Mohawk)
We are here, living -today-. Sometimes we own clocks and carry tape and reference cheesy summer movies and wear sneakers. And when we do these things, they are NDN things.
moniquill is rocking my world? must be a day ending in y
Can't get enough NDN humour? The best of the #NativerThanYou hashtag is preserved here for eternity »
ETA: Maybe I should include a sampling of those tweets.
- @m_melody: @deejayndn @Ostwelve I gave Edward S. Curtis different clothes because he didn’t look white enough to be my entourage. #NativerThanYou
- @m_melody: Museums didn’t actually steal anything. I just made them put my extra sacred objects in storage. #NativerThanYou
- @thatndnguy: #NativerThanYou Vine Deloria stole my notes in college
- @deejayndn: I beat Atanarjuat the fast runner in a race. #NativerThanYou
- @deejayndn: Elders call the rocks they’re about use in a sweat, “Dee Jay NDNs”.
- @ErinKonsmo: I chose to decolonize my diet by sticking to blueberry & strawberry flavoured condoms. #NativerThanYou @NYSHN #NYSHN
- @atribecalledred: @Ostwelve @m_melody Tobacco is put down and a pray is said when the barber sweeps up my hair.
The Truth vs. Twilight: Quileute Website Explores Reality and Fiction
(via Indian Country Today Media Network)
Quileutes do not turn into wolves.
Quileute culture has no references to vampires or Cold Ones.
Quileute men are not shirtless and prone to violent resolution of disputes.
Quileute women are not passive and subservient (three of five members of the Tribal Council, including the chair, are women).
And you can find a lot of Native and non-Native people who are financial equals.
For all of its popularity, the Twilight book and film series promotes several misconceptions about Quileute culture, Native people and women. The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, in collaboration with the Quileute Nation, has launched a website, Truth versus Twilight, to counteract those misconceptions.
The site explores the class and race stereotypes, antiquated and unequal representations of gender roles, and misappropriation and alteration of cultural symbols in Stephenie Meyer’s teen paranormal romance series. The site also explores the historic misrepresentation of Native peoples in advertising, film and media.
The website is one of several efforts born out of an idea session between friends after the first Twilight film was released in 2008; the group included Barbara Brotherton, curator of Native American Art at the Seattle Art Museum; Dr. Deana Dartt-Newton, Chumash, curator of Native American Ethnology at the Burke Museum; Jackie Jacobs, Lumbee, a public relations consultant; filmmaker Tracy Rector, Seminole, of Longhouse Media; and photographer Matika Wilbur, Swinomish.
One result was the year-long exhibit, Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of the Quileute Wolves, hosted by the Seattle Art Museum from Aug. 14, 2010 to Aug. 14, 2011. The Truth versus Twilight website launched Nov. 9 after two years of development.
Quileute Chairwoman Bonita Cleveland, courtesy of the Quileute Nation
The opening scene of Breaking Dawn, Part 1, the fourth film in the series, underscores the disparities. It opens with an aerial view of Quileute fictional character Jacob Black’s home: in need of repair, free weights holding down a tarp covering a leaky roof. Black emerges from the home shirtless and smoldering over Bella’s upcoming wedding to his nemesis, Edward Cullen. Next scene: the affluent vampire Cullen family in their upscale home. Bella will get married here and be whisked off (by sports car, plane and boat) to a honeymoon on a private island. Not bad for an 18-year-old.
Dartt-Newton said reaction to “Truth vs. Twilight” shows the importance of the site and other cultural education efforts. In the Quileute community, the site is viewed as a scholarly work. But among Twilight fans, it’s viewed as “making a mountain out of a molehill,” she said. “They say Twilight is just a fantasy.”
But in the Quileute rainforest community of La Push, home of the fictional Black family, some Twilight fans don’t always separate fact from fiction. Noted fiber artist Eileen Penn said Twilight fans have knocked on her door, asking if they can come inside and see her home. Others have knocked on neighbors’ doors, asking where Jacob, the fictional character portrayed in the film by actor Taylor Lautner, lives.
Chris Morganroth III, a Quileute carver and storyteller, was on the Tribal Council when the first film was released. He remembers receiving letters from Twilight fans saying they planned to visit La Push because they wanted to meet the characters in the film.
Morganroth, who was a consultant on “Truth vs. Twilight,” is disturbed by the misconceptions in the Twilight series. But he said the Twilight spotlight has given the Quileute people a broader audience to tell their story to. Dartt-Newton, who consulted with Morganroth in developing the “Truth vs. Twilight” site, agrees. “It’s enabled us to educate people we wouldn’t otherwise have access to.”
Morganroth was raised by his grandmother, who spoke only the Quileute language and imbued in his memory nearly 50 stories that are important to the Quileute culture. He said the best tellers of an indigenous people’s story are the people themselves.
“All Native peoples have tried hard to have our stories correctly told, so people understand we are who we are,” said Morganroth, who had a role in the 1992 Discovery Channel environmental film Oceans of Air.
The real Quileute creation story doesn’t resemble anything from Twilight. According to Morganroth, the Creator sent K’wati, the Transformer. K’wati changed wolves to the ancestors of the Quileute people at First Beach in present day La Push, and taught them how to live in their environment as people. Other spirit beings — Dask’iya (kelp-haired monster) and T’ist’ilal (Thunderbird) — shaped the Quillayute River and the local land forms into its present-day appearance. Thunderbird saved the Quileute people from starvation during the last Ice Age by bringing them a whale.
The Quileute people went on to flourish in a territory that extends from the isle-strewn Pacific Coast to rainforest rivers to the glaciers of Mount Olympus. “Today, Quileutes need only lift their eyes to see the burial place of chiefs atop James Island, or A-Ka-Lat,” the Quileute Nation website states. “This sense of cultural continuity is their birthright and heritage.”
Morganroth said exposure to the real Quileute culture gives a richer experience to all who are interested. Quileute leaders agree. Asked for comment, the council issued this statement: “During our travels as a collective, individually and with our youth, it has been our experience that most people are ‘in awe and thrilled’ to meet a ‘real Quileute.’”
Former Quileute chairman Russell Woodruff said the Twilight era has boosted tourism and given the local economy a shot in the arm. His daughter started Jacob’s Java, a coffee stand named for Jacob Black.
But Woodruff said the Quileute culture presented in the book and film “doesn’t fit our culture. It’s a different version altogether.” While he’s an advocate of strengthening the tourism sector of the local economy, he said he “wouldn’t go across the street” for the film.
The qualities of Quileute — its rich culture, forest, mountains, ocean coast, wildlife refuges and namesake river – stand on their own.
“A lot of people tell me this is prettier than the Oregon coast,” he said.
Read more: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/12/03/the-truth-vs-twilight-quileute-website-explores-reality-and-fiction-65814#ixzz1fVnGM5cf
