Ghost Dancing/Wounded Knee

One religious movement incorporated by the Native Americans belief system is the Ghost Dance. Along time ago the practice swept the Western US in areas like California and Oklahoma. The prophet Jake Wilson was the influencer behind the Ghost Dance. The daqnce quickly spread to various American Indian nations and even started to take on different meanings. It was originally believed that if you performed the ceremonial dance, you could visit relatives who had left their bodies. It was healing for people who had lost friends or relatives. Later, people started to believe it could also protect in battle or ward off fears and suspicions. This ritual dance unified the Indian people even if two tribes were conflicting at the time. Unlike most other Native American dances, drums or instruments don't accompany the Ghost Dance. The rhythm of the chanting is all that guides the dancers' steps. Each song begins slowly and then rises in volume and speed each time it is sung. By the time the song is repeated for the fourth time, it is loud and fast. Throughout the dance most people would fall into trances and would claim to see their dead relatives.

http://www.native-americans-online.com/native-american-ghost-dance.html

http://www.google.com/imgres?

Perhaps the government was frightened of the dance's spiritual power. They reacted to this outburst of Indian behavior by gunning down ceremonial dancers at wounded knee during a peaceful ceremony. Women and children were shot in the back trying to escape. Approxiamtely 125 people at the beginning of the dance, and twice that number at the end. This day would go down in history as the Wounded Knee Massacre.

lastoftheindependents.com-Chief Big Foot

legendsofamerica.com

Works Cited
http://www.google.com/imgres?
http://www.native-americans-online.com/native-american-ghost-dance.html
lastoftheindependents.com
legendsofamerica.com

Culture and Society

The short story "The Bride" by Hallie Crawford Stillwell reminds me alot of how different cultures can be and how it takes time to adapt to a new one. What is the difference between culture and society? Culture is a peoples way of life that is passed on from generation to generation. It consists of physical objects as well as patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Although cultural and society are tightly interwoven and cannot exist without each other, they are not identical. A society is a group of people living in a defined territory and participating in a common culture. Culture is that society's total way of life. Culture underlines human social behavior. What people do and don't do, what they like and dislike, what they believe and don't believe, and what they value and discount are all based, in large part, on culture. In the story, Roy was use to living on the ranch and the with his cowboy friends while Hallie had to adapt to sleeping in a bedroll and being a school teacher which forced her to have to change her way of thinking and what she was use to when she was rasied. So then can we truely say culture provides the blueprints people in a society use to guide their relationships with others. If so, human social behavior, then, is based on culture.


Cultural Identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. To be with Roy, Hallie had to change her way of living and what she was use to, and because culture is not innate, human behavior must be learned. Despite how Hallie's father felt, she knew it might not be an easy adjustment, being the wife of a cowboy and being a school teacher by the Mexican border, but she was willing to take that chance. If you wanted to describe and analyze a culture, what would you look for? How could you begin to classify the components of a people's way of life?

  blog.thoughtpick.com

Cultural identity can be expressed through external attributes.

Why I Am a Danger to the Public

I immediately became very familiar with Vicki and her small town, my mom once lived in a town like Bolton, where everybody knew somebody. And living in a town like this one you always had eyes watching you. Half way into the story, I became a little worried about what might happen to Vicki. I had heard of companies like Ellington, where having a union didn't stop them from doing what they wanted to do. It seems as though Vicki lived in a town that was considered to be back in the day, a town where only a certain kind were welcome, not her kind. For Vicki that day had come and gone, she didn't care what people thought of her, and what she had to do to get her point across. And because of that Vicki was the spokesperson during the strike at Ellington. Vicki was all mouth, 5'2 and all. Although I wondered in the end if Vicki really felt it was worth it, she had been set up from the start. By people who really didn't care for her, the scabs is what she referred to them as, but if only she had known it would go this far, maybe she would have kept a low profile. Somehow I doubt it though, Vicki stated she was no chickenshit, nor was her grandpa. I admire her because like Vicki, I too wouldn't have gone to work at a place like the "Frosty King", having to wear short skirts, not when you stay in a town where everybody knows you. Why give them another reason to starts rumors about you. I could her them now, "I know she ain't working up at that place wearing them short skirts, knowing she got them kids to support". I couldn't believe Vicki had gotten played by Vonda Fangham, Tommy's girl, also known as the "Wives of Scabs", well soon to be wife. Somehow I think Vickie should have known better, she knew better to believe that Vonda would show up at the picket, without having some kind of agenda or another. I like how the author ended the story, when we found out that Tommy hadn't been in any accident, but was sitting pretty in the Howard Johnson in one piece. I like that Vicki said she too, was in one piece, meaning a one piece jail jumpsuit.

The Pocahontas Myth

The name Pocahontas means "the naughty one" or "spoiled child". The name also sounds familiar to most people because of the Disney movie. However, Pocahontas' real name was Matoaka. The legend of the Pocahontas Myth is that she saved John Smith from getting killed by her father in 1607. She would have been around 10 or 11 at the time. When the Disney movie Pocahontas came out, Pocahontas looked much older then 10 or 11. Roy Disney thought the movie was pretty accurate and respectful, but the Powhatan Nation really disagreed stating, "The film distorts history beyond recognition. Our offers to assist Disney with cultural and historical accuracy were rejected." (Chief Roy Crazy Horse) Pocahontas has been badly falsisfied by the entertainment world. In the actual Pocahontas myth, John Smith was treated well by the Powhatan people. Some people are still trying to figure out why Smith's fibbing was so important that it became a national myth. Popular enough that even Disney improves it. If anyone knows the actual Pocahontas story, then they would know it was a sad story. She was taken prisoner at around the age 17 and while imprisoned attracted a man named John Rolfe. The only way she could be released was to agree to marry him. (Keep in mind how young she is) Years later after being married and having a son, she runs into John Smith and didn't really like him. About a year later she died at the age of 21 and was buried at Gravesend. It wasn't until after she died that John Smith made up the story of her rescuing him. There are many myths about Pocahontas and what they all have in common is her saving John Smith from something or someone and in some way. So maybe the stories about her life and legend are true. Or maybe John Smith was just a liar. He had already claimed two other times before that he had been rescued by a woman. Pocahontas was the third woman who he had claimed to "rescue him".

This is Pocahontas and her son Thomas.

Pocahontas in London at the age of 20. She died shortly after this picture was taken.

Pocahontas and John Smith as depicted in the Disney film.

Captian John Smith