Week Six

I think this is my shortest blog yet. This week we took a look at Native American culture. Blogging this week is especially difficult for me because this is a cultural area that I have not been exposed to a lot and am still not familiar with. In fact, our guest speaker helped raise my awareness of just how recently Native Americans have been persecuted.

Loren Yellowbird, a park ranger from Fort Buford, graciously donated his time to our class Tuesday night to impart historical and current cultural knowledge to us, but also to relate moving personal experiences with us. His words were not wasted on us! Accurate historical and traditional cultural information is difficult to find because the culture was basically beaten out of them in American history. And now that they are finally allowed cultural and religious freedom, it has become incredibly difficult to preserve and pass on their heritage. Younger generations seem to have become "Americanized". And what are Americans good at? Following whatever culture is mainstream. Another problem I could see is that there aren't enough teachers of the heritage; not enough people encouraging the practices.

I also appreciated Loren's openness about his personal experiences. He first shared with us about the animosity between his tribe and another due to the Arikara involvement with General Custer. Although this wasn't really a surprising occurrence, it was something I hadn't ever considered before. Also, he was open about his experiences growing up and learning to hate the "white man". But after harboring that hate he was able to let go of it eventually.

We were also assigned to read some articles and visit some websites. It's difficult for me to form perspectives about these articles and websites because the only information I had about the situations were from these sources themselves.

Native American culture is fascinating to me, but it is so difficult for me to formulate opinions and perspectives because the information is so different from every source. It is a culture that I want to support and a heritage I want preserved, and I want to learn more about the many cultures that make up Native American heritage throughout the rest of my life.