ipl-logo

Arguing With Tradition Sparknotes

777 Words4 Pages

“Arguing with Tradition: The language of the Law in Hopi Tribal Court” by Justin B. Richard is an investigative work that explores the dynamics of a contemporary Native American court system to understand the interaction of language and communication and how they affect Anglo-American jurisprudence. The book aims to record the influence of the Hopi traditions and customs on its legal and lawful proceedings eventually shaping the form of its entire constitutional and judicial system. The Hopi people strongly believe in the continuation and preservation of their cultural heritage as having an effect on the success of their future endeavors, owing to which they have made a conscious effort into molding the Anglo-American legal practices to conform …show more content…

Through clever use of narration and with continuous references to socio-legal and linguistic anthropological theories and methodologies, he is able to generate curiosity in the reader by giving them a chance to witness the emergence of tribal law in the Hopi courts and their struggle for sovereignty. In the 1940’s the Bureau of Indian Affairs had created and propagated the legal system in Hopi in the image of Anglo-American style law much like the systems implemented in other courts of the Indian nations across the United States. However, Richard demonstrates that due to a lack of relevance to the Hopi culture, recently the tribe’s jurists and litigants have expressed a need for a court that resonates more with their cultural and traditional outlook and thus is able to interpret and resolve conflicts in a way that reflects the tribe’s own notion of justice and equality. However, the phenomenon observed by Richard was the fact that with over thirty years of the Anglo-American legal system operating in Hopi it had also in turn shaped and influenced some of the structures and rules of criminal and civil proceedings of the Hopi courts to the extent that even though they would stay true to their own cultural heritage but …show more content…

The authenticity of these age-old values and customs is also questioned by a few. He then further elaborates on the lack of research that exists to accompany these claims and how his book aims to shed some light upon the said issues to offer an insight into the place of the Hopi customs and traditions as perceived by the Hopi jurists, litigants, lawyers, judges and other personnel involved in Hopi’s conflict resolution

Show More
Related
1122 Words | 5 Pages

“Rifles, Blankets, and Beads” delivers an entertaining perspective on the Northern Athapaskan village of Tanacross. This book is an outstanding resource to anthropologists, students, and educators. In reviewing this book, the author brings a descriptive writing style when analyzing the Northern Athapaskan village of Tanacross culture and history with a focus on the potlatch giving us insight details how the potlatch is seen and celebrated among the Tanacross people. The author, William E. Simeone, is a great source on the Northern Athapaskan village of Tanacross because he lived there among the people. In addition to living there he also attended ceremonies in both Tanacross and surrounding villages, and participated in potlatches within

Read More
586 Words | 3 Pages

In chapter 5 of Lomawaima & McCarty (2006), the Hopification is used to describe the success of the Hopi people in co-opting cultural norms into their society while maintaining their unique identity as a tribal and ethnic group and they were not the only ethnic Native American group to use parts of American national norms to help continue the existence of their ethnic identities (Processes of Hopification, Para 1). In chapter 1 of Lomawaima & McCarty (2006), the issues of local public school control was an American idea that was not extended to all Americans, the government along with the support of the colonizers decided to raise up the race of the Native Americans so they could one day join the ranks of civilized society, however; it is unclear the timeline in which the Native Americans would be deemed civilized because their cultural norms had been so different than those of the European colonizers that they were seen as savages who needed saving even though they had managed their tribes long before the colonizers came to the Americas (Schools as “Civilizing” and Homogenizing Institutions,

Read More
1232 Words | 5 Pages

“Rifles, Blankets, and Beads” delivers an entertaining perspective on the Northern Athapaskan village of Tanacross. This book is an outstanding resource for anthropologists, students, and educators. In reviewing this book, the author brings a descriptive writing style when analyzing the Northern Athapaskan village of Tanacross culture and history with a focus on the potlatch giving us insight details how the potlatch celebrated among the Tanacross people. The author, William E. Simeone, is a great source for the Northern Athapaskan village of Tanacross because he lived there among the people. In addition to living there he also attended ceremonies in both Tanacross and surrounding villages, and participated in potlatches within the villages.

Read More
1718 Words | 7 Pages

("INDIAN LAW Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian

Read More
205 Words | 1 Pages

of schedule Spanish conquistadors, numerous evangelists considered themselves to be siding empathetically and defensively with the indigenous people groups. In 1537, Pope Paul III pronounced that Indians were not mammoths to be slaughtered or oppressed, but rather people with souls fit for salvation. At the time, this was comprehended to be an edified perspective of indigenous individuals, and one that good natured teachers tried to empower. Letters from ministers who lived among the Indians give us a feeling of the worries numerous held for the welfare of tribal people groups. A letter by Franciscan monk Juan de Escalona reprimands the "shocks against the Indians" conferred by a Spanish legislative head of what is presently New Mexico.

Read More
380 Words | 2 Pages

Hi Solomon, In reading your post and the readings for this lesson, I share with you the frustration in realizing the obstacles that Native Americans have been, and still are, facing regarding the court cases. To understand something is so sacred to them, yet the courts don’t even make the effort to hear them out, is quite heartbreaking. Interesting note about the 2009 example you mentioned where the Supreme Court didn’t even hear the case proposed by the Navajo nation. It’s less than 10 years ago, and yet it seems something that could be from a long long time ago since we’ve evolved as a government society.

Read More
341 Words | 2 Pages

Whitely, Peter, 2002, Ties that Bind: Hopi Gift Culture and its First Encounter with the United States The Hopi people had a unique culture of their own. They tried to fight against the Hispanics who tried to take their land and also tried to make peace with president. I am going to talk about who the Hopi are and where they live, the gender roles between men and women, and the Hopi’s idea of gifts.

Read More
1123 Words | 5 Pages

X-Marks Native Signatures of Assent written by Scott Richards Lyons explores the history of the American Indians in the United States. Further, Lyons goes into depth about boarding schools, assimilation, treaties, broken promises, and tragic events that caused harm to millions of American Indians. In this paper, I will discuss how the White Europeans came to the United States and basically assimilated the tribes that were located here before the “discovery” of the Americas. Next, I will define the terms treaty and x-marks. Lastly, I will explain how unjust everything is, in particular when we talk about the rights, and properties that tribes had before the Europeans came to contact them.

Read More
1262 Words | 6 Pages

Losing 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

Read More
1257 Words | 6 Pages

If State and federal laws won’t protect Native reservations form non-tribal personnel committing crimes on tribal land, then Native reservations should be able to have sovereignty over their own jurisdiction. Asserting jurisdiction over non-Natives gives back a sense of sovereignty and the importance of authority over outsiders that current laws sweep under the rug. Claudia Card writes, “ [i]t breaks the spirit, humiliates, tame, produces a docile, deferential, obedient soul. Rape impacts individual women physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and creates numerous problems in the lives of the victims.” A traumatic event such as this needs justice to be served for these Native women to be able to move on with there lives knowing that they got justice for the wrong doing that was done upon them.

Read More
1086 Words | 5 Pages

Secondary Source Analysis In order to create his ideal Native American standing within the American Government, which includes the non-indigenous portion of the world acknowledging and understanding Native American issues with the United States and Internationally, Walter R. Echo-Hawk, in his A Context for Understanding Native American Issues, delves into the United State’s past Indian affairs as well as his goals for achieving this ideal. It is important to consider the author’s attitude towards the topic, his desired audience and the devices he used when analyzing the strength of his arguments. Echo-Hawk brings up the point, during the beginning of chapter two, that the general public is unaware of much of the happenings between the United

Read More
1352 Words | 6 Pages

The Lakota Sioux, facing pressure to conform to “civilized” norms, adopted a new belief consisting of a central creed, code, and cultus. This

Read More
743 Words | 3 Pages

Summary The book "This war is for a whole life" talks about the existence of conflicts between the American - Indian freedom. It shows that the conflict resulted from the cold war that existed between two races that had differing interest on the tenable basis. What brought them to unite was a fact that they all decided together and even fight for the equality of all people. In addition to this, their risks and the dangers of carrying out the civilization of the Indians were still in suspense.

Read More
672 Words | 3 Pages

Within the United States there exists a separate, but not all together separate, justice system for Native Americans. In Tribal Courts the general rule is that states have no jurisdiction over the activities of Indians and tribes in Indian country. As the book states, “Native American tribes are recognized as semi-sovereign nations with broad (although, not complete) powers of self-government within the boarders of the United States. There are more than 500 federally recognized Native American tribes and about 330 federally recognized reservations, and approximately 200 have separate law enforcement agencies” (p. 140-141).

Read More
728 Words | 3 Pages

Although Native Americans are characterized as both civilized and uncivilized in module one readings, their lifestyles and culture are observed to be civilized more often than not. The separate and distinct duties of men and women (Sigard, 1632) reveal a society that has defined roles and expectations based on gender. There are customs related to courtship (Le Clercq, 1691) that are similar to European cultures. Marriage was a recognized union amongst Native Americans, although not necessarily viewed as a serious, lifelong commitment like the Europeans (Heckewelder, 1819). Related to gender roles in Native American culture, Sigard writes of the Huron people that “Just as the men have their special occupation and understand wherein a man’s duty consists, so also the women and girls keep their place and perform quietly their little tasks and functions of service”.

Read More

More about Arguing With Tradition Sparknotes

Related Topics

Open Document