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Indian And The Round House

579 Words3 Pages

The Round House by Louise Erdrich and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie both examine the relationship between Indians on a reservation and their non-Indian neighbors. Throughout these novels, Indian and non-Indian relationships are punctuated with systems of white supremacy, which manifest both in non-Indians’ ideological belief in their supremacy, and in the material disparity between Indian and non-Indian communities. In The Round House, white superiority is primarily expressed in ideological measure, while The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian focuses largely on the material sphere, but the themes are not mutually exclusive.
The Round House focuses primarily on the convoluted relationship between Indians and non-Indian neighbors. The plot is centered around the rape of Geraldine, Joe’s mother. Joe is a young Indian who decides it is his job to find and punish his mother’s rapist. This decision takes him on a …show more content…

A pivotal part of the novel is when the Catholic Church Group comes to the reservation in order to Christianize the Indians. This action carries deep currents of white supremacy. Throughout history, especially in American Indian history, White Europeans have made an effort to christianize and civilize what they view as an inferior race or group. The earliest efforts of Spain to colonize the Americas included converting Indigenous populations to Catholicism. Likewise, contemporary Christian churches take mission trips to impoverished, developing areas in order to help the citizens and the community. While the church group never blatantly classifies the camp as a conversion effort, the implications of such activity are present. When the Catholic students come to the reservation for their camp, they imagine the Indians as an inferior group who need their assistance in order to obtain a better

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583 Words | 3 Pages

His path was to convert as many Native Americans as he could to Catholicism. However over his years at the reservation, he realized that he and the other religious figures “were wrong” (Erdrich 239). He was told by multiple Native Americans, like Kasphaw, that their “world is already whipped apart by the white man” (Erdrich 63). Comments like that made Father Damien reflect on observations of the damaging effects of conversion and the white man. The act of conversion resulted in the loss of tradition and identity for the Native Americans.

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948 Words | 4 Pages

The period of missionization was known to the Spaniards as a time to mold the Indigenous people into the spitting image of what they wanted; cultivating the Indigenous people into civilized, Christian practicing beings. However, through the eyes of the Indigenous people this period was considered to be the end of the world – an end to the world they came to know so well. Settler colonialism introduced a cruel and brutal world upon the Indigenous people, especially for Indigenous women who were targeted by the priests to fulfill their needs of lust, during the period of missionization. In the book, Bad Indians, author Deborah Miranda finds a captivating way of presenting the brave story of Vicenta Gutierrez, who fell victim to the priest on the mission and spoke up about her traumatic event, through the literary genre of a letter. Using the letter as her literary device, Miranda vividly illustrates the sexual violence brought upon Indian women and how the priests used rape to establish power on the missions had a dehumanizing effect on these women.

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1804 Words | 8 Pages

For centuries prior to modern day civilization, men and women had stuck together in a tribe-like fashion to ward off any and all adversities that would threaten their community. In his book, Tribe, Sebastian Junger used some of these century old examples to explain man’s seemingly subconscious desire to be in a tribe-like society, the benefits of joining a tribal community, and why those who were in a tribe seemed to not want to leave. In order to demonstrate this idea clearly and directly, Junger began his book by concentrating on Native American tribes during the colonial period. He focused on men leaving white society to join a tribe and how those men were reluctant to reintegrate back into white society after spending time with the Natives, and how Europeans were getting married to Native Americans. Overall, he seemed to have no strong bias in his portrayal of the Native Americans, but it was clear he wanted to begin his book discussing Native Americans as they related directly to his concept of men being drawn to tribal life.

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949 Words | 4 Pages

Sadly, Eileen Kane discovers the man who once drew thousands was now becoming more of a historic versus religious leader, a myth as opposed to a prophet. While at one time the role of his reformative religion united the Native Americans and provided hope for those used to prejudice and being treated as inferior by the whites (Kane, p. 210), his practices had mostly died out. However, the memoir still highlights the importance of his religious movement in shaping the current religious and cultural path of the Paiute

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471 Words | 2 Pages

The author moves the history onto another trajectory by investigating the connection between native identity and politics to protect their way of life. Dowd states that tribal religion interconnected with “Indian politics.” Investigating the Pan-Indian movement, Dowd offers historians with a new inquiry, which questions the importance that native religion had in forming an identity in resistance. Examining memoirs and journals, Dowd argues that the visions of the prophets “received revelations” that promoted the nativists’ resistance against Europeans. Dowd reexamines Brown’s argument by focusing on how accommodationists merged native and European traditions together.

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1007 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.

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1480 Words | 6 Pages

I will also use the term “New World” to reference the places that the Spaniards travelled to. Though in a similar setting with the same religion, each text maintains a different view on the matters of Spanish conquests, which makes for an interesting discussion when comparing similarities all three. Despite a difference of opinion of how to convert, these three texts A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, The Letter of Columbus to Luis de Sant Angel Announcing His Discovery, and Democrates Alter, Or, on the Just Causes for War Against the Indians similarly posit justification for violent acts and conversion of the indigenous peoples based on religious beliefs. To defend my argument, I will first explain the similar aspects between the three texts regarding the acknowledgement of the cruel actions against the natives to gain more knowledge of the land and its people. I will then discuss the similar opinion of each author that argues a Christian duty to convert the natives after having gained information about the New World.

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274 Words | 2 Pages

Religious stability within the development of individuals was warped during the forced assimilation due to the cult-like idea of Christianity being the superior religion throughout the assimilation era. Michael C. Coleman, author of Indian Children at School, speculates that the propaganda of the Christian religion to force and assimilate the natives into the white man’s religion was the first program to civilize Indian schoolchildren. (American Indian Children at School) As a matter of fact, before being forced into American schools, the first phase of assimilation was the act of immersing the Indians into Christianity. In addition to this, Michael C. Coleman also proposes the idea that Christianity could be labeled as a cult during 1790-1920

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869 Words | 4 Pages

“At the schools the students were stripped of their culture as if it were clothing.” This statement from a paper written by Sarah E Stone explains the poor treatment of the Indians in the boarding schools. This paper also perfectly states not only the treatment of the Indian children but, also the great lengths taken to change them. It seems like such a simple task for the enforcers yet an awful act in general. American Indian children and the wolf girls at St. Lucy’s were forced to assimilate into the civilized culture of the white man through many approaches and techniques that in the end ultimately reached the goal of the enforcers, which ended with benefits to society but not to the Indian children or the girls.

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926 Words | 4 Pages

Native Challenges within Motorcycles and Sweetgrass Native people are often ghettoized and segregated in modern society. Native people are looked at in many different ways and because of this they have been faced with a lot of different challenges. These challenges still affect native people in this day and age, also not only do they affect native people in the present but they affected them in the past too, and it was more apparent then, and because of the past challenges it affected the present conditions and status of native people today. There are many challenges that affect native people in this day and age that also relates to this novel. Firstly native people are begging to lose their belief in their culture.

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593 Words | 3 Pages

He explains that the Indians are self sufficient, they are also human with morals. They might've not lived the Catholic way, but were humane. They had religious practices as well. They have order in their of living like many other cultures. To others they

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1265 Words | 6 Pages

The Spanish wanted to convert the Pueblo Indians to Christianity same thing as the English. The Spanish reached out to the compact native towns. Both sides would continuously fight ending in a reluctant submission of the Pueblo Indians. They Spanish had demanded labor and food from the Native. This all happened in the Southwest.

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827 Words | 4 Pages

The speech that was read by Chief Red Jacket to defend the religious beliefs of his people is a powerful piece of literature that is underrated. The speech describes the feelings that were caused by the religious intolerance from the Americans. Currently, the United States have started to appreciate the impacts of the Native Americans and other minorities in history. However, a piece of history that has been quite hidden is the religious intolerance of Native Americans. Chief Red Jacket utilizes repetition, pathos, and rhetorical questions to convince the Americans to tolerate the religion of the Native Americans.

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903 Words | 4 Pages

He doesn’t know who he is or where he belongs which causes Joe to be wandering around most his life. He has a rough time with relationships with people because society isolates him because of his violent ways. His relationship with Miss Burden seems like he would change, but he only ends up disappointing her and causes her to destroy herself. Joe Christmas also has a violented when he dies, and nothing is resolved in his life. Joe represents the old South and how if it doesn’t change it will die.

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1814 Words | 8 Pages

Throughout the stories told in both Mohawk Saint and The Unredeemed Captive, the unintended consequences of converting the American Indians to Christianity and trying to bring a Protestant back from American Indian Catholicism were powerful players in the unfolding events. In both of these stories, the unintended consequences of the encounters between the Christian religious and American Indian converts inspired the redefinition of the previously held definitions of who could be saintly and open to salvation. In the case of Mohawk Saint, this occurred when the Jesuits priests eventually began to tell the story of a possible saint, Catherine, although she was a Mohawk woman. In The Unredeemed Captive, the Williams family had to deal with the unintended consequences of their attempts to bring Eunice

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