Read First Peoples, pages 1-51.

1. What use are the Navajo emergence story (pages 41-46) and the Cherokee tale of "long years ago" (pages 48-51) in a present-day college history course? Should an instructor present these as true narratives of Indian history?

2. In each of these stories, identify one occurrence or detail that you find puzzling, incomprehensible, or alien. Try to articulate the reason for your reaction. If you could ask the storyteller to explain the meaning of the puzzling part, how would you word your question?

3. According to anthropologist Maureen Schwarz, Navajo origin stories express "a philosophy that serves as a charter and a guide to life." What are some philosophical principles reflected in the emergence story that Hastin Tlo'tsi Hee told? Identify some guidelines for living that a reader or listener could draw from the story. Base your answers on specific examples.

Come to section meeting with a short written answer to question 2.

I. First Peoples, pp. 52-62, 317-323:

1. According to the account of the Iroquois confederacy's establishment on pages 56-62, what personal qualities did the Iroquois expect their leaders to have? Look for clues throughout the text, not just in the portions that address this subject explicitly.

2. What kinds of events or experiences seem to have been important to the Kiowas who made the record known as the Dohasan Calendar, depicted on page 322? Are they the same kinds of things that non-Indian historians might have recorded during the same years?

3. After reading Calloway's explanation of the numbered pictographs on the Dohasan Calendar, make educated guesses as to what some of the unnumbered images represent.

II. "Oral Historian or Ethnologist?" by Loretta Fowler (in the course pack):

1. What differences would you expect to see between Arapahoe history as told by Bill Shakespeare and Arapahoe history as told by someone who is recognized by tribe members as their "official" historian?

2. If you were writing a history of the Northern Arapahoes, would you use Bill Shakespeare's narratives as a source of information? If not, why not? If so, how would you use them or what would you use them for?

3. In one or two sentences, state the most important lesson that this article can teach someone who wants to learn about history from Indians' perspectives.

ASSIGNMENTS:

1. Come to class on Tuesday, January 13, with written notes for an answer to question number 1 in part I above.

2. Bring to the section meeting on Friday a written answer to question number 3 in Part II above. (Handwritten is okay.)

READ Rangel's "Account of the Northern Conquest and Discovery of Hernando de Soto" in First Peoples (pp. 113-116) plus the excerpts from The First Relation of Jaques Carthier of S. Malo and The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca in your photocopied course pack.

1. When introducing Rangel's narrative, Calloway asks, "What purposes and biases are evident in this document?" (page 112) Check the definition of "bias" in a dictionary, then determine how you would answer Calloway's question not only for Rangel's account but also for each of the other two assigned readings.

Be prepared to address the following questions for each of the three readings.

2. These accounts were written long ago and not originally in English. Even in English translations, they contain language unfamiliar to most English-speaking Americans today. Make a note of passages that are hard to understand. In class, we can translate some of these passages into current everyday English.

3. In these accounts, are there descriptions of Native people that seem credible? Which passages appear to provide the most reliable information about Natives' culture? Which descriptions seem least reliable? Why? Make note of specific passages you will cite when called on to address this question.

4. Can we use these accounts as a basis for careful speculation about how the Native people perceived the Europeans? Which Spanish and French traits or behaviors might have seemed weird or objectionable to the Natives who saw them? In what ways, if any, might the Europeans have seemed admirable? Which parts of the texts do you draw on to answer these questions? Make note of specific passages you will cite when called on to address this question and be prepared to explain how you arrived at your inferences.

ASSIGNMENT for Thursday, January 29:

Bring to class a brief written answer either to question 1 or to question 5 above.

READ First Peoples, 218-275.

1. Analyze the bargaining strategies of Indian negotiators at the Treaty of Fort Finney, as revealed in Richard Butler's journal (pages 247-254). How many explanations can you suggest for the Indians' behavior at different points in the treaty conference?

2. From 2004 through 2006, there were numerous bicentennial commemorations of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Indians participated in many of those events and took the opportunity to say how they or their ancestors viewed the expedition. Having read the excerpt from the journals of Lewis and Clark (pages 260-267), how do you imagine the Mandan people would have depicted the explorers' stay with them in the winter of 1804-1805? How might Mandans have characterized their relations with the travelers?

3. When you read the excerpts from Supreme Court rulings in Cherokee Native v. State of Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia (pages 271-274), try to identify the most important sentence or paragraph in each opinion -- the passage where the Court announces the decision it has reached in the case and the main reason for its decision. Then restate that passage in the kind of everyday English you might use to explain the Court's ruling for high school students.

BRING THE FOLLOWING TO SECTION MEETING:

1. These questions;

2. The midterm review sheet and any questions you have about it;

3. The textbook and any questions you have about what you have read;

4. Your lecture notes and any questions you have about lectures so far;

5. Two or three written sentences stating what Worcester v. Georgia was and explaining its significance in Indians' history.

ASSIGNMENT: Bring to section on Friday a short written answer to question number 1 above. Pick one other question on this sheet that you want to discuss and come prepared to say how you would answer it.

I. Calloway, First Peoples, pp. 372-431:

The actual effects of U.S. government policies and programs for Indians have rarely matched the stated purposes of those policies and programs. Review the government policies and programs summarized in these pages of the textbook. Include the policies recommended by Merrill Gates in 1885, most of which the government later adopted. (See the document on pages 405-410). Then note the actual results of these policies, as Calloway describes them.

Find as much evidence as you can in the following documents that helps to explain discrepancies between the purposes and the results of the government policies covered in this week's readings and lectures.

1. Carlos Montezuma, "What Indians Must Do" (pp. 411-412);

2. Luther Standing Bear, "What a School Could Have Been Established" (pp 416-420);

3. Zitkala-Sa, "The Melancholy of Those Black Days" (pp. 420-425).

Assignment: Identify one thing that Luther Standing Bear and one thing that Zitkala-Sa particularly disliked about their experience in an Indian boarding school, and write your answer in a couple of sentences that you will bring to section.

II. Working on your second essay

Review the readings you will analyze for your second paper. Bring them to section along with the instructions for the essay.

Also, the instructor who grades your work will be glad to talk with you individually about the second paper and the documents you will analyze for that assignment. (Sasha grades the work of students in the 10:30 and 12:30 sections; Nathan does it for students in the 9:30 and 1:30 sections.) If you want the instructor to comment on a draft of your essay or a tentative thesis, you should submit it by noon Wednesday, February 18, but certainly no later than Thursday morning, February 19.

ASSIGNMENT:

On Friday, February 27, bring to section a concise written answer to question 3, above. Also come prepared to participate in an exercise based on question 5.

Wyaco, A Zuni Life, Preface through page 104:

 

1.       Explain the following statement by Wyaco, which appears on page 44: "I went back to being an Indian."

 

2.       Compare Virgil Wyaco's views on the U.S.-approved tribal government at Zuni with the opinion of Burnette and Koster (First Peoples, p. 479) regarding tribal governments established under the Indian Reorganization Act.

 

3.       Among other things, Wyaco's story shows how U.S. government Indian policy played out at a local level.  What can it teach us about that subject?

 

4.       How appropriate is the title of this book?  That is, how appropriate does it seem to characterize Virgil Wyaco's life as a Zuni life?  If you do think it's appropriate, explain why.  If you doubt that Wyaco had a representative Zuni life, do you see value in reading his autobiography for a course in American Indians' history?  Explain your answer.

 

Watt, Excerpts from Don't Let the Sun Step over You, in the coursepack:

 

5.       Compare or contrast Eva Tulene Watt's memories of her school experience with Virgil Wyaco's account of his school experiences.  Compare the accounts by Watt and Wyaco with the reminiscences by Luther Standing Bear and Zitkala-Sa in First Peoples.  Suggest some possible reasons for any differences you see.

 

6.       Compare or contrast the wage work experiences of Eva Tulene Watt and her family with Virgil Wyaco's experiences.

 

7.       The syllabus for this course says that American Indians have both a common history and

many different histories.  How could we use Wyaco's memoir and Eva Watt's reminiscences to explain and illustrate this point?

 

Assignments:

 

1.       Come to section on Friday, March 6, with notes you can use to answer questions 1, 3, and 7 orally.

 

2.       No later than Wednesday, March 11, at 4:00 p.m., log on to our Go-Post discussion board and contribute an entry identifying something you learned in this course that is surprising, thought-provoking, or interesting.  Your entry should also explain WHY you have that reaction. 

 

IMPORTANT INSTRUCTION:  Except for the person who posts the very first entry, everyone should read the entries already on the board and then click on “reply” so that all the entries will appear together under one heading.