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| omnipoetics:gunn_allen [2025/02/27 00:25] – [The Sacred Hoop: A Contemporary Indian Perspective on American Indian Literature] blaine | omnipoetics:gunn_allen [2025/02/27 00:49] (current) – [On Linguistics] blaine |
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| | Another thing to note is the emphasis on repetition in indigenous literature. Scholars say there are two primary reasons for this: the form of oral literature and the emphasis on memorization and performance, and the importance of repetition in ceremonies and the "psychic" effects on it, a more spiritual relationship (179-182). |
| ==== On the Purposes of Literature ==== | ==== On the Purposes of Literature ==== |
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| "The two forms basic to Native American literature are the Ceremony and the Myth. The Ceremony is the ritual enactment of a specialized perception of cosmic relationships, while the Myth is a prose record of that relationship" (Gunn Allen 177). The ceremony is the action, and the myth is the record of that relationship that ceremonies recognize. These ceremonies are interconnected, which leads to difficulty in classification among non-indigenous collectors / scholars. This tendency to separate literature is a European phenomena that comes from our linguistic separation. It is only when this understanding is confronted and when this is bypassed that indigenous literature can be properly understood (Gunn Allen 178-9). | "The two forms basic to Native American literature are the Ceremony and the Myth. The Ceremony is the ritual enactment of a specialized perception of cosmic relationships, while the Myth is a prose record of that relationship" (Gunn Allen 177). The ceremony is the action, and the myth is the record of that relationship that ceremonies recognize. These ceremonies are interconnected, which leads to difficulty in classification among non-indigenous collectors / scholars. This tendency to separate literature is a European phenomena that comes from our linguistic separation. It is only when this understanding is confronted and when this is bypassed that indigenous literature can be properly understood (Gunn Allen 178-9). |
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| | ==== The Effects of European Misunderstanding ==== |
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| | Some effects of Europeans misunderstanding the difference of metaphysics and believing it to be underdevelopment or stupidity are that: |
| | * People are afraid to touch tribal literature. |
| | * People believe tribal literature are inherently "mystical and psychic in nature" (182-3). |
| | * People believe that the tribal metaphysical system is one only believed by intellectuals and creatives, when it is actually a popular understanding of reality. |
| | * People misunderstand the mystical or metaphysical as literal when analyzing tribal literature. |
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| | The metaphysical difference leads to misunderstandings in the metaphysical qualities of objects in indigenous groups. |
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| | The example listed on page 186 is the "unimaginable amount of force into all things... one of its chief symbols ['of the four quarters of the earth'], Umane" (Gunn Allen 186). It is said that "In the old days men used to have an Umane altar made of raised earth in their tipis on certain special occasions. It was so //wakan// you couldn't touch it or even hold your hand over it" (186, emphasis original). One in the west would observe this as a symbolic or physical untouchableness, in that it may have been taboo to touch it or it was placed too high up to physically reach, but that's not the case at all. "He is saying that one //couldn't// touch it. The Umane doesn't represent the power, it is the power" (186, emphasis original). It is a metaphysical power and a metaphysical quality that cannot be touched, despite being metaphysically present in that altar of Umane. The altar made of raised earth isn't just a shrine to Umane, it is Umane himself, made manifest. This is slightly similar to the Christian idea (though not widely followed and only developing in the 1950s during the US and NATO's side of the Cold War) that God could see you through pictures of him or Jesus and was always watching. As if god himself was there, with the picture as a conduit for god's metaphysical presence, the altar is also literally Umane there, in metaphysical presence. |
| ====== Works Cited ====== | ====== Works Cited ====== |
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