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| omnipoetics:gunn_allen [2025/02/27 00:37] – [On the Purposes of 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). | 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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| * People misunderstand the mystical or metaphysical as literal when analyzing tribal literature. | * 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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