The Warrior's Ways

In The Warriors by Anna Lee Walters, the existense of survivance overpowering. The sisters' Uncle, Uncle Ralph, is the personification of survivance in a character. His constant lessons promoting their traditional Indian ways amongst his nieces is his way of fighting for his culture to carry on in the world that he sees overtaking his traditional lifestyle. Similarly Uncle Ralph's bizarre behavior could be a result of the troubles he has had to encounter. For example his consistancy of always being on the run and always bringing a meal to those that he visits upholds the Indian traditions. Potentiallly the constant traveling could be the Uncle attempting to carry on his tribes tradition of migrating and being on the move and maybe his alcoholism isa result of the suppression and struggles he went through watching his traditional Indian ways disappear into the modern "white mans" culture. What this reading made me wonder is what time era was this story written, are we talking modern times or still back in the beginning of much of the Indian assimilation

What Part Moon?

What Part Moon? by Inez Petersen elicits the struggles of living as a person of mixed heritage. Petersen writes of the confrontations and awkwardness of not knowing how to respond to the constant question of "What part Indian are you?" Nowadays, with the high propensity of mixed cultures within our society, people have become obsessed with percentages and numbers to identify their culture. Agreeing with Inez's argument, it is not a number or percentage that makes one a part of a culture, but their devotion and love for it and their lifestyle. If someone is full Native American but chooses to not embrace themselves in their culture and someone is a percentage say only half Native American but lives a more culturally Native American lifestyle, then the person with a mixed heritage should be determined "more Indian." As Petersen states, you heritage lies within whats in your heart. But should this mean that someone who has no percentage of a heritage within them can choose to associate with any culture they wish?

Mary Brave Bird

In We Aim NOT to Please by Mary Brave Bird her survivance writing takes a rather disconnected tone. While reading her piece there were actually points where I was taken aback and thinking that it was actually written by the white man. By using language such as "the people," it sort of portrays the illusion that Brave Bird doesn't associate herself as one of the Native Americans, or at one point I began to question if she was a whiteman living in the Indian community to study them or something. I thought it was kind of ironic for her to write from such a distance from her culture; she was in a sort dissociating herself from a culture that she was emphasizing in such a positive light. By taking this approach to her story I think Brave Bird was not trying to dissociate from her heritage, but rather she was trying to give them better recognization. By writing in a disassociated tone, it could bring her story better recognition because rather than and Indian writing positively about her own culture, it would grab readers as a outsider and "more accredible" white man writing about the Indians with a positive connotation. In the end by saying that she is proud and Native American, could be intended to throw a twist at the reader, maybe proving to them that Native American's are more similar to whites than they are credited to be and that the are capable of all the same intelligence and skills. Did anyone notice the same trend?