Native American cultures have always devoted a great deal of attention to the memory of the ancestors and the importance such memory assumes in perpetuating a specific tribal identity across different generations. This may seem to be quite an obvious statement, given the frequency with which such phrases or notions as ‘respect for the ancestors,’ ‘ancestral wisdom,’ ‘ancestral worship,’ ‘legacy of the ancestors,’ and so on have come up in serious and less serious accounts of American Indian cultural traditions. This notion, however, has also become easy prey to oversimplifications and misappropriations on the part of non-Indian subjects, especially with respect to the complex mechanisms of knowledge production oriented toward a Western audience fascinated with ‘remote’ or ‘exotic’ cultures.
"To Put the Sun Back in the Sky": Nurturing Kinship Ties and Recovering the Ancestors in D'Arcy McNickle's Wind From an Enemy Sky
Bosco, Stefano
2014-01-01
Abstract
Native American cultures have always devoted a great deal of attention to the memory of the ancestors and the importance such memory assumes in perpetuating a specific tribal identity across different generations. This may seem to be quite an obvious statement, given the frequency with which such phrases or notions as ‘respect for the ancestors,’ ‘ancestral wisdom,’ ‘ancestral worship,’ ‘legacy of the ancestors,’ and so on have come up in serious and less serious accounts of American Indian cultural traditions. This notion, however, has also become easy prey to oversimplifications and misappropriations on the part of non-Indian subjects, especially with respect to the complex mechanisms of knowledge production oriented toward a Western audience fascinated with ‘remote’ or ‘exotic’ cultures.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.