Smells wrote an interesting post about heritage and the loss of it above - it's interesting pondering what happened to the indigenous people of North America and living in Hawaii. Here many of the remaining aspects of a powerful spiritual culture is mass-produced and sold to Japanese and American tourists. In some ways it's one of the few ways that a displaced culture can rebuild it's cache in the modern era: charge for it.
Of course the misguided europeans don't understant the religious/spiritual aspect of Dream Catchers. Nor do they understand the language of Hula. Nor do they comprehend the thousands of years of history in the heiaus and giraffeponds of Hawaii and the rest of the Pacific. Hips and hand gestures and piles of stone to most people. That's sad in and of itself.
If a culture can preserve it's ways, educate it's young in them and make a little money which can return to benefit them, I think that may be a good as any place to start. I think it would be far worse if the only dreamcatchers in existence were in museums and only white people were around to look at them.
The forced diaspora of your people (the 'scoop' you described) sounds particularly horrible. I also find it horrible when non-aboriginal people engage in and profit from aboriginal culture. Add to the problems that you described high rates of depression, joblessness, alcoholism, drug use and disproportionate incarceration and your use of the term genocide seems more appropriate. I think that the culture and the language are both the roots and the fruit at this point, though. They can pull people together and give them the common footing they need to work together to build a more just society for themselves, and also at least in the short term, the culture can make some money to develop programs to continue the work those people do.
Although the sheer amount of money the Mormon church makes on Polynesian culture makes me sad, I also know of Native Hawaiian artisans and Hula teachers and Language specialists who are creating a contemporary Hawaiian culture. Rooted in the past and looking toward the future of Hawaii and Hawaiians. This is something I never saw in the Native American culture on the mainland. And I realize that history dealt the Native Hawaiians a different hand then the Native Americans but the idea that there was a future for the culture and the clear efforts to build toward it really are breathtaking. The balance of Sadness about what happened with Hope is beautiful. I saw so little hope on the mainland among Native Americans, mostly anger, and tragedy in terms of health, education, and opportunity. What happened here was not good; what is happening here could, I think, lead to a true renaissance of a contemporary, true Hawaiian culture for the Native Hawaiians.
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Topic: achewood thanksgiving (Read 11393 times)