Zuni Language and Worldview, Part II

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Powwow in Kenner

The Native American Village at the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Museum is the site of the fifth annual Cannes Brulee Powwow, an all-day event featuring Native American dance, song, food and crafts. Visitors are invited to participate in intertribal dancing and enjoy storytelling, artisan demonstrations and such fare as Indian fry bread and Indian tacos.

When: Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Where: 303 Williams Blvd., Kenner, LA

Cost: Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children and seniors.

Call: (504) 468-7231. When: Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Where: 303 Williams Blvd., Kenner. Cost: Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children and seniors. Call: (504) 468-7231

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Zuni Language and Worldview, Part II

While both Young and Bunzel agree on the religious importance of the images and the lack of a determinate naming process, they disagree on the role of the individual in interpretation[24] and whether the interpretive process is sensual or rational. This disparity may be related to the different methodologies involved, for Bunzel worked through an interpreter and sought to evoke images in the use of names, often receiving diverse groupings within clusters while Young relied more so on ostensive definition, perceiving the images as having the power to evoke narrative, using the term “metonymic” to describe the power of images to evoke where ambiguity is present in both meaning and form[25]. The one most notable aspect of Young’s study in regard to the individuating function is the observance that Zuni interpreters “included the entire environmental setting of the rock art in discussions of meaning rather than focusing on the image alone…and not only placed individual images in the context of the whole corpus of rock art figures at the site, but also included other features of the landscaping, such as springs, plants, birds, and so on”[26].

In regard to the polemic relation noted by Young, the power to evoke narrative or to give names in ritual text is its demonstrated effectiveness in a given context which is dependent upon an accumulation of knowledge, or in the case of the interpretation of images is based upon the organization of diverse images into a given context where each individual image is related to the narrative according to its form and function as determined in accumulated myth. Multireferentiality is transitivity among the harmonious interrelations of all things and individuation is manifest as a thing standing for itself according to its form and function as determined within a context as perceived by a perspective taker. An image in isolation has many meanings but it is also constrained as a means to evoke a narrative. Such statements as “images that go on pottery” or “they seem to go together” are indicative of the ambiguity present in their relation and can only take on meaning by being assembled in conjunction with the form and function of a vessel[27] or some other object. Thus, where the context of an image or design is indeterminate the religious associations concerned will inhibit a naming or narrative because of the danger of a deviant utterance. As Young’s card sorting analysis showed, in the absence of content images were categorized according to form, and sensual, aesthetic appreciation was insufficient to evoke a name.

This would seem to confirm Bunzel’s interpretation of the sensual, but in an anthropological sense of a theory about rationality as a social fact, irrationality is used to describe deviant utterance[28]. This would presuppose an ontological sense of rationality where the viewpoint of the perspective taker does not guarantee objectivity, but objectivity is found in the personal accomplishment of an intersubjectivity required in reciprocal public intentions[29] and the decision not to act (verbalize) could be considered rational. To appreciate an object sensually yet not specify that object in linguistic expression in respect of religious beliefs and for fear of danger to one’s self and the common good in the prospect of violating socially approved observances is rational thought. In the absence of verbal expression a sensual, aesthetic appreciation can be rational and in accordance with the collective force of the people, that is, it would be a personal accomplishment.

Our use of language is “constrained by our knowledge of objective reality” and “naming is seen as a process which confers contextual significance on objective continuities and discontinuities in nature; and a properly contextual account of naming requires that we include connotative and metaphoric considerations in a description of the meaning of names”[30]. This suggests that lexical variation corresponds to the importance and stability of constrictive contexts where names make distinctions where contexts require and reference becomes stable only when it is necessary that a particular discrimination be made; otherwise, referential distinction does not operate on the level of individual lexemes and may be used to do more than point[31]. “Through metaphor men discover relevant resemblances between categories which are not ordinarily related to one another and men signify these resemblances in words”[32].

Rosaldo’s distinction between referential and metaphoric corresponds to Samarin’s distinction between the referential and expressive usage of language. Samarin also notes that the expressive use as distinct from the referential use transcends category boundaries[33]. For example, in the English language the statement ‘You’re a skunk’ does more than point and is an expressive use of language. It would transcend certain categorical boundaries in ignoring the specific differences of two individual entities. In regard to the Zuni use of language, this statement would not transcend any category boundaries typifying any specific beings and would not be considered expressive or metaphoric in that sense, for in referential distinction all connotation and metaphor have been accounted for in contextual significance. What is a metaphoric or expressive statement in one language may not have a metaphoric or expressive counterpart in another language. As Rosaldo noted, lexical variation is dependent upon the stability of context and reference, and Samarin states that the inventory of expressive language is inverse to the referential use. The lack of category boundaries within the Zuni taxonomic structure of beings[34] would imply a low inventory of expressive terms.

Consider the Navajo language where a single lexeme multireferentially includes all hues of blue and green and the principle signification of the word is the sacred stone (turquoise)[35]. The stone itself is appreciated for its aesthetic properties and has religious associations, thus, the lexical constraint, or the evident lack of the need to make further particular discriminations among the wide spectrum of blues and greens shows its importance and the stability of constructual contexts. To the outsider this lack of lexical variation to make particular distinctions may appear ambiguous and represent a lack of stability in context. Showing a turquoise stone, which may display any combination of blue and green, would evoke the same response time after time. Any further expected verbalization in color terms would be to ask the Navajo to disrupt the contextual stability of their lexical environment by creating categorical boundaries by means of expressive or metaphoric terms, that is, to operate on the level of individual lexemes that may do more than point. Thus, in all likelihood, further referential distinction would be expressed in the name of a mountain or some other specific geographic location from which the stone originated.

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If you can, plan to be there Sept. 10 or 11; you will be in for a treat. The animal park is having a special Native American Arts Festival featuring the expert storytelling of John Three Hawks, who will share tales of the local animals, plants and terrain and will truly inspire his listeners. After hearing his lively narratives, you can stroll around the facility and enjoy the wildlife from a new perspective.

American Indian songs, dances and food will also be available, as well as beautiful and unusual crafts. It's the perfect opportunity to ask questions of gifted artisans.

For more information, call Friends of the Moonridge Zoo at (909) 878-4200.

Additional American Indian artisans who are interested in participating are welcome to display wares free of charge.

Moonridge Zoo at P.O. Box 2557, Big Bear City, CA 92314

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Call for Submissions

First Nations Film and Video Festival, Chicago

The purpose of the First Nations Film and Video Festival is to advocate for and celebrate the works of Indigenous American film and video that break racial stereotypes and promote awareness of Indigenous American issues. Film and video entries will be accepted form Indigenous American individuals who have written, produced, or directed the film or video, which is being submitted. Preference will be given to independent projects for which the applicant has primary creative control. Public service announcements, training material or promotional work will not be considered.

The deadline for submissions is August 31, 2005.

For more information and an application visit: http://www.fnfvf.com/ .

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Adobe Gallery: older original paintings by Tony Abeyta, Emil Bistram, E.A. Burbank, Fremont Ellis, R.C. Gorman, Patrick Swazo Hines, and Fritz Scholder,cq all through Sept. 3; acrylic paintings and aquatint etchings by Helen Hardin, through Oct. 16. 221 Canyon Road, Santa Fe. (505) 955-0550.

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USAO to host young writers workshop Aspiring young writers and filmmakers from across Oklahoma are invited to participate in a workshop Sept. 15-16 at the University of Science and Arts in Chickasha. The workshop is hosted by the Woodcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, with support from USAO.

The free, two-day workshop is geared toward Native American students but participants do not need to be Native American or become members of Woodcraft Circle.

Participants are also awarded with membership in the Woodcraft Circle, a national organization of Native American writers and storytellers.

The writing and filmmaking workshops are scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Thursday and Friday in the USAO Student Union Ballroom. Featured events include student workshops in poetry, short story, slam poetry, storytelling, play writing and scripts, and in addition to other activities.

For more information, contact Dr. Lee Hester, director of American Indian Studies, at 405-574-1289 or fachesterl@usao.edu, or Jay Goombi, Woodcraft regional director, at 405-574-1264or jgoombi@usao.edu.

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Northeastern Native American Fine Arts Show. A new exhibit at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum features an array of art, which runs through Sept. 5 at the museum's gallery, shows off the artistic skills of American Indians from the Northeast. Thirty-four artists with connections to tribes of the Northeast were chosen for the show, which includes sculpture, carvings, oils, acrylic and mixed media.

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Sept. 4-Nov. 13: "By Native Hands: Native American Basketry," Forsyth Center Galleries, Memorial Student Center, Texas A&M. 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

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October 30. Native American Fall Festival-Lenape Village. Churchville Nature Center. Churchville, PA. 215-357-4005. www.churchvillenaturecenter.org.

The Jewelry of Joe Quintana, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture: works by the Cochiti silversmith, through Sept. 1; "Beauty Within," historical objects from the collection, through Oct. 23; "IconoClash," symbols of American Indian culture, through Jan. 15; "The Pottery of Santa Ana Pueblo," through Feb. 19. 708 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe. Admission and hours: (505) 476-1250.

Plains Art Museum: "Between Two Cultures: The Art of Star Wallowing Bull," opens Sept. 24; "Contemporary Native American Artists - Reflections After Lewis and Clark," opens July 21, (701) 232-3821.

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AEQ Book Review of Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas .
Frawley, William, Kenneth C. Hill, and Pamela Munro, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. 450 pp. ISBN 0520229967, $34.95.
© 2004 American Anthropological Association Book Review of Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas .
Reviewed for the Anthropology & Education Quarterly by Catherine S. Fowler
University of Nevada
csfowler@unr.nevada.edu
To Order this book

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W. Tussinger has written his first novel which was released in December, 2004. The title of the book is THE FOURTH WORLD.
W. Tussinger is a member of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma and has lived on several reservations including the Yuroks of Northern California and the Yakamas of Washington State where he attended college.
THE FOURTH WORLD

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Death and Burial - Yana

"He is sick, he is very sick. It looks as if he is going to die. Perhaps he will not recover. If four days have elapsed and he has not recovered, you will run to get the medicine-man, and he will suck the sickness out of him. You will offer him as pay perforated white beads. Wear them around your neck. Surely he will get up and start hither, for medicine-men always like perforated white beads." He who had been sent arrived (at the medicine-man's house) and put the beads down on the ground. The medicine-man smelled them. "I shall not be able to make him recover. I shall indeed go to see him anyway. The perforated white beads already have an odor." He ran back and arrived home. He hung up the beads and cried, sitting down on the ground. "Do you put water down on the ground. The medicine-man has already come." The medicine-man sat down. "Well, I shall try to do what I can." He doctored him. "He will not recover. I do not understand what to do, I am beaten." After he had finished doctoring, he said, "He will die." (The sick man's father) started in to cry, and they all wept with him. "Do you run to bring them hither!" he said. "They shall all come here. I do not wish them to be ignorant about this." On the following day, at daybreak, he had died. They all started in to cry together. "Go and dig the grave! Do you put together the perforated white beads, the dressed buckskin blanket, dentalia, wa'k'u shell beads, aprons fringed with pine-nut tassels, various pack-baskets, and trinkets. Make a burial net of coarse rope, and wrap him up in it." Then they washed him and combed his hair. The people all came, came together, dancing and weeping, women, men, and their children, while his mother cried. He was lifted down and put away in the house, while the people and his father and mother wept over him. They did not eat anything. Now they sewed together the deer-hide blanket.

"Now!" said (his father). "Amm!" Don't think that you will continue to eat. There is no sickness going about, and yet I am the only one going about that has sickness. Since the people were not sick, I thought I had a good medicine-man. Perchance you think you will not go to get wood!" [ The implication is that he will murder the medicine-man when he unsuspectingly goes out into the brush for firewood.] (Thus he spoke to himself). "You will just go ahead and bury him tomorrow! Do you make the grave deep!" (he said to the people). There was a man from the south [This man, named Wa'it'awasi, was said to be a brave warrior] who said, "I do not intend to cry." He had flint arrowheads and inspired everyone with fear. "Whence is the poison that is always acting? I have no intention of eating, of eating my food with tears." It was the brave warrior that spoke thus. "You will bury him at noon. Probably nearly all have come. They say that there are many weeping for him, they say the chief weeps for him, they say that he is greatly angered. My medicine-man forgets, does he not? I shall not be the only one to cry. Do you all start!"

They took him up and carried him, all sorts of belongings being wrapped up with him-arrows, bows, and various blankets, Now they had all moved down to his grave. They brought him down to the grave and put him into it. "Now! Cry!" said he. His brother lay down in the grave, was pulled out back again. "Do not weep, you will soon follow him." The women all danced and cried, weeping for him, putting down water on the ground to the east of him. "Now it is well, is it not?" he said. "Let me see! Go ahead and fail to find the poison. In former days he said to me, 'Surely you shall have no cause to weep, and thus it will always be with you.' That is what he said to me."

The dead man's mother stayed there all night near the grave. Now the people all moved off back to his house. "I shall no longer stay in the house. Set the house on fire!" They set on fire his ropes and all his belongings. "Set the food on fire!" They set everything on fire, and moved on to another place. "You all will go to get other food. I did not think that I would ever be without his laughter when eating." They were all weeping at night, when suddenly the old woman came back. Now at night they started in to eat. "Do you all eat after weeping! Truly we shall all die; we shall not live forever, is it not so? The time of death is near at hand. Do you all procure food for yourselves! Go to the river and catch salmon. No!" he said, "I shall not hurry (to eat). 'Yes, we shall catch salmon (for you),' he used to say to me. I shall cry yet a while, if you please. I shall take food soon."

The chief spoke. "Pray do it now!" he said (to the warrior). "Lie in wait for him on his trail. He will find out! They say he has been talking about me, that is what he has been saying. Yes, he will know! He thinks that he has sense. I have sense. the sense of a chief. I shall soon speak out my mind. Though he was my medicine-man, pray shoot him!" he said. "Take him out into the brush and kill him!"

The people brought wa'k'u beads, dentalia, and perforated white beads. "Here! Pound these," they said. He pounded them at the grave. "I did not know about it, that is why I did not come," (they said). Every summer they burn food (at the grave).

Yana Texts by Edward Sapir University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 1-235 [1910]

[Obtained in July and August, 1907, a few miles to the north of the hamlet of Round Mountain (or Buzzard's Roost), Shasta county. The informant was Betty Brown (Indian name Ts!i'daimiya), since dead. There are now not more than seven or eight Indians that are able to speak the dialect. In some respects Betty was an inferior source of text material to Sam Bat'wi, as evidenced by the very small number of myths it was found possible to procure from her. Her method of narrative was peculiar in that she had a very marked tendency to omit anything, even the names of the characters involved, that was not conversation; this has necessitated the liberal use in the English translation of parentheses in which the attempt is made to arrive at a somewhat smoother narrative.]

From Blue Panther Keeper of Stories. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Native_Village
http://groups.msn.com/KeeperofStories

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"Communing with Bears"

By Sara Wright

Communing with Bears is the story of a joyful encounter between one woman and a black bear.

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Web Sites:
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Early tribal artifacts put in spotlight
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Literacy in Indigenous Communities by L. David van Broekhuizen, Ph.D. (2000)
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Literacy in first languages in indigenous communities is a complex topic that generates lively discussion. This research synthesis explores the notions of national, mother-tongue, multiple, and biliteracies. It presents important information pertaining to threatened languages, language shift, and language loss. Examples of culturally relevant uses of literacy in indigenous communities and issues related to first-language literacy instruction are also provided.

Essay on the Zuni World View
Excerpt(Complete article is available in PDF)
Cushing also cited an incidence where he showed a pole that accompanies a theodolite to an old Zuni man and asked him what he thought the name of it was. In response the old man inquired as to the use of the item. After briefly describing the implementation of the device the old man provided a rather lengthy sentence-word that Cushing translated as "heights of the world progressively measuring stick". The next day Cushing took the pole to the extreme corner of the pueblo and began "to flourish it around" until a middle-aged man relented to curiosity and asked what it was. Cushing then provided the Zuni name he had learned the day before and the man promptly requested, "Can they actually tell how far up and down journeying the world is?" [105].