LAND OF THE SPOTTED EAGLE. (LUTHER STANDING BEAR).   Term Paper ID:28363 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analysis of Lakota Sioux, relations with white government & subjugation of Lakota culture.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analysis of Lakota Sioux, relations with white government & subjugation of Lakota culture. Paper Introduction: In the book Land of the Spotted Eagle, Luther Standing Bear offers an analysis of his people, the Lakota Sioux, their relations with the government of the whites, and a strong sense of what it means to be part of a population whose land has been systematically stolen, whose culture and rituals have been denigrated, and whose future is in doubt. Luther Standing Bear was raised in the traditional Sioux manner. He was away from the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in South Dakota for sixteen years before returning in 1931, and soon after, he wrote this book. His absence gave him the point of view of both a tribal member and an outsider at one and the same time, for he could see where changes had been made and could compare the way his people lived on the reservation with the way people lived elsewhere. His outside experience coupled Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. treated the Indian tribes as independent sovereign nations. Standing bear also agrees with the assessment that the NativeAmerican was more in touch with the natural world and so more of anecologist than anyone with a European background could ever be. Hisabsence gave him the point of view of both a tribal member and an outsiderat one and the same time, for he could see where changes had been made andcould compare the way his people lived on the reservation with the waypeople lived elsewhere. The Native Americans wereexpendable, for they lived in harmony with nature and had no idea how tomake the most of it as did the Europeans. Work CitedStanding Bear, Luther. In the book Land of the Spotted Eagle, Luther Standing Bear offers ananalysis of his people, the Lakota Sioux, their relations with thegovernment of the whites, and a strong sense of what it means to be part ofa population whose land has been systematically stolen, whose culture andrituals have been denigrated, and whose future is in doubt. There was a fundamentaldifference between the way Europeans viewed the world and its relationshipto the human community and the way Native Americans viewed these issues.Europeans believed God had given them dominion over nature, while NativeAmericans believed that humanity had links to the chain of being of livingnature and were part of it instead of rulers over it. He finds value in the family life of his people, noting howdifferent members of the family interacted and how they fulfilled their ownsocial role, as when he says of women, "In the social life of the Lakotawoman, neglect of children was unknown and there was no such thing as an'orphan'" (84). Many of these promises were broken. His book is an effortto accomplish this. In the late 17 s, theU.S. Luther Standing Bear was raised in the traditional Sioux manner. in themid-18 s, the federal government more and more attacked traditional tribalgovernments, and the federal policy of forced relocation to Indianreservations caused severe disruptions in traditional governing bodies.From the late nineteenth century to about 193 , the U.S. Standing Bear offers implicitcontrasts with the falsity of white society when he says of native beliefs,"His religion was sane, normal, and human" (193), clearly implying thatwhite religion is none of these things. Much of the history of the New World was a history of theclash between these values, with Europeans pushing the Indians off theirland in order to exploit the resources and to assert ownership, as if Godhad given them the right to do this. His outside experience coupled with his newexposure to native life convinced him about "the impact of federal Indianpolicies and convinced him of the need to educate the American people aboutthe strengths of traditional Sioux culture" (vii). Specific regions were defined in which theSioux were to live and hunt. The Indian is beingchanged by being Anglicized by white society, made to feel shame at histraditions and to adapt to the majority society in a way that is demeaning: To clothe a man falsely is only to distress his spirit and to make him incongruous and ridiculous, and my entreaty to the American Indian is to retain his tribal dress (191). Yet, he also sense how many of these values have beenlost: today the only means whereby native designs might be kept alive is through the use of the white man's beads. Similarly, white promises arefalse, and the Indian has had many examples. The Europeans who came to this part of the world saw their treatmentof the Indian as part of their destiny, and the term Manifest Destiny cameto represent the idea that God was on their side and was pushing them tocolonize from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Treaty of Fort Laramiewas the beginning of the process of bringing peace to the West. Thefalsity of white society was made clear to different Indian tribes aspromises were made and broken. Hewas away from the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in South Dakota for sixteenyears before returning in 1931, and soon after, he wrote this book. He knows the culture because he is part of it: "As a babeI was cared for and brought up in the same manner as all babes of theLakota tribe" (1). The view of the Indianstarted with the English, who created an argument to justify English rightsto native soil. followed a policyof breaking apart Indian reservations and assimilating Native Americansinto mainstream non-Indian society, and the allotment of Indian lands andthe forced assimilation of the people further eroded the power of tribalgovernments. Standing Bear's analysis fitswell with the historical record and shows the state of Native American lifeat the time his book was written, and throughout he manages to show whathas been lost and to place a high value on the disappearing culture of theLakota Sioux. American Indian life has been based on endurance, on the ability tosurvive and adapt. The Treaty ended hostilities andassured the Indian that if any Whites committed crimes against the Indian,he or she would be punished. Standing Bear recognizes the value of Lakota culture and realizes thedegree to which that culture has been subjugated by the United States andits government. The government also agreed to constructcertain buildings for the use of the Sioux, and there were many otherspecific provisions for what the government promised to do while requiringthe Indian to live in a certain area and to refrain from war. Thegovernment set out to emasculate the Indian and to see to it that thetribes remained peaceful, and to this end there were continuing conflictswith the Indians on the reservation. The treatment of the AmericanIndian, or Native American, in the movies has mirrored the way thispopulation has been viewed and treated in American history, and over timethe view changed on the screen just as it has changed in society at large.At one time, there was little guilt over the way white society hadexploited the native peoples or their land, while more recently there hasbeen a growing awareness of the devastation visited on this population bythe invasion of their land and the destruction of their culture by whitesettlers intent on making the land their own. government had a profoundeffect on tribal governments and has changed dramatically over the last twocenturies, creating turmoil for tribal governments. The federal Indian policy of the U.S. The coming ofEuropeans also meant the beginning of a policy of extermination, agenocidal war against a people because they had a different world view, adifferent religion, and were in possession of vast tracts of land whoseresources the Europeans wanted to exploit. Land of the Spotted Eagle. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1933. The Lakota woman no longer pounds out earth paints, porcupine quills are scarcer, and the process of dyeing and sewing them seems tedious to the younger generation, and the plants from which once they brewed lovely colors grow no more (91).Again and again, Standing Bear suggests how the older customs have beenusurped by white society, lost because circumstances have changed, deniedbecause the people are not able to control their own lives any longer, andgenerally are disappearing from disuse and apathy. There was a treaty with the Sioux as well,from 1868 and signed at Fort Laramie. The treaty with the Sioux wasimportant because the army had just defeated the Sioux in a massive war anddid not want to have to fight the Sioux again. At one time, the Native American population was muchlarger than it is today and ruled the entire continent. He details his own education in tribal customs andmores through his boyhood and into young manhood, and the world in which hewas raised was still close enough to the old ways before subjugation thathe knows much about the earlier history of his people and about how theylived when they were truly free and in charge of their own destiny as humanbeings. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.