NATIVE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY

(Possible Cross Listing with American Indian Studies)

Course Level: 300-500

Spring 1999 - Anne Waters, J.D., Ph.D.

email: brendam234@aol.com

Phone:

 

 

Course Description. This course will study philosophy indigenous to North

America through an examination of native and nonnative historical and

contemporary oratory, argument, letters, addresses, and texts. From the

influence of Aristotle on Native Americans during the 16th century Spanish

debates at Valladolid, to the contemporary writings of Vine Deloria, Jr., we

will study the interplay of native and nonnative philosophical concepts upon

one another. The currently popular thesis that contemporary American

philosophy has been influenced by its indigenist American roots will be

examined. We will also consider whether indigenist and European thought

merely collided against one another without complementary influence, or had

an impact, one upon the other. Finally, we will undergo an investigation as

to whether there might be influences of African, Native, and European

American philosophical thought on one another.

 

Course Requirements. Attendance will be presumed. A journal of informal

comments on each reading topic (eg., personhood, naturalism, etc.) will be

kept and collected at the end of the term. All students are expected to

arrive at class prepared to discuss the assigned materials. Questions will

be provided for a midterm exam of no more than 10 double spaced typed pages.

A formal research paper, on an APPROVED topic selected from a list (on

reserve at the library), will be due the second half of the

semester--minimal 10 pages for undergraduates, and 20 pages for graduate

students. Precis papers may also occasionally be required of graduate

students.

 

 

Grading. A 100 point scale. Attendance = 15; Journal = 10; Midterm = 25;

Research Paper 50%. All assignments must be completed to receive a passing

grade. No incompletes without prior written approval.

#

Required Texts.

Wub-E-Ke-Niew, We Have The Right To Exist: A Translation of Aboriginal

Indigenous Thought --The first book ever published from an

Ahnishinahbaeo’jibway Perspective. New York: Black Thistle Press, 1995.

Deloria, Vine. God Is Red: A Native View of Religion, Golden, Co.: Fulcrum

Publishing, 1994.

Hanke, Lewis. Aristotle and the American Indians. Bloomington: Indiana

Univ. Press, 1959.

Warrior, Robert Allen. Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian

Intellectual Traditions. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.

On Reserve in the Library.*

Waters, Anne. Readings in American Indian Philosophy (unpublished

collection of published articles).

 

SCHEDULE OF TOPICS AND READING.

WEEKS 1-3

"On Personhood, Naturalism, and Cultural Difference"

*Berger, Thomas R. The Debate at Valladolid. A Long and Terrible Shadow .

Seattle: Univ. of Wash. Press, 1991.

Lewis Hanke. Aristotle and the American Indians..

*A. Irving Hallowell. Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View. From

Stanley Diamond, editor, Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin;

New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1960. Reprinted in Teachings From the

American Earth: Indian Religion and Philosophy, edited by Dennis Tedlock and

Barbara Tedlock; Toronto: George J. McLeod Ltd. 141.

*Alice B. Kehoe. Blackfoot Persons. Women and Power in Native North America.

Edited by Laura F. Klein and Lillian A. Ackerman. Norman: Univ. of

Oklahoma Press, 1995; 113.

#

*Henry S. Sharp. Asymmetric Equals: Women and Men Among the Chipewyan.

Women and Power in Native North America. Edited by Laura F. Klein and

Lillian A. Ackerman. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1995; 46.

*Robert A. Williams, Jr. Gendered Checks and Balances. 24 Georgia Law Review

1019.

*Ward Churchill. Nobody’s Pet Poodle: Jimmie Durham, An Artist for Native

North America. From A Native Son: Selected Essays on Indigenism, 1985-1995.

Boston: South End Press. 1996; 483.

*Carl Sweezy. The Indian Concept of Time: A Cultural Trait. Carl Sweezy,

as told to Althea Bass, in The Arapaho Way: A Memoir of and Indian Boyhood

(New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1966, 5-6, 17-18. Reprinted in This Country

Was Ours: A Documentary History of the American Indian, Virgil J. Vogel. New

York: Harper and Row; 1972; 263.

WEEKS 4 - 6

"Free Will, Sovereign Nations, and Indigenism"

*Cornplanter (Seneca) Letter to the Governor of Pennsylvania, February, 1822.

From Samuel G. Drake, Biography and History of the Indians of North America,

11th Ed. (Boston, 1841) pp.611-613. Reprinted in Great Documents in American

Indian History, edited by Wayne Moquin with Charles Van Doren. New York: Da

Capo Press. 1995; 143.

*George W. Harkins (Choctaw). Farewell Letter to the American People, 1832.

The American Indian, December 1926. Reprinted in Great Documents in American

Indian History, edited by Wayne Moquin with Charles Van Doren. New York: Da

Capo Press. 1995; 151.

*John Borrows. Frozen Rights in Canada: Constitutional Interpretation and

the Trickster. 22 Am. Indian L. Rev. 37 (1997). Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma

College of Law.

*Michael Grant. Seminole Tribe v. Florida--Extinction of the "New Buffalo?".

22 Am. Indian L. Rev. 171 (1997). Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma College of

Law.

*Anne Kass. The Better Way: Navajo Peacemaking.

#

*Ward Churchill. I Am Indigenist: Notes on the Ideology of the Fourth

World. From A Native Son: Selected Essays on Indigenism, 1985-1995. Boston:

South End Press. 1996; 509.

*Ward Churchill. Defining the Unthinkable: Towards a Viable Understanding

of Genocide. A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the

Americas, 1492 to the Present. San Francisco: City Lights Books. 1997; 399.

*Jewell Praying Wolf James ("Se-Sealth"). Testimony: Ecocide and Genocide.

Ecocide of Native America: Environmental Destruction of Indian Lands and

Peoples. Edited by Donald A Grinde and Bruce E. Johansen. Santa Fe: Clear

Light Publishers. 1995; 246.

*Virgil J. Vogel, The Indian in American History, 1968. This Country Was

Ours: A Documentary History of the American Indian, Virgil J. Vogel. New

York: Harper and Row; 1972; 284.

 

WEEKS 7 - 8

"Origins, Cosmogony, Power"

*The Beginning of Newness: A Zuni Creation Legend. From Thirteenth Annual

Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, p.379. Reprinted in Great

Documents in American Indian History, edited by Wayne Moquin with Charles Van

Doren. New York: Da Capo Press. 1995; 7.

*The Origin of Arikara. From George A. Dorsey, Ed., Traditions of the

Arikara (Washington, D.C., 1904). Reprinted in Great Documents in American

Indian History, edited by Wayne Moquin with Charles Van Doren. New York: Da

Capo Press. 1995; 10.

*Journey to the West in Search of Tribal Origins, Moncachtape (Yazoo). From

Samuel G. Drake, Biography and History of the Indians of North America, 11th

Ed. (Boston 1841), Chapter 5. Reprinted in Great Documents in American

Indian History, edited by Wayne Moquin with Charles Van Doren. New York: Da

Capo Press. 1995; 16.

*"On Freedom." Sitting Bull (Hunkpapa Sioux). A Message for the President

of the United States, 1881. From W. Fletcher Johnson, Life of Sitting Bull

(1891), pp.162-67. Reprinted in Great Documents in American Indian History,

edited by Wayne Moquin with Charles Van Doren. New York: Da Capo Press.

1995; 252.

#

*What the Indian Means to America (1933) Luther Standing Bear (Sioux). From

Chief Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle (Boston 1933), Chapter 9.

Reprinted in Great Documents in American Indian History, edited by Wayne

Moquin with Charles Van Doren. New York: Da Capo Press. 1995; 306.

Whitt, Laurie Anne. Indigenous Peoples and the Cultural Politics of

Knowledge. Issues in Native American Cultural Identity. Edited by Michael

K. Green. New York: Peter Lang, 1995, 223-272.

MIDTERM EXAM DUE: _________________

 

WEEKS 9 - 10

 

Ethics, and Preservation Maintenance of Native Values

*George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh). The Life of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh. Chapter

3: Spirits; Ojibwa Worship; Description, etc., and Chapter 17: Appeal to

Christians in America. Reprinted in Masterpieces of American Indian

Literature, edited by Willis G Regier. New York: MJF Books, 1993; 23, 109.

*Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) The Soul of the Indian. Chapter 3:

Ceremonial and Symbolic Worship. Reprinted in Masterpieces of American

Indian Literature, edited by Willis G Regier. New York: MJF Books, 1993; 164.

*Pedro Naranjo, San Felipe Pueblo. Burn the Temples, Break Up the Bells.

>From Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermin’s Attempted

Reconquest 1680-1682 by Charles Wilson Hackett. Albuquerque: University of

New Mexico Press, 1942. Reprinted in Native American Testimony, edited by

Peter Nabokov. New York: Penguin Books, 1978, 1991; 54.

*Janitin (Kamia). Janitin Is Named Jesus. "Testimonio de Janitil" from

Apuntes Historicos de la Baja Caifornia by Manuel C. Roja. Berkeley:

Bancroft Library (Mss. #295). Reprinted in Native American Testimony, edited

by Peter Nabokov. New York: Penguin Books, 1978, 1991; 58.

*William Jones (Fox). Black Hawk Stands Alone, from "Black-Hawk War" by

William Jones, Journal of American Folklore, 24:235-27, 1911. Reprinted in

Native American Testimony, edited by Peter Nabokov. New York: Penguin Books,

1978, 1991; 98.

#

*Osceola et al. (Seminole). Edited Transcript, Seminole Agency, Florida

Territory, October 23, 24, and 25, 1834; "Osceola Determined" from The War in

Florida: Being an Exposition of Its Causes by Woodburne Potter, Baltimore:

Lewis and Coleman, 1836. Reprinted in Native American Testimony, edited by

Peter Nabokov. New York: Penguin Books, 1978, 1991; 124.

*Medicine Horse et al. (Otoe). We Are Not Children. from U.S. National

Archives, Office of Indian Affairs. Letters Sent: Otoe Agency (1856-1876).

Reprinted in Native American Testimony, edited by Peter Nabokov. New York:

Penguin Books, 1978, 1991; 133.

*Chairman Sloan. Discussion of Legal Conditions. "The Best and the

Brightest" from Report of the Executive Council on the Proceedings of the

First Annual Conference of the Society of American Indians, October 12-17,

1911, Columbus, Ohio. Edited by Arthur C. Parker, Washington, D.C., 1912.

Reprinted in Native American Testimony, edited by Peter Nabokov. New York:

Penguin Books, 1978, 1991; 286.

*Gertrude S. Bonnin et (Zitkala-sa) et al. "Scandal in Oklahoma" From

Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five

Civilized Tribes--Legalized Robbery Philadelphia: Office of the Indian

Rights Association, 1924. Reprinted in Native American Testimony, edited by

Peter Nabokov. New York: Penguin Books, 1978, 1991; 300.

*Chief (Simon) Pokagon (Pottawattamie Chief). "The Red Man’s Rebuke."

Hartford:

C.H. Engle, 1893. Reprinted in Indian Nation: Native American Literature

and Nineteenth-Century Nationalisms by Cheryl Walker, Durham: Duke Publ,

1997;

 

WEEKS 11 - 12

Phenomenology of Indian Otherness, Spirituality, and Difference

*Vine Deloria, Jr. "Others," We Talk, You Listen. New York: Macmillan;

1970; 85.

*Vine Deloria, "Circling the Same Old Rock" in Marxism and Native Americans,

edited by Ward Churchill. Boston: South End Press, 1984; 113.

*Frank Black Elk, "Observations on Marxism and Lakota Tradition" in Marxism

and Native Americans, edited by Ward Churchill. Boston: South End Press,

1984; 137.

#

*James Mooney. The Doctrine of the Ghost Dance. From James Mooney, The

Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890. Fourteenth Annual

Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1896). Reprinted in Teachings

>From the American Earth: Indian Religion and Philosophy, edited by Dennis

Tedlock and Barbara Tedlock; Toronto: George J. McLeod Ltd.; 75.

*Dennis H. McPherson & J. Douglas Rabb, Chapters 1-3 of Indian From the

Inside: A study in Ethno -Metaphysics. Thunder Bay: Centre for Northern

Studies; 1993. p. 1-83.

*Colin G. Calloway. New Americans and First Americans in New Worlds for All:

Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America; Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins; 195.

Ortiz, Alfonso. American Indian Philosophy: Its Relation to the Modern

World. Indian Voices: The First Convocation of American Indian Scholars.

San Francisco: Indian Historical Press, 1970, 9-47.

*Scott Pratt, Native American Thought and the Origins of Pragmatism.

Ayaangwaamizin: The International Journal of Indigenous Philosophy; Spring

1997; 55.

 

WEEKS 13 - 15

Religious and Political Worldviews

Vine Deloria, God is Red.

Wub-E-Ke-Niew, We Have the Right To Exist

Warrior, Robert Allen. Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian

Intellectual Traditions.

 

WEEK 16

SUMMARY PRESENTATION. Most Recent Work in Philosophy by native and nonnative

persons holding a Ph.D. in Philosophy.