Introduction
"Everything an Indian does in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished" (Neihardt 150).
Richard Townsend said in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South, that the book sought "an understanding of the way different societies defined themselves and their environment through the symbolism and expressive power of art, architecture, and ritual performance" (19). He said that these dominant symbolic expressions of humanity will identify and interpret the ancient society. I believe those exact things can identify and interpret present society, albeit with profoundly different art, architecture, and ritual with profoundly different meaning. They each have their own story.
The Chris Eyre film Smoke Signals was released in 1998 amidst a flurry of critical acclaim and a host of film awards including the Audience award at the Sundance Film Festival and Best Film at the American Indian Film Festival. Its beauty, poignancy, and poetry enraptured me and led to further investigation of its creators. American Indian author Sherman Alexie wrote the screenplay based on his collection of short stories The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven. His unbridled and unfettered look at life on an Indian reservation is both disturbing and comforting. Disturbing in that the alcoholism, stereotype, poverty, violence, and hopelessness prevalent on his reservation seem hidden from the rest of the world; comforting in that the alcoholism, stereotype, poverty, violence, hopelessness is the world of many of our students. It's a story they may relate to and at the same time expand their tolerance of others with the knowledge that we share the same human strife. It may give them their voice for their own story.
I initially thought that a study of ancient American Indian artifacts might offer an opportunity to connect to modern day things my students hold in esteem. I thought that looking at ancient tools, burial mounds, religious, and spiritual artifacts would allow me to categorize the art, architecture, and ritual in Alexie's stories to illuminate their similarities with the past. Then I became stuck, mired in things I couldn't really connect, in an interesting way really. I pondered over the ancient images and symbols and tools and bones and made a simple revelation; these things make a great story.
So, what started as an examination of the American Indian reservation life through the lens of one author, Sherman Alexie, has ultimately become the personal story along with Sherman Alexie. I chose only one author not necessarily because I feel he is the only voice or the most authentic or the one least likely to perpetuate a stereotype. I chose him because he is a great story-teller. His stories are personal. The reader hears his voice loud and clear. I chose him because his short stories are courageous in their honesty. I chose him because of the challenges facing American Indians are not dissimilar to our own outside the Rez. In fact, the stories of the Rez and the Hood could be one and the same. But, mostly I chose him because of Smoke Signals. While the hopelessness of poverty and violence seem insurmountable, the film offers a profound ray of hope. Not in the typical against all odds Horatio Alger type of ending, but an ending that convinces there is indeed no hope if hatred and anger are present. My students often feel that they are without hope. They need a story and they need to tell theirs.
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