Introduction
Keith H. Basso’s ethnographic research titled, To Give up on Words: Silence in Western Apache Culture is an investigation of situations when members of a certain Apache community in the western United States assume the state of silence as a form of social interaction. In this paper, I will first note details of the society under consideration and Basso’s interests in regards to the questions he is trying to answer. I will introduce some anthropological concepts that are suitable to the discussion, followed by Basso’s observations regarding silence in the Apache community, including his methods, arguments, and conclusion. Finally, I will evaluate Basso’s findings and deduce if the evidence supports the conclusion made; I will also discuss Basso’s entry into the community, which is sparsely described in the text.
Facts & Interests
Basso’s carries out his research in a Western Apache community situated in east-central Arizona in Navajo County. He conducts the research over a period of sixteen months between 1964 and 1969. Basso specifically observes specifically a settlement called ‘Cibecue’ that he regards as a small community of about 800 people. The society is largely agrarian; agriculture, rearing cattle, and doing some work for wages are the common outlets of earning. Basso notes the high unemployment rate in the community, a factor that still affects the Cibecue society; therefore, many of the community’s residents live in substandard conditions and rely on government subsidies and welfare checks.
The Cibecue live in clusters where the center of domestic activity and communication is what can be described as a ‘camp’ or a gowąą. The word, gowąą, is used to refer to the population as well as the location of ...
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...e is the lack of information regarding his entry into this Western Apache society. In contrast to many other ethnographic works that I have come across, the most successful ones have been where the anthropologist faces some sort of obstacle while trying to gain entry into the community. Moreover, the process of building ties with informants and reaching a level of trust to receive authentic and accurate information is another level that is left unexplored in the text. It goes without saying that there must have been, at least, some difficulties in Basso’s entry into the community and building relationships. I believe that providing this particular account would have allowed the reader to better understand the context of the Western Apache community under consideration, and could have augmented the role of silence and the meaning of ambiguity in social interactions.
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Historical trauma has brought psychological effects on the Native American community. Many suffer from alcohol and drug abuse, depression, and poverty. I wondered why they do not get help from the government and after watching the documentary California’s “Lost” Tribes I began to understand that in any reservation the tribe is the government, so they do not have the same rights as a city outside the reservation. Many of the the reservations were placed in areas where they could not do any form of agriculture, so they did not have a source of income. Many of this reservations have to find ways to get themselves out of poverty and many of the reservations within California have found a way to get out of their poverty by creating casinos
How Native American’s and Americans communicate can vary greatly and can cause miscommunication between the two groups, or unintended nonverbal communication. Native Americans use caution with their first encounters of early communication to demonstrate humility and create harmony (Shusta, Levine, Wong,
...wler-Salamini and Mary Kay Vaughan, eds Creating Spaces, Shaping Transitions: Women of the Mexican Countryside, 1850-1990 Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994.
“They would like that / They would be happy / Because we would be defenseless then” (Silko) refers to when the Spanish sought to establish a “New Spain.” They desired to civilize the Pueblo through cultural assimilation, including but not limited to: the establishment of Catholic missions, the speaking of the Spanish language, and the conversion to Roman Catholicism. Despite the attempts to replace the corresponding native customs with these and other features of the Spanish culture, the basic elements of Pueblo myth and ritual managed to survive. All in all, Ceremony presents an attempt to contend with the reality of a mixed cultural landscape in a way that allows Native American culture to persist, even as it changes. She argues for the necessity of cultural change by the transfer of traditional oral myths into written form. Silko infuses a multitude of significant themes and issues into the text without explicitly stating them and effectively uses point- of-view to demonstrate the destructiveness of contact between
Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American community in California 1919-1982 by Valerie J. Matsumoto presents a close and in-depth study of social and culture history of Cortez, a small agricultural settlement located in San Joaquin valley in California. Divided into six chapter, the book is based primarily on the oral interviews responses from eighty three members of Issei, Nisei, and Sansei generations. However, many information are also obtained from the local newspapers, community records, and World War II concentration camp publications.
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Sandefur, G. (n.d.). American Indian reservations: The first underclass areas? Retrieved April 28, 2014, from http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc121f.pdf
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The colonization of civilizations has changed the world’s history forever. From the French, Spaniard, and down to the English, have changed cultures, traditions, religions, and livelihoods of other societies. The Native Americans, for example, were one of the many civilizations that were conquered by the English. The result was their ways of life based on nature changed into the more “civilized” ways of the colonists of the English people. Many Native Americans have lost their old ways and were pulled into the new “civilized” ways. Today only a small amount of Native American nations or tribes exist in remote areas surviving following their traditions. In the book Ceremony, a story of a man named Tayo, did not know himself and the world around him but in the end found out and opened his eyes to the truth. However the Ceremony’s main message is related not only to one man but also to everything and everyone in the world. It is a book with the message that the realization of oneself will open the eyes to see what is truth and false which will consequently turn to freedom.