Western ideology carries along with it destructive behaviors. The settlers in Dances with Wolves were portrayed as destroyer by their unhealthy activities to nature. For example, when Kicking Bird and Dunbar are looking for a new place to move the tribe into the mountains, they approach the abandoned camp showing trash thrown on the ground and the animals scattered around the camp attracts plenty of insects, causing a polluted environment. Early in Dances with Wolves, when Lt. Dunbar arrived at Fort Sedgwick, he finds the fort deserted that in need of repair, and surrounding water was contaminated by the wild animal corpses. It was the ruins left behind from the soldiers who resided there before Lt. Dunbar. In Pocahontas, the settlers destroyed
The first point of conflicting ideas of freedom was the Native tribes remaining slightly nomadic when hunting. This conflict was highlighted in the selection “On taking the new road” by Carl Sweeny on page 127. In the selection, Carl speaks of how his tribe’s traditions changed when forced to hunt within the reservation and also maintained lifestyles different to those of whites. The Whites often used these differences to reinforce the idea that the Native Americans were inferior. Carl mentions in the selection that Whites disapproved of the Natives withdrawing their students from school during the winter. It would have been common for the Whites to attribute this to the natives being “lazy” (Sweeny, p.127), instead of recognizing it as a cultural difference. White Americans did not want to accept that the Nativ...
Furthermore, the land given from the Dawes Act to the Native Americans still continued to be watched over by the army, where Native American’s culture was not to be expressed. According to, “Wage Work in the Sacred Circle: The Ghost Dance as Modern Religion” by Louis S. Warren, the article examines Native American’s use of the ghost dance and how the American viewed these behaviors. Warren writes, “the army had been in charges with suppressing the religion among the [Native tribes].” The only religion acceptable was Christianity, nothing more, nothing less. America refused to understand the native culture, but decided that eliminating the culture is considered an easier route. It’s easier to eliminate than to adopt an idea. The best way America
In chapter six of her book Making the White Man 's Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies, Ange Aliess explores the topic of how Western have begun to change recently. The changes that she references in the film Dances With Wolves are also present in the film Winter in the Blood as well as in the 1491s shorts, even though the 1491s are a comedy group and not a Western genre. Aleiss describes the ways in which Native Americans reacted to Native portrayals in the film Dances With Wolves, and they tended to see the film’s better sides in contrast with critics. In Winter in the Blood, there are many stereotypes that are explored in ways that make the characters seem more real and less stereotypical as the backstories are revealed, despite
The Indians were being confined to crowed reservations that were poorly run, had scarce game, alcohol was plentiful, the soil was poor, and the ancient religious practices were prohibited. The Indians were not happy that they had been kicked off there land and were now forced to live on a reservation. The Indians then began to Ghost Dance a form of religion it is said that if the Indians were to do this trance like dance the country would be cleansed of white intruders. Also dead ancestors and slaughtered buffalo would return and the old ways would be reborn in a fruitful land. Once the Bureau of Indian affairs noticed what was going on they began to fear this new religion would lead to warfare. The white peoplewere scared that this new dance was a war dance. They called for army protection. Army was called in to try to curbed this new religion before it could start a war.
After struggling for five years to recover his niece, who is now a young woman, she is rescued by his own hands. Likewise, Dances with Wolves is a Western film directed and starring Kevin Costner. It is also situated during the American Civil War and tells the story of a soldier named John Dunbar that after a suicide attempt he involuntarily leads Union troops to a triumph. Then, by his request, he is sent to a remote outpost in the Indian frontier “before it’s gone”. There, the contact with the natives is eminent and thus it shows how through those contacts this soldier is transformed into another Indian that belongs to the Sioux tribe and who is now called Dances With Wolves.
In Dances with Wolves, Michael Blake, the screenwriter, illustrated the cruelty and disrespect shown to the Native Americans. In the early 1800s, when settlers began moving westward for land, they discovered the homes of several tribes. Just like the blacks, the Native Americans were not thought of as human beings. Once the settlers made contact with these individuals, war broke out. Historically, Native Americans have been viewed lower than whites. While Dances with Wolves is a fictional depiction of the treatment of Native Americans, The Trail of Tears is a non-fictional depiction of forced migration. Early settlers forced Native tribes to move westward and forced them to live on sections of land that was not conducive to farming or hunting. Native Americans were not seen seen as citizens of the United States, but more as beggars and thieves who were not given the same rights and privileges as
According to Santana, Chief of the Kiowa, “These soldiers cut down my timber; they kill my buffalo; and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting; I feel sorry” (Santana, 1867). This quote shows the Chief of the Kiowa’s perspective of the actions the American soldiers were taking. In Europe, timber was in high demand since Europe 's supply was running low. This resulted in Americans cutting down many of their trees to trade with Europe. Native Americans expressed great gratitude for their land and when it was being destroyed it affected them deeply. In “Promise of the High Plains,” a flyer created in the 1800s it states, “The finest timber West of the Great Wabash Valley” (The Railroaders) when trying to convince the people why to move west. This flyer shows that Americans were advertising the timber on the western land to convince more people to move. Buffalo was also a very important resource for the Native Americans culture and way of life. Buffalo was used as food, clothing, and housing. Not only were Buffalo used for survival, but they were also part of their religious rituals. With buffalo numbers decreasing fast, Native Americans tribes faced starvation and desperation. There were many different actions the Americans did to destroy the land of the Native Americans. The murder of Buffalo and cutting down of timber was just a few of the impacts the settlers
Everyone has a preconceived opinion of how a certain ethnic group is in terms of the way they live, the morals they hold, the way they deal with people different from them, and how they deal with one another. We come to these conclusions by what we have seen in the media, heard from other people, or actually experienced ourselves. Most people would consider these opinions to be stereotypes. Dances with Wolves is a motion picture that deals with and touches on all sides of personal stereotypes we as American and American Indians have about each other. John Dunbar takes us through and allows us to see how it is to come into a situation he was not familiar with and then eventually the situation became a part of him and his lifestyle. He allows us to experience people for who they really are and not how we assume them to be.
The movie Dances with Wolves was a real good movie and I enjoyed watching it. It showed how life was back in the time of the Civil War. The movie also showed how Indians lived and how they respect everything except the white men.
Growing up Black Elk and his friends were already playing the games of killing the whites and they waited impatiently to kill and scalp the first Wasichu, and bring the scalp to the village showing how strong and brave they were. One could only imagine what were the reasons that Indians were bloody-minded and brutal to the whites. After seeing their own villages, where...
The film, Dances With Wolves, was very cleverly written in my opinion. For most of the introduction, before John Dunbar begins to get friendly with the Sioux Indians, you are given an emotional expression of hatred and dislike towards the Native American Indians as they are slowly introduced into the script. There were a few scenes of brutality and savagery that triggered these emotions. For example, there was a...
“What have the ‘hostiles done? It seems to be so far a white man’s war” (Qtd. in Hines 30). The Indians that were killed at Wounded Knee committed no crime on their reservation in the time before the battle (Hines 36), they only practiced religion. The Ghost Dance movement resulted in a massacre at Wounded Knee which had a lasting impact on many people.
When we look at actions of some cultural tribes we generally judge their actions towards certain opposition as foolhardy. Actions like hunting styles or tribal initiations are judged to foolhardy because they are things that we as western civilized people do not do. We judge others ways of doing things and we completely ignore the fact that they are customs that have existed for many years and they are necessary for each cultures' survival.
“Dances with Wolves” is a movie that seeks to deliver a message of the need for cultural diversity. The story follows the main character Lt. John James Dunbar, played by Kevin Costner, from the battlefields of the Civil War to the barely touched western frontiers that house the Sioux people. Once Dunbar arrives at his post, Ft. Sedgewick, he sets out to find his place in his new home. However, due to two plot moving events, the suicide of the officer who dispatched Dunbar to Fort Sedgewick and the murder of the coach driver who took him there, no one else is alive that holds knowledge of Dunbar’s placement.
...thirsty savages. These men are fulfilling the white man’s vision of the savage Indian by abusing women. In order to stop the abuse, Garcia believes these popular culture stereotypes must be confronted and changed. If media, literary and artistic images are not changed to accurately reflect the lives of Native Americans, the violence will continue.