I found this poem by Zachary Schomburg in my inbox today, and fell in love. I’m going to perform it in some version at the BRIM debut show on 19 October at Roulette.
One of the greatest blessings that the United States could receive in the near future would be to have her industries halted, her business discontinued, her people speechless, a great pause in her world of affairs created…. We should be hushed and silent, and we should have the opportunity to learn what other people think. [...]
here are a collection of quotations from The Soul of the Indian, by Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) [Dakota Sioux], published 1911. Charles Alexander Eastman was the grandson of Seth Eastman, the painter who worked with Schoolcraft. He graduated from Dartmouth, worked as a physician, and was a founder of the Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls. [...]
(my notes on Where The Two Roads Meet, by Christopher Vecsey) The demise of Indians as obstacles to American expansion made them objects of commiseration to romantics and other sympathizers. (p. 96) *** [The current term for the Catholic Church's attempts to missionize is inculturation, the idea being inculturation good, syncretism bad...] “If inculturation is [...]
(my notes on Native and Christian: Indigenous Voices on Religious Identity in the United States and Canada, a collection of essays edited by James Treat) **** The Christian church is made up of creatures on a planet that revolves around a small sun, in a small galaxy that is only a small part of the [...]
from Chief Seattle’s 1855 speech: 1. Your religion was written on tablets of stone by the iron finger of an angry God lest you forget. 2. The red man could never comprehend nor remember it. 3. Our religion is the tradition of our ancestors, 4. the dreams of our old men, given to them in [...]
Here are a few excerpts from A. J. Liebling’s marvelous profile, The Earl of Louisiana, which I highly recommend reading if you have any interest in Louisiana, politics, racism, or fabulous writing… WOW! * When the new Charity Hospital was built here, some Negro politicians came to Huey and said it was a shame there [...]
I’m just back from a month of camping on my land in VT, and I’m in the midst of trying to catch up with lots of email and paperwork and all that, but luckily I came across this really excellent piece by Monolake (Rob Henke), called layering buddha, which is keeping me calm and happy [...]
