So, I'm reading these two books:
Mythology of the American Nations by David M Jones and Brian L Molyneaux and
The Native American: The Indigenous People Of North American [A Compilation of Histories and Pictures] Edited by Colin Taylor, with William Sturtevant of the Smithsonian as the Technical Consultant.
I couldn't help myself, but to open them immediately and start searching for references to and information about the Omaha. The Omaha are the tribe I've based my HOC character out of. As far as I know they are one of the few (if not the only) tribes still in residence on their sacred land, even if it is a smaller chunk of that land than they started with.
There isn't much information about them in these books. I've found more online. Here is my crackpot theory on this, and part of the reason why once I started researching Dr. Susan La Flesche and her family, I *knew* I had to use her, and them, as my HOC proposal.
Theory: These were secretive people. And they had a game plan. Chief Iron Eye probably garnered more attention than he wanted by raising some spectacular children who made a difference. On the other hand, he raised spectacular children who made a difference - and they are still on some of thier land.
From what I've read, the game planned seemed to be: all the tribes around us fight, and are decimated. We've seen time and again it doesn't work. We will integrate, learn their rules, and be able to fight as their equals.
Girls - off to finishing school with you.
Son - off to law school with you. And again - go learn more.
Now *we'll* work for the Bureau. His son gets a position as a secretary to another lawyer there (I think, the way I'm reading it.) He's inside. The daughter who became a doctor becomes the Bureau's assigned (and paid, sometimes) doctor for the tribe. She's not quite inside - she's fighting the system yet to get what she needs - but in the mean time her people get better medical care than they were getting. The charismatic daughter translates at a jury trial (and helps formulate the strategy for defense, so far as I can tell) that has the court finally recognize Native Americans as people. She later speaks before Congress.
In the midst of all this, are 'conversions' to Christianity. Our doctor is lauded for her Christian beliefs. Her father the Chief 'converts' and agrees maybe he should give up his third wife, although I can find no evidence she ever left his home. Some of what I found says this conversion cost him his position in the tribe - but other things I've found indicates this simply isn't true - but that he was the last chief, and either the doctor daughter or the lawyer son was the recognized but perhaps not official chief after he died.
(Looks like nowadays the have a tribal 'president' with the same ole kind of council.)
The thing with native converstions to Christianity in this period were that Christianity doesn't really conflict overmuch with Native beliefs. In fact, they'd worked Jesus into their mythos at least 100 years past. It was just that missionaries freaked when they kept doing their own ceremonies - so those were done in private. We know they were still happening in that period, because the lawyer son was recording them on wax cylinders, against his father's will.
And why did the Chief object? I couldn't find anything concrete on that, only that people 'know' he did. Which leads me to my theory. Secrets. We get to know their secrets, their ceremonies, their ways, but they do not get to know ours.
But from what I'm reading, the tribe was down to 300 people, and Francis seemed to be afraid the music would be lost. He helped Alice Fletcher (an anthropologist who was studying the tribe's culture, and who later adopted Francis "as my son") learn about how music and Omaha culture are completely intertwined. Saving the music was more important to him than whatever his father's objection must have been.
So there is a CD from the library of Congress with Traditional Omaha music on it. There are numerous women's history sites that talk about 'the first native american woman doctor' and her life, and how she had treated every person in the tribe. And about Bright Eyes and how she was eulogized before Congress - how she she the first native american woman to speak before them - and about how she so charmed them. Francis lives on in the music he recorded, and his writing - he wrote a book about the Osages (not his tribe, you'll note, but another), a book about his years as part of a gang of young tribal men, and other works. But what you find about these people are more or less the facts.
There is a letter the doctor wrote to the Bureau. Marriages. Public appearances. Court records. School records. The doctor campaigned for temperance in her area, and for a while it was a dry county. [This was doubtless more than a simple medical objection, although because of the effect alcohol must have had on her people, certainly it could have just been that. But the Chief her father had anyone he caught drinking publically whipped, and this might have been an influence on her thinking.] It's hard to find the more personal things. Why did Alice adopt Frank, for example?
Anyway, as you can probably tell, they just facinate me. And perhaps make me a little crazy, because I'll never really know - but I can pretend.
Posted by Liz at January 16, 2005 12:23 PM