Woopee! When we were in Duncan, B.C., we stopped at the Quw'utsun (cow-it-son) "Cultural" Centre. I was really looking forward to seeing how the Native people in B.C. lived, worked and how their experience with European settlement differed from that of Native Americans in the U.S. As most of you know, I'm a member of the Cherokee Nation. While I don't remember a great deal of the trip I took to Tahlequah, OK, I know some about the Cherokee people.
The "Cultural" Centre cost $13 per person and consisted of 6 buildings and a dozen or so totems. The "movie" we were shown was a 20 minute powerpoint presentation about a few of the tribes' stories (i.e., the creation story, the flood story, and the thunderbird story). It skipped over the entire European settlement period with a statement that was something like "And then the white man came. He brought some bad things ... and some good things. For example, the white man taught us to knit!" The end. Seriously?
Ok, so the movie was lame, but I was sure that the tour and exhibits would make up for it. Not so much. The tour guide said "now" every third word or so and essentially walked us around to the totems and read us the plaques. I could've done that myself. The only exhibit on the property was a pictorial about how the tribe weaved and knitted. The lesson? Buy our sweaters! There was nothing about the tribe's culture, history, lifestyle, experience with Europeans ... nada. Thirteen bucks for totems and knitting. I was sincerely saddened to see a people reduced to totems and knitting.
3 comments:
I wonder if the Cultural Centre is that way because white people don't like to think about European settlement, or if it was a conscious choice on the part of the Native peoples. I suppose, if this is a source of revenue to the tribe, they wouldn't want to offend their customer base!
They may not want to offend their customer base, but there was still nothing at all about how the Quw'utsun people lived, how they survived or what their family life was like. I kind of hope that this is their way of sticking it to the man. (Haha, they spent $13 on this!).
Speaking as "the man" I certainly feel I have been stuck!
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