#plains ndn

[merry-harlowe]

I would rather spend a lifetime with you, than face all the Ages of this world alone.

*t4t indigiqueers your fantasy otp* (inspired by @neechees gif sets!!)

[neechees]

What a Cree Bride May Have Worn - 1880's.

[image description: semi realistic flat colored, digital drawing of a light brown skinned Cree woman with dark brown hair in braids, a cream colored tanned hide dress, who is leading an American Paint horse by a lasso. The Cree woman has two large dots of red ochre painted on the apples of her cheeks, and single line of red ochre across her forehead. She has 4 lined tattoos running down her chin, and to lines extending outward to make an inverted "V" from the corners of her mouth. Her braids are tied off with circular conch shell ties, and she wears a beaded blue belt with red triangular detailing, a blue beaded necklace, and a bone choker with red beads. She has red and white moccasins with a long, fringed dress, with red pigment yoke painted onto the dress, and blue and white quillwork underneath. She has a Hudson's Bay blanket over her right shoulder. Speech bubbles pointing to the relevant details are as listed in bullet points below. end image description.]

Weddings usually were not as formal, big events in Cree culture, but there were some formalities and gifts that were exchanged, including what's depicted here.

Horse: marriage dowry. She was gifted a horse in exchange for marriage. All horses belonged to her.

red ochre makeup, for special occasions, and chin tattoos indicating status as a married woman.

newly made moccasins and a blanket: gifts from her intended. She was gifted the moccasins alongside the horse.

[olowan-waphiya]

Centuries before we had American Sign Language, Native sign languages, broadly known as “Hand Talk,” were thriving across North America. Hand Talk would be influential in the formation of American Sign Language. But it has largely been written out of history.

One of these Hand Talk variations, Plains Indian Sign Language, was used so widely across the Great Plains that it became a lingua franca — a universal language used by both deaf and hearing people to communicate among tribes that didn’t share a common spoken language. At one point, tens of thousands of indigenous people used Plains Indian Sign Language, or PISL, for everything from trade to hunting, conflict, storytelling, and rituals.

But by the late 1800s, the federal government had implemented a policy that would change the course of indigenous history forever: a violent boarding school program designed to forcibly assimilate indigenous children into white American culture — a dark history that we’re still learning more about to this day. Because of a forced “English-only” policy, the boarding school era is one of the main reasons we lost so many Native signers — along with the eventual dominance of ASL in schools for the deaf.

Today, there are just a handful of fluent PISL signers left in the US. In the piece above we hear from two of these signers who have dedicated their lives to studying and revitalizing the language. They show us PISL in action, and help us explore how this ancient language holds centuries of indigenous history.

Read more from Melanie McKay-Cody on the history of Plains Indian Sign Language: https://shareok.org/handle/11244/319767

Check out Lanny Real Bird’s videos:    / @lannyrealbird9015  

Much of the footage of the 1930 Indian Sign Language Council isn’t online, but check out some of it here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

Here are some original books we reference on sign talk: https://archive.org/details/indiansig...https://archive.org/details/indiansig...

The Smithsonian holds lots of photos and archives on Plains Indian Sign Language like this: https://www.si.edu/object/archives/co...

Sarah Klotz on how Native American boarding schools like Carlisle contributed to the loss of PISL: http://constell8cr.com/issue-2/the-hi.... She references archives that shows how students continued to use sign language like this one from the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center: https://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/...

[wintercountings]

Cree Moccasins, 1894-1960

[Image description: a pair of Native Moccasins made from deer hide. The inside and soles are a faded greyish-tan color. The outer rim of the foot of the moccasin has white beads with diamonds with alternating colors of blue and yellow, and lined thickly in red, evenly spaced against the white. The inside of the rim has a background of blue beads with a vertically stacked, dark yellow, horizontal diamond design, outlined with white that are outlined in red. A single white & red rectangle sits at the centre of the two diamonds. End image description.]

[ursie]

That’s Kuruk?!?!? He doesn’t look anything like him

I know it’s 😭 I believe he’s First Nations but still like. Y’all couldn’t of found a single visibly brown guy to play him 😭 like every named member of the water tribe is gonna end up white passing at this rate 😭

[cedar-maw]

Someone tell me good things about the plains? Whenever I talk about moving to Saskatchewan or Manitoba somebody has something negative to day about the prairie.

[mamaangiwine]

Hey about your post on the Barbie movie. Totally open to you still disagreeing and hearing why but as someone who saw the movie I just wanted to give perspective.

Obviously the consequences in Barbieland are just cute and funny but ultimately bad but I'm having a hard time seeing how comparing smallpox blankets (a tool of imperialism used to kill people) to infecting a place with patriarchy (another system of oppression that also kills people in real life) is a harmful metaphor.

I agree in a lot of ways the movie completely fails to actually address things like race and class to solely focus on sexism and it has been heavily criticized for being libfem. However, is it not analogous to compare two systems of oppression that obviously work differently but are both very bad?

I appreciate you reading my ask and hearing me out. I look forward to understanding your perspective better.

Thank you for being respectful.

So firstly, as you said the movie has been widely criticized for not touching on racism or classism- which is honestly something I expected. It's The Barbie Movie, after all. I wasn't expecting a particularly in depth exploration of that kind of intersectional feminism. No... Barbie's "intersectionality" lies in its optics. There is a trans Barbie, disabled Barbie, and various woc Barbies. Which begs the question- in a movie that wishes to show case its inclusivity and celebrate that inclusivity via the diversity of it's Barbies...in a movie that wishes to suggest "intersectionality" through the diversity of its Barbies...who then is missing in this film?

There were no Native Barbies.

Honestly, that's not unusual for me as a Native. I didn't expect to see Native Barbie. I don't expect to see Natives in much of anything that doesn't take place in "the old west" or some kind of historical drama (that is, if it isn't being written and/or made by Ndns). Up until recently, people didn't even question why we hardly got to play indigenous roles in films (Johnny Depp as Tonto comes to mind).

Which is why it's so sad that the only representation we get in a film that is trying to tout its "inclusivity" is a throw-away line that references our suffering and the genocide we endured...and are still feeling the effects of to this day.

Tragedy is not one for one. Oppression is not one for one either. I don't agree that small pox was a "tool" of imperialism. Small pox, once colonizers realized they could weaponize it, was a failed "means to an end". It was just genocide. Plain and simple. Also, "patriarchy" is a broad concept that affects multiple people differently (going back to intersectionality) whereas Native genocide only affects Natives. Including the imposition of western, white patriarchy on both Native women and men. If one is going to make comparisons, they need to be prepared to take responsibility for ALL of what that comparison implies.

Let's not forget though, this wasn't just a "comparison". This was a part of a joke. Granted the joke didn't center around smallpox, but it was still placed within an exchange of dialog in which, yes, they are discussing patriarchy, but still funny-silly-goofy things are happening. For one thing, even if you could make the argument that there is an analogy to be made, there is a time and place for things- and it certainly isn't in a comedy centering around two white actors.

There isnt an analogy to be made though. The truth is, this "joke" is apart of a long problematic history of white women (like Greta Gerwig) using the history of minorities as a means to compare their own oppression to atrocities that they were also historically complicit in. White men were not the only one who stood to gain from Native Genocide. It's also a way for white feminists to wiggle their way out of discussions of their own privelege and take accountability for a system that they benefit from.

I would like to posit a question here, if I may... Would you have felt comfortable with a reference about the Holocaust in the Barbie movie? Would you have felt comfortable with a reference about Jim Crow in the Barbie movie? Particularly refenced via a line that had no bearing to the plot or any real attatchment to a character's world view or identity? That could have gone unmissed from the final product as a whole? If the thought made you pause or cringe, that's understandable. That's how it should be.

Personally, I feel Greta Gerwig felt she could make this comparison because Natives are not always treated as a living group of people suffering under colonialism, racism, and patriarchy- it's for the same reasons we are only seen in movies set in the "old west"- we are often thought of as something from the past. As though we are already gone. This makes it so Ndns have to work especially hard for our voices to be heard sometimes, because the genocide we experienced wasn't just about exterminating us but convincing people we had already been exterminated.

For all these reasons, Native voices should be elevated, Native actors should be hired, and Native History should be respected.

[mnikhowozu]

occasionally i’ll be like “ohhh i wanna make this indigenous fantasy oc of mine have cool lakota inspired design” but then like i remember that so much of plains ndn culture has been appropriated over and over so there is a reasonable chance ppl will just think i’m being insensitive without looking at the fact that i’m lakota myself. hell world

[shadeslayer]

I'm growing the Three Sisters and I feel so unbelievably NDN and connected to my ancestors every time I tend my garden.

WAAA ... i love that so so so much for u anon im so jealous omg... the yard/garden im working on is at my parents place where im staying so i dont get a say in it but my mom is designing it and is purposely making it like, all plants native to the area and we just had the tree cutter guy out to cut down all the invasive and sick trees so we can plant healthy native stuff in its place and it feels so fucking good to be out there in the dirt knowing that this is all good stuff

my dads doing a lot of the work bc im busy having depression in my room KJNDFS but i love helping with it when i can. the soil in illinois as well is so insanely rich it still feels so special when i dig into the dirt at all.. im used to the oklahoma dirt thats just. pathetic. red clay and post-dust bowl plains dirt. but here gets so much rain and has so much life the dirt is so richly black and wet i just want to bury my face in it....

[brilliant-soul]

Nothing is ever funnier to me than well-intentioned white people who go to r/indigenous for help, and then watch as the proceed to *ignore* all the ndns who tell them to go to r/indiancountry bc that sub won't center white voices (they have an option under report that's smth along the lines of undermining ndn voices)

This specific person also had to be told off for agreeing w someone that said anyone who uses 'Indian' is ignorant and uneducated =|

like ma'am do you want help from ndns or white ppl bc that's plain out and out racism you're cosigning

[neechees]

[image description: satellite  images of the 9 planets of the solar system, starting from Mercury and ending with Neptune. Each planet is labelled with Cree syllabics and the Cree planet name. end image description.]

ᑖᐢᑕᐲᐘᑖᕽ / tâstapîwatâhk: Mercury / “fast star”

ᐚᐸᓇᑖᕽ / wâpanatâhk: Venus / “dawn star”

ᐅᑳᐑᒫᐘᐢᑭᐩ / okâwîmâwaskiy: Mother Earth

ᒥᐦᑿᑖᕽ / mihkwatâhk: Mars / “red star”

ᒪᓯᓈᓱᐘᑖᕽ / masinâsowatâhk: Jupiter / “colored star”

ᐚᐏᔦᔦᑭᓇᑖᕽ / wâwiyêyêkinatâhk: Saturn / “wrapped around star”

ᓰᐲᐘᑖᕽ / sîpîwatâhk: Uranus / “river star”

ᔩᑿᐢᑿᓇᑖᕽ / yîkwaskwanatâhk: Neptune / “cloudy star”

[olowan-waphiya]

Sign language used by Native American peoples evolved as a way of communicating across language barriers, which proved valuable for trade, story-telling, and ceremonies. This was an interesting time in history when sign language was used alongside spoken languages. This footage is from the Indian Sign Language Council of 1930 (Plains Indian Sign Language - PISL). Advice: Please note this video contains footage of deceased Indigenous people.

[fyeahindigenousfashion]

mukluks, Rosa Scribe (Norway House Cree Nation) for Manitobah Mukluks

[dragonladdie]

Don't know if people know this but "feral" horses existed in the Americas before the European """"""""""explorers"""""""""" arrived

The "All wild horses were brought to North and Central America by Europe," is colonizer bullshit which can be proved by Just Fucking Asking First Nations People, actually

[jcheechoo]

oh i’m never gonna shut up about this!!!!