Final

 Empathic Civilization

Despite peoples differences when humans come together as one the possibilities are endless. Jeremy Rifkin traced the human race back to stone age and discussed that human beings are programed to care about each other. Rifkin talks about an experiment that was done on chimpanzees which helped people discover that; "we are apparently wired with mirror neurons to experiences another plight as if it we were experiencing it ourselves"(Rifkin). The mirror neurons in a brain send out emotions to help one experience another feelings. When someone turns 2 years old they being to understand how precious life is. "empathy is grounded in the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life"(Rifkin). Humans know how hard life can be just to survive and that tends to bring people together. If the human race could look past their difference's that didn't even categorize people many centuries ago; race, religion, etc., anything could be done. Jeremy Rifkin asks the question; "if we have gone from empathy in blood ties to empathy in religious association ties to empathy based on national identification is it really a big stretch to imagine empathy to a single race in a single biosphere"(Rifkin)? Throughout time people have grouped themselves based on various things. If the human race could group themselves simply on just being human the strength we would all have together is unimaginable.


Visual Literacy

People are always going to judge, but being yourself and putting yourself out there will bring the ultimate happiness. Miley Cyrus tries to be herself no matter what people are going to say. She says that because she is free from her old record label she feels like she can be whoever she wants to be. "I have this freedom to be whoever  I want because I am starting as a new artist"(Cyrus).  She likes being different and being who she is. She embraces her unique spirit. "every time I do anything I want to remember this is what separates me from everybody else"(Cyrus). She doesn't want to blend in with the crowd. People can learn from her that embracing who they are is important and ultimately going to make you happiest. "you're always going to make people talk, you might as well make people talk for two weeks rather then two seconds"(Cyrus). She is saying that people are always going to judge they might as well judge you on who you really are. You might as well not try to please people. It is important for humans to be who they are and embrace each other.


Seven Pounds

Sometimes horrible experience lead to beautiful things. Ben is suffering from depression after he kills seven people in a car accident. Even though he plans to take his own life he wants to give seven people a better life in one way or another. He wants to make sure the people he gives to are well deserving of what he gives them. "I want to apologize for being so rude to you...I want to give you a gift"(Ben). This was when he was testing to see if Ezra was worthy of giving him his eyes. He decides to give Ezra the gift of being able to see after Ezra has been blind his whole life. Ben makes sure that he has everything in line with his attorney so after he has killed himself his organs will be given to the people of his choosing. "Its time...I love you"(Ben). This was the last words he said to his attorney/his best friend. He then killed him self and gave his eyes to Ezra and his heart to Emily, a girl he fell in love with and wants to help her survive. He did a beautiful thing giving different people gifts to change their lives drastically. "You must be Emily"(Ben). This was the ending scene and a very beautiful scene as well. Ezra, who has never been able to see before, meets Emily, who is now living because Ben gave her his heart. With Ben's eyes Ezra sees the scar on Emily's chest and they cry together because of the lives they both now have because of one amazing human being. Its amazing when someone can take their experience, bad or good, to help others. Even though Ben had deep depression and didn't want to live anymore he gave seven people the gift of a better life.


Smoke Signals

In order to have inner peace one has to learn how to forgive. Forgiving can be one of the hardest things to learn how to do. People are naturally going to have problems with one another and not be able to accept their difference, thats just how it is. After Thomas and Victor get home from Victor's dads house Thomas talks about the concept of forgiveness; "how do we forgive our fathers maybe in a dream"(Thomas)? It is hard to learn how to forgive people and it is hard to let go of the past, but to move on in life Victor needed to let go of the past he had with his father. It is also hard to know what to forgive for;"shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning, for shutting doors or speaking through walls, or never speaking or never being silent"(Thomas). Victor has always been angry at his dad because he left him and his mom. He didn't know the full reasoning behind why his dad couldn't stay in town, he didn't know that he had his own battles he was dealing with. After learning more about his dad Victor gets home and throws his fathers ashes in a river symbolizing his forgiveness and letting go of the past. "do we forgive them in our age or theirs or in their deaths saying it to them or not saying it"(Thomas). There is no right time to technically forgive, but it is important to let go of the past. Victor is able to let go of the bad memories and morn his fathers death with a different perspective after he has moved on. Without forgiving people you are doing yourself a disservice and causing yourself unnecessary pain. Letting go is the ultimate way of peace.


Press Pause Play

There will always be critics and someone who doesn't like you but now with endless possibilities if someone is doing what they love that is all that matters. Some people look at the new democratized culture with negativity and that what is now accepted as music or art is trash because anyone has the resources to create anything now. In an interview with Seth Gordin he explains that that isn't true; "we are broadening the definition of art"(Gordin). The new access people have to electronics and different forms of art is making it capable for anyone to be able to express themselves. "...what makes it art is that it is a gift..its new...it makes a change and that kind of art we are now seeing in so many different places and that means just about anyone has the opportunity, if they want to, to make art without the permission from a guy in a fancy suit"(Gordin). Seth is saying that you can't put rules or boundaries on art. When something new is created wether that be a song, or a sculpture, it is art to somebody. He talks about the artist Shepard Fairey who broke the law to show off his art. "look at Shepard Fairey, Shepard is the most famous fine artist of the century...he did it by getting arrested and putting his art on the walls of the city giving it away and getting arrested doing so"(Gordin). Of corse people are going to hate on what you are putting out but the haters will always be there and what's important is that you do what you want to do and be who you are. Being yourself is the most beautiful think you can do.

Music Videos/Images

Kanye West- Only One

 The story behind this video is that Kanye West feels like this song is what his mom, who had passed away, talking to him. The diegesis of this video is that he is wishing his mom was there to see his daughter grow up. The focus of this film is on him and his daughter, North. The costumes that they are wearing are coats black pants and rain boots. The scene is in the rain/fog and the mood is somewhat gloomy. This video was filmed and edited on an iphone. There is natural low-key lighting they are getting from being outside, with a lot of deep space. The mis-en-scene is grey and gloomy and really raw showing up-close shots of him and his daughter. The offscreen space is the bare trees and the fog that goes on for miles.

Miley Cyrus - 23 

The costume Miley is wearing throughout the film is a Chicago Bulls uniform transformed into a two piece costume. In the beginning of the video there is up close shots of her face when she's singing. The diegesis of this film is a party feel and breaking the rules and doing what you want to do with your friends. The beginning of this video is a shot of the principal in his office and a basketball bouncing by his door. The story behind this video is it was one of the first videos she made after she changed her image from what people wanted her to look like to what she wanted to be.  The mis-en-scene of this video is mostly red and black colors some most of the video is low-key lighting. The deep space behind her is dark for the most part.

6-7 sentences 15 vocab terms for each video

3-4 sentences for each picture.



                                                                Spencer Hastings - Pretty Little Liars




The Mis-en-scene of this picture is very grey and gloomy. The lighting is showing half of her face and the other half is in the shadow representing her going to the dark side. The diegesis of this shot is that Spencer is feeling very hopeless and alone.


                                                     Finding Carter - Carter and Crash




The focus of this shot is on Carters face and her eyes. The diegesis is intense and its showing the feelings they have for each other. The lighting is bright and lighting up the room.

    American Horror Story - Clown Scene

 This shot focuses on his face and his eyes, he has an evil look in his eyes. The diegesis of this shot is that he just killed somebody, having previous knowledge that the man in the clown costume is the person killing people in their town.  The dark lighting behind him promotes evil and the evil inside him.

Criags list Joe and Empathetic Culture

As time progresses civilizations changes. In Jeremy Rifkin's TED talk he explores Empathic Civilization and the vast differences between centuries.  He begins talking about empathy as a general term at first. Empathy is the ability to share and understand the feelings of another.  Jeremy Rifkin says that "empathic development increases selfhood increases empathic development"(The Empathic Civilization). When someone begins to age and mature they have a better grasp on what life is and they are able to feel empathy towards others people knowing how fragile life is. According to Jeremy Rifkin that is the beginning of an "exstitensial trip"(The Empathic Civilization). He asks the question that if people can feel empathy is it possible for everyone feel empathy for each other and come together as a species and help the planet.  

In the documentary Craigslist Joe this question about empathy is explored. Joe Garner a 35 year old man travels the United States from L.A. to New York and back in 30 days. He is trying to live off solely off of the empathy he gets from strangers over Craigslist. He came to find that many people were happy to help him and he was overwhelmed with their kindness. "The generosity of people, and the stories they shared, and the connection I've made, in one month! Was so deep and just meeting everyone and telling them my story and the journey...it was truly inspiring on humanity to know that we can take care of each other"(Craigslist Joe).  Joe was happy seeing that human beings will take care of one another. 

Communications post 2

Smoke Signals

In the movie Smoke Signals it shows Victor's journey of him finding himself. Victor is shown as an angry person searching for answers. Victor doesn't like talking about his dad and see's his dad as a bad person. " Thomas you didn't even know my father. Did you know my father was the one who set your parents house on fire? Did you know my father beat my mother? Did you know my father beat me too?"(Smoke Signals).  Thomas is almost constantly asking Victor about his father and it drives Victor crazy. Victor has bad memories of his father and he feels like Thomas didn't know who his father really was. Victor has put up a wall because of the pain his father has caused him. "You gotta look mean or people wont respect you"(Smoke Signals). Victor likes to scare people away and he likes people be afraid to approach him.

Thomas has a different way of seeing the world around him. He see's the beauty in everything and he looks deeper into things then the average person does. Thomas comes up to Victor and is apologetic for the loss of his father and Victor asks him how he found out and Thomas says; "I heard it on the wind. I heard it from the birds. I felt it in the sunlight. And your mom was just in here crying"(Smoke Signals). Thomas says that he could feel the loss of Victors dad in nature. Thomas feels everything really deeply. "You know there are some children who aren''t really children at all, they're just pillars of flame that burn everything they touch. And there are some children who are just pillars of ash, that fall apart when you touch them...Victor and me, we are children of flame and ash"(Smoke Signals). Thomas is saying that birth is a painful experience for the mother and child and he's relating it to fire. When he says that they are "children of ash and flame"it's because they literally were babies when Victors dad set Thomas' parents house on fire. 

Ceremony 163-186

Tayo is continuing on his journey and working through the healing process. He is making progress and is using nature to appreciate the beauty of life. "He breathed deeply, and each breath had a distinct smell of snow from the north. of ponderosa pin on the rimrock above; finally he smelled horses from the direction of the corral. and he smiled. Being alive was all right then; he had not breathed like that for a long time"(Silko 167). Tayo smiles because he feels alive and he is recognizing that. He is finding beauty in nature with the animals and the fresh air and it is healing him. There is a recurring theme that keeps showing up and that is sunrises. The book starts with a sunrise and ends with one.  "Sunrise! We come at sunrise to great you. We call you at sunrise. Father of the clouds you are beautiful at sunrise. Sunrise(Silko 169)! The sunrise is a symbol of new beginnings and Tayo is starting to see that he can have fresh starts. After he meet with Betonie he is enlightened with all the ways nature can heal him. "He had been so intent on finding the cattle that he had forgotten all the events of the past days and past years. Hunting the cattle was good for that. Old Betonie was right. It was a cure for that, and maybe for other things too"(Silko178). Tayo is looking for cattle and it has taken his mind off of all the things that has happened to him in the past. Its curing his PTS and he feels like it can cure other things as well.

Tayo is beginning to look at the bigger picture and he has less hate towards people because of that. All these people can fight over who 'owns' the land but in the end no one truly does. "All but a small part of the mountain had been taken. The reservation foundry included only a canyon above Encinal and a few miles of timber on the plateau. The rest of the land was taken by the National Forest and by the state which later sold it to white ranchers who came from Texas in the 1900's"(Silko 172). The land and Earth as a whole are so much bigger then the humans on it and they will never really own anything. Land is ageless and the humans fighting over it will die and pass it down but the land will always remain. Tayo is looking at things from the present now rather then living in the past. "He knew then the old-timers could only speak of yesterday and tomorrow in terms of the present moment; the only certainty; and this present sense of being was qualified with bare hints of yesterday or tomorrow..."(Silko 179). Tayo is now dealing with his pain in the present moment instead of having flashbacks and feeling like he's stuck in the past. He has learned that he can still live life today with the events of the past.

Ceremony 140-163

Tayo is beginning to depict the healing process and is starting to have a different outlook on the world in general. As he is spending more time with Betonie he is trying to find healing through ceremony. "He was thinking about the ceremony the medicine man had performed over him, testing it against the old feeling, the sick hallow in his belly formed by the memories of Rocky and Josiah, and all the years of Auntie's eyes and her teeth set hard on edge. He could feel the ceremony like the rawhide thongs of the medicine pouch, staining to hold back the voices, the dreams, faces in the jungle in the L.A. depot, the smoky silence of solid white walls"(Silko 141). Tayo is looking back at things in his past that have hurt him in one way or another. Wether it is missing them or the pain they had caused him. He says he can feel the ceremony when he thinks about these things and its helping block out the pain. He says that the voices and dreams are being held back. Tayo tells Betonie that he wants to thank him for the ceremony he just did on him and Betonie tells him that this ceremony has been going on for longer then he knows."Old Betonie shook his head 'This has been going on for a long long time now. It's up to you. Don't let them stop you. Don't let them finish off this world' "(Silko 141).  Betonie is telling Tayo that he has been healing for some time now and to not let the corruption in the world stop his healing process. Tayo can see the world however he chooses to and Betonie is trying to teach him to see the beauty in it. 

As Tayo is traveling he sees and experiences the stereotypes of Indians. Tayo stops at a gas station and the man who owns the store gave off the impression that Tayo was up to no good. "He looked at Tayo suspiciously as if he thought Tayo might be drunk, or in there to steal something. In his anger Tsyo imagined movie image of himself turning the pockets of his jeans inside out, unbuttoning his shirt to prove he had stolen nothing"(Silko 143). Tayo walks in this station and the man looks at him as just another drunk indian. He assumes Tayo is there to steal something just because he is Native American. Instead of Tayo getting angry he laughs at the ignorance of this man. " He had never seen a white person so clearly before. He had to turn away. All those things old Betonie said had told him were swirling inside his head, doing strange things; he wanted to laugh. He wanted to laugh at the station man who did not even know that his existence of all white people had been conceived by witchery"(Silko143). Betonie taught Tayo that witchery is what corrupted society and had made people think that not everyone is equal when everyone is just human. This shows how much Tayo is growing and it shows that he is healing.  

Ceremony 56-105

In this part of the story we are starting to see the good and evil people have inside of them. The boys are drinking at a bar and Emo's true colors are shown when he starts talking about the war. " 'We were the best. U.S. Army. We butchered every Jap we found. No Jap bastard was fit to take prisoner. We had all kinds of ways to get information out of them before they died. Cut off this, cut off these'  Emo was grinning and hunched over staring at the teeth"(Silko) 56. Emo was telling Pinkie, Harley and Tayo about the ways they would torture the Japanese soldiers. He looked at war differently then the other men, he enjoyed killing people. "Tayo could hear it in his voice when he talked about the killing- how Emo grew from each killing. Emo fed off each man he killed and the higher the rank of the dead man, the higher it made Emo"(Silko 56). Emo would feed off of killing other people and he liked to kill the men with high authority because it would make him feel superior. The way Emo was talking about killing was getting under Tayo's skin at this point and he kept drinking the more Emo would talk. Throughout the story Tayo will have flashbacks of different memories when he gets put in a bad situation. He goes from listening to Emo talk to think about a memory in an old mans field. "Tiny black ants were scurrying over the shattered melons; the flies were rubbing their feet on fragments of pulp and rind..."(Silko) 57. Tayo is thinking about a time when the ants were eating a melon that was decaying. He thinks about the circle of life and how decay and death happens. He uses this memory to try to distract him from the things Tayo is talking about.


Assimilation and Integration are also shown when Tayo is looking back on a memory with Rocky. They're discussing the different ways to raise cattle. Rocky is reading books about how cattle should be raised and asks Tayo of his opinion. "The problem was the books were written by white people who did not think about drought or winter blizzards or dry thistles, which the cattle had to live with"(Silko 69). Tayo is telling Rocky that the books are written not from the perspective of people who have actually raised cattle or from people who have lived through and seen the conditions that the cattle go through. Then Rocky argues that they are scientists and they know what they are talking about. "These books are written by scientists. They know everything there is to know about the beef cattle. That's the trouble with the way the people around here have always done things- they never knew what they were doing"(Silko 70). This is the where assimilation vs. integration comes into play again if the scientists were to take the information the Native people could give to them and integrated the two different sides everything would work better. The fact that Rocky wasn't seeing it like this made Tayo sad. " Tayo was suddenly sad because what Rocky said was true. What did they know about raising cattle? They were scientists"(Silko 70). Tayo is sad because thats the way everything has been; assimilation and not integration.

Reel Injun

The Neil Diamond movie Reel Injun shows how the portrayal of North American Natives grow through out the years in film. The Birth of the Hollywood Injun is the opener in the movie and it shows the Hollywood idea's of an Indian. The film makers at that time were looking at Native Americans as a mythology as if they were extinct. Jim Jarmusch says "That is a genocide that occurred the American culture wanted to perpetrate the ideas that the Natives are now mythological, you know, they don't even really exist, they're like dinosaurs"(Reel Injun). Film makers made it out to seem as if Native Americans were no longer real. They wanted to make it seem like they were a culture that died off. However they are very real to this day and always have been.  Clint Eastwood says "I remember once we were on a set, the director said 'I want a real native upfront, I want to see the real thing' We couldn't find one"(Reel Injun). In reality Native Americans didn't have the money or education to become actors so Hollywood painted an image of who they were. They would paint the faces of people red and put on long dark hair wigs held on with headbands. It was easy for Hollywood to create an image for the Native Americans and it captured the worlds imagination. Western movies became huge in the filming department and gave the Natives a savage and brutal image. The heroic Cowboy killing the Indians and saving the day was the new entertainment. Jesse Wante says "When you're kids and you're trying to play Cowboys and Indians, and if you're an Indian kid- well doesn't that mean you're going to lose all the time?"(Reel Injun). The made the Indians look like the bad guy and the Cowboys look like the hero's. People grew up unaware of the true Native culture only seeing what Hollywood portrayed Native Americans to be.

The Renaissance era and the release of the movie Atanarjuat(The Fast Runner), directed by Zacharias Kunuk, showed the true culture of Native Americans. This movie was authentic and accurate representation of their culture. Chris Eyre says "They tell our stories our way"(Reel Injun). This was the first movie made about Native Americans that was directed and made fully by Native American people. This movie preserves their culture and was called an "inside job". The film industry took away who these people are. Zacharias Kunuk says "Were taking back, stories we used to hear, what we believe and why we are here"(Reel Injun). They were bringing back their culture with this movie. When a persons background is taken away its as if they are taken away too, but this movie brought it back. There is a very famous scene in this movie where a man is being attacked in his teepee and he runs out completely naked across icy terrain cutting up his feet. His dedication to this role showed his true spirit. Jhon Trudell says " We're not Indians and we're not Native Americans we're older then both of those concepts, we're the people, we're the human beings' (Reel Injun). John Truddell makes the point that everyone is just human and that the Native American people are just the same as everyone else, they just have a different past.

Ceremony up to page 54

In this story Tayo has so much compassion for others the his guilt starts to consume him. It is unclear if he actually has personally killed people in the war when he was fighting but he blames himself for all the deaths just because he feels guilty by association. "He didn't know how to explain what had happened. He did not know how to tell him that he had not killed any eery or that he did not think that he had. But that he had done things far worse, and the effects were everywhere in the could less sky, on the dry brown hills, shrinking skin and hide taut over sharp bone"(Silko 33). Tayo blames him self for the pain that has been caused and the ripple effect. He relates the war to nature when he talks about the sky and the hills. Tayo sees that everything has a chain reaction. The idea of interactions on Earth contribute to the complex system of life on the planet as a whole, is the Gaia theory which is the outlook Tayo has on the deaths of other and how it's contributing to the sky and the hills.

Ceremony up to pg 26

In the book Ceremony the main character Tayo comes home from war and is faced with the challenge of going back into society with PTS. On the way back to his aunts house he gets on a train and is coping with the pain of loosing his friend Rocky. "Tayo felt weak, and the longer he walked the more his legs felt as though they might become invisible again again; then the top part os his body would topple and when his head was level with the ground he would be lost in the smoke again, in the fog"(Silko 15). Tayo goes from being in combat to being in everyday life getting on a train and and the PTS is taking over. He is at the train station but starts having body detachment. His body begins to feel like its starting to disappear and he feels like he is getting lost in the smoke. The white smoke is something that Tayo continuously talks about when he experiences PTS. The white smoke is when he imagines himself drifting away when he is put on the drugs he was given when he was in the war. And now is a self defense he uses when the PTS comes back. "It was all worse than he had ever dreamed; to have drifted all those months in white smoke, only to wake up again in the prison camp. But he did not want to be invisible when he died, so he pulled himself loose, one last time"(Silko 15). The white smoke is a place he goes in his mind when he numbs the pain from the PTS.

Stress consuming your mind

White Smoke

Tayo also is trying to deal with survivors guilt throughout this story. Survivors guilt is when someone feels bad for being alive when so many other people had died. He wasn't ready to leave the war after The Death March he wasn't ready to go back into society. "If they had not dresses him and led him to the car, he would still be there, drifting along the north wall, invisible in the grey twilight"(Silko 14). He didn't want to leave he wasn't ready to go back especially without Rocky and he felt guilty that he was going home leaving so many people dead behind. After he leaves a doctor is checking him out and asks him if he is visible. "The new doctor had asked him if he had ever been visible and was allowed to speak to an invisible one"(Silko 14). This shows the racism during this time period. To the white people he was invisible. Tayo began to feel invisible because no one cared and he just wanted to disappear.

Racism

Invisible

Dances With Wolves

The ending of the movie Dances With Wolves shows the beauty in the way the two different cultures learned to accept each other. Dunbar tried to go back to his fort to get his journal but the soldiers had already invaded that area and they took Dunbar prisoner. The Souix warriors sent men in to go rescue Dunbar and they did. Pathos was used to appeal to the audience when Dunbar returned to the tribe. The men rode their horses over a hill down to where their camp was set up the sun was going down and the heroic music played. The intentions of the music and the set up of the scene were meant to make the audience happy that Dunbar was coming home and to put emphasis on the heroic battle they just won to get him back home. The way the scene was set up makes you feel happy and it shows the bond between Dances with Wolves and The Sioux tribe that has grown. Its a very beautiful moment.

The protective instinct between a man and a dog grows throughout the movie between Two Socks and Dunbar. The wolf begins to trust Dunbar and when Dunbar is captured by the soldiers Two Socks is worried and keeps an eye on them. He comes running when he sees Dunbar in the back of one of the soldiers cars and unfortunately leads to Two Socks being killed. The ignorance of the soldiers were exploited when they killed Two Socks. The soldiers were just messing around and seeing who could shoot the wolf first. They eventually hit the wolf and let it sit there to die. The soldiers don't care about the animals and that leads to huge conflict with the Sioux nation because animals are sacred to the Sioux and they don't let any part of the animal go to waste.

Dances With Wolves

Dancing With Wolves shows the audience the misinterpretation of the Sioux Nation and shows the power pathos has on an audience. Pathos is the act of appealing to emotions. Sight, sound, and sensory images are used differently to make the audience feel some type of way.  In the beginning of the film Dunbar finds a women who belongs to the Sioux Nation slitting her wrists and takes her back to her tribe. He picks her up and carries her while riding his horse. The way the scene was set up is to appeal to the audience. It takes place on an open plane and it has heroic music playing and shows him riding off in the horizon. This is supposed to  make the audience gain compassion for Dunbar. He looks like a heroic figure and they enhance that with the music and showing his silhouette in the sunset. From that point on the audience has a soft spot for Dunbar.
The movie shows a misrepresentation of the Sioux Nation. When Dunbar brings the girl he found to the Sioux tribe they throw her off the horse and drag her back to camp. In the story they have been looking after this girl for ten plus years and in reality they would have never treated anyone let alone one of their own like that. She would have been carried to a place she could have been taken care of. The white men are shown as put together in their uniforms with they're swords and armor. And the Natives are shown wearing ratty clothing and they have bows and arrows and they look less civilized. One culture isn't any better then the other or more civilized they are just different.

Native Nations

Sioux Nation

The Sioux Nation consists of seven different tribes throughout the Great Plains. Sioux member were known to be great warriors, but family was the main focus of their lives. Children were called "wakanisha" which means "sacredness", and they were the center of attention. The Sioux Nation are very spiritual people who connect with spirits through music and dance. The Sun dance is the most religious ceremony to the Sioux people and a tradition that has always been held. The Sun dance is a 12-day ritual in the summer of self-sacrifice to serve the the Great spirit. For the males in the tribe, going to war was a rite of passage. Through war they believed the men gain prestige which was reflected in family honor. The Sioux Nations last great gathering was located on South Dakotas Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 2006. They keep their traditions running they have boy scout opportunities for the young boys who want to carry on the tradition of the rite of passage.

Sun Dance

Sioux Flag

Chief Oliver Red Cloud 1977-2013

Sioux Nation of 7 Tribes

Chief Sitting Bull 1831-1890 

Navajo Nation 

The Navajo Nation stretches 27,000 square miles across Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. One thing that The Navajo Nation is known for is they're intriguing language. When the Navajo men were fighting in World War II they used they're code and secrete language to fight on the front line to confuse the Japanese, today those men are known as the Navajo Code Talkers. Their culture was very into rituals and ceremonies. Some dances would take nine days with dozens of people. There most important ceremonies were the ones to help treat the ill.Sand-painting was a tradition used by the Navajo to help heal people who are sick. San-painting was a ritual where they would make a bed of sand and paint with yellow ochre, red sandstone, gypsum and charcoal all crushed up and would create images in the sand. They thought the images along with chanting would help them connect with the holy people and would then they would be provided with healing and protection. Today the Navajo Nation is focused on creating a stable economy for their growing population. 

Herb Yazzie- Currently on the
Navajo Supreme Court

Manuelito- Cheif of war 1860's

Sun Painting 

Navajo Nation

Mud Hut

Cherokee Nation

The Cherokee tribe has always been one of the most socially and culturally advanced tribes. They shaped a government that is similar to the government today. The Cherokee Tribe is known for the Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears was when when the Cherokee Tribe was forced to give up their land and migrate east of the Mississippi river because of Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act. Before the removal there was six main festivals. The first festival of the year was held in March called the First New Moon of Spring. The seven Principal Councilors would determine when the new moons were going to appear and would announce the festival, the festival consisted of dancing, fasting, hunting and ending with a feast and are still done this day in age. One other tradition kept to this day is the naming of children. The maternal grandmother named the daughters and the senior male in the fathers lineage would name the sons.  

Chief Bowl- Principal Councilor

Cherokee Festival 2012

Chad Smith- Current Cherokee
Executive in Oklahoma

Traditional Dance at Great New Moon
Ceremony 2010

Ottawa Nation

The name Ottawa comes from the word "adawe" meaning; trade. This name was very fitting because of their constant trading with other tribes and eventually with the French. The Ottawa Tribe knew in order for their tribe to survive their children needed to be educated. In 1862 they were allotted 74,000 acres of land and gave 20,000 acres to be used and sold to raise money to build a Baptist school for which became the University of Ottawa where the Ottawa children were educated for free. They then sold their land and moved in 1869. The most important tradition and responsibility was The Quest for Pimadazin. The Quest was to fufill the honor of a good, healthy and moral collective life. The seven ways this was accomplished was by having purity in; mind, heart, body, humility, honesty, love and respect. To the Ottawa people today it is still a responsibility to accomplish The Quest for Pimdazin.

   

Statue of Chief Pontiac 1720-1769

First Nation Chiefs meet with Prime Minister

Current Ottawa Nation Leader

Ogala Lakota Nation

The Lakota tribe mostly is located in Northern part of the United States. The Lakota tribe is slightly smaller then other tribes consisting of about 70,000 registered Lakota Indians. The Lakota people are very spiritual. From a young age Lakota parents teach their kids about morals of their tribal group to help them better understand their background. Each family would have one or more tipi houses and the women were critical to the family and tribe. The women made almost everything the family and tribe used. The Rain Dance was a tradition that was held strong until1890 and has recently come back in the traditional Ogala Lakota festivals. 

Russell Means- Ogala Lakota Activist
1939-2012

Chief Flying Hawk
1854-1931