From: hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu (Mary Loveless)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
Date: 24 Dec 92 17:29:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Dec24.172929.13284
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Dec24.023537.11215@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>In <1992Dec23.192222.10975@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>
>>	In yuppie shops in Berkeley, you will find "primitive" artwork from
>>Central America, Armenia, and Asia, much of it straightforwardly part of the
>>religious practice of the people who made it (this includes paintings on 
>>leather, cement statuary, tapestries, various icons, etc.).
>
>>	The work is usually divorced entirely from its original context and
>>is in fact being offered for the esthetic pleasure of the urban dweller with
>>(often significant) disposable income.  
>
>The same thing is true of most of the things you see in museums, at
>least the objects made before modern times.  Does that bother you as
>well?
>-- 
>Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
>"Rem tene; verba sequentur."  (Cato)

I wonder, will I get flames for pressing the wrong key a moment ago and
sending instead of editing?  I can't wait.  It is *sooooo* cold in my
office, this morning.

In response to Jim's question to Tom, "Does that bother you as well?"
Well, it bothers *me*, considering how many of those artifacts were
obtained.  I recommend a couple of books for different views of this
question.  I re-read Thor Heyerdahl's _Aku Aku_ a couple of years ago and
was fascinated at Heyerdahl's masterful techniques at charming/coercing
artifacts out of the Easter Islanders.  When the islanders board ship at
first landing, Heyerdahl immediately decides the leader of the 'long-ears'
(read the book if you wish to find out more about this fascinating group)
is a clown and a buffoon.  Heyerdahl ascends to greater heights of
condescending sneers toward this man and leaves the island in a state of
rage because he, out of all the islanders, does not turn over his family
heirlooms to the better care of the Europeans.  The book is worth reading,
in part for this first person account of a mass looting (yes, the
artifacts were at risk because of the islanders' lack of knowledge about
proper care for them.  I wonder if they would have been willing to learn? 
I wonder if funds could have been raised to house and display them
properly, should the islanders have wanted to change age-old practices
that had saved their artifacts from the Spanish and other invaders?);
in part because it gives, I understand from those who know more about
these things than I, a truthful account of the history of an amazing
people.

Another book I heartily recommend is Tony Hillerman's mystery, _Talking
God_, in which (among many other things) a Navajo wannabe, a blond,
blue-eyed Smithsonian staffer with a drop of Navajo blood (he wears
*braids* for heavens sake.  Read the book to find out why that is silly),
who expresses his views about museum artifacts in a dramatic way.  Tony
Hillerman's books are recommended to our graduate students who do their
nursing clinical practicum at the Navajo Reservation, because they give
such an accurate picture of Navajo people and their lives.  The Navajos
have given Hillerman some kind of award, because of his books.  I wonder
if it is safe to assume that they don't feel that *he* is yet *another*
looter (see _Thief of Time_.  **fascinating**). 

Mary Loveless  hoosiers@carson.u.washington.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of my opinions are self-righteously my own and **certainly** have
nothing to do with the University of Washington.

"I wonder how I'd look in *Madonna's* underwear."  Zippy the Pinhead
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books