Saturday, June 11, 2005
Learning all the time...
We're studying Indians right now with the kids. Tabitha and Nathan have been busily crafting various Indian stuff using the great Early American History kit we got from handsnhearts.com. Today I came across this interesting article about Pocahontas, Museum Displays Pocahontas' Earrings, and appropriately so, as Tabitha has been fascinated with her of late. The article gave an interestingly different twist from the usual legends of Pocahontas's saving of Capt. John Smith, claiming that "anthropologists examining Smith's papers believe he may have misunderstood what happened. Straube said the tribe only meant to initiate Smith as family through a ritual in which the tribe leader's daughters welcomed him. "The Indian way of killing people was not to lay them against a rock and bash out their brains," Straube said. "They would tie them to a tree and use shells and scrape their skin off and dig out their entrails." (end of quote)
Huh?! And this take also seems to concur somewhat with some more information I found here; Pocahontas info., which reads,
"So, did Pocahontas really rescue John Smith from certain death? Scholars have their doubts. It’s likely that Powhatan staged a ritual to adopt Smith, which would mean in effect that Smith and the colonists held their land from the Powhatans and owed loyalty to their hosts. The English tried much the same gambit in reverse when King James sent gifts and royal regalia to Powhatan, trying to imply that the Indians were loyal subjects of the English king. Did Smith understand the Powhatan ritual any better than Powhatan understood the English ritual? They had a language barrier to start with, but they also had good reasons to misunderstand; neither wanted to accept the other’s leadership.
So Smith told the story he wanted people to hear, and generations of American biographers have done the same. According to Tilton, the colonists up to the time of the Revolution were proud to claim Pocahontas as an ancestress; it seemed to give them a kind of royal legitimacy. In those days, the most famous image of her was as a mother with little Thomas at her knee. But by the early nineteenth century, slavery was a tense issue and any mixing of races had become controversial. Northern abolitionists used the Pocahontas story against southerners – how consistent is that, to be shocked at miscegenation but proud of being a half-breed? – and southerners shifted their attention to images of Pocahontas as the innocent child who saved John Smith.
(end of quote)
Huh?! Interesting...I do *love* learning history!
This week we're reading D'Aulaire's Pocahontas aloud. Also, we're reading aloud from the American Indian Prayer Guide. The other day Tabitha picked up The Wind in the Willows, and asked me if it "could be her book"?, and started reading it (I would've thought it way beyond her, and it is, but I didn't want to say, NO, you *can't read that*, what kind of reading morale booster would that be?). So, with me sitting by, listening and lending occasional phonics helps as needed, she's been pushing through it page by page. No holding her back for sure! ;)
Nathan started reading The Door in the Dragon's Throat, to himself, and aloud to me if I'm available. He's enjoying it, and excitedly came outside to comment to me (as I was weeding the flower beds) on how cool he thinks it is that "the author is even talking about God and the Truth in the books he writes, the characters know that they don't have to be afraid of the curse because of Jesus"...which prompted me to comment on how as Christians, we'll find reason and opportunity to speak of God's truth in everything we take up to do, just as this author has incoorperated some into his fictional writings...Nathan was having one of those genuine "aha" moments, I could see connections happening in his mind...the ones we cannot create lesson plans for, and I thanked the Lord for working in his mind and spirit, for teaching my precious son...as Nathan ran back inside to read more of his "adventure book"...and I sighed an exhale of relief in my spirit...being reminded that truly he is the Lord's, and I am but a steward, a keeper for Him. But truly Jesus is the one who will draw our son to Him, in HIS time, in His Way! What peace to find rest in this assurance...
"And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children."
~ Isaiah 54:13
Huh?! And this take also seems to concur somewhat with some more information I found here; Pocahontas info., which reads,
"So, did Pocahontas really rescue John Smith from certain death? Scholars have their doubts. It’s likely that Powhatan staged a ritual to adopt Smith, which would mean in effect that Smith and the colonists held their land from the Powhatans and owed loyalty to their hosts. The English tried much the same gambit in reverse when King James sent gifts and royal regalia to Powhatan, trying to imply that the Indians were loyal subjects of the English king. Did Smith understand the Powhatan ritual any better than Powhatan understood the English ritual? They had a language barrier to start with, but they also had good reasons to misunderstand; neither wanted to accept the other’s leadership.
So Smith told the story he wanted people to hear, and generations of American biographers have done the same. According to Tilton, the colonists up to the time of the Revolution were proud to claim Pocahontas as an ancestress; it seemed to give them a kind of royal legitimacy. In those days, the most famous image of her was as a mother with little Thomas at her knee. But by the early nineteenth century, slavery was a tense issue and any mixing of races had become controversial. Northern abolitionists used the Pocahontas story against southerners – how consistent is that, to be shocked at miscegenation but proud of being a half-breed? – and southerners shifted their attention to images of Pocahontas as the innocent child who saved John Smith.
(end of quote)
Huh?! Interesting...I do *love* learning history!
This week we're reading D'Aulaire's Pocahontas aloud. Also, we're reading aloud from the American Indian Prayer Guide. The other day Tabitha picked up The Wind in the Willows, and asked me if it "could be her book"?, and started reading it (I would've thought it way beyond her, and it is, but I didn't want to say, NO, you *can't read that*, what kind of reading morale booster would that be?). So, with me sitting by, listening and lending occasional phonics helps as needed, she's been pushing through it page by page. No holding her back for sure! ;)
Nathan started reading The Door in the Dragon's Throat, to himself, and aloud to me if I'm available. He's enjoying it, and excitedly came outside to comment to me (as I was weeding the flower beds) on how cool he thinks it is that "the author is even talking about God and the Truth in the books he writes, the characters know that they don't have to be afraid of the curse because of Jesus"...which prompted me to comment on how as Christians, we'll find reason and opportunity to speak of God's truth in everything we take up to do, just as this author has incoorperated some into his fictional writings...Nathan was having one of those genuine "aha" moments, I could see connections happening in his mind...the ones we cannot create lesson plans for, and I thanked the Lord for working in his mind and spirit, for teaching my precious son...as Nathan ran back inside to read more of his "adventure book"...and I sighed an exhale of relief in my spirit...being reminded that truly he is the Lord's, and I am but a steward, a keeper for Him. But truly Jesus is the one who will draw our son to Him, in HIS time, in His Way! What peace to find rest in this assurance...
"And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children."
~ Isaiah 54:13
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