Jamestown Coverage

[blackindiangirl]

Did anyone see any news clips of the Jamestown 400th Anniversary "Commemoration". Especially of the ndns? I wouldn't go, but I saw a few clips on the news. If anyone actually went, you can straighten me out if any of the Indian nations represented.:confused:

I got totally ticked off at what I saw. They showed a clip of two white guys (no offense to my mixed up family members here...I love u 2) with leather skinned material wrapped around their waist, with tassels hanging on the side and bottom of the skirts, barefooted, and barechested, and holding staffs at their side. And get this: one guy had actually painted his face a red-red color. I'm not talkin' about someone who tried really hard to do justice and represent the Indians during the year of 1607, I'm talkin' about a last-ditch effort to show what an ndn might've looked like - played by some teenage kids! They could've at least asked a few members of the local tribes to stand in.....(though I know they want their federal recognition).

I was too through!:mad: , but then.....what did I really expect? That's why I don't like to see too much of "America's" public displays of such things. I wish they would really get with reality! Come on....it's been 400 years!!:(

[Dreaminghawk]

Roni, I am confused..... most of the ndns that I have talked to have been pleased with the inclusion of the 6 Va state recognized tribes and the degree of truth that has been presented throughout the Jamestown remembrance.
I know for a fact that real Va ndns have danced for the queen when she came, the governor when he came, and sunday for President Bush. ????? I don't understand your anger?

[blackindiangirl]

Thanks for telling me what you know or heard. What I was really upset with is what I saw displayed on TV in the news (local). I guess if I had went, I would've seen different, huh?:eek: But I'd like to hear more.

Can anybody else tell me what they saw or heard? I've got a temper like my great-grandma, when I get ticked off.

Thanks!:D

[Dreaminghawk]

All of those involved have had only positive things to say about the 400th remembrance. Chief among those is the fact that access to public exposure and interest is a definite plus for the VA ndns.
An interesting story told to me by a Nansemand dancer who danced for the Queen in England last winter and at Jamestown 2 weeks ago. He stopped in front of the Queen, literally 4 feet from her, and dances the dance you would dance for a visiting chief. Now his niece, about 9 years old, is also dancing. They have been ribbing her all week about how a girl is supposed to curtsy to the Queen if she looks at you. Anyhow, as she dances around, the Queen meets her eye, the little darling pauses for one drumbeat facing the Queen, executes a perfect curtsy, and gets right back on step. The Queen (who has been wearing her "face of curious interest") breaks into a broad smile.
This is a good thing that has happened. The 400th has been better for the Va ndns than the 1st was ;-)

[Bill Childs]

Ronni,
You got what a news organization wanted you to get.
They're into 'ratings', not facts. Ratings increase their salaries, 'facts' don't.
You need to turn this over a couple of times. They have a different agenda ending in 'a raise'.
Not everything's the way it's presented.
The 'Locals' may not mean any harm but to parrot only what's acceptable to the national networks' story-line, by whom they hope to be someday employed, also scrambles the mix :)
Bill

[Ed Yancey]

Thanks Bill, We would do well to look at the motivation of many who put themselves in position to "report" the news to us. This same "tribe" picked over the bones and bodies of our ancestors in the 1880's,90's and early 1900's selling and making money of the awesome tales of Native Americans and their savagery. I wish my Grandmother was living to tell all in her childhood days there was a place for a white man and a black man but there was no where for a Native American. This was the culture the press invented and sold. Stop and think and see if you can remember interviews of our warrior's who have returned from foreign soil where they have fought and given themselves to defend the world against terrorist. We happen to live here near Camp Lejune and Cherry Point and get to know many of these warriors and the facts they reveal and discuss with us are entirely different from what you read on newspaper and see on TV. They are quick to charge our soldiers with savagery and quick to charge them as if they are imbeciles. Strange they will say little about the savagery and brutality of those who will deliberately kill their own people including women and children for the sake of usurping authority and power over their own people. For some reason the brutality of their persuasion does not sell and make money and after all the love of money is the root of all evil. ED

[Wachinika]

The only media coverage I caught of the Commemoration was on CBS Evening News. I may have looked away during it, but I didn’t see any of the Indian people.

My mother’s grandmother came to Illinois from Devonshire England at 2 years old. I of course very much loved her daughter, my grandmother so I don’t mind slipping into a little Britishness now and then.

An NA Studies Prof said the Indian’s life was better where they dealt with the French, that they treated them more as equal trade partners, dealing with them more fairly than the English did. The Omaha I know to this day have no fondness for the English and their word for them is Monhin Tonga, meaning Big Knives, because of what they say was their violent nature. The Omaha have never raised arms against the Europeans or Americans. (And all of my teacher's children I know have served in Iraq.) Then it was said that things of course went further downhill when the Americans took over under Andrew Jackson and the removal policy.

Roni, were you expecting more of an historical re-enactment with more historically authentic dress than what you saw? Times and styles change for everyone. I was thinking the Queen probably didn’t dress retrospectively, and then I saw a picture and the hat style she wore looked a lot like the one on Pocahontas in the English portrait. I’ve fairly often read of various peoples painting their faces red for different reasons. I’d like to know the significance of why the person you saw chose to do it.

I tried to find pictures of it since I missed most of it and didn’t have much luck. Here’s a quote from a site I found that gave voice to a view closer to Roni’s by a historian named John Maass from Rockbridge County, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley. It looks like a pretty interesting site I’m going to check out further:

“When the Queen arrives in Virginia as guest of honour in early May, she will find that organisers have banned plans for a “celebration”, instead calling the event a “commemoration” after black and Indian members of the organising committee branded Jamestown “an invasion”.
Organisers of the Jamestown 2007 events justify their decision to ban the word “celebration” by saying: “Many facets of Jamestown’s history were not cause for celebration.” Galleries at the exhibition place heavy emphasis on the local Indians, who are described as being “in harmony with the life that surrounds them” and living in an “advanced complex society”.
By contrast, life in early 17th-century Britain is portrayed as offering “limited opportunity” thanks to a “small elite” of aristocrats who made sure “life was difficult” for most of the population.”

http://fusilier.wordpress.com/2007/03/18/a-different-take-on-jamestown/

[janette]

Roni,

Sounds to me like the young indian you describe had on the summer regelia as painted in the 1600 by John White. During the winter according to Linda they dressed with some of the same designs as the plains indians but not in the summer. Also read here that the red "earth" paint was to keep off insects..... On an old post by Linda she said the John White illustrations were posted here somewhere on our site but i can not find it this am. I have sat looking at those drawings (water color) for a long time. Some of the illustrations are of dances that are still used in places i have been. Wish i could find the link for you but maybe others know. When i gooled John White it was a limited number that came up. Maybe others can help up locate the link with all the drawings.

I agree with Bill about the media and how things are presented and feel the origional drawings may have some distortions too but they do show us some history i suppose.

Janette

[Linda]

Here's the page with the White watercolors:

http://www.virtualjamestown.org/images/white_debry_html/jamestown.html

[janette]

Thanks Linda,

The man with the staff and leather wraped around his body with tassels was the one i was looking for to show Roni. The drawings are a bit shocking... not what we think of as Indian today.... But it is some kind of record none the less. No red pait but the red tatoos... Hope this helps Roni.

Janette