ypsi~dixit

I am so going to this event.

But I wonder...is that a traditional wigwam this gentleman has? Because it looks more like a blanketwam. Is that traditional? It could be, so far as I know. And I really doubt a wigwammer would display all his valuables on the outside of the wigwam.

But what do I know. Anyways, it'll be very cool.

Would a wigwam have a welcome mat? Of valuable fur? And I dunno if a buffalo skin would be just thrown on the ground, there. But enough quibbles.

Bring your new tent...to heck with the purists.

Le Frere du CDB, it's remarkable how wigwammy my lovely new tent is, come to think of it. I never thought of a wigwam as a geodesic dome, but I guess it sure is. Hm.

There is a neglected wigwam at Matthaei Botanical Gardens.

It is sad when a wigwam is neglected.

It makes the Baby Wendigo cry...

Ooh, the Wendigo--how I loved that story. Oh, who wrote it...can't remember...but it gave me the chills, that's for sure. Scared the heck out of me.

Le Frere du CDB, yes, you can see all the poles have fallen down and the bark covering is gone entirely. There's also what looks like a disassembled cabin, or part of one. The wigwam had a roughly 7-foot diameter. The neglected wigwam is between the entrance and the conservatory, on the east side of the driveway.

It's kind of symbolic in its present state.

The story was written by the great Algernon Blackwood.

Here's more about the Wendigo.

Oh, wow, what a treat! Thank you, Le Frere du CDB--I haven't read it in years. How great that you dug it up!

What a wonderful, hair-raising story. It gives me the shivers and makes me feel cold, too--the winter is so palpable in the story.

Apparently you can't print out this document, but apparently you can copy and paste, if one doesn't mind doing that for 28 pages (it's not that long).

Il n'est rien, madamoiselle. Enjoy.

Wow, that Wikipedia Wendigo page is fascinating.

"Perhaps this myth was used as a deterrent and cautionary tale among northern tribes whose winters were long and bitter and whose hunting parties often were trapped in storms with no recourse but to consume members of their own party. It could be indicative of starvation that the Wendigo is said to consume moss and other unpalatable food when human flesh is unavailable. Its physical deformities are suggestive of starvation and frostbite, so the Wendigo may be a myth based on a personification of the hardships of winter and the taboo of cannibalism."

"Actual Wendigo murder trials took place in Canada around the beginning of the 20th century. [citation needed] The anthropologist Morton Teicher has described the alleged clinical condition of believing oneself to be a Wendigo, which he calls Windigo Psychosis (note the spelling in this context: Windigo, rather than Wendigo)."

Merci beaucoup, monsieur; c'est gentil de vous.

C'est une histoire merveilleuse et terrible.

Vous êtes très bienvenu. C'est en effet un conte intéressant.

Voici une version libre et imprimable de l'histoire, du projet Gutenberg.

Just reread the story. One that sure stays with you.

"Oh, my burning feet of fire! Oh, this fiery height!"

(shivers)

Unfortunately,you may see a lot of chunky "pretendians" who call themselves something like "Running Bear",munching on beef jerky, with a cooler full of of beer hidden in the ol'wigwam under a period-correct cooler cover. But then again, I may be totally wrong.

Or right. At any rate, I'm looking forward to it. I'll take pictures.

Myself, after too many recent brushes with "plastic shamans," ripping off Indian culture and selling it to angsty white consumers, this event kind of turns me off. As Russell Means said, “What's at issue here is the same old question that Europeans have always posed with regard to American Indians, whether what's ours isn't somehow theirs. And, of course, they've always answered the question in the affirmative...." Are there any actual Native Americans involved with the creation of this event, I wonder, or is it just more white people "playing Indian?" Sorry to be so cynical at 8:30 in the morning.

Hm. Good question. I think it's white reenactors, but I could be wrong. You raise a good point about the exploitation of Native culture.

To draw a vaguely similar analogy, when I see Holland, Michigan's Tulip Festival folks wearing wooden shoes and merrily sweeping the street in unison, I do have to roll my eyes.

But reenacting Native culture is an ethically different issue I think. I suppose it could be done respectfully. But there's also something rather bleak and sad about the fact that indigenous peoples were routed from this county...only to have the descendants of the thieves of their land, to put it bluntly, paint their faces and "play Indian."

Now the ambiguity of this event, brought to light by Lisa's thoughtful comment, is making me even more interested in going and seeing how they do it (kosher or beer cooler?) and examining the whole issue of reenactment. Very interesting.

It is a touchy area to be sure. There is a fine line between being an admirer of a culture and being one to rip off a culture. Generally I think a lot of it has to do with how well the current members of the group are treated in the current culture. I mean, although it was not always so, Irish people are pretty much very well accepted in the main stream in the United States. I have never heard an Irish person complain about St Patrick’s Day being celebrated by pretty much everyone (although I have heard people complain about the “drunk Irish” stereotype). Very few people object if non Europeans participate in things like Saline’s Celtic festival.

I generally think that certain minorities get frustrated when white people seem to hate them so much and while co-opting certain aspects of their culture (usually inaccurately at that). So the answer is to do whatever it takes to treat all groups with the utmost respect and perhaps to work on making everyone feel included.

Let's look a bit at this. Consider how Indians cooked food before contact with Europeans-if they wanted to boil something, they had to heat stones and put them in a bark container of water. Can you imagine the relief that an Indian woman felt when she acquired her first iron pot? Or steel needles?
Clothing made of deerskin is actually not very warm-imagine what a revelation wool was-either as blankets or clothes.
Imagine,too,how an Indian man felt when he got his hands on a gun-suddenly, he had the means to quickly kill the largest,most dangerous animals,such as Grizzly bears-a daunting,highly dangerous,often fatal thing to attempt with arrows or spears (Although still a very risky undertaking with a flintlock muzzleloader)
And horses,too-would that man willingly give up his horse,after experiencing the vastly improved standard of living they brought him?

Natty Bumpo is, perhaps unwittingly, describing a process by which Europeans managed to enslave the natives through technological seduction, which caused them to grow dependent upon the suppliers of said wool, bullets, and iron, to the point of helplessness.

This is, not coincidentally, exactly what happened to all of our families during the industrial revolution, when artisan trades and agriculture declined, and everyone started depending upon paychecks to live, as they no longer had mastery of any actual survival skills.

I should add, to split a particular hair, that while native americans DID employ the stone method for heating water, you have neglected to recognize ceramic technology, which they did master independently prior to european arrival.

...and to go back to the earlier comments, I would certainly assume that most if not all of the native american reenactors do have some native ancestry, at least enough to qualify as tribe members. Maybe I'm being optimistic on that note, but most such events i've been acquainted with do have certain standards for participation. Along similar lines, even if the bloodline isn't completely pure, the festivals you mentioned in Holland are probably primarily run and performed by people who can trace some lineage to the early Dutch settlements of western Michigan, so I don't think it's really an issue of disrespect in that case, either.

And Lynne, the irish are a bunch of treacherous papists who owe their sole allegiance to a sinister foreign prince, and have no place here in our republic. They possess a limited native intelligence (albeit clouded with childish superstitions), making them barely suitable for digging canals and laying railroad lines, and I see no use for them whatsoever.

...except that their children could be used as a food source, of course.

Brett: Your comment on the parallel between Native enslavement and enslavement via the Industrial Revolution is insightful and, I think, very accurate. And is one reason why I put planted corn in my backyard this year.