The Impact of Native American Methodology due to Colonization

Taylor M. Silveira

Salt Lake Community College

Professor Sarah May

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My study is about the symbolism of totem animals in Native American culture. A

totem animal is the spiritual symbol of an individual, family, or tribe. It’s said that your

totem animal is the main guiding spirit that accompanies you on your journey of life or

stays with your family throughout its lineage. These so-called “guiding spirits” come and

go in various ways depending on the situation or the moments in your life, but your

totem animal will always be your main guiding spirit as well as your protector. The

identity of your totem is based on the connection you feel or the interest you have with a

specific animal or a spiritual epiphany that leads you right to it. Native Americans

declare that “we do not choose our totem animal, but rather it chooses us.”

It’s important to study this subject because their animal totem defines who

they are. It’s part of their identity and due to colonization, they had to leave that part of

them behind. Most of the indigenous people were forced to stop practicing their

traditions and beliefs, and become Christians. Because children were taken from their

home and their families, they may never get the chance to learn about their heritage,

and therefore there may not be anything about their methodologies and spiritual beings

to read about that recently. Finding research about why and how they practice their

methodology can help us better understand the importance and worth it has on the

indigenous people and who they are. This research will help us better understand the

Native Americans and why this land, their land, holds such meaning and why they have

such a strong connection to it.

Root Causes

In the late nineteenth century, the United States Federal government established

off-reservation boarding schools that sought to accomplish internal colonialism of

American Indian communities by forcefully assimilating them into mainstream

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American culture. The goal of Federal Indian boarding schools was to strip American

Indian children of their language, customs, and religion, and prepare them for mediocre

jobs in mainstream society generally in farm labor. Within a short time, the US

government began opening schools aimed at removing the children from their native

culture and teaching them to speak English, practice Christianity instead of their

traditional religious practices, and change other aspects of their lives to make them

more Caucasian. They were an attempt to “Kill the Indian, save the child”, and teach

them how to be civilized beings.

For more than a century, camps for non-Indian children around the nation

have enacted “Indian rituals” of belonging and endurance, even when indigenous

religious practices were forbidden. The editor and senior correspondent at Indian

Country Today, Vincent Schilling once said, “Boy Scouts ‘have been one of the worst

culprits of cultural appropriation” (2019). The Boy Scouts of America are the largest

scouting organization in the world today. Since the early 1900s, the Boy Scouts have

been using a large number of Native-themed decorations, Native-inspired regalia, and

even full-out headdress in boy scout ceremonies, gatherings, and outings. In Native

culture, showing Native culture was dishonored, while in white culture, wearing Native

emblems was celebrated.

Analysis

Settler colonialism is a term for when the colonizer comes to stay and as such the

distinction between the colony and the imperial nation is lost. Settler colonialism as a

structure requires genocide: the removal and erasure of Indigenous populations,

communities, and nations that pre-exist the arrival and creation of the settler nation. In

settler colonialism, colonizers impose their cultural values, religions, and laws, and
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make policies that do not favor the Indigenous Peoples. They seize land and control

access to resources and trade. Let’s look at the Indian Removal Act of 1830 for example.

The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson

on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant lands west of the Mississippi in

exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully,

but many resisted the relocation policy. During the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839, the

Cherokees were forcibly moved west by the United States government. Approximately

4,000 Cherokees died on this forced march which became known as the “Trail of Tears.”

Tribal Critical Race Theory was developed by Bryan Brayboy as a

framework to understand the complex experiences of Indigenous peoples in education.

He created it to address Indigenous peoples’ experiences with colonization as well as

racism. The concepts of culture, knowledge, and power take on new meaning when

examined through an Indigenous lens. Take the use of American Indian mascots as

symbols and university athletic programs.

In 2005, the American Psychological Association (APA) called for the

immediate retirement of all American Indian mascots, symbols, images, and

personalities by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams, and organizations. APA’s

position is based on a growing body of social science literature that shows the harmful

effects of racial stereotyping and incorrect racial portrayals, including the particularly

harmful effects of American Indian sports mascots on the social identity and self-esteem

of American young Indian people. The continued use of these mascots, symbols, and

images has been shown to hurt not only Indigenous students but all students:

 Establishes an unwelcome and hostile learning environment for all students.

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 Undermines the ability of American Indian Nations to represent respectful

images of their culture, spirituality, and traditions.

Native science is the application and intersection of indigenous knowledge and

science. Gregory Cajete once wrote, “it incorporates all aspects of interactions of

‘humans in and of nature,’ that is, the knowledge and truth gained from the interaction

of body, mind, soul, and spirit with nature.” The Nez Perce Tribe have been one of the

most politically astute tribes, successfully holding onto their cultural identity. The Nez

Perce are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who lived on the Columbia River Plateau

in the Pacific Northwest region for 11,500 years.

Some Indian tribes have come under attack from environmentalists over issues such

as whale and seal harvesting, and overfishing. The resurgence over the past decade of

environmental awareness among Indians manifested in a growing number of campaigns

fought on behalf of wildlife and the land. Totem animals have been the prime focus of

this new Indian environmentalism. The most successful is the wolf conservation

program adopted by the Nez Perce tribe of Idaho. The wolf has always been the tribe’s

totem animal and represents the strength of family.

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References

Delucia, C. (2020). Recovering Material Archives in the Native Northeast: Converging

Approaches to Traces, Indigeneity, and Settler Colonialism. Early American Literature, 55(2),

355–394. https://doi-org.libprox1.slcc.edu/10.1353/eal.2020.0053

Schilling, V. (2019). Boy Scouts ‘Have Been One of the Worst Culprits’ of Cultural

Appropriation.

Ungvarsky, J. (2020). American Indian boarding schools. Salem Press

Encyclopedia.

Huntzicker, W. E. (2021). Indian Removal Act. Salem Press Encyclopedia.

Isaacson, R. (2000, January 1). Culture a Totem Gesture. GEOGRAPHICAL -LONDON-

ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY MAGAZINE-, 72(11), 67–72.