M. R. Harrington (1882–1971)

This book, while somewhat sympathetic to the Native, certainly bears the imprint of its white American authorship. It’s characteristically Anglo: scholarly, non-subjective, and abstract, and is largely concerned with abstract organization, and looking at the white man’s view of the Indian, which is revealed to be unrealistic. It lacks the subjective and laconic style of the Native, and few of its sources are Native. Of course, these are difficult things to do well, and it is an old book. I don’t know if it transformed me or inspired me—well, it didn’t—but I’m modestly glad I read it. The Lenape were the first people of New Jersey to honor the duck and the goose, and I want to honor their memory, even if they all probably live in Oklahoma now, you know. They’ve been displaced, and, realistically, forgotten, but it’s nice sometimes to go looking for what’s left of the knowledge of who they were in early times.

…. I try not to be the white man who lives outside the world, outside the Enneagram, and who hovers slightly above the heads of brown men and commoners, but I will say that the Native/Indigenous culture IS just as valuable to human people as the more socially complex cultures of Asia (or Europe). Different cultures have different strengths, but actually I think sometimes in America the cultures of Asia (and Europe, of course) are somewhat over-emphasized vis a vis Native (and Black) ones, although doing so is a two-edges fault, since Asians (and Europeans) are more than their “large brains” (if you will), 🧠 🧟‍♂️— and so it’s a disservice.

I’m divided as to the worth of this sort of writing, which can bridge the divide between an Anglo life and the mostly Anglocentric publishing world and the rest of the world, and the question of the worth of sociological abstractions, that dross of religion & history, even though sociology (and even abstraction, taken in small doses), has some value of course. I guess the best part is when they give a sample speech by a chief at some festival; one of the things you get is how much simpler it is compared to one of our speeches, despite the fact that they still think about life. What you don’t get is the felt sense of the style of the culture, its feel, and how it played out in common life. I’m not trying to suggest this in a grotesque or literal way, but it’s almost like studying the bones of a culture (again, though not the bones of men). I don’t know. Really it’s about a formal production of an American museum, how some of /us/ live, at least as much as it is about the Lenape nation, even if it’s not as popular of an American museum piece as, I don’t know—well, Victorian houses, or old wars, or the Constitution, or almost anything Anglo. Which isn’t to say that any of those things are bad—especially pretty old houses, right—but naturally passing in either direction from the beauty our Anglo civilization has created to the grotesque and largely unnecessary costs levied and damage done to other nations, there is that slight shudder, that bad taste. Or at least, I don’t know, one imagines that there should be, although not for morbidity’s sake. It’s certainly hard to get a sense of how the people we crushed experienced wonder, and one is reluctant to admit that one felt little of anything.

…. —(white boy from Anglophile University) And what do you imagine is the verbal significance of the word, when they dance around, chanting “hu-hu-hu-hu!”
—Don’t overthink it; it’s a great sound, and it’s their style, you know. They were just trying to get happy, since that’s the way to live, basically.… (més)