Mustafa Edaward, “ A Visit to the Colville Reservation” On 5th July the SUSI Group at Washington State University visited the Indian Americans in Colville reservation; the purpose of visiting was to know more about their way of living. We started asking questions and I was really interested in getting more knowledge about their tradition and culture. India Americans offer an astounding amount of variety in every aspect of social life. Diversities of ethnic, linguistic, regional, class, and caste groups crosscut Indian American society and class. And, I was amazed how during the years the western society and culture didn’t affect them. They still have their own languages which are more than 100 as well as their lifestyle and traditions. We sat in a meeting room and started asking the chairman of the commission and some other Indian American People, but after I started asking the questions I realized the “big man,” or the chairman sat confidently on chair, while “little men” sit beside a man of high status as an equal, they were friendly, humble and happy to answer the questions more than anyone can imagine. First of all I asked a simple question, what is your name? for many people it is not a good question to be asked in a meeting like that but I was curious to know how do they call their children , to be honest, I couldn’t recognize their name since it is hard to be pronounced but he gave me his nick name which was in English. I did a little research about Native Americans’ name; I found that there is a hidden meaning behind these words. “We have a celebration this weekend “ he said after he introduced himself , I realized that the Native Americans care about celebrations, dancing and being together since he talked about that just after he introduced himself. Later I asked him to explain whether they have families in other parts of the country and after he answered the question I figured out more than one thing. Firstly, they have more than hundred tribes in the USA and Canada. Secondly, Native American life is social interdependence. People are born into groups, families, clans, castes and feel a deep sense of inseparability from these groups. Thirdly, they don’t believe in borders, in other words, as he said borders never used to be there and the border may divide us but we are still a family, I think he meant the borders between the States and Canada since he mentioned that some of these tribes and families are living in Canada and what he said about borders emphasizes the second point above. I asked about their religion, he said I believe in Christianity, nevertheless, I don’t need to go to Church, I believe God is everywhere; this shows that they are not conservative. In speaking of the USA Government I wanted to know about the relationship between the White house and them so asked him what do you think of the president, Barack Obama? “We have a good relationship with the president Barack Obama and I think he is doing his best and he is moved the Native American issues further out in the forefront.” In the end of our meeting, we asked them if we could do anything to preserve the culture of the Native Americans and his response was to inform people around the world about them and raise awareness.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 21:23:02 +0000
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