In the history of our forefathers and the generations before us we find countless examples of sacrifice, people gave their blood, sweat, and tears in the hope of a better future. One would think that the penance given long ago should be honored, remembered, and carried on in days to come. Joseph M. Marshall certainly believes so and furthers his thoughts through his book, The Lakota Way. Marshall is a descendant of the Lakota tribe, a proud culture with deep roots in American history. Like many of his people before him, Marshall passes on stories meant to teach the proper way of life. Through the telling of “The Story of the Thunders,” recounting the history of the Lakota, and describing his own personal experiences, Marshall illustrates …show more content…
The employment of such a virtue is not easy and most often not enticing. Sacrifice is demanding and rightfully so considering the requirement of giving oneself. However, consider all the good that has been gained from people sacrificing their time, energy and livelihoods: birth of democratic governments, abolition of slavery, and progress in technology and medicine. The modern world was built on the foundation of others’ sacrifices. Some people may say that in the grand scheme of things few ever had to give everything of themselves and it would be foolish for rest to do the same. These are the same people who think to themselves, “Well, I don’t do it, somebody else will.” However, consider what would happen if everyone thought that way: nothing would be accomplished and many would suffer for it. In “The Story of the Thunders,” Marshall demonstrates the cost of one person being unwilling to sacrifice. “If only she had stayed home. If only she had not gotten angry over her husband’s second wife… The honorable thing to do was to go back to the village, she thought, and tell White Wing that her foolishness had killed their son” (Marshall 100-101). Here, Marshall describes a woman cursing herself for not having swallowed her pride and not having sacrificed a little of her husband’s devotion. As a result of not being fully inculcated with sacrifice she …show more content…
There is an old phrase that says, “Practice makes perfect,” and in a sense that was the goal of the Lakota with ritual sacrifices. Marshall writes about one such ritual, the Sun Dance, and it gives strict definition to the Lakota expectations: “The piercing is done to male dancers who have pledged to perform the dance. The skin of the upper chest, the pectoral region, is pierced in two places and skewers made of bone are inserted. To the skewers is attached a cord that is tied to a central pole. The participants pole the cord tight as they dance, the object being to tear the skewers through their flesh” (107). Very few people can testify to the amount of pain induced by this practice, but consider the resolve of those who performed it. These men inflicted such strain on themselves in the name of symbolic sacrifice, so the amount of agony they would be willing to endure for true sacrifice would be astounding. On the other hand, quite a few people may look at this sort of routine with skepticism and regard it as a foolish act. Many have characterized the Sun Dance as barbaric, nothing more than self-torture. Well, in a certain respect, this ritual is barbaric and torturous but it is not done so without purpose. Marshall defends his people’s tradition by stating,
Most of the time sacrifices are driven by some type of love, strength or necessity. It is done by giving up something good for the better, whether for yourself or, another person. In the real world, the idea of selfless sacrifice is shown through the soldiers that fight for their country. Not only does this idea appear in the real world, but also the literary world where one character’s act of courage to make a sacrifice becomes an important variable in the novel. One such novel is Veronica Roth’s Allegiant.
Days of Theft, Days of Restoration Attempts to assimilate Native Americans and destroy their culture are a recurrence throughout the history of the United States. Chris Hedges' main argument in the first chapter of his book Days of Destruction Days of Revolt is that, for Native Americans, reconnecting with the culture that was forcibly stolen from them, in this case Lakota culture, could be immensely healing and restorative. He proves his argument with the specific examples of Verlyn Long Wolf, Michael Red Cloud, Leonard Crow Dog, and Duane Brewer. Hedges uses the stories of these people to show how restorative it is to reconnect with the culture that was stolen from them.
The Children’s Blizzard shows many acts of selflessness. Selflessness means, steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. However, selflessness has some connotative definitions as well such as: death, sacrifice, heroism, protecting, bravery, endurance, or
The perpetuation of the Lakota people reveals the American religious experiences through the stratification of social inequality through the eyes of Lame Deer. Lame Deer provides a personal narrative that landscapes native religion through social injustice inflicted on the Sioux nation. His stories provide a personal interpretation of what it is to be Native American or Indian living in the white man's world. Lame Deer Seeker of Visions, provides the context of religion from the journey of the Medicine Man. Being Indian embodies myth, ritual, and symbolism of religious tradition as a way of cultural and individual identity.
Cesar’s myth of self-sacrifice is a feeling that you are fighting for something that will change the world. Only from within that one will realize that he or she is doing something right that will rejuvenate the future generations to
Even through trial, hardship, and pain, selfless individuals will exhibit their abiding
We grow on stories. Stories we tell, stories we hear. The private and the public one just like our stories and the others’. As social animals, these stories we hear and tell link us. Thomas King’s book, The Truth About Stories: A Native narrative, tells us all kind of stories.
Merrell’s article proves the point that the lives of the Native Americans drastically changed just as the Europeans had. In order to survive, the Native Americans and Europeans had to work for the greater good. Throughout the article, these ideas are explained in more detail and uncover that the Indians were put into a new world just as the Europeans were, whether they wanted change or
Once European men stepped foot onto what is now known as North America, the lives of the Native Americans were forever changed. The Indians suffered centuries of torment and ridicule from the settlers in America. Despite the reservations made for the Natives, there are still cultural issues occurring within America. In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the tragic lives of Native Americans in modern society are depicted in a collection of short stories taking place in the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. Throughout the collection, a prominent and reoccurring melancholic theme of racism against Native Americans and their struggle to cope with such behavior from their counterpart in this modern day and age is shown.
Despite having the trappings of a hard sci-fi adventure story, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is a deeply humanist and spiritual film exploring philosophical and emotional issues in a complex way (Dean, 2015). Central to this are the concepts of bravery and sacrifice: as Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and the rest of his crew take great risks and travel vast distances to save humanity from a dying Earth, the characters all display varying aspects of the human condition, especially related to these very big, complex ideas. As the characters of Interstellar go about their mission and weigh the risks and rewards of each and every decision, they each find their own definitions of bravery and sacrifice, weighing their own personal decisions against
Although the Aztecs were not the only early civilization to practice human sacrifice, they are still heavily criticized because they were more documented than the others. Aztec sacrifice is looked down upon so much, mainly because of Hernan Cortes and the Conquistadors. Before Cortes met the
Throughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.
“For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice- no power currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service.” John Burroughs. One of the points he is making is that getting anything of value accomplished or done requires sacrifice. Making sacrifices requires one to get out of their comfort zone. In the book The Outsiders by S.E Hinton, the characters make sacrifices and get out of their comfort zones for each other.
Petalesharo’s writing reflected the treatment of Native Americans during the 1800s. Being a Native American himself, Petalesharo was able to give perspective on a point in history typically viewed from a white man’s opinion. The excerpt “Petalesharo” explains how the Native American was able “to prevent young women captured by other tribes from being sacrificed”, making Petalesharo well liked by the Americans (588). Petalesharo gave the “Speech of the Pawnee Chief” infront of Americans to convey the differences between Native Americans and Americans through emotion, logic, and credibility, which showed how the two groups will never be the same, but still can coexist in the world together.
As the son of a Comanche chief and a white captive by the name of Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah Parker rose from the status of a Comanche warrior to their tribal leader. Although not much is known about Parker’s personal life and early years, he plays a vital role in William T. Hagan’s book “Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief”. In this book, Hagan identifies the Comanche Chief through his upbringing to his death, describing his transactions with local Indian agents, presidents, high officials in Washington and the cattlemen of the western United States territory. The author presents the Indian chief as a “cultural broker” between the cultures of the white southerners and his tribal members, presenting a blend of beliefs that are heralded as progressive and traditional as he maintained the control and organization of his tribe. During a period of transition for the Comanche people,