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29 Mar 02 - 07:14 PM (#679121) Subject: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: greg stephens Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash have both admitted that their claims to Red Indian/Native American blood were complete inventions for publicity purposes. Anone know of any similar lies by other celebrities? |
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29 Mar 02 - 08:04 PM (#679143) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Little Hawk I never knew that Dylan did claim Native American blood...(?) When did he do that? I know he made up all sorts of wild stories in the early days, but I never heard that one. As for Cash, well, that is a bit surprising. I've had some past lives as an "Indian" (Red Indian, that is), but I don't think that counts. I'm not a celebrity. :-) Besides, I've had past lives as in whole bunch of other races and places too, so what difference would it make, really? - LH |
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29 Mar 02 - 11:11 PM (#679239) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: katlaughing The man who wrote The Education of Little Tree claimed to be Native American. He was actually a white former bigwig with the KKK. Another Mudcatter clued me into that. Despicable what he did; much worse, imo, than Cash or Dylan claiming any such heritage. Among my NA friends and at powwows, etc. a big joke is that every "white" has some great-great-great grandma who was Native American. LH - Red Indian? Haven't heard that term used in a long time; thought it went out with some of the other ethnic misnomers. kat |
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29 Mar 02 - 11:45 PM (#679256) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Little Hawk Kat - Yeah, I know all about that...I remember a time when "Native Americans" (the present politically acceptable term) were proud to call themselves "Indians" or "American Indians" or refer to their race as "The Red Man". To say "Red Indian" is not pejorative, it is merely to distinguish clearly from East Indian. They still speak of "The Good Red Road"...the Native American spiritual path, but they have decided that "Indian" is no longer acceptable. I despise the political correctness conventions of language, the petty thinking that lies behind it, and its ever-changing agenda of what's proper to say and what isn't proper to say (in whose opinion, and what is their authority?). It's utterly silly. I don't find any of the above terms offensive. They weren't offensive when coming out of the mouths of Native Americans less than 40 years ago and they aren't offensive now. People have very short memories for this sort of thing. - LH |
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29 Mar 02 - 11:56 PM (#679264) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Amos I would sugest that perjorative language is in the heart of the speaker; those who cannot disciminate intent, and must rely on literal-minded machinations of symbols to do their thinking for them are usually not as skilled at others at reading hearts, or intents. Not that I'm a great one to talk!! :>) A. |
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30 Mar 02 - 12:28 AM (#679275) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: katlaughing LH, as you are, I am fully aware of the different terms throughout the past. When you speak of "they" I assume you mean people you know personally? People I know who are of pre-Columbus heritage (how's that for a new one!?) call themselves "Indians" BUT would be offended at a general non-Indian co-opting of the "Red" bit or even "Indian," sometimes. Then there's the even newer acronym a lot of them use, in written form, "NDN." IMO, it is not whether you find any of the terms offensive, but rather if you offend any "Indians" when you use those terms. Some you would not, others you might. Russell Means says he thinks the term "Native American" is a white man's apology and attempt to rememdy atrocities, so calls himself an "Indian." Many of my friends speak of their hearts being "red" and in fact, I've been honoured when they've told me my heart is "red," but I still would be very conscious of whom I said that around, so as not to offend. We had an old thread which discussed a lot of this, way back when, and we finally came up with the term "ethically conscious," which, to me, is much more meaningful than being "PC." It's a mixed up bag, isn't it? kat |
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30 Mar 02 - 01:19 AM (#679300) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Little Hawk Yeah, it's mixed up all right. I like Russel Means' position on the word "Indian"! Good for him. I think he is dead right. Crazy Horse probably would have agreed with him on this one too, I think. "Native American" sounds kind of namby-pamby to me, just like "Afro-American" does. I use it grudgingly, mainly because I know that people think it's the proper term now, so I compromise some to keep them happy, but I still prefer "Indian". As for offending people, well, the only way to be sure of offending no one is to never say anything at all... I've been around a great many Ojibwas, Shoshones, Cherokees, Crees and various other such people over the past 30 years, and I will say this: they seem to get offended by each other far more often than they do by me! :-) It's impossible to avoid offending everybody. The trouble with the Internet is this...you never know who's listening in. You get this intimate feeling like you're talking to your personal friends, but you don't actually know who is reading what you say, and where they think you're coming from. Result being, sometimes you offend people without the least intention of doing so...usually because they don't know you very well. BTW, what does NDN mean? Nobody here seems to give a hang about Dylan and Cash, do they? :-) - LH |
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30 Mar 02 - 02:23 AM (#679334) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: greg stephens What I was looking for was interesting specious claims by musicians, or others, not an analysis whether Cash or Dylan used inappropriate language...everyone said red indian at the period they were claiming this ancestry, and I dont know what words they used anyway. In England calling people "native" is now rude,by the way, and has been for a long time. |
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30 Mar 02 - 02:34 AM (#679338) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Francy What difference does any of it make anyway... We claim to be a democracy......oh well....enough of my wordless word games..........Frank of Toledo |
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30 Mar 02 - 02:48 AM (#679345) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: MichaelAnthony Greg, are you sure about Dylan (I would be more likely to guess Young), and even if so, are you sure it was for "publicity" and not in good intention to further a cause? |
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30 Mar 02 - 06:10 AM (#679377) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: katlaughing Oh, yeah, I forgot that the author I mentioned above was also a speechwriter for George Wallace before he turned into a "Cherokee sage": CLICK for the "Education of Little Fraud." Sorry for the thread drift, Greg. LH, say NDN over a few times and you'll get it.:-) kat |
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30 Mar 02 - 07:20 AM (#679389) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Gareth Hmmmm ! Don't most US of A presidential hopefulls try and clain Irish ancestry ?? Gareth |
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30 Mar 02 - 09:11 AM (#679428) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: fat B****rd I believe "Lobsang Rampa" who wrote several books in the sixties on spiritual enlightment (Third eye etc) turned out not to be a Tibetan Monk but a Devonshire man. |
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30 Mar 02 - 01:11 PM (#679537) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: McGrath of Harlow The classic story is that of Grey Owl" which is told in that link.
I tend to be a bit suspicious of using names as a tool for changing social attitude - I mean leave aside ones that set out to be insulting, which some do. Indian doesn't set out to insult - it just reminds people of an embarrassing mistake made by European exploiters once upon a time.
"Red" - now that really is a bit strange, because the only people I've ever seen who actually have been bright red have been "white" North Europeans or of North European ancestry . But again, it's hardly an insulting term in itself. The insult doesn't lie in the words, it lies in the attitudes and assumptions of some of the people who use the words; and these aren't altered just by switching to a new label.
If I was choosing a new label in this case, I think the one I'd go from might be "Real Americans", in the hope of maybe pissing off a lot of the people I referred to in that last sentence. Except that it'd also probably upset a lot of good people as well. |
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30 Mar 02 - 05:41 PM (#679703) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Little Hawk Kat - Oh, I see! :-) Funny. Greg - I also think it's probably Neil Young who made the claim of having some Indian blood, not Bob Dylan. I'm one of the world's most terminal Bobaholics, have read umpteen books about him, and I do not recall ever hearing of him making such a claim...correct me if I'm mistaken on this, however. Fat B***rd - You haven't read very far into Lobsang Rampa. He never denied being in the body of a man born in Devonshire, but that's not the whole story! Have you ever heard of one spirit vacating a living human body (in order to escape what it perceives as a painful or hopeless existence) and allowing another human spirit to enter that adult body? It's a fairly well known concept in esoteric metaphysics...sometimes called the "walk-in". It was known of in the East and in Tibet. There's a fully detailed explanation of it in Rampa's books. It's also possible for a spiritual adept to leave his body behind (in which case the body dies) by a deliberate act of will. He then becomes a bodiless spirit in a spiritual existence, the level of which depends on his level of development and awareness. He can remain there for an indefinite period...or reincarnate through the normal birth process...or move into an available adult body, if the soul inhabiting it agrees to move out and let him come in. This is an agreement struck on the level of spirit, not mind...the average person making such an agreement would probably not be consciously aware of it on the level of the surface mind. Mind is a limited tool of spirit, and is mortal, while spirit is immortal. Rampa was one of the first authors in the West to publicly talk about this ancient spiritual knowledge, and he was roundly ridiculed for it by people far more ignorant than himself, in my opinion. To say that they were "earthbound" hardly says enough, but it's a state of mind as common as grass. I think that Rampa was probably a pretty advanced adept, though that does not mean I take everything he said as gospel. He was an advanced student, not an avatar. Neither do I reject what he said out of hand, however. It's very thought-provoking material, and he had a lot of guts to say it publicly when he did. Boy, talk about thread drift... - LH |
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31 Mar 02 - 10:40 AM (#680130) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Uncle_DaveO As to the term "Native American", I am a native American. That is, I was born in Rochester, Minnesota, of 100% German ancestry. "Native" refers not to one's ancestry but to "born there". Indians are native Americans if they were not born in another country. They are aboriginal Americans, if you want to get into ten-dollar words. Of course you don't want to ignore the aboriginal Canadians and the aboriginal Mexicans and so forth. Dave Oesterreich |
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31 Mar 02 - 11:04 AM (#680139) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: GUEST greg stephens tends to troll American posters on race issues too much, in my opinion. |
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31 Mar 02 - 11:06 AM (#680140) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: okthen Please excuse my ignorance, but how did "red indians" get to be called "red"? |
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31 Mar 02 - 11:28 AM (#680147) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: GUEST What do you want to be called? Posted: July 25, 2001 - 3:43PM EST by: Suzan Shown Harjo / Columnist / Indian Country Today What do you want to be called, American Indian or Native American? This is the most common question other people ask us. This is not a question we ask each other and there is no pressing need for us to answer it right now. It is a good question to mull over, if only to let others know what we'd rather not be called. For decades, my stock answer has been that they're both wrong, so use them interchangeably. Indians, of course, comes from the lost European sailors who washed up on our shores in 1492 and thought they were in India. The misnomer made it into the legal and historical literature and the U.S. Constitution - in the part about who counts for representation and tax apportionment, "excluding Indians not taxed." It is used for the body of law called (what else?) federal Indian law. It could have been worse. Savages was the term used in the Declaration of Independence - "merciless Indian Savages" to be exact. Rather than judges, policymakers, law students and attorneys pouring over federal Indian law, their jurisprudential focus could have been "federal Savage law." (Or, the worst, Redskins or Squaws, the most popular American pejoratives.) American Indians has the added complication of invoking the Italian navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, who brought us the renaming of the entire hemisphere. So, what's the problem? It furthers the impression that we didn't exist or had no words for "us" or "we" or "her" or "continent" or "hemisphere" before 1492. Amerindians was devised later as a term for all Indians throughout the Americas and to distinguish Indians here from the ones in India. The choice of some Indianists, mostly in governmental and anthropological businesses, it never gained wide usage, happily. Native Americans was a well-meant effort from the 1960s to put aside American Indians and to introduce the concept of originating in this place. It carries the same problem as the latter term, implying that we just barely pre-date the coming of the Europeans. The other problem with Native Americans is that many non-Natives in the United States consider themselves Native Americans. In response to a 1980s questionnaire, a high number of delegates to the Republican and Democratic conventions checked the box marked Native American. Nearly all were non-Natives who said in follow-up calls that they thought the term meant born in the United States. Since they weren't immigrants, they said they were Native Americans. A similar term, First Americans, may have been well-intended, but always sounds condescending. First Americans conveys the misimpression that we arrived 10 minutes before the first boat from Europe. This is what manifest destiny archeologists and anthropologists have been trying to prove for more than a century and are arguing today in the Kennewick Man case - that this hemisphere was totally empty until people started migrating across the Siberian land bridge and by sea from Europe and Polynesia. These scientists never make the case for migrations from Africa or for early travel by Indians in any direction. Their points are political, not scientific, and intended to prove that we were not native to this place and that "other immigrants" had the right to take the land because it wasn't really ours. First Nations is the preferred term in Canada and enjoys some small support in the United States. First Nations people never warmed to Native Canadians or Native Americans, which are commonly heard in Ottawa. L'Indian Rouge, the term of choice in France, was iced by First Nations people, even those on the French side of the English-only campaign in Canada. The positive aspect of First Nations is that it puts Nations and sovereignty right out front. Its main negative is that it lacks the dimension of individual people. First has the general problem identified earlier and its broad connotation that what's ours is theirs. But, there is another way to look at First, particularly when it's linked with Nations. There is a legal concept of first in time, first in right. In U.S. water law, Indian water rights are considered prior and paramount because we saw it, drank it and splashed in it first. In Central and South America, the despised word is Indios. There are some who say that the lost Spaniards and Italians were not calling Native Peoples Indios, as in people of India. Rather, this thinking goes, they were saying In Dios, as in "Of God," and admiring the children of God. This explains, no doubt, why priests and sailors killed and hacked off hands and feet of Indios who would not forsake their "Godless ways." I don't buy the In Dios story and am not a fan of any version of Indian. What set me against Indian was a conversation with the first Englishman I ever met, when I was 12. "Indian," he asked, "Are you a red Indian or one of our Indians?" It was like a trick question with no right answer. The word Indios almost derailed the 1976 formation meeting of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples at Port Alberni, Canada. Delegates from Bolivia wanted to use Indios in the organization's title because, in this hemisphere's countries where Spanish and Portuguese are the main languages, the word may as well mean dirty dog or peasant. They favored Indios because it identified and united us by our mutual oppression. Delegates from outside this hemisphere - including the Sami who herd reindeer in Scandinavia and the Maori who ranch cattle in New Zealand - rejected the notion of being part of a group calling itself Indios or Indians. The delegates from Australia told us that they preferred the term Aboriginals for themselves and the new group. They also were emphatic that it was never proper for anyone to call them Aborigines. Indigenous Peoples stands for tribal peoples worldwide. The United Nations declared the Year (1992) and then the Decade of Indigenous People. This set off a struggle among U.N. members about whether the latter word should be People or Peoples. Some countries wanted the word to be singular, so that it carried no recognition of sovereign or group rights. Others wanted it pluralized so as to include individuals and human rights, along with nations, tribes and groups. Although it sometimes sounded like a half-s argument, it was an important debate, one which the U.S. government is still having with itself. Proponents of the word Indigenous like that its root is gene, implying family and relatedness. This cuts the other way, too, suggesting race-based relationships, rather than political status and nationhood. In English, where the word is strongly connected to flora and fauna, Indigenous connotes something closer to plants than to people. It sounds somehow more dignified in Spanish - Indigena. I am told that the word in Latin America is used interchangeably with Indio, but is more acceptable to Pueblos Indigena because, unlike Indios, it is not synonymous with primitive. Native Peoples is the term I favor these days. Native places us here, with origins in our lands, and it has the pluralized Peoples for both human beings and sovereignties. Its next best attribute is that it's not any of the other terms. So, what do we want to be called? The answer is, we are busy with cultural reclamation. We want to be called by our proper personal and tribal names. We do not want to be called Redskins, Squaws or Savages, or to have any references to us in sports. We have not gotten around to deciding what we want to call ourselves collectively, but that could change at any time. Until then, thank you for thinking of us, especially in positive terms, and we'll get back to you on this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article can be found at http://IndianCountry.com/?2692 |
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31 Mar 02 - 11:33 AM (#680151) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Francy It's amazing how these "THREADS", always meander off into all shapes and angles and actually forget where they come from. They have a mind of their ow.......Oh well the music still goes on and on and on and on....................... |
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31 Mar 02 - 11:35 AM (#680154) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: GUEST greg stephens provocatively asks: "Anone know of any similar lies by other celebrities?" Ewan McColl comes to mind. |
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31 Mar 02 - 12:09 PM (#680167) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Uncle_DaveO I will just add to my previous post that I am a native Midwesterner, a native Minnesotan, a native Rochesterian (if there is such a word.) Contrary to what Susan Harjo (quoted by GUEST) says, this is the plain, ordinary meaning of the word "native". Dave Oesterreich |
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31 Mar 02 - 12:26 PM (#680173) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: McGrath of Harlow "This is what manifest destiny archeologists and anthropologists have been trying to prove for more than a century and are arguing today in the Kennewick Man case - that this hemisphere was totally empty until people started migrating across the Siberian land bridge and by sea from Europe and Polynesia."
I got a bit confused there - the alternative would be that all of us originated in America rather than Africa, and emigrated elsewhere across the Siberian Land Bridge and by sea, and I've never heard that suggested by anyone.
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31 Mar 02 - 01:37 PM (#680217) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Little Hawk I think the actual past history of peoples and migrations is more tied to periodic natural catastrophes than the archaeologists and anthropologists generally imagine. Continents have shifted, huge areas of land have vanished beneath the oceans, and other huge areas have arisen to be colonized by migrants and survivors. I was told by a medicine man that the so-called "Indians" are an amalgam of several different racial groups, that some of them came from lands in the Pacific, some from a former continent in the Atlantic which sank, some from Asia...and some of them were "always here on this land". I suspect he was dead right about that, and that the western hemisphere has never been empty of inhabitants, except prior to the existence of people on this planet. As for what people want to be called...well, anything they want to be called is okay with me, once I know what it actually is...but that seems to keep changing all the time. Let's just agree we're all human beings and be happy with it... Rita Coolidge and Tina Turner both have "Indian" blood, by the way, and are not lying about it as far as I know. - LH |
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31 Mar 02 - 03:36 PM (#680283) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: McGrath of Harlow So people came into existence all over the place separately and we don't have any common origin? I don't like the sound of that too much. Of course it's what a lot of racists would like to be true. (But fortunately the evidence seems to stack up against it, and in favour of a common origin for all of us.) |
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31 Mar 02 - 03:45 PM (#680286) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Les from Hull Yes, common origon works for me, McGrath! (some say I'm still common). There's been too much anger and bloodshed over trying to divide us up. |
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04 Apr 02 - 05:27 AM (#682631) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: greg stephens Well, to get back to my original posting which was to find out what ridiculous stories celebrities make up about themselves. A couple of people queried the Bob Dylan reference..HowrdSounes in his recent biography of Bob Dylan refers to this, and quotes dave vanronk verbatim, reminiscing on Bob Dylan's attempting very badly to do Indian( sorry, I quote, please dont digress) sign language to back up his Sioux stories. i dont blame Dylan,I just find it funny. it wasnt in a publicity handout or anything, just adolescent bullshit tomake him seem more interesting, like his fictitious carnival past. We all try to make ourselves more sexually attractive/ employable. Ijust find it funny the lengths we go to! With reference to the anonymous guest who says I'm a troll.Let me reply as follows |
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04 Apr 02 - 07:02 AM (#682676) Subject: RE: Dylan/Cash/Teepees From: Dave the Gnome In a recent BBC interview with Cash marking his 70th birthday he reckons that he did not claim to either Native American (or whetever!) or an ex-con. He reckoned that the press picked up on his good works on fighting for rights with of groups and assumed he was from either or both backgrounds. He did freely admit however that he did not do anything to put the record straight:-) FB - The esteemed Mr Tuesday Lobsang Rampa explains the apparant incongruity in his stories by telling us that he swapped bodies with the man from Devon on a ship returing to England. Sounds about as likely as some other stories I have heard... And, finaly, I have never heard the story about Ewan MacColl claining to be any sort of American! Cheers Dave the Gnome
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