Unit 13

English 203: Literature of the NonWestern World

Questions:

Chat:

• What did you think of the rituals for new mothers?  Are they comparable to "Mother's Day" or anything else in our culture?  Were you surprised to find these poems in a culture where the first association is the ritual of cutting out human hearts?  
• Did you find familiar themes in the creation story?  Offer some parallels from other creation stories on the incident of reducing the power of the original humans.  What is the parallel in Genesis; in Greek mythology; or elsewhere?  What is the point of this fairly universal story?
• Has reading Achebe's Things Fall Apart & these fragments from Native American culture changed your thinking about European colonization? 
• What do you think of Native Americans in the U.S.?  Have you visited a reservation?  Do anthropologists continue to illustrate colonial attitudes by collecting bones & artifacts & expecting some people to answer intrusive questions?  Is the BIA paternalistic (http://www.citation.com/hpages/bia.html)?  Should Native people seek greater assimilation? 
• I suggested that Chinese Daoism offers something of a parallel to better explain why our editor characterizes Native American literature as "medicinal."  Explain the parallel in more detail.  Much of Navajo religion/culture is geocentric.  One must literally live on the Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) bordered by the 4 sacred mountains in order to be Navajo or in order to maintain health through Navajo traditions & rituals.  How does this effect assimilation or economic opportunity?

When you finish answering the questions, go to the next page:

Review