Lesson Six
 

Tradition versus Historicity:
Ethnic identity found through social recall
and historical reconstruction

Begin by re-reading Christensen on the Impact of Cultural Absorption and Suppression. In that writing, Christensen gives a brief historical overview. This idea of history is a late eighteenth century European invention. During the nineteenth century we find the introduction of history as we know it. This invention is dependent on the development of both the camera and the clock. We have come to believe that real history is the empirical surface of what happened in a tight sequential order. For us, anything that is real is limited to the surfaces of a material world. Much of the controversy of how to read the book of Genesis centers on this. Some find that the myths deal with profound concepts that are expressed in a stylized and heroic tone. Others belief that it is merely an account of what things would have looked like if we had been there. Keep in mind that several people at the same event do not understand it in the same way.

Tradition is the remembrance of how things have been done. (Usually, it is said, "How things have always been done." Brides have always worn white—at least since the late nineteenth century. Potatoes are the mainstay of our diet—at least since they were introduced to Europe from the New World. White-collar workers are known by the shirts they wear—until the sixties.

There is often a tension between the realities of our traditions and historical facts. But, keep in mind, we live by our traditions—not our history. There is often a desire to make the two fit together in our minds. Some Native Americans insist that they (that is, their ancestors) have always lived on the North American continent. This is a part of their mythology and must be seen as important to them. Paleohistorians, of course, disagree and offer dates for the arrival of people to this continent. Art is based on tradition and mythology and not on history. When it appears to be based on history is it first converted into myth and it is the mythical beliefs and become useful.

The attached images conflict in historic and traditional concepts. Study them with the question in mind as to how you understand them.

1870 Photo of Red Cloud, Chief of Oglala Dakota

Undated photo of unmarried Hopi woman

Undated photo of Navajo silversmith

George Catlin painting of American Indians visiting Paris

George Catlin painting of a Creek Chief

Prehistoric Pictograph

Human effigy from Arkansas (prehistoric)

Effigy Jar from Arkansas (prehistoric)

Cut copper ornaments from Hopewell Mound, Ohio, 1000-1300

Wilmington Tablet, Adena Culture, Ohio, 500-1000

Nineteenth Century Gold Box, Haida, Northwest Coast

Mask, Spiro Mound, Oklahoma (prehistoric)

Sixteenth Century, Cougar, Muskogean
 

 Consistent with the development of history as a concept and the use of art as the transmitter of experiences, we find a parallel development wherein art is created to be an historical document. Review the works of Ernest Spybuck (see #1, #2, and #3), Making Medicine, and Tichkematse. These works and very different from those of, say, Jacques Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii or John Singleton Copley’s Watson and the Shark. In these works there is a commemoration of the past, but there is no attempt to faithfully record the past. While Watson was attacked by a shark and lost his leg, the tight pyramid of form is most unlikely. Starting at the end of the century there is the idea of simple and authentic recording. At that time it became important that all the details were accurate. We might ask questions of Spybuck as to which dance was being preformed and whether the details of costume were faithful to the original.

Of course, art can always be seen as an historical document. It is not usually created as an historical document. Review the works seen in Lesson Three with the idea that they are examples of history. How do these differ from Joan Hill’s Baptism?