Indigenous Thinkers

Researching Indian rhetoric

John A. Berteaux Connections

http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/local/16159673.htm

An associate professor in the Department of English, Communication and Journalism, Ernie travels to California State University-Monterey Bay from a trim home in Seaside where he lives with his wife, Sherry. He grew up in Arcata.

In Arcata, he advises, "Diversity meant Native American people."

But in other parts of the United States, from Humboldt State University, where he received his bachelor's degree to Eugene, Ore., where he wrote his dissertation about American Indian Literatures, to Harrisburg, Va., where he taught at James Madison University before moving to the Peninsula, Ernie found, "it easy to forget that American Indians continue to exist."

Growing up with American Indian kids in school and sleeping over he noted early on that the idea of Indians in the popular media and the life he saw his friends living were quite different. Seamlessly, he ties his childhood experiences into a central idea in the book.

"From first contact," Ernie warns, "for American Indians the problem was mental as well as physical... When they got here Europeans had already conceived the individual."

I took him to mean that nonwhite and white were not simply descriptive terms of skin color; rather, from first contact they were used for social categorization, social control and social relationships.

America's indigenous population acknowledged and used to their advantage the fact that the way they spoke (and looked) stood in for intellect, moral sense and character. They acknowledged that there is a connection between the language we use and stories we tell.

I recalled something attributed to French linguist Saussure, who asks us to think about what had to be overcome to say "Black is beautiful." This is something that came out of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Up until the time that someone said "black is beautiful," black was considered ugly, dirty, and stupid. And then someone said "black is beautiful."

According to Saussure this wasn't just saying something new; rather, it was conceiving the world in a way it had not been imagined before.

"So American Indians recognized in their initial encounter with Europeans that we don't speak language so much as language speaks us?"

I chimed in. Ernie nodded in agreement.

I asked about the word "survivance" that appears in the title. "It ties in," he says. "The book is about 'rhetorics of survivance.'"

Survival suggests images of someone just hanging on -- on the edge of existence. "Survivance," he quotes the text, "goes beyond mere survival to acknowledge the dynamic and creative nature of indigenous rhetorics."

He writes, from the early debates about treaty rights and native lands to present day controversies about casinos and team mascots America's indigenous populations continue to draw on the art of persuasion.

Nevertheless, Ernie adds, "While rhetorical studies have been enriched by important research done in women studies and African American rhetoric the rhetorical practices of America's indigenous people remain significantly incomplete."

To begin filling that gap in our knowledge, Ernie has produced an edited collection that is worthy of note, unique, readable, and accessible for a non-academic audience.

John Berteaux, an assistant professor of philosophy at CSU-Monterey, writes a monthly column. He can be reached at john_berteaux@csumb.edu

© 2006 Monterey County Herald and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

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