Re: [-empyre-] Re: empyre Digest, Vol 28, Issue 8

[Brett Stalbaum <stalbaum@ucsd.edu>]

It has the same meaning in the U.S. for many people, but its historical 
implications are far too often under analyzed. Even in liberal 
California, just over 100 years ago, it was common for white people to 
go hunting for native Americans in a genocide not unlike that of present 
day Darfur. Ishi, the last of the Yahi people, famously walked into a 
Northern California town (I forget which) in 1911 because he was the 
last surviving member of his clan/family - but white people in the U.S. 
have largely suppressed the reasons why. Ishi was essentially giving up 
and expecting to be slaughtered.

Strangely, he became a ward of the Anthropology department at the 
University of California Berkeley under the famed Alfred Kroeber. 
Kroeber Hall at UC Berkeley currently houses the art department, in 
fact. (Unless they moved in the past few years...) Interestingly, Robert 
F. Heizer (famed Archaeologist/ethnologist of the American west) was one 
of Kroeber's students, and documented many of my nation's darker 
moments, such as Bloody Island Massacre in Clear Lake California, 1850, 
where U.S. troops mowed down men, women and children who were unarmed 
and trapped by water. Near where I grew up. But as Americans (U.S.) we 
are largely unaware of our own history - and prefer instead to 
romanticize native peoples, often in the context of some assumed 
connections to nature, the earth and spirituality. An astounding number 
of European descendants in the U.S. actually imagine that they are 
native Americans... personal narratives of being 1/32nd [place tribe 
name here] are common among white people in the US... and are heartfelt 
yet totally bizarre identity constructions. (See the recent case of 
American Academic Ward Chruchill for an interesting example of just how 
weird, problematic, and simultaneously sincere these kinds of racial 
identifications can become...)

One more note, the American land artist Micheal Heizer is Robert F. 
Heizer's son. I have great respect for the work of both (both changing 
my life in different ways), but it is an interesting historical trivia 
connection.

From California,
Brett Stalbaum

Christiane Robbins wrote:
> Indeed,  it does in parts of the States as well .... however it strikes 
> me that a more productive question remains as to how they died out.  
> Moreover, given the fact the my ancestry includes both sides of this 
> specific coin ... this specific struggle ... we can see that the group 
> lives on in its diluted yet, committed, form .... as may will Baudrillard.
>
>
>
> Chris
>
>
> On Mar 16, 2007, at 10:39 AM, Aliette wrote:
>
> > In French too
> >
> >
> > On 16/03/07 13:15, "Geert Lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl> probably wrote:
> >
> > >   Sorry, there must be a cultural misunderstanding here, perhaps.
> > >
> > > In Dutch being the Last of the Mohicans means being the last one of a
> > > group or a generation that dies out.
> > >
> > > Geert
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > empyre forum
> > > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
> Christiane Robbins
>
>
> - JEITZEIT -
> ... the space between zero and one ...
> Walter Benjamin
>
>
> LOS ANGELES   I   SAN FRANCISCO
>
>
> The present age prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the 
> original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence for in these 
> days illusion only is sacred, truth profane.
>
> Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804-1872,
> German Philosopher
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre

--
Brett Stalbaum, Lecturer, PSOE
Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major (ICAM)
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
Department of Visual Arts
9500 GILMAN DR. # 0084
La Jolla CA 92093-0084
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http://www.paintersflat.net

Office hours:
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