Savages Again

Medicine Bags and Dog Tags: American Indian Veterans from Colonial Times to the Second Iraq War by Al Carroll. ISBN 978-0-8032-1085-1

The supplied PDF is only for Chapter 3, “Savages Again”.

• the paramount importance of ritual and tradition, Native faith and reliance on such practices, and the defense of it against white skepticism. The view of the Anglo-American, alternately fascinated and appreciative when such a tradition seemed to flatter him or could be useful, easily turned to disdain and even an unthinking use of a stereotypical slur to try to deal with what seems alien even after a lifetime (or centuries) of intimate contact
• 8 years after Collier’s New Deal
• American citizenship before Pearl Harbor: 1919, 1923, 1940
  • forced through draft
  • The Hopis claimed conscientious objector status because of their pacifist tradition. Officials responded that Hopi objections were considered nationalism, not religious objections. Twenty-one Hopis went to prison for draft evasion. The Hopis formed a lobbying group called Hoping Hopis and drew their funding from other pacifists, such as the Quakers.
  • disappeared into territory (Navajos), 1868 treaty
  • many cases of resistance and many cases of allyship
    • Axis; identification with subjects of the Axis, allyship with Canada
• ceremonies prevalent in WW2 due to policies of toleration; common before and after military service
  • Santa Ana Pueblo medicine men prayers at secret shrine
  • Rosebud Reservation Yuija ceremony
  • Standing Rock Reservation Sun Dance battle
  • Zunis Eutakya ceremony
• “scalp taking” rumors; weaponized by tribes to implore fear
  • mutilation common across all soldiers; “common in the Pacific theater”
  • scalp dances and purification were part of welcoming home, but women and relatives of the veterans performed dances for reconciliation between victims and veterans
  • many ceremonies were actually also performed to please family, and many were not attended or reciprocated (Navajo)
  • eager acceptance and white consumption of Native ceremonies
  • “The Indian Takes the Warpath Again”
• menial duties or high classification; high alcoholism and purging of memories and stress
  • by 1977, many stressed pride and ceremony; “surviving with mind and body intact”
• personal, on-hand medicine publicly in WW2
  • Navajo: sacred corn pollen and holy water
  • Zuni: sacred prayer meals and fetishes
  • Chippewa: spirit tonics and totemic spirit marks
  • Apache: peyote buttons
  • Native ceremonies used in guidance to death and understandings
• many serviceworkers conventionally Christian or converted/passing
• native songs adapted to war: war songs, flag songs
  • flag referencing US flag and emblem of a nation (eagle or staff used as medicinal locus)
  • Bataan Death March: “It was not the flag which kept the Native soldier going, it was the thought of the dances and voices of his people which were his strength.”
  • war mothers’ songs, Kiowa
• native women’s societies; War Mother Societies
  • groups co-opted for native womens’ purposes and combined with earlier practices
  • Kiowa: Carngie, OK
  • Purple Heart: Stecker, OK
  • pre-reservation returned with Anglicized names while invoking Native words for practices and rituals
  • Kiowa Ohomo Society for revival
  • Comanche purification (Na’wapina’r / Nah’o’kee’nukha)
  • direct challenge to “submissive Native women” stereotype; warfare treated equally important amongst all
  • veteran as a warrior
• “The irony remains that Native languages the American government failed to suppress played an important role in the American military victory in the Pacific war”
• Iroquois Declaration of War and dwhite media
  • drafting as foreign nationals
  • Plains warbonnets to appeal to misconception
  • colorful propaganda
  • “unambiguously good war”