Скачать или смотреть Alive to the Fire Within: Zitkála-Šá/Gertrude Simmons

Her name means Red Bird, and she lived during one of the worst periods of Euro-American/Native interactions—the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Like many Native children during this dark period, Zitkála-Šá was taken to a White boarding school to have her culture replaced by the dominant one. As part of those efforts at forced assimilation, her name was changed to Gertrude Simmons, and she was forced to pray and to cut her hair. She also learned to read and write (as well as to play the violin). Zitkála-Šá thus was baptized in the ways of the American culture but used what she learned in order to maintain her beloved Dakota heritage. In the process she became a writer, political activist, teacher, intellectual, and accomplished musician. Join us to learn more about this remarkable Dakota woman and hear the power and wisdom of her writing.

About the Speaker:
Greg Salyer, Ph.D. is the President of the Philosophical Research Society. For twenty-five years, he has been an administrator and scholar in higher education institutions, but his highest calling has always been that of teacher. Trained in interdisciplinary studies, Dr. Salyer moves through the disciplines of literature, philosophy, and religious studies looking for and helping his students find practical and profound wisdom in the stories, texts, and ideas created all over the world and throughout history.

About the Series: Voices of Wisdom from Native Cultures
The continent of what would become North America was rich with languages, religions, governments, and infrastructure. It was also rich with wisdom, a wisdom that remains despite hundreds of years of genocide, exile, and cultural appropriation. Tribes and nations that were not outright destroyed by colonialism remained and continued their traditions with creative integrations with Christianity and underground sacred experiences. Eventually, they also began to write of their new experiences in “America” as “Indians” within the context of their tribal native wisdom. The result was a chorus of profound voices that provide the continuation of their own traditions in a hostile environment, a powerful critique of colonial ideologies based in respect for all life, and unique understandings of all humans and our place in the world. Join us as we listen carefully to some of these voices through their works and to how language and landscape combine to create a unique indigenous wisdom.