At the University of Illinois, the mascot is Chief Illiniwek. At halftime of football and basketball games, the Chief would come out and do a dance, and it was extremely cool to take part in this tradition. The entire student section lines up around the court and participates in the dance as well. However, this dance was considered disrespectful and caused a lot of controversy; due to the threat to loose NCAA funding, U of I decided to "get rid of" the Chief.
However, the person who was the Chief learned the dance from Native Americans; it wasn't something he just made up. He would go live with a local tribe to learn about them and learn the dance from them. The original tribe no longer exists, so it was other tribes who were upset with this tradition; the original tribe could not defend their action.
What is your opinion-should the Chief still be allowed to dance? Was this dance authentic?
Here is the Chief's last dance in 2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7tyfQu4QJo&feature=related
Hi Karen,
ReplyDeleteIt seems like this Native American dancing was definitely authentic!! If he went to live and learn from the tribe, they were willing to share their knowledge with him as he passed it off. I think it's great to share their story with other populations. I definitely don't think it should have been banned!
Alex
Doing a search on this topic, I found that the original dance of this mascot was created by a guy in 1926 who based it on boy scouting activities and boy scout interpretations of Fancy Dance - not through contact with a Native American group. Since then, every mascot has added his own steps and moves to the dance.
ReplyDeleteThe Illinois Confederation of First Nations people were, like many other people at the time, relocated to Oklahoma, so while they may no longer live in Illinois, their descendants are still around. There is also a strong history of outsiders appropriating indigenous culture and artifacts for their own use, without regard for the original meaning. Do you think this changes the meaning of this dance or the ethics of performing it?
Also, do you have a source you can give us for the information you mention on this dance? It's important to evaluate information like this in relation to the source - obviously, fans of this mascot will have a greater motivation to present the dance in a positive light.
Being from Illinois, I have grown up with the Chief, so the information I presented was what I had learned from others.
ReplyDeleteUpon doing some research, I learned that the costume was authentic from Native American tribes and the original people performing the dance studied Native American dancing. The dance is also based on fancy dancing and the report describes it as "neither non-authentic or authentic". The performer created his own interpretation using the knowledge of Native American dancing he had.
So while he studied Native American culture, they did not directly teach him the dance that was performed. It still was an important tradition at the school.
So does this change the ethical means behind performing it?
Here is the Board report I read:
http://www.uillinois.edu/trustees/dialogue/report_files/IV.html
Thanks for posting the link. The report is useful in presenting both sides of the argument. The part you cite is a quote from the report the then-current Chief Illiniwek presented to the Board of Trustees. Contrasting opinions, many from Native Americans, appear on the next page of the report the link takes you to.
ReplyDeleteThis discussion clearly connects to our classroom discussion of "interpretation" vs "appropriation." The potential ethical implications of dancing a dance from someone else's culture become very clear in this instance.
One creative statement on the mascot controversies was created by students at the University of Northern Colorado. In 2002, they named their basketball team the "Fighting Whites" and their mascot is a 1950s-style white man in a business suit. Their t-shirts are popular enough that they have financed scholarships for Native American students with the proceeds.
Here is an article about how the "Fighting Whites" were partly a response to the Chief Illiniwek controversy:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071017030401/http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1018624915
Here is the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Whites
Thoughts?