Volume 17 Number 3
May 1978

Frederick D. Smith

The purpose of this article is an attempt to place some of the Native American cultural studies programs in an anthropological perspective. Particularly explored is the possibility that these cultural studies programs may provide an added dimension to the concept of revitalization or nativistic movements.

One feature which is characteristic of movements of this nature that have been reported in the literature is that they originate from within the socio-cultural system that is experiencing it. The general stimulus for it comes from a situation created by contact with an outside society, but it is assumed that the specific movement itself begins from within and spreads through the society which is experiencing some kind of stress as a result of the contact situation. However, some of the cultural studies programs that have become an important part of Indian education over the past decade seem to have originated from outside of the Indian societies. This suggests the possibility of what will be termed an "outer-initiated revitalization. movement" as opposed to the usual inner-initiated movement. This paper will be concerned with answers to two basic questions: 1) can the Indian studies programs be considered revitalization movements? and 2) to what extent were they initiated from outside of the Native American community?

In the 1960s in the United States, the problems of different minority groups came suddenly to the forefront. The culture of these groups was given much greater recognition by the dominant society as having inherent value than had been the case in the past. Money was available for a wide variety of projects ranging from the very practical to the more abstract.

It was during this period that several educational curriculum projects were started with objectives to inform Indian students more of their own past, to improve their self-concept, to preserve tribal heritages, etc. Demonstration schools were started partly for these purposes at such places as Rough Rock, Rocky Boy, Ramah, and several other areas. The school at Rough Rock, for example, has as two of its objectives cultural identification and learning the Navajo language (see Note 5). Culture centers were also started on several Indian reservations. Usually these culture centers had one objective--to perform services which in one way or another would contribute to the education of the younger generation in the tribal culture. At the Navajo Culture Center, for example, extensive material was gathered on Navajo culture and history which was to be published in the form of a textbook at different grade levels for Navajo students.

Linton defines a nativistic movement as "any conscious, organized attempt on the part of a society’s members to revive or perpetuate selected aspects of its culture." The culture centers and probably many of the other curriculum projects are, indeed, making a conscious, organized attempt to perpetuate selected elements of Indian culture. At the Navajo Culture Center, it was hoped that Indian students would not only be informed about their culture by the proposed textbooks but would also internalize selected elements of this material. No one suggested a complete return to pre-contact Navajo culture. This element of selectivity can be seen more clearly at other Indian culture centers which concentrate basically on perpetuating only the arts and crafts of that tribe.

Wallace (see Note 8) views a revitalization movement as a number of people in a society who collaborate to effect a recombination of elements of the traditional culture and the outside culture to form what is in a sense a new social reality. This "reality" is more acceptable to the individuals involved and has the effect of reducing stress which these people have been feeling as a result of an unfavorable contact situation.

The important issue for Wallace and Linton is not where the movement started but rather: 1) that it involved a recombination of selected cultural elements of the traditional and the outside culture to form a new synthesis of the two; 2) that this recombination involve a conscious, organized effort; 3) that it be (voluntarily) accepted by some individuals of the society, and 4) that it reduce the stress which these individuals are feeling.

It is likely that if an outside society were really initiating the revitalization movement that it would exert considerable influence on its shape. In contrast to the Ghost Dance of the previous century, for example, it is doubtful that anything too incongruent with the dominant American values would have occurred in any of these educational projects. A concrete example of this form of selectivity did occur at the Navajo Culture Center. A Navajo story which was an important part of a larger sequence of events was edited out (by a non-Indian) on the grounds that he considered it obscene and thought that children shouldn’t read it. The story was considered appropriate by Navajo people for children of the ages who would have been reading these books.

This text points to the possibility of a new type of revitalization movement. Examples of it could be found in the literature dealing with community development or other domestic aid programs. However, after some initial enthusiasm for this idea, the author has moved to the conclusion that: 1) there is considerable doubt that the educational programs can be viewed by themselves as revitalization movements, and 2) there is also reason to doubt that the Anglo involvement in the overall movement was sufficient to consider it to be initiated from outside of the Indian societies.

The new trends in Indian education have occurred at approximately the same time as a larger movement was developing among Indian people which had many facets to it but only one was an interest in retaining elements of traditional tribal culture. Some of the more noticeable examples of this trend are the pan-Indian political organizations (the National Congress of American Indians and the National Indian Youth Council) and their associated activities, the Fish-In on the northwest coast, the Indian take-over of Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, and the movement toward increased control of the education of Indian youth.

In other words, over the past 15 or so years, there has been a growing trend for many tribes in the United States to express a vocal interest in increasing self-determination and political independence (see Notes 6 and 7). Curricula which include study of Indian culture should be viewed as a part of this trend. For this reason, the author feels that even if some of these projects which have become popular on reservations were originally proposed by an Anglo and funded through the federal government that this contribution should be viewed as a part in a process that had already been going on.

Viewed in this larger context, another problem emerges with considering educational changes and other social changes which have been discussed to be an "outer-initiated movement." It has been suggested that the outside society would exert fairly strong control on its shape--that nothing incongruent with the values and desires of the dominant group would be likely to occur. However, there have been several major conflicts with the power structure in recent years that have been associated with Indian self-determination. The best known of these is probably the take-over of Wounded Knee in 1973.

There is an additional problem with viewing the education programs as revitalization movements which is, that by themselves, most of them really aren’t vital enough to be considered a revitalization movement in the usual sense of the term. On the Navajo Reservation which has several successful projects of this nature, probably not much more than 2 or 3% of the tribe are actually involved in them. All of these projects have administrative leaders of some kind, but many of them are not really the charismatic types of people that are so often associated with both religious and secular revitalization movements (see Note 1).

Just as individual educational projects should be viewed in the larger context of the American Indians’ bid for more independence and self-determination, the Indian movement itself should be viewed in the context of what other minorities were doing at this time. An Indian nationalist movement can be traced back at least as far as 1961. It was in this year that the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) was started. In the words of its first president, NIYC was meant to be a pan-Indian movement rather than just an organization. It began as a group of fairly radical young Indian college students who were reacting against what they considered to be the rather cautious, conservative stance of the National Congress of American Indians (see Note 7).

During the next few years, the NIYC grew considerably in strength, and there were also some other early signs of a growing sense of Indian nationalism. In 1964, however, the race riots began in the Black ghettos, and, shortly thereafter, the federal government began what it called the "War on Poverty."

While poverty programs began largely due to unrest among Blacks, as a result, there were many federal programs and money available to all low income groups. Also, members of minority groups were strongly encouraged to run their own programs. Partly due to this encouragement, it is believed, that by 1965-66 tribal leaders became increasingly interested in and began to push for subjects such as Indian history, traditions, and current problems included in the Indian students’ school curriculum (see Note 3).

The author’s position may be summarized as follows:

1. Chilcott, John H., Personal communication.

2. Fuchs, Estelle and Robert Havighurst. To Live on This Earth: American Indian Education. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1972.

3. Gill, George A., "Changing Indians of the Southwest." Journal of American Indian Education, 6 (2), pp. 20-25, 1967.

4. Linton, Ralph, "Nativisitic Movements." American Anthropologist, 45, pp. 230-239 1943.

5. Roessel, Robert Jr., "An Overview of the Rough Rock Demonstration School." Journal of American Indian Education, 7 (2), pp. 2-14, 1968.

6. Spicer, Edward, A Short History of the Indians of the United States. New York, Van Nostrand-Reinhold Co., 1969.

7. Steiner, Stan, The New Indians. New York, Harper and Row, 1967, pp. 28-47.

8. Wallace, A.F.C., "Revitalization Movements." American Anthropologist, 58(2), pp. 264-281, 1956.