_on_her_head,_ca.1900_(CHS-2328).jpg) |
| Apache Girl
For this week I did the reading unit Apache Tales in the untextbook. I did not have a good experience with this unit and I would recommend that this unit be replaced. I am not advocating that tales from the Apache people be removed just replaced with a more readily understandable version. This unit was translated in what appears to be a very literal word for word account of the story, the problem with that is that these units are hoping to serve the purpose of bringing the stories and culture of different groups of people to other people that have no understanding or point of reference for these cultures. So the translation of these stories is great for English speaking Apache that understand the culture, but they are not for people that don’t. I found these stories to be jumbled and hard to understand. Even after a second or third reading of the stories I was still unable to connect with them in a way that gave me insight to the Apache people and culture. I was highly disappointed by this because Native culture is something that I have found great interest in since first discovering the Native folklore a few years ago. I understand that each time one of these stories is changed that some of the culture is lost, so there is a fine line between updating these stories for the masses and completely rewriting them so that there is no hint of Native culture remaining. I just feel it would have been better to try to seek out other stories in the Apache culture that would first open the door to the reader to give a basis to understand some of the motifs in the folklore then they would be able to better understand these stories.
Picture Attribution
By Pierce, C.C. (Charles C.), 1861-1946 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
|
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Essay Week 10
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Just a quick note: it's always a good idea to read a story before you go with a unit. There are some highly literary units for the Native American weeks, and also some authentic accounts like this one: your choice! Some people prefer the one, and other people prefer the other... but that's why you need to actually explore a bit first before you choose.
ReplyDeleteIm sorry professor i dont agree with that, i think it is important to get out of your comfort zone and explore new things, by doing this it helps to open youfself up to other possibilities, but sometimes it also you find out that taking this risk can not work out. It's not that i dont have an appreciation for the apache folklore, but i did not like the unit as much as i would have if there were different versions of the stories. My essay is an honest assessment of that as was my review of the unit. I was simply completting the assignment.
ReplyDeleteJoe, I experienced the same difficulty with reading the Apache unit. I could tell just after reading one paragraph that it was going to be a struggle to get through, so I opted out of the Apache stories for the Blackfoot stories which were much easier to comprehend. I would say if you really wanted to go for the Apache stories without as much headache you could try finding another source online that has better translated versions of the folktales.
ReplyDelete