Also well put.


------
Robert Handy
Brazoria County Historical Museum
100 East Cedar
Angleton, Texas  77515
(409) 864-1208
museum_bob
[log in to unmask]
http://www.bchm.org

----------
From:   Tom Vaughan[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Thursday, August 27, 1998 9:27 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: civility...writing history

The following argument is interesting, but simplistic:

>But, is membership in that group a necessity to gain an understanding
of
>the condition of another member of that group?  Absolutely not.  If
that
>were the case, we couldn't write ancient history anymore, since we
>weren't there to immerse ourselves in it.

Archeologists write ancient history on the basis of inferences from the
material record, and there is often no living person to speak from
within
the culture, nor are there records. Historically, archeology has been
mainly
the province of white males. Recently, the profession has been accused
of too
often writing the history of everyone solely from the viewpoint of white
males.
In the last decade or so, SW US archeologists have begun to rediscover
the
oral traditions of the people whose ancestors they have studied for a
century,
oral tradtions previously dismissed as myths and fairy tales. Amazing
how
those 'myths' complement and inform the archeological record!

>It's been said that history is ultimately biography, and that may be
>true.  But that doesn't mean that history must ultimately be
autobiography.

Again, oversimplification. We DO read autobiographies, when they are
available, albeit recognizing the blinders an individual may have about
his/her experiences. Are we to accord historians who write the
biographies
of other people an absence of blinders? Hardly!

An intern from Tesuque Pueblo produced a video on traditional
agriculture
at his Pueblo. He characterized it as "an opportunity to tell the story
from
the inside out," in contrast with all the observations from the outside
to
which his people have been subjected. And it's a qualitatively different

presentation.

As I noted in an earlier post, we need both points of view to inform our

studies and presentations; they are, I believe, able to complement each
other. But to do that, we need to give other voices a seat at the table,

and listen to them on the basis of the life-experience they have to
share.
Too often we keep them outside the exhibit planning rooms, simply
because
they don't have the academic credentials we'd like to see. The tribal
colleges and other academic institutions are beginning to supply us with

people who have traditional knowledge as well as the academic training
we say is important to museum work. It's time to let them in. (And I do
NOT believe that ONLY a Navajo should interpret Navajo culture, etc.
That is as limiting and narrow as the other way round.)

I remain confident that our products, thus enriched, will give the
public
a more honest, sensitive, appreciative view of the traditions we are
interpreting, one that will be more inclusive in its style of
presentation.
Of course, if the public is irrelevant to our work in museums, than I
have
no case.

Best,

Tom
--
Tom Vaughan    "The Waggin' Tongue"
<[log in to unmask]>   (970) 533-1215
11795 Road 39.2, Mancos, CO 81328  USA
Cultural Resource Management, Interpretation, Planning, & Training