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