From: Debbie Reese <debreese_at_illinois.edu>
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2010 06:56:18 -0500

A few thoughts about hunting:

Hunting was/is part of treaty negotiations between Native Nations and the U.S. I'm wondering how (and if) hunting is covered in picture books about (hopefully tribally specific) Native tribes? I'd love to see one on the Makah... Remember that? When they tried to hunt a whale there was a huge uproar that went through the courts... And the objections to the Makah's decision to hunt a whale ("Save a whale, spear a Makah")? Getting off topic... I'll get back on.

Another thought on hunting is from one of the LITTLE HOUSE books, where Pa recalls his days as a young boy, how he would imagine he was hunting animals and Indians?

Last, I'm doing an analysis of Jean Craighead George's THE BUFFALO ARE BACK. It is a picture book, with some really spectacular art by Wendell Minor, but its disappointing in lots of ways. Buffalo, as many of you know, were hunted in really ugly and brutal ways, nearly to the point of extinction. On one page, she says "Then the American explorers came, who shot many animals for fun. Buffalo made good targets for the hunters because they are big and often stand still." On an early page she says that there used to be millions of them.

Earlier in the book she gestures to the fact that Indians (I wish she had been specific) took care of the grass (setting fire to the prairie periodically) and that in doing so, they were taking care of the buffalo. She says "In return the buffalo took care of the Indians and the plains. Buffalo were the Indians' food and were used to make their shelter and clothing." The illustration for that page shows Indians on a prairie setting it afire.

My point is that the illustrations don't include a single one in which the buffalo are being shot or lying dead. Instead, Minor provides gorgeous paintings of herds on rolling hills. One page shows what I think is the "white fur hunter" with his rifle on his shoulder as he looks out at a herd eating.

She heroizes a man named William T. Hornaday as the man responsible for the comeback of the buffalo, but when I read a book he wrote, turns out he went to the northwest to hunt buffalo to use as specimens for the Smithsonian! At a time when there were only a few hundred left, he and his expedition shot and killed nearly 30 young, old, male, or female buffaloes, and stuffed them (he was a taxidermist) for exhibit displays. His expedition also brought back a live calf, which was very popular, and led Hornaday to ask for (and be granted) federal money to start a living herd.

In this book about the near extinction of buffalo through hunting, there are no illustrations OF hunting. Not the hunting-for-food that lots of different tribes did, and not the hunting-for-sport that soldiers, settlers, and sportsmen did for profit.

Debbie

Debbie

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Debbie A. Reese (Nambй O'-ween-ge') Assistant Professor, American Indian Studies University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Native American House, Room 2005 1204 West Nevada Street, MC-138 Urbana, Illinois 61801

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Received on Sat 16 Oct 2010 06:56:18 AM CDT