Essays on Native American Culture

Purnell’s Model for Cultural Competence

Introduction The modern health care faces multiculturalism and diversity challenges that arise due to cultural differences of the health care professionals and among the clients. As such, various initiatives and strategies have become necessary to inculcate cultural sensitivity or competence among health care professionals. Healthcare organizations face the challenges pose by multicultural diversity as well as ethnic and racial disparities among the service providers (Campinha, 2011). Therefore, they are avidly adopting various strategies to address this issue. They develop statements, initiatives, and standards to encourage health care professionals to become culturally competent. Purnell’s Model has been proposed for ...

Abstract

Today, more and more people declare that they have Native American roots, due to the fact that America has become fascinated with the culture and history of this minority. This form of imperialist nostalgia which causes Whites to look at Native Americans with admiration, after having spent many years trying to destroy, harms Native Americans even if it seems to represent a positive change of attitude. By claiming a fake Native American identity, Whites try to appropriate the Indian culture and past, with the same lack of respect and consideration as they did in the past. They attribute stereotypical ...

Introduction

American culture is an amalgamation of different cultures over the years. Trade has always been an important part of the United States. European explorers looking for new trade routes to India discovered the new world. After discovering the new world, they quickly established trading posts. Their main aim was to search for gold and other precious resources in this new country. However, their expectations were not fulfilled but they quickly established trading relationships with native tribes near their settlements. Most of these native tribes were hostile at first but they saw the advantage of trading with the settlers. Relationships ...

Past, Present, and Future

The Significance of American Indian Ceremonies: Past, Present, and Future

Introduction

Every ceremony in the Native American culture plays a vital and significant role, especially with its people. Some individuals outside the culture often referred the ceremonies as a religion, however, most Native Americans considered their ceremonies as beliefs and practices. The beliefs and practices are part of their rich culture, an integral part of their being, and strongly influenced by their unique methods of living such as acquiring for food, hunting, and agriculture. Every Native American who practiced the tradition and culture believed that their ceremonies could help them ...

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Annotated Bibliography

Dalirian, Zohreh, Alienation in Edward Hopper's and Jackson Pollock's Paintings (Wichita, Kan.: Wichita State University, 2010. In this published dissertation, Zohreh Dalirian compares Pollock’s alienation to that of Edward Hopper as expressed through their different artworks. He views Pollock’s art as a metaphor for his life. The alienation captured in his artwork can be used to explain his psychological characteristics. This work may be used to explore the link between artistic expression and psychology. Fisher, K, "Expressing The Age: How The Painting Of Jackson Pollock Displayed The Political Culture Of Abstract Expressionism.", Philogia, Vol. 2, ...

The poem “Annabelle Lee” makes me feel sad that the time these lovers had together was cut short by Annabelle Lee’s illness. The poem talks about a love that even the angels covet. Even though Annabelle Lee is now dead, the author of the poem still loves Annabelle Lee just as much as when she was living. The fact that Annabelle Lee’s lover sleeps by her grave every night makes me wish I had someone who loves me that much. The author is so determined to stay with Annabelle Lee that he says neither angels nor demons can ...

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in heaven was a novel written by Sherman Alexie in order to demonstrate the unique strain that has been placed on his people, the Native American peoples, in a changing world. One way in which he distinctly demonstrates the impact that environment, or a changing environment can have on the Native American people is through the story telling of the Character Thomas Builds-the-Fire. Thomas is, at his core, a character that seems to live in the spiritual realm. As such, he tells stories that extend beyond himself, and demonstrate what he sees as major issues effecting the ...

Thesis: Since the migration of Europeans to the America’s in the 15th century, Native American culture has come under pressure; nonetheless, great efforts have been made (since the 19th century) to revive the culture, albeit with many challenges too. - The dilution of the Native American culture can be traced back to two important developments. - One is the entry of Europeans to the America’s in the 15th century. - With the coming of Europeans, Native Americans involuntarily lost some aspects of their culture. - Integration with Europeans - The second important ...

The Native American history and culture as we know it is rich and vibrant. Often mistaken for savages who had nothing better to do than scalp intruders and run naked through the woods, Native Americans were more civilized than first documented . Each tribe, large or small, was a society unto itself. They had forms of counsel, or government, and different tools they would use to maintain order and assign jobs. They planted crops, hunted, and continued their survival based on what the land was willing to give. When not concerned with survival, however, the Native Americans began to cultivate different ...

The Native American culture is diverse and robust following hundreds of tribes present in the United States of America. Despite the availability of diverse and numerous tribes, the Native Americans in United States possess and share almost common cultural and traditional characteristics. The indigenous and original people of America can be grouped into different numbers of cultural areas. The people occupying different regions can be said to belong to different cultures, tribes and traditions. The regions include the Alaska native, the Central United States, Western United States, and the Eastern United States. On the basis of the ethnolinguistic classification, ...

The film Thunder heart is a mind-absorbing movie that is founded on factual events that took place in the 1970s on the Ogala Sioux Reservation. The primary character is Ray Levoi, who is played by Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer is a quarter Indian, and he sent to the badlands by FBI to resolve a murder that happened at the reservation. This essay seeks to examine the planning issues which include how the Native American culture can be judges, the insight about the Native American culture in relation to lack of understanding of the culture, cultural awakening, social network and social kinship, cultural ...

Culture forms an integral part of humans. Humans are shaped by their culture and the culture is also shaped by humans. Therefore, culture is inseparable from humans because some behaviors, values and beliefs are deeply rooted in culture. As a result, it is important to understand how cultural aspects regulate the transformation and expression of human psyche. This is particularly important in psychology where interpersonal interaction is required in order to deliver the best outcome to the client. One of the cultures that arouse great academic interest is the Native American culture. This is because Native Americans have a set of ...

Native American culture has often been a subject of fascination among Western and European-American audiences, given its wildly different perspectives on religion, judgment, knowledge and wisdom. The differences between Western and Native American culture are substantial and numerous; understanding these variations in thinking can help us to influence our understanding of our notions of knowledge and judgment. Two works in particular that shed light on this different perspective are Carlos Castaneda’s Teachings of Don Juan and John Niehardt’s Black Elk Speaks. In both works, the Native American perspective is solidified; Castaneda’s work sees him working as an ...

Explain what Rites of Passage means and then describe at least two Rites of Passages for the Native American culture/religious tradition. Rites of passage refer to ceremonial mechanisms that societies use to mark the transition of a member of society from one social rank to another. They can therefore be termed as ceremonies bounding important events in life like birth, wedding and death. They particularly provide individuals and groups in society with ways to handle tension that comes with changes during various occasions of life. By aiding these life path changes, rites of passage hold significant emotional meaning for ...

Introduction

When doctors accept a patient’s spiritual beliefs and incorporate it into their care plan, since it is an element that not only defines the patient but also gives them a sense of meaning and purpose, the patient buys into the treatment plan with more acceptance and willingness to participate. The patients also may be able to better understand the limitations with which they are faced if spirituality is a part of the treatment plan. Faith may help and enhance the healing process. For the terminally ill, it may enable a patient to come to a sense of peace knowing that the control of ...

Zitkala-Sa is of Native American decent and has two major works: Old Indian Legends and American Indian Stories. Both books are autobiographies that describe how she encounters another culture, and how she interacts with the Christian culture. When she was young, Zitkala-Sa, against her mother’s will, joined a school, which was funded by missionaries. The school was comprised of almost only whites or “palefaces” as the Native Americans referred to them. In the schools she attended, she had to interact with different cultures. She achieved so much in Indian affairs and was an icon for her people. ...

Discussion Questions: The Unredeemed Captive

1. The official seal of the Massachusetts Bay Company is emblematic of its proprietors’ vision as being the rescuers of the Native Americans after encroaching onto their land. 2. The colonists inarguably have their gripes and misgivings about the land onto which they encroached, seeing that its people shared a completely different set of values and beliefs. 3. The Williams occupy a central role in Deerfield society, essentially being among the revered people of the Puritan faith that most of the colonists espoused.

4. The Indians’ attack on Deerfield was a cleverly executed military maneuver by the French to facilitate ...

The 2006 film Lady in the Water, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, tells the tale of a community in an apartment complex and their encounter with a naiad named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard). Far from home and frightened, Cleveland Heep and the rest of the people in the apartment complex band together to get her back in the pool despite the threat of a dangerous creature called the Scrunt. Along the way, the audience and the characters both learn the importance of 'stories,' and their ability to strengthen and bring out the best qualities in individuals - this bolsters the importance ...

You can destroy years of cultural identity and ancestral forms by getting rid of significant ceremonies within certain groups of people. The modern world might even pose a threat to ceremonial life of those from Pueblo descent. The book entitled Ceremony, written by Leslie Silko follows the life of Tayo and the challenges he faced as someone of mixed ethnicity. Ceremonies, rituals and storytelling are important for Silko, and this shows through her writing. She describes that Native American culture is passed down through generations by a communal process of storytelling. Silko’s concern and deep feelings about the preservation of ...

Discuss the ways Native American women are presented in two myths.

Within the Native American culture, the role of the women has always been a specifically designated one which seems them performing certain roles and jobs. In the two stories presented here, The Deer Woman and The Yellow Woman, women are presented as fulfilling the role of ‘the other’ with their association with significantly supernatural occurrences: in the former, the reader is presented with a woman who can shape-shift and who presents herself differently to various people; in the latter, the reader is presented with a woman who is swept away by a mysterious stranger who does not function properly within mainstream society. The ...

Introduction

The quotation, “Worldwide, non-Western cultures faced fundamental challenges to their cultural identities "not so much a recentering of culture but a decentering of culture" [ CITATION HMS10 \l 2057 ], means that many of the non-western cultures were influenced by the western cultures and most of them if not all, were faced by the challenge of maintaining their original cultural identities. Western cultures such as the American and European cultures have greatly influenced many Asian and African nations; for instance interaction between different nations through the media, has greatly influenced the way of dressing, dancing, communication and even the language of non-western cultures. ...