I mentioned in class today some of the themes and arguments of the book Captives and Cousins by James Brooks.
You can read the first 18 pages of the book by following this link:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7703211/Captives-and-Cousins-James-Brooks
On page 7 to 8, you can read a description of the Pawnee Morning Star Ceremony, one of the many reasons this work is controversial.
The anthropologist Weltfish's work, The Lost Universe, describes the human sacrifice of the young female captive this way:
"The procession was timed so that she would be left alone on the scaffold at the moment the morning star rose. When the morning star appeared, two men came from the east with flaming brands and touched her lightly in the arm pits and groins. Four other men then touched her with war clubs. The man who had captured her then ran forward with the bow from the Skull bundle and a sacred arrow and shot her through the heart while another man struck her on the head with the war club from the Morning Star bundle. The officiating priest then opened her breast with a flint knife and smeared his face with the blood while her captor caught the falling blood on dried meat. All the male members of the tribe then pressed forward and shot arrows into the body. They then circled the scaffold four times and dispersed."
Note how the description by Brooks is different. What does this discrepency tell us about the reliability of the sources we read on American Indian culture and life? Does Pekka in The Comanche Empire seem to sensationalize certain aspects of Indian culture at times or not? What do you think?
You can read the first 18 pages of the book by following this link:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7703211/Captives-and-Cousins-James-Brooks
On page 7 to 8, you can read a description of the Pawnee Morning Star Ceremony, one of the many reasons this work is controversial.
The anthropologist Weltfish's work, The Lost Universe, describes the human sacrifice of the young female captive this way:
"The procession was timed so that she would be left alone on the scaffold at the moment the morning star rose. When the morning star appeared, two men came from the east with flaming brands and touched her lightly in the arm pits and groins. Four other men then touched her with war clubs. The man who had captured her then ran forward with the bow from the Skull bundle and a sacred arrow and shot her through the heart while another man struck her on the head with the war club from the Morning Star bundle. The officiating priest then opened her breast with a flint knife and smeared his face with the blood while her captor caught the falling blood on dried meat. All the male members of the tribe then pressed forward and shot arrows into the body. They then circled the scaffold four times and dispersed."
Note how the description by Brooks is different. What does this discrepency tell us about the reliability of the sources we read on American Indian culture and life? Does Pekka in The Comanche Empire seem to sensationalize certain aspects of Indian culture at times or not? What do you think?
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