"The Native American Avatar"

      Even though the movie industry has provided us with plenty of movies about the struggle and the history of the Native Americans, I believe the motion picture Avatar exemplifies their struggle. Avatar helps us understand what happens when a Native group of people lose their homeland to invaders looking only for their own best interest.

    In the movie, the Na’vi, the indigenous people of moon Pandora, are under a fatal threat to their homeland. This threat is caused by humans who wanted to chase and force the Na’vi to leave and take over their land; which is exactly what the new settlers did to the Native Americans.

    The Na’vi were simple, spiritual, peaceful, and proud people, they accepted and taught the humans who first came to their land. In return the humans who were very greedy and self beneficial tried to take over their homeland and kick the Na’vi out. This part of the movie is very similar to what we have learned about the treatment of the Native Americans, who share the same characteristics as the Na’vi. They taught the new settlers how to plant crops and helped them survive the rough weather, but in return the new settlers responded by forcing the Native Americans out of their homeland and hunting them down.

Works Cited

Avatar. Prod. James Cameron. 2009. Film.

A True Story, or a Tale Telling?

In this blog I will be responding to the African Proverb below. I will explain the meaning of this quote to the best of my understanding. As well as evaluate the truth behind this quote.  
This Ewe-mina, an African tribe, proverb refers to the unknown part of the struggle between the victor and the loser. 


"Until the lion has his or her own storyteller, the hunter will always have the best part of the story." -African Proverb

     

     If we hear only one side of a story how will we ever know the truth behind it? If we want to be objective, as humans, we should seek both side of a story. But what happens when one side is voiceless, weak, or absent?  The quote above reminds me of a similar quote by the influential Winston Churchill "History is written by the victors." Both quotes tend to build on the same ideology that only one part of the story is heard; that of which is usually the stronger and vocal side of the story versus the weaker and the voiceless.

     I believe the African wisdom that formed this proverb picked a strong and a physically superior creature, such as a lion, to contrast it with an intelligent creature, such as a human hunter. This contrast will untimely result in the hunter being the victor and surviving to tell a story that glorifies the hunter and makes he/she shine. 

Do we actually know what happened in the forest while the hunter was hunting the lion? Was it pure luck, or pure skill? Was the lion even awake? Will we ever know the lion's side of the story? I guess we'll never know the answer to any of these questions. We will continue to focus only on the hunter's side of the story because it is more glorifying to a fellow human being and more entertaining to us.