National Museum of the American Indian Search this
Type:
Conversations and talks
YouTube Videos
Uploaded:
2016-06-07T15:32:37.000Z
Views:
975
Video Title:
Being Noka (Bear Clan): Lessons of Cultural and Linguistic Translation
Description:
Michael Witgen (Red Cliff Ojibwe), who holds a joint appointment in the Department of American Culture and the Department of History at the University of Michigan, gives a keynote address for a conference on Translation and Transmission in the Early Americas: The Fourth Early Americanist "Summit," which took place in Washington, DC, and the University of Maryland, June 2-5, 2016. The full title of the keynote is Being Noka (Bear clan): The Murder Trials of Daniel Du Lhut and the Lessons of Cultural and Linguistic Translation. David Penney, Associate Director for Museum Scholarship at the National Museum of the American Indian, welcomes the conference attendees, and Ralph Bauer, Associate Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland, introduces the Dr. Witgen. In 1683, three Anishinaabe warriors murdered two French traders while they portaged the Keweenaw Peninsula along the southern shore of Lake Superior. The identity of the murderers was widely known among the inhabitants of Anishinaabewaki, the Great Lakes homeland of the Anishinaabe peoples. This meant that, in time, French traders and colonial officials in the region also learned the identity of the murderers. Two of the young men involved in this affair were sons of Achiganaga, a prominent leader of the Noka doodem. The Bear clan served as keepers of the war pipe among the Lake Superior Anishinaabe. These deaths were not random acts of violence. They sent a message. Unfortunately, Daniel Du Lhut, the ranking French military officer in the region, misinterpreted the meaning of this message. He called Achiganaga and his sons to council, and then proceeded to turn that council into a murder trial. Du Lhut’s misinterpretation of these events unwittingly placed the French in the middle of a power struggle among the Anishinaabe doodemag (clans) vying for control of the fur trade alliance network that linked the western interior of North America to the Atlantic World economy. This talk was recorded in the Rasmuson Theater of the National Museum of the American Indian on June 3, 2016.
Video Duration:
1 hr 12 min 15 sec
YouTube Keywords:
Native American Indian Museum Smithsonian "Indigenous Peoples" "Smithsonian Institution" "Smithsonian NMAI" "National Museum of the American Indian"
