Wilson, James & Ken Kirby
2000 Civilization. Savagery and the American Indian series. Princeton: Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
Notes: 1 videocassette (50 min.); sd., col. with b&w sequences; 1/2 in. A BBC-TV production originally broadcast as an episode of the television program Timewatch. Written by James Wilson, Ken Kirby; produced by Ken Kirby. Photography, John Howarth, Jon Keeping; film editor, Mike Jackson; videotape editor, Jon Bignold; narrator, Andrew Sachs; program consultant, James Wilson; historical advisor, Neal Salisbury.Reviewed 19 Mar 2001 by:
Raymond A. Bucko <bucko@creighton.edu>
Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, USAMedium: Film/Video Subject
Keywords:Indians of North America - Cultural assimilation
Indians of North America - Education
Indians, Treatment of - United States
Indians of North America - History
ABSTRACT: Covering the time period from the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) to roughly 1990, this film uses historical narration, documentary photography and film, and, most importantly, Native testimonies, to examine the contemporary consequences of Government and Church assimilation policies as Native peoples seek healing through such ceremonial events as the Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride which commemorated the 100th anniversary of the massacre.
This film is the second of a two part series on American Indian history and contemporary society entitled Savagery and the American Indian. The first part of the series, Wilderness, (http://www.films.com/item.cfm?bin=10374) portrays the sophisticated cultures of pre-contact Native America and chronicles the history of Indian-White contact from the time of European incursion into the New World to the tragedy of Wounded Knee. This film Civilization, (http://www.films.com/item.cfm?bin=10375), takes up the story at Wounded Knee and brings it up to about 1991.Civilization takes two approaches to its subject -- one a historical narrative using a British voice-over, and the other a montage of contemporary Lakota voices describing their current lives in the light of past traumas with which they continue to deal. The content of the film is unified by two historical events: the tragedy of the Wounded Knee massacre of December 29, 1890, and, the triumph of the Si Tanka Wokiksuye. These are the Chief Big Foot Memorial Riders, who brought to memory and healing the events of 100 years ago through retracing the original route taken by the victims of the massacre to honor them and their surviving descendants. Civilization is a journey through destruction and rebuilding, cultural genocide and cultural survival, fragmentation and unity, despair and hope.
Throughout the film the historical narrative is interwoven with personal commentary bringing to the fore the importance of history and the consequences of past actions on present lives. For native Americans these include the attempted forced assimilation of their communities into the cultural mainstream by the government and the Christian church. Indian children were wrenched from their families and cultural milieu and forced to adopt Christian beliefs, morals and work ethic, and to adopt the English language and abandon their own.
Civilization also explores the affects of the General Allotment Act of 1887 (also known as the Dawes Act) which reduced the land holdings of Native Peoples in the west dramatically, the Federal Government's admission in the 1920s that the "Indian Policy" was an utter failure, and the eventual reversal of many assimilationist policies under President Roosevelt. In a policy reversal in 1947, the government again attempted to terminate tribal status and sovereignty and to relocate Indian people away from the reservations and into urban areas. But in 1973, the takeover of Wounded Knee became responsible for bringing the plight of Indian people into mainstream consciousness. This created a climate that produced legislation allowing for greater self-determination among Indian groups. Included in the film is a segment from Ronald Reagan's rather infamous speech in Russia during which he embarrasses America by responding to a question about US Indian policy in which he displays a stunning lack of knowledge and sensitivity for native Americans. -- perhaps iconic of his own administration's stance towards this segment of American society.
Using historic photographs and film footage of contemporary reservation life, Civilization also explores issues such as ecology, the images of Indians held by non-Indians, the loss and revival of traditional culture and religion, and addresses contemporary Indian community problems such as drug abuse, alcoholism, poverty and violence.
The value of Civilization lies not so much with the history presented -- which is repetitive of most textbooks -- but in the interpolation of Native voices that comment upon facts which, for non-Natives, may seem to have no bearing on the larger reality of America. A variety of Indian individuals talk about the tragedy of the past, the struggles of the present and hopes for the future. Although they do not necessarily agree with one another, they do all point to the importance and consequences of the history explored through this film. The British narrator ends with the intimation that Indian people have much to teach, and that perhaps the Indian way is the only hope for human survival.
There are some shortcomings in this work. The film focuses primarily on the Lakota peoples of western South Dakota, which could perpetuate a stereotype that all Indians are Plains Indians, or Lakota (still incorrectly referred to as "Sioux"). While there are many voices represented, and some individuals are cited in the credits, the various speakers among whom include such notables as Vine Deloria Jr., Charlotte Black Elk, and Tim Giago, are not identified by name. There are also some errors in fact: the film footage shown of the Indians featured in Bill Cody's Wild West show are cited as the first display of Native images. Moreover, the year 1908 is given as the beginning of the "celluloid Indian" when, in fact, Thomas Edison filmed Indians on their way to Europe for the Wild West show in 1894. These films can be viewed on the Library of Congress American Memory page (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html) by searching for "Edison and Indian").
The film suggests that there were 5 million or more Indians in North America at Contact. This number, and the demography of the Americas at European Contact in general has been a hotly debated issue. The best summary of this debate can be found in David Henige's Numbers from Nowhere (University of Oklahoma Press, 1998). The narrator also suggests that for Indians the earth could not be owned or divided. This common misconception is actually addressed by one Native speaker in the film who points out that what was alien was not a sense of territory or ownership by tribal groups but the concept of individual ownership rather than clan or tribal ownership. While the boarding schools were clearly tragedies -- and this fact should not be diminished or obscured -- current research by Native scholars has shown that there is an ambivalence towards these institutions because children also acquired skills necessary to deal equally with an often hostile outside world. To be recommended for further reading is K. Tsianina Lomawaima's They Called It Prairie Light (University of Nebraska Press, 1994), reviewed in the Journal of World Anthropology 1(4). Finally, in suggesting we might all do well to learn from Indians, the film entirely ignores the effect of people "playing Indian" and the excesses of some in the New Age movement in colonizing Native religion and culture.
Despite these minor shortcomings, the film deals well with a long series of complicated issues, providing the viewer with both historical occurrences and personal consequences of these events through its lively presentation of Native voices. This work is to be highly commended and would be of particular value in history, government, social justice, and Native studies courses and as a general introduction to the often tragic history of Indian-white relations.
To cite this review, the American Anthropological Association recommends the following style:
Bucko, Raymond A.
2001 Review of Civilization. Anthropology Review Database. March 19. Electronic document, http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=1648, accessed February 10, 2010.© Anthropology Review Database
(available online: http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/)