arndt@lymph.DEC (07/11/85)
Re. Black Robe review and comments by Peter Reiher:
I have always wanted to read Parkman - it's part of that long list of things
to dwell on on my death bed that never got done - like washin' the house
windows.
Stanley L. Jaki, a Benedictine priest with Phds in Physics and Theology who
teaches (taught?) at Seton Hall and writes on the history of science, says
in his book SCIENCE AND CREATION (I'm almost finished with it and will post
a review - it's great, can't wait to sample his other books!) regarding the
process of finding out what other cultures believe:
"The Aztec scribes, whom the friars taught how to transcribe their native
tongue, the Nahuatl, by using the Latin alphabet, could only do their
primitive best. Christian notions about man and cosmos inevitabley mixed in
their minds with their own heritage as they put in writing the poems, songs,
chronicles, and legends of their forefathers. Again, they were often asked
to answer questions which reflected not their thinking but that of the
missionries." p50-51.
So one can see how the comment by Peter Reiher about the difference between
the accounts of the Indian religions by Parkman and the author of BLACK ROBE
while both based on the Jesuit letters (The REFLECTIONS) could have happened.
Realize it works both ways a Jaki points out. The indians had some funny ideas
about what the priests believed - BLACK ROBE points this out with some humor -
and the priests often didn't get straight what the indians were doing. Cross
cultural activity can often be fun. I always wanted to serve a Russian
bumpkin mashed potatoes with a straw stuck in them. But my wife always insistedI work for peace. Ha
But we've come a long way in understanding the implicit assumptions involved
in looking at a foreign culture and developing methods to do so since Parkman
wrote. Perhaps the best is to combine the two (Parkman/ROBE) and come up
with some ideas of our own.
Regards,
Ken Arndt
PS For the Aztecs, the hundreds of folios written by the scribes under the
direction of the friars still exists and has been explored to some extent by
Meguel Leon-Portilla, AZTEC THOUGHT AND CULTURE:A STUDY OF THE ANCIENT
NAHUATL MIND, trans. by Jack Emory Davis, U of Oklahoma Pr., '63.
Does anyone know of a more recent (than Parkman) study from the REFLECTIONS
for the Indians of North America??