Below is the
Carmine Guica Young Historians Update for the upcoming month.
The CHS Cabinet currently contains various plaster items pertaining to Halloween, Dia de los Muertos and Thanksgiving which can be painted, colored or decorated. If you need more, don’t hesitate to call (802-226-7807) or e-mail margocaulfield@icloud.com
For Halloween, the CHS Museum, located at 1958 Main St (Route 131) will be celebrating from 4-7 pm. The Cabinet will be expanded and open with lots of books for kids and adults; games etc. Treats are available. Masks and social distancing required.
Our understanding of history changes over time simply because new evidence makes it possible to reinterpret events. It’s helpful for students to be aware of the following:• What we know today can change and be modified based on research and new discoveries. It’s shifting sand so don’t be afraid of change as it’s going to happen.
• The past is a foreign country. Things were done differently and to judge behavior by today’s standards can be problematic.
• Dig deep and don’t rely on one source. If it doesn’t make sense, ask the question a different way, try another source.
Thanks to the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), National Museum of African American History & Culture and the Latino Center, all of the Smithsonian, we are seeing how diverse our history is along with its complexity and inconsistency. As the Director of NMAI, Kevin Gover notes, “it’s all our inherited history” and we get to determine what we pass on for future generations.
October and November are associated with many myths and half-truths pertaining to Columbus, the landing of the Mayflower, and Thanksgiving. They also are a reminder of atrocities associated with the colonization of the Americas. Having spent four months intently studying and researching this period of American history, I found myself incredibly discouraged until I started following the work of Paul Chatt Smith (Comanche) and Kevin Gover (Pawnee). Gover is the director of the NAMI while Smith is one of the leading art curators in the world and curates for the NAMI.
Gover’s TED Talk is an excellent 15 minute insight into how and why it’s important to recognize our inherited history, the need to embrace it and understand that each generation decides what to remember and what to let go of. The talk is geared for adults but junior high students and up will gain from watching it.
Smith’s take on history, in general and Indians in particular, is insightful. He points out that America’s history is basically no better or worse than any other countries but like Gover stresses the importance of knowing the facts and letting go of emotional myths. History is harsh and it spares no one. Human beings throughout time and across the world demonstrate pretty much the same measure of brutality and grace. Talking about this part of our histories is a price of seeing Indians as fully human, not New Age forest bunnies. I see it as a powerful blow against white supremacy to insist that vast amounts of post-contact Native history is not a binary struggle between settler and the indigenous. That history is complicated and scary and dense, precisely because it centers around political agendas of Indian peoples rather than a neatly constructed 21st-century fantasy that everything that ever happened to us is about the white man. It wasn’t. It isn’t.
November 2020 Native American History Month
• Nov
1-2: Dia de los Meurtos
(Day of the Dead) Covered in previous CGYHU
• Nov. 9-10 (1938): Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) occurred in Germany as Nazi mobs burned synagogues and vandalized Jewish shops and homes.
• Nov. 11: Veteran’s Day: Dedication of the National Native American Veterans Memorial at the NMAI. Learn more about participating in this event
• Nov. 19 (1863): Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg address
- 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower
• Nov. 22 (1963): President Kennedy’s assassination
• Nov. 26 (1922): Thanksgiving
- King Tutankhamen tomb discovered and exploration begun
RESOURCES
Native American History
• Vermont Native American Timeline
• SusannahJohnson/Indian Stones/Captive Johnsons Cavendish birth
• NativeKnowledge 360 from the National Museum of the American Indian: Excellent
teaching resources
• Abenaki: Knowing Ways of Water (includes the story of Champ)
Thanksgiving
• The Invention of Thanksgiving: Features Paul Chatt Smith
• American Indian Perspective on Thanksgiving contains a teaching poster designed for educators and students 4-8 examines the deeper meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday for American Indians through the themes of environment, community, encounters, and innovations. Appropriate for use at any time during the year, the poster includes information that is essential to understanding and teaching about American Indians along with compelling images and ideas for classroom activities.
• Harvest Ceremony: Beyond the Thanksgiving Myth A Study Guide from NMAI will be very helpful and can be used for both Thanksgiving but also in understanding the Mayflower’s arrival. The classroom discussion topics are appropriate for all ages.
• Fall CHS Newsletter that explores Thanksgiving origin story
• The Myths of the Thanksgiving Story and the Lasting Damage They Imbue from Smithsonian Magazine
Mayflower
• General Society of Mayflower Descendants
Kristallnacht
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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