Introduction -- Brown Quarterly -- v. 1, no. 2 -- Winter 1996

Volume 1, No. 2 (Winter 1996)

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Introduction

Yá At Eéy!

The Winter Edition of the Brown Quarterly welcomes you in Navajo. Our front piece features the circle, the symbol of oneness, completeness, spirituality and power for the Native American. Native American culture, history and education. (See Free Stuff! at the end of some articles for educational resources that teachers can obtain at little to no cost.) Dr. George Godfrey, member of the Citizen Band Pottowatomie Tribe and professor at Haskell Indian Nations University, cites the importance of teaching Indigenous history, values and thought as part of American history. He describes the forward looking environmentalist ethic as just one example of why Native American thought must not be lost. This edition of The Brown Quarterly offers itself as a resource for teachers in this endeavor. Running through our first three articles, we present portraits by E.A. Eubanks in the Edward B. Ayer Collection at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois. Our spring edition will feature Manzanar Historical Site where Japanese Americans and immigrants were interned during World War Two along with parks that interpret Civil Rights history. If you have creative methods of presenting these topics to children we would like to publish your thoughts, techniques and approaches in "Teachers Talk," our forum for teaching innovations and ideas.

You have noticed
that everything an Indian does is in a
circle, and that is because the Power of the World
always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.
In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all
our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation and as long
as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished. The flowering tree was
the living center of the hoop, and the circle of the four quarters nourished it.
The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth, the west gave rain, and the
north with its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance. This knowledge
came to us from the outer world with our religion. Everything the Power of the World
does is in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round
like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its great power, whirls. Birds make
their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes
forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round.
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back
again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to
childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees
were round like the nests of birds and these were always set in a
circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great
Spirit meant for us to hatch our children. --Black Elk
in Black Elk Speaks as told through
John G. Neihardt.

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