{"id":897,"date":"2017-05-15T08:15:55","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T08:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/?p=897"},"modified":"2017-05-15T18:12:15","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T18:12:15","slug":"historical-and-cultural-context-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/2017\/05\/15\/historical-and-cultural-context-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Historical and Cultural Context"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sanpoil is a tribe of Native Americans located in Washington state. \u00a0Their name derives from the Okanagan dialect, and means “gray as far as one can see”<\/a>. \u00a0They, along with the Nespelem tribe, as well as other additional tribes, were members of the \u201cInterior Salish\u201d Native American tribes, who settled in many places such as Washington and British Columbia (Hilaire 173). \u00a0The Sanpoil tribe was one of several tribes in this group that would be moved to the Colville reservation in 1872 (173). \u00a0After being moved to the reservation, many of the tribes were converted to Roman Catholicism \u201cin name,\u201d suggesting that not all beliefs of the religion were adopted (174). \u00a0This explains Runnels\u2019 Catholic<\/a> affiliation. In 1905<\/a>, the Sanpoil tribe had 324 people, which decreased to 202 in 1913<\/a>.\u00a0 In 2010<\/a>, census numbers indicated they had 234 members.\u00a0 Today, the Sanpoil are “one of the Twelve Tribes that make up the Colville Confederated Tribes.<\/a>“\"\"<\/p>\n

Several elements of the story can be explained given context.\u00a0 One interesting element of the story is the council of many different tribes that discussed how to provide a sun for the sunless earth.\u00a0 Apparently, the Sanpoil had a government<\/a>, which was semi-democratic, where many chiefs would each represent a community in the tribe. \u00a0In addition, the story mentions the \u201cGreat Spirit<\/a>,” which is essentially the translated name of the deity of creation in many tribes.\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

At face value, the story is seemingly only a creation myth<\/a> for the sun. \u00a0The story explains in the beginning that dense vapor clouded the earth and made firewood difficult to light.\u00a0 As stated, their name means “gray as far as one can see,” which suggests that this condition in their story could be connected to their name.\u00a0 Furthermore, similar weather conditions are seen in other Sanpoil stories, such as The Origin of Fire<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 This condition prompted the tribes to band together to overcome \u201ca long difficult struggle\u201d and create the \u201cfire,\u201d which can be implied to be the sun.\u00a0 The struggle is discussed in another Sanpoil legend, Origin of the Sun and Moon<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0which also has a very similar ending.\u00a0 Many other stories from the Sanpoil tribe often involve creating or stealing fire, such as Arrow Chain and Theft of Fire<\/a>.<\/i>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

While the origin of the sun is the main aspect of the story, there is also a brief mention of the transformation from animal to man, suggesting a form of \u201csocial evolution<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0Social evolution in anthropology is traditionally defined as a movement from different stages in society, and shows a movement from hunting and gathering-based societies to more advanced and literate societies. \u00a0This is briefly touched upon in the text, and shows a movement from animals, to a more \u201ccivilized\u201d species that is recognized and protected by the \u201cGreat Spirit<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 This, as well as the other explained elements of the story help to understand why the story should be included in this anthology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sanpoil is a tribe of Native Americans located in Washington state. \u00a0Their name derives from the Okanagan dialect, and means “gray as far as one can see”. \u00a0They, along with the Nespelem tribe, as well as other additional tribes, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3531,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141058,141037],"tags":[141400,141411,141076,141072,141425,141118],"class_list":["post-897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-louis-runnels","category-tribal-educators","tag-colville-reservation","tag-creation-myth","tag-origin-story","tag-sanpoil","tag-social-evolution","tag-the-great-spirit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}