Substantive #9

Let's watch John Carter on repeat

At the surface level, “signs” seem to refer to purely religious indications. After all, Todorov asks the question right after a paragraph that states that the Indians were defeated because “the Mayans and the Aztecs lost control of communication. The language of the gods has become unintelligible, or else the gods fell silent. ‘Understanding is lost, wisdom is lost’” (Todorov 61-62). Indian ideology about life is directly connected to the spiritual realm. Thus, they look to omens—which can act as signs—and rely on priests or other otherworldly sources in order to understand the physical. However, the Spaniards’ invasion broke the connection between the spiritual and the physical in that the spiritual framework could not account for whom the Spaniards were and how grotesque their goals were. Indian religion could not provide an answer for why the Spaniards appeared which broke the decision-making and knowledge-building style of learning that Indian society relied upon. Thus, Indian society is unable to progress and becomes stagnant since status quo Indian religion failed at providing answers like it had done so in the past which thereby led to degradation of trust in religion.

However, the Spaniards defeated the Indians by regressing society as well as stagnating society by corrupting the Indian religion. Prior to the Spaniards, the Indians had knowledge and books that contributed to the creation of Indian society by providing a historical narrative. In order to destroy that, “The Spaniards burn the Mexicans’ books in order to wipe out their religion; they destroy their monuments in order to abolish any memory of a former greatness” (Todorov 60). While the reasoning for the first part of the quote is explained above, the importance of wanting to “abolish any memory of a former greatness” cannot be understated. Hope relies on the belief that there is a way of life other than the current one and people with hope can become insurgent in order to attain that other way of life. Thus, the Spaniards needed to destroy any evidence of Indian achievements which are evidence of a better life compared to subjugation. The Spaniards’ rewriting of history serves to isolate Indians from their past and make them feel powerless. There is a certain strength and grounding that comes with knowing the past that the Spaniards want to undermine by destabilizing the historical identity of the Indians. Thus, Indian society regressed because past knowledge, skill, and wisdom was lost.

When I was researching about the impacts of colonial trauma on Indians in order to better answer this question, I found tons of research that really portrayed the extent to which the trauma absolutely ruined the psyche of the Indians. First, there is the idea of intergenerational trauma which states that trauma faced by ancestors can adversely affect present emotional and mental development which means that Indians will always have to grapple with their identity more so than other populations. Second, and the more interesting topic in my opinion, is the idea of disenfranchised grief. Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, the Director of Native American and Disparities Research and Dr. Lemyra DeBruyn, a medical anthropologist who has over 40 years of experience with Indigenous research, states:

When a society disenfranchises the legitimacy of grief among any group, the resulting intrapsychic function that inhibits the experience and expression of the grief affects, that is sadness and anger, is shame. Subsequently, there can be a lack or recognition of grief and inhibition of the mourning process. Grief covered by shame negatively impacts relationships with self. (Brave Heart and DeBruyn 63)

Isn’t that terrifying?! And fascinating?! But more so terrifying?! Disenfranchised grief occurs when a traumatized individual is unable to complete the mourning process because their current environment is hostile to them which continues on the emotional impacts of the trauma. Thus, the traumatized individual will continue to be burdened with the emotional effects of the trauma for possibly forever. The Spaniards, by regressing and stagnating Indian society through oppression, prevent Indians from mourning which means they have not only disenfranchised Indians in terms of their social participation, but also through their identity development.

http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/PublicHealth/research/centers/CAIANH/journal/Documents/Volume%208/8(2)_YellowHorseBraveHeart_American_Indian_Holocaust_60-82.pdf