UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Return of the Indian: Bone Games, Transcription, and Other Gestures of Indigeneity Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0644z3tz Author Minch, Mark Allen Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Return of the Indian: Bone Games, Transcription, and Other Gestures of Indigeneity by Mark Allen Minch A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Trinh T. Minh-ha, Chair Professor Judith Butler Professor Thomas Biolsi Fall 2014 1 Abstract Return of the Indian: Bone Games, Transcription, and Other Gestures of Indigeneity by Mark Allen Minch Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality University of California, Berkeley Professor Trinh T. Minh-ha, Chair Native Americans are currently in what is being called a ‘renaissance.’ A term that in its application to Native Americans was originally understood to have been a matter of literary production, a re-birth on the level of imagination, its focus has shifted recently to the (re) production of peoples themselves through various projects of cultural and biopolitical revitalization. Much of the material basis for this (second) re-birth lies in material culture, more particularly, the collections in museums, echoing the use of stories and rites from the archives in Native American literatures. Rebeginning from and with the ruins: What are these materials collected during the heyday of colonial violence, understood by ethnographers and anthropologists at the time to be ‘salvage’ of the remainders of peoples on the verge of disappearance? In the somewhat rationally organized, but often baroquely cluttered, immensity of fragments, there is produced an odd relation to the post-apocalypse where the collections function as contested political sites of open and incomplete identity formation. Because of the difficulty of materialization in its relation to the scripted imagination, this space of (re) production is both gestural and transcriptive, made emblematic by the relation between the collection and the archive. Return of the Indian explores the possible uses and misuses of these sensitive materials in their reappropriation by tribes for various revitalization projects, and tries to understand the current situation of Native American identity within such a politics and art of recovery. Drawing on perspectives from philosophy; postcolonial theory and indigeneity; literary theory; art practice; and women, gender and sexuality studies, this dissertation seeks a sensitivity to the materials that respects opacity and the role of the interval in the delicate practice of (re)making Indians. Located between what Michael Taussig has called the “rituals” of University based knowledge-production and the politico-tribal praxis of reproduction of indigenous subjects using the University’s materials and methodologies, it follows the path and praxis of an indigenous call for return. i Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Dedication iv Introduction Moving Parts v Chapter 1 Writing What Remains 1 I Writing and Baskets 5 II Turds With Feathers 19 Chapter 2 Speaking of Bones 33 I Mis/Identification and Silence at the Hearst Museum 33 II Native American Bone Courts 46 Interlude An Experiment: On Instruction in Diving 58 Chapter 3 The Path of Bone Game 60 Chapter 4 Repatriation of Research 85 I Research 85 II Repatriation 102 Works Cited 118 ii Acknowledgements I have been profoundly lucky in the support that I have received while on the paths taken, both accidental and chosen, towards finishing this dissertation. From the moment that I sent off the message in a bottle that was my application to graduate school, Trinh T. Minh-ha has provided a wonderful, unpredictable, and oftentimes difficult answer to this call. First as a mentor and then as my dissertation chair, she has consistently influenced and challenged me, masterfully performing the roles of exemplar and teacher. Her ability to cross boundaries between political commitment, art practice and theoretical production, and to do so in a way that produces a powerful and resonant voice, has been awe-inspiring. I also cannot thank her enough for the advice she has offered while I learned to navigate the at times treacherous and often mundane waters of academic life. In many ways, it is from her that I learned what an infinite distance truly is. To my dissertation committee members I owe a great debt. Judith Butler has been an incredibly responsive reader of my work and supporter in general. At very challenging moments during my graduate career she has offered the unreserved kindness and strategic assistance that I most needed, and her precise feedback on my writing, as well as the intellectual rigor of her own work, has been immeasurably helpful. Tom Biolsi has offered me an important voice of practical reason and disciplinary and professional development, and I am thankful for his consistent reminder to remember what my stakes are and to keep an eye on the ground. As a teacher, colleague and friend, Michael Wintroub has been a relief from the many pressures of academia. I look up to him for his ability to be so committed and welcoming to students, while retaining a cautious foot outside the door of academic life. I, as have many others, have had my tenure in the Rhetoric department made much easier and enjoyable thanks to his presence. I have also had the pleasure of receiving an unparalleled education, of teaching with outstanding faculty, and of enjoying countless dialogs regarding my work and development as a scholar. Among the many professors I would like to thank are: Shannon Jackson, Minoo Moallem, Samera Esmeir, Marianne Constable, Ramona Naddaff, and David Bates. My undergraduate professors inspired me with their passion, while also providing me the space in which to develop my own intellectual paths: Dennis Rothermel, Greg Tropea, Jeanne E. Clark, and Lynn Elliott. Despite my generally reserved disposition, I have found truly warm and caring companionship amongst my fellow graduate students. I would like to thank Keerthi Potluri, Eric Morales-Franceschini, Jared Greene, Ryan Roberts, Dannah Budny, and Tenzin Paldron for their friendship, commiseration, celebration, and support in whatever form it may have come. I would also like to thank my dear friend and fellow debaucher Marc Boucai for his challenges to both my work and lifestyle. And to Hyaesin Yoon I owe an immeasurable debt for her persistence in being my interlocutor, friend, and at times co-creator, despite my rocky interior. I am very grateful to have traveled parallel paths with such a close friend. I would also like to thank the imminently graceful staff of the Rhetoric department, past and present, for their guidance and facilitation of what was often a mystifying process, particularly Marcus Norman and Lisa Fox. To Maxine Fredericksen I owe a special debt. iii The abiding friendship of Nick Kociemba, Aaron Ryan, and Mike Dalling, along with the remembrance of friendship with Aaron Shirley and Kurt Van Gorder, has been significant for my retention of sanity and a musical relationship to everyday life. My mother, Susan Campbell, who taught me the strength to make my own way, has provided me with an ongoing model in her own struggles to live and be Maidu. As always, she is an endless source of information, stories, and advice. I have not always listened well, but, when I have, I have been greatly rewarded by her wisdom. I am also very grateful to my other parents. Quentin Campbell has been an unflagging supporter of my academic pursuits and an example of social and familial commitment. Cris and Dawn Minch have shown great care and concern, while also providing an escape to the high desert and the occasional motorcycle ride. My two sisters, Mylah Hansen and Michelle Campbell, have helped me in so many ways. It is they who have taught me how to be a big brother, a role that I am still practicing. And it is Maria Rocelyn de Leon who I have chosen to walk side-by-side with on this journey. I want to thank her for her partnership, for being a loving mother to our daughter, and for the everyday care and gallons of coffee that together animated this writing body long enough to finish writing these words. Finally, to all of those who have helped me in so many hard to define ways, I don’t have the space to thank all of you, but I am immensely grateful. iv This dissertation is dedicated to my daughter, Mikaela Ysabel de Leon Minch. As I continue searching for my voice, I look forward to you finding yours. v Introduction Moving Parts Stories tell us that healing gifts, along with other gifts, have retreated into a cave, but one day they will return. --Adrian Smith (Concow), quoted in “Songs of the California Indians” The world is revived in a masked form, in a masked way, not as a mask, but through a form of masking and as its result. The masking does not precisely conceal, since what is lost cannot be recovered, but it marks the simultaneous condition of an irrecoverable loss that gives way to a reanimation of an evacuated world. --Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama This dissertation is animated by two movements: loss and recovery. The Ethno-Photographic Turn In this day and age, it has become increasingly urgent to ask: what kind of image does one carry of her/himself when identifying as Native American? It is also important to question how--in what forms--this image, originating outside of oneself, is carried and in what circumstances it is confronted.