Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Top down, women's history or just GOM?

Finished more of Burke's writings on new perspectives in historical writing.  It seems history can be told from the top down (traditional) or from the bottom up (ordinary citizen experience) and of course there is women's history.  Without any preconceived idea, my endeavor to learn about Glory of the Morning encompasses each of these areas.  History has largely been recorded from the top down, meaning that great men did something > history > recorded and we the masses (women, Native Americans or other ethnic groups) individually > our stories did not matter.  Now I (a bottom dweller of sorts and non-historian) propose to tell the story about Glory of the Morning, daughter of a principal chief or in other words, top down history of GOM's contribution to Ho Chunk history.  Yes, but GOM was a woman.  By telling her story, some historians would have you and I believe that this is marginalizing history that has been already written by non-native peoples in search of land or other resources.  Further, some feminist historians would argue that telling her story would "correct" history.  Other historians would laud my tiny efforts by deconstructing her life, the Ho Chunk Nation's history to thereby gain a broader view of GOM and her contribution to history (that has been already written).  Yikes!

I had to review my degree plan after I read Burke to reaffirm my educational objectives which are to learn what GOM's role was in Ho Chunk history:  Was GOM a leader? a Chieftess? or a Ho Chunk woman?  It is my hope that researching GOM will add another dimension to our grand and yet sad history and pave the way for further Ho Chunk women's accounts and thereby "complete" our history not "correct" what has already been written.

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