The Truth About Pocahontas/Matoaka

[educatedindian]

Ray's claims of being involved looks very dubious.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/Pocahontas.htm
l

That it's a positive film, instead of very racist? Even more dubious.
http://www.powhatan.org/pocc.html

Some links on the actual history.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/Pocahontas.html
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/POCA/POC-home.html

"Positive"? The few token NDNs in it were used from beginning to end to provide cover. Henry's only credit for the film is "additional voice,"  or "chorus," a background singer. Means has rightly been criticized as a sellout and hypocrite. Bedard probably only escaped criticism because she was very young at the time.

With NDNs as "friends" like you Ray...I'm glad to do all I can to undo the damage done by "positive" sellouts/wannabes like you.

I spend a whole class on the lies perpetuated by that awful film.

Matoaka (Pocahontas): Hollywood vs. Reality

Hollywood- Pocahontas is in her late teens/early twenties

In Reality-Matoaka was nine or ten years

H- Asian eyes, a miniskirt, & a supermodel’s body

IR-Described as pudgy

H-John Smith is in his early twenties  w/Fabio style hair and the voice of Mel Gibson              

IR-Smith was in his late thirties, dressed in high collared suits, had cropped hair, & was “preachy???

H-Shown as a Romeo & Juliet              

IR-Mataoka was kidnapped, possibly raped, & forced into an arranged political marriage

H-Powhattan is shown as a stupid & slow talking Tonto        

IR-Powhattan was a clever leader of a confederacy of @35,000 who held off the English for 30 years

H-Singing songs about “the colors of the wind" solves all problems      

IR-The English break their promises. The Powhattan Confederacy loses >90% of its people to war & disease

H-Pocahontas lives happily ever after        

IR-Matoaka is taken to England, put on display, becomes Christian, dies from smallpox

If you actually had any role in that film Ray, what you did to millions of kids was unconscionable. You should be ashamed.

[JosephSWM]

Well, I still think this film did more harm than good. I got to see first hand on almost a daily basis how it affected its target audience - kids.

Children should know the truth, and it does not matter their age. At one school I was at the children put on a 10 minute play for me they wrote about the Trail of Tears. The play was thier idea. It included death, diesease, etc. The kids were in first and second grade.

As for the Lion King, that was about animals, not people.

As for the intent of the movie, well, what is that old saying "The road to hell is pathed with good intentions".

Now Ray, I am certainly not blaming you for this movie. Movies are a money making venture and Disney sure does know how to make that.

As for Russell Means giving authenticity well how many kids would know the voice of Powhatan was a real Indian. And isn't it great that they pick a man who likes to beat his wife and in-laws. Who knows what he did to his kids.

Anyway, I am staying out of this movie/history discussion from here on out.

Joseph

[educatedindian]

"over half of the cast was documented Indian"

Many members of the "Shawnee Remant Band" included. I've seen members of this "band". It's a would be "tribe" that falsely claims state recognition by Ohio. AIM is one of the groups pointing out their recognition is no such thing. Most of the "Indian bands" in places like Ohio are what I heard the language program director of the Miami call "family reunions claiming to be a tribe." They're not NDN, they're PODAI, People Of Distant Indian Ancestry.

"Its a movie stupid."

It poses as history, idiot. And I've had enough of you being abusive to people in here repeatedly.

The next post of yours with abuse or insults is getting deleted.

And a second post of yours with abuse will get you BANNED.

You claim to be grey haired. You are long overdue to finally GROW UP.

[DIGOWELI]

Al, I posted this on the Elder's list first because it fitted with the story. ?  I then remembered that you brought it up on this thread so I would like to clear this up. ?  I don't know whether the "Shawnee Remnant Band" is the same as the "United Remnant Band" or not but if it is then this is the history as I know it and have the certified official documents as such from the State of Ohio. ?  I also hold a Charter for that Band and the Overhill from the State of Ohio which is an incorporation Charter from before 1978 and the Freedom of Religion Act. ?  I also hold the Flags for both organizations as a part of our archive. ? But they are their own group and have been going back to the beginnings. ?  ? It is my understanding that Grandfather simply helped them to organize and exist in the world as it was at the time. ?  

I remember when groups began to form in the early sixties as a result of a loosening of Federal harassment and OEO monies becoming available for development. ? (Since that time, it all has become a fight over money and we simply don't choose to be a part of that. ) ?  At the time of that loosening there was a lot of loose langauge both from European and Indian people that put these emerging groups down. ?  Even the CNO had no official elected entity in the sixties. ?  The Chief was appointed by the US President and the Nation was disbanded for fifty or so years. ?  That is the root of a lot of ill feeling in Oklahoma amongst people who don't support sovereignty. ?  But you know these things, we have all fought these people on the internet.

As for your comment about the United Remnant Band (if that is who you meant). ?  ? I suspect you are quoting AIM when the founder of that band had an incident with AIM and he threw them out. ?  I believe it was around the time of the Longest Walk but I'm not sure. ?  ? That Band is very police oriented in that they have many members who are law enforcement officers. ?  ? No one fools around with them. ?  The man who brought them together was Donawa Destoti (War Stone) who himself was not to be fooled with. ?  A WW II decorated hero in three services. ?  ? Donawa Destoti ? brought together the remnants known as Carmel Indians in Ohio who were from the Shawnee, Choctaw and Cherokee peoples who had always lived in the area. ?  They don't look like a Hollywood Indian but one of our members who was a Special Ops person in Vietnam served with one and he said he was most certainly "Indian." ?

? Donawa Destoti also was an Indian patriot who helped Indian people wherever he went. ?  He trained Amineet Sequoia in Qualla and Sequoia listed him in his credits when he was the Medicine person for the Native Healing room in the Hospital at Qualla. ?  He was a colleague of Will West Long and his Medicine Circle included Andrew Dreadfulwater, Sr. , Leon Miller, John Hair, ? a Natchez man with the last name of Sam & Charlie Driver. ?  ? His teacher was his family and Tom Handle. ?  The women in his circle were Edna Chickalili and one I haven't found out yet. ?  ? So many of the people who knew these things are gone. ?  That is the difficulty with oral tradition and the separation of an urban life. ?  ?

He had a sawmill in Qualla and "doctored" for many years. ? He also had a Cherokee community in Tennessee that was broken up by coal interests and the state's Senator. ?  His European name was O.W.A. Rockko a name taken by his father and transfirred to his children. ?  ?

Your challenges and Oklahoma's have driven me back to my own sources. ?  ? For that I am grateful. ? The business of life sometimes makes us forget these things and not care for them properly. ?

Donawa Destoti was a Webber of the founding family of Webber's Falls in Oklahoma around Gore. ? He is known by the old people both in Oklahoma and in Qualla. ?  ? The Remnant Band was organized and chartered by him although some later tried to claim that once he had left for York, Penn. ?  He went back and cleaned that out because I saw him do it. ?  I suspect that some of that relates to the "ghost" that the list asked me about.

I don't know if these two groups are the same or not, but if they are, the Carmel group predates AIM by almost a couple of centuries. ?

One can always get the correct documentation if one is willing to ask in the proper fashion.

Its been fun,

Ray Evans Harrell ?

[VHawkins]

If you're talking about those called the "Carmel Indians" from my understanding (which might be faulty), I've been told by responsible researchers some of their surnames are Melungeon surnames, and the people are most likely therefore English/German/Scots-Irish/Saponi/Monacan/Tutelo/African in origin, or some combination of those groups. I doubt they are Cherokee or Shawnee.

As for Pocahantas, I never saw it. It didn't interest me. Had it been a historical documentary now I might have gone, but I don't think it would have done as good at the box office were that the case.

Now on grandma's birth certificate (that she first obtained in the 1930s or 40s when social security programs were just coming out -- altho she was born in the late 1880s) she put down that her dad, Jeffrey Hoten Richey (1851-1926), was born in Powhatan, Arkansas. If your discussin' anything else about Pocahantas, I'll just listen . . . nod ocasionally.

Vance