W. Ben Hunt/Tasunka Witko

[guest]

My guess is that W.Ben Hunt is on your "black-list" of authors....I could not find anything on this site about him - I tried to do a search, but I guess only members can do that.  Anyway...if this info is of use to you....

Complete How-To Book of Indiancraft: 68 Projects for Authentic Indian Articles
by W. Ben Hunt

ISBN: 002011690X

How to make everything essentail in N.A. Indian culture, August 27, 1998
Reviewer: A reader
W. Ben Hunt has captivated me. With intricate detailed drawings and scetches. His down home lingo about his life with Indian peoples. From the construction of teepee's, tomahawks, headresses, tomtom's, and everything in between.

http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?qwork=7873738&wauth=Hunt%2C%20W%20Ben&ptit=Complete%20How%2DTo%20Book%20of%20Indiancraft%3A%2068%20Projects%20for%20Authentic%20Indian%20Articles&pauth=Hunt%2C%20W%20Ben&pisbn=002011690X&pqty=9&pqtynew=0&pbest=6%2E06&matches=9&qsort=r&cm_re=works*listing*title

Under the pen names Lone Eagle and Whittlin' Jim
http://www.historichalescorners.org/hchs4.htm

He lived and worked in a log cabin, not far from the site of the last Sioux uprising, and traveled and stayed with several Indian tribes. His Sioux name was Tasunka Witko.
http://www.infobada.net/Complete-How-to-Book-of-Indiancraft-by-W-Ben-Hunt-PB,i4567180312,c378,ur.html

[educatedindian]

First of all..."black list"? Come on...NDNs don't run the govt, don't own the printing presses, don't own the newspapers, not even some of the Native-oriented ones.

I know some Nuagers just love to use that melodramatic phrase. It fits with their romanticized self image of themselves as "nobody understands us super spirchul types, everybody's out to get us, especially those mean dark skinned people!" But come on, it's not based on anything close to reality...much like Nuagers themselves and their books and leaders.

No one, as far as I know, has ever argued for banning anything. All we'd like is for the Nuage frauds to simply tell the truth, that works X Y and Z are fiction, fantasy, stereotype, wishful thinking, etc. There was even one group of activists who met with Lynn Andrews who offered to never protest her public speeches again if she came clean and admitted she made everything up and labelled her books fiction instead of alleged autobiography.

Naturally she didn't. Her book sales would've fallen off.

There's nothing stopping you from becoming a member, BTW.

Any objections to Hunt or his books wouldn't be too high up on the list of NDN priorities. After all, he wrote them 70-90 years ago and he's been dead for about 30. His books are about crafts, not teaching sacred rituals. He does seem to have some stereotypes in his books, so I wouldn't recommend them for kids. And I wonder why you wouldn't just go to Native clubs that discuss crafts. Some would be suspicious of outsiders and wonder if they wanted to play NDN and live in a tipi on the weekend. But once they got to know someone and saw this wasn't so, I think many wouldn't mind.

Anyone interested in the subject should probably also read on the problems with the Boy Scouts use of fake "Indian" imagery and terms.
http://www.bluecorncomics.com/stype372.htm
http://www.hanksville.org/sand/stereotypes/bad.html
http://www.asu.edu/lib/archives/stereotypes.htm