Keith H. Basso Essay - 1683 Words

Keith H. Basso It is rare to find a book that is as informative as a textbook but reads as easy as a short story. But Keith H. Basso is successful in creating an interesting ethnography about the Western Apache culture by using two usually overlooked topics, geography and oral history. Geography and the location of places is usually forgotten or seen as just topography, but Basso proves that geography is more than a location. It is the forgotten history of the name of a place that makes the locality more important than it seems. While whitemen (a term frequented by the Apache to describe White European culture) has constantly renamed places for convenience and prove of colonization, Basso overturns this ignorant and offensive†¦show more content†¦The background of the author is very important because it provides the basis in which the reader will understand the information presented as of the experience and the reasons why the anthropologist wrote such an ethnography. We must also remember that Basso is also a linguist, an anthropologist whose focus is on the language of societies and how different words and contexts convey different meanings. But in Wisdom sits in places, Basso takes on the role of the observer and foreigner when approaching his consultants. (Note: the word consultant is now used instead of informants or subjects because these natives are there to work for the ethnographer, to be consult when questions arise). In a way, Basso is considered as a child when doing the interviews with the retired horsemen because in Apache culture, children are not born with the three conditions of the mind required to learn the wisdom of the culture. The three conditions are: smoothness of them mind, resilience of the mind and steadiness of the mind. Smoothness of the mind conveys the sense of having the mind free of obstructions and to be open to new ideas. The resilience of the mind combats against external distractions while the steadiness of the mind combats agains t the internal factors of distraction. Instead, they must pay attention and observe the words and actions of older people (in BassosShow MoreRelatedEssay about Wisdom Sits in Places783 Words   |  4 PagesNovember 29, 2011 Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache Keith H. Basso’s Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache delivers a strong message regarding human connections between place, identity, and origins in relation to the idea of place-names. Every place evokes an association to a story and/or a person/ancestor bearing a moral message that allows the Western Apache to shape their beliefs, behaviors, identities, etc. It is throughRead MoreSpeaking Through Silence1949 Words   |  8 PagesIntroduction Keith H. Basso’s ethnographic research titled, To Give up on Words: Silence in Western Apache Culture is an investigation of situations when members of a certain Apache community in the western United States assume the state of silence as a form of social interaction. In this paper, I will first note details of the society under consideration and Basso’s interests in regards to the questions he is trying to answer. I will introduce some anthropological concepts that are suitable toRead MoreThe Chiricahua Named Chihuahu A Different Opinion Of Their New Home1194 Words   |  5 Pagescreation of an Indian Tribe by the United States government. This tribe is to be called the Fort Sill Apaches. Bibliography Ball, Eve, Nora Henn, and Lynda Sanchez. Indeh, an Apache Odyssey. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. Basso, Keith H. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996. Delgadillo, Alicia. From Fort Marion to Fort Sill: A Documentary History of the Chiricahua Apache Prisoners of War, 1886-1913