|
America: The Land, what will our children inherit?
The main character and the principal voice in this year's Chautauqua is the land.
The land is a living organism and it can be said to "speak." Rivers and brooks "babble" over the
rocks. The pine trees "whisper." The wind can "howl." The sky "thunders." Rain "patters."
But these voices are metaphorical.
Properly speaking, the land itself, of course, does not speak. It does not literally have a voice. But, we are right
to call the land "Mother Earth" and that metaphor points to an important reality: we human beings "conscious
and articulate beings" are, or at least can be, the voice of the earth. In the minds of its inhabitants the land becomes
"self-conscious" sees itself, knows itself, depicts itself, speaks of itself. This year's Chautauqua characters
did all of that for the land.
|
| Falls Park Greenville's vision |
When the Lakota holy man, Black Elk, spoke, he spoke from an intimate familiarity with the earth. For him "Mother Earth"
was more than a figure of speech. The earth was a sacred and creative reality and all living things, the four legged and the
winged people, were our relatives. When his people sang during sacred ceremonies like the Sun Dance they were the voice of
all things for, as he said "all are really one." Where present day Americans see many distinct beings Black Elk
spoke of the relatedness between and unity of the land, its spirits, and its creatures.
When John James Audubon published "The Birds of America" in 1838 he showed the nation what Black Elk called
its "winged peoples." He depicted all birds of America life size. Moreover he wrote five volumes of he called
"bird biographies" to accompany his drawings" one biography for each of his 435 bird portraits. Then he did
the same thing for the quadrupeds. No other American so compellingly called our attention to the animals that share the land
with us.
When James Beckwourth, the African American mountain man, wrote his memoirs in 1856 he recalled a life lived out-of-doors
amid spectacular scenery but in the midst of a wilderness that was often filled with frontier violence. Beckwourth reminds
us of one of the most important chapters of our history: the time during which the western land was fought over, settled,
and frequently violated. His story and that of the land he fought in is a story of both human courage and human corruption.
When Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House the nation had a true naturalist for its President. The debate about nature
in America at the time was between preservationists like John Muir and conservationists like Gifford Pinchot. Both men were
friends of TR and their voices argued back and forth in the President's mind. Roosevelt created the Bureau of Forestry, with
Gifford Pinchot as chief forester to manage the timber harvests for sustainable yields. He also created wilderness preserves
which he thought should remain free of human construction.
When Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring" in 1962 she wrote as a scientist. In her writing three books about
the sea and then Silent Spring about the land, she brought the language of science to bear on issues of the environment.
She offered scientific evidence that the improper use of chemical pesticides can often damage the land change and when they
damage the land, they harm humans too. Rachel Carson, and researchers like her, gave the land the opportunity to speak the
language of environmental science at a time when the land and the sea and all creatures are in more danger than ever.
Listen to what the land says during this Chautauqua. Then add you voice to the mix.
John James Audubon (1785-1851)
James P. Beckwourth (1798-18660
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
Black Elk (1863-1950)
Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
|
| Audubon's Carolina Pigedon |
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON will be portrayed by George Frein, our artistic director. Audubon is best known as the artist/ornithologist
who created The Birds of America, a four volume collection of 435 bird portraits, all drawn life-size. The companion five
volume set of Bird Biographies contains the artist's descriptions of the American landscape as well as narratives about birds
and their habits. Audubon's best friend was John Backman, a Lutheran minister and leading naturalist, who lived in Charleston,
where Audubon frequently visited him. Backman wrote the text which accompanied Audubon's drawings for The Quadrupeds of America.
George is preparing a monologue which will be accompanied by projections of the landscape and its animal inhabitants on a
screen from behind the stage, so that the audience can see the land, the birds, and the quadrupeds.
|
| Beckwourth stamp |
JAMES BECKWOURTH will be presented by J. Holmes Armstead. (International Law Ph.D 1981 Pacific Western; J.D. 1975 DePaul University;
B.S. 1968 University of Illinois, currently on the faculty of the Naval War College in Monterey, California. He is an authority
on international law and environmental law.) Born in slavery, Jim Beckwourth was an African American who played a major role
in the early exploration and settlement of the American West. Beckwourth was the only African American who recorded his life
story, and the adventures that took him from the everglades in Florida to the Pacific Ocean and from Canada to Mexico.
He dictated his autobiography to Thomas D. Bonner, an itinerant Justice of the Peace in the gold fields of California,
in 1854-55. After Bonner "polished up" Beckwourth's rough narrative, The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth,
Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians was published by Harper and Brothers in 1856.
In about 1828, while on a trapping expedition with Jim Bridger, Beckwourth was captured by a party of Crow warriors. By
Beckwourth's account, he was taken for the long lost son of one of the tribal chiefs, and adopted into the tribe. Beckwourth
spent six to eight years with the Crow, and gained considerable influence with the tribe. There are many documents from his
contemporaries which confirm his position of leadership with the Crow. He apparently rose within their ranks to at least the
level of War Chief, and by his own account was named head Chief of the Crow Nation. He died while living with the Crow.
|
| Theodroe Roosevelt |
THEODORE ROOSEVELT will be portrayed by Jerome Tweton (Ph.D University of Oklahoma Professor Emeritus of History University
of North Dakota; a founder of the modern humanities Chautauqua movement; author of 14 books on North Dakota and the West;
senior consultant North Dakota Humanities Council; long time Theodore Roosevelt scholar/performer).
TR was a good friend and camping buddy of both John Muir, the preservationist and wilderness enthusiast, and Gifford Pinchot,
the head of the Forest Service and proponent of conservation of forests for the wise-use of their resources. Both of these
major American spokesmen for the land filled TR with ideas about nature. But, even more important for him was his own experience
of the out-of-doors. He famously said: "I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North
Dakota". He felt his experiences in the Badlands, as a sportsman and hunter, and later as a rancher "took the snob
out of him" and taught him to see people as they really were. The Elkhorn open-range ranch which he bought in the Dakota
Territory was his residence in the west and the place where he famously enjoyed the strenuous life that restored his health.
When he became President in 1901, Roosevelt became a proponent of conserving the nation's natural resources and a pioneer
environmentalist. He established the U.S. Forest Service and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act thereby establishing 18 national
monuments. He got Congress to establish five national parks and 51 wildlife refuges and set aside land for national forests.
If TR accomplished nothing else his preservation of so much land for national as opposed to private use would make him a great
American.
|
| Black Elk, The Legend |
BLACK ELK will be protrayed by Will Goins, PhD., who is a descendant of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and CEO of the
Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois & United Tribes of South Carolina, Inc. Will is a Native American storyteller, folklorist,
cultural presenter, chanter-singer, dancer, artist, educator, and arts administrator. His B.A. is in Communications and his
PhD. is in Anthropology from Penn. State University. Dr. Goins is a member Speaker's Bureau of the Humanities Council SC.
In Chautauqua 2006 Dr. Goins portrayed the Cherokee, Sequoyah.
Black Elk, fought in Battle of the Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee, and toured England in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
He revealed the story of his life, and a number of sacred Sioux rituals to John Neihardt and Joseph Epes Brown. Black Elk
Speaks: being the life story of a holy man of the Oglala Sioux (as told to John G. Neihardt). 1932
|
| Rachel Carson, the biologist |
RACHEL CARSON will be portrayed by Caroline McIntyre, who graduated from Bucknell University with distinction and membership
in Phi Alpha Theta, a national history honorary society. She holds a MA from New York University where she majored in American
Studies. Caroline taught "Silent Spring" in her history classes in 1970. In 2006 Caroline portrayed Mary Ingles
for the Greenville Chautauqua program on American Journeys.
Rachel Carson was the biologist who taught Americans to see that their land was threatened by the misuse of pesticides.
In her 1962 famous and controversial book, Silent Spring, she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists. She was
called "an alarmist" by the chemical industry but she insisted that the land was vulnerable and that the natural
world could be harmed by human mismanagement. Carson taught Americans to see the ecosystem as a whole, as a living community.
Before she wrote Silent Spring she was well known as the author of Under the Sea-Wind (1941) and a study in 1952 of the
ocean, The Sea Around Us, and then in 1955 The Edge of the Sea. These books constituted a kind of biography of the ocean
and made Carson famous as a naturalist and science writer for the general public years before Silent Spring.
Carson believed that adults needed to nurture children's sense of wonder about the natural world and she wrote about this
need in magazine article titled "Help Your Child to Wonder". It was illustrated and published after her death as
The Sense of Wonder. Rachel Carson's view of the land (and the sea) was made from her science and also from her feelings.
She will be the most modern and perhaps the most useful voice in this Chautauqua.
Back to Top
|
