Poem: "His Fearsome Horse"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is spillover from the April 7, 2015 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from mama_kestrel. It also fills the "phobias" square on my 3-16-15 card for the genprompt_bingo fest. Based on an audience poll, it has been sponsored by the general fund.


"His Fearsome Horse"


Once there was an Oglala warrior
so skilled in battle that he was named
Tȟašúŋke Kȟokípȟapi, because
his enemies feared him so much
that they would run away from his horse,
even if he was not on it.

But the wašíču translators did not
understand or respect his name.

They rendered it as Man-Afraid-of-His-Horse,
or worse yet, shortened it to Man-Afraid,
hiding the true meaning.

Other times they made it
His-Horses-Are-Afraid,
which was hardly better.

People thought -- as perhaps
they were meant to think --
that he was a coward.

The bad translation made him sound bad,
combing causality in the wrong direction.

Later on, a better translation emerged:
They-Fear-Even-His-Horses.

By then the damage had been done, though,
and people remembered the funny name instead of
the great warrior and brilliant negotiator
sitting on his fearsome horse.

Now Láadan has words upon words
for language and the handling of it:

héedan -- to translate

rahéedan -- to mistranslate

rahéelhedan -- to mistranslate,
deliberately and with evil intent.

While there is no proving a crime
committed so long in the past,
a look across the many mistranslations
of tribal names does make a good case
for either incompetence or malice
or some combination of both.

Speak, then, of Tȟašúŋke Kȟokípȟapi,
They-Fear-Even-His-Horses,
or if you must have a shorter form,
Fearsome Horse.

Speak, and let history be restored.

* * *

Notes:

Read about Tȟašúŋke Kȟokípȟapi.  The Dakota-Nakota-Lakota Human Rights Coalition cites him as Chief Young Man Afraid Of His Horses.  I favor original language names myself, but where there's a tribal consensus, I'll back them for public use purposes and reserve my personal preference for my own writing.

Wašíču is a rude word for the European invaders and their descendants.

Comments

[redsixwing]

Learned a thing today; thank you. This is beautiful and sad and educational all at once.

(And Wikipedia notes that the mistranslation is a mistranslation and then uses it all through the document. GRAH.)

Wikipedia

[dialecticdreamer]

Has been proven to be biased and slow to correct itself. This just gives us all a fresh peek behind the curtain!

Re: Wikipedia

[redsixwing]

True, but that rarely stops my annoyance levels from increasing when I find another example.

Re: Wikipedia

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yes, that's true, but in this case an accurate representation of the widespread cultural bias. Notice that all other cultures have their names transliterated into vernacular text, not (mis)translated. It's just tribal people who aren't allowed to use their real names, which is bullshit.

Me, I'm fussy about my name. I don't want it altered. I take a new one when I'm learning a new language. That's the standard for good foreign language classes. My Japanese class wouldn't do it, and I got into a big fight over that. Stubborn bard is stubborn.

And remembers shit like this from tribal issues, so.

Re: Wikipedia

[dialecticdreamer]

Is there a way for /me/ to fight that bias which doesn't come across as cultural appropriation? See, I don't have a lot of the cultural ties which could have come with the bloodline, and that makes me VERY aware of how others would perceive my efforts as /encroaching/ rather than supporting.

Re: Wikipedia

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yes. Find out whatever tribal folks are lobbying for -- land rights, not having their children kidnapped by the government, getting healthcare, changing the racist mascots/names of sport teams, protecting important plants/animals, language survival, etc. -- and back them. Boost the signal. Donate funds. Vote accordingly.

Watch for projects by tribal people and support those. Some of the artisans and other creative folks are getting into crowdfunding now. I've seen a steady trickle of film and animation from this direction. There's a superhero one but even the trailer creeped me the fuck out. ("Every superhero has a weakness ... what's yours?") So it's fun to watch and see what happens.

Re: Wikipedia

[dialecticdreamer]

Family survival, languages, and land rights FAR outweigh sports team BS in my book. I'm going to start there. Plus, there are charities specifically for places like Pine Ridge Reservation, which I've already studied.

Re: Wikipedia

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Family survival, languages, and land rights FAR outweigh sports team BS in my book. <<

Pick what overlaps your interest. There is plenty of activism to go around for everyone!

>> I'm going to start there. Plus, there are charities specifically for places like Pine Ridge Reservation, which I've already studied. <<

:D Pine Ridge is "my" reservation: the one we visited when I was younger, because we have (distant but meaningful to us) marriage ties there. So I keep the closest watch on that one.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Learned a thing today; thank you. This is beautiful and sad and educational all at once.<<

Yay! That's what I was aiming for.

>> (And Wikipedia notes that the mistranslation is a mistranslation and then uses it all through the document. GRAH.) <<

I can understand them citing the name that is in most books so people will recognize it. But after that, it should be corrected if they're going to translate it at all, instead of using his real name as is done for all other languages.

Maybe a wiki editor will fix this.