Forum Discussion #1
PART 1.
Using specific ideas and information from both the secondary source by Peter Iverson and the primary account from Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, write a description of the West at the time that outsiders, beginning with Cabeza de Vaca, arrive to the region (roughly between 1528 and the early 1700s). Are there broad characteristics we can use to describe the region and its peoples? Give specific evidence from our class sources to support your responses.
Student Name (Samual)
When Cabeza de Vaca first set foot in the American West, he found himself in a vast, diverse expanse of land many, many times larger than his home in Spain, or even the entire Iberian peninsula — in fact, his infamous journey from Florida to Mexico City on foot would be a greater distance than traversing the entirety of spain more than twice over. Cabeza de Vaca would write about the vastly different landscapes that he encountered in “Le Relacion”, with these massive differences evident even in the small sections assigned in this unit’s reading — ten pages, to be exact. Within this brief excerpt from the entirety of Cabeza de Vaca’s accounts of his travels, he mentions “plains between some very tall mountains”, “very high mountains to the North”, and an region that “rained so much that we could not cross a river”. These accounts of plains, valleys, mountains, and extremely temperate regions indicate a diversity of scenery that describes the American West impeccably, especially to any individual – such as myself – that has seen the diversity that the region has to offer.
Nature did not provide the only diversity that Cabeza de Vaca experienced along his trip, though. To quote Iverson, “many different cultures-varying in size, ambition, and economy-inhabited North America”. This can be seen throughout Cabeza de Vaca’s writings, in his accounts of the foods different tribes would eat, their different dispositions, and the differences between women’s clothing. Exemplifying this, Cabeza de Vaca wrote of one tribe:
“There the people eat ground rushes, straw and fish caught in the sea in rafts, for they have no canoes. The women cover their private parts with grass and straw. These people are very shy and sad.”
Later writing of another tribe, he wrote that at the end of his journey, he came across a people who he describes as “the happiest people in the word”, who had “abundant corn”. Writing of yet another tribe, he described their women as wearing “knee-length cotton shirts with short sleeves and over this, floor-length skirts of scraped deerskin”.
By the end of his journey, Cabeza de Vaca discovered one of the most fascinating aspects of the American West that continues to endure to this day: the American West is truly a melting pot of peoples, cultures, wildlife, and geography. While the thriving populations of indigenous Americans would soon be a thing of the past due to the same colonization that he was a part of, Cabeza de Vaca was one of the few Europeans who would get to witness them at their height, before disease and colonization would ravage them.
PART 2.
Using specific ideas and information from assigned readings and sources for this unit answer the following:
What characteristic do all our assigned sources for this unit agree is most common and/or influential in the development of western stories and mythology? Analyze how each of our authors explain the role, origins, or significance of that element in western storytelling.
For a score in the A-range, you must use information and/or ideas from at least two of the assigned chapters in The Essential West and two of the online film analyses.
Student name (Samantha)
The characteristics that are most common and influential in the development of western stories and mythology is that of the time period, values, the Western landscape, and the people that lived in the West. According to Dave Kehr in his video, How to See Westerns: Is the Genre Dead? States, “Probably the first thing that people expect from a Western is the Western Landscape. And it is a bit of blank page, the blank empty desert, waiting to be written on, an empty stage in a lot of ways. And onto that stage, we can project many different kinds of stories.” (Kehr Video) Kehr’s video dives into Western films and how they replayed and express various time periods, values, and landscapes in the West. The values and landscape that we see throughout the development of western stories and mythology vary, they vary due to who is writing and reflecting on these values and landscapes. Not every one’s values and perspective are the same which gives us the various aspects of the West and life in the West. In his video, Kehr touches on how values were represented in western stories and mythology, “A way of expressing pretty substantial sets of values…” (Kehr Video) In Kehr’s video, he analyzes multiple Western movies and what was reflected in these movies.
The first movie was My Darling Clementine (1946), in this movie the audience gets a view of war, the experiences of war, and individuals and their intersection with society. When it came to individuals and their intersection with society, Kehr states, “The classical Western is fundamentally concerned with the coming of law that defines a new society.” (Kehr Video) As people were integrating into the differing societies of the West, the people had different values which could/did conflict with the laws of the new society. This leads the discussion into For a Few Dollars More, a Western movie that was released in 1965. The hero of the movie is an outsider who used outlaw methods to fight the outlaw, the hero sacrifices himself for the greater good of society. Kehr states, “So the hero sacrifices himself for the sake of the law. And he, in a way, wills his own extinction in the name of civilization.” (Kehr Video) The next movie that Kehr focuses on is Stagecoach, which was released in 1939 and features John Wayne, a popular actor in Western films. This film features an outlaw, John Wayne, he protects the people around him by using his skills and violent behavior. The outlaw, “becomes the savior of this little symbolic society inside the stagecoach.” (Kehr Video) He is able to protect and save the people around him but then venture off to a new place with other people that need protected. The movies above are just a few of many examples of various people and their experiences and values in the West. According to Kehr, “It’s about universal sacrifice in pursuit of a common goal.” (Kehr Video) However, when Sergio Leone began making western films, he focused on society not worth saving, society is hopelessly corrupt, and that there was nothing the hero could do about it. No matter how much sacrifice the hero gave, there was no way to save society and there was no reason to.
All of these films also give the audience insight and views of the landscapes of the West. In Stagecoach, we see a desert like scene with mountains in the background. The audience sees a horse drawn carriage (stagecoach) with Indians following on horseback. In My Darling Clementine, the audience gets a view of a similar landscape that they have seen in Stagecoach, but they also get to see civilizations. There are buildings that include saloons, sheriff stations, barber shop, dentist, etc. The audience is introduced to the small cities and towns of the west, with each city/town with different races of people. All the films demonstrate a wide landscape with various opportunities for those who made the journey to the West. Ultimately, these movies show two of the most influential and common development of western stories and mythology is that values are shifted throughout the west. The values are reflected in the manner that the author chooses and that the values are reflective of that time period.
In Elliott West’s book, The Essential West, the influential and common developments of western stories and mythology are discussed. Throughout chapter 10, Bison R Us, West discusses how the west was constantly shifting and people were able to reflect what they wanted. The values and presentation of the West was depicted by that person and that presentation could be completely different from another person living in the West. In chapter 10, Elliott states, “Animals talk. They growl and bark and hoot and snarl at each other, of course, they also speak to us. The reference here is to animals as symbol and myth. Every recorded culture has them – creatures that people select to express their values and to tell their history.” This was no different for the people out West, in the West, bison were the animal that expressed the values and history. According to West, “Buffalo and predator had become icons, frozen figures that told Americans something about their imagined selves.” (West, 218) The values of the author are very prominent through the use of the bison, people used the bison to reflect their values. Which demonstrates that values are common and influential developments in western stories and mythology. When the bison began to disappear, the West again shifted and started to fit the new narrative of the author. When there was once an abundance and what seemed to be a never-ending supply of bison, the bison began to disappear. Which ultimately lead to the new shift, according to West, “The meaning of the West changed, and with it the message of the bison as cultural icon. In the 1840s hunting on the plains had been a vision of Edan. By the end of the century, it had become Golgotha.” (West, 221). To summarize, West believed that the values of the West are reflections of the author and that the West is ever shifting.
In Elliott West’s chapter 14, Stories, West discusses the importance of Westerns, West states, “For students of western history, the importance of Western goes far beyond that. It has had a considerable and continuing influence on the West of reality. For stories have power. They are woven thorough with assumptions about what a particular place is and is not, what can and cannot be done there, and how its people are expected to behave.” (West, 291) Through stories, we are able to view the West in various ways, each account differing from another. From the beginning, the West has attracted many due to the unknown and the endless possibilities that could take place. The accounts from the West come from authors and the way they viewed the West, their values and morals, and the ways they felt about their new home. According to West, “Each part of the West, then, is what it is, in part because of the tales’ people have told about it; and because the land west of the Missouri has been the special playground of the mass imagination, the stories that have been spun off in the process, the ones we call Westerns, have walked through the county with a John Wayne swagger, changing it profoundly.” (West, 291) Story telling played a huge role in the history of the West, even today, we see and hear stories from the West.
From the University of Arkansas’s video, Elliott West on Westerns, West discusses the nature of Westerns. In the beginning of the video, West points out that Westers were not really about the west. There were aspects of Westerns that were accurately depicted and aspects that were not accurate. West goes on to express that the conflicts represented in the Westerns were much more complex than they were made out to be. Throughout history we get to hear the stories of the people that ventured out West and made it their home. The stories that have been passed on often depict the different time periods and what was happening at that time and how they felt about it. Equally as important, where the stories that reflected the values of the authors, the audience gets a sense of what life was like for these people. The stories also reflect the landscape of the west, through these stories we are able to see the changes that happen throughout history, the different ways the West changed through time. Ultimately, the examples used above are great indicators that reflect the common and influential developments of western stories and mythology.
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