Keith Bassos Wisdom Sits in Places Essay -- American History Western

Keith Bassos Wisdom Sits in PlacesThere is a deep relationship amongst the environment and Western Apache people. The bonds between the two are so strong that it is embedded in their culture and history. Keith Basso, author of Wisdom Sits in Places expanded on this theory and did so by divulging himself into Western Apaches life. He spent fifteen years with the Apache people studying their relationship with the environment, specifically concentrating on Place-names. When Basso inaugural began to work with the Apache people, one of his Apache friends told him to learn the names, because they held a special meaning with the community. (Cruikshank 1990 54) Place-names are special names given to a specific locality where an event took dictate that was significant in history and crucial in shaping morals and beliefs. Through the use of place-names, the environment became a teaching tool for Apache people. Red Lake, manganese is an Ojibwa place-name. The area dates back 9000 yeas ago when the Stone Age peoples first inhabited the region that is now known as northwestern Ontario. These aboriginals were indigenous people known with the properties of the surrounding plants and wild animals. They lived along the waterways and treated their environment with respect and celebrated its bounties through their spirituality. (Web Site 1) According to Ojibwa legend, thousands of years ago, two hunters came across a genuinely large moose standing beside a beautiful clear blue lake. The Hunters thought the moose was an evil spirit named Matchee Manitou and they tried to kill it. One of the hunters quip the animal with an arrow just wounding it. The grand and majestic animal escaped by diving into the water and disappearing forever. A large pool of blood colored the water red, masking the once beautiful blue lake. A creature so huge was never to be seen again. The hunters named the lake Misque Sakigon meaning color in of Blood Lake. Years later it became kn own as Red Lake. (Web Site 1)When I heard this story, 12 years ago, it came from the mouth of my fathers wide-cut friend, an Ojibwa man, named Henry Meekis. I still remember everyone sitting in front of him while he told the story. His passion for the story permeated the room and we were all captivated by it.The importance of place-name study lies in the light it sheds on the cultural... ...lace-names can be seen in the following quote given by an Apache named BensonLewis. I think of the locoweed called White Rocks Lie Above In a Compact Cluster as it were my own grandmother. I recall stories of how it once was at that mountain. The stories told to me were like arrows. Elsewhere, perceive that mountains name, I see it. Its name is like a picture. Stories go to work on you like arrows. Stories make you live right. Stories make you replace yourself. (38)When I take aim Wisdom Sits in Places I c ould feel the importance of place-names through the words of the Apache peoples stories. Events that took place many years ago in a specific areas recapitulate the morals and beliefs the Apache people hold near to them. To say that they are anything but relevant to Apache history and culture would be a mistake.Works CitedBasso, Keith 1999 Wisdom Sits in Places. Albuquerque University of New Mexico Press.Cruikshank, Julie 1990 Getting the Words Right Perspectives on Naming and Places in Athapaskan Oral History. Artic Anthropology 27 52-65. 1. www.red-lake.com/museum

Psychology Q&A :: Psychology

Question 1Psychology is defined as the scientific subject field of the sort and mental processes of individuals. Before psychology, people did not know why we feel the things we feel or think the things we think. So psychology began with slightly goals in spirit. The first goal is to observe appearance and describe what is happening. This allows for the next goal which is to explain what is happening. It is important to be satisfactory to explain how and why behavior happens. It is necessary to find motives or triggers that will cause outcomes. By knowing what causes behaviors to occur we batch then predict what will happen in the future. We can then know what to expect and intervene to control the outcome of behavior. Predicting behavior will allow psychologists to better help people by being able to control the outcome of their behavior. There have been a few pi cardinalers that have paved the road for modern psychology. In Leipzig, Germany, a scientist by the name of Wilhel m Wundt became one of the largest contributors to the development of psychology. Wundt created a laboratory strictly for the study of psychology. Another key player is Edward Titchener who founded the first experimental psychology lab in the United Sates. 1 of the most important documents written in psychology, The Principles of Psychology, was written by William James. With all of these great minds at work an argument arose. The argument was about the right subjects to study and the correct methods to use while studying them. One side of the argument was structuralism. Structuralism uses the idea that all mental processes could be explained by knowing what the mind is made of. The other side of this argument was functionalism. Functionalism asks not so much what the mind is made of but how and why it operates. Functionalism states that the mind depends on its allowance to the environment and that it will be an ever-changing entity.In psychology, there are many different postures that are employed. The psychodynamic posture was made famous by Sigmund Freud. Freud exclaimed that behavior motivated by internal forces such as instincts or heredity. The behaviorist perspective declares that behavior is determined from reactions to environmental occurrences. Another perspective is the humanistic perspective which believes that no matter what inheritance or environment provides people are still able to make a choice as to how we behave. The cognitive perspective states that a human is designed to think and imagine.