Patterson, Dr. Victoria: It Does Not Require Many Words to Speak the Truth
This week, we continue our discussion with ethnologist Dr. Victoria Patterson. We talk about how the United States treated the Native people of North America initially, and later during the westward expansion. We also discuss the consequences to the Native people when they entered into written treaties with the United States. Not having a written language, they relied on the carefully chosen words they spoke during the treaty negotiations and the words spoken by the representatives of the United States.
Dr. Victoria Patterson is an ethnologist who has studied the Native people of what is now the United States for the past 40 years. She lives and works in Ukiah, California. I invite you to listen to the 1999 two-part series with Dr. Patterson about the life of the Pomo People of northwestern California prior to contact with Europeans, and what occurred in the ten years thereafter.
We began this interview with her elaborating on and putting into context the statement of Chief Joseph: “It Does Not Require Many Words to Speak the Truth.”
The book Victoria Patterson recommends is “The Best American Travel Writing 2016,” by Bill Bryson.
This program was recorded on January 23, 2017.
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