Indianthusiasm by Hartmut Lutz

Author:Hartmut Lutz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Published: 2020-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

THOMAS KING

The thorn is in my side when I’m talking to Europeans, who begin lecturing me on indianness.

Interview over dinner in a Calgary restaurant on 20 November 2012 with Helen Hoy and Thomas King, by Renae Watchman, Florentine Strzelczyk, and Hartmut Lutz

Hartmut: There is an increasing number of Indigenous people who live in Germany or who have lived there.

Thomas: Really?

Hartmut: Yeah. And their experiences very often are very different from some of the things that are taken up in literature. I wasn’t aware of that, and it was through Renae that we came to that and thought we could combine that. And we’re now interviewing people like you who are dealing with German tourists coming, and so on.

Thomas: Very badly …

Hartmut: But then we also look at people from here, who go to Germany and, for example, dance or meet with Indianthusiasts. So that is the gist. [To Florentine] Maybe you want to add something?

Florentine: I was initially interested in writing that dealt with or picked up this German fascination for anything Indigenous. But with Renae’s input we’re also talking about Indigenous people who make their lives in Germany. We are interested in your work also, which had to do with some of the German references to characters and things German in your work.

Thomas: My experience has been very limited. I’ve not been to Germany to talk to other Germans. I haven’t been to some of the indian clubs that are in Germany to see exactly what happens. Now I’ve been to a couple of indian clubs in the States, and they’re pretty awful. Most of my experience really has been from meeting Germans at powwows. And we’ve got a drum in Guelph [Ontario] now. We used to have eight singers on it. Now there are about four or six of us who remain. And from time to time at the events we go to, we would run into German enthusiasts. We took the drum somewhere … I forgot where we took it. We had a guy who was German, but he was living outside of Germany, one of the European countries like the old Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia or something like that. I forget where he is from. And evidently he sang and he wanted to sing with us and we had a drum there. We were doing a public event and all of a sudden this guy comes up and wants to sing with us. This happened a lot! But normally they weren’t Germans, but this guy happened to be. And he was fairly put off that we said no. And of course, we said no because, you know, our rule was that if you didn’t practise with us, you didn’t get to sing with us. And the last thing we wanted is … you know, as we are doing this [Thomas uses his hand to demonstrate a steady drumbeat on the table], this guy is doing this [switches to offbeat drumming on table]. And my experience has been

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.