The Native Americans
((Part 1, The Northeast; The Far West (10); Part 2, The Southeast,The Southwest (11); Part 3, The Plains (13) all 8:05-10 p.m., WTBS))
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Narrator: Joy Harjo.
Produced by Turner Broadcasting; executive producer, Jonathan Taplin; line producers, Patricia Foulkrod, Michael Grant; directors, John Borden, Phil Lucas (parts 1 & 2), George Burdeau (part 3); writers, Hanay Geiogamah, Grant; Directors John Borden, Phil Lucas and George Burdeau need no trained actors; the descendants of Chief Tuscaloosa's forces massacred by Hernando de Soto in 1541, of the Sioux massacred 350 years later at Wounded Knee, S.D., and of the tribes sweet-talked out of promised lands and freedom even by the noble Andrew Jackson and the saintly Abraham Lincoln tell their tribal histories to the cameras, and ancestral memories play across their saddened, leathery faces. Like the petroglyphs carved into the rocks of New Mexico's canyons, the wounds abide.
The stories are told by tribal elders in informal groupings. Though obviously scripted -- by Kiowa writer Hanay Geiogamah (with Michael Grant) -- every narration takes on the accents of a firsthand account.
The music by Robbie Robertson (who's of Mohawk descent) is exactly right, throbbing, sometimes on the verge of a sob, never intrusive but always there.
Moments of filmed action -- the ritual dancing at Santa Fe's famous Indian market, the resurgence of the buffalo under the care of prairie farmers -- merge into a graphic treasury: Indian paintings ancient and modern along with the luminous landscapes of Alfred Bierstadt and Frederic Remington, who illuminated the beauty of the land rather than its plunder.
Much of this beauty, including some astounding work by contemporary Indian artists, is preserved in "Native Americans," Turner Publishing's companion coffee-table book. Setting aside his ownership of the Atlanta Braves, whose team cheers have been criticized as anti-Indian, there's no questioning mogul Ted Turner's devotion to the Native American cause.
True, there isn't much relief to the story, as one Indian nation after another is pulverized into history by the usurping forces. What does come out in the conversations, over and over, is the persistence of pride, of parents' efforts to teach children their heritage, of the growing number of university departments teaching Native American languages. There are the contradictory feelings of Grace McNeley, Navajo, who talks of guilt pangs whenever she is obliged to speak English, and of Bob Haozous, Apache, who deplores having to sell his pots and plates, decorated with symbols precious to his heritage, to tourists (but does so anyhow).
The sense of wistfulness turns simplistic at times. It's a little late to bemoan the days when Manhattan Island was a thriving forest. In these revisionist times, however, when Christopher Columbus must take the blame for every American measles outbreak and Pocahontas and John Smith probably never met , it is sobering to realize that Lincoln signed away millions of acres of Indians' rightful land, and that Theodore Roosevelt refused to grant the ailing, exiled Geronimo leave to return home. The harrowing lore of which those episodes are a small part is, at least, handsomely told.
Editor, Allan Holzman; music, Robbie Robertson and the Red Road Ensemble. 345 MIN.
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