02.08.01 - The Woman in the Western Land
18th Clip. Title: The Western Deaf Woman. 6:16 minutes long.
NEW ADDITION: Bibliography! Come and find out why the human owl became overjoyed when observing a life of a deaf person in the Western Land. (Move your cursor to the each category on the right to read brief description of all 12 chapters - a peek inside the rest of the story).
This clip is posted in gratitude to Mitch Kurs, then a high school deaf studies/history teacher at CSDRiverside, for being the first person, in the fall of 1990, to invite the Deaf Child myth into a state residential school for the deaf (onstage as a storytelling presentation). Thank you, Mitch, for believing in the power of myth.
This was the beginning of my observation on how people view this myth. Their reactions ranged widely, from outright disgust and utter confusion to rapturous bliss. About 80 percent of the reactions fall in between - a mix of fascination and not understanding. 10 percent, maybe, is completely baffled due to different reasons, primarily to their lack of ASL skills and their rigidly entrenched beliefs. The other 10 percent experienced enlightenment and joy. Believe me, I have been insulted a few times, congratulated many times, blessed a few times, and knelt to, once.
That was the beginning of an exhilarating and interesting journey I am still traveling in - observing how people, both hearing and deaf, respond to this mythology. Want some examples? Study the few comments made to the posts. Actually this is not the right time and place to get in-depth with reactions to this work. Maybe another post soon.
Before this 02.08 clip, I invoke the sacred message of an old Sioux.
William Tomkins wrote (see reference to his book below): An old Sioux Indian friend of mine once said to me, in Sign Language, at parting - “May the Great Mystery Make sunrise in your Heart.” Cordially Yours. Wm Tomkins
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Deafhood Questions: Have you ever experienced being in an environment where everyone can sign? Not among all deaf people or all signers, but among hearing people who do sign? If you have experienced being in those surroundings, what are your feelings during those times, with understanding of your common prior experience being incommunicado (in all varieties) among hearing non-signers? Deaf people all over experience incommunicado at various times in their lives and how would you feel if you are in a room full of hearing people you can communicate with - how would you think you would feel?
Deaf History Commentary: The signing deaf woman Native-American being very much part of her hearing tribe represents the fourth and last of four scenarios the human owl saw in the Archae Law chapter. The four scenarios depicted in Archae Law can be interpreted as the four cardinal directions we live in, east, south, north, and west (and everything in between). The last “western” scenario is called Integration where deaf people are integrated in their societies because the people around them could sign, in addition to speaking.
Now, you (and the human owl) have witnessed the four scenarios in the past 6 video clips - Homocide, Abandonment, Containment, and Integration. We absolutely do not know for sure how deaf people fared in their lives during the prehistorical times. These four scenarios are, what I propose a new “theory”, an examination of the four basic archtypal lives of the prehistorical deaf people.
Not every deaf people in the prehistoric times were killed, abandoned, or contained (taken care of). A few or many of them were well-integrated in their families and societies. Only if we have time machines and go back to find out. We do have historical evidence in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts during the 19th century and among the Native Americans. The life of the deaf Native-American woman, depicted in this clip, is well documented (See below). There are books describing sign language use among Native Americans. The Martha’s Vineyard towns with signing and speaking people were also documented.
Bibliography:
Armstrong D., Stokoe, W., Wilcox, S. (1995) Gesture and the Nature of Language. Cambridge University Press.
Armstrong, David. (1999) Original Signs: Gesture, Sign, and the Sources of Language. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.
Groce, Nora. (1985) Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Mallery, Garrick. (2001) Sign Language Among North American Indians. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
Stokoe, William. (2001) Language in Hand: Why Sign Came Before Speech. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.
Tomkins, William. (1969) Indian Sign Language. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.