Graphic Notes by

Myth: Law Makers

jingraochen — 2025-05-07 06:11:42 UTC

This plot is about to give out the grant payment for unrestricted white guardians of the Osage. At that moment, the law required court-appointed white legal guardians to manage their land and wealth. It reveals a truth of the local laws of the Osage made by white people, which is the white people deprived the land rights and wealth of the Natives as the position of law-makers. The same situation of the Natives is discussed in the letter in Simpson's book. Simpson describes the laws made by the white people as "forcible concessions of land in places where there are any prospects of vegetable or mineral wealth, and oppressive Lands Bills have left the Natives of the soil hardly any control over their ancestral possessions". (2, Maynard Simpson) Therefore, the white people as law-maker actually took away the rights, wealth and land of the Natives instead of "helping them to manage the land".

The Idea of America: Cultural Pluralism

jingraochen — 2025-05-10 20:06:42 UTC

This plot is about the wedding of the two main characters, Mollie and Ernest. It implied the coexistence of two cultures, the Osage and America, due to the identities of them. Also, Mollie was wearing the 18th-century American military garb with layers of handmade Osage beadwork and woven fringe. The dressing was also a metaphor of the cultural coexistence. The term used to describe this cultural phenomenon was cultural pluralism, as the meaning of the coexistence of people from diverse backgrounds, by the cultural critic Horace Kallen. (4, Wald "The Idea of America")

Manifest Destiny: A Territorial Expansion

jingraochen — 2025-05-10 20:52:59 UTC

This plot is Ernest reading the book with a background reading of the content. He was reading about the Osage was asked to move by the "Great White Father" from Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas to another strange land of Oklahoma. It described the truth of Manifest Destiny as an occupation of the indigenous people's land and the forced dislocation of Indian people from their land. (3, Greenburg "US Expansionism during the Nineteenth Century")

Manifest Destiny: A Hunger for Land and Greed

jingraochen — 2025-05-10 21:18:00 UTC

In this plot, Ernest and Byron armed a robbery against the Osage. They took the jewelry of them while saying "You didn't earn these anyway." It implied the hunger for wealth and greed of the white people, which were some of the reasons for their expansion. As a result, Manifest Destiny papered over base instincts, casting land-hunger and greed as God’s plan. (12, Greenburg "US Expansionism during the Nineteenth Century")

America: the Idea with Contradictions

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 02:44:00 UTC

In this plot, the uncle of Ernst was comforting the indigenous woman, saying "You have the best care if you need.", while realizing the situation that the white brought "so many problems" to the Osage. It reflected the contradicted ideas of the white man in Osage of assisting the natives to manage the land while depriving the wealth of them. This prompted me to think of the idea with contradictions of America, which was raised as "How can a nation founded on the homelands of dispossessed Indigenous peoples be the world’s most exemplary democracy?" (1, Blackhawk "Introduction Toward a New America History")

The Superiority of America

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 05:49:56 UTC

In this plot, the white couple were discussing the color of the children of a white person and an Osage. The woman described them as "half-breed" and man described them as "half-ass savages". Those rude words presented their self-identification of white people as a higher class of the Osage, which was similar as Colombus's depiction about the Natives, as "naked" and "ignorant". Those descriptions introduced a steep hierarchy between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and thus legitimizes asymmetrical power relations.(7, Heike "Christopher Columbus and the Myth of ‘Discovery'")

Killing of Indigenous Women

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 06:25:33 UTC

This plot is about Mollie and Ernst just know the death of Anna. She is an Osage and Bryon's (brother of Ernst and a white man) wife. She was most likely to be killed by Bryon because before, Uncle Hale ordered Bryon to kill her in order to get the wealth of her family. The death of Anna could be linked to the Missing Matoaka program, which revealed the truth of the missing indigenous women of being raped and murdered. The program introduction video also mentioned that the indigenous women are 16 times more likely to be killed than white women, which matched many deaths of Osage women in this film. (Missing Matoaka, Muskrat Magazine presents Missing Matoaka)

The People of the Land

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 07:02:05 UTC

In this plot, the Osage council was discussing the death of Anna and the occupation of white people in Osage. They realized the truth of their inequality situation and tried to fight against white people. Therefore, they proposed that, "We were here before them. This is our homeland we came to." and "No one takes us off this earth." It reflected their awareness of the land rights, which is raised in the letter as "white settlers only purport to own all of these lands" and "these lands were violently stolen from peoples who had lived here for thousands of years". (5, Maynard Simpson "We Are Peoples of the Lands, of More Lands Than Could Ever Be Counted")

Racial Cleansing

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 08:19:27 UTC

This plot is about some white people and the Osage were watching the documentary of Tulsa mass killing happening at that moment. This raised the Osage's concern on their situation of the possibility of murders. The possible reasons were their supremacy and a racial discrimination. The mass murders were discussed in the part 9 of the episode Seeing White. One of the reasons of the mass killings is a keeping higher social class, as "one thing the white people have is the guarantee that Black people still occupy a space below them".(8, "A Racial Cleansing in America", Seeing White, Part 9) Those racial cleansing shared the same reason of the white people's superiority over the natives.

Myth: Indians are Anti-Science

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 08:47:44 UTC

This plot is the fight between Mollie and Ernst about Mollie's refusal to take the insulin. Ernst was blaming on her about the waste of time and money of the doctors and said, "You think you're gonna get better with all the medicine men and all the roots and all the herbs and all that horseshit?" This implied the stereotype of the white people on the natives, which is a group of people with an anti-science idea. This idea was discussed in the chapter of my group myth presentation about the anti-science of Indians. It described the myth as "The 'big hole' in genetic sampling of Natives groups in the United States is due to 'petty identity politics contra science'". (65, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz "All the Real Indians Died Off") As a result, they reflected the misunderstanding of white people on the natives as anti-science.

Suppression of People Fighting for Rights of the Natives

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 09:25:03 UTC

This plot is about the death of the representative of the Osage, called Barney McBride. He was sent to Washington, D.C., to seek federal help in solving the Osage Nation murders. However, he was killed there. It presented the unsupport of the America on solving the problems of the Natives. There were "angry town hall meetings where the racism of white people is on full display without consequence". (16, Maynard Simpson "We Are Peoples of the Lands, of More Lands Than Could Ever Be Counted") It implied that America suppressed the rights of the Natives and ignored their situation.

Ignorance of the Natives Lives

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 09:46:04 UTC

In this plot, Ernst asked if John Ramsey was willing to kill Henry Roan. At first, John refused it. After Ernst told him the person is an Indian, he said, "Now that's different". It presented the white people's ignorance of the Natives' lives. In Corbin, the racial cleansing was almost "erased" when traveling there. "There’s no plaque for this one. The town’s official histories make no reference to the riot by the white mob." (2, "A Racial Cleansing in America", Seeing White, Part 9) As a result, they both show the ignorance of the Natives' lives in white people's mind.

Moving Away From the Mass Killing Towns

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 09:59:37 UTC

In this plot, the Osage were moving away from the town due to Henry Roan's death. Their consecutive deaths had created fear among them. The phenomenon was discussed in the Seeing White Esisode, as "My wife and I were taken to the Depot and herded there with a large number of Negroes to leave Corbin." (10, "A Racial Cleansing in America", Seeing White, Part 9) Both of the leavings revealed the cruelty of the killings of the natives.

God As a Reason of Manifest Destiny

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 10:32:17 UTC

In this plot, Uncle Hale was comforting Ernst about the turmoil in this town. He asked him, "You believed in the Bible? Miracles of the Old?" and implied that God guided the explosion of the house and the deaths in this town. It shared the idea of Manifest Destiny is led by God, as "American politicians asserted, and many citizens believed, that God had divinely ordained the United States to grow and spread across the continent." (3, GreenBurg "Manifest Destiny")

Change of Colors of the Owl-A Metaphor for the Myth of the Founding Fathers

jingraochen — 2025-05-11 10:57:02 UTC

In this plot, Millie was lying on the bed due to her illness and saw a black owl flying toward her as a hallucination. There was a similar plot of Lizzie, her mother, lying on her bed, and saw a white owl flying toward her. The owl was a metaphor for the white people. At first, they seemed to help the Osage. After their damage to the land, the Osage realized their intention of depriving their land and wealth. It was described as "The paradoxes, contradictions, and (negative) dialectics in the Founding Fathers’ political vision revealed by slavery and racial inequality did not remain uncommented on by those who suffered from exclusion on the basis of race." (22, Heike "American Independence and the Myth of the Founding Fathers") Therefore, the dark side of the Founding Fathers appeared and identified by the natives.