Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 23:10:54 -0800

From: Dan Alford dalford[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]S1.CSUHAYWARD.EDU

Subject: Re: Gullah Bible



Peter Patrick writes:



It seems like this represents a new wave of Bible translation

into (post-)creole languages-- this time not by outside missionaries,

or not only (that goes back several centuries to Greenfield and the

Herrnhut manuscripts) but by the speakers, for their own use.



I think you have (un?)wittingly stumbled on what some indigenous peoples

are beginning to call post-colonial linguistics, which is their response

to centuries of what they call 'cognitive imperialism' (or 'terrorism').

What does knowledge look like when it is not in the service of a dominant

paradigm? These are the important issues that face modern scholars. How

complicit are we in maintaining paradigms that are prejudiced against the

teachings of indigenous people of the world, thus supporting this cognitive

imperialism -- what, because they aren't 'scientific' and 'logical', notions

only hundreds of years old, and are instead notions that are thousands of

years old? I've recently mentioned in three different anthropology conferences,

for instance, on hearing people talk about Native Americans praying to spirits

of animals, etc., and then hearing them use the word 'supernatural' in the

same breath group -- excuse me, that's what they call NATURAL, and we've

moved so far away from what they do that we've developed a new word, SUPER-

natural, to now describe that behavior (and being).



-- Moonhawk (%- )

"The fool on the hill sees the sun going down and

the eyes in his head see the world spinning round"

-- McCartney/Lennon