No, this isn’t a reference to prelim season which is once again upon us. This is from the Becker-Rose Café talk with Professor Cheyfitz. I knew that the topic was going to be about American Indians, but I wasn’t sure exactly what was going to be discussed, but I was glad I went. Professor Cheyfitz was engaging not only because of the content, but because of his clear passion about the subject.

He took questions from the audience and responded really well, whether it be with statistics that he knew off the top of his head, or with personal anecdotes. What struck me the most was the legality involved in reservations, whether it be the lack of prosecution, or their sovereignty (or lack thereof) in the eyes of the American government. He brought up the cases of Wuster v. Georgia and Cherokee vs. Georgia, which I remember learning about briefly in high school. When he said the oxymoronic “domestic dependent nation” in the decision, I remembered reading about the ruling, but not much else. I didn’t know about the struggles of the Marshall court in relation to the president at the time, or about anything more than just the outcome of the case. Even so, at least I had heard something about it before.

There was a good bit that I didn’t know. When Professor Cheyfitz asked if anyone was exposed to such topics in school, most people didn’t raise their hands, supporting his statements of how much we don’t know. He talked about how one of the main issues American Indians are facing is the public’s lack of knowledge.  When someone asked what was currently being done legislatively to help them, he said that there hasn’t been anything recent, that many people just don’t know.

Another piece of information that I learned about was that Cornell is actually on traditional Cayuga land. Professor Cheyfitz mentioned that there have been efforts for the University to acknowledge that the land this university is on was land of the Cayuga nation initially, but they don’t. He talked about how important he felt about knowing and understanding where we are, and I completely agree. A week ago, I had no idea that Cayuga Lake wasn’t just an arbitrary name with interesting syllables. I had no idea that the Cayuga were a people. It seems sort of obvious that the land that we are on didn’t initially belong to the US, but we don’t think too much about it.

I left the talk thinking about how much we as a society don’t know and how much I, as an individual, don’t know. Professor Cheyfitz’s talk definitely made me more interested in learning more about the Indians of upstate New York. He mentioned that many nations had websites about their culture and history, so I’m looking forward to reading through them at a later time. Professor Cheyfitz also suggested a book called The Round House if anyone is interested (though mostly, I am leaving the title here for my own reference).