Last night we re-watched the 1990 classic Dances With Wolves, featuring a much younger Kevin Costner. It has made me feel sad, with the thought running through my mind, there is just no happy ending. The first time I watched it was in 1991, my second last year of high school. I watched it with my mother and a couple of my school friends at a now closed cinema (Flora Centre). When I think back on it now, it feels like a different lifetime away.
Keep on thinking of the original caretakers of the land, Bushman of the Kalahari, Australian Aboriginals, and the ongoing destruction of our planet. The wildlife on near-extinction lists, the destruction of the oceans etc.
What world do our children have to look forward to?
Poems and Petals 
Ouch, you know, Vonita?
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Yes, it was not my choice of movie (it made me sad once and it will again), and it did make me sad again, now with the added dimension that Kevin Costner is now so much older, my mother is no longer around and I’m on the other side of the planet!
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Yes, yes, and of course, my dear friend.
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Some scholars say that the “invading race” had tweaked history to say that a land was “discovered” and colonized. Why was it called “discovered” if there were people already there? What history should say is… “The land of the indigenous tribes was invaded and conquered by….!” And instead of colonization, it should have been “annihilation”.
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I agree, it is heartbreaking that indigenous people that lived off the land for centuries were destroyed so quickly. And the same is happening with our wildlife! In just a short while all our wildlife may be gone!
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That may be true and it’s something that future generations will no longer see… 😦
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I am currently reading a book called ‘In the dust of Kilimanjaro’ – about consetvation in kenya and primarily about how the maasai were displaced to make way for the national reserves, poaching and ivory trade. Terrible truths and reality.
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Oh, that sounds awful, very tragic!
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Hey there, Vonita …
As one who enjoys the story of ‘Dances With Wolves,’ and as someone in Canada’s north among four First Nation groups and different treaties, some of this discussion recalls scenes and images from Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ (Miranda, raised on an isolated island and the conception, ironically used within context of savage) while some of the current answer to what comes of culture loss presents in terms of the act and attainment of decolonization for First Nation people. Some of what Dances with Wolves uncovers is what happens when friendship and family become orienting points between a colonizer and aboriginal people; where the story tends to go awry is in meeting Stands with a Fist versus the more likely scenario of Dunbar establishing a relationship with a First Nation woman (but that was found in ‘Little Big Man,’ with Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George – an actual Canadian Chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation).
If you get the chance have a read of Peter C Newman’s ‘Company of Adventurers,’ about the Hudson’s Bay Company coming into what is now Canada. You’ll get a more accurate sense of what was occurring at least north of the 50th parallel.
I’m sure you and I were watching Kevin Costner in ‘Dances With Wolves’ along similar timelines; I would have been in Wood Buffalo National Park at the time among the Woodland Cree. I hope you also watched ‘Legends of the Fall’ with Anthony Hopkins (a couple of years later).
There is much to pull heartstrings toward loss of culture in Costner’s film.
Take care … 😉
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Thank you so much for your comprehensive reply. I have watched Legends of the Fall, but it was many years ago, so maybe should watch it again! Costner’s film did pull my heartstrings, also when the wolf was shot as well as the scenes of the buffaloes. Take care too 🙂
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My grandparents and many other relatives of ours experienced it first hand. They were Dam oustees – people displaced to make dams. They were removed from a lovely valley and with no other choice left, they decided to live on slopes of the adjacent hills. Well, as humans they rehabilitated in no time and things turned out okay, but the wildlife suffered…. silently. Who could have they turned up to complain? The government?
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Wow, that’s interesting, thank you so much for sharing. I guess they had no-one to turn to, and that is what makes all these stories really sad!
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Exactly, it is fascinating but sad at the same time. Anyway, All’s well that ends well. 🙂
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Top Movie😃
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It is, but so sad!
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yes but the pictures is beautiful
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