Unsettling Mormonism
an archive of unsettling histories, mythistories, and mystories
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
Colonization destroys culture, which is a form of genocide, as it seeks to “Kill the Indian. Save the man.” Mormonism, with its Indian-fetish-fic alternate history (the Book of Mormon) and pan-Indigenous race theory (Lamanites), has altered Indigenous cultures in this continent and across the Pacific Islands (like the Church-owned Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii or the Maya Disneyland Richard Hansen is trying to build in Guatemala). Here are three songs that address the ways Mormonism seeks to shape Indigenous, Lamanite, and US Mormon-settler identities. This first one, I learned as a child. Book of Mormon stories with its “Indian”-fetish stereotype hand gestures is straight outta Disney’s “Peter Pan”’s “What makes the Red Man red?” I’d learned and sang repeatedly as a group of children at Church regularly throughout my childhood. The second, Indian Tribes of Utah, I learned at Utah public school as a child. My peers and I sang it for our Utah Sesquicentennial Celebration children’s choir performance. Notice the ways this song repeatedly place Indigenous people in the past even as they still live in these "mountain valleys." The third (as far as I can tell) was created during the “Indian / Lamanite Student Placement Program” as part of a BYU program, called “Lamanite Generation” (later changed to “Living Legends”) which grew from the Placement Program. (I personally don't think "Living Legends" isn’t much of an improvement as it perpetuates this “vanishing-Indian,” “settler-progress” narratives rendering Indigenous People as relics of the past--as Legends.) The song, Go My Son, is Indigenous assimilation propaganda about joining the Placement Program to “get an education” and “make your people proud of you.” The Placement Program, like all assimilation schools, discouraged Indigenous students from practicing their Peoples’ cultures as part of their efforts to Christianize Indigenous children, thus committing genocide by destroying Indigenous culture.
I don’t know for sure where this last song comes from. BYU Recordings claims it was written by Indigenous students at BYU. But a commenter on this last video says it’s an old Lakota song. and the video of the song performed at Grand Canyon National Park calls the songs a “Native American sign language song." Why is the Mormon church shaping Indigenous culture when their beliefs about Indigenous culture are white-settler-supremacist Indian-fetish fantasies?
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AuthorI am nicholas b jacobsen, an artist, researcher, historian, educator, and organizer. I am a trans-non binary Euro-settler raised in the Nuwu lands of so-called Utah. My family has been Mormon and Utahn for as long as either of those concepts have existed. My ancestors sacrificed everything--their identities, homelands, jobs, health, & safety to become Mormon, Utahn, U.S. American, & white--to settler their Zion. They also sacrificed their humanities as they committed genocide against Kuttuhsippeh (Goshute), Timpanogos Shoshone, Shoshone-Bannock, Eastern Shoshone, Ute, Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Diné (Navajo). Because my ancestors made my home through Indigenous genocide in their home/lands––I take it as my personal responsibility to unsettle what my ancestors settled, while helping my fellow settlers do the same through reading, writing, art, and community building. Archives
June 2023
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