Cowgirls and Indians

Anybody interested in pioneer women or colonial history has to visit at least some of the Laura Ingalls Wilder trail in the United States.

Since the initial publication of Little House in the Big Woods in 1931, Wilder’s books have been continually in print and have been translated into 40 different languages. And let's not forget the TV show which ran for nine seasons.

Several of her former homes, school houses and farms in Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota, Missouri and New York are on the trail.

When Wilder was in her 50s, her only daughter, Rose, who was herself a journalist, editor and ghost writer, urged her to write about her youth and the difficult pioneering days. 

Rose herself had the pioneer spirit in huge quantities and was a world traveller. She wrote about America as well as countries such as  Albania. But, according to Roger Lea MacBride, her lawyer, “Rose grew up at a time when ladies did not consciously seek fame”. She chose to shed light on the lives of others instead of her own.

Later under her married name of Rose Wilder Lane she wrote a number of magazine articles, some of which were published as the Woman’s Day Book of American Needlework. Incredibly, she was sent to Vietnam as a war correspondent in 1965 when she was 78 years old.

 “Rose read constantly and knew more about any subject I can think of than any person I ever knew,” MacBride says in the introduction to The First Four Years  by her mother.

But a week before she was to set off on a world tour at the age of 81 Rose’s heart stopped suddenly at her home of 30 years in Danbury, Connecticut. The night before, she had sat up in jovial and lively conversation with friends after making them a baking of her famous bread.

There’s some controversy around the “Little House” books, with some believing that Rose, then one of the highest paid journalists in the nation, had written them. She did know the publishers and editors and that would have helped get her mother’s books published and most probably collaborated with her or at least had a big hand in editing them.

Laura’s books aren’t as PC as some might imagine. When American Indian groups visit her former homes in De Smet, South Dakota, they tell the association running them to “be careful what you say about Indians” as in the books “Ma” was afraid of them. Yet Laura was fascinated by Native Americans and  her descriptions of the way Indians rode along ancient trails past their cabin or came right inside demanding food makes really interesting reading.

In The First Four Years, Laura confronts some Indians who she thinks might take her pony and saddle. And when one lays his hand on her arm, she slaps his face.

Laura was the only one out of her sisters who had children – Rose was named for the prairie roses - but her next baby, a boy, died. Rose herself had a stillborn baby. And she was said to have been  a lesbian. And so Rose was the last living descendant of this most pioneer of pioneer women.

Dances with Kevin

                                                          Crazy Horse by Diana Plater

The world is divided into those who love Kevin Costner and those who don’t.

One friend describes him as “an archetypal spunk” but then she admits to a partiality to honey-hued hair on boys.

Others think he is a super dag and a bad actor.

I’m somewhere in between on this one.

While researching a recent story I watched Dances with Wolves again and I loved it.

A film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake, it tells of a Union Army lieutenant assigned to an abandoned army post who finds himself alone and beyond civilization. Only a wolf and some roving Lakota Indians provide distractions, as the back of the DVD cover puts it.

Winning  an Oscar for best picture, apparently it was responsible for reigniting the western genre in films when it came out in 1990. Three hours long it was also pretty entertaining, funny, sad and moving. And I liked the way Lieutenant Dunbar danced around the fire and rode his trusty horse.

At least he attempted to make it a bilingual movie – with much of the movie in  Lakota.

But one Native American activist and actor described it as Lawrence of the Plains.

He said a woman taught the actors the Lakota language, which was a problem because Lakota has a male-gendered language and a female-gendered language. So some of the Indians and Costner were speaking in the feminine way.

 This brought on a flood of giggles by male Lakotans everytime they saw the movie in local cinemas.

Really, you can’t win.

Well old Two Socks, the wolf, loved him.

But Kev’s $100 million Dunbar Resort in Deadwood has also been surrounded with controversy since the early 90s when he and his brother Dan first proposed it.

The project hinged on a change in state gaming laws. The state of South Dakota voted to raise the betting limit at Deadwood casinos from $5 to $100 and reportedly gave the brothers $14 million to develop their plan.

It was to be built on land next to the Black Hills National Forest and would have had a golf course and a railroad right of way. But Native American groups view the Black Hills as sacred, the resort as desecration, and said the land was deeded to the Lakota in treaties.

Also previously in these states only Indian reservations had had the rights to run casinos - a way to boost the local economy.

Despite spending millions, Costner's resort has never materialised.

Still he does have his small casino, Midnight Star, in Deadwood and the staff  think he’s a good guy and pretty laid back, despite all the troubles and bad reviews over the years..

All over the walls of his casino are memorabilia, costumes and props from his movies including the one I loved because it was just SO kitsch – The Bodyguard. Oh Whitney, how far have you fallen since then?

The night we visit it’s quiet with only a table of card players - probably playing the Dead Man's Hand, I think to myself. Upstairs a barmaid tells me Costner comes “about twice a year”.

“He’s kinda mellow and down to earth,” she says.

And you could tell that was all she wanted to say on the subject of Kevin Costner.

Writing, Cooking and Eating

There's still a couple of vacancies for my next LANDSCAPES Travel Writing Workshop on Sunday November 13.

10.30am to 3.30pm.

$150 per person including lunch.

 

Held at my home in Sydney's eastern suburbs the class is small and friendly with plenty of time to write and also get feedback.  You take home a kit of articles and tips for successful travel writing.

While we're writing and talking my husband, Budi, cooks a great Balinese lunch for us to enjoy after our short excursion. The class is all about "making something from nothing". 

Past participants have described it as inspiring and fun. So you should go home full of ideas and great food! 

Another class will be held in early December. And more are planned for upcoming months in Bali.

 More information/bookings: plater@optusnet.com.au

Powwow Posts - greetings from North Dakota

EAT, LOVE and PRAY TO GET OUT OF THE TRAFFIC

I saw something that I really wished I hadn’t seen as I walked the beach of Kuta yesterday.

Yes it was a woman lying in the sun reading Eat, Love, Pray.

As everybody in the world knows the book and film of the same name was partly set in Bali.

And floods of divorced and single women have rushed to Ubud, the “cultured” and “spiritual” town in the mountains, ever since to have their fortunes told and their problems solved by the toothless healer also depicted in the book and film.

They are probably hoping to meet a Balinese prince who will dress them in a sarong and kebaya and marry them in his local temple. Why is it that every second foreign woman you meet here is married to a prince? There’s so many princes there’s no room for the commoners.

Julia Roberts might have ridden around on a bicycle in the movie but I wouldn’t recommend it in the bumper to bumper traffic that now besets the island of the Gods.

Sitting on a bike drinking in truck fumes is not my idea of Paradise. And how many Maccas, circle Ks and Starbucks does Bali really need? Let alone giant hotels and shopping malls.

Yet only a few metres away you can enjoy the late afternoon sun at a warung right on the beach, drinking Bintangs and eating tipat cantok while watching the fishermen come in from the sea loaded with fish they throw straight on the coals.

We’re heading to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival tomorrow. Hope we don’t run into too many princes, healers or women looking for luuuuve there. But I’m looking forward to the babi gulung.

Bali is a land of contrasts – and that’s the beauty of it.

Whatever happened to theatre etiquette?

Once when going to the theatre in San Francisco I read a booklet that had a guide to theatre etiquette.

It was full of sound advice, such as suggesting patrons not wear heavy perfume or beehive hairstyles.

I wish I had a copy of this booklet as I believe it should be given out as compulsory reading to all theatre and concert-goers.

You often get the impression when you go to the theatre these days that most of the audience have never been before.

Why would they talk to each other throughout a performance if they knew that it was extremely rude and unthoughtful?

I went to a dance performance recently and the couple in front of me blocked the view the whole time as they kept moving their heads towards each other to whisper sweet nothings or something.

Another night at the opera a man near me was commenting and talking the whole way through. Now opera goers do not like to be disturbed. They’ve paid up to $200 or more for their ticket and they want to hear the damn music. So this man was very loudly and forcefully asked: “Are you going to talk the whole way through this opera?”

That shut him up for awhile. But then he got the noisy lolly wrappers out and continued to non stop unravel lollies and eat them.

Others may not mean to disturb their fellow audience members – but why do they have to clap whenever they think they should and so ruin the aria for somebody else?

Leave the applause to the end. It goes on for long enough then anyway.

A friend told me that she once sat behind a woman with extremely thick hair that was left out and therefore also blocked her view. She eventually had to ask this person to tie her hair up, which obligingly she did.

What are your pet hates? And what should be done to improve the situation?

Pass laws for a paseo

The world should follow the Spanish paseo.

This is what is defined as a slow, easy stroll or walk outdoors. It’s also the street, series of streets, or walkway along which such a walk is taken.

I believe it’s the same word for the bullfighting expression: the formal procession into the ring of the players, including the matadors, banderilleros, and horses, that occurs just before the first bull is fought.

And people out walking on a summer’s evening in Barcelona or Malaga or Madrid can take on the look of a bullfighter. A walker checking out which bar to sit at and take an aperitif can be a little like a matador looking over the bull. Is it good enough? Is it worth his time? Will the enjoyment of the kill (or the drink and tapas) be worth the wait at the bar or table? Will the conversation be as good as the blood-letting?

Perhaps I’m taking the metaphor too far.

Issues are probably as innocent as, should we stop for an ice-cream this time?

But to walk out in a European town and join the hundreds of others – from babies to grandmothers – is refreshing and fun and makes you feel glad to be alive.

I come from a country where the paseo is not a national pastime. Even in good weather people lock themselves behind doors and watch TV and conversation is a dying art, apart from “where’s the remote?” and “what’s for dinner?”. It might expand to, “when will dinner be ready?” but rarely to the politics of the day or the logistics of the next protest march.

We’re dying in the southern, apathetic climes, especially in winter.

Even in winter in Europe the paseo is not neglected – window shopping, stopping for hot coffee,

watching buskers, sipping on wine. All ages enjoy getting out of the house and into the life of the town. Bars are full and tapas are still, in many, included in the price, although sadly that is changing.

The next government who brings in a compulsory paseo should win. I vote for an international paseo.