Shadows at Dawn Quotes

“On various occasions, especially in trying to think of western American history in the context of the worldwide history of colonialism, it has struck me that much of the mental behavior that we sometimes denounce as ethnocentrism and cultural insensitivity actually derives less from our indifference or hostility than from our clumsiness and awkwardness when we leave the comfort of the English language behind... [V]enturing outside the bounds of the English language exercises and stretches our minds in ways that are essential for getting as close as we can to the act of seeing the world from what would otherwise remain unfamiliar and alien perspectives.”
― Patricia Nelson Limerick, Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History

“Given the obstacles to merging these fragile and diverse forms of storytelling into a single tale, it is, paradoxically, by venturing in the opposite direction -- by listening for the silences between accounts; by discovering what each genre of recordkeeping cannot tell us -- that we can capture most fully the human struggle to understand our elusive past. What this past asks of us in return is a willingness to recount all our stories -- our darkest tales as well as our most inspiring ones -- and to ponder those stories that violence has silenced forever. For until we recognize our shared capacity for inhumanity, how can we ever hope to tell stories of our mutual humanity?”
― Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History

“To the People, the bodies and belongings of the ’O:b were suffused with dangerous powers. The impact of touching the Enemy was so profound that upon killing or otherwise coming into contact with one, a now-weakened O’odham was expected to withdraw immediately from the field of combat, taking but a single trophy—a scalp, a weapon, or a piece of clothing—tied to a long pole to keep it at a safe remove from the rest of the party. Those who slew an Enemy might also paint their face black—a color that warned others not to approach them and that, because it summoned up images of drunkenness and dizziness, embodied for the People the disorienting passions released in warfare. As the ritual oration from one Tohono O’odham village put it: My desire was the black madness of war.
I ground it to powder and herewith painted my face. My desire was the black dizziness of war.
I tore it to shreds and herewith tied my hair in a war knot.24”
― Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History