A major theme in “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” is that the
key to harmony is tolerance of others' customs and beliefs.
Below, you will find several articles related to various Native American Tribes or
individuals and issues of tolerance that they face. You will analyze them using the
following instructions:
Instructions for Newspaper Analysis
a) Give the title and date of the article.
b) Summarize the main points of the article in your own words. (8-10 bullet points)
c) State the purpose of the article. Note that many articles may have multiple purposes (e.g. to
entertain and persuade). Identify what you consider to be the main purpose, explaining your
reasons in part d) if necessary.
• To entertain
• To inform
• To persuade
• To examine/explore an issue
• To describe/report
• To instruct
d) Explain your choice of purpose by quoting word(s) or phrase(s) from the article to support your
answer to part c)
e) Identify the tone of the article.
[Note that many articles will contain a variety of tones. You should identify one significant tone, or the tone which
seems to pervade the article.]
f) Justify your choice of tone with evidence from the text.
Quote words or phrases from the article and analyze how they create the tone you identified in part e)
g) Identify 3 techniques which have been employed by the writer.
Analyse each technique and explain its purpose or effect.
[Basic techniques to comment on include: word-choice, imagery and sentence structure.
Consult your ‘Higher English Terminology List’ for more detail and further techniques]
h) Quote 3 words from the article that are unfamiliar to you.


Look up and provide their definitions from a dictionary or www.dictionary.com.
Many words have several definitions. Be certain to only provide the definition appropriate to
the context in which the word is used in the passage.
[If you cannot find 3 words that are unknown to you, choose 3 words which you think are particularly complex,
sophisticated or interesting, and look up their dictionary definitions.]
i) Think about the ideas, opinions or issues involved in the article you have read.

Write a short personal response to the article – what is your opinion or reaction to the
topic/issue? What questions does it make you ask? Do you agree or disagree with the article’s
stance? What did you find interesting, puzzling or informative about the article?
j) How does the article reinforce or contradict the themes developed in the short story “The Man to
Send Rain Clouds”? Explain fully, using evidence from discussion, the article and the text.
YOU WILL DO THIS 3 TIMES – 1 FOR EACH ARTICLE
i) & j) WILL FOLLOW
Op-Ed
Sainthood and Serra: It's an insult to Native Americans
Pope Francis' decision to declare Father Junipero Serra a saint in recognition of his work as “the
evangelizer of the West in the United States” represents a profound insult to Native Americans and an
injustice to history.
According to California's official history, Serra is one of the state's founding fathers, recognized for his
role in Christianizing native peoples and teaching them “how to farm, make new things, and work
hard,” as a 21st century textbook for children puts it. Along with Ronald Reagan, Serra represents
California in Statuary Hall in the Capitol in Washington. This grandiose image of Serra's humanity
denies historical evidence and covers up his inhumanity.
Even by 18th century standards, Serra's religious fanaticism was over the top. With beliefs grounded in
doctrines inherited from the Middle Ages, he took pleasure in extreme self-mortification and worked
as a loyal comisario, or field agent, for the Inquisition, tracking down witches, heretics and
practitioners of “cryptojudaism” in Mexico City. According to UC Riverside historian Steven Hackel's
biography of Serra, he was “a calculating and unrelenting interrogator of those he thought had
committed crimes against the Church.”
Sainthood and Serra: His virtues outdistance his sins
But he's known best for recruiting Indians to the Catholic Church, and for his organizational genius in
making the mission system, at least during his lifetime, an important outpost of the Spanish empire.
What happened in California after 1848
meets the standards of ... genocide. But the
groundwork for the terror of the Gold Rush
was laid by the Spanish regime.
In 1769, when Serra arrived in San Diego, site of the first of 21 California missions, between 225,000
and 300,000 native peoples had lived for thousands of years in relatively peaceful, self-sufficient,
decentralized tribes in Alta California. To him, they were backward children in need of a firm hand, not
unlike the way the Confederate South viewed enslaved Africans.
The catastrophe the Indians experienced as colonized subjects is typically divided into two narratives.
One emphasizes the unfortunate, unintentional result of European diseases that shredded native
immune systems from the late 18th to mid-19th centuries. Under Spanish (1769-1821) and Mexican
(1821-1848) occupation of Alta California, the indigenous population declined by about one-third.
The second narrative emphasizes the role of
human agency in the premature deaths of
native survivors, especially during and after the
Gold Rush. Under American rule in California,
the Indian population plunged sharply,
primarily attributable to policies of
extermination, or what California's first
governor, Peter Burnett, in 1851 referred to as
“the irregular mode of warfare.”
What California Indians lost under Junipero Serra, soon to be
saint
Guerrilla-style native resistance in the rugged
northwest of California was no match for the
sudden influx of hundreds of thousands of miners and settlers, bolstered by greed, a sense of
entitlement and armed militias. Scholars generally agree that what happened in California after 1848
meets the standards of the United Nations post-World War II definition of genocide. But the
groundwork for the terror of the Gold Rush was laid by the Spanish regime. Over a period of about 150
years, the native population declined by more than 90%.
I regard the two narratives that explain the extraordinary reduction of the California tribes as
interrelated human-made tragedies, just as Holocaust scholars regard the estimated 20% of Jews who
died in the concentration camps of malnutrition and exhaustion as victims of genocide. Although the
Spanish and American colonial systems were by no means identical, they both engaged in nationbuilding and conquest. And they shared similar attitudes about the inferiority and expendability of
native lives.
The epidemic of premature fatalities under Spanish colonialism was facilitated by an authoritarian and
brutal mission system, enforced by irons and the whip. Life “under the bell,” as prescribed by Junipero
Serra, was disastrous for native people.
Functioning as forced labor camps, the missions imposed baptisms and conversions, fiercely policed
the boundaries of Christian sexuality and punished infractions with flogging. Cut off from their
homelands, deprived of cultural traditions and exposed to unfamiliar viruses, 1 in 3 babies born in
missions did not make it to their first year; 40% of those who survived died before their fifth year; and
10% to 20% of adults died each year.
The missionaries gave the neophytes a short course in Christianity before converting them en masse.
But when they died en masse, they received burials fit for savages, not Christians: They're stacked in
anonymous pits on the grounds and beneath the iconic mission loggias, chapels and gardens, which are
among California's leading tourist attractions.
“We don't know the location of their burial,” said a guide during a visit to Mission Dolores in San
Francisco, referring to the thousands of mostly Ohlone corpses somewhere beneath our feet.
From the late 19th century until the present, California's history has been fashioned to fit the state's
racially sanitized origins story and narrative of relentless progress. Bypassing the region's indigenous
and Mexican roots, textbooks and popular culture have perpetuated the myth that California was born
in Castilian Spain and transported to the New World via religious missions.
Rather than reinforcing this selective, racist history by conferring sainthood on Father Serra, Pope
Francis should emulate retired Bishop Francis Quinn of Sacramento, who in 2008 acknowledged his
church's “serious misdeeds,” especially its efforts to “impose a European Catholicism upon the
natives,” and apologized “for trying to take Indian out of the Indian.”
Tony Platt is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Law & Society at UC Berkeley and author of
"Grave Matters: Excavating California's Buried Past."
Among the Navajos, a Renewed Debate
About Gay Marriage
By JULIE TURKEWITZFEB. 21, 2015
Navajo Nation’s Gay Marriage Controversy
Alray Nelson is an outspoken opponent of the tribal law that bans same-sex marriage.
By Monica Almeida on Publish DateFebruary 21, 2015. Photo by Monica Almeida/The New York Times.Watch in Times Video
TOHATCHI, N.M. — Tradition reigns here on the Navajo reservation, where the words of elders are
treated as gospel and many people still live or pray in circular dwellings called hogans.
The national debate over gay marriage, however, is prompting some Navajos to re-examine a 2005
tribal law called the Dine Marriage Act, which prohibits same-sex unions on the reservation.
Among the tribal politicians who have said they are amenable to repealing the law is Ben Shelly,
president of the Navajo Nation, who has said he will go along with a repeal if the Navajo Nation
Council votes in favor of it.
And at least one Navajo presidential aspirant — Joe Shirley Jr., a former president who is running
again — favors legalizing same-sex marriage. “Our culture dictates acceptance,” Mr. Shirley, 67,
said of gay Navajos in a slow, grandfatherly tone during an interview. “They are part of our family,
they are our children, and we don’t need to be partial.”
A second presidential contender, Chris Deschene, 43, who was disqualified from running but might
be able to get back into the race, said he was "most likely" to support gay marriage.
To Navajo traditionalists, however, the rapid redefinition of marriage in states around the country
has made the 2005 tribal law more important than ever.
“It’s not for us,” Otto Tso, a Navajo legislator and medicine man from the western edge of the
reservation, said of gay marriage. “We have to look at our culture, our society, where we come
from, talk to our elders.”
“I do respect gay people,” he continued, but as far as permitting
same-sex unions, “I would definitely wait on that.”
The United States Supreme Court is expected to decide this year
whether states can prohibit same-sex marriages, a move with the
potential to lead to the legalization of gay unions in all 50 states.
But the ruling would not apply to the Navajo Nation, because the
country’s 566 tribes are sovereign entities.
For Jeremy Yazzie, who counsels gay and transgender Navajos,
marriage rights are not a priority. He says drug abuse and
depression are far more urgent problems.
Leading the charge for gay marriage here is Alray Nelson, 29, a top aide to Mr. Shirley, the
presidential contender. Mr. Nelson, who would like to marry his partner, Brennen Yonnie, has
pushed for years to repeal the Dine Marriage Act and has a small coalition of core supporters —
about 15 of them, he said. But some gay Navajos, he said, have not joined the coalition for fear
they will be ostracized.
Other gay tribal citizens say they support same-sex marriage but do not consider marriage rights a
priority, pointing out that many gay Navajos suffer from drug abuse and debilitating depression.
Fixing these ills, said Jeremy Yazzie, 33, who counsels gay and transgender Navajos, is far more
important. “Everyone is worried about repealing the gay marriage act,” Mr. Yazzie said. “That’s far
from my work. How can we love somebody else if we can’t even love ourselves?”
Mr. Nelson and Mr. Yonnie, 29, a caseworker for the tribal welfare agency, could marry in Arizona,
Utah and New Mexico, the states that border the reservation, if they wanted. “These states
surrounding the Navajo Nation are taking big steps forward — steps for equality,” Mr. Nelson said.
“The Navajo Nation is not.”
Mr. Nelson grew up in a mobile home on the reservation, tending sheep and doing homework by
kerosene lamp. He came out in an email to his family in his early 20s, was largely accepted and
soon became a powerful force in reservation politics, working for two tribal presidents. He met Mr.
Yonnie through Facebook about four years ago and they now live with Mr. Yonnie’s mother in this
rural outpost.
“Marriage to me is security,” Mr. Yonnie said over dinner recently.
But Mr. Nelson’s efforts to sway legislators have been hindered by his damaged credibility. In
2011, he admitted to filing false claims to the police, saying he had been threatened because of his
race and sexuality. At the time, Mr. Nelson said in a recent interview, he had been suffering from
depression and stress after the death of a family member. “I did some stupid stuff and said some
stupid things,” he said.
But he has pressed on. In the last year or so, Mr. Nelson has attended five tribal meetings to argue
for changes to the law; he has briefed tribal presidential candidates on the issue and attended
community events to hand out information and ask people to sign cards pledging their support.
Sometimes he is accompanied by other Navajos, but other times, he and Mr. Yonnie are alone. “In
many ways, it’s just been Brennen and I,” Mr. Nelson said.
Most tribal lawmakers say they have other priorities — creating jobs, for example, or channeling
electricity to those without it.
The nation’s tribes have taken varying approaches to same-sex unions. At least 10 have affirmed
the right of gay couples to marry under tribal law, sometimes doing so ahead of the state in which
the tribe is located.
Spider Rock, a sacred site on the Navajo reservation that is considered especially significant by gay members of
the tribe.
In 2009, the Coquille tribe in Oregon became the first Native American nation to recognize samesex marriages, though the Oregon Constitution still prohibited such unions. Kitzen Branting, a
member of the Coquille tribe who was 26 at the time, and Jeni Branting, then 28, were the first to
wed in the state.
But the largest Indian tribes — the Navajo Nation, here in the Southwest, and the Cherokee Nation,
in Oklahoma — have specifically prohibited same-sex weddings. Each tribe has about 300,000
citizens.
These laws will stand even if the Supreme Court decides that bans on same-sex marriage are
unconstitutional, according to Lindsay Robertson, director of the Center for the Study of American
Indian Law and Policy at the University of Oklahoma, because tribes were not signatories to the
United States Constitution and are therefore not bound by it.
Gay Navajos tend to maintain a quiet existence here, connecting with potential partners on the
Internet and coming out to their families, but keeping their sexuality largely private. In interviews,
several said they would not hold hands in public. Others said they had endured taunts or even
physical abuse in school or in their neighborhoods, leading to depression and attempts to harm
themselves. Some had moved off the reservation to places where they felt more comfortable.
Central to the debate over same-sex marriage is the question of the role that gay people have
played in Navajo history.
Several historians, including Jennifer Denetdale, a member of the Navajo Nation Human Rights
Commission and a professor at the University of New Mexico, assert that gay and transgender
people have long been part of tribal society, typically holding positions of great respect.
In an academic paper about the Dine Marriage Act, she recounted a traditional tale in which First
Woman and First Man argue and set up camp on separate sides of a river, each accompanied by
other members of their sex. The men were accompanied by “nadleehi” — men who dressed as
women and took on feminine identities. “The nadleehi provided crucial domestic duties and
provided an outlet for the men’s sexual desires,” Dr. Denetdale wrote.
Some opponents of gay marriage cite their attachment to local churches — which hold powerful
sway here — as a reason to keep the Dine Marriage Act on the books. The Rev. Dale Jamison is a
Roman Catholic leader whose church in Tohatchi draws about 100 worshipers each Sunday. He said
he could not imagine his congregants favoring gay marriage. “My people don’t necessarily want to
talk about what they would consider Anglo, mainstream issues.”
At a beauty salon in Chinle, Ariz., about 100 miles from Mr. Nelson’s home in Tohatchi, Jaye BTode,
55, dipped a client’s long tresses into the wash basin as she considered the issue. A photo of a
Navajo supermodel hung by the door; music played softly in the background.
“That’s not for us,” Ms. BTode said of gay marriage. “No, no, no, no.”
Her client, Julie Begaye, 54, lifted her head out of the sink, shaking her wet locks. “That’s not our
tradition,” she said. “If you want to do that, get off the reservation and do that somewhere else.”
Correction: March 1, 2015
An article last Sunday about a debate over same-sex marriage among the Navajos misstated the
number of federally recognized American Indian tribes. There are 566, not 556.
Military Ends Conflict Of Career and
Religion
By JAMES BROOKE
Published: May 7, 1997
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SHIPROCK, N.M.— As a Navajo, Staff Sgt. Shawn Arnold always had trouble reconciling his Marine Corps
career with his religion, whose ancient rituals clashed with military anti-drug policy.
Twice, he beat back courts-martial attempts over his use of peyote, a cactus with hallucinogenic properties
that is central to worship in the Native American Church, which has four branches.
''You put on the uniform, you look at the American flag,'' said Sergeant Arnold, a member of the Native
American Church of Navajoland, ''but you don't really feel you are free because you can't practice your own
religion.''
But now, less than a century after Army soldiers helped Christian missionaries in an effort to stamp out
Indian religions, the Pentagon is drawing up rules to allow American Indian soldiers to consume peyote,
which contains the psychedelic drug mescaline, at religious ceremonies.
The Native American Church counts its total membership at 250,000 people in 50 tribes, or at least 1 of 10
Indians. Americans familiar with the counterculture of the 1960's and 70's may recall when hippies scoured
the peyote gardens of southern Texas for buttons of ''native LSD'' to get high.
Religious use of peyote is far different, say experts on Indian religion and military chaplains. ''Our real
opposition has been lack of understanding,'' said Frank Dayish Jr., president of the Native American Church
of North America, who lives on this Navajo reservation. ''I have grown up with peyote. Hallucinations,
visions -- I have never experienced that.''
Somewhat analogous to communion wine in Christian tradition, peyote is called ''the sacrament'' by Native
American churchgoers. Drawing on pan-Indian traditions of the Plains, the ceremonies take place in
teepees, where a fire is kept burning and drumming and chanting last through the night. As the Road Man,
or leader, takes followers down the Peyote Road, the cactus buttons are sliced into pieces and eaten, or
ingested as a tea. Though large amounts can induce visions or hallucinations, participants say the amounts
taken are so small that the peyote only brings on a spiritual, introspective mood that puts them closer to
God.
Such rituals go back 10,000 years, but American law has taken time to recognize their validity. After
decades of being caught between laws protecting freedom of religion and those prosecuting illegal drugs,
Indians who use peyote in religious ceremonies were given full protection by Congress in 1994, through
amendments to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978.
Capt. Mel Ferguson of the Navy, executive director of the Armed Forces Chaplain's Board, who drew up the
rules to comply with the 1994 legislation, said: ''The Department of Defense does not make theological
judgments on what is sacramental and what is not. D.O.D. is simply incorporating the laws of the land.''
Under the new military guidelines, which were issued on April 27, peyote use is restricted to enrolled tribal
members who are also members of a Native American Church. Peyote may not be brought on military
vehicles, planes, vessels or bases. The celebrant must stop using peyote at least 24 hours before returning
to active duty. Returning soldiers must notify their commanders that they have taken peyote. In some
cases, they may have to notify commanders beforehand. The rules are expected to become final by July.
They will affect only a tiny fraction of the 1.4 million men and women in the armed forces. Of the 9,262
troops who are Indian, as few as 5 percent may be members of the Native American Church.
A legacy of misunderstanding and prejudice by the military may keep peyote use by Indians in the armed
services underground for years to come, church members predicted. Last December, church members
gathered in the Dayish family's ceremonial hogan here to relate their experiences to military chaplains.
Military veterans recalled hostile commanders who ridiculed their religious practices, denied promotions
and blocked career paths that required high security clearances. Navajo parents complained that military
recruiters still tell their children that they cannot enlist if they take peyote.
''I have been to many ceremonies for young people going into the service,'' said Harry Walters, a professor
of tribal culture and religion at Navajo Community College, in Tsaile, Ariz., ''and because it can be traced,
they sit through the prayer service without taking peyote. It would be like a doctor treating you without
giving you any medicine.''
Robert Peregoy, a lawyer for the Native American Rights Fund, who helped negotiate the new rules with
the Pentagon, said there were widespread misconceptions about the cactus. He said, ''Medical journals
show that peyote is not harmful, not habit-forming and does not cause flashbacks.''
Support for the new law also comes from the Drug Enforcement Administration. In an early time of peyote
controversy, from 1980 to 1987, the drug agency seized only 19 pounds of peyote compared with 15
million pounds of marijuana.
The turnabout in the Government's peyote policy can be easily seen on this reservation, where almost half
of the nation's peyote is consumed, according to official sales figures maintained by the Texas Department
of Public Safety.
About a century ago, as Plains Indian tribes tried to adjust to new lives on reservations, religious advocates
of peyote traveled north from the area of historic use, along the banks of the Rio Grande in South Texas.
These peyote missionaries went through Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Dakotas and into Canada spreading its
use. It was taken up by the Navajos in the early 1930's, a time when Federal agents ordered the tribe's
herders to cut their flocks of sheep to avoid overgrazing.
''It was a very devastating time for the Navajos,'' Professor Walters said, ''and at that time the Navajo
started converting to the Native American Church.''
Now, about 60,000 Navajos, roughly one-quarter of the reservation, attend peyote ceremonies in teepees
or hogans. Membership in the church, whose central belief revolves around the sky as creator and the
earth as mother, has risen rapidly as Indians seek grounding in traditional ways.
Sobriety, morality, diligence and a spirit of self-respect lead a list of Native American Church ''values and
principles'' proffered by Mr. Dayish at his family compound here.
Professor Walters, a church member, said: ''The use of peyote is not the large part -- it stresses the old
traditional beliefs and values. It is popular because it addresses the issues of the times: alcoholism,
unemployment, breakdown of the family.''
But peyote use has become so popular that church members worry that the growing demand is causing a
shortage. Albert Hale, president of the Navajo Nation, also has warned the church to police incidents of
peyote use outside of religious settings.
The son of a Road Man of the Native American Church, Mr. Dayish credits his religion with helping him get
through the Marines, through college and into a job as a procurement officer for an international mining
company here. Reflecting on his comfortable home and on his family life, he said, ''I attribute everything I
have to my worship.''
He was echoed by Sergeant Arnold, who said the peyote rituals, even practiced under fear of prosecution,
helped him succeed in the Marines. ''It helped me get through 18 years without drinking,'' he said from
Quantico, Va. ''It helped me get my college education off duty. It helped keep me focused.''
Photos: Staff Sgt. Shawn Arnold uses traditional religious instruments as he prays at home on the Quantico
Marine Base in Virginia. (Chuck Kennedy for The New York Times); The Pentagon is drawing up rules to
allow American Indian soldiers to use peyote at religious ceremonies. Members of the Native American
Church took part in a peyote ceremony in Shonto, Ariz., in 1992.