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This article is the subject of an educational assignment at University of British Columbia supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2012 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.
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on 14:59, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
What is the logic behind including Grey Owl in this category? I am not all that familiar with him, but nothing in the article seems to motivate category inclusion. Yeah, he seems to have claimed a voluntary identity that some people thought was inappropriate, but his reason for noteriety seems to be his writing, not any such identity claim per se.
Obviously, it's annoying for my edit of removing the category to be described as vandalism, in rather bad faith. But that's just annoying, and doesn't affect whether the category fits per se. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
The problem seems to be that most impostors make up everything, and for personal gain or out of some delusion. Grey Owl lied about his ancestry, but he didn't lie about living in the wilderness nor about his belief that the wilderness and its wildlife should be preserved. If he felt he needed to pretend to be a First Nations tribesman to do that, then so be it. I think that's the general feeling re this man.
The problem with using the word "fraud" is that it carries a negative connotation, even the imputation of criminal activity, by which we are then likely to judge the person involved. I wish there were another term to designate this early pioneer in highlighting the dangers of ignoring human impact on the biosphere. Perhaps something along the lines of "nom d'activisme" would suit better. I could be wrong, of course. 49.183.189.223 ( talk) 09:28, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
The section "Grey Owl had been an invention" is misleading. The name was given to Belaney long before he was even in the public eye. He had lived with the people of Bear Island and throughout the Canadian Sheild for a long time before anyone had any idea of his work. He trapped beaver for years before he chose to stop. He stopped trapping beaver long before he became famous. He wished to conserve the Canadian wilderness long before he toured England. He wrote short magazine pieces long before he was convinced to write his famed books. The persona of Archie Grey Owl is as true as anything else about him. The fact that Grey Owl is remembered more for not being truthful about his personal history than for his immensely ahead-of-its-time work is evidence of societal fault. That this fault has seeped into Wikipedia is not overly surprising. I'm editing this section. -- Bentonia School 15:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I suggest you read "Devil in Deerskins" by Anahareo, and "Wilderness Man" by Lovatt Dickson, the latter of which is good on the harm done by the revelation of Belaney's imposture. Anahareo's account is very romantic, but also inadvertently reveals just how little Belaney had to do with the tribes he exploited. I think that the short "Exposure" section does justice to this other side of Belaney's life, while the Biography and Posthumous Recognition sections explain what was good about his life and work, and the ways that it has subsequently been celebrated. Vizjim 06:40, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
"Cry of the Ancients" was written by a different Grey Owl, who died around 1959.
So, what was this person's name -- "Grey Owl" or "Archibald Belaney"? It's the sort of question that comes up from time to time (sometimes several times for one person, e.g. Sean Combs). It's a fraught question that is wrapped up questions of personal identity, who gets to name a person, and much else, and in a lot cases is not always easy to answer.
I'm asking because an editor ( User:CorbieVreccan) went through the article and changed instances of "Grey Owl did such-and-such" to "Belany did such-and-such".
I'm a bit suspicious of this because the person also changed the lede sentence from
to
which I gather from the use of "fraudulent" and so on that the editor doesn't like this person very much. But I'm not sure it is helpful to reader. It's helpful it the person was unquestionably and incontrovertibly a charlatan and a montebank primarily, and we want to get that across to the reader as quickly and forcefully as possible. My take is that the person's case is little more complicated than that, and I generally prefer to just present the facts let the reader make up her own mind about stuff like this.
The person made a number of other changes also, which I haven't examined in detail. Any input on those edits would be welcome, but my three proximate questions are:
I see that there's still some disagreement about this. Thinking just about the name thing, well, there are are thousands of people who've changed their names to names usually associated with a different ethnicity or culture, and how do we handle those?
And there are thousands more if you include people who emigrated to America and anglecized their names. Most of our articles on people like this don't have passages referencing these changes as being fraudulent or constituting cultural appropriation or any other pejorative characterization.
Guy's been dead for 80 years, and whatever ill he's done is done. We can't change that and anyway we are not here to proclaim the WP:TRUTH to our audience. Let's stick to the facts and let the reader decide if he was a scaramouche and a charlatan, if his identity change was odious or not, and so forth. If he was the reader will surely come to understand this from a neutral presentation of the facts.
Meantime I think we should stick to our usual approach for other name-and-culture-changers and be more like "He changed his name" rather than "He fraudulently changed his name" and so forth. If Bob Dylan is not in Category:Impostors I would question whether this guy should be. And so on. Herostratus ( talk) 17:27, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
@ Neptune's Trident: have you even read the article? The fact that he fabricated a Native identity for himself, and that he is a famous imposter, is sourced all throughout the article. This edit summary is simply untrue: [1] Add to that your removal of this article from relevant categories, where it has been for quite a while, and I have to ask why you're trying to bury the most relevant issue here. The guy was not a groundbreaking naturalist. He was a fraud. - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 21:19, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
Are any of the "voices" so loudly opining on this subject First Nation or Native American, or is this just, as so often, "white folks" co-opting their "interests", or people ver involved in other nation's or races controvercies on similar issues that may not apply here? It seems that the nation he lived among considered him one of their own, are we not imposing a very "white" concept of identity and belonging here, that might need balancing? This is a question I am not qualified to answer, but I have enough experience of other cultures divergent views on these things. Plainly some above feel they are, this I question. We must be careful not to fall into nineteeth century concepts of racial identity.
It is possible to "convert" to Judaism, in some opinions but not in others', is it possible to convert to "First nationhood"? If you see my question as spurious, maybe you should first draw on relevant anthropological opinion, especially that local to the issue. Is there a valid "Post Modern" angle here?
188.251.73.56 (
talk) 17:21, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes that as exactly the issue underlying my question, and an issue worth raising. But the secondary issue was using strongly judgemental language, even if from a native editor, perhaps as far away as the Apaches, but also far away in time from the people whose opinion really matters, and we have a witness just above with a reported opinion that the first nation he was closest to, and maybe others, were wise to the truth and unconcerned. Many non western(ised) peoples do not see identity as "we" do. There are many ways to "become another" where that other is a nation, a gender or even a species, either temporarily or permanently in many cultures' realities (as a transgender individual I am very alert to that). Therefore I question the very judgemental varnish that has been purposely daubed over a previous version, I would say by a single hand. Genetic "belonging" is a very dangerous lodestone, I can trace my paternal Irishness both in documentation back many hundreds of years, and by DNA way further, I qualify for nationality, but have never lived there. Is a dubliner with south asian parents less irish. If the nation accepts them, and gives them a passport she is irish. Q.E.D. Despite my english accent, but because perhaps of the importance of my relatives in the struggle for Irish nationhood, and the fact that I left the UK forever decades ago to live in Portugal, they feel free to share with me their dislike of the english. So even "closer to home" we see how, to quote a jew speaking for a black man "it ain't necesssarily so". An encyclopedic article should not reflect what is actually a minority, academically driven, local and topical (in large part) viewpoint, epecially when an individual uses it to speak "on behalf of" and about people far from them in time and space, perhaps.
It may be said that he lied, he was plainly a fantasist, who fantasised in one culture, who might understand the power of dreaming, but then had to answer for it reluctantly in another culture entirely, in the service of a higher cause (by current standards even more than then, except among natives), and now again he answes in another time as well, this time must be judicial, not judgemental.
I have a lot of "aboriginal" friends right across the planet (including N and S America), (including family members by marriage) I'm sure many of them would like me to make this point.
His women and addiction issues, well plenty of dead celebrities on here have had them played down. Alan Watts leaps to mind, his well attested and published vices were very hagiographically swept aside last time I read his article. But he is a "man of the moment" (Despite claiming to be a buddhist, and speaking for them long before he was accepted as one by a small minority of westernised authorities, some of them with dark clouds over them. I feel something important is being violated, and race, that "rough beast", "slouches out".
Therefore I make no apologies for arguing at length, if I have typos, I blame the fact that my spellcheck is stuck in portuguese. In front of "expats" here I avoid talking english, thanks to my deep tan they take me for portuguese, although my papers are lost in Lisbon, am I a fraud, after all I do it on purpose for a "dastardly" reason? (I don't like them any more than many locals do). My neighbours consider I belong - to this mountain, their "nation". 188.82.5.148 ( talk) 07:37, 29 July 2017 (UTC) (sorry my byline got lost.
I removed the highlighted word from the opening of the lede:
Grey Owl was the name British-born Archibald Belaney (September 18, 1888 – April 13, 1938) chose for himself when he took on a fraudulent First Nations identity as an adult.
for a couple reasons.
Disagree. The fraud is notable. He was not First Nations. Will look at changes in article but what he did was not neutral and has to be described neutrally. He is now known as his given name, not his imposter name. - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 18:16, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@ Vizjim: Why do you think a poem by someone who wasn't there, and participation by a Haudenosaunee woman mean this ceremony was Anishinaabe? Anahareo was from a different culture, and something was clearly wrong if she thought this Englishman was Apache, er Ojibwe, er, whatever they eventually decided was sellable. I think she was in on the scam. Either that, or she knew nothing about Anishinaabe culture. I say where is the proof it was an Anishinaabe ceremony, besides his claims? I've searched in Armand Garnet Ruffo's online works about Belaney and can find nothing under "Anishinaabe" or "Ojibwe". The cited sources either aren't online, or go to search pages. Where is a source we can see for this, in order to evaluate it's credibility? If it's just Belaney's claim, it's not reliable. Where is Anahareo's description of it? - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 21:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
I have done some research on Grey Owl's life in the years 1928-1931 and would like to make some improvements by rewriting parts of sections “Early conservation work and change in identity” and “Work with Dominion Parks Branch” with the following objectives:
1) To document the location in which the events of 1928-1931 took place (southeastern Quebec).
2) To correct the date of the first beaver film (1930, not 1928).
3) To clarify that the interaction between Grey Owl and James Harkin of the Parks Branch concerned the first beaver film (shot in 1930 by an uncredited cameraman), not the second film (shot in 1931 by W. J. Oliver).
4) To correct the title of the first article published in Country Life ("The Passing of the Last Frontier", not "The Falls of Silence").
5) To correct the page number of cite_note-39 (124, not 101).
6) To document additional events in the years 1928-1931 (e.g. his first public lecture in Metis, his first public appearance as Grey Owl in Montreal).
I have sources for all these changes. What is the right way to proceed? Just make the changes or wait for some consensus here? Dsiedler ( talk) 08:47, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Not having any reaction to my proposal, I went ahead and published the changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dsiedler ( talk • contribs) 16:57, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm confused by this part of the first sentence of this article. My understanding, reinforced by the article First Nations in Canada, is that first nation persons are " Indigenous peoples in Canada". But Belany didn't claim to be of Canadian descent: he claimed to be the child of a Scottish father and Apache mother. My knowledge on this topic isn't extensive, but I believe the Apache were a tribe in the southwestern U.S. He also claimed he was born in Mexico, the second country south of Canada. I don't claim to be an expert, but I feel that a person born in Mexico of an Apache woman and Scottish man would have a hard time calling himself first nations.
Wouldn't it be more accurate, as well as more neutral, simply to say that he pretended to be half Indian? And he only did that in part of his life.
I followed the link from "disguised himself" to Pretendian and learned "The term is a pejorative colloquialism". Aren't we meant to avoid polemic here? I think the word "pretend" is a pretty good term for what Belany did (without the link), but an even more neutral way of expressing it would be "...who represented himself as half Indian during the latter part of his life..."
I know there is an entire issue about the use of the word "Indian" - for good reason - but in Belany's time, neither the term "first nation" nor "native American" existed. The term "Indian" was used - much as we regret this today. It is therefore anachronistic to say he disguised himself as native American: He couldn't have thought of himself using a concept that didn't exist at that time. Dsiedler ( talk) 20:49, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
Concerning the wording "disguised himself", I looked into the revision history and found it was a one-line change made on 2020.06.16 by user 2600:1700:8540:8CC0:78CD:41C0:1476:7A81 with no comment ( link to page). The user has a total of 4 small contributions. Up to this change, the word was "pretended". I question the use of the word "disguise". The primary meaning of the word is "to give a new appearance to a person or thing, especially in order to hide its true form" ( Cambridge dictionary entry). It suggests wearning a wig or a false beard. Of course there are less literal uses of the word, but what was wrong with "pretend"? This is exactly what he did in the primary sense of the word: He pretended to be the son of a Scottish man and an Apache woman. He pretended to have been born in Mexico. Maybe it's time to go back to the right word here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dsiedler ( talk • contribs) 09:41, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
The first statement of section "Early conservation work and change in identity" is made without reference. I have checked Smith's biography (From the Land of Shadows: the Making of Grey Owl), Billinghurst's biography (The Many Faces of Archie Belaney, Grey Owl) and Anahareo's autobiography (Devil in Deerskins,) and cannot find any justification for the statement that Belaney was using the name "Grey Owl" as early as 1925. According to these sources, he only started using the name in 1930, in particular in the articles for Canadian Forest and Outdoors and in correspondance with Country Life. Dsiedler ( talk) 17:13, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
@ User:Dsiedler The category is not contradictory. "Grey Owl" falsely self-identified as being Apache, that is, of Native American descent. I'm fully aware that Canadians can't be Native Americans. The category isn't claiming that "Grey Owl" was. Bohemian Baltimore ( talk) 07:40, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
Grey Owl is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive. | ||||||||||
|
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Grey Owl article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at University of British Columbia supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2012 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.
Above message substituted from {{WAP assignment}}
on 14:59, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
What is the logic behind including Grey Owl in this category? I am not all that familiar with him, but nothing in the article seems to motivate category inclusion. Yeah, he seems to have claimed a voluntary identity that some people thought was inappropriate, but his reason for noteriety seems to be his writing, not any such identity claim per se.
Obviously, it's annoying for my edit of removing the category to be described as vandalism, in rather bad faith. But that's just annoying, and doesn't affect whether the category fits per se. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
The problem seems to be that most impostors make up everything, and for personal gain or out of some delusion. Grey Owl lied about his ancestry, but he didn't lie about living in the wilderness nor about his belief that the wilderness and its wildlife should be preserved. If he felt he needed to pretend to be a First Nations tribesman to do that, then so be it. I think that's the general feeling re this man.
The problem with using the word "fraud" is that it carries a negative connotation, even the imputation of criminal activity, by which we are then likely to judge the person involved. I wish there were another term to designate this early pioneer in highlighting the dangers of ignoring human impact on the biosphere. Perhaps something along the lines of "nom d'activisme" would suit better. I could be wrong, of course. 49.183.189.223 ( talk) 09:28, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
The section "Grey Owl had been an invention" is misleading. The name was given to Belaney long before he was even in the public eye. He had lived with the people of Bear Island and throughout the Canadian Sheild for a long time before anyone had any idea of his work. He trapped beaver for years before he chose to stop. He stopped trapping beaver long before he became famous. He wished to conserve the Canadian wilderness long before he toured England. He wrote short magazine pieces long before he was convinced to write his famed books. The persona of Archie Grey Owl is as true as anything else about him. The fact that Grey Owl is remembered more for not being truthful about his personal history than for his immensely ahead-of-its-time work is evidence of societal fault. That this fault has seeped into Wikipedia is not overly surprising. I'm editing this section. -- Bentonia School 15:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I suggest you read "Devil in Deerskins" by Anahareo, and "Wilderness Man" by Lovatt Dickson, the latter of which is good on the harm done by the revelation of Belaney's imposture. Anahareo's account is very romantic, but also inadvertently reveals just how little Belaney had to do with the tribes he exploited. I think that the short "Exposure" section does justice to this other side of Belaney's life, while the Biography and Posthumous Recognition sections explain what was good about his life and work, and the ways that it has subsequently been celebrated. Vizjim 06:40, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
"Cry of the Ancients" was written by a different Grey Owl, who died around 1959.
So, what was this person's name -- "Grey Owl" or "Archibald Belaney"? It's the sort of question that comes up from time to time (sometimes several times for one person, e.g. Sean Combs). It's a fraught question that is wrapped up questions of personal identity, who gets to name a person, and much else, and in a lot cases is not always easy to answer.
I'm asking because an editor ( User:CorbieVreccan) went through the article and changed instances of "Grey Owl did such-and-such" to "Belany did such-and-such".
I'm a bit suspicious of this because the person also changed the lede sentence from
to
which I gather from the use of "fraudulent" and so on that the editor doesn't like this person very much. But I'm not sure it is helpful to reader. It's helpful it the person was unquestionably and incontrovertibly a charlatan and a montebank primarily, and we want to get that across to the reader as quickly and forcefully as possible. My take is that the person's case is little more complicated than that, and I generally prefer to just present the facts let the reader make up her own mind about stuff like this.
The person made a number of other changes also, which I haven't examined in detail. Any input on those edits would be welcome, but my three proximate questions are:
I see that there's still some disagreement about this. Thinking just about the name thing, well, there are are thousands of people who've changed their names to names usually associated with a different ethnicity or culture, and how do we handle those?
And there are thousands more if you include people who emigrated to America and anglecized their names. Most of our articles on people like this don't have passages referencing these changes as being fraudulent or constituting cultural appropriation or any other pejorative characterization.
Guy's been dead for 80 years, and whatever ill he's done is done. We can't change that and anyway we are not here to proclaim the WP:TRUTH to our audience. Let's stick to the facts and let the reader decide if he was a scaramouche and a charlatan, if his identity change was odious or not, and so forth. If he was the reader will surely come to understand this from a neutral presentation of the facts.
Meantime I think we should stick to our usual approach for other name-and-culture-changers and be more like "He changed his name" rather than "He fraudulently changed his name" and so forth. If Bob Dylan is not in Category:Impostors I would question whether this guy should be. And so on. Herostratus ( talk) 17:27, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
@ Neptune's Trident: have you even read the article? The fact that he fabricated a Native identity for himself, and that he is a famous imposter, is sourced all throughout the article. This edit summary is simply untrue: [1] Add to that your removal of this article from relevant categories, where it has been for quite a while, and I have to ask why you're trying to bury the most relevant issue here. The guy was not a groundbreaking naturalist. He was a fraud. - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 21:19, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
Are any of the "voices" so loudly opining on this subject First Nation or Native American, or is this just, as so often, "white folks" co-opting their "interests", or people ver involved in other nation's or races controvercies on similar issues that may not apply here? It seems that the nation he lived among considered him one of their own, are we not imposing a very "white" concept of identity and belonging here, that might need balancing? This is a question I am not qualified to answer, but I have enough experience of other cultures divergent views on these things. Plainly some above feel they are, this I question. We must be careful not to fall into nineteeth century concepts of racial identity.
It is possible to "convert" to Judaism, in some opinions but not in others', is it possible to convert to "First nationhood"? If you see my question as spurious, maybe you should first draw on relevant anthropological opinion, especially that local to the issue. Is there a valid "Post Modern" angle here?
188.251.73.56 (
talk) 17:21, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes that as exactly the issue underlying my question, and an issue worth raising. But the secondary issue was using strongly judgemental language, even if from a native editor, perhaps as far away as the Apaches, but also far away in time from the people whose opinion really matters, and we have a witness just above with a reported opinion that the first nation he was closest to, and maybe others, were wise to the truth and unconcerned. Many non western(ised) peoples do not see identity as "we" do. There are many ways to "become another" where that other is a nation, a gender or even a species, either temporarily or permanently in many cultures' realities (as a transgender individual I am very alert to that). Therefore I question the very judgemental varnish that has been purposely daubed over a previous version, I would say by a single hand. Genetic "belonging" is a very dangerous lodestone, I can trace my paternal Irishness both in documentation back many hundreds of years, and by DNA way further, I qualify for nationality, but have never lived there. Is a dubliner with south asian parents less irish. If the nation accepts them, and gives them a passport she is irish. Q.E.D. Despite my english accent, but because perhaps of the importance of my relatives in the struggle for Irish nationhood, and the fact that I left the UK forever decades ago to live in Portugal, they feel free to share with me their dislike of the english. So even "closer to home" we see how, to quote a jew speaking for a black man "it ain't necesssarily so". An encyclopedic article should not reflect what is actually a minority, academically driven, local and topical (in large part) viewpoint, epecially when an individual uses it to speak "on behalf of" and about people far from them in time and space, perhaps.
It may be said that he lied, he was plainly a fantasist, who fantasised in one culture, who might understand the power of dreaming, but then had to answer for it reluctantly in another culture entirely, in the service of a higher cause (by current standards even more than then, except among natives), and now again he answes in another time as well, this time must be judicial, not judgemental.
I have a lot of "aboriginal" friends right across the planet (including N and S America), (including family members by marriage) I'm sure many of them would like me to make this point.
His women and addiction issues, well plenty of dead celebrities on here have had them played down. Alan Watts leaps to mind, his well attested and published vices were very hagiographically swept aside last time I read his article. But he is a "man of the moment" (Despite claiming to be a buddhist, and speaking for them long before he was accepted as one by a small minority of westernised authorities, some of them with dark clouds over them. I feel something important is being violated, and race, that "rough beast", "slouches out".
Therefore I make no apologies for arguing at length, if I have typos, I blame the fact that my spellcheck is stuck in portuguese. In front of "expats" here I avoid talking english, thanks to my deep tan they take me for portuguese, although my papers are lost in Lisbon, am I a fraud, after all I do it on purpose for a "dastardly" reason? (I don't like them any more than many locals do). My neighbours consider I belong - to this mountain, their "nation". 188.82.5.148 ( talk) 07:37, 29 July 2017 (UTC) (sorry my byline got lost.
I removed the highlighted word from the opening of the lede:
Grey Owl was the name British-born Archibald Belaney (September 18, 1888 – April 13, 1938) chose for himself when he took on a fraudulent First Nations identity as an adult.
for a couple reasons.
Disagree. The fraud is notable. He was not First Nations. Will look at changes in article but what he did was not neutral and has to be described neutrally. He is now known as his given name, not his imposter name. - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 18:16, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@ Vizjim: Why do you think a poem by someone who wasn't there, and participation by a Haudenosaunee woman mean this ceremony was Anishinaabe? Anahareo was from a different culture, and something was clearly wrong if she thought this Englishman was Apache, er Ojibwe, er, whatever they eventually decided was sellable. I think she was in on the scam. Either that, or she knew nothing about Anishinaabe culture. I say where is the proof it was an Anishinaabe ceremony, besides his claims? I've searched in Armand Garnet Ruffo's online works about Belaney and can find nothing under "Anishinaabe" or "Ojibwe". The cited sources either aren't online, or go to search pages. Where is a source we can see for this, in order to evaluate it's credibility? If it's just Belaney's claim, it's not reliable. Where is Anahareo's description of it? - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 21:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
I have done some research on Grey Owl's life in the years 1928-1931 and would like to make some improvements by rewriting parts of sections “Early conservation work and change in identity” and “Work with Dominion Parks Branch” with the following objectives:
1) To document the location in which the events of 1928-1931 took place (southeastern Quebec).
2) To correct the date of the first beaver film (1930, not 1928).
3) To clarify that the interaction between Grey Owl and James Harkin of the Parks Branch concerned the first beaver film (shot in 1930 by an uncredited cameraman), not the second film (shot in 1931 by W. J. Oliver).
4) To correct the title of the first article published in Country Life ("The Passing of the Last Frontier", not "The Falls of Silence").
5) To correct the page number of cite_note-39 (124, not 101).
6) To document additional events in the years 1928-1931 (e.g. his first public lecture in Metis, his first public appearance as Grey Owl in Montreal).
I have sources for all these changes. What is the right way to proceed? Just make the changes or wait for some consensus here? Dsiedler ( talk) 08:47, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Not having any reaction to my proposal, I went ahead and published the changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dsiedler ( talk • contribs) 16:57, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm confused by this part of the first sentence of this article. My understanding, reinforced by the article First Nations in Canada, is that first nation persons are " Indigenous peoples in Canada". But Belany didn't claim to be of Canadian descent: he claimed to be the child of a Scottish father and Apache mother. My knowledge on this topic isn't extensive, but I believe the Apache were a tribe in the southwestern U.S. He also claimed he was born in Mexico, the second country south of Canada. I don't claim to be an expert, but I feel that a person born in Mexico of an Apache woman and Scottish man would have a hard time calling himself first nations.
Wouldn't it be more accurate, as well as more neutral, simply to say that he pretended to be half Indian? And he only did that in part of his life.
I followed the link from "disguised himself" to Pretendian and learned "The term is a pejorative colloquialism". Aren't we meant to avoid polemic here? I think the word "pretend" is a pretty good term for what Belany did (without the link), but an even more neutral way of expressing it would be "...who represented himself as half Indian during the latter part of his life..."
I know there is an entire issue about the use of the word "Indian" - for good reason - but in Belany's time, neither the term "first nation" nor "native American" existed. The term "Indian" was used - much as we regret this today. It is therefore anachronistic to say he disguised himself as native American: He couldn't have thought of himself using a concept that didn't exist at that time. Dsiedler ( talk) 20:49, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
Concerning the wording "disguised himself", I looked into the revision history and found it was a one-line change made on 2020.06.16 by user 2600:1700:8540:8CC0:78CD:41C0:1476:7A81 with no comment ( link to page). The user has a total of 4 small contributions. Up to this change, the word was "pretended". I question the use of the word "disguise". The primary meaning of the word is "to give a new appearance to a person or thing, especially in order to hide its true form" ( Cambridge dictionary entry). It suggests wearning a wig or a false beard. Of course there are less literal uses of the word, but what was wrong with "pretend"? This is exactly what he did in the primary sense of the word: He pretended to be the son of a Scottish man and an Apache woman. He pretended to have been born in Mexico. Maybe it's time to go back to the right word here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dsiedler ( talk • contribs) 09:41, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
The first statement of section "Early conservation work and change in identity" is made without reference. I have checked Smith's biography (From the Land of Shadows: the Making of Grey Owl), Billinghurst's biography (The Many Faces of Archie Belaney, Grey Owl) and Anahareo's autobiography (Devil in Deerskins,) and cannot find any justification for the statement that Belaney was using the name "Grey Owl" as early as 1925. According to these sources, he only started using the name in 1930, in particular in the articles for Canadian Forest and Outdoors and in correspondance with Country Life. Dsiedler ( talk) 17:13, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
@ User:Dsiedler The category is not contradictory. "Grey Owl" falsely self-identified as being Apache, that is, of Native American descent. I'm fully aware that Canadians can't be Native Americans. The category isn't claiming that "Grey Owl" was. Bohemian Baltimore ( talk) 07:40, 16 January 2024 (UTC)