A friend recently reposted (Facebook) a cartoon that depicted a reversal of male/female gender roles juxtaposing Valentines Day (Feb. 14, man chasing woman) with Nov. 14 (pregnant woman now chasing man). Ha, ha. Funny. No reflection on my correspondent, but funny in a sexist way.
For some reason that cartoon reminded me of Sadie Hawkins Day, which is, or was, roughly Nov. 14. I say ‘roughly’ because Sadie Hawkins Day was a fictional day in fictional Dogpatch, the setting of the L’il Abner comic strip. It was a day that gave permission to gendered role reversal. It was the one day each year on which girls were ‘permitted’ – encouraged, even – to ask boys out on a date or for a dance. I still remember that first dance – but that’s another story and perhaps best untold.
Anyway, when I was in school in the 1960s Sadie Hawkins Day was all the rage and promoted in school as a fun thing, complete with a Sadie Hawkins dance. In our innocence, like so many other things, we students accepted the idea as though it was a real thing despite it being a fiction. It’s curious how such things go sometimes.
Anyway, Sadie Hawkins Day isn’t my real mission with this
post, but something else rooted in Al Capp’s L’il Abner, and in its
portrayal of the world through the eyes of the uneducated but worldly milieu of
Dogpatch.
That particular ‘something else’ was a frequent device in the comic strip: “Kickapoo Joy Juice”, representing what we know as moonshine, or just plain ‘shine in our local vernacular. ‘Hooch.’ In our father’s house it was more politely referred to as ‘home brew’.
We accepted Kickapoo Joy Juice as a comic referent, and no doubt used it in conversation. I can distinctly remember my parents use of the term, when teasingly referring to illicit alcohol, including their own ‘home brew’.
Four or five years ago (2018 or thereabouts) I was working for James Sa’ke’j Youngblood Henderson on his seminal manuscript: Elikewake Compact: The Mi’kmaw, Wolastoqey, and Passamaquoddy Nations’ Confederation with Great Britain, 1725-1779, vols. 1 & 2. The 2-volume book is a masterpiece of research (Henderson’s, not mine). It accounts for and examines the history behind all pertinent treaties, especially between the crowned heads of Europe and (what is now called) Eastern Canada.
While I was working on that publication, I was so surprised – flabbergasted, really – to note the existence of the Kickapoo nation (southwestern U.S. and Mexico). How can it be that we went along with and found humour in an association between moonshine (i.e., Kickapoo joy juice) and a population of Indigenous people. It exemplifies our enculturated stereotyping of and negativity toward, Indigenous people and alcohol. At the time many entrepreneurs even capitalized on the notion of such a potion, manufacturing and labelling soft drinks accordingly.
Naïve and unquestioning, we unthinkingly perpetuated these fabrications in the name of humour.
A couple of years ago I posted about a related shame, the existence of residential schools in our lifetime.
Looking back on those times, I wonder at society’s proclivity for personal harm toward others and wonder what’s to come. In a previous life, my family hosted Rotary International exchange students. I was fascinated to learn from them and from observation that many of those students did not know their home country’s national anthems, which of course was something drilled into us and our children in turn.
But the German and Japanese students, in particular, told us that their respective national anthems were not part of their daily schooling. They explained, I recall, and I imagined this absence was related to their respective nation’s roles in world affairs. Those youngsters had inherited a great national shame.
Now, I ask myself, what’s to be Canada’s great national shame in the eyes of future generations and of historians? The treatment of Indigenous peoples perhaps? Probably, and deservedly so.
January 1 to December 31 should be National Day(s) for Truthand Reconciliation, not just September 30.
=30=
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