{"id":1359,"date":"2012-04-08T13:11:14","date_gmt":"2012-04-08T17:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=1359"},"modified":"2016-05-29T08:28:30","modified_gmt":"2016-05-29T12:28:30","slug":"its-not-an-apache-blessing-its-just-a-hollywood-script","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/its-not-an-apache-blessing-its-just-a-hollywood-script\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s not an Apache blessing, it’s just a Hollywood script"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Not“May the sun bring you new energy by day,” begins this saccharine saying that has enjoyed a continued life outside Facebook through the fridge magnet and huggable-puppies-and-kittens-on-posters and wedding planner industries.<\/p>\n

It gets passed off as an “Apache blessing” or “Apache wedding blessing<\/a>” on Facebook, usually with some hunk-ish Indian brave pictures beside the words or some faux-Indian animal fetish images.<\/p>\n

The rest of the alleged “blessing” reads:<\/p>\n

…May the moon softy restore you by night;
\nMay the rain wash away your worries;
\nMay the breeze blow new strength into your being;
\nMay you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I get all glassy-eyed-nauseous with such gooey sentiments, and feel like I should throw myself onto some aromatherapy, or reiki healing, or some other New Age folderol. Were Amerindians really that sappy?<\/p>\n

The quote is, however, pure Hollywood. According to a column in the New Yorker, May, 2007<\/a>, it’s lifted straight from a 1950 film, Broken Arrow<\/a>:<\/p>\n

…what I was able to find was that the blessing seems to have entered the popular consciousness through \u201cBroken Arrow,\u201d which was\u2014except for the wedding scene, the critics say\u2014a very accurate depiction of the Apache people. A version of the blessing was also in the book that the movie was based on. The book was historical fiction, but the prayer was an invented part of the fiction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s revealed in\u00a0an interview with Rebecca Mead, who coined the term “traditionalesque” to refer to those instant “traditions” made from modern ideas and quotes, that are like Internet memes in that they spread rapidly through the culture, mostly through commercial efforts. As she notes, this faux “blessing” is in the book of almost every modern wedding planner, so it gets passed around over and over and over.<\/p>\n

These fake quotes seem like something that should have been said by someone wiser, someone of another generation, even another culture, so we just assume they were, and repeat them without ever once stopping to verify the source. Or question our own wisdom. After all, if we like them, if they inspire us, and they turn out to be hoaxes (like so many are!), then it reflects on our own gullibility.<\/p>\n

…there are a number of reasons that people might buy into invented traditions…\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not that people are stupid or lazy – sure, some are, but by and large not most people. We are a society accustomed to instant gratification and looking up a source takes work – critical thinking, reasoning, research and investigation – we find that effort odious and onerous. We want immediate answers, immediate solutions, immediate wisdom. Looking something up interrupts that. We like the convenience of getting told thinsg without the inconvenience of having to actually verify them.<\/p>\n

We’re also not comfortable confronting others who believe in the reliability of these sayings, so we don’t want to prove them wrong. Easier to agree that the saying is hugely inspirational and brightened our day, rather than tell a friend his or her favourite quote comes from a greeting card, not Gandhi, or Buddha, or an Apache warrior.<\/p>\n

The Wikipedia entry<\/a> for this “blessing” notes that,<\/p>\n

It is not associated with any particular religion and indeed does not mention a deity or include a petition, only a wish. It has no known connection to the traditions of the Apache or any other Native American group.
\nIt was written for the 1947 Western novel Blood Brother (novel) by Elliott Arnold. The blessing entered popular consciousness when it made its way into the film adaptation of the novel Broken Arrow, scripted by Albert Maltz. The Economist, citing Rebecca Mead’s book on American weddings, characterized it as “‘traditionalesque’, commerce disguised as tradition”.
\nThe first line of the original poem was “Now for you there is no rain” and the last “Now, forever, forever, there is no loneliness”. Since 1950, there have since been several different versions of the poem. The film text begins “‘Now you will feel no rain” and ends “And may your days be good and long upon the earth.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the “Apache wedding blessing” under its many names and guises goes into the same trash heap as the many other Internet memes – bad or mis-attributed quotes – I’ve been debunking these past few years. And good riddance, too!<\/p>\n

Do yourselves a favour, gentle readers: verify the source before<\/em> you share on of these alleged quotes. And not on some unverified, tacky website like Brainy Quotes. Do your research, check Wikiquote and reliable sources first. That way you won’t look like one of the sheep who share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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“May the sun bring you new energy by day,” begins this saccharine saying that has enjoyed a continued life outside Facebook through the fridge magnet and huggable-puppies-and-kittens-on-posters and wedding planner industries. It gets passed off as an “Apache blessing” or “Apache wedding blessing” on Facebook, usually with some hunk-ish Indian brave pictures beside the words or some faux-Indian animal fetish images. The rest of the alleged “blessing” reads: …May the moon softy restore you by night; May the rain wash away your worries; May the breeze blow new strength into your being; May you walk gently through the world and \u2026…… click below for more \u2193<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,14,73,69],"tags":[120,121,122,123],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-atheism-spirituality","category-language-grammar","category-internet-memes","tag-apache","tag-internet-meme","tag-misquote","tag-new-age-nonsense"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":172186,"today_views":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1359"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16757,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions\/16757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}