lysis Topic Proposal by Mr. K.Harjo, Susan Shown. "Last Rites for Indian Dead." in Kennedy, X.J., et.al., eds. The Bedford Guide for College Writers. Boston: Bedford., 2002.Harjo's piece was originally published prior to the creation of Congress' N.A.G.P.R.A. legislation (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act), signed into law under the first Bush Administration in 1991. Harjo's central argument is that Native American peoples should no longer be considered the commodified property of all Americans. She decries the desecration and exploitation of Native American gravesites and holy sites. For far too long, Harjo argues, Native American people have been seen as nothing more than a people ripe for exploitation and plunder, especially since relics and bones can fetch hefty prices at museums or amongst collectors of such rare items. Harjo's intended audience is a lay one; she assumes that most people have been very uninformed and passive about her topic; as such, she makes concerted efforts to inform and persuade her audience that the desecration and exploitation of her people must stop.Ultimately, while Harjo's essay does a very good job of establishing an ethical and emotional warrant so as to support her initial claim, I contend that she fails to completely convince me as to why studying Indian relics and skulls on the part of scientists is a useless endeavor. She raises up a point about the futility of such ethnographic / scientific studies on the bones, but does not include sufficient counterevidence to support her view. I would argue that the bones and relics do serve a vital purpose--yet Harjo seems to give up halfway through her argument about the issue of the relics' utility. |

Rhetorical Analysis First Draft by Mr. KHarjo, Susan Shown. "Last Rites for Indian Dead." in Kennedy, X.J., et.al., eds. The Bedford Guide for College Writers.