Daniel and friends at the Carlisle Indian School

This essay explores the first chapter of the Book of Daniel as an example of resistance against an empire. Using the experience of Native Americans, especially children at the Carlisle Residential Indian School, the tropes of naming, diet, and the body in Daniel 1 are read as a call to resistance and gamesmanship in the narrative environment of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the authorial context of the Selucid Hellenistic Empire. With reference to similar situations in South Africa and elsewhere, this reading of the story in Daniel 1 sees a promise of God’s support in religious fidelity accompanied by cultural code switching.


Introduction
As theologians and philosophers address the legacies of imperialism and colonialism, the biblical text -much as it has been wielded in support of empire 1 -can provide a basis for constructive thought. The Old Testament book of Daniel stands out as a unique instance of resistance against empire, written in response to the Selucid Empire that dominated Western Asia in the 3 rd to 1 st centuries BCE. 2 Daniel's first chapter, C. L. Seow suggests, serves as an introduction to the entire book, "set[ting] the stage for the narrator to begin addressing the question of how God may continue to function in and through history, even though history seems to have failed as the obvious arena of divine activity." 3 In this essay, I will argue that the chapter also introduces the book by addressing how the Israelites are to navigate empire, to employ code switching and gamesmanship to survive and remain faithful to God. I will illustrate this via a Fourth-World lens, through the experiences of modern indigenous peoples, primarily in North America with reference to other parts of the word. 4

Narrative and historical context
The genre of the book of Daniel differs markedly from other books of the Minor Prophets, and instead alternates apocalyptic material with narratives: six stories, one each in chapters 1-2; 3; 4-5; 6; 13; and 14. The book is late, as is evident simply from linguistic dating: much of Daniel is in Aramaic, and many Persian and even Greek loan words appear. Dates usually given by scholars range from 300 to 150 BCE, which is not to say there might not be older material included, particularly in chapters 4-5. The narrative context, the setting of the story world, is the aftermath of the Fall of Jerusalem -the first fall of the city to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, which occurred historically in 597 and led to the deportation of some 10,000 captives to Babylon, primarily the upper echelons of society. At least two centuries separates the narrative from the narration, therefore, and it will be important to read the text in both worlds, although the story world will be the first framework explored. 5 We will return to the world of the text's author shortly, but already should point out one shared feature of both worlds, the 6th century Babylon and the 3rd century Seleucid Empire: the Jewish people immersed in a more intellectually prosperous and "civilized" society with overt and covert challenges to perseverance in the Israelite faith.
The story in Daniel chapter 1 presents the narrative context in which it and all of the stories are envisioned.
In This is the fall of Jerusalem, and among those exiled are Daniel and his friends, Hannaiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Verse two is explicit that it was the Lord (Adonai, not the Tetragrammaton) who handed all of Judah over to Nebuchadnezzar. In the following verses, the royal servant Ashpenaz refers to Nebuchadnezzar as his "Lord." This episode, then, is in part about which "lord" one ought to serve. 6

Civilizing the savages
The king told Ashpenaz, his chief chamberlain, to bring in some of the Israelites, some of the royal line and of the nobility. They should be young men without any defect, handsome, proficient in wisdom, well-informed, and insightful, such as could take their place in the king's palace; he was to teach them the language and literature of the Chaldeans. (Dan 1:3-4; NABRE) Note that the criteria for selection prioritize the physical body -handsome and without defect -over the intellectual potential, a point to which will we return. The Jews were not only militarily overwhelmed by Babylon; they were surely culturally overwhelmed. Much like their emersion in Hellenistic culture three centuries later, they had gone from a cultural backwater of the hills of Judah to a society that had known literature for millennia, laws like Hammurabi's Code, science that could predict eclipses and comets, and medical, geographic, and mathematical knowledge beyond anything Judah ever imagined. The co-occurrence in Dan 1:2 of "Babylon" and the unusual "Shinar," i.e. Sumer, recalls the indictment of "civilization" in Genesis' Tower of Babel story. 7 The apparent cultural hegemony of Babylon and Persia in Daniel is analogous to that of Hellenism in the 4 th -3 rd centuries. 8 The Seleucids augmented empire with the "power of the uniform": a streamlined government, "uniform predictable temporality extended over a defined, linearized space. The combination of date-wearing officials, date-stamped documents, and dated built infrastructure." 9 A similar regime also confronted Native Americans. As Scott Momaday writes, "The Indian can recognize and understand malice, and he can bear pain with legendary self-possession. What he can neither recognize nor understand is that particular atmosphere of moral and ideological ambiguity in which the white main prevails, a traditional milieu which is characterized in part by a sense of finality in thought, an immediacy in judgment, and a general preoccupation with efficiency." 10 The Daniel narrative presents the Babylonian king setting about to remove these young men's native culture and make wise men out of them. 11 The assumption behind such an action is actually that the Jews were at least in some sense equal to the Babylonians, and that by immersing the young men into the mainstream Babylonian culture, they might advance themselves and thrive in the dominant society. In many ways, this is the same philosophy and policies used in the Indian Boarding Schools in America, particularly the Carlisle Indian School outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 12 Founded in 1879 by Richard Henry Pratt, it depended on the belief of nurture over nature, that American Indians were not inherently savage in comparison to European Americans. 13 The problem was not race or some defect in the blood, but environment. The Indian, said Pratt, "is born a blank, like the rest of us." 14 Carlisle immersed some 10,000 students from 104 Western tribes into Anglo-American culture, as far from their homes as possible, while removing Native culture to make "wise men." 15 Pratt's detractors averred that a savage would always be a savage, and in some ways Pratt's endeavour marked a turn from the preference for extermination. 16 On the other hand, Pratt's views were not novel. George Washington had already believed in the potential for Indians to become civilized, based on a six-point plan he devised with Henry Knox. 17  Nevertheless, Pratt's (and Nebuchadnezzar's) "equality" was hardly equality. What Thomas Jefferson had called their "ferocious barbarities" had to be eradicated. 21 "Kill the Indian in him, and save the man," was Pratt's exact phrase. 22 As Njabulo Ndebele points out with similar "good native" narratives in Africa: The liberal ideology displayed … ascribes to itself a false universal validity … to domesticate its potential allies by defining them in its own image … This liberal ideology is caught in the trap of language: it has not really freed itself from a language the vocabulary of which reflexively describes the prejudices of the time … If we define success, for example, according to the standards and formulations of the oppressor … we have, in a very fundamental manner, become the oppressor. Luther Standing Bear. 28 The names were then sewn on the backs of their shirts. 29 Daniel 1:7 states that the chamberlain "determined" [yasem] their names. It is not the normal idiom for naming people, but the word reappears in the next verse, where "Daniel determined not to defile himself with the king's food." 30 So again, for the reader the point is to contrast two fundamental options: in the narrative, the Babylonian, and the Israelite; for the reader, the Gentile and the Jewish. The craze for Hellenism and the adoption of foreign customs reached such a pitch, through the outrageous wickedness of Jason, the renegade and would-be high priest, that the priests no longer cared about the service of the altar. Disdaining the temple and neglecting the sacrifices, they hastened, at the signal for the games, to take part in the unlawful exercises at the arena. What their ancestors had regarded as honours they despised; what the Greeks esteemed as glory they prized highly.

Colonizing the diet
Nor is this biblical hyperbole. Diodorus Siculus records the words of the 1 st century BCE philosopher Posidonius about the "impious" Jews' "hatred toward mankind" and "altogether contrary customs … misanthropic and transgressive laws." 42

Negotiated resistance
In the story world, however, Daniel is no passive subject in this denaturalization. Navigating shrewdly, he proposes a test. Verse 12: "Test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then see how we look in comparison with the young men who eat from the royal table." We have been told already in verse nine that God has "given" [vayitēn] Daniel favour and sympathy with the chief chamberlain, just as God had given Jerusalem into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar in verse 2, and in verse 17 will give wisdom to Daniel. 43 Daniel poses this not as a request but an experiment. He knows his tenuous position and depends on the favour of someone he already thinks is a potential ally. 44 Note, Daniel defines "success" according to the oppressor's standards, "how we look in comparison," but resists the cultural erasing dietary regimen. 45 He has taken, if not the upper hand, at least an autonomous hand in the liberal colonial game, further greasing the rails by providing the guards, in verse 16, with the food and wine that was supposed to go to him and his friends. The guards are manipulated into permitting Daniel to select the diet by a ten-day bribe of meat and wine, while assuming the Jews will lose the bet.
Of course, the result of this is verse 15: "After ten days, they looked healthier and better fed than any of the young men who ate from the royal table." They go on to be the king's chief advisers. 46 What works in a short story bears little resemblance to reality: unlike Daniel and his friends, Carlisle graduates were only equipped for menial jobs and entered white society at bottom. 47 Already in 1928, a 847-page report by Henry Roe Cloud (Winnebago) found the Indian boarding schools "grossly inadequate": students were trained in "vanishing trades, and others are taught in such a way that the Indian students cannot apply what they have learned in their own home, and they are not far enough advanced to follow their trade in a white community in competition with white workers." 48 In fact, graduates of Carlisle and the two dozen schools founded on its model failed to master English, but at the same time lost much of their native languages (the speaking of which was forbidden), leaving them unskilled outcasts if they instead returned home. 49 The resultant disappointment voiced by liberal white people resembles similar sentiment expressed by oppressors over the oppressed and formerly oppressed throughout history. 50 On the other hand, Carlisle's changed emphasis in the early 20 th century from cultural erasure to football powerhouse, culminating in the person of Jim Thorpe, Sac and Fox NFL star running back and Olympic gold medallist, replicates the acquiescent commoditization of the colonized body we saw in Daniel 1, where both Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel prioritize physical appearance.
The story in Daniel 1 has a message for postexilic Diaspora Jews and for Judean Jews living under foreign domination. 51 In fact, its message is the same as the message of the rest of the book's stories, and the same message as Daniel's apocalyptic sections: 52 No matter what, do not give up fidelity to the Jewish religion. One can be an observant Jew in a foreign land. God remains in control, and God will deliver his people. 53 Nevertheless, although the evil kingdoms of the world will eventually fall to God, rebellion is not encouraged. 54 Daniel's friends, in fact, retain their Babylonian names throughout the book, and they do become good servants of the emperor, while stubbornly keeping their Israelite piety in the face of fiery furnaces and lions' dens whenever the faith itself is challenged. 55 For the reader, 49