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This essay came through another list I’m on. I was impressed with the quality of the thinking. It’s by James Starkey, a Lakota artist, poet and author.
Hau Mitakiapi:
It is more and more obvious we as Indigenous People in
general and as the Tetuwan Oyate in particular are at
the brink of a renewed awareness. Surviving
generations of colonization, indoctrination,
second-class status and outright genocide, our People
are now taking inventory. We are searching beyond the
simple symptoms of oppression to the root causes of
our cyclic ills. As we do this, we are faced with a
few dynamics, of which we must continually be aware.
The first and foremost are of course, the dynamics of
the re-awakening itself.
The re-awakening was a period of renewed interest in
identity. Constantly oppressed, depressed and
repressed Peoples found an outlet. They found a voice,
a whipping post for their pain. A pan-indian
counterculture was born. Far from a panacea, the new
pan-indian outlook should have been a simple wake up
call. Specific Lifeways of the specific Indigenous
Nations should have been nurtured. The “american
indian” and “native american” monikers used in the
beginning should have grown obsolete in the face of a
nurtured awareness of each specific Ancient Lifeways.
The pyramidal hierarchies of organizing should have
given way to the Indigenous ways of the Circle.
Accepting a status as “tribal” or as “activists”
should have grown into awareness of a People and as a
Relative.
Should have. Instead, we are 30 years thence and now
facing the repercussions of the continuum of
pan-indianism. We are now dealing with the entry-level
awareness of an arrested development. We now have to
throw off the deep-rooted shackles of what was once a
movement and now is an encumbrance. My Relatives, take
a look around you. Why do those espousing the
“struggle” consistently use the weights and measures
of the oppressor as valid? When did this become so
inverted? For example, “traditions” are seen as a way
to keep blood-quantum high. This is problematic for a
couple of reasons. First, because in our way we dont
have “traditions”, we dont have a “lifestyle”, we have
Lakol Wicohan, the “friendly Lifeways”. The focus
should be upon promoting and growing the
infrastructure necessary within oneself first, then
within ones Tiospaye to allow these Lifeways to
flourish. It isnt about using these Lifeways as a
vehicle for blood purity. It isnt about how things
appear on the surface; it is about the essence of the
thing. Look at our very Language. Look how often our
own words go far deeper than the appearance, and to
the very essence of being. It isnt about
blood-quantum. The wasicu can see it how they will all
day and it still wouldnt matter, not if our Lifeways
and Tiospaye based infrastructure were intact. They
could outlaw the Lakota Oyate today and it wouldnt
matter at all, not if we held our Lifeways as
paramount. Why focus so adamantly upon what the wasicu
does, what the wasicu thinks and what the wasicu
measures by and not upon your own circle? Why rant on
about mascots in schools and not endeavor to augment
the very curriculum of those schools with a truer
understanding of Lakol Wicohan? Why rally against the
IRA governments and not then rebuild our Ancient
Infrastructure? Why oppose the hierarchical paradigm
with another hierarchical paradigm STILL not of the
Tetuwan Oyate?
The second dynamic we must remember is the human
desire for power. When a person has no means to know
his/her own innate power, that being searches instead
for empowerment. Usually this empowerment is
manifested in some form of control. Usually the
control is manifested against ones own People. This is
an unfortunate symptom of oppression that winds its
way throughout our current dilemma. Couple this false
sense of power, this control and empowerment with our
addiction to drama (another cyclic symptom of
oppression) and we are then fervently chasing our own
tail as a People. We then easily put on the trappings
of the wasicu in an attempt at empowerment. We put on
the clothes of oppression in an attempt to dress
ourselves. In a poignant attempt at rebellion, we may
turn the clothes inside out, pitifully trying to
masquerade as “tradish”.
My Relatives, I urge you to continue your
re-awakening. Continue throwing aside the shackles of
pyramidal, hierarchical control, and to continue
nurturing the simple Relations within your respective
Tiospayes, thereby causing the Circle, the Hocoka to
strengthen. Your most simple act of Relatedness
outstrips the most audacious act of “activism” any
day. Our struggle is not a struggle for rights. We
seek neither civil-rights nor property rights. Our
struggle is as deep as our Lifeways. Our Lifeways are
not about rights. Our Lifeways, and indeed our
struggle, is about Responsibility.
Mitakuye Oyasin.
James H. Starkey
I googled “James Starkey Lakota” and came up with a number of hits. These were the first few.
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/04/3e8d1b84c88b3
http://www.frybread.stuorg.iastate.edu/symposium/2003/Symposium03.pdf
http://www.enovel.com/author.html?a=2935
http://www.wastelandpress.net/Tapestry.html
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/oyate/poems.html
I just saw this link about Germans on http://www.Indianz.com and thought someone might be interested in it.
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforksherald/news/opinion/8364218.htm
I think I’ve figured out why so many Germans have immersed themsevles in this “hobby.” The article says that traditional tribal Indians (before Anglicization) were similar to their germanic Ancestors, and this is a way for them to get back to their roots.
Think about it. How do we picture Germans? Do any of us have the remotest idea what modern Germans are like? Or, when we hear that word, do we picture goosestepping Nazis? Just tune onto the Hitler Channel, I mean the History Channel, we’re still fascinated with that nasty little sociopath. He still defines Germany for us. (An interesting aside, the Hitler Channel ran a piece claiming that Hitler was the illegitimate grandson of the Jewish man his grandmother had worked for as a cleaning lady.)
The German people suffered a horrifying disgrace in the mid 20th century with this that they haven’t remotely lived down. But what image can you conjure that’s as far removed from an SS officer as that of a pre-Contact Plains Indian? You gotta admit, it’s a lot healthier of an weekend pursuit than throwing a Pogrom.
It is true, the Romans described the German tribes as savages. They didn’t bother to conquer either the Germans or the English for a long time, because the two were considered too backwards to be worth conquering. They had nothing of value to steal, and were far too stupid to be worth anything as slaves. The Romans finally got around to it as a sort of act of charity, bringing these pathetic heathens some civilization.
While negotiating with a German chieftain in the early part of the first century A.D., a Roman General asked him what his name was… “Herr-man”, he replied. Pronounced “Hair-Mahn” and literally translated as “Warrior”.
The German (“Teutsch”, pronounced “Toytch” and from which “Deutsch”, pron. “Doytch”, comes) tribes of that day were loosely organized family groups for which the term “clan” would imply a higher degree of organization than historically recorded, but then, that history was written by the Romans and their cultural successors the early Roman Church. These groups seem only to have come together for common defense as when the Romans attempted to conquer them. This first attempt in 9 A.D. ended very badly for the Romans in the Teutoburger Wald (forest) – General Varius’s 3 Legions being nearly totally annialated. A Roman Legion of the period would have numbered 4,000 heavily armored infantry and 1,000 light cavalry. Only a handful of legionaires ever stumbled back across the Rhine over the next few weeks. The Teutoburger Wald is S.E. of the present city of Osnabruck, and just south of Bielefeld today, there is a massive, 90 foot tall statue of an idealized German Warrior to celebrate the victory of that early time.
After this humiliating defeat, the Emperor Augustus declared the Germans savages unworthy of the civilizing effect of Roman culture and described the land as an unrelieved cold, dark, continually overcast, wet forest full of swamps, with no worthwhile natural resources. This period about 2000 yrs ago was during a nearly world-wide temperature down-turn so maybe it was as described. Augustus then ordered the construction of the “Limis” (Limit), a deep ditch with the higher side on the Roman side of it, spiked with pointed logs on that high side. This stretched from the Rhine River in the presentday Netherlands to the Danube River & over the next couple centuries was expanded to encompass southern Germany, Austria, and Hungrary with fortifications on the southern side of the Danube from there to the Black Sea.
Some random thoughts…….
I lived & worked in Germany for nearly eight years and while that doesn’t make me a cultural expert, I’d like to share some observations. Not that all Germans think and act alike, the kind of diversity of culures and ideas found in America is not very wide-spread there. As any viewer of the “Hitler Channel” can readily observe, not all Germans are tall, Blonde & Blue. In fact, the combination of blonde hair and blue eyes reaches its highest concentration in the world (even there it’s slightly less than 25 %) in an area centered on the Baltic Sea at about Danzig, Poland and extends about 100 miles east ( into East Prussia) and a 100 miles west (into Pomerania) of there and only about 100 miles south of the coast. The concentration of those polymorphs falls off steeply the farther one gets from the core area. It always seemed to me to be rarer to see a blondhaired person in southern Germany than in the midwestern U.S., even allowing for hair dye.
In Germany proper, today, there are 6 distinct dialects remaining which are mutually unintellible to the others without exposure to them. While these “house languages” are slowly falling out of favor, they are still widely spoken at home and in the village bars. On the border of the states of Hesse and Bavaria today, the words for such simple things as knife, fork, spoon and plate change suddenly as you cross state borders – the words don’t even have any apparent similarity. “High German”, taught in schools and therefore understood by everyone and spoken outside the home, was invented on paper in the early 1700s by French intellectuals hired by Frederick the Great (who only spoke French), to bring some language unity to his growing empire to render it more governable.
While it seems reasonable for Americans to think it is impossible to categorize any country’s people (maybe because America is so culturally and racially diverse?), Germany is not a diverse culture and they don’t have any problem categorizing themselves! To be “different” even now, is to invite near ostracism, although the margins of what “different” means, are expanding. As an “Ami” (American), I was expected to be different (if not always acceptable!) and “only temporarily living there”, so I escaped that snubing/shunning routine.
The most common criticisms by them of themselves always revolved around their “closed-mindedness”, “one-track mentalities”, “resistance to change” and “elitist proclivities” – such as mandatory general education only extending thru the 9th grade with average and below average achievers side-lined to trade schools (not ALLOWED to attend college – at least not in Germany) and above average achievers taking college preparatory courses in the 10th thru 13th grades and sent to University at state expense, which has created a distinct “caste” system. Because their standardized education effectively ends at the 9th grade, everyone knows and categorizes, which group they belong to as well as from which part of the country they come as soon as someone speaks. It’s a far more distinct recognition than an American being able to determine whether someone was from the American “north” or “south” or “new england”, which still wouldn’t tell anyone which economic strata one was in, in the U.S. Status is taken far more seriously in Germany and Europe generally, than it is here.
A “Turk-er” is a widely used term to describe anyone who does not appear to be Germanic, it’s a non-specific term. It’s a slur against any non-german, they opine, that came into vogue in the late 1500s when they were fighting the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in S. E. Europe. Of course, when it was applied occasionally to me, “we’re really not insulting you, it’s just a fact” was usually added 🙂
On the other hand, as any German knows, “Real Indians” still wear buckskin and mocassins, live only on reservations and are expert with a bow and arrow according to many Germans (and Americans for that matter) but Germans generally are all too often attracted to cultures not sharing their modern “closed/exclusionary” society. This may provide some insight into the pysche of “German Hobby Indians”, generally speaking, and may account for their dismissal of the Indians in the article as not being “real” Indians. (“Closed” and “exclusionary” are adjectives they readily use to describe their own attitudes today.)
If anyone moved prior to 1989, a German law, which was enforced, required you to report your move to the police. You had to physically go to the police station to fill out the forms. If you weren’t moving out of your police jurisdiction, you only had to go to one 🙂 police station to “report”. This applied to citizen and non-citizen alike. I found that pretty chilling. Knowing that the police did not need any probable cause to stop you, ask for your “papers” or even question you, was also a little intimidating. This, in a modern, western society.
Cultures we think of abstractly as “familiar” or even “similar”, often don’t look the same at street level. In all fairness, they are equally incredulous of ours, rejoicing in the openness of America they experienced when they visited and criticising the “unbridled individualism” they saw.
Hello All the same issues arise in Hungary where they to have a Native American following.
They call cars growllers and when they get ready for a gathering they refer to it getting thier wigs on!
I have no idea why they’d zoom in on it though, since much of thier pre-christain responces to culture is still very much there, infact most of Europe understands thier pre-history better than we understand our own.
It is rather odd to see 50 warriors all dressed exactly like the Mandan dog soldiers, or a Lakota warrior from 1870.
I would like to see them try and revive there own culture rather than adopting something removed from thier own.
Recently a very important artefact from there prehistory was rescued from the black market, the Nebra Sky disc, is very worth while having a look at you can find it on the web and in some ways it compares to some of the old shell gorgets that our ancestors used to make.
Many times the Germans have hosted tribal elders from Canada and they get along just great, I think that we atleast have to give them credit for trying to bridge a gap, not through patrinizing people but really trying to understand what has happened, even if they do dress up and look rather odd at times , they still deserve to learn the truth about how folks have been treated over here.
Iam not supportive of exporting aboriginal cultures, but some one is and those people have often been tribal elders.
Tom
Interesting to hear that about Hungary. I believe my maiden name is Hungarian. My great grandfather was a Croatian mayor at a time when Croatia was colonized by Hungarians, plus people who would know tell me it’s a common name in Hungary. Keres, it means “quest.” I found an Hungarian site, and there were a number of buttons called “keres.” I realized it was the search button.
So I guess that means if I went back to that homeland I’d find a lot of people I had something in common with. There’s another angle, the Hungarian language is unlike any other European language, except the Sami language, who are the indigenous people of Finland. Looking at the Sami you see an obvious suggestion that there were people in North America who migrated over the polar cap into Finland. Either that, or there’s a common, perhaps Siberian origin there.
Another oddity, there are Keres Indians. They raise sheep. I could in all honesty go visit there, say I was a Keres, and I have a great recipe for lamb from my Keres ancestors.
Hey That lamb sounds
great.! I think that many issues of live keep us all closer than those things that make us different.
The cajuns have a saying “the more things change the more they stay the same.”
I was out at an old buffalo jump complex which runs for several miles , one the southern end is a hilltop stone with bird tracks pained nside a corridor that was made when the stone a glacier erratic split in 3 the 2 lower halves form the wall and the top the roof, inside is red painted bird tracks, probably have been there a 1000 years or more.
I was across the valley watching the wildlife since I was about 10 miles from town, on the west wall of the valley was dotted with a herd of cattle, very minute moving objects. On top of the hill near the cap stone was , what looked like several cows after watching “them” for some time they all moved in unison!!!!?
well to my surprize it was a single buffalo bull! he’s there all by his lonesome, and watches over the hill top stone, he was there again today, laying nearby.
I was about 1mile away picking
arrow heads from the old jump site points that are an easy 1500 years old, why the old felaa hangs around a sacred stone for days with out water is rather puzzeling.
I guess we all dream of better days when things were so much more simpler.. what ever route we choose and whatever hills we climb , the old ones are always watching.
Wishing eeveryone the best this easter Holidays!
Toim
Forgive me for intrudeing but do any of you folks know this Lumbee man,, http://www.interfaithforums.com/showthread.php?t=2403 if you do please share the info with me and my husband.
Gwen
Originally posted by Linda
No, never heard of him. How did you happen to pose this question on such an old thread?
Hi Linda,,I tryed to post a new thread concerning Topatoya
but it was deleted so I posted it on this one please forgive
me for the intrution of this thread.Our Lumbee club have 1300
members and we want Topatoya to come and speak at a few
of our meeting, gatherings.I had read this thread and read a few
messages about the Lumbee Tribe so I posted these messages.
If anyone here have any information about Topatoya please
share it with us,info is vital,thanks…
Gwen
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