Blood Quantum, Enrollment, Imaginary Indians and Plastic Shamans

Since 1986, Archived in the Smithsonian

Blood Quantum and Plastic Indians | Bakân-waiagad

Preface:

As of the 2000 Census in America, 8 of 10 American Indian people are of mixed “blood” or multi-racial. By 2010, this number is expected to be 9 of 10.

There are American Indians who are also part African American and a lesser number of American Indians who are Asian and other races. The majority of mixed blood American Indians appear to be American Indian and Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

There appear to be two conflicts regarding American Indians and those claiming to be American Indian: Blood Quantum is one and “enrollment” is the other.

Blood and Bones and Choices |

When I understood as a young man that I had American Indian ancestors, I did something about it. What you do about your life makes all the difference. If someone tells me they are “part indian” I always ask them what they are doing about it? I am of mixed ancestors, like so many people in this world now. I have family that is Celtic and possibly some family that is Mediterranean as well as some Ojibway, Creek and Catabwa American Indian. As I came to understood this fact I went on a long journey to find out who my people were and what place there was for me, This search ended up by becoming my life. 

I was born and spent much of my childhood in the deep American South. Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia and believe me this culture leaves a deep impression. I am also a modern person with a diverse education who considers himself an international citizen. The whole question of blood quantum (how much American Indian blood you gotta have to be a real American Indian) is a question that torments American society in general and of course American Indian society in particular. I have lived with the implications of this question for my entire life.

Tribal Enrollment: Fantasies |

Many tribes (and the US Government) insist on believing the only American Indians left in the world are those who can prove in the content of documents created and controlled by the American Government, that they are descendant from the various “tribal enrollment books” created mostly in the late 1800s. These people call themselves “enrolled members”, like in the boy scouts, but not so much like in real life. The most recent US census indicates that fully half of all people listing themselves as American Indians do not live within 500 miles of their reservation.

Thousands, if not tens of thousands of tribal families never registered, never considered registering, never knew about registration and enrollment. Are they still American Indians?

Irony. It is, to say the least, ironic that many tribes now look with pride on these enrollment lists. They were originally created to control and confine a free people. Enrollment documents were created as one thing only: control. Those American Indians who could see, so to speak, the writing on the wall, avoided it as carefully as they could. That so many tribes us these lists as a "bible" about who is and who is not is not only tragic, it is a failure of consciousness.

It is well known that these documents are riddled with problems. Do you think it was then, or now, possible at all to accurately count every American Indian family? Where do they all live, then and now? In my travels I have discovered American Indian families in the strangest places, in the most unlikely places. Even though I have studied carefully the distribution and history of the dispersal of tribal communities, I have been surprised countless times at the exceptions, and at the hidden nature of American Indian people. There are plenty of American Indians who beat their chests about what they perceive as their blood. I once met a guy whose first words to me were a screaming shout, “I am a full blood”. He seemed a little stupid and way to angry to me.  I have met many others, full bloods, whatever that is, and mixed bloods, whatever that is, who were quiet and shy and living in places the government and the breast beating “enrolled” tribes would never imagine.

These (now historical) documents were instigated and controlled by officials of the United States government. They were used, first and most efficiently, to subjugate, rob, and confuse the truth from American Indian people. These were never created to be documents of honor. They were created as documents of control. Their use now in defining what can only be described as the “Blood Quantum Movement”, is a tragedy of both consciousness and intent in my view. It is strange to see tribal governments buy into the mythology of these government lists and not come up with their own method for determining membership.

Every tribe has lost members to the folly and tragedies of history. Every tribe could benefit from working on methods and means to claim their missing and lost relations. The government lists are no doubt useful, but they are clearly incomplete. A lot of good American Indian families are getting lost in the cracks.

Of course there must be some place to begin in managing population groups. Your starting calculations have to begin somewhere and this grab bag logic is the basis for much of the support for these official tribal enrollment documents. Just because it is there does not make it the best solution for determining the responsibilities of the US and tribal governments to those who are in fact its members.

Historically, there were many cultural methods for denying or adopting individuals into and out of tribes. The movie Dead Man creates an American Indian man named “Nobody” whose father had married outside the tribe and so was considered nobody by all his people. He wanders all alone. I related very strongly to this character as I am more or less in the same position. Am I still an American Indian?

In many tribes they removed from the tribal rolls the children of families who were forcefully taken away to government American Indian schools and who came home with “leather shoes” and the forced English language on their tongues. Even now Taos Pueblo does not consider Taos Pueblo members who live away from the reservation more than a few years to be members and they have no rights or privileges of any kind if they try and return. Their policy for being away from the tribe is among the most harsh and poorly considered.

In many of the northern tribes, the tribal rolls were used in politically vicious wars between the traditional and BIA boss Indians. Many families were surprised to see all evidence of their membership and family lines removed from the tribal rolls at Pine Ridge and White Earth reserves, just to name a few. Some of the corrupt leaders of these tribes are in prison right now for this kind of behavior. Were their sabotage of their own tribal records and documents ever corrected? I would be surprised if they were.

On the historical side, most tribes and most every tribal family has some procedure and policy about adopting people. An American Indian Family can adopt an adult human being from any race as a full member of their family. I would not say this happens every day, but it has happened a lot. Who are these adopted persons? Are they American Indians? Does blood quantum alone define who is an American Indian? If so, what is the source and provenance of your proof?

DNA. I am certain DNA would prove many American Indians are not American Indians by this definition. I am equally certain it would prove many people to be American Indians who have no clue that they are in fact American Indians. 

If an American Indian person marries outside their tribe are his or her children still American Indians? Many small tribes make up the population of American Indian Country in the USA. Are they all doomed because wives and husbands can only be found by looking outside the tribes blood quantum?

Are the US governments treaty obligations, therefore, based only on blood quantum? Many government officials think so and advocate applying diminishing percentages of treaty obligation services as the blood quantum quotient of American Indian blood (un-stoppingly) diminishes. These services include medical treatment, legal services, housing assistance and so forth.

An earlier note from my journals:

The ones who are there as the blood is thinning are holding on to the language, the Ojibway songs, the Ojibway drums and sacred pipes and sweat lodges. The Ojibway trees, rice and sacred soul are in the keeping of these mixed blood people......what is different about this than 500 years ago?....the blood quantum standard creates a death march for all American Indian cultures, dances, languages, prayers, ceremonies, teachings, arts, literature, performance, legal rights, land and so forth.....it is shocking to realize this. The community at large postures dramatically on these largely racist issues...but the United States government uses this standard to define all legal and treaty rights. In their minds, as the blood quantum of the original treaty American Indians fades to zero....their obligations to honor all these treaties and tribal human rights diminishes as well.....when I sit quietly and think of the implications of this I am stunned at the realization:.......If you marry outside your tribe you are dooming your tribe and all of its rights, culture and history to extinction.....

Only those tribes that can overcome the genocidal terrorism of the blood quantum standard in their complete legal and moral structure will survive. Perhaps in the end it will just be loose canons and a shrinking team of secret American Indians all alone in the midst of the billions...perhaps it has already come to that for some.....I have never felt much like I needed anyone to tell me who I am or if I am an American Indian. I have been called a fake indian at times, “you are not an indian”, yes I have heard that. I have never heard it from the lips and face and eyes and words and silences of my elders. When we look for the American Indians, what are we looking for really? Where does the blood quantum argument fit into this picture of what you want?

The meeting in the middle of Nowhere | from my blog

Friday, August 18, 2006:
While hiking in a very remote part of Pantelleria, Sicily, we met two Americans. I am an American Indian living here with my wife, who has been living here 10 years. We said hello to these two men, possibly a father and his older son. Naturally being well-mannered, we gave him our names. When he heard my rather American Indian name he immediately began asking me about 20 racial, racist question: am I a full blood? is your blood from your mother or father? and other questions I have already emptied my mind of. Hello, I meet you out here in the wilderness and you choose to not tell me your name or say anything friendly but to calmly grill me on the contents of my blood? He spoke without drama....without animation, like he was asleep.

To tell you the truth, I barely noticed and while I had an impulse to say something corrective or express my disappointment in this behavior, I was patient and kind to him. I am so used to this. Only from white Americans do you get this behavior. I am so used to it I barely noticed. Silvia, my wife, being from this Italian culture, brought home the disturbing quality of this exchange by explaining and reminding me what would have happened if two Italian groups met while traveling in the wilderness of another country. There would of course be handshakes. These white men did not want to be touched. There would be names. These guys said nothing about themselves while wanting to know all about my racial composition....which seems like an intimate and invasive question, it feels invasive. If Italians had met this way, they would be having the diner together for sure. There would be touching and smiles and no invasive race clarification questions. This seems to happen only to American Indians being talked to by white people from America. I have seen it many times. It is endless. It also does not matter "how much blood" is involved....I have seen this behavior pulled on every kind of American Indian.

What's the point? Just this....Americans often seem so cold, so distant, so frightened. Being here in this Italian culture of peace and respect for one another, I was jarred by being reminded how racist, how arrogant and how empty the American culture is becoming. These two guys, after looking in my wife's eyes, I was ashamed for these two dumb and empty men.

I can polish my soul by breathing. By waking up in my dreams. By not being for or against anything. It is ok to speak your mind. I was happy to learn that their behavior did not make me angry. In the past such bullshit talk could really get a rise out of me. Now it was just an exchange of emptiness, a flatulence of the new world order.

Italian culture has taught me a lot about love, about accepting others, about what a good and healthy and joyful citizen can do and say to make life more sweet. The contrast is astonishing.

I remember everything.
I drop my heart inside these stones
and put them in the fire.
I burn, I dream, I become water.........

The place where we met these two ghosts is a very rare and spiritually charged place on the island of Pantelleria. It is called "Favare Grande" and it has red stones and pale soil; the only place on the island like it. There are some stone features that are stunning. There are some man-made things here no one understands fully. It is an astonishing hike with both nature and history. It was no fun meeting dull bored Americans with the typical no-manners of an American in a sacred space inside a culture which considers hospitality the fruit of a good life....

Permission For Life? My Personal View |

I do not need the United States Government or the politically organized leadership of some tribe to tell me who I am. I do not need documents to authenticate my life on this mother earth. For me the breath of the living tribal elders on my open hand is quite enough validation.

When we wonder who are the American Indians, there is now a lot of nonsense applied to this question. I guess if you are dispensing money or seeking to control land there is some need for a standard to apply. In my life I have made my own money. I have no particular land as my life is a moving one. I have watched with horror sometimes, and at other times disbelief, as people and governments dance with this question as to who is and is not an American Indian.

South Africa, some years back, when it was strongly gripped in the apartheid system, showed us very clearly the evils of this thinking along racial lines. Everyone of the earth was critical of this system. How is it then that the tribal blood quantum, and even more perversely, the tribal government census roles, have not been abolished? What is it about American Indians and Americans that creates this fantasy of recognition or denial of a human beings perception of their roots in humanity? 

I have gone my way. I am satisfied that I understand clearly enough who I am and what my life is meant to be. I have experienced the rage of American Indians who do not think I am an American Indian. I have experienced the rage of white people who hate the American Indian they think I am. I have always believed these two reactions to be symptoms of the same disease. Yes, all my life I have experienced this so-called problem from every quarter of American life. I made a choice when I was a young man that I would ask governments, tribal or national, for nothing. Nothing. I do not want land or money or federal or state or tribal recognition. I want only to recognize clearly the face I see in the mirror each morning.

If I have an official standard it is this: let the tribal elders decide who their relatives are. Period. Full rights to tribal privileges have always been largely a religious and spiritual issue in the history of tribes. Tribes were free to adopt any human being who passed their way. Tribes were free to reject from their community any human being who offended them.

I believe human freedom exists in spite of, not because of, governments and documents and regulations. Where there are groups of people who want to be bound by these things, more power to them. I have never agreed to these things. I have only agreed to the direction of my tribal elders. Everything else is just noise to me. I believe in the works, the behavior, the art and the actions of my life. These are the things that are real to me. My work is not with governments. My work is with human beings. I have worked with every kind of human being, American Indian and otherwise. It is the work, rather than the racial posturing, that defines my life.

To me the saddest truth in the world is that, had the immigrants to Amerika been honorable people interested in freedom and truth, then they would all have put themselves under the direction of these same tribal elders and we would all be American Indians today. We were all of us, every ancestor of everyone of us who live in America, in a position to do this. There was a society in place back in the days when the so called white man arrived on these shores. If we would all have followed American Indian law and tradition the people and the armies that invaded this land and murdered everyone in eight directions would instead have placed themselves under the guidance and direction of those elders who were here at that time. Society failed to do this and now we have this complicated and pointless posturing about who is who and who is what. Elsewhere in this document I talk about changing the response you can make to life and society. For me, the choice has always been clear.

Exceptions to the Rule |

I have met a lot of phony people who like to tell me “I am part Indian”. My grandmother was a Cherokee Indian is perhaps the most common claim along these lines. I have heard this hundreds, possibly thousands of times. Cherokee. I have heard this so much I wonder what the hell does it mean?

My consistent response when people tell me they are “part indian” is to ask them what they are doing about it. I ask them if they have visited the tribes they claim to have in their families. I ask them if they have presented themselves to the elders of their ancestors tribes. If they answer no to these questions I tell them to shut up.

The Plastic Shaman List |

I address the issue of pretense and mimicry and posturing throughout this book.

This is a list that is passed around as a document which says it is from a sacred council of tribal elders and it warns against what they call plastic shamans (it used to be plastic medicine men), I guess they mean to imply these people are fake or something like this. It has official sounding language and appears to be a kind of declaration. I first saw this list in the 1980s. The list is the same more or less, but over the years the names change. Maybe after seeing their names on the list these people were stoned or sent to another country. Beware the fakes. Several of these people are dead actually. The web site where I most recently saw this list was in an article entitled “imaginary indians”….. As I am doing here, I need to rant about this list a little. I can do it without reproducing a full color high resolution sample for you to read. Seeing this list again while working on this book has made it impossible not to express my feelings about it.

Maybe it is important to work up some information on all this darkness. Why do people pretend to be shamans? Why do people say they are indians walking around in society while other people who say they are indians say no way you are not an indian? I have met hundreds of people who have told me their grandmother was cherokee indian. I always thought most of these people were bullshitting themselves and I wonder why so many people do it. But then again why are other people so upset about it? 

I believe and I was taught that the tribal elders decide upon and give approval for the people who are responsible for ceremonial teachings. Leading ceremonial teachings requires a long line of permissions from many elders. However, any indian person is free to talk about the ceremonies and teachings of their family. A few crazy old American Indians have had visions of new ceremonies. For that matter people are free to just make things up. They do it all the time. The differences in all these behaviors and freedoms are in degrees of intent. To truly say you have worked inside the sacred space you must have the breath and touch of the tribal elders in your life. I do not think there are any exceptions to this.

Are all the American Indians really and truly in specific locations so we can go to that place and ask these questions? No way. The US Government has a bunch of old and very incomplete lists of tribal families given white man names and numbers when they were put onto reservations. The US Governments treaty obligations to American Indians is to those American Indians on those lists. They are called by some the “treaty indians” or the “enrolled indians”. Does this mean that American Indians on the enrollment documents are American Indians, and if a person is not on this list are they not American Indians? No. It does not mean that at all. It just means that for those people and that government there is some business and obligations. It is not possible that in the late 1800s every American Indian was counted. It is in fact impossible.

A lot of people who are American Indians that could care less, just like many people in society in general.  Just as some people are pissed off because someone they don’t like is doing ceremonies, I know a lot of American Indians who hate having to do the ceremonies and wear the clothes and eat the food and go through these ceremonies at all. It is good to remember things like this when you are reading lists of bad people. What about a list of all the lazy and indifferent people? Maybe there is not enough paper for this list.

I believe that someone who needs to make a list like this, and the people who think a list like this is important in any way are the same people. Both groups suffer from fear and worry. Frankly, I am not entirely sure what their problem really is, but they need each other. Their need for each other does not have to be dangerous for the rest of us if we recognize what is going on.

I have always believed I could trust my senses, my mind and heart, my body and my spirit to help me understand when I am present with the truth. I believe that the teachings and rituals of the sacred pipe and the other ceremonies have helped make this possible for me in the strongest way. I believe that is the real purpose of these teachings. American Indian religion is not a faith religion. American Indian religion is about a way of behaving and thinking and taking responsibility for your life. It is a warrior teaching. This is why we call it sacred. The great teachings give you power to stand where it is true and safe and bright. But it ain’t easy.

Anyway I have a friend who is reading a book about American Indian pipes written in Italian by an Italian writer. I was interested in seeing if I could find the book in English so I did a web search for the author. I ended up writing her an email complimenting her book and mentioning my web site as a frame of reference for why I would be interested in complimenting her on the book. She wrote me back with the oddest reply to an email I have had ever. It seemed very defensive. I ended up going back to her web site and see that she publishes some sort of digital magazine. I downloaded a copy of this magazine and, boom, there is this article on the plastic shamans with color photos of real American Indian people and others as apparent examples of these plastic shamans. Reading this article and then reading the email again I felt agitated to see this old crap is still alive I wanted to go on the record about how I feel about this issue.

I have always found this concept a disturbing one, even though I am sympathetic with its intentions. First of all it is basically a hate list. I do not believe in hate lists. I believe in justice. If someone has been done wrong let them present their case of facts. Otherwise such behavior is just a type of name calling. There does seem to be a lot of confusion and bad representations of the sacred teachings and ceremonies of tribal people. It is a serious problem but one that deserves a thoughtful response and a compassionate outlook.

I was surprised to see a new discussion of the plastic shaman list included many American Indians on it. I knew some of these people and they are real American Indian people, entitled and able to represent the ceremonies and teachings and ideas of their culture. I am not sure how they could be plastic people. Who says they are and why do they say this? Some of them were never very good at this work, but that is not fraud. As I have discussed more than I would like, yes,  there are all sorts of real problems and imaginary problems and misguided people, and they all do harm.

The idea of the plastic shaman list in theory is that there is a grand council of spiritual and ceremonial elders who has issued their judgement on these people and this issue. The Great Grand Council has said to the people…etc, etc. The truth is there is no such thing. There may be a group of angry people who were upset at the behavior of these people and got some old Indians to agree with them and then they circulated this document.

It is a contradictory document because it says it is a list of plastic shamans but the list itself is a plastic list. There is nowhere a group of American Indian people who speak for all American Indian people. It has never happened and never will. The exact opposite is closer to the truth. The ceremonies of the south and those of the north are vastly different. The ceremonies of the east and west are vastly different. The differences cannot be underestimated. There are no American Indians who can say they speak in this way about other American Indians who have any special authority or power to do this. The fake list is a fake concept. Yes, for some odd reason there are a lot of misguided people posturing in our society. However, this type of list does not contribute anything useful to the problem. The list has instead become part of the problem. I am sure many people will be misinformed by this list, and have been already. The list is itself a symptom of the problem, not an answer to it.

People who do ceremonial work have one law which certifies them. This is the permission, direction and guidance of their tribal elders in their tribe. If a person doing this work, doing a good job or a bad job, has the permission and direction of their elders then the work is legal and proper. Some groups of tribal elders are strong and brave, other groups are weak or lazy and so forth. The tribal elders have the authority to direct this work and choose who does it. There are no tribal elders who give or deny permission to work to people not in their family or tribe. 

I think in the early to late 70s some indian people started working to share ceremonial events with people from the outside world. Other American Indians about the same time had visions that they should bring new ceremonies to all the people of the world. I am one of those people, in that generation. This upset a lot of people and when people get upset they say some ugly things. However, many, many tribal elders and leaders now support responsible sharing of ceremonial experiences and instructions. They expect the practitioners to behave well and follow the guidance and authority of their tribal teachers. As a general rule, American Indian people do not like to talk and ask questions about the personal history of people. 

When I first saw this list, I thought this plastic shaman list was racist in nature. The first names to appear on it were mixed blood American Indian people and some people who may have not had much American Indian blood at all. I am not sure any racist, blood quantum qualification is correct. Making a plastic shaman list because someone is not a full blood is not right. 

Yes, there is a lot of exploitation of American Indian people. Most of it is done by respected business people, media people and people looking for attention. I am rather proud of those first American Indians, scattered around the country, who had the passion and the desire to share with the world. American Indians need to learn a few things, just like everybody else. You learn best by joining in with others. Many of the people who are angry about sharing the ceremonies are people who live inside of generations of isolation and poverty of the reservation system. This list  has always seemed to me to be a fear response, not a rational response.

When they started putting American Indians from well known American Indian families on this list, then I realized something else was happening with this list. It is a pointless hate list with no credibility, no value.

I am not unsympathetic. I don’t think naming names is a productive idea. It is better to teach people how to understand when someone is telling them the truth and when they are not. To my mind that is the underlying purpose of the ceremonies and sacred space. It is a real teaching ground. It is not a house of faith. It is a house of teaching. It is a house where you are expected to behave properly and honestly and directly. It scares the hell out of most people, this sacred space.

A lot of people have been upset over this new idea of sharing the sacred teachings. It is easy to let fear and anger turn into name calling and denouncement. It is exhausting sometimes all the things you need an education about in this work.

It is this kind of laziness with words that is the problem. It is always helpful to be clear and say what you mean when talking about serious matters.

Every time I run across revitalization's of this so called plastic shaman list (been circulating now more than 20 years), I get agitated. I suspect the list has power to influence people. I think it is a dark thing, a negative weapon. It is a kind of pornography, which is to say I do not see any redeeming social values in its existence or in expecting people to even think this way.

I would like to see a list of positive things. I know a list could be made of good people who had good and important experiences with American Indian people, maybe even some of the American Indians on this plastic shaman list.

Perhaps only a plastic society could produce a list of plastic shamans. I have also noticed many plastic students. I see people every day trying to bring truth and healing and balance in the world only to be met with a listening public that doesn’t have a clue.

Just as some people may be misguided by seeking to represent American Indian thinking in a phony way, there are people who tell us in a very phony way who our enemies are. One negative behavior followed by another negative response only creates a dark hole for the innocent to stumble into.

I believe if you love yourself and try to walk in balance and be a good relation to those around you then you will find your way through the plastic forest of liars and thieves and crazy people that are in every society, every village, every group. I don’t think you need a list. I think you need a heart and a clear mind and patience.

If, when you meet people, your first response is to be paranoid that they may somehow be trying to trick you, you are no longer living a natural life. Is this a symptom of modern life? I was taught to keep my mind quiet and do not ever think for or against people. I base my experience with people on what happens when we are together, when we are communicating and sharing life. Responding with fear is an invitation  for problems to appear over and over.

Just having someone whom I do not know respond to me on this level was very disturbing. Writing to this writer and having her invoke this paranoid list, and the strange thinking that produces such a list as like a slap or an insult. Should we send our emails to the thought police before they arrive in our inbox? 

People should take responsibility for understanding how their behavior affects other people. Did this writer intend to insult me? I would say no. Did she write without thinking? How do you do that? 

This lady says she is a scientist and yet here she is invoking a strong documentation of a controversial emotional issue that is anything but scientific. There is a contradiction in speaking objectively out of one side of your mouth while you rant and rave over how much people lie to you on the other side of your mouth. This is called speaking with a forked tongue. My mother used to call it speaking from both sides of your mouth.

Possibly there is no way to stop people talking bad about one another. There is a lot of bad news and a huge collection of bad people doing bad things for sure. Sometimes good people end up doing bad things when they really were hoping it would be ok. Some people are just not very good at what they do. Yes, some few people seem delusional and American Indians have a problem with people who claim they are some kind of American Indian but are not known on the reservations. Not every American Indian has their paperwork in order. Some American Indians have no paperwork. Many American Indian people have never set foot on a reservation. I know lots of American Indians who would not tell you what tribe they are from if you held a gun up to their head. I know American Indians who, if they thought somebody was ripping off the sacred things, they would do violence. There are plenty of worthless people, broken people, lost people, criminal people on these reservations and in this life.

I am a person of multiracial genetics. There are about 2.5 million American Indians right now. Of that number fewer than 15% are what you would say are certifiably full blood bucks and squaws (calling an indian a “buck” or a “squaw” is like calling a black person “nigger”, by the way.) Being multi-racial is like Mr. Toad’s wild ride and a never ending source of spontaneous adventures and “incidents”, especially in Amerika (much, much less when I travel). I have been accused of being not right in some very scary ways. People see a mixed race person they don’t know what to think sometimes, if the racial question is important to them. I get resistance all the time. I have had many hateful things said to me coldly from people who will never change their mind. On the other hand I have had a similar amount of anger and hatred directed at me by people who don’t like American Indians of any kind and will go out of their way to insult one. This is where having a sense of humor begins to pay off. I have been called nothing and have lived on this earth with no home, no family, nothing. I been to the desert on a horse with no name. I have been told my ideas were worthless. This was my fathers favorite theme.

Finding things to rant and rave about creates a state of real tension. Tension can trigger anger, cruelty and words that come to quick and leave to slow. It is terrible for the internal organ system. Bottled up anger is a dangerous force.

Something I have seen with my own eyes; just because a bunch of people get together and “pretend” something is happening does not mean anything will happen. I have seen gatherings with ceremonial intentions carried out so poorly by people who understand so poorly that the entire affair was boring and forgettable. I think this is how the sacred protects itself really. If your energy is not just right, nothing will happen. How many times have you gone to a church ceremony or a big speech by some politician and been bored and uninspired. My mother used to take me to Southern Baptist Sunday Morning Prayer and Sermon Meetings. I would sit and listen as best I could to what the “preacher” had to say. Five minutes after I left the church I couldn’t remember a word he said.

If you don’t do the ceremonies right nothing will happen.

The real medicine life is like kung fu, or as I have said, being a soldier or warrior. If you are going to get involved in this kind of life there is a need for discipline and focus. You need to be prepared. Yes, being prepared is a good concept. If you are prepared in a grounded and observant way, then you can find where the truth is, especially if you really need to. The ceremonies have their own protections, their own way to follow to make things right. When things are right you will feel really good. Your mind will be sharp, your heart will be happy, your spirit will feel strong and well fed. You can trust this feeling. If you feel this way you have felt the truth, you have done something right. I have seen people’s lives change in profound ways during and after a strong ceremony. I am one of the people who has experienced this feeling.

A ceremony is a focused study and experience of a moment in time. The formalities and channels of the senses opened by the sounds and rhythms of the ceremony can all converge inside your consciousness in a powerful and beautiful way. This moment can release all kinds of chemical and nerve sensations and information to every part of your body. 

We have all gone somewhere and been disappointed at what we experienced. There are plenty of people standing around together accomplishing nothing. I can see no value in making a list of such experiences.

I have shared many ceremonies with my tribal relations over these many years. They have become like beads, a long string of prayers and meditations, songs, dances and silences which have celebrated life. They opened channels of learning new things and in in general this is the force that has carried me in this life. To most American Indian people the ceremony is not a single teaching experience but a way of life day by day. Perhaps it is this life that is the teaching. Seeing before me the outstanding life of my American Indian teachers, it was very easy to trust them and believe what they said to me. I trust completely the feeling I have about the people around me. It is easy to see that some of them, all of us, have bad moments. We can go for many long years inside a slump, a pit of circumstances around which we experience only problem after problem. Wherever my life has taken me, the ceremonial agreement I have with the earth is my grand council and the guide I rely upon to live my life in a good way.

Do I support the people on this plastic shaman list? I am not for them or against them. I support good behavior and learning to trust in myself.

What is the Real Danger Here? |

If you use Google or Yahoo or another search engine and search for obvious American Indian subjects like sweat lodge, sacred pipe, eagle feather, American Indian rattle, vision quest, dream teachings, etc…what you end up with is thousands of links to some of the most preposterous, misguided and entirely not American Indian subjects, products, and information. It is almost overwhelming how much bad information is on the internet on the subject of American Indians and their lives and beliefs.

Because there are so many uninformed but curious people all over the world, this problem seems far more threatening the fantasy of the imaginary indians. This is misguided mis-information at the volume and magnitude of a real problem. The answer to this problem; it is impossible to stop it. If there are people who want to put something on the internet there is virtually no way to stop them. When it comes to video, film, publishing books, there are at least theoretical safeguards in the hands and education (or lack of it) of the editors and publishers of that material.

Then there is Mass Production |                                    

case in point; Dream Catchers

What the people charmingly call “dream catchers” are now officially mass produced junk made in china, taiwan, singapore, American Indian reservations and toy factories by the tens of thousands. This dream catcher design was the intellectual and artistic property of one Ojibway family in Minnesota. They sold them at pow-wows and naturally, being a a good idea, they were copied. Now the copying has gotten totally out of hand and none of these American Indian families have made a penny from this. By mass producing the dream catcher, the world has casually taken an important and useful dream teaching and made it impotent and useless. This is the real plastic medicine, this business. Taking a very powerful and important teaching and making it impotent and useless. Homicide of the dreaming soul. I wonder if you get it it?

Historical Patterns |

If you read really old accounts of observations of American Indian ceremonies from the 17th and 18th centuries, you will see language similar to that used to talk about human beings born into American Indian families and listed in the plastic shaman list. No matter what American Indian people do, there are always some official sounding people from the church, from the press, from the politicians about how misguided, savage, fake, phony and suspicious these wild American Indians really are. Particular white people have always used variants of this same language to talk about the beliefs of people of color. Their first thoughts are always of suspicion and fraud. Christian writers in particular seem completely unable to talk about another religion and ceremonies without using derogatory, defaming language.

Beware of Messengers |

To set the record straight, I am not a messenger and this is not a message book writing. I am suspicious of messengers. Who are they from? Why do people willingly pick up and carry bad news around? Who is being protected? If you have good manners, you can listen to a messenger. Be like Buddha and do not be moved or swayed. Listening is ok. If your manners are not very well polished pick up a rock and chase them away. If they are sacred messengers your stones will become flowers, maybe.

The Nature of Bigotry

Every kind of bigotry leads to unhappiness. I see nothing good in this whole question. Whatever the question really is, there must be a positive and beautiful way to bring it up. I think all people who feel different in any substantial way must feel tormented. I feel tormented but not so much from within myself, but from others at times. In my own mind and heart I am satisfied with my identity, with my life, with the choices I have made for my life.

Writings by American Indian on the subject of the religious and ceremonial life are not common. There are a lot of popular books about American Indian subjects not written by American Indian. The majority of these works are trash. There are many outstanding American Indian writers; a few brave ones have written about the ceremonies.

I have met odd white people who tell people they were chosen by an old Hopi man to tell the prophecies of the Hopi to the people of the world. The Hopi recently showed up at his door with lawyers and a United States Marshall with a cease and desist order. He has written several books about his belief in himself.

If you are not an American Indian and you write about the sacred medicine, some American Indian will call your book trash. If you are an American Indian and you write about the sacred medicine other American Indians will call you a plastic medicine man and bad mouth you to the four corners. All the old medicine men who have had books written about them have been trashed by American Indians, and these trash-talking authorities have convinced many in the “reputable press”. There seems no end to the organizational cleverness of bad intentions and bad behavior. Most people would be so surprised if they could fully understand just how jealous, hateful, back-biting and trash talking American Indians can get. It is like a sickness that almost all reservation people have, just like the rest of American society.

Anyone can get in trouble when writing about these sacred tribal things. With all these words on so many pages, I am bound to upset a few people. When I was a young man and I got upset about the sacred pipe, I hit the road and went everywhere I could to find out more. Getting upset changed my life. If you get upset my best hope is to wish you good fortune on your journey to do something about it.

Vietnam

I was a soldier, a medic, in the Vietnam war. I was there in 1968 and 1969. I was able to move to several places all across the south of that country as my unit was a small mobile unit. I saw many Asians of course. I also saw many Vietnamese people who were part French or European. I learned that these mixed blood people did not have easy lives. It was compounded when American babies began to arrive in not a small number in the communities. Did these people stop being Vietnamese when they were born of American and Vietnamese parents? Sounds silly doesn’t it? I guess they did, they do. This crazy racial, blood quantum thinking is poison. The babies of these people pay the penalties and receive this sickness into their souls when they are to young and innocent to know what the fuck is going on.

The real adventure waiting for every society is that of embracing life and finding out about each other. There is almost no greater happiness in life than all of us being together and enjoying and savoring the sacred opportunities of life.

I also grew up in the southern United States, my mother was southern born and raised. I grew up in a southern society where black people had to go to the back of the bus, had to shop in their own stores. While blacks were no longer considered slaves, the only good jobs were slave jobs. Picking crops and cleaning and cooking for white families. As a child I played with black children. But. Not in the house or where my parents could see me.

I learned how to barbeque a whole pig from a black man. Every summer one of my many uncles held a big barbeque and fish fry for our whole large family and their spouses and kids. It was sometimes 50 people or more at one of these things. My uncle always hired this one man to barbeque a whole pig. My cousins and I would stay up with him all night and be his helpers. He introduced us to moonshine and beer. I learned a great teaching in southern cooking that stays with me to this day. I still enjoy a big barbeque as one of my favorite ways to get everyone together. 

I have seen the racists hearts of modern society from many angles. I have been harmed by it, but never stopped by it. I am an educated man. I have been around. When it all comes down to beating hearts and the sacred moments of life, all these differences disappear. Inside the ceremonies I have worked with men and women. Children, elders. I have worked with very sick people and very polished people. Black, white, asian and Indian. At my table it is life that is lived. I do not live in my house in a state of mind that chooses these differences. When people choose to close their hearts and minds to another human being, that is a choice that person has made at that moment. There is no law or requirement of nature or God that forces you to make your choices. When it comes to choice, you have the power to decide what you will think, what you will do, how you will react. People seem to be on automatic pilot when it comes to issues like this. What person should be proud of allowing their knee jerk reflexes and fears to control the choices in their life? I do not see how a good case can be made for all these behaviors and attitudes about race, about blood. Every time the subject comes up it sounds like the voice of trouble and fear.

My great admiration for tribal mystery life people has come from the American Indians I met who live it. Every American Indian I have ever met who lives a good life inside the mystery life teachings never asks blood quantum questions. The entire subject never comes up. They keep their jokes, their conversations, their stories and arguments inside the many fascinating joys and adventures of the mystery life itself. When I experienced this balance inside the teachings and experienced also this good and positive life coming from the people who were teaching it to me, I was and remain filled with joy and satisfaction….and respect.

I was reading a review of the firing of a controversial “alleged” American Indian on the news delivered across the internet. The language used to describe the man, who does sound like he is a bit deranged, was all about his being “fake”, “unerolled”. I wonder how many people who stick their heads up and who are not direct full blood descendants of Sitting Bull will get them chopped off by the press, by the reservations, by society? If I agree that he is maybe a man not suited to his work, must I also agree to the racial component used against him? Reporters said they could find no tribe who would admit to his being an enrolled member. Even if true, that made me wonder if tribal governments give out the names of enrolled members to anyone who calls them on the telephone? Is he a bad man because he says he is an American Indian and cannot prove it? Or is he a bad man because, regardless of his blood quantum, he has done bad things? If he is a bad man because he says he cannot prove it to some one else’s satisfaction, that he is an American Indian, does that mean all people who say they are American Indians and who cannot prove it to you, or the guy across the street, are bad people?

The Body Hair Quotient |

In one country I was doing a workshop for the weekend, which involved a sweat lodge and dream ceremony for this group. As I made my approach to the point where they are all gathered to introduce myself, a gigantic, tall man said to the group “American Indians do not have body hair”. First time I had heard that one. I remembered that when I was younger I had almost no hair and only had to shave my face once in a while. Now I shave every day and have gotten more hair around on my body as I age. Needless to say I had way to much body hair for this guy.

When I was a boy, I liked one charming American Indian man I would see at the pow-wows. He was once a major in the US Army. He had a beautiful girlfriend and was a very good American Indian dancer. I came to his camp to talk to him one morning and found him shaving. He said hello and told me he would be with me in a minute. First, he said, “I need to scrape the white man off my body”. We both laughed, but I never forgot his saying that.

Reservation Indians Part 2 |

Is the tribal enrollment archive a holy scripture that defines the truth, and every other word on who an American Indian is, a lie? I have visited many reservations and I have seen many enrolled people behaving badly. I have seen some exceptional mixed blood people standing by wanting and ready to help with some good ideas but shut out. This is not a good thing. Reservations are places where people were forced against their will, they were pushed there. They are not natural places. Many American Indians left these terrible environments over the years since they were formed. Do those people stop being American Indians? What about their children born far away from bitter parents who have nothing to say about the American Indians they left behind, and so the children know almost nothing. Are those kids still American Indians?

Once the cycle of the seven generations has come full circle, this problem for human beings will solve itself. It was inevitable from the very first contact that differing cultures have with each other, that their collective lives will change step by step through the seven generations. Soon everybody except those hiding in the cracks and crevices will be mixed bloods. 

Is enrollment what makes you and American Indian?

Is being a mixed blood the end of being an American Indian?

Is every person who says they are an American Indian, but have no documents, not really an American Indian but some kind of liar?

For me the only test is that, if you think you are some kind of American Indian, then you must find some elders, doing what you can with diligence. You must find some tribal elders who will take pity on you and look into your eyes and soul. From the beginning of time the real American Indians believe in the rule and direction of the tribal elders. There are more American Indians than we will ever know that never signed any documents or allowed themselves to be named and numbered into the reservation system.

Life is a great, sacred adventure, really boundless and limitless. It is possible for all sorts of contradictory things to be true all at once. It is possible, as the elders believe, to work together face to face to arrive at an understanding. It is better not to rely on documents alone. Are these enrollment documents the only truth about who is an American Indian in the world? That hardly seems possible.

I have known some full blood American Indian men, in particular, who have no family, no tribe, no numbers. One thing I learned from these American Indian men, and I think there are many of them, is that it is up to you to find out who you are and be who you are. If I had to depend on the enrollment and reservation system to define myself, how dangerous and strange that would be. While new business opportunities may at last make possible some new opportunities for reservation American Indians, it seems there are also many ways in which their members are trapped. There is an ever-shrinking blood quantum and enrollment factor that benefits only the United States government and no one else on this earth. These old Indians I knew, if you spent time with them, these kind of questions never came up. Sometimes they sort of did and were met with complete disinterest, like a fart in an otherwise orderly conversation.

Clearly there is some fraud and misrepresentation going on. I would submit far more of it takes place inside the enrolled factions of tribes than it does from people who may or may not be confused about who their ancestors were. However, such a quantum comparison is not any more useful, but an interesting fact none the less. I guess it is the difference in saying “He done wrong, but at least he was an American Indian” vs “He done wrong and said he was an American Indian when he wasn’t”.

In some people the spirit lives and shines in such a strong way, one hardly need speak about it. In others it is more hidden and subtle. There are plenty of small bands of Apache, for example, that never signed any treaties with anybody and never agreed to be enrolled in anything. Are they American Indians at all? They fill the little arroyos and hills of Northern New Mexico. 

ethnic fraud |

I thought I had covered the wounds and rounds of this issue only to find a new spin altogether coming from tribal people. “Ethnic fraud”, which is a new one for me. This issue seems to concern “people who are not American Indians but say they are” getting lucrative jobs which are looking to be filled by universities, government contracts to minority business and so forth. Ethnic fraud appears to be defined as pretending to be an ethic racial member in order to advance your career. The danger in main, they say, is that you then have fraudulent people in positions to influence American Indian history and circumstances, if the job is university job, for example. At first glance this seems way over the top. Hopefully in any academic environment the peer review process kicks in and keeps the information being sent out on the up and up. Isn’t that what peer review does? If any academic works passes through a strong peer review system and seems valid who the hell cares? One idea seems to be that a person who “lies about being an American Indian” cannot be trusted or believed at all about anything. 

“They” also say that if none of the American Indians in a particular tribe will claim a certain person of a member, therefore this person is lying about being an American Indian. Everywhere I go and everywhere I have ever been I see people, places and things I never heard of before. When people talk about the most famous sports figures, I have never heard of most of them. I knew one American Indian man for more than 25 years. After he died I met at least five people who told me they knew all about me, and saw my friend, grew up with my friend and were all around the life of my friend. I often visited for 3 weeks or more and I never ever heard of or met these people. I found them a big surprise and wonder still, many times, how it is I never met these guys before? 

The world is famous for springing surprises on people. Sometimes the surprises are lies and bullshit…but just as often these surprises are real and profound and true. Some of the best known hollywood movies embrace the theme of the surprise child or parent or other relative suddenly appearing in everyones life. Sometimes it can go quite well. So 10 million people say they never heard of you. Are you lying? Maybe. Maybe how many people have heard of you or not heard of you has nothing to do with who you are. I can believe there are American Indians no other American Indians has ever heard of. It is proof of nothing.

There are a lot of prejudices, and sometimes, just plain ignorance that get projected into these arguments. It is a subject that is muddy and it lives in muddy waters. I see no way not to get dirty whenever you have to visit this dirty little subject.

Any kind of lie, if it goes unchallenged long enough, eventually becomes accepted as the truth. History seems built around this. It is probably the philosophical basis of government.

If I knowingly tell you a lie, and you are my good friend, you would believe me generally. If you tell this same information to another, you think you are telling the truth. Plenty of American Indian and other minority races have reappeared and disappeared inside of this phenomenon in society. People have denied being American Indians as well, but you don’t hear much about this. On a spiritual level I would like to gather every American Indian real or imaginary and have a gigantic ceremony to correct this problem. In our culture of the Ojibway, we have correction ceremonies for these problems.

This is all such a strange issue. Elsewhere in this document I have felt compelled to examine the whole issue of people who pretend to be shamans and such. There seems to be an epidemic of pretending to be all sorts of things in the American Indian world. I don’t think anyone has made much time to really look at all sides of this argument. Certainly there are many damn fine human beings who are in fact real American Indians with no documents and no credentials of any kind. There are people with all sorts of certificates and enrollment numbers and people who will stick up for them as real American Indians who are as phony as they get. There are for sure all sorts of breaks and cracks and lost and inserted pages in the official documents of this US government and these federally managed tribes. There are certainly a lot of people who will stand up and say they are part American Indian, but usually that’s all they do really. Some of it seems harmless and may even be true. Clearly there must be, as they say, some people who know in their heart they are “not indians” who say they “are indians”. If this is really true, why? If money is involved, liars will fall out of the trees to get in line. Yes, for money people of every race will tell every kind of lie.

The Professional Outsider |

To further confound matters…in the culture of my relations, the Ahnishinabeg, there was a powerful and important society of healers and councillors called Wabeeno. These ceremonial leaders used ritual and extremely traditional methods to bring healing and other specialized services to the people. their work was so important that they were given a status that means “outsider”. Because they lived so close to the mystery life and the spirit world, they believed they were more effective if they lived far outside the society of their people. They often lived alone and far away from everyone else. This gave them important powers of detachment, and also gave them the element of surprise. Sometimes a stranger can be heard when speaking to your heart, when you have stopped completely listening to the people close to you and around you everyday. Familiarity breeds indifference and misdirected energies. We all take each for granted about as often as we are able. The Wabeeno system was an answer to this problem. This shows how interesting and scientific and sometimes just how ingenious the elders of the mide wian society, which guides Ojibway culture, really are. What about Wabeenos? Ojibway culture produced brilliant social thinkers and a complex and surprisingly effective knowledge system. The professional outsider is at once the wandering prince, the fool, the unexpected turn of events, the surprise connection, the message from the mystery life, the handsome stranger, slayer of the dragon.

By the time the Christian missionaries had gone through one full generation of Ojibway American Indians, those Wabeenos were devils who worshipped the night and witches that made other people sick. By 1900 most Wabeenos had many American Indians pretty nervous. A lot of Wabeenos and their friends took offense at being trashed by the church. When people get angry they do some nasty things, usually regretting them later. 

My point is based on the big curiosity I have always had as to why so many people do in fact say they are part American Indian? Of course saying this in a bar on 1st Avenue is not the same, they say, as saying it on a job application or in some way that will bring you money. We can all agree American Indian, or not, some people will tell lies for money.  A lot of people say this and are doubted. Some people get really angry about it. I remember once at a pow-wow in North Carolina a young red haired chubby and fair boy won the fancy dance contest. I thought the crowd was going to riot. After a lot of noise and drama someone produced his enrollment document and everyone grudgingly cooled out. In the face of all this negative response, why do so many people say it, and why are so many other people against it? I refuse to believe that enrollment on a government prison farm, sovereign or not, has become the only basis for defining what and who is an American Indian. Yah, it is very helpful, makes some things easier. My fall back position remains the same in the face of all these stories. The tribal elders, the contemplative spiritual leaders of the sacred center (ceremonies) of their people are the best authority on who their relatives are. In Ojibway culture, adoption and recognition of relatives was a ceremonial event. The person seeking to be recognized was permitted to make a small ceremony which would be witnessed by a council and the outcome and council of this moment would tell everyone whatever they needed to know. I always thought that was a swell system. I presented my work as ceremonies, as sacred pipes to the elders of the many tribal nations I visited who would hear me. I never had even one turn his face from me, ever. It was the sweetest and scariest and most charming years of my life. 

We used to call this “finding our relations”. So many things were smashed, and are still being smashed, by the clash of American Indian culture and the world. Our teachers taught us that one day families long separated would find themselves together again. I have seen this happen right in front of my eyes. Some tribes, one I know of fore sure cause I lived with them, won’t let you come back in the “enrolled membership” even if you can prove you are a full blood and related to everyone. I am not sure they are the only ones who do this. They believe (the short version) that if you spend to much time away from the hoop of the people then you are just lost and spoiled. It is a rule of their religious society, not a political one. Is that guy one a member, but now gone away, still an American Indian?

I admire the direct simplicity of the underlying philosophy of the mide wian society of the Ahnishinabe people. “The truth, when you hear it, is always simple”. To do what is simple can be a great challenge. When I think of people saying they are American Indian, and other people saying no you are not, I wonder what the considered mide opinion on this would be if they could hear a complete set of facts from all eight sides of the problem. As far as I am concerned the main definition of what I think you need to show me to prove to me that you are an American Indian is for me to believe you are under the direction of some tribal elders somewhere, sometime. 

A lot of the old American Indian teachers like every human being anyway, by the way. Many of them have a very soft heart for some American Indian orphan. They will adopt them sometimes; they have made them part of their family. They enjoy seeing good people come from other tribes and other cultures. I have known many great American Indians, those inside the medicine societies in particular, for want of a better word. Those people will size you up in a heart beat. They ain’t gonna talk about you when you are gone. How many people will tell a stranger about their family? Voice on the phone…”hey this is (fill in the blank), “is that guy who came by your house three years ago an indian or what?” ...The real American Indian world is a lot more mysterious and fluid and really it is a very unusual society, that of the American Indians. (Only bad grammar can get me there now.)

Honestly, it seems like every culture had had or is having more or less this same problem in varying shades of detail. Sociologically it is important that the religious leaders, at least, and the general therapeutic community among others, consider discovering and offering a meaningful understanding to this problem. Frankly I think a lot of the people who raise this issue are responding on the rather hysterical side.

Being a mixed race person myself, I have seen “that face”, looked into “those eyes” of denial. I suppose this has affected my choices, this kind of reaction. I make my own money. I have never asked the tribes for anything….except once some emergency medical care. I would never ask for a piece of a pie that I have not been invited to the table to enjoy. Once in NYC I was doing a small open ceremony, open for all people. It was free. I was not giving away tribal secrets. I invited people to sit with me in a circle and sing with rattles. This is something my tribal relations and I did together since I was a child. I feel it is my privilege to share something like this with anyone I want to. Many people see this way of spending time together, like we do in the ceremonial days, to be a powerful and useful experience: a meditative and productive experience. I ran this program free of charge to all people two nights a week for four years in downtown Manhattan, about 10 blocks east of the World Trade center……The corner of Broadway and Houston Streets in what is known as SoHo. 

It wasn’t long before I had a big crowd of American Indians yelling fake and I don’t remember what else and trying to block people from coming in. Well I got all dressed up in my best shadow clothing and walked around the circle of people sitting there that night. I walked around and around and said nothing. I gave them all rattles and they sat there breathing and shaking their rattles. I walked around breathing, breathing and then suddenly I went outside while they continued to play. I saw a crowd of young tough looking American Indian boys in the circle as i went downstairs and out onto Broadway. There they were. Maybe 75 people, not sure. All great dark American Indian faces. It made me smile. I said to them “here I am” and I walked right into the center of the big crowd they made right where they were standing. And. They disappeared. Like smoke in the wind. It was quite charming. As the last ones went away around the corner I wished them good luck and told them I was happy an issue like this could get them all together. I came upstairs and the circle went on. We all kept the rattles going for quite some time. One of the people present in the ceremonies that night had a baby with them. I held that baby and talked about my Grandfathers and Grandmothers until tears rolled down my cheeks and then I passed the baby around. We made the rattles a little more and everyone went home. One of the American Indian boys who had stayed and listened to every word shook my hand and said to me that I speak as his elders speak. I never had any more direct trouble from these people again.

A few days later I asked for a meeting with the people of an American Indian housing group, funded by the city. There is a large group of loosely organized American Indians in Manhattan. The American Indian Community Housing Center has no authority but served as the unofficial coordination point of the Iroquois who claim territorial rights to Manhattan. Oren Lyons, among other people, attended this meeting. there were about 30 people there all together. I had two people with me. As the meeting started one guy said they asked for the meeting…at which pint I interrupted him and said I had asked for the meeting. I then read a statement of what I thought were my human rights to these people, they interrupted me. One guy grabbed the Buffalo Horn rattle I carried with me in those days, my own personal sacred object that I travelled with.. This American Indian said he was going to confiscate it. Almost in slow motion I casually but quickly took it from him and said no, not today he wasn’t. I then reached into my clothes and pulled out my ancient, ancient Tibetan bells and ringed them 8 times. On the first ring virtually every American Indian shot out of their chair like a rocket and stampeded for the door, blocking each other as they all arrived together. They also all started talking all at once. These bells were blessed by the Dalai Lama of Tibet and remain an important part of my protection system. I also get a lot of information from people based upon their reactions to the unavoidable sound they make. As I finished, everyone had moved out of the conference room and were heading for stairs and elevators. It was a scene of mild mayhem, and  looked like it was every man for himself. By far this was one of the strongest reactions these bells have evoked. Afterwards I took the elevator down and strolled on out into the street. The meeting was also on Broadway but up around 10th street I think, some blocks away from my place. Never had no trouble from those guys since. Sometimes I am curious to know a few versions of the story that must have circulated about that meeting. I am sure their spin was that they told me off good.

I have always believed, for myself, that if you are going to be in this line of work, in this standing with the sacred pipe, you have to be ready to face the dark side as well as the joyful side, of other people and also of yourself. I have seen some tragic and dangerous behavior. I have felt and sometimes been the victim of the pain of very troubled people and tried to help clean up their mess sometimes. 

People who live close to the mystery life, to the sacred space and energies of the spirits, they learn quick that things are not always what they seem. It is almost evident in every situation that the first layers of information and perception are misleading and incomplete. Traditional spiritual values of most cultures embrace compassion and reasonable doubt in dealing with such issues as blood quantum's and family relations, even if the citizens do not. It is clear to any reasonable person that many layers of emotion, culture, ideas and behavior are what define who a person is and where they belong in society.

In the past, when governments force people down a narrow definition of who they are and what they can have, without recourse to appeal or correction; well, this act has been called some ugly names. This no less true if American Indian people do it to each other or the US Governments clever use of blood quantum to define rights, money and property do it to us.

The Fish Clan |

The people who have been born into the Fish Clan have a belief that they are the only surviving tribal clan of the original migrations and therefore the only people who are really American Indians at all. There may be 10,000 Fish Clan people alive today (though that is a hopeful number). So that is something extra for everybody, including the American Indians, to think about. They have a compelling argument. There are, in fact,  many American Indian people who fall outside this group that remain American Indians even if someone else says they are not.

Recent figures suggest that as many as 15,000 members have been taken off tribal roles over casino money disputes. It is also becoming a weapon in political wars on the reservations, with the families of some political appointments taken off the tribal enrollment lists. In the future, this is going to become more of a problem with every generation.

The moral of this story is that people can tell you they are American Indians and they might be lying or the might be telling the truth, but other people think they are lying. They might be telling the truth but have no documented proof. They might be telling the truth, have great documentation, and still be taken off the enrollment.

American Indian in the Old South |

For many reasons of politics, business, personal satisfaction, et al... histories being unraveled even now show how American Indians were forced to be listed as negroes, mulatto and anything but American Indian in early state records. This was a prevalent practice in the eastern and southern states as early as the 1400s. More and more histories of small tribes in these regions show how the racial listings of powerless, poor people in rural areas were stripped of their identities. This practice created yet again generations of human beings with no accurate documents even possible to say who they are, who their ancestors were. Generation after generation of small tribal communities were made invisible to the world around them. These same histories show us that everywhere this happened the people still continued to speak out loud and to their children that they are American Indian people, even if no one can see them. To many white Southerners, everybody who was not white was a negro, period.

In many states where tribes had lost their recognition, the people were not allowed, under penalties of law, to write that they were “indians” on any official document. A lot of the evidence that reveals this practice clearly, interestingly, is in church membership and baptismal records.

For as much mischief as they made, those missionaries and parsons who milked and fed and converted those old Indians, they also kept great records of who was who, often in complete indifference to what the local government policies were at the time. Many of them also recorded languages, so they could give up the word of salvation in the native tongues. In this way more than one tribal language has been actually saved and revived.

The government does not allow American Indian to change over time. American Indians are greeted with the same old cliches by the media, by the politicians, by the general public. They are referenced as artifacts of a past that never really existed. People say the most foolish things. The new weapons are documents created by liars, thieves and possibly even fairies to describe not what was real, but what they wanted to happen at that time. 

It is an act of criminality, an obscenity, that the present governments, universities, churches and business interests continue to cover up, deny and confuse in the hope that the truth will not be known, that no one will stand up at last and demand an accounting, revealing all the secrets of our poisonous behavior towards tribal people.

A whole bunch of my mother’s mother’s people were American Indians from little tribes in Georgia and South Carolina. I even remember as a child going down long narrow paths through old forests to visit some of my old relations. They lived, as we say, “way back”. I remember the eating was good. It was all fresh vegetables and local meat. Fish fries were very common with my relatives. 20 or 30 people would get together and catch the little bass and brim, as we called the fresh fish from the lakes. People would fry up french fries, make salads, cakes and pies and everybody would eat and eat for two or three days. This happened all the time with those old American Indians back when I was a boy. They are all long gone now and their old trails impossible to find. I have looked many times for them. The one thing I remember most clearly was the many things they taught me about the vegetable Okra.

The old family elders talked about the Catabwa tribe in particular, and I have always remembered what they said. One of my ancient old aunties gave me a pipe bowl when I was a young boy. It was the most intense thing. It was some kind of fired clay.  I lost that bowl somewhere around 1976 or 1977 during a time when I was living in my car, in the forest near Augusta Georgia. I had an old black and white cat that travelled with me in those days. I called him Sir Robert. He was pretty big. He would make a screech when he needed to go to the bathroom. I would pull the car over somewhere safe and quiet and he would get out, do his business and get right back in the car. It was a little Chevy Vega. Well, on one of these bathroom stops I think that pipe rolled out of the car, since I kept it in my pocket or somewhere nearby all the time I had it. Never saw it again. Sir Robert was a great cat, very unusual and calm. He was an old timer when he hooked up with me. He stayed with me for about 7 months. When I found a house, after making myself some money finally, he moved in with me and then after the first night, he moved on the next day. At least that’s how I figured it, since I never saw him again.

Well the federal Government sure never recognized this little tribe, so there was no way anyone could legally say they were Catabwa. All of them are mixed blood, even back then. A lot of the white people around there believed if you weren’t full blood, you were just nothing. Sound familiar? There sure was no doubt in the shining eyes of those old forest people we hiked through the woods to see and who talked about it like it was obvious as sunlight. Now I find out they were federally recognized at last in 1993. I am going to have to go back down that way and look into this. Writing about the past is great, because you learn many new things as you try to remember what was what way back then.

I tell you, if you look thoughtfully at this issue, all this posturing and ranting and “facts” about who and where the American Indians really are is far from being a simple issue…..in particular the cut and dried issue the “enrollment factions” have put their stock in.

On-going Adventures of the Down Side of Reservation Life |

There are moments, in the subconscious and the fearful mind, among reservation Indians, that believes all outsiders are a threat. Going onto an American Indian reservation and saying you are an American Indian from some place they have never heard of can be dangerous.

American Indian Reservations are largely institutions. Some are “managed” better than others. None are “managed” very well, not one. Some tribes, large and small are doing a great job working out their land, culture, and spiritual issues, but they remain the shining exceptions. Much of the management is in chaos and disrepair, and disrepute. In places where life is more hard, suspicion may come more easily. In a community where many ugly, negative energies prevail, no one wants to linger.

It is hard to say in the end what is the final test for who the American Indians really are. Considering adoption traditions, marriage, even the consequences of a vision quest if it was sponsored by tribal elders…all these facts and more can lead up to unexpected, and for some, unresolved issues.

The one sure certain element I have noticed in the real American Indian world that I have traveled all my life in, is that the eyes and the faces of the tribal elders know who their family, their relations are.

What matters most to mystery life, to sacred pipe, and to sky woman is behavior. What are we doing, what I am doing? The only way these questions can be answered by the real elders of the tribal nations is by standing with them, eye to eye. If you are any kind of American Indian, carry yourself to the sacred of your people and see what those elders have for you.

We need more of the spiritual leaders asking for help. For example Pine Ridge has had for some years a nightmare of sexual and physical, emotional abuse against the children, even the youngest. Crimes against children are done all across American Indian Country and this needs to stop. This includes beatings of the elders and domestic abuse against the partners, done by both men and women crazed by alcohol and drugs.

Pine Ridge should ask for 1,000 sweat lodge leaders from all the tribes to come and help them with this horrible nightmare. It has gone on now for more than one generation. To my mind that is an American Indian way to get to this problem. Drag the drunkards into those sweat lodges. Are there right now 1,000 sweat lodge leaders that could do this? Maybe. Someone needs to ask about this.

When I have troubles I look in the eight directions for the ceremonies, songs, and powers of the mystery life that can help me. I do that first.