Archives for category: culture

Cosmos and The Nation

March 25, 2015 //

^ evil incarnate

The Nation, to incorporate to the environment, had to integrate to the intelligence of the cosmos. This integration required merging two kinds of consciousness; female and male. The result had been androgynous thought reflected in the many genders in the language; where these many gender actually reflect the many varying degrees of androgyny in the observed processes of nature from whence the ancient ways of knowledge had been derived. This salient fact is what altogether set the ancient intelligence apart from the modern. The parallel I would draw is this: the two human brains, right & left, female & male, were not split as is reflected in modern experience. Awake time had its’ consistent dream element and sleep time was consistently informed with lucid dreaming. Never was a strict line drawn between, or boundary established, between the two. One reality was as valid as the other. Or, perhaps better said, they were never considered to be distinctly separate reality or experience. This integrated intelligence is what had made it possible for the Nation to exist within the social context of nature (or environment) within the cosmos. This unique (by comparison to the modern) integration is what enabled sight capable of ‘reading’ the language of other creatures, inclusive of trees, even stones. Also, within this integrated framework existed a ‘greater’ intelligence where time could be perceived in motion; a living clock could be its’ description. A Nation’s collective ability to ‘read’ this clock was an utilitarian principle allowing for the Nation to function as an organism within the environment hosted within the cosmos. Everything remained attuned within this clock, of which the Nation was a functional part (of the clock’s many parts, inclusive of ‘other nations’ such as the elk, antelope and bison.)

How delicate cultures can be is reflected in how the nations became dismembered. Already under pressures on account of European expansion and technology exerting forces preceding the actual Whites arrival, for example the necessity to acquire guns to compete with tribes being pushed into their territories, the Pikuni nation (a Blackfoot branch) was in a high state of male mortality. This was to have unforeseen consequence where the nation’s disintegration actually began before any organized attempt to bring these people to heel by government. The disintegration began with the poisoning of the nation by the Jesuits.

It was a mistake made by the women. The Small Robes band of Pikuni Blackfoot, also some other Pikuni aligned with them, invited the Jesuit DeSmet into their band, when they met him on a visit to the Salish. DeSmet learned their stories and subverted them (the stories) to Christian ideology. He accomplished this with convincing the women only one man had to die and if they celebrated that one death, they would be reunited with all the men they’d lost; in a paradise of immortals.

This deeply appealing (to the women) idea set loose in a world where lies were an almost inconceivable phenomena and lies about matters of spirit were beyond comprehension, turned Blackfoot society on its head in a single generation. DeSmet assigned two priests to followup on his stay with the Blackfeet and they were allowed (by the women) to educate a group of children. That fact destroyed the fabric of Blackfoot society, upending the principles of matriarchy. This infection of the Blackfoot mentality was the cause of future generations of women taught to submit to men and all balance was lost. This in turn made the men weak.

Over a longer period, this infection of Western thinking caused all of the males to become weak and ignorant by comparison to the ancients; because they lost their integrated intelligence or androgynous conceptual thought beginning with the Jesuit poisoning of Blackfoot understanding.

Illustrating this, there is an interesting piece of Blackfoot oral history that is a revisionism, related to McClintock in his ‘The Old North Trail.’ Here you see a modern ‘original sin’ story where the Blackfoot male at fault is named “Motokis.” This is interesting for two facts; it was Blackfeet men who’d capitulated to Christianity informed McClintock in oral history and the fact the story’s male protagonist name is Motokis, the name of the universal society of Blackfeet women who’d been the source of matriarchal intelligence. The cynicism of the Jesuits is stark, to use this name in a story manufactured to educate future generations of Blackfoot children to the idea of women’s intelligence being a source of bad luck.

The main group of the Small Robes associated with DeSmet suffered a terrible fate; when their men were wiped out by the Crow and the survivors became a Blackfeet speaking satellite band of the Crow nation. The other Pikuni group, those who did not suffer the Small Robes fate, were subsequently expelled by the larger Pikuni nation because the children educated by the Jesuits matured into pedophiles and rapists.

It happened that fast. The surrender (or poisoning) of native intelligence fractured the nation within the environment, and for all practical purposes, the environment integrated, ‘living entity’ had ceased to exist.

Cosmos & Cosmology Cross-cultural encroachment (1)

Cosmos & Environment Cross-Cultural encroachment (2)

Cosmos & The Nation Cross-cultural encroachment (3)

Cosmos & The Clan Cross-cultural encroachment (4)

Cosmos & The Family Cross-cultural encroachment (5)

Cosmos & The Self Cross-cultural encroachment (6)

Cosmos & Consciousness Cross-cultural encroachment (7)

Cosmos & Consciousness (notes)

Life in Indian Country Essay collection

Tags cutural poisoning, intelligence, Jesuits, Pierre Jean DeSmet

Categories crime, culture, matriarchy, parapsychology, philosophy, religion, shamanism, social responsibility, Uncategorized

Cosmos and Environment

March 24, 2015 //

I’ve given a LOT of thought, over time, to try and bring across some semblance of intelligent description to Western terminology; of how a concept of deity is grasped within the environment – recalling the Native hierarchy:

1) The great community or cosmos (interpreted as territory)
2) The environment (within the cosmos)
3) The nation (within the environment)
4) The clan/band (within the nation)
5) The family (within the band)
6) The self (within the family)

Our existence is Macro-Gaia (in the big picture) or all is [inter] related, from sub-atomic particle to planetary structures, with an element of Vitalism (the ‘great mystery’), taken together presenting as quasi or mimic intelligent design. The intelligent design would be ‘quasi’ because the native take on this aspect would be better described as intelligent expression, ‘design’ implies an egoic projection or attribution, whereas ‘expression’ should not. This thought goes to the native persona of humility: There are some things one simply cannot know.

Within the environment, which is perceived as social rather than physical, all surrounding natural phenomena is perceived as intelligent expression. ALL. There is no western concept of ‘God’ within this expression, and what might translate as ‘gods’ and ‘heroes’ from the cosmology, are the lessons drawn from historical markers integrated to natural events, whether celestial, earthly or in some combination.

When the environment is seen as social, permission is required to pursue not only specific activities within this community, but even to exist. Because the environment is seen as not only aware, but socially aware, there is an greater understanding of impacts directly relevant to undertaking responsibility; this is an environment with the ability to identify specific actions and react accordingly. From this aspect is drawn the native value of self-restraint; not only does any nation hosted within an environment possess no right whatsoever to aggressively exploit, the environment has the power to expel any nation inimical to its health.

Noting the horns sprouting on my forehead, it occurs to myself to mention in relation to the immediate preceding; if any indigenous person who perchance did not speak their language but in the English of the Europeans having read here and thought to themselves “But I knew that!” .. this would only go to demonstrate any Whiteman could know the same.

It should be noted this aware social environment required a different development of intelligence; where there is a necessary system of practical communication. Herein lies the difference between the isolated and remote from reality ‘dreams’ of the Western culture and the larger sense of ‘dreaming’ of the ancient Native American. Where everything in one’s surrounding is awake and aware puts focus on developing intelligence external to the narrow confines of any individual self; in the words of Karl Schlesier:

“to be open to the mysteries of the natural world and it’s manifestations, to be sensitive, aware of the manifold possibilities of seeing the world, to be free and unhampered in one’s thinking, to be generous and kind in regard to others, to let everything have it’s own voice”

To ‘let everything have its own voice’ is inclusive of all of those things the Platonic-Cartesian of the Western world has denied as a matter of static perception in the pursuit of knowledge focusing on the human species presumably the sole species capable of conscious awareness; but this lens had been a trap. As the Western culture has made its ‘advances’ within a framework of quite literal subjective damage while dismantling its surroundings in a thirst to ‘know’ (individual ego & related greed, actually), it had been inevitable the blind futility of this approach should manifest; as when theoretical physicist Bernard d’Espagnat can state:

“The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment”

In which case the Native American dream awareness has been quite consistent; as we see creatures going away due to our denying them the right to exist, we see our own right to exist vanishing as well. One only must consider the amount of damage to reality (our surroundings) required to develop Western Civilization to a point of building laboratory models leading to atom smashers necessary to arrive at what had already been known. As things stand today, our cosmos are well underway in the process of expelling our nations .. in that we’re surrendering our right to exist, a subject to explore in the following essay.

Cosmos & Cosmology Cross-cultural encroachment (1)

Cosmos & Environment Cross-Cultural encroachment (2)

Cosmos & The Nation Cross-cultural encroachment (3)

Cosmos & The Clan Cross-cultural encroachment (4)

Cosmos & The Family Cross-cultural encroachment (5)

Cosmos & The Self Cross-cultural encroachment (6)

Cosmos & Consciousness Cross-cultural encroachment (7)

Cosmos & Consciousness (notes)

Life in Indian Country Essay collection

Tags contrast, environment, intelligent design, intelligent expression, Native American, social, western culture

Categories culture, philosophy, shamanism, social responsibility, Uncategorized

Cosmos and Cosmology

March 23, 2015 //

^ Blackfoot sacred lands

The order of priority in the ancient native way had been:

This essay will point to the considerable difficulties inherent in maintaining the elements necessary to any authentic Native American spiritual awareness in relation to one’s surroundings and oneself.

To begin, there requires an intimate understanding of a living cosmos. To know a living cosmos requires a unique relationship to environment, commonly misconceived as a relationship solely to the land. It’s actually much bigger than this. To have some beginning idea of this cosmos, one must surrender any thought of ‘I’ and ‘me’ because ‘you’ cannot exist in this cosmos as an individual entity. Without the cosmos, you don’t exist. Within the cosmos, you cannot exist as an individual. This is because all of the cosmos is integrated. In the ancient Native American way, your cosmos is reflected (interpreted) as a territory where all is a single organism made up of inter-dependent parts, including every individual, and not only persons but every individual of every species, and what’s more, every stone and tree, down to each individual blade of grass.

The Blackfeet had their cosmos. The Blackfeet neighbors, whether Cree, Sioux, Crow, Cheyenne, Salish, or Shoshone, had their cosmos, each its’ own functioning universe with unique cosmology, within this concept. This had been the template on which Native American spiritual understanding had functioned; at the macro-level. To have a relationship to, and within, this cosmos, required a functional understanding of attending cosmology, that can be interpreted as laws immutably tied to the physical environment sustained within this cosmos. MOST IMPORTANTLY, this cosmos is its’ own self-conceptualizing, aware, seeing entity, a feeling or sentient being; in and of itself. “YOU” are ultimately unimportant to this cosmos -except- you were to know your place within this cosmos and that is the point of the cosmology.

Per example of this, I will point to the work of Karl Schlesier where he noted the Chiricahua Apache precursor people had “asked the spirit of the land to accept them” when migrating into those lands they were subsequently ‘discovered’ to inhabit; by encroaching European culture.

The original indigenous tradition required an aware, seeing, sentient being or ‘cosmos’ accept those who would inhabit it; and to accomplish this integration had little to with exploiting environment and everything to do with finding a niche contributing to the cosmos health. Finding this ‘place’ for an entire people determines whether you have a successful spiritual life and we are still a long ways from discussing the spiritual life of any individual person, or the bottom of the hierarchy.

Already, the implications are quite profound; not only would those of European cultural heritage be far removed from authentic Native American spiritual experience, but so would many who actually believe they are Native American .. because cosmology had been embedded in the native languages and those languages’ stories. It would be the case in every instance where a tribal people had lost their language, they had also lost their cosmology and authentic relationship to their cosmos.

Moreover, every tribal council applying the Western culture’s economic principles of exploiting resources is removed from their own cosmos and cosmology. It’s not just ‘White people’ these days. How it came to this is not the subject of these essays; the point is to go to the facts on the ground in the present. In the next essay we will go to the environment and the fact from an ancient indigenous perspective, a cosmos doesn’t care whether your skin is Red or White. The road to health in any living cosmos would be equally challenging for both.

Cosmos & Cosmology Cross-cultural encroachment (1)

Cosmos & Environment Cross-Cultural encroachment (2)

Cosmos & The Nation Cross-cultural encroachment (3)

Cosmos & The Clan Cross-cultural encroachment (4)

Cosmos & The Family Cross-cultural encroachment (5)

Cosmos & The Self Cross-cultural encroachment (6)

Cosmos & Consciousness Cross-cultural encroachment (7)

Cosmos & Consciousness (notes)

Life in Indian Country Essay collection

Tags cosmology, cosmos, Native American

Categories culture, shamanism, Uncategorized

New Age Homicide for $MONEY$

March 23, 2015 //

Insofar as the ‘new age’ people co-opting Native American ceremony, here is another of my ‘myspace’ pieces, also from 2009, following on the 2009 preceding piece on Russel Means. Taken together, these are prelude to a following piece I am in process of working up; exploring the inter-cultural misapprehension of North American indigenous based and European concept. My commentary on the AP WIRE reporting in italics

AP WIRE: Oct 10th, 2009 | PHOENIX — Authorities seeking answers to what caused two deaths and more than a dozen illnesses at an Arizona resort’s sauna-like sweat lodge were investigating whether any of the victims had medical conditions or had been fasting

Humnn, what is wrong with this picture

In all, 21 of the 64 people crowded inside the sweat lodge Thursday evening received medical care at hospitals and a fire station. Four remained hospitalized Friday evening — one in critical condition and the others in fair condition…..

My elder teachers talked about this. Think about it. “64 people crowded inside”

Authorities haven’t determined the cause of the deaths and illnesses; tests for carbon monoxide and other contaminants were negative

This is a tragedy of IGNORANCE and GREED

Among those sickened during a two-hour session were a middle-aged man and a woman who were unconscious, according to a 911 call, and a third person who was found not breathing

1st question: How could this happen except whoever is running the sweat did not have proper training? I was taught when sweating the inexperienced or people from another culture, to constantly check on the welfare of my people in the sweat, you do not take in more people than you can keep track of, you make and keep communication established with everyone by name, you ask again and again if they have enough air, you ask if they are too hot, you make certain they have opportunity to drink, you make it clear they should tell you if they are dizzy or otherwise struggling, you take real breaks and you do not group sweat ANYONE with medical condition or if they have been fasting. The Sweat Lodge, other than certain events of long tradition practiced by the trained initiates in organized societies, is typically small, intimate and strictly controlled precisely because it is DANGEROUS. It is absolutely DANGEROUS if you don’t know what you are doing

“It’s not something you’d normally see at one of the resorts there, and it’s unfortunate regardless of the cause,” Yavapai County sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said

“unfortunate”

Investigators were working to determine whether criminal actions might have been a factor in the incident, D’Evelyn said

Effectively, this is criminal negligent homicide. Or worse. These people did not have a cultural context that is in a sense a lifetime of preparation for enduring an extreme physical stress and to some, an extreme psychological stress. I can tell you what my primary native sweat teacher would have said about this event: ‘those people were murdered”

The Angel Valley Retreat Center sits on 70 acres nestled in a scrub forest just outside Sedona, a resort town 115 miles north of Phoenix that draws many in the New Age spiritual movement

“Sedona” and “New Age spiritual movement”

Self-help expert and author James Arthur Ray rented the facility as part of his “Spiritual Warrior” retreat that began Oct. 3 and that promised to “absolutely change your life.”

‘self-help expert’

Ray spokesman Howard Bragman confirmed that his client was holding an event at the retreat, as he has done in the past. Authorities said Ray was inside the sweat lodge Thursday evening and was interviewed at the scene

What could he honestly say? He murdered them with his greed and ignorance?

“We express our deepest condolences to those who lost friends and family, but we pray for a speedy recovery for those who took ill,” Bragman said. “At this point there are more questions than answers, so it would not be appropriate to comment further.”

“condolences” and “more questions than answers”

Sweat lodges, like that held on the final day of the Angel Valley retreat, are commonly used by American Indian tribes to cleanse the body and prepare for hunts, ceremonies and other events. The structure used Thursday was crudely built and covered with tarps and blankets

And those Indians, if solidly grounded in their tradtions, would know you do not sell the sweat lodge experience for $MONEY$. There is a long tradition of highly ritualized gift giving which is in no sense commercial at all, but is predicated upon a relationship to spirit and prices are not named because you cannot price the poor or unfortunate out of a relationship of learning or experiencing what is holy. There are certain traditional gifts, small in value, for the spirit. And then there is the self motivation of the heart of the patient or student towards the healer or teacher. No price can be named by the medicine man. Most Native American sweats involve no money at all, other than the gas required to gather the wood and haul it to the sweat site. All of the good medicine men I knew had real life day jobs, were older and retired, voluntarily sponsored by a patron [not for profit] or otherwise were somehow self sufficient in their own right and did not depend on their spiritual work for a living, because that would destroy your reputation. NONE OF THEM WAS WEALTHY. The ones I knew who succumbed to greed, yes, those sort of people do exist in Native America, were ostracized in their own communities and had effectively destroyed their relationship to their own people. In effect, if you work to serve the people, you do NOT sell spirit for $MONEY$

Stones are heated up outside a lodge, brought inside and placed in a pail-sized hole. The door is closed, and water is poured on the stones, producing heat aimed at releasing toxins in the body

Remember “64 people crowded inside” for $MONEY$

The ritual in sweat lodges is helpful in restoring balance and changing people’s attitudes and self-image, said Joseph Bruchac, author of “The Native American Sweat Lodge: History and Legends.”

Dead and injured as a result of “64 people crowded inside” This has nothing to do with “restoring balance and changing people’s attitudes and self-image” when it involves commercial event for $MONEY$. Think about it. What the people have done here is like trying to buy your way with spirit

People have died in sweat lodges in the past. They were either sick tribal elders who voluntarily stayed until they died or people who had heart conditions and were in poor health

This is true, the elderly, very tired or feeling complete in their journey, could make that choice. But always, life was taught as the first and paramount choice. And as for people dying at a sweat because of poor health, this is RARE in Native America and would ALWAYS indicate a mistake having been made

“The sweat lodge needs to be respected,” Bruchac said. “When you imitate someone’s tradition and you don’t know what you are doing, there’s a danger of doing something very wrong.”

Bruchac is correct. “Danger of doing something very wrong” and “64 people crowded inside” for $MONEY$, are two and two put together when it comes to “doing something very wrong”

Ray’s retreat schedule had few details about what participants could expect, other than thrice-daily meals and group gatherings that started at 7 a.m. and ended 16 hours later

Sixteen hour days. This deadly event was held at the end of six days of 16 hour days where people have been fasting, hiking, group encountering, essentially stressed out body and mind on top of not having a lifetime of cultural context to prepare them for the sweat experience. Then they are packed like sardines into a structure in such a large number there is no way the leader can keep track of their individual welfare. This was BEGGING for trouble

The details came in a lengthy release of liability that acknowledges participants may suffer “physical, emotional, financial or other injuries” while hiking or swimming, or during a multi-day personal and spiritual quest in the wilderness without food or water or the sweat lodge

Sorry folks, but these people picked a damn poor medicine man when they ponied up for a “spiritual quest in the wilderness without food or water” and “64 people crowded inside” requiring a LEGAL WAIVER. All for $MONEY$

Some participants told detectives they paid up to $9,000 for the event. Ray’s company, James Ray International, is based in Carlsbad, Calif

“they paid up to $9,000 for the event” to a medicine man named “James Ray International”

Ray’s posting on his Twitter account hours before the deaths said: “Still in Spiritual Warrior … for anything new to live something first must die. What needs to die in you so that new life can emerge?”

Creating reality. Grief emerges from arrogance. Where is the humility taught as the underpinning of Native American spiritual belief? According to what I know from 30 years intimate contact with the spiritual teachings of three separate Native peoples, Blackfoot, Ojibwe and Cree, this guy was begging for bad luck and things to go wrong. He’ll know humility now. Or hide behind lawyers, more likely. Nothing cultural in a Native American sense with that. So, in the end, is this guy practicing Native American spiritual tradition? I don’t think so

The posting and two others were deleted Friday afternoon

People lives deleted

A woman who answered the phone at the Angel Valley resort Friday said its founders, Michael and Amayra Hamilton, would have no comment. A call to the Hamiltons’ home went unanswered

“they paid up to $9,000 for the event” and “no comment”

The Angel Valley Spiritual Retreat Center, built on former ranch property in the high-desert and red-rock country of northern Arizona, bills itself as a natural environment for self discovery and healing through a holistic approach aimed at balancing the mind, emotions, body and spirit

$MONEY$. Just to let you all know, especially those wishing to follow a Native path, the Oral History (prophets) of Stone Child’s Plains Ojibwe people had a specific name for $MONEY$ in a spiritual context. That name? “The Leading Trouble Maker.” The surviving group of these people [Stone Child descendents] are now located at Sunchild Reserve in Alberta, Canada, perhaps the true teachings survive there. I was taught the Oral History by the last of the [Chippewa language] Montana branch of Stone Child’s Ojibwe people, who now for all practical purposes are assimilated into the Cree culture at Rocky Boy or culturally extinct. My friend and tribal elder Duncan Standing Rock will vouch for this. Maybe these elders either hoped or knew I would tell you about “The Leading Trouble Maker” also known as $MONEY$. There is a lot to be known about $MONEY$, and how it corrupts spirit from the Native American point of view. There is a simple oxymoron here. $Money$ is the human element of greed that is causing the planet to die. How can charging $MONEY$ square with the Native American spiritual belief and the primary sweat lodge teaching that all life, nature as a whole, is sacred?

The property includes American Indian structures such as teepees, guest houses and outdoor labyrinths made of stones

“$9,000” paid to die. Think about it

^ screenshot of following statement:

“To whom it may concern,

“I feel good about granting my recommendations in behalf of Mr. Ronald West of whom I had known for many years. I know Mr. West had served in the U.S. Military Service with an honorable discharge. I know Mr. West has very high respect for certain aboriginal inter-tribal cultural and ceremonies. I know Mr. Ronald West is a honorable and loyal to his beliefs and to those whom Mr. Ronald West works with.

With Respect,

Mr. Duncan Standing Rock Sr.”

Life in Indian Country Essay collection

Tags James Arthur Ray, Native American, new age, sweat lodge

Categories corruption, crime, culture, psychology, religion, shamanism, social responsibility, Uncategorized

The Legacy of Russell Means

March 23, 2015 //

This essay of mine is originally from 2009 where it was posted on ‘myspace’ (before Rupert Murdoch’s people destroyed that platform.) A mutual acquaintance brought the essay to Russell’s attention with a request for some response, which was never forthcoming. Why I am re-posting the essay now is, I ran across an essay at Cultural Survival which extensively utilizes Russell Mean’s as an authority on the subject of fraud in Native American spiritual matters. I do not take issue with the gist of the essay posted at the Cultural Survival website (except for it’s very incomplete coverage of a complex subject, which I will take forward in upcoming assessment) but I do take issue with Russell Means as an expert authority and role model.

I know a little something about what it means to be Indian in the old ways, and it is that standard, the original Native American standard, I will speak to here.

At our age, we either have become elders, and that entails a certain kind of wisdom achieved in the native way, through a lifetime of personal evolution or, we have become ‘nothing people.’

Russell would not know me from Adam, were we to meet, is my guess. So now I will remind him of what is not forgotten.

Russell and I go back over 30 years, to the International Treaty Councils held at Fort Belknap in Montana. I was invited by the Atsina members based on my association with the old Blackfoot Confederacy, The Kainah, Sisika, Amskapi Pikuni, Skinee Pikuni, Sarcee, Atsina and particularly because of my relationship to the Pikuni peoples.

On one occasion I accepted, and generously donated considerable financial support to this American Indian Movement event. Delegations from numerous tribes attended, from the USA and Canada. My nephew, Devalon Small Legs, from an important family of Canadian AIM leaders of that time, attended from the Skinee Pikuni, I was the only Amskapi Pikuni present.

AIM had incorporated both political and spiritual movements, our Blackfoot confederated members tended to the spiritual side. The difference is, the spiritual people understand that to be Native American is primarily a way of life, a lived philosophy. I am White. But I grew up bi-culturally Native American, with relationships in the Native community from my youth. My Pikuni spiritual people had always honored this. Also my Plains Ojibwe and Cree peoples.

Russell’s AIM people did not even bother to inquire when they met me, they saw a Whiteman, judged me on that fact solely and Russell accordingly has been a fool for over thirty years. Indian people should never have to be instructed to be civil in their Native community.

On top of about $700 out of pocket to help feed the International Treaty Council event and provide some travel money, a lot of money both for myself and that community in that era, I had brought in some non-native people with open minds. I wished to create empathy, open channels of dialog and raise awareness in the outside world concerning the cruel apartheid system our subjugated tribes suffer.

Russell’s AIM delegation killed that. The only people from the Means camp to visit our camp, came to make pointed racial insults. It was so bad, my Blackfoot confederacy people and Atsina hosts had to call a special meeting simply to insist we be treated in a civil way. It never happened (civility from Russell’s people) but the worst of the insults ceased. So much for dialog.

At a subsequent meeting attended by Russell and myself in Great Falls, Montana, Russell had to be pointedly told I could participate in the Pipe Ceremony by my nephew Devalon, the AIM spiritual leader for that event. That was the last and only time I had personally met Russell, but I have kept an eye on him since.

I am related to the Gophers, a plains Ojibwe family. I am not close to all of them, I will say it is for reasons more traditional people would understand. However I did know Robert Gopher, a key International Treaty Council supporter, quite well. To be fair, I will say Robert was a well intended but bullheaded and not the brightest man. When our relative, a Gopher kid, was to be sentenced for manslaughter, a result of drinking and driving, Robert asked Russell Means for help. That was a big mistake. The kid was guilty as hell, with multiple prior offences, and instead of opening a civil dialog in the community concerning why these things too often happen in the repression of enforced poverty, Russell shot his mouth off to the press to the effect the prosecution of the kid amounted to “racism.” That was pretty rich, based on my experience with Russell. His “racist prosecution” statement was all over the Montana newspapers, it pissed off the judge and the book was thrown at the Gopher kid, he got the maximum possible sentence the prosecutor was asking for, 100 years.

When I met the author of ‘In the Spirit of Crazy Horse’, Peter Mattheissen, we had a short conversation about Russell. I told Peter that Russell is a “really big asshole” and Peter agreed with me “Yes, Russell is a very big asshole, but he is an important asshole to his people.”

I respectfully disagree with Peter. There is only one important asshole in Indian country, and that asshole is Old Man Coyote.

Russell went on to bail out of Sundance and dumped his Montana Sundancers in the middle of vows, that made the newspapers with tribal spiritual leaders pointedly upset, he rode off into the sunrise, when Russell got a call to be a movie star in Iroquois country. It would be fitting he played a bad guy.

And it came out the non-violent AIM educator, Annie May Aquash, was murdered by the Means faction of AIM, the order to kill Annie was given out of a meeting held in a Means brother’s kitchen. Like Peter Mathiassen and many others, I had believed it was corrupt law enforcement had murdered Annie, but that was Russell’s AIM faction line of bullshit. It hurt, that one. Some of our Indian people are no better than the goons who persecute us.

And then, Russell’s wife called 911 in New Mexico because he was beating her.

Finally, Russell tried to run for tribal council, the most corrupt and repressive banana republic regime you can imagine, tribal councils being completely in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and habitual offenders against Native American human rights and a mainstay of the American apartheid system for Indians.

I am not aware Russell has ever corrected himself in these matters.

In the Indian way, when you have made mistakes, they must be confessed. Russell had stated “For the world to live, Europe must die.” Russell should better look at killing the “Europe” in himself. Because the ego of the Whiteman, also known as refusing to learn and correct oneself, is fatal to what it means to be Indian- that is to be generous, gentle, kind and loving people who live in a beautiful way.

People should, in the circumstance of Russell presenting himself as a role model for our young people, question whether Russell actually is an authentic Indian who has overcome great adversity or, sadly, whether the facts point to Russell as a failed and angry trash product of the Boarding School legacy.

This is something Russell has never sorted out, he has never walked the walk. Insofar as the facts speak for themselves, in the old Indian way, Russell is a ‘nothing person.’

Life in Indian Country Essay collection

Tags American Indian Movement, culturalsurvival.org, Native American, Russell Means

Categories culture, philosophy, politics, religion, shamanism, social responsibility, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 18

March 14, 2015 //

The effects of this trip had reverberated in the core of my being for well over a month, following my return. Landed in New York, I traveled upstate and spent a week hanging out with a friend. It was a quiet scene, talking philosophy and spending time checking out the old Erie Canal. The mundane was beautiful.

Back at Helena, I was asked what I thought of the trip. By this time I knew the sisters had the then popular astrologer, Zipporah Dobbins, choose the trips date; it would be an ‘auspicious’ time. Based on this intelligence, I answered “Those girls should be jailed.”

I went to Starr School on the Blackfeet reservation, to pack up and head south for a few months, coming from the tropics into a Montana winter was not an appealing thought. I dropped by to visit Pat, my medicine man friend and he laughed at me … Native America has perhaps the darkest humor on Earth and the prevailing joke in the community was “Ron shot Mrs Gandhi.” It was a pun on the shamanic aspect of life not understood in western culture, but similar perhaps to a joke on someone who’d followed an astrologer into a disaster. Kind of like saying ‘your medicine man sucks’ relating to consulting over preparation for a journey.

Reprising a trip from over a decade earlier, when I’d driven a Volkswagen ‘bug’ to Arizona, to escape Montana’s cold, following my return from tropical Vietnam, here I was again, driving a Volkswagen bug to Arizona, to escape the Montana cold, following my return from tropical India.

It was at Agua Prieta, just on the Mexican side of the border with Arizona, I’d asked at the local grocery a simplest possible question; of a proprietor who’d probably never been beyond the borders of his native Sonora. My imperfect Spanish couldn’t find the impersonal ‘are there’ and instead I blurted out the personal ‘do you have’ .. eggs? His reply was:

“Sì! Dos grandes!!”

-end-

notes to follow-

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags Astrology, auspicious, cahones, shamanism, Zipporah Dobbins

Categories assassinations, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, satire, Travel, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 16

March 13, 2015 //

On 2 November in my room at the Taj Palace, watching Indian state tv was like watching science fiction; with expressionless humanoid faces telling us not to believe “rumors of communal violence.” As I watched Rajiv light his mother’s funeral pyre on television, I could coincidentally look out the window at a column of smoke rising in the distance. Indira Gandhi’s body going up in flames or another Sikh home? There was no way for me to know, as these were simultaneous phenomena. So, what was the point of the television lie? Another trait India holds in common with the western democracies – ‘what you’re told isn’t the reality.’

Meanwhile I’d picked up a security detail shadowing me, no one believed for a New York second I was Old Babette’s grandson. It’d been better if she’d said nothing. I took care of that with fortuitous circumstance. I was sitting in a lounge in the morning when some vile looking, dowdy and incredibly wealthy (her gold and jewels hanging on her like kites tangled in utility wires) old woman decided to abandon her huge purse that appeared to be so heavy as to be filled with gold bars and leave the room. I spotted my security man across the room in a doorway, looking the other way. I walked swiftly over to him and, without mentioning the owner, I told him “There is an untended bag.” He immediately followed me into the lounge where I pointed out the purse, as it happened the old woman was returning to claim it. After, there was no further suspicions; they didn’t care who I was, other than an extra set of security eyes. No one wanted a bomb going off. A little later I frightened the ‘bejezuz’ out of myself with a stupid trick. Heading back to my room I turned the corner to see the elevator doors were beginning to close. With a sprint & leap worthy of some caped hero, I flew into the elevator as the door closed behind me: squarely into some VIP”s armed security detail! And fortunately for me, sans VIP. I wasn’t shot. If only they’d taken a photo of my face in that moment, some things are absolutely priceless. Recovering my composure in the stare of several ‘men-in-black’ security types, I simply said “Sorry” and pushed the elevator button to my level.

3 November simply dragged on in some sort of time warp that makes a day seem as though it will never end, as Indian television insisted despite rumors, there was no communal violence. Meanwhile I’d encountered an American who said a mob had boarded at a stop and killed Sikhs on the train he’d taken to Delhi.

Meanwhile Old Babette had been showering me with promises. Grateful, at least momentarily, for engineering our escape, she insisted I was going to be put up in Cairo and take a boat tour with her on the Nile, all on her dime. I listened but said nothing. Underneath, both of us knew we were absolutely incompatible personalities. That, and I recalled her brief episode of delusional belief she was a siren of eternal youth. That made me more paranoid than the rioting city we were looking to escape.

On the morning of the 4th, the Guardian Angel Sister’s Muslim travel agent manifest, to be certain Old Babette and myself made it onto the airport shuttle. For that fact, I totally forgive her for -on my departing the Hotel Imperial- passing off to me two, inferior quality, counterfeit USD$100 bills as a means of getting rid of them. On the other hand, her Bandit Sister was prone to absolutely angel moments (time to time.)

Cairo

In our (cheap) silk kimono jackets courtesy of 1st class tickets on Japan Airline, we were among the first people out of Delhi. No sooner than we we’re in the air, Old Babette’s immense gratitude began to wane; she was certain I wouldn’t mind a 2nd class hotel in Cairo. The truth is, other than reassurance as escort on absolutely insane taxi rides, there hadn’t been much I’d done she couldn’t have done for herself. It was the Muslim friend of the Guardian Angel Sister had made our departure possible. I don’t know if Old Babette had ‘male companion’ in mind for Egypt, but as far as I was concerned we were parting ways. As we were disembarking our plane in Cairo, her plans for us were getting reiterated and I said nothing until we’d passed through customs; her needing assistance with luggage, and myself with two carry on totality of luggage, I turned to her and said “I’ll take a rain-check” with a wave of the hand I strode away .. and the look of complete surprize-shock-amazement on her face was the last I ever saw of Old Babette.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags Cairo, communal violence, Delhi, Egypt, Hotel Imperial, India, Indira Gandhi

Categories assassinations, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, satire, Travel

My Madcap Adventure Episode 15

March 13, 2015 //

Of the numerous photos of the 1984 ‘riots’ I could have chosen, of Sikhs being beaten to death, burned alive, arson of their businesses or simply bodies of children, women and men alike murdered by the mob, I decided instead to show a taste of the opulence I’d escaped to .. and is likely an accurate picture of the Gandhi family’s life; even as Rajiv was setting fire to his mother’s funeral pyre while powerless Sikh families were being burned alive in their homes:

^ Interior of Taj Palace Hotel at New Delhi

I’d put on my day pack and shouldered my small sport duffel, the totality of my luggage, grabbed one of Old Babette’s suitcases (she had two) and escorted her out of the Hotel Imperial’s gate, past the Sikh security contingent, all armed with swords or batons, one of whose face was severely beaten. We turned right outside of the gate and walked maybe a hundred meters or so to an area where there was a taxi business. The taxi people pointed us down an alley where there were a few taxis with drivers willing to risk exiting the area and hired one to drive us to the Taj Palace Hotel … for one hundred US dollars. Working was an affront to the memory of Indira Gandhi and could get a taxi driver killed, with no safety promise made to the passengers. We made the trip with a wide-eyed, nearly panic stricken driver speeding through the empty streets of Delhi – it looked like a ghost city with scattered debris and the occasional smouldering ruin. Suddenly we breezed through an army checkpoint into the upscale area of the city where life looked like a calm calendar holiday. We arrived at the marble & brass edifice that we’d call home for the following three nights, without incident. Then, Old Babette made her first screw-up. She quite spontaneously decided to create an alibi for the character she was traveling with (that would be me) and went into an unrequested, convoluted, unconvincing explanation I was her “grandson” at check-in. Of course all this did was raise suspicions; as I bore no resemblance whatsoever to her. A medium-short, dark, muscular male with no scent of money whatsoever in his attire, in the company of a clearly wealthy, slender, taller, translucent-White woman who’d burn in the sun in less than 10 minutes without her protective hat and sunscreen. For purposes of cover, I would never bring myself to pose as her male prostitute; as well, we had separate rooms .. otherwise that might have almost been the story that fit her unnecessary, unwanted, counter-productive attempt at an alibi. In a way, we WERE using each other. But now I was marked by hotel security in a venue that was filling up with high profile guests arriving for a state funeral.

Now, things became more stupid in a blessed sort of way; We discovered there was to be an ‘inaugural’ Japan Airlines flight out of Delhi on 4 November, the day the airport would reopen for regular commercial traffic. This stroke of luck made available to us was on account of the Guardian Angel Sister who’d an Indian professional travel associate who came to see if we’d made it to our destination alive. This Muslim man, I do not recall his name, impresses me as one of the finest people I’d met on our trip. The catch was, I subsequently discovered, in order to secure tickets, we had to visit the Japan Airlines travel agency office, precisely located one city block from Hotel Imperial! Old Babette and myself had to get a taxi and retrace our route and return!! Argh!!! None of the travel businesses were overtly open but if we went to the back door of the business, we were told, we’d be allowed in to acquire plane tickets. This would be my fifth trip across the burning city in two days, if one counted destination and return separately. I told Old Babette she could either come up with a few thousand cash for myself to transact the business for us or take the ride and bring along her credit cards. She got into the taxi with me. Two wild rides & two hundred dollars in taxi fees later, we were back at the Taj Palace with a pair of first class tickets to Cairo.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags 1984, Hotel Imperial, New Delhi, Taj Palace Hotel

Categories assassinations, Author, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, satire, Travel

My Madcap Adventure Episode 14

March 12, 2015 //

The term ‘surrealism’ in the common vernacular is about more than any school of art or literature. In the collective conscious of humanity, it is sometimes expressed in the vulgar tongue as ‘shit happens’ .. as when life itself becomes surreal. As surreal as my adventure might have seemed to now, suddenly it took on that psychosis that does not belong to the ego of any one individual, no matter it was both; arrogance & narcissism of the individual had initiated some few days mayhem & bedlam worthy of some South Asian ‘El Greco’ portrait. Except these inmate behaviors were exterior to the walls of the asylum. But first:

Indira Gandhi was an arrogant woman. From the time of the so-called ‘Emergency’, it was clear India is no exception to the general rule of democracy; it is the selfish ambition of the individual rises to rule, and the rights of the ‘little people’ are run over. After, when a militant Sikh separatist had taken over the Golden Temple (some would justly believe he’d been radicalized by Gandhi’s Congress party acts) she could have waited him out. Instead, this woman had her army storm the Sikh sacred temple, as Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was an affront to her ego. Her long time body guard, the Sikh Beant Singh, consequently ended her life. Then, Gandhi’s Congress party empowered a massacre of Sikhs in Delhi. This is what I’d been caught up in. These organized (by Indian Congress Party officials who’ve never been held to account) riots were from the evening of 31 October, the day Gandhi was assassinated, through the evening of 3 November, when the authorities finally began moving to have order restored. Meanwhile, thousands of Sikhs had been murdered and countless Sikh businesses and homes damaged or destroyed. The Hotel Imperial was a Sikh owned and operated business.

I managed to get out of Delhi (and India) on 4 November and needless to say, I am no fan of the Gandhi dy’nasty.’ Reflecting on these events is not fun but I’ll seize any black humor opportunity in the narratives that follow.

The Hotel Imperial is first of all, a walled fortress. A late colonial period construction, it was probably built with defensive features in case of rebellion. There was a large population of Sikhs in the neighborhood and this resulted in two phenomena; every Sikh in the area that could make it alive, came to Hotel Imperial for refuge … and Hotel Imperial became a point of focus for the anti-Sikh mob or what was essentially an organized pogrom. It wasn’t the Alamo, but the potential for one seemed real.

Insofar as the surrealism, imagine this: after their evening dinner, European tourists are camped in lounge chairs in the garden by the pool, with waiters serving drinks while profoundly apologizing; for the occasional Molotov cocktail that comes sailing over the wall.

The morning of 1 November, I tested the waters beyond the walls; it was quiet during the day. Walking out the gate in my western clothes, past the Sikh guard contingent, I drew looks from the Hindu mob’s sentries across the street but no one made any move to accost me. Taxi fares were over the moon. You could get rides for wads of American dollars but it was clearly dangerous. I made it to the American embassy where I gave the details of our party and asked for their assessment. They said there appeared to be no hostilities directed at westerners but frequenting any Sikh neighborhood or associated business was definitely not good. I inquired what area of the city was secure and they recommended any hotel in the ‘diplomatic enclave’ as that was the only area the army had moved to secure. Back at the Hotel Imperial, I gave my report. Old Babette wanted out. The Guardian Angel Sister was more philosophical; “Oh, I love these Sikhs, I’ll stay here.” Of course that would have nothing to do with her carpets arranged for export having been commandeered to fortify windows; where muskets that looked to have been retrieved from a colonial museum were manned from behind her precious bales.

Meanwhile, Old Babette and myself struck a deal – using her money and my experience, we’d get out.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags 1984, India, New Delhi

Categories assassinations, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, religion, Travel

My Madcap Adventure Episode 12

March 11, 2015 //

Our days at Chitwan behind us, the bus we hired to bring the group back to Katmandu broke down. The Tibetan stayed with the main group and the bus together with the Angel Sister, while the Bandit Sister, with some of the more adventurous souls, took off up the road to ‘hitch-hike’ back to Katmandu. I rather quickly strode out beyond these people and when about two hundred meters ahead of them, looking back, I saw a commuter bus blow past this crew dressed in western clothes with thumbs out, as though they did not exist. ‘Thumbs up’ likely meant to the driver of this bus ‘it’s all good.’

I’ve worn something resembling a turban exactly twice in my life; the first time in 1972 when hired as an extra; for a movie that bombed at the box office, a remake of ‘Lost Horizons.’ Oddly coincidental, this movie was supposedly set in the Himalayas (however filmed in the USA.) I’d like to believe this dubious literary venture will someday fare better.

While in Nepal, I’d purchased a long piece of brightly colored cotton cloth, a print, and wore it wrapped around my head in a manner similar to some of the locals, enhancing the native dress I’d adopted. Extending my hand, palm down, at the approaching bus, with a sort of wing-flap gesture I knew from Vietnam, the vehicle stopped for me. Climbing onto this typically jammed with people commuter bus at the rear entrance, as there was no possible space to enter at the front of the bus, I sorted the fare by deliberately producing more than it could possibly cost, an Indian twenty rupee note. Nepal was, in those days, a triple currency nation; Nepal rupees, India rupees and American dollars. The India twenty rupee note was passed, hand to hand, from the rear of the bus to the front of the bus, where it was deposited and a Nepal ten rupee note and some coins were passed, hand to hand, back to the rear of the bus and given to me. The simple people are good to, and honest with, each other. I didn’t initially know the fare but the result proved I wasn’t cheated.

^ Similar but my commuter bus was bigger

By using the India currency, it put the curious off the mark. To each language put to me by fellow passengers, I merely smiled and shook my head in the negative. Nobody asked me a question in English and clearly no one suspected I was a westerner. Normal in Nepal or India, this all took place standing at the open rear door of a bus that would see the driver jailed and company shut down, if it were to happen in the States .. there were that many people on board.

I was the first back to our hotel in Katmandu, by several hours. The Bandit Sister and the few with her wandered in next, followed by those who’d stayed with the bus, that evening. Meanwhile, Jasper® was in an ebullient mood, regaling us with stories, no doubt solo immersion in the Katmandu hashish/opium dens had lifted his spirits considerably in our absence. Or perhaps he was actually, genuinely, happy to see us. One story he told has remained etched in my memory, something one such as myself would never be prone to forget. But first: One must understand these sisters have known South Asia intimately since the 1960s. Covering India (the Guardian Angel Sister primarily), Pakistan (both sisters) and Afghanistan (the Bandit Sister primarily), among other nations, if one could reinvent Kipling’s ‘Kim’ as two 20th Century sisters who’d discovered the South Asian street life and could competently negotiate the associated intrigues of the latter era, it would be these girls. With that said, I’ve no real idea what the sisters were doing in Islamabad in December, 1971. Especially considering they were in the company of not only Jasper® & Socket™ but Kathy McNamara! As Jasper® warmed to his story of the hotel room they were together in subject to air-raid blackout during the short India-Pakistan war of 1971, he brought up the fact of former (and much reviled) United States Secretary of Defense and then World Bank President Robert McNamara’s daughter present in the involuntarily darkened room. Then, with an expression of amazement apparently undiluted over the 13 years that’d passed since; Jasper® announced and I’ll never forget this .. “And Socket™ screwed her!!”

Socket™ did not deny anything, rather looked, for the only time ever, somewhat uncomfortable. Normally, he was gathered and complacent image of cool, closely resembling another drummer anyone should recognize, that is if one were to imagine his face thinner & darker:

Who knows what method might have been employed to seduce Kathy McNamara .. no matter circumstance .. when a daughter of one of the world’s most powerful and evil men is seduced by a village musician from Bihar, that my friends, is the stuff of legend.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags Katmandu, Nepal

Categories culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, satire, Travel, Uncategorized

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