Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
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Someone
sent me a copy of the October 19 issue of Indian
Country Today. A front-page headline
reads, “Mocking a culture,” with a photograph of a White high school
student in
turkey feathers acting the role of “Big Chief” of Bennett County. In the Ahnishinahbæótjibway language, there is no
word which is a translation of
the English word, “Indian,” and there are no concepts or words in our
language
for “chief,” “squaw,” “band,” or “tribe,” or “Indian Tribal Council.” These words are all Western European words
in their imported Indo-European languages, referring to alien European
concepts
which have nothing to do with traditional Ahnishinahbæótjibway culture, values or
language. Neither the Indians nor the
Whites have any
understanding of the languages of the Aboriginal people of this
Continent, and
the “Indian culture” which is portrayed in the media—by both Whites and
Indians—is a shoddy caricature and an insultingly cheap imitation of
the
egalitarian and harmonious Ahnishinahbæótjibway language and culture. Most “Indian languages” which are taught in
“Indian Studies”
University departments are Creole languages which embody Western
European
abstract thinking and hierarchical structure.
According
to the accompanying article, a highly irate Indian
of Porcupine, South Dakota, said that Whites wearing buckskin, beads,
war
bonnets and face paint is “a mockery of our culture.”
How can Whites dressing in feathers and buckskins be a mockery
of
Indian culture, when the Indian identity and Indian culture were
created by the
Whites and given to their subject people, whom the Whites define as
“Indians.” High school students in
Martin, South Dakota, are no different than the Washington Redskins or
the
B-Western movies—and they are also no different than the Federally
Recognized 1934
IRA Indian Tribal Councils and professional Wanna-Be blood quantum
Indians. Indians are an invention of
the White man, so how can Whites portraying their own projections
possibly be
insulting to the people who have chosen to spend their lives acting out
this
fraudulent Indian identity? Whether the
person dressed in buckskin and feathers identifies himself as “Indian”
or
“White,” if they act an Indian role, they are caricaturing and mocking
the
Aboriginal Indigenous people—who are not, and have never been,
“Indians.”
HANGOVER: The Indian
was created to be the Euro-Americans’ political hockey puck and
scapegoat, and
“drunken Indian” and the other vicious projections that go with it are
inseparable reinforcements of the White man’s old worn-out “Indian”
stereotype. Just as opium was vital for
the Western
European occupation of Asia, so alcohol has always been used as a tool
of
oppression against the so-called Indians.
To keep the stereotype in modern circulation, two breweries have
chosen
to use Indian brand names for booze: one called “Chief Crazy Horse” and
the
other one, “Oshkosh.” The people who
identify themselves as Indians—whether they are sober or drunk—are
complaining
about the use of these two Indian Chiefs’ names, protesting that this
scapegoat
commercialization is ruining their “good times” and their culture. What these two breweries are doing is not
fair play. In order to create a level
playing field, they need to let their Indians brand a few kinds of
brew—such as
Old George Washington, Pope John Paul Malt Liquor, Jesus Christ Lite
(and Dark)
and the demon rum called “The Devil Made Me Do It.”
They could sell liquor brands caricaturing White cultural icons
in the Indian Casinos. What’s fair is
fair, but the White man has never allowed his subject Indians access to
his
monopoly on his economic system, although his entire monetary system is
parasitic, feeding off of the Aboriginal peoples’ resources. Even the so-called Indian Casinos are
classical minority-preference businesses, in which Real blood-quantum
Indians
are fronting for the White man who created and defines Indians in his
own
agenda, and runs and controls them.
THE BELL CURVE: The
bean-counters in Washington, D.C. are venturing onto the sociologists’
turf,
and are seriously considering the invention of official designations
for the
new peoples, new ethnicities and new races engendered by the Western
Europeans’
greedy occupation of this land. The
racial admixture of the U.S. population has become so blended that
Whites’
arrogant claims of “bell curve distribution” of intelligence were
obsolete
before the Bell Curve became a widely accepted statistical tool. (With the new mixtures, some so-called
Americans are really getting “smart.”)
Rumor has it that a new racial category, tentatively called
“mixed,”
will be used on the year 2000 census. A
number of clever descriptions have also been proposed to describe the
Western
Europeans’ “diversity” which they have created to obscure the real,
patrilineally Western European identity of their relatives whom they
would like
to oppress as lower-class subject people.
Some have suggested that the “melting pot” metaphor for the
mongrelizing
and hybridizing of the people here be renamed “a salad bar mixture,”
although
nobody has specified which groups will be the “lettuce,” “turnip,” and
“pea.” Other possible neologisms and
new euphemisms for the mixing of races which is an inevitable
consequence
(along with new diseases such as AIDS and “Gulf War Syndrome”) of the
Western
Europeans’ violent war-and-peace have also been proposed.
The Census Bureau has been inundated with
suggestions (they should have a contest), including: Heinz 57, “United
Nations,” The Duke’s Mixture, “six of one and a half dozen of another,”
and Nuts-and-Bolts
or “Chex Party Mix.”
Speaking
of “party mix,” years ago—and before the Bell
Curve—the White man called other groups of people, who he did not know
or
understand, who were not under his control or domination, “wanderers”
and
“nomadic people.” The ambiguities and
the euphemisms in the language change, and now the Western European
(mixed-blood) people here call themselves “highly mobile,” and complain
about
“jet lag.” The White man claims, “we
are ahead of our time—we even have Daylight Saving Time, we are making
money
and saving time.” The horse-and-buggy
days are gone. The people who call
themselves “Americans” are so highly mobile that significant numbers of
the
population are conceived in the back seat of a car or a Humpmobile,
often as a result
of what is called a “quickie,” and a lot of these Speedy Americans are
born in
the back seat of a car or a taxicab, going about 70 miles an hour to
the
hospital. But then again, when they
die, these “time is money” fast-living Americans take their sweet time
going to
the cemetery in a funeral procession at 20 miles an hour, creating
traffic
chaos and gridlock in every direction.
Could it be that they’ve been lied to so much about the
“hereafter” that
they really don’t want to go and they’re dragged, kicking and
screaming, out to
the cemetery; or is it a consequence of the “White lie” of the
two-dimensional
Bell Curve of the “highly mobile Americans.”
Well, anyway, have a happy Thanksgiving.
My
telephone number is (218) 679-2382 and my mailing address
is P.O. Box 484, Bemidji, MN 56601.
Wub-e-ke-niew
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