Indians call themselves Indians, Daylia. It's expedient, and they recognize the usefulness of it. I have Indians in my family who call themselves Indians. The link I posted back to the other thread was simply to take readers to the remarks posted there by Ward Churchill about Ruth Beebe Hill and the novel that so many people fell for back when it was first published. It's like that Chief Seattle Speech. It was a hoax intended to deceive. All of this stuff you're reporting in defense of Indians, against the song, against Euramerican interpretations of Indians present and past--it's nonsensical.

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
NOT FOR SALE

SPIRITUAL HUCKERISM
BY
WARD CHURCHILL


"I know of Sun Bear, He's a plastic medicine man."
Matthew King...Oglala Lakota Elder

The past twenty years have seen the birth of a new growth industry in the United States. Known as "American Indian Spiritualism," this profitable enterprise apparently began with a number of literary hoaxes undertaken by non-Indians such as Carlos Castaneda, Jay Marks (aka Jamake Highwater, author of the Primal Mind, etc.), Ruth Beebe Hill (of Hanta Yo notoriety), and Lynn Andrews (Medicine Woman, Jaguar Woman, Chrystal Woman, Spirit Woman, etc.). A few Indians such as Alonzo Blacksmith ( aka "Chunksa Yuha", the "Indian authenticator" of Hanta Yo), "Chief Red Fox" (Memories of Chief Red Fox), and Hyemeyohsts Storm (Seven Arrows, etc.) also cashed in, writing bad distortions and outright lies about indigenous spirituality for consumption in the mass market. The authors grew rich peddling their trash, while real Indians starved to death, out of sight and mind of America.

This situation has been long and bitterly attacked by legitimate Indian scholars from Professor Vine Deloria, Jr. to Bea Medicine and by activists such as American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Russell Means, Survival Of American Indians, Inc. (SAIL) director Henry Adams and the late Gerald Wilkerson, head of the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC). Nonetheless, the list of phoney books claiming alternately to "debunk" or "expose" the innermost meanings of Indian spirituality continues to grow as publishers recognize sure-fire money-makers when they see one. Most lately,ostensibly scholarly publishers like the University of Chicago Press have joined the parade, generating travesties such as University of Colorado professor S. Gill's "Mother Earth: An American Story".

The insistence of mainstream America upon buying such nonsense has led Deloria to conclude that, "White people in this country are so alienated from their own lives and so hungry for some sort of real-life that they grasp at any straw to save themselves. But high tech society has given them a taste for the "quick fix". They want their spirituality prepackaged in such a way as to provide instant insight, the sensational and preposterous the better. They'll pay big bucks to anyone dishonest enough to offer them spiritual salvation after reading the right book or sitting still for the right fifteen minute session. And, of course, this opens them up to every kind of mercenary hustler imaginable. It's all very pathetic, really."

Oren Lyons, a traditional chief of the Onondaga Nation, concedes Deloria's point but says the problem goes much deeper. "Non-Indians have become so used to all the hype on the part of imposters and liars that when a real Indian spiritual leader tries to offer them useful advice, he is rejected. He isn't "Indian" enough for all these non-Indian experts on Indian religion. Now, this is not only degrading to Indian people, it's downright delusional behavior on the part of the instant experts who think they've got all the answers before they even hear the questions."

"The bottom line here," says Lyons, "is that we have more need for intercultural respect today than at any time in human history. And nothing blocks respect and communication faster and more effectively than delusions by one party about another. We've got real problems which threaten the survival of the planet. Indians and non-Indians must confront these problems together, and this means we must have honest dialogue, but this dialogue is impossible as long as non Indians remain deluded about things as basic as Indian spirituality."

Things would be bad enough if American Indian realities were being distorted only through books and movies. But since 1970 there has also been a rapid increase in the number of individuals selling "Indian Wisdom" in a more practical way. Following the example of people such as the "Yogi Ramacharaka" and "Marharaji Ji," who have built lucrative careers marketing bastardizations of East Asian mysticism, these new entrepeneurs have begun cleaning up selling "Native American Ceremonies" for a fee.

As Janet McCloud, a longtime fishing rights activist and elder of the Nisqually Nation puts it, "First they came to take our land and water, then our fish and game. Then they wanted our mineral resources and, to get them they tried to take our governments. Now they want our religion as well. All of a sudden, we have a lot of unscrupulous idiots running around saying they're medicine people. And they'll sell you a sweat lodge ceremony for fifty bucks. It's not only wrong, it's obscene. Indians don't sell their spirituality to anybody, for any price. This is just another in a very long series of thefts from Indian people and in some ways this is the worst yet."

McCloud is scornful of the many non-Indian individuals who have taken up such practice professionally." These people run off to reservations acting all kind and hopeless, really pathetic. So, some elders nice enough, considerate enough to be kind to them, and how do they repay this generosity? After fifteen minutes with a spiritual leader, they consider themselves "certified" medicine people and then run amok, "spreading the word" for a fee. Some of them even proclaim themselves to be "official spiritual representatives" of various Indian peoples. I'm talking about people like Dyhnani Ywahoo and Lynn Andrews. It's absolutely disgusting."

But her real disdain is for those Indians who have taken up the practice of marketing their heritage to the highest bidder. "We've also got Indians who are doing these things," McCloud continues, "We've got our Sun Bears and our Wallace Black Elks and others who'd sell their own mother if they thought it would turn a quick buck. What they're selling isn't theirs to sell, and they know that too. That's why you never see them around Indian people anymore. When we have our traditional meetings and gatherings, you never see the Sun Bears and those sorts showing up."

There is a great deal more to this essay. I posted the part most germane to this discussion. Find the rest in various places, including here. As you can see from this, it's a complicated issue, and there are opportunistic Indians who have played a role in leading along gullible individuals just as there are opportunistic non-Indians participating. One hopes these same individuals who bought the novel Hanta Yo would have been just as interested to have learned the truth, were it presented. It is my opinion that many well-meaning people have simply never had a chance to get past the gloss of Madison Avenue, the high-dollar publishers, and the hucksters to see what life is really like in Indian Country today.
SRS