Fw Good Words for: THE ALLIGATOR ENTITY -- AND WHAT BEING A NATIVE PERSON MEANS, AS I SEE IT

My quite recent piece on the Alligator Entity and what it means to be a Native person drew a number of quite good comments from my "private" e-mail list.  (I assume some on our discussion groups read it.)

Here is one of the off-list comments -- from Susan M. Power, Standing Rock Sioux and author.  She will soon be in Alaska for a good while, involved in environmental research and writing -- all of this from a Native perspective. 

(H)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Susan 
To: Hunter Gray 
Sent: Friday, October 04, 2013 12:08 PM
Subject: Re: THE ALLIGATOR ENTITY -- AND WHAT BEING A NATIVE PERSON MEANS, AS I SEE IT


Dear John:


This might be one of my favorite emails from you ever (and I find them all fascinating)!  I especially treasure what you have to say about being Native American.  Yes!  You were able to succinctly, clearly lay out what is so profoundly balanced about tribal societies, reminding me why I work so hard to have those in the mainstream take us seriously and listen to what we have to contribute to this troubled, anguished world.  I will print out your words and keep them at hand as inspiration.


Pidamaya ye, koda!  I am most grateful.


Love,


Susan Jr.



On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 2:40 PM, Hunter Gray <[email protected]> wrote:

  This is mostly a response to a recent query from a very young and very thoughtful Native person.  I give it and some associated material in the probable event that some readers are interested.  American Indians and Alaskan Natives are virtually always interested in solid things written in this subject genre.  And some non-Natives are as well.

  But, first:

  Very close to that section of the Sycamore rim -- the Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Area in Northern Arizona which has a bare trace of a winding game trail taking me down-in to some of my very special places -- there is a great  and stationary Entity.  It is a huge Alligator Juniper, a tree species native to the mountain regions of the Southwest.  It's about 25 feet tall, maybe a bit more.  Its height is about par for that breed of tree.  But what's very unusual is its great width.  It is so wide that I couldn't begin to put my long arms around its lower trunk.  It's covered, as all of the Alligator Junipers are, with a myriad of very hard and very tough small bark squares/semi-rectangles ranging from an inch or so to a little less than 2 inches.  They make the Alligators impervious to forest fires.  (See attachment displaying the bark on a similar, but much smaller tree.)

  Alligator trees have an extremely long life expectancy -- often 700 years or so.  Describing this particular tree to a dendrochronoligist friend, he opined it could be 1,000 years old.

  It's a true Elder (and now and then I've thought the World may rest upon it.)  And it's vastly more than just a good friend.  Whenever I would pass that way through the wilds to my hidden trail into the Great Canyon, I would stop in front of the Entity, greet it, tell it how glad I was to see it.  And when I would be leaving, I'd stop again -- and assure it that I'd be back.  

  And I will be back.  And It will still be right there.

  _____________________________

  On being a Native person -- as it means to me. Here are a few thoughts:

  It means being an integral part of a very, very long heritage on these Hemispheric shores -- a sense of original belonging that can never be extinguished or diminished.

  It means being an integral and respectful  and in-harmony part of the entire Cosmos.  For example, when one goes into the woods, he or she is an entity in sync with the entirety of the natural world -- a component along with the wildlife, trees, grasses, wind etc.  Aside from  one recognizing the primacy of the Creator, Sun, and Moon, one is an equal of everything in the Creation, no more and no less.

  There is a primary commitment to family in the extended sense, and to clan (if one has one), and to tribe or tribes, and to tribal culture or tribal cultures.  In many cases where there are several tribal lines, one can be committed to each culture-wise, or mainly to one.

  One's life emphasis is on serving the community rather than serving one's self.  By serving the community, one obviously helps oneself and one's family.

  A good leader, committed to serving the community, is a good listener who works to build consensus -- and doesn't throw his or her weight around in arrogant fashion.

  And finally,  there is the "Warrior Spirit" -- forcefully, sensibly, and judiciously utilized.

  Those are some basic things.  Of course, not every Native lives up to those ideals consistently, but the great majority do in their own way.


  ___________________
  Efforts to "measure" Native societies and cultures by
  Euro-American socio-cultural yardsticks simply don't work and never will.
  The sort of rigid class structure that plagues the Anglo world is missing
  from that of the Native people. Tribal nations, characterized by a
  pervasively complex network of blood and marriage ties [with all of the
  conventional prohibitions against incest certainly maintained], are, indeed,
  primarily egalitarian and fundamentally classless. Most Indian people,
  despite some [ generally small ] income inequities, see one another as equals
  and act that way. Then too, with some exceptions [ and, even here, the ties
  between the people are fundamentally "horizontal" in the egalitarian
  sense ] the basic economic factors, the land and the resources, are
  commonly owned. And, while there are certainly degrees of acculturation
  within the culture of any tribal nation, there is, first and foremost, a
  fundamental commitment to that tribe, then to Native identity in the broad,
  inter-tribal pan-Indian sense, and only finally -- and not always -- to,
  say, the United States or Canada.
  http://www.hunterbear.org/NATIVE%20ISSUES%20AND%20OTHER%20MATTERS.htm


  Racist and ethnocentric terms like"primitive" and "civilized" should be 
  dumped and never used.   Racism is dangerous, false doctrine -- and so is  
  cultural ethnocentrism.  People -- all of humankind -- are fundamentally equal.  
  And every society and its culture has its own special origin and vision and 
  unique history and destiny; linear ranking is hideously fallacious; and the only 
  way any culture can be even generally evaluated is to measure its own realities
  against its own ideals.

  In what's called the United States, Blacks have been consistent targets of
  racism.  Native Americans and Chicanos and Asians have, depending on local
  and regional history and circumstance, been subjected to either racism or
  cultural ethnocentrism.

  As a Native American, I certainly grew up with a great wariness of terms
  like "primitive" and "civilized."    Whenever I've heard them used, it's
  been at best -- with regard to "primitive" -- a pat on the head of "our
  little brown brothers"  or -- more frequently -- a presumption of
  "culturally inferior simplicity."  As far as "civilized" -- well, that's
  always used to denote the presumed top of the mountains -- no matter how
  sanguinary their conduct in recent centuries has been.

  But, let's recognize that even the smallest band of "hunters and gatherers"
  and its nomadic nature -- which, being nomadic, sensibly doesn't permit
  massive materialistic accumulation -- always holds a set of
  philosophical/theological beliefs that are just as complex as any other in
  humankind.  [And, as a kid -- and beyond -- I've always found much support
  in the fact that Jenghiz Khan was very much a product of a "hunting and
  gathering" tribal society!]

  But, more seriously:  everything, of course, is in the process of some
  change.  All societies -- and I reiterate that each has its special origin
  and vision and history and destiny -- are changing in various ways:
  diffusion, invention, discovery.  If something can be seen to have positive
  function, it's used -- unless it's perceived as too threatening [and,
  increasingly, "threatening" seems less and less a restraining factor in
  large-scale human societies!]  Geronimo, that unyielding traditionalist,
  obviously loved his Winchester 1876 lever action.  He was always an Apache.
  The Navajo people of today use pickups ["Navajo Cadillacs"] and, in those
  sections of the vast reservation which have electric power, computers are
  more and more frequently encountered.  The Navajo remain Navajo.  Nothing is static and there is always change, but consistently valid basics remain in
  place.  Native tribes have withstood every effort by their land and
  resource-coveting enemies to put them, the tribes, out of business -- but,
  unless virtually all of the tribe's people are literally killed [and this
  has certainly happened many, many times over the blood-dimmed centuries],
  the tribes and their cultures and their people have survived.  This has
  certainly required some cultural adjustment vis-a-vis, say, U.S. and
  Canadian culture, but not in any sense the sacrifice of the basic tribal
  ethos and its key cultural components.  "Take what can be used, take it
  carefully -- and use it in the framework of our Way."

  I am certainly quite convinced, as I have been since I've been a Teen, that
  the great River-thrust of History -- the dichotomy of working
  class/employing class -- will carry us all -- all colors and all cultures --
  into genuine humanistic democratic socialism.  But in that context --
  increasingly mass populated urban/industrial societies -- every one of the
  tribal nations and the other "folk societies," and their cultures and their
  self-determination and their inherent sovereignty,  must be fully recognized
  and supported.  And all of this not as "primitive" museum pieces -- but as
  viable and vigorous socio-cultural entities, important because they are
  important to their people, and from which the larger societies can learn
  much about common ownership, grassroots democracy, freedom and
  responsibility.

  Each tribal society has its own unique culture -- but there are common
  dimensions.  And the most fundamental is a communalistic ethos in which the
  crux principle is that of "tribal -- or mutual -- responsibility":  i.e.,
  the group has a responsibility to the individual and the individual has a
  responsibility to the group; if there is a conflict, the group's position
  always prevails; but there are also -- very significantly -- certain clearly
  defined areas of individual and family autonomy into which the group cannot
  intrude.

  That principle, "tribal responsibility," has enabled all types of tribal
  nations:  hunters, gatherers, farmers, town-dwellers, the Toltec city-people
  of yore and their contemporary descendants -- and even the urban Indian
  migrants of today, grouped inter-tribally in such crucibles as New York
  City, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle -- to survive, keep
  going, keep fighting, and on and on and far beyond.  This isn't "linear" or
  "primitive" or "civilized."  This is shrewd, canny, principled living.
  http://www.hunterbear.org/nativetribalism.htm

  Hunter Gray (Hunter Bear)


  HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / 
  St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 
  Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

  Check out our massive social justice website
  www.hunterbear.org  The site is dedicated to our
  one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
  http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm

  See our very full and substantial COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
  page -- with a great deal of practical material:
  http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

  See my  new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book," 
  JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new substantial 
  introduction by me. This page lists many reviews and endorsements.
  And this book is also an activist's how-to manual: 
   http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm   

  See the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
  http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
  (Many photos.)

  Check out our Personal Background Narrative (with much info):
  http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm