The Persistence of Memory

First, an update from Pine Ridge. Things seem to be settling somewhat in terms of the current blizzard situation. Power is being restored, firewood is being delivered, and donations are coming in for the Propane Fund. Goods have been received. But the following communities are still in need of relief:

• Town of Allen


• Oglala


• Red Shirt Village


• Lost Dog Community


• Potato Creek

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In his book Cosmos, the late Carl Sagan wrote about whales and their songs. Before the arrival of the steam powered ship, whales could sing to each other across vast expanses of ocean. Songs were learned, exchanged, added to, and perhaps comprise the extensive narrative of their history and knowledge. With the human presence, on and beneath the seas, the distance these songs can travel is drastically limited, cutting them off from communities with which they would exchange information. The cerebral cortex of whales is far larger than ours. There is no telling how far back a whale's memory reaches. I'm no cetaceans expert, but I would imagine our abilities pale in comparison. Still, there lies within us a thread that connects us to place, time, generations.

The Lakota believe that the earth has a beating heart, and that heart is in the Black Hills, the Paha Sapa, in South Dakota. They believe that the universe has a song. Everything in the universe carries a piece of that song, but the song exists in its entirety in the Paha Sapa. According to their creation story it is from this place that they were born. To them there is no time that this place has not been a part of who they are.

Tenacious warriors, and skilled diplomats, the Lakota transformed themselves from a horseless, agrarian/hunting society into a nomadic horse culture, becoming the dominant nation of the Northern Plains. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, their territory extended from what is now western Minnesota, south to Nebraska, and west into eastern Montana and Wyoming.

Lakota society was traditionally matrilineal, well ordered, and egalitarian. Within different bands, societies or subcultures were formed. There were societies for warriors, hunters, shamans, security, healers, and so on. There were societies for men and women. But Lakota women were recognized as being endowed with unique power as the nation's source of life, as reflected in the Legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman.

After the hunt the women tended to the kill. Everything derived from the bison belonged to the women. The meat, the hides, the bones, organs, every part, and everything made from them was the property of the women. This means the tools, the water bags made from bladders, and most importantly, the clothing, food and tipis, were all controlled by the women.

When it came to matrimony, in many bands it was customary for a potential suitor to sit outside the tipi of the woman he desired. If she wanted him as a husband she invited him inside. If not, too bad. If the couple divorced, the man was homeless as the tipi was not his, a major incentive for being a productive partner and treating one's wife with respect (in other words, being the equivalent of Al Bundy would be a first class ticket to Coldville). And it was the grandmothers who were consulted as the final arbiters of crucial decisions. Long before American women could vote, Lakota women were central to the power structure in their society. But the American encroachment, presented to us as the notion of Manifest Destiny, broke the circle.

When gold was found in the Montana territory, the trail Americans wished to utilize, the Bozeman Trail, took them through the Powder River region of Wyoming, the heart of western Lakota lands. The Americans proposed building a series of forts along the river to protect prospectors. When the Oglala Lakota, led by Chief Red Cloud, arrived at Fort Laramie to negotiate the treaty, they found that men and materials were in place and the forts were already being built. Realizing that the Americans had already decided their course, and knowing they would not be negotiating in good faith, Red Cloud left the meeting. Four years earlier the Lakota of Minnesota were expelled. Not wanting to suffer the same fate Red Cloud led the people in war against the United States.

Over the next two years Red Cloud utilized a successful strategy against the Powder River forts that led the Americans to call for negotiations to end the hostilities. It was the single greatest victory for an indigenous nation against the United States. In the Treaty of 1868, the United States dismantled the Bozeman trail forts, granted the Lakota all the territory now claimed by the Republic of Lakota and the Lakota Freedom movement, as well as control of the Black Hills in perpetuity. The peace lasted until 1874 when an illegal expedition into the Black Hills, led by George Custer, found gold in them thar hills.

The Lakota went to war again, but were broken by the government sanctioned massacre of the bison herds, and relentless military pursuit. Sitting Bull led the remaining holdouts until 1881 when he and the 186 Lakota with him surrendered. Since then it has been a steady decline. Traditions faded without the bison and access to the Paha Sapa. The matrilineal lines were broken. Children were taken off reservation to be Americanized. Lakota language is rapidly fading. Only 14% of Lakotas are fluent in their language, and most of them are 60 or older. Statistically it will become a dead language in a matter of years. But still they fight to keep their traditional ways alive.

Some of the traditional leaders are advocating a restoration of the matrilineal line, and are building a total immersion school to help their youth retain their language and their culture, before the keepers of their way of life are gone.

Many of us in the human family find themselves struggling; for their rights, for their freedom, for the preservation of their way of life. In this time, in this verse of the song of human history, we are not alone in the notion that essential to that struggle is the empowerment and equality of our women. Traditional Lakota leaders consider the return to matrilinealism a transformative act, one that will lift their society, and renew it. And in many respects, the women have been exercising their power for many years, as lesser known players in the overall women's rights movement. The most notable example being Women of All Red Nations or WARN. WARN co-founder, and a leader of the Lakota Freedom Movement states,

"What we are about is drawing on our traditions, regaining our strength as women in the ways handed down to us by our grandmothers, and their grandmothers before them. Our creation of an Indian women's organization is not a criticism or division from our men... [but] a common struggle for the liberation of our people and our land..."

America has a rights based tradition. In fact, the very thesis of our nation is that all people are created equal. But as Elizabeth Cady Stanton pointed out in the Declaration Sentiments in 1848, and Dr. King pointed out 120 years later, America has still not lived up to what it said on paper. We have yet to fulfill our nation's thesis. Doing so would surely transform us, reshape our society, open doors that have, as yet, remained closed.

To my mind, I see as our new "manifest destiny," in the shadow of the misogynistic attacks launched at women in both major political parties, as being a coming together of women, and the men who support them, from across the political spectrum, setting aside their ideological differences to engage the Three State Strategy and achieve the ratification of the ERA. The political and societal ramifications are staggering.

Today being the first Native American Heritage Day, I'm thinking about Canupa Gluha Mani, one of the leaders of the Lakota Freedom movement. In an article at Earth First he asked, "Why do you think the rights of humanity are being stripped away? It’s because we are stubborn enough to allow it to happen. We don’t know how to say ‘no’ anymore!” In a year when the woman who inaugurated a new wave in the campaign for women's rights, by calling for the world to recognize women's rights as human rights, and human rights as women's rights, became the most successful female candidate for President in our nation's history, it seems to be more than a coincidence that the theme of this year's 16 days against of activism against gender violence is "Human Rights for Women< > Human RIghts for All," marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Clearly there is a stirring in the human Oversoul that is grocking the notion that achieving equality for women is something that will move all humanity forward.

What do you as the women, who in 2008 learned how to say "NO!", and the men that support them, see as acts, large and small, that will be levers of transformation that will not only help elevate women to the rightful place they should hold, but will lift up our society as a whole, transform it, and bring it to a greater sense of consciousness, moving us toward the fulfillment of our nation's thesis: the enforcement of universal human rights? What is your piece of the song?

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The following is a thank you from Russell Means to all those who came to the aid of the Lakota Nation in the wake of the recent crisis.