I am an Indian militant. It is a name I wear with some ambivalence—like “Indian”—not my choice, but the alternatives for the sake of political correctness do not have the same power or panache.
This year, while most Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, we will celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the occupation of Alcatraz Island by Indian militants—around the time the term was coined. I was too young at the time, but supported those making the ironic statement about the quality of our own lands “given” to our ancestors, and the broken promise that any federal lands not in use will revert back to the Indians.
While you eat turkey, we will fast, or eat hot dogs.
Over the years Indian militants have also been called communists, fascists, socialists, and radicals bent on destroying America. In fact, those names—which cancel each other out in any logical mind—have been applied in recent months to another tribal man, Luo of Kenya, who occupies the Oval Office at the moment.
As an Indian militant I am discouraged, but not surprised, that the mainstream media has so far failed to recognize the stomp-down amazing fact that we not only have the first African American president, but the first tribal president in American history. Millions of Americans spend billions of dollars through genealogists or DNA tests trying to trace their ancestry to Indian tribes in America, or the tribes of Africa, and Barack Obama knows—and so do I.
Ndaw nishnabe podwewadmi ewi chigwe dodem: I am a Potawatomi of the Strikes the Earth People.
We know that Thanksgiving is a holiday forged from the fires Puritans used to burn the victims of their war against the Pequod Indians in Massachusetts in 1637. We cringe when millions of children in thousands of schools across America use this month to re-create the First Thanksgiving, crafting hats and feathers out of construction paper.
We also know that this is not the only time of the year they will eat “Indian foods.” Americans throughout the year will eat Italian food made with tomatoes that came from Indian gardens. Over Christmas and Easter much of the Christian world will consume celebratory candies, pies, cakes, and soda made from chocolate and corn syrup which also originated from Indian gardens. Of course the pumpkins used for pie and Halloween, the potatoes, corn, squash, and even the pecan pie can be added to that list.
They will soothe their swollen heads with aspirin, which is synthetic white willow bark, also brought to the world’s pharmacopeia from an American Indian medicine kit.
Blood and Fire
We also know the history of the real First Thanksgiving is too horrifying for Americans to digest. It would stick in their gullets like a bad drumstick. So they will never know or accept that the Puritan militia at the Pequod massacre drove or threw the living victims on those fires and when they burst, their blood put the fires out. So the fires were ordered to be relit, three times.
How do you make that out of construction paper?
And then Governor John Winthrop ordered a day of Thanksgiving to be set aside: “Thus did the Lord judge among the heathen, filling the place with dead bodies.”
We know that when the passengers on the Mayflower landed in November of 1620, the first thing they did, the very first act they perpetrated, was to rob the graves of the Indians who lived near Corn Hill on Cape Cod. And we know that is the reason, the real reason, Pilgrims starved that first winter. They robbed Indian graves.
The next spring when the local Indians brought in Tisquantum (Squanto) to interpret, he told the Pilgrims was they needed to return the jewelry stolen from the bodies. And we also know that the grave-robbing did not stop.
We know that universities and museums still hold hostage thousands of Indian burials and the majority of Indian “artifacts” on display around the world are actually grave goods stolen from Indian cemeteries.
The irony.
Tribal and aboriginal people are denigrated as heathens and primitives while we are alive, but when we are dead, our art, jewelry, even our very bodies, have value to the dominant society as research materials. And one of the things they want to know is why we passed from the face of the earth.
Turning to Tribal Tradition for Spiritual Sustenance
Okay, now that your Thanksgiving meal is ruined, let me confess that I know a way to make it taste better next year.
Without a major shift in the way humans thinks about the earth, humans are not only causing the extinction of the biodiversity of the natural world, but also our own descendents. Facing the future must be more than driving a hybrid and recycling aluminum.
We must recognize that tribalism is the most successful human social institution in the world. Tribes have survived the longest war in human history, the war against aboriginal people—and millions of people are turning to those traditions for spiritual sustenance in the modern world.
Preservation of native languages, the key to understanding our philosophy, should be paramount to all universities and museums. While academics are assisting living traditions to preserve our languages and cultures, they need to release the dead and their last offerings they now hold captive. If the Pilgrims could do it in order to learn native agricultural practices, so too can modern society.
Finally, all Americans need to celebrate the tribal roots of President Obama. His two beautiful children deserve to know their tribal ancestry to save them and their descendents from having to someday wonder in what soil their roots might linger. And if they can do it for him, they will be more inclined to do it for all tribal people.
Mno ngom pne: Happy Turkey Day.
Tags: alcatraz, indian, indian militant, puritan, puritans, spiritual, thanksgiving, tribal tradition, violence
Wow, this was certainly a humbly, sobering, non-sugar-coated reminder of history. I receive this as, "Repent, the planet's future, not to mention humanity's, depends upon it."
And allow me to ask a dumb question. What do you mean by Obama being the first "tribal" president? Tribal as in from a Kenyan tribe? Or am I missing the meaning?
Thanks
duhsciple, I like the nic. Defining tribalism is tricky. So is affiliation. In the US and Canada it might be described as bonding of bloodlines at the moment the "tribe" is recognized by reigning "official" colonial government. And those governments often have their own reasons for defining a tribe and deliniating its territory. Territory and boundaries of tribes is at the heart of disputes around the world. An analogy. Iraq as a social and political unit was defined by the British turn of the 20th C. We are still huddling over those boundaries, some ethnic, some tribal and all of it painted with several coats of religion. Ethnically Iraq is seen as Persian/Shia, Arab/Sunni and Kurd. Colonial boundaries were drawn in order to manage territory without respect to the divisions the colonized recognized among themselves. At the heart of the tribe is the notion of "blood kin" families forming alliances which at any given moment is a tribe. The presidents kinfolks recognize his bloodline in that kinship network. While he may not be a member in the sense of the American Indian tribes, the Luo look at him as a "son of the Luo. The MSM has so far refused to explore that for fear the right wing takes it as "UnAmerican." Oh wait, they already do that.
Thanks for this information re: kinship network
I guess a University is one of the few places one can make a life career out of resentment. I didn't know Flynn was a Potawatomi name.
You could console yourself with the fact that Native Americans invented smoking. Surely that has been the grandest massacre of all.
Actually, smoking was a worldwide phenomena. Smoking opium or cannabis has been around for a long time. Smoking tobacco was introduced not invented and was done not by Indians but Europeans who saw and participated with Indians smoking. Most Indian smoking mixtures contain little tobacco of the kind which gave rise to tobacco smoking. And contained none of he chemicals now used in the modern and highly addictive mixtures. Happy Thanksgiving.
I guess. I am actually quite happy thank you. The sugar coated history we have long fed Americans is the reason we spent a trillion dollars in Iraq and cannot figure out a way out of Afghanistan. And your reference to my name is again profound ignorance of our history. The Irish and Scotch also tribal people, intermarried with Indians in record numbers. My Irish grandfather used to tell of signs he saw NINA, or No Irish Need Apply. Educate yourself, but enjoy your turkey
Hmmm, intermarried in record numbers? My maternal great grandfather was DeRosa Powhatan Wilburn. DeRosa is Italian and probably has to do with the stone masons who built 'Washington City' as the Capitol was called then. Powhatan of course is the Tribal chief of the Powhatan Confederancy who met the Jamestown settlers in Virgina, and Wilburn is Scotch for 'well born' meaning a free man, not a serf. And my name is Sarah Flynn, but my Flynn ancestors came from Cork, Ireland in the 1870's. I am hardly qualified to claim that I am an Indian. Though I sympathize with the injustices they have suffered. I am curious about your remark about intermarriage in high numbers. What factual basis is there for that? I am aware that a great many African Americans intermarried with Native Americans who gave them refuge as runaway slaves. This in turn led to Pres. Andrew Jackson's war on the Native Americans and forced relocation to OK--- in order to maintain the 'peculiar institution' of the South, and of course, provide more land for white settlement at the expense of the Cherokee nation. We have an ignominous history of which we have yet to repent of because of the patriotic myths we tell ourselves to keep from seeing it as it really was.
The Flynns of my father's side came also from Cork and settled in Mass. in 1730's. Eventually they emigrated west into Kentucky where there are hundreds of relatives in Estill county. My Potawatomi ancestors married into the Mormons a highly successful tribe with a mythology that connects to America around the time of the Resurrection. They also intermarried with the Kickapoo, Shawnee, Sac and Fox, Dakota, Pomo, and more than I can count. This is not just about blood, but also kinship. Witness the Mormom interest in genealogy and what it is for.
Everyone is tribal. Maybe everyone has a tribal gripe. Everyone in US supposedly has a German and an Irishman in their background.
Sugar coated? Seems to me academia has been trying for years to bash and kick the US. There also seems to be an effort to divide us into tribes. Little tribes fighting each other. Like the ME. Like Yugoslavia. No thanks. E pluribus unum.
You got the Motto wrong. It's been changed already, from "E Pluribus Unum" ("From Many, One") to "In God We Trust" ("From One, Many").
Divisiveness is built into trying to combine church and state together again, after the long Revolutionary War we fought against a state linked directly to a church.
If we're all together and can believe as we like, then we can live together as One. If one religion is going to be put above others, reinventing the U.S.A. as a "Christian Nation," then its right back to Many as every religion tries to make its rules the Law of the Land (and at least becomes "Us vs. Them" with both sides composed of U.S. citizens).
Academia is rather late to the party in terms of "dividing everyone into tribes."
Eli,
Using the word "resentment" is a tactic to avoid the substance of the article. Perhaps you are tired of hearing about "historical corrections," I don't know. What are the factual, historical errors of the article? I'd be more impressed with you pointing those out over against analyzing the emotional make-up of the author.
Duh
I thought tobacco was an American plant. Since your name is Flynn I suppose you are a composite person like most of us. Why don't you climb down off your Potawatomi pedestal and go have some turkey yourself. Or do you make too much money off of it?
Surely the Indians ate turkey before the pilgrims came.
Duh, I think the author is using his emotional make up as his profession. NINA is such an old story I'm surprised he mentioned it.
What is the evidence that Flynn is using his "emotional make-up as his profession"?
Help me see in the article where this comes through.
Thanks.
"composite person?" You mean like composed of parts other than human? Broke my leg some years ago and still have screws in there but other than that. Oh, you mean mixed ancestry? Yes, but I am also a citizen of a tribal nation, which is kinda what I was writing about. Dual citizenship. My argument is ignoring history makes you repeat the mistakes of the past. After Sitting Bull whipped Custer the rumor circulated that he had secretly attended West Point. In the 1850's, the US govt required the Army to collect and boil Indian skulls so they could use a phrenologist to study the bumps on their skulls to see why they were fighting the US. We spent a trillion dollars, lost more than four thousand good American men and women, to invade a country with a Sunni leader because Wahhabi types flew planes on a suicide mission and wonder why Muslims around the world think we are boneheads. Think about it, it will come to you.
Intermarriage may save the world, but not tribalism.
I found Mr. Flynn's article a good companion piece with another on RD ... "Can Johnny and Sally Handle the Truth About Thanksgiving?". http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/mediaculture/2064/
Obviously, some can not. I appreciated this article which challenges us to look at our history from a different angle. Perhaps we can learn something important if we open our minds and hearts.
I think everyone whose family has been in US for say 100 yrs or more should face the truth that they are very probably mixed.
I have read that Indians used to increase their tribes by carrying off captives. European adults were unsatisfactory because they tried to escape, so the Indians turned to children, with a preference for blondes and redheads and colored eyes.
The muslims' tribalism, Sunni vs Shia, and all the rest, brings them murder and grief. Ditto for tribalism in Africa. How about the Nazis? Was that tribal or what.
The idea that Thanksgiving commemorates the Pequot massacre of 1637 is not a turkey but a canard. Professor Flynn (and perhaps the editors of Religion Dispatches as well) should already know this, but if not, can read about it in an article of mine from several years ago "The Truth about Thanksgiving is that the Debunkers are Wrong" (posted on HNN under "hot topics, Thanksgiving").
Thanks for the link to your article. I was writing about competing mythologies not the pinpoint of Thanksgiving Day. I also admit to eating some turkey even today. The headline was an advertisement to get the reader to look at another point of view.
having read mr. bangs's article, and an older version which is much more thorough, i believe i can say this:
the man is clearly a rigorous scholar. he goes a long way in putting things into perspective.
then again, we begin to find him linking to articles indignantly dismissing the claims of genocide against the native peoples of America when his invective gets to its most feverish pitch.
the fact that 'historians' like mr. bangs find this argument so necessary to make, or even compelling at all, gives lie to a crude, tragicomic attempt at moral relativism which completely misunderstands the performative and philosophical point in labeling something a 'genocide'. it is abundantly clear to me that mr bangs has not even begin to reflect on the present legacies colonialism has left in its wake worldwide, and views this as an issue to get worked up about at the dinner table (and maybe choke on some stuffing).
People like mr bangs, born in different bodies, in other parts of the world, have similarly argued against labeling the armenian genocide as such, the ukrainian genocide, and even, yes...the nazi genocide of the jews. all demonstrate an incredible lack of imagination and the privileged 'scholastic' (in the medieval sense of the term) position of folks like mr bangs, who would never lift a finger for the native americans' rights movement, but would gladly pretend to care in articles such as these.
all under the guise of objective historiography!
what a show, mr bangs. truly, performances like yours never cease to amaze me--thrill me, excite me, and leave me panting by the end; but truly, the enjoyment is passing at best, for it all fizzles when you realise that the magician isnt really pulling a rabbit out of the hat from thin air and you're at a vaudeville show.
i certainly did learn quite a bit from your piece. but i resent and reject your reasons for writing it, and the conclusions it led you to make.
Oh! How Tragic !! Slain by an anonymous quotation-mark wielding rhetor with a case of virulent performativism !!!
As for lifting some finger or other, you might want to read my book Indian Deeds, Land Transactions in Plymouth Colony, 1620-1691 (now available in paperback from the publisher, NEHGS). It publishes and analyzes the documentation for the transfer of land from Indians to colonists, thus providing usable legal material for the ongoing effort to re-establish Native possession of reservation land mutually recognized in inalterable agreements in the 17th century. The book also deals with the Pequot war, as does my new book, Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners - Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation (GSMD). Although the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony were not involved in the 1637 massacre, one needs to try to understand their attitude towards it, which was to praise God for his imponderable aid to their neighbors from Connecticut and Massachusetts, that resulted in one of colonial America's worst atrocities. I blame a theology of predestination. Even an event as horrible as that massacre had to be understood as part of an incomprehensible divine plan. But essentialism that overlooks what attempts there were to accomplish fair treatment gets in the way of focussing on present injustice.
I am Bode'wadmi, and I can tell you I've never read so much crap written by "someone" of my tribe.
I read the history of the 1st Thanksgiving, and half this jargon this man is spilling is pure crap. Dokum!
Bozho, I have long been a thorn in the side of my tribal officials due to their corruption and diffidence to the people. Their responses are usually one sentence reactions to me and not the substance of what I say. That said, welcome to the discussion.
I am frustrated that critics of this article and its author do not address the substance of his argument. Instead, they resort to name calling. If you cannot challenge a specific detail of the article, please stop your "gobble, gobbling!" Thanksgiving turkey day is over.
Was there, or was there not, a massacre in 1637? Are there, or are there not, massacres today in need of protest? Are we, or are we not, human beings, called to value every life as precious?
Give me a break!
I'll "second" that.
Isn't the intent of ad hominem attacks to shift focus away from the actual content of the piece? Well done, folks!
And I think I'm most impressed by the fact that Godwin's Law was reached in less than 10 comments. I don't think I've ever seen a Nazi reference so quickly before. Stellar, folks. Really. Almost as stimulating as watching paint dry. Almost.
Anyhoo, I'm struck by the incongruity of these two points: "Tribal and aboriginal people are denigrated as heathens and primitives while we are alive, but when we are dead, our art, jewelry, even our very bodies, have value to the dominant society as research materials." And, "Tribes have survived the longest war in human history, the war against aboriginal people—and millions of people are turning to those traditions for spiritual sustenance in the modern world."
So, millions of people are clamoring to behave like denigrated heathens and primitives? I think there’s an underlying issue here that was explored recently over at the Daily Yonder website in relation to the deaths at James Ray’s "sweat lodge" ceremony.
What I have seen over the course of my life is a growing interest in "spiritualism," particularly of the Indian variety. It’s just an extension of the cultural appropriation that has caused indigenous artifacts to be housed in the halls of academia.
I wouldn’t be too impressed by the millions of folks clamoring to Native traditions. Romanticizing cultures only serves to dehumanize them, and if there was any amount of genuine respect going on, folks wouldn’t be dying at plastic medicine man festivities. As long as we have a collective romantic notion of Indian life and the kind of disdain demonstrated in the comments here for any deviation from that romanticism, there won’t be any clamoring to return artifacts, acknowledge ancestry, or any of the other things that the author suggests will make a happier Turkey Day.
I search in vain for the answer to my question... Was there a massacre or not?
How does your post relate to my "frustration" comment?
Sorry there, Duh--my post wasn't actually all about your comment. I (incorrectly) assumed your frustration had to deal with the ad hominem attacks and lack of attention to the content of the article. Hence, my first two points, 'cuz the ad hominem and Nazi comparisons sure frustrated me.
The rest was a comment on the actual article. I'll let one of the self-professed experts answer your frustrating massacre question. Good luck getting a definitive answer!
Yes, I am frustrated by the ad hominem attacks, too. And that is why I am trying to direct the focus to the substance of the article. Details, facts, history, what happened, then what it means for today. And since the folks attacking Mr. Flynn's have not answered my question, then what they have written has no value to me.
I missed the Nazi reference. I'll go back and re-read. Peace.
I laughed when I looked up Godwin's Law, but I would say that Nazis did indeed practice a form of tribalism, and Hitler did indeed admire Islam, and perhaps this accounts for their frequent pop ups.
That and the fact that the world seems to be drifting into a similar catastrophe.
Duh, go look up the Pequod massacre. Duh.
Yes, I know I could look up the massacre. I am not interested in asking Google. I am asking you: Yes or no? Was there a massacre?
Please deal with the substance of the article rather than attacking the author's character. Otherwise, based on the evidence, I cannot trust you to discuss issues in good faith.
Duh
Hitler practiced a form of tribalism? You might be referring to uber nationalism. Here is the deal, most people are conditioned to believe that tribalism is some form of primitive social organization that should be relegated to the dustbin of history because, well, it is so primitive. But when you are part of one, and I am, then there is a completely different mindset about history and how your people are treated. Ask yourself why there are fifty states and not one country called USA. And the answer is the tempering of tribalism. Bringing the Nazis into this discussion should be with respect to how he used the American treatment of Indians to craft his policies toward the Jewish populations. I bet you would find more references to the Jewish populations as "tribal" than his pattern of adapting tribal worldviews to his nationalistic policies.
A doctor tells me that there are Indians in his state. They treat serious diseases with rituals, bones and feathers stuff and by the time they get to the hospital, they are beyond human help.
Tribalism is a serious problem in many countries because it leads to riot, war, murder. Brotherhood of all is better. I would say that tribalism is miniature nationalism.
European anti-semitism is so old they have no need to look at America for lessons in how to persecute Jews. In the middle ages, Germans wiped out Jewish communities to steal their assets.
America has more or less successfully handled large numbers of disparate folks. Not without strain.
I think it is interesting that shortly after whites and Indians quit massacring each other, Buffalo Bill was able to lampoon the whole experience. The audiences stood up to honor Sitting Bull.
Another odd thing I have read that there used to be "trading truces" so that the cavalry could buy Indian blankets.
"a doctor told me there are Indians in his state" and so on. Yes, this is compelling evidence that tribal ways are primitive and should be dismissed out of hand. And the comment about Buffalo Bill? I tell my students to avoid "telescoping" meaning that one historical event years before or after another event is not necessarily related. In short, your examples make no sense taken together or individually.
Agreed, with one exception. I think the previous comment raises an interesting question that, personally, could use some further exploration. Could tribalism be summed up as merely "miniature nationalism"? My inclination is to believe otherwise, that tribalism is too rooted in the land and spirituality of the people to be nationalistic but I can definitely see some similarities. Just wondering if you could talk a little on how they differ. Thanks.
First of all, there are Indians in every state, not just the one your doctor friend lives in. And I imagine that he doesn't have a basis for comparison when you consider that he probably doesn't have a lot of interaction or contact with those that are cured by holistic, tribal, or spiritual methods.
Secondly, I find it rather reckless of you to blame tribalism for "riot, war, murder" in "many countries". I think that if you included some specific examples, we'd be able to find other culprits for these problems. What countries are you talking about?
European anti-semitism might be as old as the hills, given, but that's not to say the Nazis didn't use American Indian policy as a basis for the holocaust. It's also not to say that the Nazis didn't use other American examples. Research the Indiana Plan and the Tribe of Ishmael. You'll be surprised, I'm sure.
"America has more or less successfully handled large numbers of disparate folks."? Really? How do you define success, my friend?
Yes, there are Indians all over the place. The doctor is a relative of mine. There is also a population, Indian or not, that wants to believe in fantasies rather than realities, and in separatism rather than brotherhood. Anger is not good food, although it may provide a living for some.
The US sure has had some success in the management of the various people within its borders. We are not in the situation of India or Yugoslavia. I have seen with my own eyes the advancement of our AA citizens from the condition they were in during my childhood.
You sign yourself as a celt. The celts were a brutal tribe.
Tribalism and nationalism will also lead people into limited thinking:
If it's done by the tribe it is good, no matter how stupid or evil or dishonorable it really is.
Our tribe are the only "people" everybody else is nothing. The Japanese believe, or used to believe, that only Japan was divinely created.
My cow died because my neighbor put a spell on it.
I will sniff burnt feathers as my ancestors did, and this lump in my breast will go away.
If the Lakota had stayed a little longer on the east coast there would've been no America.
There would have eventually been an America. The Japanese or Chinese could have landed on the west coast, other Europeans would have replaced the pilgrims - it was not in the cards that the Lakota or any other NA tribe could hold the land. The Indians had mettle, but the others had metal.
I can not let "eli" have the last word in this article of negativity and hate. Tribalism is more than roots in geography but an indescribable loyalty in one's culture, beliefs and society, united. You can argue the negatives of tribes all you want, but there are negatives in any organized group. There is no utopia. This is deeper than people living in a tribe. This is something spiritual and deserves to be appreciated and respected.
Let him have the last word. He can't judge you. He can only judge himself.
See how that works?
Okay, so there's tribalism and Tribalism. The first is when you say put on some traditional gear and have a great party. The general public is sometimes invited to these things, everyone appreciates the food, costumes, dancing, etc.
The second brings you into conflict with others, or fills you with delusions of superiority, or guides you into self destructive paths of fantasy
Comments closed
The comments for this story have been closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.