Everyone Wants to Be an Indian, But Nobody Wants to Be an Indian

[ShadowDancer]

From an article on Indian Country Today Media Network by Mark Rogers, a citizen of the Montaukett and Matinecock Nations located in Long Island, New York, where he is known as Toyupahs Cuyahnu (Crazy Turtle)

Everyone Wants to Be an Indian, But Nobody Wants to Be an Indian

One reason is buying into the fantasy. Some people see Native culture as a quick and easy path to a spirituality that is lacking in their own lives. The old way was to recognize the spirit world and those who lived within it as coexisting with this world all of the time. This is a foreign concept to those who are taught to commune with the spirits only on certain days under the direction of a priest or pastor in a fixed place of worship. People like this seek to mimic ceremony and ritual but, still miss the point that one can live along side the spirit world constantly. In the end, they are just going through the motions and not lending respect where it is due.

[Sturmboe]

People with an inner emptiness need other one´s who lead them, they need forms of lives filling them. It is hard for them to stand by their own emptiness. To take a look, what this emptiness means, they are not able to abide this maybe.

If people take bit from this, a bit from that, "fill their inner with lives from outside" - they cannot develop  a real and true relationship to ceremonies, etc. and its way of life. And the question is: Do they really want this kind of relationship? Or is the distance, based on the lacks comfort not to get a relationship to the duties, they had attended to, to the rights, they are maybe not as large as they want it, and the responsibility they had to bear (there is no way out, do they really want to realize this?). If something is going wrong it could be easier for them to take the flight. It is a avoidance strategy, it is easier to bear the flight than to take a look on themselves, what they are doing and its results, what this means for other people. These lacks keeping the distance and its experiences far away to a contact with their inner: What are these ceremonies are doing with them, doing with their inner - to face this question can be heavy, the answer can hurt.

One aspect among others

[earthw7]

my culture and spirituality is not a quick fix for damaged people

[Laurel]

I'm white, and I very often feel "an inner emptiness." I suspect that's because I have almost always had the luxury of having all my needs met by others and becoming bored as a result. It's no excuse for me to treat the religions of others as a kind of cosmic diddling buffet.

Know whose problem that emptiness is? Mine. Know how I connect with the earth? I go outside and take a freaking walk. Right now, it's unseasonably cool, the honeysuckle is looking beautiful, the flood waters are down, house martins are raising their families, and people of various races and cultures are all happily greeting one another on their morning walks in the park, even if they don't greet one another so nicely in any other context.

Feeling empty inside does not mean you need some spiritual leader. It doesn't even mean you're damaged. It means you're spending too much time inside your skull and not enough time anywhere else.

[Sturmboe]

Feeling empty inside does not mean you need some spiritual leader. It doesn't even mean you're damaged. It means you're spending too much time inside your skull and not enough time anywhere else.

I think I know what you mean. I see this, what you describes as a candidness, to recieve all around you with all your senses, without valuation, you accept it as it is. Sure you can feel this as an emptiness, and this doesn´t harm you. In my work I also use this emptiness or how I call it: cadidness, to be  completely open for this what happen.

This emptiness I described above is different from this candidness, those people suffer from this emptiness.

[Laurel]

Yes and no, Sturmboe. 

I know what you mean by an emptiness people suffer from. I feel that every day. I meant to say that, after I took a lot of stupid detours along the way, I decided this this feeling of suffering emptiness is not something I can ever get free of or expect anyone to free me of; it's part of my human condition.

When I achieve the "candidness" you mention, that's because i worked for it. (Usually, I don't achieve it. Usually, I'm a bitter sarcastic jerk all day long. But that's my problem.)

The thread isn't about me. I only meant to point out that the fact a person feels empty doesn't mean that person necessarily needs a leader or a spiritual community.

[Sturmboe]

Laurel,

I wrote some not clearly.

There are people who claim on they need leading and help by others, often they don´t want to decide to chose nor to walk their own way, they couldn´t. Frauds can abuse this, they fill them up till they suffocate and stay in a helpless situation, some frauds put trigger, programming, conditioning. These kind of frauds are intelligent, they know how to destroy life and they call themselves spiritual leader, they sell spirituality and it costs not money, it costs life.

I ask myself, do frauds really want other people to become spiritual? Is this really their aim? Or is the true aim to force other in a dependence they cannot come out anymore - it is like a credit of live frauds sell. Those with an emptiness come in an interdependent situation and too many can´t come closer to this what happens with them.... this can be also dangerous.

These people don´t need leaders, frauds. They need help to understand themselves who they really are, their emotions, wishes, needs, find a way on their own they decide to go, carefully, cautiosly, in little steps. This is a hard but a good way. A lot who make therapies develop a deeper emphasy and understanding.

Yes, I agree with you

[Laurel]

I'm not sure how clear I was either. I think you're right that some people claim to need help (because they find our society spiritually bankrupt) and believe they can't find their own way (when they truly could). I can remember finding religions I wasn't familiar with so exciting.   

Becoming a better person is not only hard, it can look really, really boring. I think people are attracted to glamor and short cuts, like  Mark Rogers said.

As for "wanting to be an Indian," I teach English comp. It's sad how many of my students think they want to be Indians because they're sure all Native Americans get a big fat check from the government every month, in the form of "casino money" or some kind of "for being an Indian" money. Yet they all admit they have ever seen any "rich Native Americans."

[earthw7]

the ideal that we get big fat check from the government or casino money
We have never gotten checks from the government, those that do get checks it from
leasing their land to the government,There are only a few tribes who live in urban areas
that make big money and they give them people a share but those are reservation that are
very small. The rest of us are still the poorest in the United States.
People think we get everything free not true, we have to pay for our homes, education (there are scholarship for
those with great grade point averages) our hospital care is a part of our treaty but we also have our health insurance,
Most people are shocked that people want to follow our ways because they are hard.
This where we run into problems our ways require an oath no alcohol, no drugs, never cheat on your spouse, give everything
to the community,and our ways are old

[Sturmboe]

The rest of us are still the poorest in the United States.
...Most people are shocked that people want to follow our ways because they are hard.
This where we run into problems our ways require an oath no alcohol, no drugs, never cheat on your spouse, give everything

Good idea to follow a part of indian ways.
No drugs, no alcohol, be honest, do not cheat on your spouse.... a pause from this way of life? No way.
The experience to live a life can form your knowledge in another way you´ve never known befor. Why not.
You got to decide to buy something to eat or shoes for the children they need. No matter whiche decision you chose no one is really the best.
You can live in a house, in summer too hot, in winter impossible to warm up, and maybe in the next storm there is no house anymore. But therefor a lot of fuelwood....
Forgotten the flour - no matter, if the car doesn´t run anymore (in this way you know your car in the best way), take a journey by feet to the next supermarket,  a tent, some bread, and maybe tomorrow you are there. Got the money... or just forgotten?
And all these people who are coming ... "Could I get this little thing, I need it" What do you want to say: "Sorry, I can´t, because I need it and ...." but in fact this thing someone needed indeed was laying somewhere, you´ve forgotten that you had this ... till this person asked you for. Do you ask yourself, do you need this you are claiming on or it is the idea your fixed on? What will happen if you lose it? Take a smile, maybe you´d needed current for this little thing.... you got current? Today? Fine, but maybe not tomorrow. Well, you decide to live like an Indian and so you got to give this little thing away ... but don´t be sad, when you are looking around you find five or six of this little things, they were all forgotten in corners, cupboards, drawer ... well, these drawer, we all need them in our life, we are fixed on, ... no matter if you painted some special drawer in a new indian color, remeber, they are just the same drawer .... could it be, that it is not fine if someone else open the drawer?*

Nevertheless don´t forgett, leave a big smile in your soul, the experience of this life can let you know that nothing, really nothing is for granted. This can be a good way to live. And is there still a little "thank you" for this life?


* in Germany we got for "drawer" also another meaning: to peg so. as sth., "Schubladendenken" means directly translated thinking in drawers, correctly translated "stereotyped thinking"

[Oglala Lakota82]

I find it funny at how many hobbyists who dress up and play indian in germany and at pow wows here in America. We in Pine Ridge say why are you dressed up are you going to dance if not then sit down. What I see out here in North Carolina is sad beyond belief.