John Anderson chairman of the Indian studies department at the most college of st. Scholastica using a traditional song of Welcome talk to him by a Winnebago. Do you open a five-part lecture discussion series at American Indian rights and public policy the series co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota Duluth and the Indian chemical dependency program is supported by a grant from the Minnesota Humanities Commission.the first session dealt with Indian White conflicts in historical perspectives And Scholastica Indian department chairman, John Anderson introduced the main speaker. Find a lawyer Hales from The Standing Rock reservation. He has written several books the first of which brought to the attention of all America some of the happenings which it occurred historically. What you have made the Indian what he is today? And this book of course is Custer died for your sins. He followed that up with another book, which was published called we talk and you listen. Another book what she wrote was of utmost good faith. And last but not least a book called. God is red. To take you back a few years. I remember the Chicago conference. Remember Clyde Warrior a very well. I've been on the Standing Rock reservation and I happen to know that they're in resides the champion TP creeper of all time. And his name is red gates and he's from 48. I don't know if you know read to you. Which way is north. When we first had our Powell. Here at st. Scholastica Clyde Atwood and I were standing there with the Peace Pipe and Clyde's has. You want me to light it for you? And I says no I light it for you. So I lit it for Armand he stooped over is I am short and he says to me which way is north. black Alchemist book Point South it is from the east or comes the power of wisdom and understanding and The Morning Star which helps us greet each new day. We ask from you tonight find a lawyer to help us to find which way is North so that we can grasp the understanding which block out had and which we all seek my pleasure my honor to introduce to you tonight. Find a lawyer. Thank you, John. Look at the last 10 years. I think that's about the the nicest and most dignified introduction in in most traditional thing. I've experienced and I'd like to thank you for I was really worried flying up here when I get off the plane cuz last time I was in Duluth you had a couple Quonset Huts out in the field. It was the airport and we pulled up to the building and I thought oh my God, I think you got your Bemidji instead of Duluth. I love but I got to get jourdain out of bed and get him to drive me over here. Abaddon explained that you had urban renewal and everything else more than just a year ago. I was And not only one Airline I guess but the airport so I'm not quite as worried. This is really difficult starting off a turn off the first light years. What's going to be a series of lectures? Because if you can have to develop I think it total contacts so that any of you could do come to the complete before series will see that I think all of the speakers will be in the series really dealing with the same thing only maybe a different points of view. Should I get a douche? My topic in the end in the part of the series that I'll be dealing with by telling you an experience I had in August. Which kind of our streets conflict? And it is really going on in 400 years of relationships between Indians and non-indians. Edna how about trying? Approach it with Kenny with a dignified. Are my understanding is going out of the radio? Okay, I'm used to have an FBI take me but I've never had. In fact, I have a great following in South Dakota is the FBI and CIA. And I just there last week and made some remarks about send her a breast and I called a friend in Washington and I said I said I can tell you when the South Dakota papers for Wednesday are going to hit DC and said he's bringing me about 10 tomorrow morning. So call me at 11 and I'll tell you who's called from Washington who's mad but she couldn't get through till 1:30 because you're only senatorial assistants. They're calling in Montgomery. And I said not to do I'm not taking them personally, but for people to sit by and let 200 people die of violence on the Pine Ridge reservation say what we really can't do anything about this human thing to do and I think somebody should start talkin up and saying that there's got to be Solutions in the Pine Ridge situation. That's all I did in South Dakota if they want to take offense at that, it's me. It's a measure of of those people so This is a Prelude to anything else. I might say today though. The situation at plainridge is extremely serious, and I wish that we could bring more attention to this situation. And I hope each and every one of you would get ahold of your senators and get them to start putting some pressure on the South Dakota Senators. We could put a bill through Congress and in two or three days would set up a neutral Trust Keyshia and took her all the functions that reservation both government and tribal functions. And put it in a receivership that would straighten it out not allow people there to stop the brutality and violence on both sides and straighten out. Who are the people on that reservation with their tribal enrollment is who owns the land all of the problems? They're causing controversy in Pine Ridge. I think it's absolutely ridiculous for South Dakota Senators to say that will replace FBI with Federal Marshals or the instead of providing jobs or providing any investigation of what's going on there and they will build another bigger better jail house and we'll provide more people to go around and find out who's committing crimes. It seems to me that the majority of crimes committed on a reservation or Crimes by federal officials for violating federal law. And so it's extremely serious situation. I really don't know what to do other than to ask every place I go if you just spend a dime and take an envelope and a piece of paper. Retro senators in NC understand the situation is extremely serious. You want them to get over to the South Dakota senators, and it really put some pressure on to stop that situation. What is the Situation's at the point of absurdity now? And I hope all of you would do that. Tell me about conflict between Indians and non-indians in history. I was on a all night talk show in Denver in August. And I had the one the most amazing calls that. I think I've ever tried to feel and Lady call in. She wanted to know how the Indians celebrated Christmas before they come into the white man. Batman you got to think about what that means. and I told her we used to hang the stockings out in the teepees and And so we'd sit there in the sleigh and the reindeer would come over and this voice would say you're not Christian. And I asked for 20,000 years this guy in the red suit just kept going by. But but what does a question like that say, really? and if it says the culture and history and religious Viewpoint of a tiny portion of of human beings is considered to be the normal Universal average and real condition of all other human beings. It itch when you approach from inside that group any other group that you deal with? Then you interpret all those out groups. It is really below average semi human incapable of doing the things that you're doing in and you blow up to an incredible Point your own accomplishments. At no Monday. We had a holiday and what do we celebrate? We celebrated the fact that 500 years ago in Italian and got lost. When you put on a planetary base for the Dominguez Escalante Trail. Dominguez and Escalante at first I thought was one guy until he's play a Spanish bronc Rider or something, but it turned out was to Catholic priests California, but they got lost and they wandered around in the four corners area for 7 months and finally ended up in Santa Fe. And this is a 200 the next year be the trailer to EUR to commemorate then. In search of immense pressure in Colorado. Pressure bed C support that's going to make this a big thing to celebrate the Spanish heritage. And I said I'll vote for it. But I want you understand planetary Viewpoint an Indian viewpoint. That first in in our culture a Trail lead someplace. I said if you get trailer goes from one point to another it doesn't just wander around. Second if your people consider the fact that to Chicanos got lost for six months in the four corners area 200 years ago and is a historic event. I said, I think the Indians would be the first ones at Apache on the head and send it on the road say Okay celebrated. But I should do the real thing that you should celebrate is if you could ever find a time when an Indian was lost in North America, that would be a historic event. Answer you've got to put this thing not simply in Traditions coming out of Western Europe. But what I would call a planetary situation where you begin to recognize that in order to make statements of meaning and Universal application, I think you really have to consider other people's you point. In other people's history and you have to take it as seriously as you take your own. in the last 2 years that works off and on with the people in the Wounded Knee defense for check Leon the treaty issue. And in trying to first present the Indian side of the treaty issue and second to anticipate what the government might ask us that we didn't know. We had to to go into almost every area. Every subject field dip do might possibly relate to the major idea. What was the status of the Sioux Indians when they sign the 68 treaty? Answer the government. Was making the contention in some of their brief and that they had jurisdiction over Indians because of the doctrine of Discovery. In other words that a Civilized Nation. Can you go out floating by the planet and wherever they happen to light if they regard the inhabitants thereof is really not citizen them are not civilized and particularly not Christian and then they have exclusive right to take the land away from those people. And so we prepared testimony and it was given down at Lincoln. First Indians discovered America and second that there was a sufficiently sophisticated civilization among American Indians that you couldn't say they weren't still alive. Getting into that then we had to show not only that the show Cheyenne Arapaho might have been among those people crossing the Bering Strait but be prepared in case the government would ask any of our Witnesses. Be prepared to show that they had to come over prior to the tribes around the Pacific coast. Show in doing that. I read quite a few of what in in the white man's academic setting they call Indian myths. These are Traditions passed down by different tribes in Pacific Northwest in find me in the 1850s to about 1910 there occasionally put down on paper. So you do actually have a fairly early versions of some of the tribal tradition. And I noticed an amazing correlation between some of the stories of the Klamath Warm Springs washko. Yakima Puyallup And geologic events that had occurred in the Pacific Northwest. Within a time. In which you can be fairly fairly certain dating something geologically for example, the explosion in lava flow at Crater Lake, Oregon. the destruction of with gigantic prehistoric volcano of Italy today forms the three sisters area the volcanic explosion in creation the volcano that forms Mount Saint Helens and the collapse of the Natural Bridge over the Columbia which resulted maybe two hundred years later in. The formation if they know that they called the dolls. And in the creation about Mount Rainier and some of the other volcanoes going through the Canadian border. and if you took all of those Indian traditions in and took a black boarding and Drew out the sequence of what they said happened. You get a sequence of events? They'd take the kids to Crater Lake and it starts out with Rumblings of the two gods that are in Crater Lake in Shasta. And they get mad at each other and they start throwing Thunderbolts begging for us and pretty soon. They're starting to blow their top lava is coming. The people are frightened and have to take refuge in the rushes in the waters in Crater Lake, which is I think 30 40 miles in Klamath Lake, which is 3040 miles to the southeast of Crater Lake. a gigantic do in shoes with thunder and lightning You finally Crater Lake Blows Its Top and there's tremendous rain and fog and precipitation in a whole series of atmospheric catastrophes when the whole thing clears to the Crater Lake. is being filled by a handful incredible rain in the people go up and they see that the The God Who Lived in the crater lake is Doorway to the underworld is collapsed in and block now. But if you check the sequence in and each step of what they're saying happened you do this with crater lake or some of the others I mentioned it and then you take geological reports on how do geologist today say that those things are probably formed. You sure you see the what's the mechanics of the situation but the geologists say happened and what the Indian tradition says happen. Is it almost one-to-one correspondence? and from that an examination of several of the mess we were able to at least be prepared to argue that you could date. The Northwest tribes anywhere from 30,000 to 7500 BC in that particular area. And if the explosion Crater Lake is figured at 7,500 BC then we would argue that the Klamath tradition. In the continuous occupancy of the Klamath lands extent of stems from 7500 straightforward, which gives one particular group of people with one culture in one language in continuous occupation in an area of something like 9,500 years. Another problem that we have in Sinking out. What is the relationship of Indians to non-indian? It seems to me is the unexamined assumptions that do not Indian coming over from Europe Genesis great cultural tradition behind it. Centuries and centuries in centuries of of making pottery and building cathedrals in this is simply not true. If you can pinpoint the chlamys at Klamath Lake in 9500 is an established settlement with culture language art and everything else then go around the rest of the planet and say what other people can you pinpoint at a particular area. At 7500 BC and it's damn hard for any of the European people. To come up with anything better than 700 BC. And when you start taking the Indian traditional laying it out on the universal basis. I think that the most profound statements about what the origin and perhaps even in the human species is really have to be made with reference to the Indian traditions in North America. Let you have a very extensive and well-developed view of the world and culture very early over here where people in Europe are still running back and forth trying to figure out how to put Stonehenge up without getting blisters. In ancient, but unless you unless you have it in your own mind and an emotionally come across that realization. Then eat you still have what I call an extremely narrow Viewpoint which most whites. I think really have of that relationship between Indians and whites. And you get the really absurd statements that the federal government uses to support its policy in the degree many people look at it as real definitions of the truth. Then Friday morning. We're arguing the Circuit Court of Appeals. And in the government makes this statement in its brief. Didn't have jurisdiction over all Indians because the United States always own the land. What's the story of shirt? It is in our response to it is a sentence of reads Custer's grave stands as testimony that you did not have complete jurisdiction. But you see what what what what happens in the minds of the people who are were trying to relate to and solving Indian problems. It is the idea that because United States made a claim with respect to Great Britain, France, Spain and Holland. That everyone on the rest of the planet understood to claim the United States was making with respect to those Nations and it was automatically assumed by an Indian tribe sign in a treaty that the United States had the right to do this and that in fact, that was what was happening when you get into the actual documentation not only is that claim fault, but in many instances things that have been accepted right up until the present time simply are not true. The traditional explanation of why the 68 treaty signed is the Red Cloud really Bluff two-piece Commissioners out and refused to leave the powder the Powder River area before the government pulled the four top and he even people like Ralph Anderson B Browning and josephy give that as is a traditional explanation of how that war got resolved. But if you get into additional documents, I think very few people have looked at and in one of which is father to Schmidt's diary and he isn't his a Catholic priest that got along fairly well with the northern Sue. Red Cloud was able to make demands because about 40 miles north of him was a camp of about 7000 aims who wanted to sweep everything from the Rocky Mountains clear into the Mississippi and never show militant at the only person that the Peace Commission could send up and was father Desmet. And it you reading his diary in his part of your riding along the Prairie and he says all of a sudden the whole Horizon started to move and they couldn't figure out what it was and it was the northern Sioux Warriors. And as far as the eye could see in any direction that way The whole Horizon was a gigantic line of Sioux Warriors writing as fast as they could to find out who these people were that were in the Sioux country. And now they come screaming down the hill and stopped about a half a spear point away from father Desmet, and they said you seemed to be in somebody else's country and would like to know what you're doing here. in they have a parley he explained to them what the government wants and then they agree to send people down to Fort rice later to sign the treaty. And they tell father Desmet. We're not talking about simply the Bozeman Trail. We don't want steamboats on the Missouri River. We don't want any Forks. We don't want any relationship whatsoever to people You get back across Missouri and you stay out of here. And if you don't will kill you and becomes a very simple Point Blank situation like that. What type of document indent understanding of History It it it changed me first. You have to find. The documents that tell about those types of incident, but second you have to work with your non-indian mind in the non-indian conception of History. So that would have become abstract explanations of what the relationship between Indians and non-indians is is not allowed to Cloud. What are the actual historical facts of the situation? new government today and he's arguing in these Wounded Knee trials that the Indians understood the United States had jurisdiction over them and what they're doing is taking modern legal series modern abstraction Shofu Indians were what western history was the inevitable March of progress all the IDS you run into if you go to historical convention tour if you talk of people working in interpretation of History, Entertaining these doctrines and it projecting them back a hundred years sometimes 50 sometimes as if she was 30 years in her saying because we in 75 believe these doctrines to be an interpretation of history there for we maintain that Indians at the time things happened looked at history the same way we look at history. And therefore this is why we interpret all the things that have happened in this way. I think if you look at 400 years of of sometimes good if it mostly bad relationships between American Indians and whites. that you find the right person very rarely understands who he is or what his situation is because he's looking at things through and he's looking at his own experiences and previous experiences through all these doctrines as if his understanding the world is the only understanding than a normal human being can have And what does that result in when you go back in American history? The results of the fact that the Swedish colony on the Delaware imported food for 30 years because they didn't know how to grow anything in the United States. nearest absolutely astounded it's not it's not simply. A desire to have religious freedom. Is it total inability to cope with a new situation? Because the minds of those people were at the Old Situation is the way normal people look at the world. And consequently will how do you get food when you come over to this new land? You have to import it from Europe netting out eventually the most of the shirts in the world importing food from Sweden or the United States right now. And what happened to the first 300 years that the white man had the Tomato he thought it was poisonous. And it was a garden plant. It was not something that came out of his cultural agricultural tradition in Europe. I thought was plans for 300 years and then somebody said no it actually increases sexual prowess. And it's been the national vegetable of Italy ever since. I didn't can you imagine the pizza without tomato? I think you can go into any number of areas in it when you get down into the situation. and it not only start looking at at the first 10 data, but but Ponder what you've learned in in in begin to ask a question that I think a lot of historians overlooked or short circuit. Aiden is not simply what happened, but why do people do the things they do in the present time? And what were the motivations for people doing things in past time? And I realize you're a correction and some people that are going quite a ways into this. But I think that it's a very valid question to be asked when interpreting. the history of conflict between Indians and non-indians now since Bob Burnett will be here in about another month. And he's talking about religion. I know you'll do a good job, but but remember things. Good. I'm working on in a field of religion that I would like to mention because it's part of the misunderstanding of the worldview. And that is I think that in the next 10 years it will come to be recognized that the religious worldview of American Indians. Is probably the most sophisticated the worldview that peoples of any continent have produced. That it has dominated the way the Indians have dealt with none Indians. And as none Indians approach Indians in a treaty signing situation when they set up trade relationships even today when you're dealing with people in the VA or the poverty program or other areas. That the Indian religious worldview, even if you're doing with the tribe of Indians that is predominantly not church-going or predominately Christian. There's always this Indian worldview in the background where you were never really anticipated to other people are going to do something crooked to you. Because your people are all together. And you figure what we've got to take these people on face value and they say they're going to do something for us, and we've got to trust them and it's this worldview of continuous credible innocent Trust. That prepares the way for an awful lot of conflict and crookedness in American history. I can speak to that out of my own experience 10 years ago when the Arizona tribes were lined up to fight The Bridge Canyon Dam and in somebody's nature Department went over and told the hualapais if they were going to name the damn Hualapai Dam. And Hualapai switch sides, and they said yeah, we want to have that damn cuz how many Indian tribes have a dam named after. If you put that in simply political Siri, it's it's the most god-awful a reason to change your mind about building a dam anyone's ever seen But if you understand it in the Indian religious worldview, did you can be no higher better relationship than to honor each other? and if that thing came crashing through 400 years of mistrust between Indians and whites and became the prime consideration that those people made And you say what this is. This is a unified review of it hangs on in spite of the fact that many times when Indians spontaneously come out of their world to deal with people not of that world. Did approve the most destructive thing anybody can ever imagine and yet the same persist. And working a book now where I'm going to try to take some of the Indian experiences in in the concrete situation and compare them to keep points in Western history to see what we're really talking about it is when we talked about how people form their view of the world. And there's a famous line by Pope. I believe it is low the poor Indian whose mind Sees God in the stars and hears his voice on the Wind. But if you dig back into various parts of Western European history, you find a Martin Luther was coming home from Market one day and lightning hit a tree next to him. Stunned the hell out of him and when he got home he decided to become a priest instead of the politician or Merchant and for the rest of his life. He's traumatized because he thought my God striking this Oak 10 feet away from him that was indication of God wanted him to be a religious person. and I can only know that the if you put that in the Indian tradition Black Elk and a great many other Indian religious leaders are very friendly with the lightning. They're not they don't get freaked out when lightning hits a talk to the Lightning's they have if they have a relationship in nature. More sophisticated in on a deeper level than the Western European. You go into the major formation. Of some of the Creed's of the Christian tradition and in the trinitarian Creed the emperor after 80 years of listening to the Bishops argue and he calls them all together and he said this is the way it's going to be you people are too disruptive of the Empire and therefore the Trinity. The Creed of the Trinity will be Father Son and Holy Ghost and we're not going to have any more discussion of formulas. That becomes the definition of the trinity in the Christian tradition. Know when that tradition and is filtered through 1500 additional years of Western culture people come out here and in the Indian religious tradition. Fishing medicine been doing all kinds of things. They said these are works of the devil. Because we had this Revelation to God is three persons and you can't really jump out of the Trinity or you can't say anything other than what our Traditions have told us. We have a special Revelation that is not given to anyone on the planet. And therefore what we see what we do find is reality becomes reality. You can see this in the lawsuits where they are trying to put through railroads over Indian land in the 1880s 90s in 1900. Is wonder a famous case involving the Northern Pacific where the judge simply says Christian peoples are not are not bound to keep their word to non-Christian people. Answer if that is a statement of of a federal court and Supreme Court set up on the United States Constitution guarantee separation of church and state. What does that say about how the main portion of non-indians have understood the world to live in? And she again you have an unexamined premise that our group is right in it. Any deviation from there is abnormal subhuman or whatever. Enter think that is where the major. area of conflict has been and continues to be are sea today a great movement of non-indians over to try and understand various aspects of Indian life. But I think that because non-indian should be by the Western tradition have not looked at things on a planetary basis. They get to a certain point of understanding what Indians were talking about and they never really get beyond that point. If you ever get conservation and environmental Series today. You preserve the Grand Canyon because your grandpa of your grandchildren and great-grandchildren might want to drive down there and take a picture of it. A deep appreciation of landscape if that isn't still in the Indian ballpark. Because what you're talking about the Indian context is that true our experience and through Revelations this area we know is sacred because we've been there and it is said something to us and therefore we don't touch that part of it. And we come and go as we're allowed to come and go with respect to that particular place. It take until you see the real distinction between those two areas. It's me. You're not simply talking about appreciation of land. We were talking about going on over and I'm breaking out of that ethnic and cultural tradition to to see the other tradition and understand what they're talking about is been very pleasing to me in Colorado this year that after hearing all the specialist in Land Management and Timber management for years for fire Squad to every place somebody drops a match. Now, they say the Indian method of keeping the forest and a control by selective burning off of underbrush is really the way to do it. We're going to let some of these fires burn After 80 years of managing forests the other way and getting less of a yield finally. They revolved a hundred eighty degrees and we're going to look at the Indian way of doing things. And that's when the major things that I've mentioned it before in relation to the the fight we've got going over in Nevada with at Battle Mountain. Maybe those Shoshone East can't tell you exactly what's going to happen. If you destroy all those Pinon trees, but those people have been there thousands of years and they know what they're talking about about what that land is. It may be a great Siri to tear all the trees answered Cattlemen can have more grass. But you're talking about one tradition that I think is very nearly restricted as to what land animals and people are in another tradition where you can where you can very easily show continuous occupation for thousands and thousands of years. In cash, It seems to me that that you got to come out of Western European rigidness and go talk to those people. There is an old Shoshone tradition. Anything Indian members the audience word for will really dig it. The day they went up to the Snake River to look at the iceberg in and it's a very simple story that says a guy came from the north and told us there was a lot of ice up with the Snake River. So we packed everything up and went up the Snake River and looked at it and sure enough. There was Ice there a great big Glacier and we stayed there a couple days and looked at then we went back down home. Can your Indians know that's the most authentic thing that is going to come out of an Indian tradition, right? If this thing isn't Supernatural everything else, it's a nice way to spend a week before we have to go out hunting again. It every read that tradition, you know, damn. Well most people went up there and took a look at that Iceberg may be chipped off a little ice. And I had a nice face then I went home again. I mean, there is no something new coming into their experience is not going to shake these people at all, and it certainly didn't give rise to terminus stories about the end of the world and all kinds of things that it might have been other traditions. It's I think it's extremely hard to Define where conflict originate. In the last five or six years have been draped popular to to place all the discussion on the area of racism. different races hate different races for different reason and I think you can document that and make cross accusations and carry on your discussion a very satisfactory level. The problem is I don't say I think that then you don't introduce new ideas back and forth between people's so that you can work on the basic causes of racism in economic deprivation and discrimination. And it seems to me it to really solve some of this conflict. It's going to require a very aggressive Loki responsible continuous effort by Indians to call into question the worldview and values in. Manners in which the non-indian looks at the world. And if we can't sit by any longer and in and listen to any type of non-indian thinking which assumes and it because they have constructed these doctrines that they're always, right. I think it's past the time when we just stand up and scream at them and say you're wrong because your whites and because you did stuff to us in the past and I think of you look into your own traditions. That you can get a pan in deal with any group of people. And that you're going to meet in White Society and if you know your own tradition, I think Shirley responsibly that you can introduce and really hard no Sensational changes of attitude. Who won the Saints and the impressed me in the last 2 years? John mentions that blackout talks about 2 Any number of things including the wind but he's talking to horses and an emotion. And not only some of his Visions but it in a row in their hunting another ever time. And I was kind of looked at that as well. This is probably a really pretty indian way of saying that he had a hunch. But then have any chance to talk to John Lilley who does dolphin researching and can talk fairly well in the dolphin language and points at dolphins are probably four and a half times smarter than human beings. It came to me that what what happens if you take those Indian tradition seriously. And you know what? What if those animals really did come over and talk to those people. And what if they did tell him the only way to grow certain plants is to grow them together because those plants have a spiritual relationship and they supplement each other and you'll make out alright. And she danced with the senecas did in the corn and beans and the Never War their land. Endeavor real question where that knowledge came from if it didn't come from the plants and animals in the relationship with humans themselves. I think that's the type of questions that we should have as Indian people in it to NP. We should start a very close dialogue with the people who want to discuss things with Indian on Indian Society. We're here. We have devoted reams of paper to this damn underneath things simply educating the people on the other side as to what the sequence of History was. Just to get them to realize 1851 comes before 1868. Therefore if you can talk treaties you talk about the first treaty first in that Second Treatise second. Interactive is really not intellectual and emotional understanding in there and has not been. And out of that misunderstanding than his Gumball of the physical conflicts another violence that marks American history. I can't think of very many instances. If you go back in the history of any Indian tribe. Weather is not tremendous misunderstanding simply because the non-indian couldn't conceive. And his values and his understand the world was not the norm. of what all human beings should should measure up to and to put it in absolutely clear perspective a year ago. One of the assistants to the commissioner of Education. Call me up. And he said, you know, I just been in a bilingual conference in Florida and we made a really great breakthrough. And I said, what was it Larry and he said, you know, they're Damn Few Indian languages that have Latin as a root. nice and Larry there are none if you want to really he said no, you don't understand. He said we we've had this problem in bilingual education. How long is it how to translate this stuff to these kids and he said, you know that he said I can't think of a single any language and off handy should maybe you know what he said. They're not even many that are there related to Romanian or or Lithuanian or any of that. And I said Larry I think next you'll be telling me that people are moving West. and you know, it was over his head but and if you're dealing with that at at the level of the commissioner of Education in the United States I'm in debt. That's a real problem that they can't sort out bilingual education for Indians because they have a hard time figuring out which Latin language they're related to. And then it conflict has got to come from the fact and non-indians really look at their values and understand the world as normative never occurs to them. Until I ask silly questions. I just how narrow their Viewpoint in understanding in. In traffic over the panel at this point. Hampton Inn in Super Saiyan till we make breakthroughs in the area of of how we make statements in and how we evaluate our own traditions and in the data that comes to us as we move forward in life and it's going to be damn hard to avoid conflicts in the future and we have not avoided them in the past. Hey, and I think that the solution that thing is for Indians to get. a very sharp pointed and responsible critiques of how non-indians see the world He just point out the stupidity in some of the situation. If you can think of a better explanation of what we did for Christmas before the white man came way, I would appreciate that. I'll turn this back over the panel and thank you very much. Indian author by Inglorious speaking at the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth. The only question and answer. That followed ilaria was asked to expand on his statement that Indians saw things in a cyclical way. Well, the Western culture was dominated by a linear concept. What what happens to a relatively small precise groups or when they meet totally different situation? and what up? What I would she is is the difference in technology is so incredible and in the world become so different it if you alter all those factors and once there's no small group that can really deal with it. And in the same way that Western society today cannot deal with all the factors that are hitting it. Hey, you never did Vietnam America losing the Vietnam war is the end of Western history in all practical sense and stops. I mean, there's no. All I can do is recycle. people and ideas the energy crisis all those things hitting at once can destroy linear civilizations just as easy as anything else in the height the flowering of the linear types of physician is not very long. In Greece, it's what a hundred fifty some years romance. Couple hundred year. United States made it to hundred years but didn't go make it three hundred years. Nnn. What I'm what I'm trying to say is in the Klamath route there for 9500 years sure. They got run over. But but but what are we talking about on a universal scale what time are people and make it damn your 10,000 years as opposed to a people of unlimited growth that burn everything out in 200 years. Hit the medical term for Western Civilization, which is uncontrolled growth is call cancer. And in its simplest that I didn't say that thing about Martin Luther in the trinity in his flipping the way as you would think. I think there's a real question about the base of the fundamental basis of where all religions come from. And you know I take it it's not satisfactory. Four people in the Christian tradition to assume that their religion is universally valid. Did it off of the written off a lot about it and they talked an awful lot about it, but the present state of the planet is largely responsible. The responsibility largely rests with the Christian religion about why it is the way it is. Impreza United States. She was a good Episcopalian is just now she's going to cut off food stamps in order to save money. And you look around at the United States at the people in need psychoanalysis every every indices of social disorder it it seems to me comes out of that Christian worldview and what has been done to non-Christian people's comes out at Christian worldview. You know when an individual person has it. It's called a psychosis. But when everybody has it called a religion. M. Change anything Everything you got to be honest about it, you know, the emperor said to be no more bickering. That was the Revelation that if you open your mouth again there their army was going to haul you off. Not the god opened up the heavens and said this is this is who I am. And we're trying to contrast with Martin Luther in in blackout. And is it going to lightning hits a tree with Luther he freaks out and goes through all of the things that isn't expected him in that culture in in incredible dread of this guy the Divine accountant upstairs. Where is you got your black out and in this? Tremendous familiarity was with the world really is and it was flipping in the Cents Only that one day kind of probe and say you guys really understand what you come out and tell us out of another cultural background and you really know the parallels we could draw cross to to force you to face the issue. What are you talkin? famous quasi flipping Vine deloria was asked what he thought the single most important solution might be to improving Indian White relations. I don't know if that's the trouble with the federal government always makes. If you give us the single answer will do it. There's no single answer. Because I don't think the problem I think the problem is the Indians of lost confidence in their own tradition. And is Bob said we're very apologetic him and we're not sure how to take on tradition or how far to come out of it. The travel background with it is not really our problem. I just take the recession. The only solution any politician has is to create jobs. And get more money in the economy. What there's a more fundamental question. What what's the meaning of human existence? Why does everybody necessarily have to work to produce cars and other things that nobody wants? Did you see that the prior human questions have to be asked for you can solve any of the other? And I'm absolutely baffles when you ask that question, cuz I dunno single thing. I could ever say that they would even approach. The question in the tragedy is now we get the average commission set up for two years. They've been trying to find a single answer. But if you force me on the single answer, I would say a good deportation program. Gloria was asked to expand further on why he thinks the dominant culture thinks it's always right. Yeah, I think it is because of what I would call the mechanical nature of Technology. You know what you're capable of producing jet planes in in doing strip-mining all that gives you an overwhelming confidence about things. Interfaith in your technology, that's really not warranted. If you were in the early development of early oil fields in the first field in East Oklahoma, the only recovered 13% of the available oil. In an interview Glenda the history of the Comstock Lode the only be covered 25% of the minerals that were there. it didn't end up those things are overlooked in favor of the products of that since anything Western culture is really nouturios and thinking because we've accomplished a lot of these things therefore we must be right. But you know if you put it on her if you're going to get back to input on a technical basis in any bunch of damn fools could recover 13% of an oilfield if they put their mind to it and has no great accomplishment. I don't want to put it down. What what I'm trying to do is kind of your presuppositions not based on facts. Did you get a really good look at it it what you believe him and pull back from it and saving up now on. What basis do we make these things? And I think you're going to find that the world really much different than you thought it was. Inn at the SC and unwillingness to do that when you're going to see American political and in religious leaders and making absolute statements all the time and you know, Nixon didn't want to be the first president to lose a war. Venus which kills people for four more years and because it would be a bad president. And in the big concern I have in August when an Easter it is nobody's looking for what's the justices this situation? We're all trying to determine what the law is so we can apply it. And in it, I think that's an intellectual are against it that I'm unhappy with him as I'm working on one side of the question. And the question will be what's just in this situation not. Who's the best guy with a footnote? And it just a just a way of life that I don't like deloria related his training as an attorney to his involvement in the Mutiny situation. I was still very naive about about what law was in Watergate kind of cured me of a mystical belief in the legal profession. I am getting into the treaty issue on Wounded Knee. Erase real question to my own mind about about how the other side now the government attorneys. Kid can look at the documentation that that is available on what that really means it and continue to maintain the position to maintain. Soaps in the whole Krishna laws is kind of kind of left it behind to go to the different kind of moral question. What is justice? Anime kiss cuz it really repels me that people do bad things to other human beings and say well I can't help it it to my job. And that's a hell of an ethic. And if that's what I run into these us attorneys. Someone will say what we know you guys are right, but it's our job to say that you're wrong. How can you live like that? Interrupt work on different treaty things to help groups outline as completely as possible what the history of their group was and what does relationships of the government? But it been raining very little face the present way we do the way we handle legal problems in a law is going to really solve anybody's problems. I think just a terribly symbolic way of a whole bunch of eagles getting together and pretend they know something. But but it's also think the only thing that holds this country together right now. Is it there a lot of decent men in the federal courts? as judges Look beyond all that eagle manipulation and try and come down with some kind of reasonable solution. And I don't see any sense of Integrity in Congress or the executive. And in my big face right now is if there are decent guys like nickels and Sarika and other people. You know who I'm afraid to stand up for what's right and say well. I looked at it in this seems to me to be a reasonable conclusion. Mystery 400 Indian lawyers now and I'm really worried that when we get technical skills will lose the whole sensitivity that we had his Indians will become technicians. And everything else is chance of winning an abstract case if your own people don't know what you've won in the other side is is going out to kill you because you did one do you did win which was going on a fishing rights in Washington? Sure, we prove the legal principle in the white man's terms what happens in every redneck in State of Washington's carrying a gun to shoot any Indian? It's fishing. It's not a solution. We're like, she's a lot of people in the legal profession start doing interdisciplinary stuff and say we're going to what's the whole point of all this? The whole point is to bring some kind of just Society about circular part prayer question to any litigation is what is a Justice of the situation? Turn really, I'm really terribly distressed right now, but that the field of law is so is as sterile as it is. So you are a member of the American Indian movement. I belong to Amnesty International just in case speaking at the Louis College of Saint Scholastica in the first of what's to be a five-part series on American Indian rights and public policy. This is Dick daily.