The oldest town in America?

A Hopi town

On the top of a table mountain, in the middle of Arizona, stands a village of a few stone houses and also a few houses built of concrete blocks. This Oraibi, the oldest continually inhabited town in the U.S.A.

This is at least what its inhabitants claim. The same has been said about two other pueblos: Taos and Acoma. It is impossible to have an exact date of their foundation as they were built by Indians who had no script, no historical records. Archaeologists say they all have been built about a thousand years ago an have been inhabited ever since. Taos and Acoma are in the Rio Grande valley and are built with adobe brick whereas Oraibi is made of stone. It stands in the middle of the desert, the Indians who live there have learned how to save water and didn't use brick to build their houses. Stone is more durable than adobe and it may well be that the buildings in Oraibi are older than those in Acoma and Taos.

What did I write? On the top of a table mountain? Well, this is not precise. The Hopi live on the southern end of a plateau called Black Mesa, whose three spurs tower oner the desert that is somewhat lower (only about 2000 metres above sea level). On these spurs, called the First Mesa, Second Mesa and Third Mesa, the Hopi build their villages.

In historic times the Hopi were extremely well adjusted to the desert climate. They cultivated a variety of corn that didn't need watering but when planted at the bottom of periodic streams would reach with its long roots the water deep in the ground. This adjustment to difficult conditions and distance to countries with less severe climate protected the Hopi to some extent from the white invaders and today still protects them from an invasion of tourists. There is a tarmac road connecting their reservation with the outside world but the tourists don't come in big numbers. The Hopi are famous for their colourful ceremonies but they are also famous for treating their ceremonies the way the Catholics treat their mass (which can also be very colourful) and not as a tourist attraction. These ceremonies are not advertised in any way, the participands know about them by the word of mouth.

It is not easy to get to the Hopi reservation anyway. It lies in the middle of nowhere, there is only one tarmac road leading there and there is no public transport. One needs one's own car to get there. There is hardly any accommodation on the reservation at all. Old Oraibi, the oldest town in America, has no hotel, no hostel, no camp site, nothing. At the Second Mesa there is a little hotel and some sandy area in front of it. One can put up a tent on that sandy area and the hotel attendants will leave open to the toilet in the lobby. At least they did it when we put up our tent there.

Katsina

The tree mesas are close to each other, about 15 minutes drive, so early in the morning I drove to the Third Mesa to Oraibi. To get to the village one had to leave the tarmac and drive for a while on a dirt road. There is a little car park and a souvenir shop at the entry to the village. Things that one can see in the souvenir shop are mostly little figurines decorated with feathers called "katsina dolls". They are not really dolls but representations of protective spirits called "katsina". There are many of those spirits, which are represented during ceremonial dances by dancers especially decorated with feathers. The "dolls" representing the spirits, which really are copies of the dancers outfits, are hanged in houses like pictures of saints by Catholics. As it often happens, when white tourists appeared, they wanted to buy those figurines as souvenirs. This caused controversy among the Indians: can one sell a holy figurine? Can tourists see the sacred dances? In Oraibi early in the 20th century the argument was hotly debated and one day it was decided that the two parties - the traditionalists and the modernisers - cannot live together. It was decided that one of the parties would leave, and the contest which one was to stay and which one to leave was fought one day just outside the village. It was a kind of tug of war, although in this case the contestants pushed each other over a line drawn in the sand. The traditionalists were pushed out and they moved to found another village named Hotevilla. The so-called modernisers were only relatively "modern", they still keep their ceremonies secret, the tourists are not invited to the sacred katsina dances, although I was told that outsiders could come to see the so-called "butterfly dances", which are considered social, not sacred. But they still would not advertise them anyway, so one could only know about them by the word of mouth. Or one could come across them by pure chance.

I am not a tourist wanting to buy souvenirs so I passed the shop and entered the village. It is not so easy to run away from the souvenir sellers, though. Clearly some inhabitants think that if a white person enters the village, he will certainly want to but "katsina dolls". An Indian seeing me from a balcony of his house told me to wait and a minute later emerged with a small folding table an a few feathered figurines. I tried to tell him that I am not really a souvenir-buying tourist, that I am more interested in the life of people.

"Really?", said he. "Come here tomorrow then, we will have a butterfly dance here."

"Here, in the streets?", I asked.

"No, not here, in the central plaza. Wait, I will show you." He folded his table and took it home and a minute later he led me along the narrow alleys to the central plaza.

"At what time the ceremony starts?"

"About six in the morning. It is never exactly on the hour but usually they come out of the kiva around that hour."

It rained at night.

What did I say? Rained? It was a deluge. Thank God we put our tent up on a hill; it was on a island in the morning. It is interesting, it rains very seldom in this region, most of the Hopi ceremonies are actually prayers for rain. Clearly the prayers were successful lately.

Butterfly dance at Oraibi

I assumed that if the dancers leave the kiva at about six, at eight they should be dancing; I was surprised to see roadworks at the central plaza. A heap of sand was dropped from a pick-up and a crowd of Indians with shovels was spreading this sand on the plaza. As usual among Indians there was also plenty of laughter. Someone gave me a shovel and told me not to skive. I treated it as an honour and for the next half an hour worked with them. I was told that the night downpour changed the plaza into a lake. They had to bring a bulldozer to push the water over the edge of the mesa and then bring sand to cover the mud. So I worked and it turned out that the shovel somehow changed my status. When the sand was spread and I stood there not knowing what was going on I was approached by an Indian lady who told me to come to her house.

"You helped us to work, come for breakfast."

She led me home and sat me at the table. There were already several Indians there eating corn meal soup. It was clearly an open home that day, plenty of food, visitors coming and going. There were those who worked with the sand but also others, family and friends. Apparently this was the way to celebrate a holiday here.

At one point drums were heard. "They are coming out from kiva at last", someone said and I went to see where it was. I followed the sound and came to the end of the village, close to the cliff edge. There was flat ground there with a square entry and a ladder leading underground. This was kiva, the underground chapel. Colourfully dressed dancers emerged from there one by one and formed a procession. Girls in black dresses with strange very colourful boards standing vertically over their heads, their eyes covered with artificial fringes. Boys in ribbon shirts, each with a fox fur behind his belt, with rattles in their hands. The procession danced through the streets and entered the plaza. Then they danced. They danced all day, until the evening, with only short breaks for rest.

Why is it called "butterfly dance"? I asked some people but all I heard was that this was a social dance. Indeed, boys and girls danced together in the circle and if anybody wanted to join, he or she had to find a partner of the opposite sex. I was told that katsina dances, in which the protective spirits are called to come, are performed during the first half of the year, afterwards only social dances are performed. But why a "butterfly dance"? Nobody could answer that.

Spectators sat on chairs around the plaza and also on roofs of surrounding houses. Indians only, I was the only white person there. At one point an Indian came out of one of the houses and said:

"Come inside and have some food. My aunt says you are to come. You helped us with work in the morning, now come have some food." The aunt was a very dark skinned old lady but full of energy, busy around the oven. "My aunt cooks today. My mother has died but you know, women rule here. They own everything here. I live in Albuquerque and have a good job there, I am an engineer. My mother lived here but she died and left this house to me. Now it is used during the festivals because we have to feed the guests."

His house is built of stone but I see many houses in Oraibi built with concrete blocks. There are also some old stone houses but half ruined. When I asked why, my host answered:

"People from the National Register of Historic Buildings wanted to make a museum here, the whole village was to be preserved intact but people were supposed to move out. But people here don't want a museum. They want houses with all the facilities normal in the 21st century. They don't want tourists here. This is not a museum, it is a living village and the people don't want to move out. I understand their point of view. But I live in Albuquerque, mix with white people and I understand their point of view as well. The problem is that these points of view cannot be reconciled."

It is quite interesting what he says. It may mean that the oldest town in the U.S. may soon be built of concrete blocks.

But will it be the oldest town then?

Among the Hopi Indians in Oraibi

You will find this text, 
and many more on the subject, 
in my book "DO THEY STILL LIVE IN WIGWAMS?":

Ojibway painters

"When you are in Toronto, go and see pictures of the Woodland School Painters", someone said to me. "They are all Indians, mostly Ojibway. The best is Norwal Morriseau. When you are in Toronto, go and see their exhibition".

Easy to say: "go and see". Where shall I find them?

If this is a gorup of painters from Ontario, then perhaps I should go to the Art Gallery of Ontario. I did go there and asked at the information by the entry where to look for them. Woodland School? Who is it? Ah, Norval Morriseau? The man in the information showed me on a map where his pictures hang. I went there and indeed I found six pictures by Norval Morriseau. They were titled "A Man Changing into a Thunderbird". All had the same title because although there were six canvasses, it was actually one work of art. On the first canvass there was a man, on the last a Thunderbird, the other four were stages in between. So in the Art Gallery of Ontario I found only one work by Norval Morriseau. That was all.

All?

Yes, all. I made an effort and went around the whole gallery, which is quite big. There is a first-rate collection of second-rate European art, there is a good representation of the Group of Seven, there are several rooms full of strange objects as in any gallery of modern art in the world (where modern artists try to attract attention producing strange objects), but there are no painters of the Woodland School. One would think that this group of painters could be a showpiece of Ontario's art, but it is not.

Why not?

Is it because all of the painters are actually Ojibway Indians?

In Toronto there is also a private museum, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. It is far from the centre, in a village called Kleinburg, in a mansion beautifully set between trees, where once the collectors lived. It has a good collection of the Group of Seven and I hoped they would have also something of the Woodland School. They did indeed have something, just about. They exhibited a few paintings of these painters, all of them in a medium size room. There were a few pictures of Norval Morriseau and between single pictures of other artists: Daphne Odjig, Carl Ray, Saul Williams, Goyce Kakegamic. Not much but at least more than nothing.

In Toronto there is still another possibility: to find a gallery selling works of modern artists, after all Woodland School artists are still alive. Not all, Norval Morriseau died a few years ago, but still, this is modern art. How to find such a gallery? Perhaps by going to a bookshop and looking in a detailed city guide. This way I learned that Kinsman Robinson Gallery deals with paintings of Norval Morriseau. I went there and from afar I saw a banner: Norval Morriseau Retrospective. I asked a man at the entry if I can find works by Woodland School artists. He says that Norval Morriseau yes, others no. Just now they have a retrospective of Norval, the opening is in a few days but all the pictures are already in place and I can view them. The exhibition was impressive, two big rooms full of pulsating colours. One could observe the development of the artist: First pictures in two colours, scratched on birch bark, later ones, from the sixties, painted in acrylic in shades of brown, still later ones, from the eighties, in bright neon-like colours. The curator says that he has seen several of Norval's pictures showing a moose and could see the evolution from the realistic representation to the characteristic Norval style. Norval created the style of the Woodland School. He was an Ojibway medicine man and claimed that from the spirit world he received a message ordering him to be a painter. It was a controversial decision, he drew his inspiration from the secret myths of the Ojibway. Other medicine men claim that these secrets should never be made public. Other Ojibway painters later continued his style but Norval was the first one.

Others, that is who?

I was looking for a book in which I could find any solid information on the subject. I found a few books about Norval Morriseau and one catalogue of an exhibition by Daphne Odjig. Who is Daphne Odjig? The aforementioned catalogue suggests that she is the number two in this group of painters. Daphne was born on Manitoulin Island on the so-called unceded reservation of the Ojibway. Unceded - because its residents never signed any treaty ceding this land to the government of Canada, or anybody else. One of Daphne's ancestors was a Potowatomi chief famous for his fight against the U.S., who later found refuge on Manitoulin. However, in the mid-tewntieth century, when Daphne Odjig grew up, pride in the old battles was half forgotten. Daphne looked for work in Toronto, an Indian name was seen as something that may cause problems finding it, so she changed it to Fisher. In Toronto she worked in an office but she also had a talent for painting, so she painted. In her pictures one can see influence of cubism but also of her Indian grandfather, who taught her to draw on birch bark. Then came 1960s, for the Indians the time of revival of pride in being Indian. In 1962 on Manitoulin there was the first pow wow in Ontario in modern times. Daphne was there, she was drawn into the circle of dancers and suddenly she felt Indian again. From that time on she started painting Ojibway legends and her style became quite similar to that of Norval Morriseau. In time she moved back to Moanitoulin Island.

That is two persons. What about others? Where could they be found?

Maybe simply in the woodlands of northern Ontario, where the Ojibway live?

On the northen shore of Lake Huron, on the grounds of Serpent River Indian Reserve, there is a gallery of Indian Art. The art itself is very much Ojibway but the natural clientèle are not Indians. The Trans-Canadian highway passes through the reserve and for the city people on their way to holidays this is the place where they encounter things Indian. Naturally in such a place there is a certain amount of the souvenir kitchy stuff but there are also some interesting works. All have something in common with Norval Morriseau style, but I never heard the names of the authors and know nothing about them. I found, however, a series of post cards with interesting prints and at the back of each postcard some information about the author. This is where my knowledge about them comes from. I mention here two most interesting.

Cecil Younfox created prints with mythical scenes in a very characteristic style, as if stretched on a spider web. He was born in Blind River, a small town on the northern shore of Lake Huron (and quite close to Serpent River), lived and worked in New York, Vancouver and Toronto, but his style and subjests reflected his Indian origin. He died in 1987.

Isaac Bignell wasn't Ojibway but Cree, born on a reserve 400 miles north from Winnipeg. He developed his own technique of painting with a sponge in which he created simple compositions reflecting Indian perception of nature. He lived in Winnipeg, Minneapolis and Vancouver. He died in 1995 aged 37. His technique and style was continued by Russell Nogaosh, an Ojibway from Ontario, who is recently gaining popularity but does not hide who he learned his style from.

The gallery has also works by other artists, mostly still alive. Because the Woodland School is not a closed chapter. It is an event that is still happening. Although one observation has to be mentioned here.

The Woodland School is Indian in style, its subject matter is drawn from Ojibway tradition, but it is not produced for Indians themselves. When the Ojibway lived in wigwams, they didn't hang pictures on their walls. Hanging pictures on the walls of houses is not an Indian tradition. Nowadays the Ojibway live in houses just like their white neighbours, but do they have on their walls pictures of Norval Morriseau? Even if there are some who can afford to buy his pictures, which may cost a tens of thousands dollars (I could see the prices in Kinsman Robinson Gallery) they would be people completely immersed in white man's culture. This is because only people of this culture want to earn this kind of money.

You will find this article, and many others, in my book "ART ETHNO".

The Battle of Lincoln Capitol

Frank LaMere on the steps of Lincoln Capitol

"This will be the first victory of Lakotas since the battle of Little Bighorn! Almost hundred and fifty years the Lakotas weren't allowed to win!", spoke Frank LaMere on the steps of the Capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska.

"If we win, it won't be time to congratulate ourselves, because we will have achieved something obvious, so really we will have achieved nothing. This is just the beginning of the road. There will be time for the prayer of thanks and for asking for forgiveness that we have done so little."

"Thank you all for coming here. This is not accident. I don't believe in accidents. We are here so we can learn from each other."

Frank LaMere stood on the steps of Lincoln Capitol, where a few minutes previously there was a hearing of Nebraska High Court. The subject of the hearing was a little village in the north-western corner of the state, just outside the border of the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Sioux. The village was called Whiteclay and its inhabitants until recently lived off selling beer to the Sioux. On the reservation alcohol is treated as a drug, it is illegal to possess or consume it, whereas in neighbouring Nebraska one can sell beer without restrictions. In Whiteclay, whose population was about ten persons, there were four corner shops selling whatever corner shops sold, but in this case it was obviously mostly beer. Consequently if someone wanted to see drunk Injuns and feel racially superior, one could go to Whiteclay, some drunk Sioux were guaranteed to be there. They even say that in Whiteclay one could use services of some thirsty girl, who performed the said services at the back of one of the stores for just a few beers. They say that even murders were committed under the influence. One could say that legalizing alcohol on the rez could solve the problem, but this ban was not imposed from above. There is democracy on the rez and suggestions of legalizing alcohol were repeatedly rejected in referendums. So the reservation authorities sued the shops in Whiteclay and won the case: in spring 2017 the shops lost licence to sell alcohol. The only street in the village suddenly became empty. The shop owners appealed to the state High Court and so there was a hearing. As it happened - I was there, too. Frank LaMere would say that this was no coincidence, we were there to learn something. One could say that I was there so my potential reader could learn something as well.

Lincoln Capitol

"The first victory of Lakotas since the time of Little Bighorn" did not take place in the prairies od the Rockies. Perhaps many years ago there were prairies there but today this is the centre of the city of Lincoln, the capital of Nebraska. Right in the centre stands the capitol, a tall building with a golden dome on the top. Frank LaMere is not a Lakota but Winnebago but he is a high ranking activist of the Democratic Party in Nebraska and in the past he was an activist of the American Indian Movement. Dressed in a suit (as a parliamentarian should be) he spoke on the steps of the Capitol because the press expected that. A group of Indian youth around him held boards with slogans: "Nebraska does not need Native misery money", "Stop the liquid genocide". The press took pictures. I am somewhere in those pictures.

I came because I heard about the planned court hearing a few days earlier, in a protest camp at Whiteclay. I came and immediately found myself among urban Indians. I was advised to go to the Indian Centre in Lincoln, there was to be a meal as well as places to sleep for the protesters who would come from the Whiteclay camp. I arrived in the evening and as I entered the hall I saw Byron with his dog Nick. It was the same Byron whom I met a few days earlier at Whiteclay. He was talking to a local Indian of Omaha tribe. Byron introduced him as a medicine man who just a few moments ago led a prayer for those who came from afar. The medicine man talked about his way of healing, very different from the Western medicine. He told us how one of his relatives was diagnosed with schizophrenia because she heard voices. "But we see it in a different way", he said. "She heard voices of the dead who stayed on earth because they weren't allowed to rest. I told those spirits during the ceremony to leave her alone and follow me. Later I passed them to the emissaries of the Creator and they took them to the Milky Way."

Another person in the hall was Michelle, an Indian girl in a red T-shirt with "go red" written on it. I met her at the Whiteclay camp as well. Seeing me she said that I could put up my tent on the lawn behind the building . She then went out for a minute and returned with two other Indian girls, who led me around the building and showed the place. There was also a big tipi put up on the lawn. "If you want you could stay with us in the tipi", said one of the girls, which proposition I accepted.

The Indian Girl Michelle

The girls' names were Felicia and Lucinda, there was also Lucinda's little daughter. They had a huge pot of soup for those who were supposed to come. There were supposed to be more people from Whiteclay camp but they had some financial help from the Pine Ridge Reservation authorities, the support included hotels and they preferred to sleep in hotels rather than in a tipi. As a result the only other person in the tipi was a guy who came from Minneapolis and didn't have any hotel paid for. At it turned out he was, like Felicia and Lucinda, a combatant of the Standing Rock protests the previous winter. During that protest there were clashes with the police, who wanted to remove the protesters. The guy from Minneapolis had some films from those clashes and showed them on his laptop. Half the night in the tipi we watched the most recent movies.

The following night Lucinda told me how herself and Felicia got involved in this protest. After the court hearing everyone went home, only Lucinda and her daughter stayed with me in the tipi. We talked long into the night and Lucinda told me how Michelle, the Indian girl in the red T-shirt, asked them if they wouldn't want to go to take some food to the protesters. They drove there all night in a car loaded to the limits with boxes on their knees, but it was nothing, when they reached the camp, they felt incredible energy. This was the camp of Water Guardians. The camp at Standing Rock had been closed since then but other have sprung up in other places, for example at Whiteclay. Somebody wanted to start one at Wounded Knee but there were some problems there. Also on the lawn behind the Indian Centre at Lincoln there was to be a camp for a few days. Lucinda and Felicia are urban Indians, they live and work at Lincoln, but they are prepared to support protests on reservations.

In a tipi

Lucinda also spoke about a medicine woman who earlier this evening had led a ceremony in the hall of the Indian centre. Lucinda and Felicia wanted to learn from her and initially she accepted them as disciples, but later she treated them as if they were servants. For example she phoned them because she wanted to buy something and bring it home to her. What does it have to do with the secret knowledge? (I thought at this moment that this might have been a test that the girls failed because humility is a requirement necessary to understand any secret knowledge). The medicine lady is especially in conflict with Felicia. She says that Felicia follows New Age philosophy but Felicia doesn't follow New Age, she just takes from each tradition what is best for her (and I thought at this moment that this is a strange way of learning, this choosing what one wants to learn; it is as if a children decided which letters from which alphabet they want to learn).

I went to the ceremony that the medicine woman led. I heard an Indian woman in the hall singing a song with an accompaniment of a little hand drum. A few people sat around an oyster shell on which a twig of prairie sage was burning. I joined the circle. The medicine woman having finished a song gave me the shell so the smoke would flow around me. The ceremony was in memory of a mum whose body has recently been found in a river but who left a little baby. The spirits of the dead have to be led to where they are supposed to go, this is what medicine men do. The spirits aren't any wiser only because they died. Some spirits even after their death don't know that they died and are shocked when they learn about it.

At the end of the ceremony we smoked the sacred pipe. Filling the pipe is a ceremony in itself. Four pinches of tobacco go in, each offered first to each of the four directions. The pipe goes from hand to hand clockwise around the circle, every participant has to inhale. Strong native tobacco almost made my head spin.

This was an authentic Indian ceremony in the hall of the Indian Centre, in artificial light, not a show for tourists. My impression of the medicine woman was very different than Lucinda's. I had an impression that her very presence brought something that cannot be conveyed in words. Maybe this was just an impression but this is what it was.

You will find this text, 
and many more on the subject, 
in my book "DO THEY STILL LIVE IN WIGWAMS?":

Whiteclay

Sweat lodge

Remains of a camp fire are still smouldering in front of a sweat lodge. A buffalo skull and a long pipe lay in front of the lodge entry. There was a ceremony here last night. For the Sioux the sweat lodge is not just a steam bath, it has spiritual significance.

Last night at first a camp fire was kindled, thirty two big round stones placed in the fire and sprinkled with tobacco. When the stones became white hot they were taken to a hole dug in the middle of the lodge. Then the participants in the ceremony entered, dressed only in clothing that could be drenched in sweat: women wore loose dresses, men had boxer shorts (I read somewhere that one should enter the lodge naked; apparently moral standards fall everywhere). Two boys entered with their hand drums. The leader of the ceremony sat by the entry, a container full of water and a ladle next to him. The helper who brought the stones from the fireplace remained outside, his job was to open and close the entry flap. The sweat lodge is covered with heavy blankets and has no opening at the top, so when the entry flap is closed it gets completely dark inside. The leaders pours water on the stones, the water hisses and fills the lodge with steam. The temperature rises immediately and in a few minutes one starts sweating profusely. The boys with drums start singing a song in Lakota language. After about half an hour somebody asked for fresh air, the leader stopped the ceremony for a time and the entry flap was opened, light from the fire shone in. One could breathe fresh air but only bending down to the ground. The break did not last long, the flap was closed again, water hissed on the stones and the temperature rose, everybody was sweating and the boys sang to the regular rhythm of their drums. There were a couple more breaks like this. The whole ceremony lasted about two hours. In the end everybody left the lodge, the sacred pipe was lit up, at first the leader blew some smoke in four directions, then the pipe went around the circle, everybody having just one puff. At the end of the whole ceremony everybody shook everybody else's hand.

I took part in this ceremony and I must say I felt honoured. I had read about it and I knew it was practised by more traditionally minded Lakotas. It is not practised every day but rather as a preparatory rite of spiritual cleansing before other ceremonies, for example the Sundance. Indeed, there is a feeling of even physical purification when one comes out from a seam bath like this. I read somewhere that one has to know one of the traditional people to be invited to such a ceremony but here I was, having arrived at the Camp Whiteclay Justice only a few hours ago, having learned about the camp's existence only a day before and having arrived at the Pine Ridge Reservation only two days ago.

An Indian grandmother I met at Wounded Knee told me about it. There were some horse riders camping there, members of horse riding clubs, who took part in a protest ride from Wounded Knee to Whiteclay. Whiteclay is a tiny village just outside the reservation, it has about ten inhabitants but four shops selling beer. Alcohol is prohibited on the rez but who can stop anyone sell it just outside its border, in the neighbouring state of Nebraska? For years Whiteclay was the place where one could see the proverbial drunk Injuns. The drunk Injun is now an American stereotype. The Sioux, once proud warriors, came to Whiteclay to drown their melancholy. The sober Indian organisations, including the reservation authorities, tried to stop all this. They won a court case in Nebraska and the authorities did not extend the alcohol licence to the four shops. The shop owners of course appealed. As I arrived at Whiteclay I was told that in a few days time there was going to be a hearing at the High Court in Lincoln. The young riders protested against opening of the shops. So did those who joined the Camp Whiteclay Justice. So when I heard about this camp I knew, I had to be there as well.

Drunk Indians are a problem well known in America. Proud and fearless Sioux warriors are the thing of the past. Crazy Horse, whose gigantic sculpture some crazy Pole is trying to make in the Black Hills, might have been as fearless as the warriors in movies but the modern stereotype is a drunkard begging in front of a supermarket. An overage American is of course just as likely to meet a white drunkard by the supermarket but a white bum is not a representative of the whole white race because person sees white people constantly in other situations: at home, at work, in church, in shops, on a train and a drunk by a supermarket is one of many white people seen. However, a white person is much less likely to see Indians in other situations so a drunk by a supermarket is in his eyes a representative of the race.

Joe Pullian

Which of course does not mean that there is no problem. The problem must be there if there is a ban on the rez. Despite the ban my first experience of the Sioux was exactly that: drunks in front of the supermarket. As I drove into the Pine Ridge Reservation I stopped in the first place with a supermarket and some fast food places. As I got out of my car a drunkard approached and asked for change because he was hungry. I bought him some food but a minute later I had seven more like him. And interestingly on the board at the entry to the protest camp Whiteclay Justice has also written clearly that alcohol is not allowed there.

I found the camp thanks to this board as the rest is invisible from the road. A few tents, a few tipis (modern ones, transported on the roof of a camper van), a field kitchen. As I drove in I saw some people gathered around a camp fire. A man in a red T-shirt came to greet me. This was Joe Pulliam, the leader of the camp. He was happy to answer all the questions. The protest here is to remind people that sobriety is important. Hearing that I was just coming from Wounded Knee he said that he supported the grandmothers there and not the new-agers who often drink or take some other substances. It was so at the end of the Standing Rock protest, where he himself would sometimes have a drink. Not here, though, this camp is sober. The camp is maintained only by donations and by the sale of pictures Joe paints. He is an artist and showed me some of his pictures: Indian motives painted on handwritten pages pulled out of some old reservation statistics books. He sells the originals for a few hundred dollars and prints for a few tens. He mentioned that they have a sweat lodge every evening and if I stay overnight i could take part.

The riders from Wounded Knee came in the early afternoon. Everybody from the camp went to the village of Whiteclay, which consisted of those four shops and basically nothing else. I had never been there before but still I had an impression that something has finished. There was an air of emptiness. The riders galloped through the village, then turned around and entered from the other side, from Nebraska, colours flying. A big flag of Ogalala Nation and some other flags. In the middle of the village they formed a circle. Some young boys got off their horses and with an accompaniment of a drum sang a song in Lakota. Some people gave speeches. I had no idea who the speakers were but later I learned that one of them was Brian Brewer, the chief of Pine Ridge Reservation.

Later the riders rode into the camp and there they had some more songs and more speeches about virtues of sobriety. In the end the horses were led to the pasture and the riders invited for lunch.

There were talks around the camp fire long into the night and again in the morning. Mixed company, some Indians and some white people. Joe is probably mixed himself, he says he is a Lakota but he doesn't look very Indian. There are some white supporters, like Carl, a young blues musician from New York, or Byron, an old pensioner travelling in an old pick up with his equally old dog. However, the majority of campers are proper Indians, like Rudel Bearshirt from Wounded Knee or Curly, who leads ceremonies. Or like a local grandmother whose name I don't recall but who takes an active part in any discussion. Or Frank Bearkiller who came for a short visit with his daughter and granddaughter. Talks long into the night, many different talks. Like that of Frank Bearkiller who told us his life story. He grew up on the reservation but saw what is beyond because his father subscribed the National Geographic. Frank wanted to see the world beyond the rez and one day he parted and travelled all around the continent. It took him two and a half years. He told us also how he quit drinking. This was after a talk with his grandmother who suggested this if he wanted to improve his life. Any Indian worth his salt follows an advise of his grandmother and Frank wanted to be worth his salt.

Riders at Whiteclay

It is quite interesting: many times I heard sober Indians telling a story how they stopped drinking. It seems they consider it an important moment in their lives. I also heard sober Indians when meeting for the first time asking each other: "When did you quit drinking?"

There was also a discussion about the figure of Crazy Horse in the Black Hills. The discussion moved to this subject when my interlocutors learned that I - like the crazy sculptor of the figure - am Polish. For my interlocutors creating any kind of giant sculpture out of a mountain is a sacrilege. "Why don't you do something like this in your own country?" asked Curly. I said I can't answer because this is not something that would actually interest me. "What do you mean? You have taken your picture, at Mt. Rushmore, haven't you?" I said that I didn't go either to Mt. Rushmore or to the Crazy Horse sculpture. This caused a round of laughter. The grandmother sitting in th circle said that Crazy Horse appeared to her in a dream. "They will never finish this figure", she said. "This figure shows direction where the whites said the Sioux were supposed to live but when Crazy Horse appeared to me in my dream he was pointing the other direction."

Interesting, this burst of laughter. They seem to have a stereotype of a white man who in the Black Hills has to take a selfie with the presidential faces at Mt. Rushmore. The burst of laughter suggests that my behaviour is to them no less surprising than to a white European a sight of a chief riding a Ford Mustang rather than a wild horse.

In the meantime Curly, who leads ceremonies in the camp, says quite interesting things.

"You take many pictures but during a ceremony you can't. If I see you take pictures I'll take your camera and wont give it back. This is because you will go to a distant country and the photographed ceremony will still work but I won't be there to protect you from bad effects...

"This is sacred land. We pray here but we don't call anybody by name. If you name someone, you won't let him rest. When you pray you call someone by name and therefore you don't let him rest. We don't name him therefore we have gifts.

"This Bible of yours does not belong here. The Bible talks about the past, you want to bring back the past. You have this Bible and it talks about Jesus. Has anybody met Jesus? Is there anybody going to meet him? But Wisdom can only be passed from heart to heart.

"The youngsters keep asking questions and this means that they don't listen. You have to have eyes and ears open. Whoever has Wisdom can pass it on only when he knows that the listener is able to take it."

At one point Joe mentioned that somebody from the Reservation Council gave him some money and now wants to see the accounts. Joe says that he only asked for funds for some people to go to Lincoln for the court hearing. There will be the appeal hearing about the Whiteclay shops in Lincoln in a few days.

How did he say it? There will be a court hearing in a few days in Lincoln? It looks like my Sioux trail will take me to another interesting place.

You will find this text, 
and many more on the subject, 
in my book "DO THEY STILL LIVE IN WIGWAMS?":

Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee

Clouds over Wounded Knee

“You see those clouds? Quickly take a picture”, says Bernadette Hollowhorn, an Indian grandmother.

Indeed, the clouds have an unusual colour. They would make a perfect photo over the cemetery of Wounded Knee. Grabbing a camera I run to frame it so that the clouds hang just above the graves. Unfortunately I don't make it in time. It is the effect of the setting sun, there just for a few seconds and then disappears.

Clouds gather over Wounded Knee, real as well as metaphorical. Bernadette Hollowhorn is here to drive those clouds away. And what am I here for? I certainly didn't come to meet Bernadette, but I did meet her and now I know why she is here. But why did I come in the first place?

Well, I had to come here, this place attracts not only clouds. Even though my heart does not have to be buried here, I had to come anyway. Although I guess one of the reasons why I did come was that someone wrote a book “Bury my Heart...”. Without that book the place would probably be forgotten. The book was published in 1970 and just three years later American Indian Movement (AIM) decided to declare a creation of an independent Lakota republic just in this place. The new republic was immediately surrounded by the U.S. Armed Forces and for the next few months there was something that the media usually called “a siege”. The Armed Forces' road blocks theoretically didn't let anybody go through but sometimes they would allow a truck full of food reach the besieged. One could also reach the village walking across the fields and rebellious young Indians from all over America emigrated to the new republic. The village lies on the Pine Ridge Reservation which belongs to Lakota Sioux but among leaders of AIM were also some Ojibwa, and among the besieged there were immigrants from the Navajo, the Iroquois and even from among Micmac people who lived on the east coast of Canada. In theory there were trenches and even some fire exchange but there was no attempt to take the village by force and it seemed that nobody really wanted to kill anybody. True, there were two casualties among the besieged but they seemed to be hit by stray bullets and the Armed Forces road blocks didn't stop cars taking the wounded to hospital. When in the end the agreement was reached according to which the leaders of the new republic were to be arrested, it turned out that they are not in the village because they escaped through the fields.

The media were present there, oh yes. An Indian uprising in the second half of the 20th century, this is something! Air time and the press were full of Wounded Knee. Not just in America but all over the world, I read about it in the press in the communist Poland at the time. Brave warriors hold out against the U.S. Army! Keep it up, boys!

The cemetery of Wounded Knee

But this was the "second Wounded Knee". The first, in 1890, was very different. It was the last "battle" in the Indian wars of the 19th century. A "battle"? The word is just as misleading as the "siege" of 1973. A group of a few hundred Indians , including women and children, danced the new "Ghost Dance" that was supposed to cause a miraculous disappearance of the white people from the continent. Commanders of army units stationed nearby decided it was an uprising, surrounded the dancers and told them to lay their arms. The fact that the Indians had arms should not be surprising to anybody, even today it is perfectly legal to own arms in America. Chief Bigfoot agreed to lay arms but supposedly not all warriors shared his opinions, some shots were heard and the commanders, hearing the shots, decided it was a battle and opened fire. Only a few years earlier, at the battle of Little Bighorn, a few hundred soldiers died and hardly any Indians, at Wounded Knee it was the other way around: hardly any soldiers died but the casualties among Indians are estimated between 150 and 300. It was winter, ground frozen solid, difficult to dig graves, so one big trench was dug and all the bodies thrown there.

I had to visit this place. It seems that i am not the only one attracted. This cemetery where a few hundred Indians are buried in one grave seems to be a kind of tourist attraction. There is a big car park there. Around it there are some stands where Indian women sell handicrafts. As I parked my car an Indian lady waved to me inviting to her stand. I asked her if she thinks I should start visiting a cemetery by buying trinkets. She didn't know what to answer but at least showed me where the cemetery was.

How misleading are the first contacts! Those who want to be the first to meet the newcomers are not necessary the good representatives of the inhabitants of the place.

At the entry to the graveyard I saw a big banner saying: NO MORE DESACRATING OUR SACRED LAND! Clearly somebody was again protesting against something. I didn't quite understan what the matter was. Anyway, I went into the graveyard. In the middle of it is a large grave surrounded by a wire mesh fence. There are many colourful ribbons tied to the mesh. These are ribbons which Indians tie to places where they pray. There are many small individual graves around the big one. One bigger than other, with a big granite tombstone; this is the grave of Buddy Lamonte, who died during the 1973 "siege".

Beyond the cemetery I see something that looks like a church, it even has a cross on the roof. There is a group of people on the porch. As I say "hallo" one of them comes to me and introduces himself as the deputy leader of the village council and starts explaining everything without me even asking me any question.

"This is our community centre. It used to be a Catholic church but the priests gave it to the reservation authorities and they gave it to us. Now we have here our community hall which we run without any outside financing. Here we have a kitchen, we prepare common meals for the elderly, my mother comes here to eat. Would you like to help us financially? For example by buying this T-shirt remembering the Little Bighorn battle..."

I ask where is the place of the 1973 protest and the answer surprises me completely. They, the inhabitants of the village, are gathered here in front of the church to protest against another protest that somebody else is planning. I am told that Bernadette Hollowhorn will tell me more. Bernadette does not need encouraging. She was a teenager then and remembers the siege. "We didn't take sides then but it was us, the inhabitants of this village, who suffered most" says she. "Myself and my mother had to run from our own home because there was no food. When we returned we found our home ransacked. It was the AIM activists who did that. And now some people who don't live in this village want to come here and set up a camp similar to that at Standing Rock in North Dakota. But at Standing Rock there was a pipeline being built across a graveyard but here there is no such thing! This place is famous only because our ancestors have been buried here. You see those tents next to the museum? Those people want to make a 'unity camp'. They say they are from AIM, but we don't want them here. We don't want anybody to use the name of Wounded Knee and make some business on it. Here our ancestors are buried and they should be left in peace."

I didn't realise there was a museum here. When I came I saw a colourful round building but there was nobody there and I didn't think it was anything worth attention (I visited the place later and learned that it was indeed not worth attention, it contained only a few badly exhibited pictures from the 1973 "siege" and nothing else).

The conversation on the veranda is in two languages, older ladies there talk in a language I don't understand and I am assuming this is Lakota. Younger people only speak English but they seem to understand what is being said. The younger people call the older women "grandmothers", which when spoken by an Indian is a sign of respect. Whatever a grandmother says has to be done. This is not an official function, nobody elects a grandmother, but when grandmothers says something seriously, they are listened to. Last year's protest at Standing Rock started when a grandmother didn't want to let a pipeline go through a family burial site. Here in wounded knee it is the other way around: the local grandmothers don't want some protesters to disturb the peace of ancestors buried here.

At one point I hear an interesting sentence said by one of the grandmothers: "In the old days women weren't chiefs but it was women who brought up chiefs to be responsible men".

Wounded Knee village

I hear them talking about organising the next meal. I say that I can go with them to the Pine Ridge supermarket, a few miles away, and buy them something. The grandmothers agree without hesitation. Phyllis Hollowhorn (who is, as I gather from the conversations, the main brain behind the protest) goes with me in my car and her daughter with her boyfriend in another car behind us. The ladies choose some burgers and other things and we go back.

On the way back my passenger is Nathan, the boyfriend of Phyllis' daughter. He says he has never met anybody from England (let alone Poland, about which he barely knows it exists). He asks me if I know Sundance. He has been a dancer for several years. This year he dragged five buffalo skulls sewn to his back with long thongs. He offered his suffering for all who experienced difficulties in their lives. This is Sundance, the dancers undergo torture but offer their suffering for others. Nathan asks me if I could come to the Sundance next year. I could pray for him so he could have strength to go through it. Because Sundance is not easy. It is four days without food or drink, even water. Lack of food is nothing, thirst is all the time in your head. This is why you need support of others who eat and drink in the name of the dancer. The first day is physical, the second is psychological, the third day is emotional, the fourth day is spiritual. It is hard but after the fourth day you don't want to stop. The fourth day is the piercing day when the skin on the chest of back of the dancer is pierced and thongs sewn through. Some dancers sew themselves to the central tree and free themselves in dance. Others - like Nathan - drag buffalo skulls on the ground until the skulls tear themselves off.

Later, as we sit on the verandah before the cemetery, two tourists come to see the graves. They come to us and the conversation touches the Sundance. They cannot understand: How it is, buffalo skulls sewn to the skin? To make them understand Nathn takes off his shirt to show them the scars.

Nathan comes from another place but he lives at Wounded Knee with his girlfriend and her five children from her previous relationship in the house of his mother in law. There is some communal housing in the rez but not enough and the houses are overcrowded. Nathan lives with ten other people in a house of four bedrooms. He and his girlfriend are waiting for their own place but they always hear "another two weeks". He himself is half-Sioux and half-Navajo, part of his life he spent on Navajo rez, but in the end he chose the tradition of his mother. This is why he is a Sundancer. He takes part i this protest because he trusts his mother-in-law. Phyllis Hollowhorn is respected in the village, she is one of those grandmothers whose word counts. Today's controversy about protests is similar to the times of Crazy Horse and Red Cloud. Crazy Horse wanted his own glory, he fought a war in which he could win a battle and gain fame but he couldn't win the war because all his arms and ammunition he had from his enemy, the Americans. For Red Cloud the good of his people was more important, therefore he didn't join this war.

There is some commotion at the foot of the hill on the other side. It seems that another camp is forming there. "They are the horse raiders", says grandmother Bernadette. "Tomorrow they will ride in protest to Whiteclay. There is another protest camp there at Whiteclay, they protest against drunkenness. It is an interesting place, you should go there."

Well, if a grandmother says so, one has to listen. That I am not an Indian? Well, not quite, but let's be honest: who didn't want to be an Indian at one time?

Pine Ridge supermarket

You will find this text, 
and many more on the subject, 
in my book "DO THEY STILL LIVE IN WIGWAMS?":