Charles Trimble: Preserving tribal heritage for future generations

Opinion

Monday, September 20, 2010

I see that the Oglala Sioux Tribe is likely to have the first National Tribal Park in the United States. The National Parks Service, through which the new NTP likely will be funded, is reviewing comments on a general management plan for the South Unit of the Badlands National Park, which will comprise the new tribal park. Much or all of the South Unit land was taken from the Tribe at the onset of World War II, and used by the US Army Air Corps as a “gunnery range,” also referred to as “bombing range.”

The return of the South Unit lands will be justice long denied, and the tribal park will be a new source of jobs and revenue for the reservation people. That is, if the Tribe accepts the proffered arrangement, and doesn’t split and fight over how to use it. An opportunity like this was offered in the late 1970s, and never came to fruition because of factionalism in the tribe.

Then-Senator Tom Daschle had proposed legislation that would have established the Wounded Knee massacre site and the cemetery there as a National Tribal Memorial Park. This prototype would have included federal funding for physical restoration of the site and its perpetual upkeep. Although it would be funded under the National Parks Service, the Wounded Knee site would have remained in ownership of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and would have been run by the tribe, creating jobs as administrators, maintenance workers, and rangers. The concept would not only have commemorated that historic tragedy and honored victims of the massacre, but also would have brought visitors to the reservation and revenue for the local economy.

However the Wounded Knee Survivors Association and others put a stop to the legislation. Their reason, I am told, was that they did not want anyone exploiting their honored dead by making money from the sacred site.

Whenever I return to the reservation I usually visit the Wounded Knee massacre site. On my last visit a few years back I was disturbed at the condition of the area, including the cemetery and the mass grave containing the remains of those massacred by the 7th Cavalry on December 29th, 1890. The outer fence of the cemetery was torn away in places, leaving it open to livestock, and the roads to the cemetery were deeply rutted and impassable when it would rain or snow. In the ravine where many of the men, women and children sought refuge from Hotchkiss cannon fire, and where the most wanton slaughter took place, bed springs, old tires and other debris were strewn.

My thoughts were probably typical of many visitors’ impression: “If this site is so sacred to the people, why do they allow it to be trashed so sacrilegiously?”

As we see all across the country, anything that is declared sacred will stifle development, even though the development might help some of the tribe’s own people out of wretched poverty. In such instances, there is usually no room for discourse or negotiation as to how development might take place without offending the spirits of the dead or, more importantly, their advocates among the living. The conclusion is invariably “No; it is sacred: period.”

And there are many outside champions who will support groups that resist development on those grounds -- in the press, in the churches, and in academia. These well-meaning people never consider what might be the truth behind the claim of sacredness, or what might be an amenable resolution to the controversy. It seems that such declaration of sacredness is more powerful than Catholic dogma, for whereas Canon law or papal edict bind only believers of the Faith, a declaration of sacredness on the part of any person claiming authority of a holy man is final and beyond argument.

In the Wounded Knee situation, the “bad guys” are the tribal government, which is perceived by those outside forces as greedy politicians willing to desecrate sacred lands for mere development. And although the tribal government has the function, among many, of improving the economy of the reservation, and thus providing a means of a decent life for the tribal people in its charge, the Council will most often back down for fear of retribution at election time.

Thus, as far as I know, the Wounded Knee massacre site and cemetery continue to be defiled by trashing. And people are exploiting the tourist market there anyway, although these traders selling beaded goods from makeshift stands at the site are merely trying to earn a living.

Tradition is important to all peoples, especially tribal people. Traditional adherence helps preserve an immemorial heritage of values, beliefs and customs that comprise our cultures. But we Indians should not suspend ourselves in the evolutionary process. Things change as they have throughout our history as Siouan people. In our centuries-long migration from the Atlantic coast to the woodlands of the Great Lakes, and finally to our glory on the Great Plains, our people have adapted lifeways, transportation, lodging, dress, and food preferences. And they have abandoned some customs, beliefs and rituals, and adopted new ones.

Even if the Europeans had never come across the Atlantic to our shores or Asians from the Pacific, we would not be the same today as our tribes were back in pre-Columbian times. We would be different because we are intelligent and we adopt new ways and technologies to meet our changing needs. When Columbus stumbled onto the continent, advances in science, architecture, agriculture, astronomy, and metallurgy were far along among the native peoples of South and Central America, as well as in the American Southwest. And this science and technology would have worked their way up the trade routes to the Plains and farther north.

And even without the relentless pressure of Christianity, our tribes would have abandoned certain traditional beliefs and rituals that were no longer relevant or credible. Our Supreme Being, Wakan Tanka, was not held out as an arbitrary or unbending master. There was no dogma, and no single religious authority, no papal holy man or Ayatollah. We were a spiritual people, not a religious society.

Accordingly, as intelligent people, we should be able to discuss what a merciful Great Spirit would condone for the good of the people. There must be a way to reconcile the human needs of our people with the spiritual beliefs of some. And if it was shown that it could be done with due respect to the spirits of those Dakotas martyred there in 1890, the Wounded Knee Survivors Association should have been willing to remove their objection to plans for a Wounded Knee Tribal Memorial Park. But no civil discourse or debate took place.

The Ghost Dance itself was not a traditional religion. With tenets such as the belief that the ghost shirts would make Indian people impervious to bullets, the Ghost Dance religion was embraced by some of our people clearly out of desperation. And as history tells us, it is people in despair who abandon their traditional beliefs and seek desperate recourse like the Ghost Dance.

We have only to look around the Pine Ridge Reservation to see despair growing, manifest in rampant alcoholism, drugs, gangs, domestic disarray, violence, and suicide, especially among our young people. Our people need jobs, and that requires development and an economy.

With cable or satellite TV in most reservation homes and computers in all reservation schools, our youth are being increasingly alienated from traditional roots by technology, especially when they see tribal beliefs and traditions as no longer relevant to their lives.

We must change this to help our people survive in dignity to preserve our cultures and our heritage for generations to come.

Charles “Chuck” Trimble, Oglala Lakota, was principal founder of the American Indian Press Association in 1970, and served as Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians from 1972-78. He may be reached at cchuktrim@aol.com. His website is iktomisweb.com.