Cherokee

A few nights back Ms Ché and I attended a one woman play in Santa Fe written and performed by Delanna Studi called "And So We Walked, an artist's journey along the Trail of Tears." It's an allegorical play connecting a Cherokee actress's personal journey with that of her ancestors who were force marched from their homeplaces in what's now Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee in the 1830s to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.

I suppose for those who know little or nothing about Cherokee history, it might have been revelatory. However, Ms Ché and I attended an intensive immersion course in Cherokee history years ago. It was led by (then) Principle Chief Chad Smith and Cherokee historian Julia Coates, and we've never forgotten it.

Readers may know that Ms Ché, though born and raised in California, is Cherokee, her mother a full-blood who moved to California from Oklahoma in 1941, and truthfully her mother never looked back. She and her sister left Oklahoma voluntarily -- perhaps even eagerly. They were not part of the forced urbanization of Indians then fashionable with in the US Government, but chose to set out on their own for their own reasons.

What happened to the Cherokee people in the 1830s -- along with the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles -- however, was something of a different order altogether, nothing less than ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, all so the Georgia crackers and their ilk could take the Indians' land and homes and farms and cattle without the fuss of Indian resistance. Just round up the savages, seize their property and send them westward, "Bye bye!" It worked, too, for there was little  or nothing the Indians could do once the President, Mr. Jackson, refused to honor the Supreme Court decision on the Indians' behalf.

He said, in justification for his refusal, that if he had enforced the ruling, it would have been worse for the Indians, for the crackers probably would have risen up and massacred them all. Given the spirit of the times, that's quite possibly true.

Our playwright/actress, Ms. Studi, was born and raised in Liberty, Oklahoma, but like so many before and since she was restless and she wanted something beyond the confines of the rather rigid -- and racist -- Oklahoma society in the "14 Counties" in Northeast Oklahoma designated the "Cherokee Nation."

Many people may not know that the Cherokee have no geographical reservation, nor do most of the other tribes in the former Indian Territory. The Osage are one of the only tribes in Oklahoma who have an autonomous reservation. Cherokees and most of the rest of the tribes in Oklahoma lost their communal/tribal lands and sovereignty over those lands during the period of allotment in the early 20th century. Allotment meant the extinction of tribal government and sovereignty over territory. For a time, the Cherokee Nation was functionally extinct as well, though some of its previous attributes and the institution of Chief were maintained.  The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma was officially reconstituted only in 1975. There are two other Cherokee tribal associations, sometimes referred to as "nations," the Eastern Band in North Carolina, and the Keetoowah Band in Oklahoma.

The Eastern Band is composed of descendants of Cherokees who "didn't walk" during the Indian removals of the 1830s. Many hid out in the hills or escaped from groups being forced West. Some were actually allowed to stay in their ancestral territory as Anglos moved in. Despite the removals, there are still quite a few Indians in much of the former Cherokee territory in the Southeast.

In the play, the actress who grew up in Oklahoma with her full blood Cherokee father and her German/Irish mother seeks to reclaim her Cherokee people's heritage and their roots in their former territory. She will take a journey with her father to North Carolina and return to Oklahoma along the Northern Route of the Trail of Tears, filming and interviewing Indians she meets along the way.

She falls in love with an Indian, "Steve," who jilts her.

She returns to Oklahoma with a terrible sense of loss on the one hand and a box of hope on the other.

And it takes forever.

The play is about 45 minutes longer than it needs to be. Two and a half hours is way too long for a one person show, sorry. I was getting very antsy as the play would not wrap up. I think I was not the only one. In fact, I know I was not the only one.

Structurally, "And So We Walked" is three separate plays woven together -- the story of the actress and her heritage project, the story of the actress and "Steve," and the stories of her ancient ancestors that formed part of her dreams and served to both spur her on her quest and made it as difficult for her as possible.

Each of these stories could be and probably should be a stand-alone forming a kind of trilogy.

But as it is, the piece is not just too long but it's confused/confusing as well. While there are definite attempts to clarify elements, and the performance was mostly fine, some of it never does make sense or the sense it makes appears to belong somewhere else.

As allegory it may work better than history. The basic story is that of the actress trying to find herself through learning about and being in the places where her ancestors once lived. But her journey is an allegory for the journey of the Cherokee people removed from their ancestral homes to Oklahoma under the guns of the US Army and the cracker militias of the day. The history of what happened and why is... dense... to say the least, and it is filled with what amount to legal arguments rather than human interest stories. The people involved, apart from the contending Rosses and Ridges, have never been given their due.

Like the actress, Ms. Ché did not grow up hearing of Cherokee removal on the Trail of Tears, even though it had happened to her mother's grandparents. They didn't talk about it. Over the years, of course, Ms. Ché and the actress had learned about it from books and movies, and in Ms Ché's case the Cherokee Nation history course, but the reality of it hardly resonated. The truth, yes, but not the reality.

The actress chose to re-trace Cherokee Removal from North Carolina, but Ms Ché has taken a somewhat different path. She's been to Nashville and its environs a number of times, for example, and has visited Andrew Jackson's plantation home "The Hermitage." The actress also made pilgrimage to The Hermitage -- and I wouldn't be surprised if she spit on Old Hickory's grave.

Ms Ché's reaction was quite different. She said she got a much better  -- and surprisingly more sympathetic -- picture of what Jackson was doing than the standard story of his perfidy toward the Indians. To her, it was much more complex than good v evil. Jackson faced a dilemma, partly of his own making, and his way out was to enable rather than resist the removal of the tribes to someplace he believed they would be safe.

It wasn't because he loved or hated the Indians so much. It had more to do with his frustration at white people's tendencies to get ornery, greedy, and wild.

Ultimately, most of the Indians were removed from the Southeast; and almost by a miracle they were able to re-establish themselves in their new homes in what's now Oklahoma where many of their descendants still are.

But many, many have gone elsewhere, Cherokees especially.

Ms. Ché says that she found a remarkable affinity to the land and landscape around Nashville -- not to the city itself -- and she sensed that that's probably where her mother's ancestors had lived before they were removed to Oklahoma. She never had a chance to ask her mother, though. And even if she did, her mother might not have known where her grandparents had lived before they moved (or were moved) to Indian Territory.

I think one misconception about Indians that white people ("Wypipo") have is that they "always" lived in a certain ancestral place, even the nomadic tribes of the Plains, and it was the whites who forced them somewhere else against their will. There is truth of course in this story, but the "always"-ness of whatever their ancestral home place is largely or partially fabricated. Indians moved around well before the advent of Wypipo on the North and South American continents. They weren't bound to a single home place forever and ever, amen. Tribes were distinct but not necessarily exclusive, and there was much interconnection and interaction between tribes.

The Cherokee are thought by scholars to have originated among the Iroquoian peoples of the Great Lakes and separated from them some three or four thousand years ago. Cherokee stories themselves suggest something more complicated. They suggest that Cherokee are a fusion tribe made up of travelers from the North (ie: the Iroquoian), but also from the Caribbean, and from South America. There may be other indigenous peoples who joined the Cherokee over time. They did not have a single home place, but chose a number of distinct -- and scattered -- locations around the Southeast, and they would move from them when they wanted or needed to.

Indians in general were not particularly stay-put peoples, and Cherokee were no exception. It is more a white-folk conceit that Indians "always" occupied a particular tribal territory that they were forcibly ejected from by whites. Not necessarily so at all.

In the case of the Indian Removal of the 1830s, yes, Cherokee were forced out of their homes, and many resented it. Some resisted. But in fact, Cherokees had been moving west since the 1810s at least, if not earlier, and they had established homes in Arkansas among other places long before the Removals. There were colonies of Cherokee in Texas in the 1820s, others were scattered in Northern Mexico, and so on. "Moving" was not necessarily a bad thing in Cherokee culture and life.

Whether the Cherokee had been living in the Southeastern area for "thousands of years" -- our actress said 12,000 -- is unknown. They may have been, but maybe not. There is some evidence of "proto-Cherokee" in the Appalachian region going back at least 3,000 years, but the evidence seems to be more ambiguous in the Georgia/North Carolina/Tennessee triangle that is asserted to be the ancestral Cherokee territory. Maybe it is, maybe not.

That there are still Cherokee peoples there, however, is important, and those are the people our actress re-connected with on her journey.

As she says in the play, "My God, this place is full of Indians!" Indeed.

That's what Ms Ché noted about New Mexico on our first trip 35 years ago. Indians were everywhere.

And some of them are Cherokee.

Cherokee are everywhere.

The actress had to cut short her journey of discovery to do a play in New York. And so it goes. Cherokee are everywhere and they do whatever they can or choose to do. Some, yes, are in the Cherokees' ancestral places, but many are not.

One thing Ms. Ché has noted over the years is that Cherokee relationships are very complicated and among the full- and half-bloods, they're all pretty closely related.

Thus a half-blood like our actress is probably a cousin of some sort to Ms Ché, as she's found so many full and half-blood Cherokee ultimately are.

Ms Ché pretty much knows her roots. I'm still learning about mine. Our actress was on a journey to discover a deeper understanding of the people and places her ancestors came from in order for her to feel... connected?

It's a journey many of us take -- Indians included -- but many Americans don't care-- Indians included.

Should they?

I can't say. It's an individual matter I think. But what do I know? Not much!















Water Protectors On Duty

By now everyone's heard that Trump has "restarted" the Keystone XL Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline "shut down" by Obama. I use the scare quotes because what's actually happened is a little less declarative than the Narrative would have it.

Obama didn't actually shut down the pipelines, he deferred final decisions on them to a later time, when he was out of office. Trump has not restarted them, he has picked up the ball where Obama left it, and is considering whether to run with it.

I split hairs like this because what is actually going on in this chaotic situation often varies quite a bit from the Narratives put out by the White House and countered by the media. There are lies and lies and more lies, in a blizzard of falsehood -- coming from all sides -- and it's almost impossible for the Rabble to sort out fact from fiction under the circumstances.

Chaos is the key, and keeping things as chaotic and unpredictable as possible appears to be the way Trump intends to rule until he is deposed.

But he's not the only one who can play that game.

Not by a long shot.

Meanwhile up in frozen North Dakota, the Water Protectors were planning to decamp from Sacred Stone and Oceti Sacowin, packing up and moving away from the Standing Rock reservation and setting up camp again at other reservations by invitation. This was to be a voluntary evacuation, but it was in line with the SRS Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault's repeated requests (orders?) that the Water Protector camps be vacated "for the safety" of the campers. Or something.

His position was that while the Environmental Impact Statement ordered by Obama was being prepared, protection/provocation by Water Protectors was counter productive. The less conflict at the site during the process, the better in his view. There have been recent incidents of violence (by police) against Water Protectors at the Backwater Bridge, a continuous flashpoint at Standing Rock. Archambault said he wanted the bridge reopened,, and that couldn't happen so long as incidents of violence kept happening there.

So he issued another request/order that the Water Protectors leave, and he and the tribal council essentially seized the millions of dollars raised for the Water Protectors and declared it tribal funds to use as the tribal council determined. I don't know what happened to the warehouse full of supplies sent to the camps, but last I heard, the tribe was refusing to release them to the camps.

As a point of reference, there have been widespread Water Protector actions primarily against pipelines all over the country since things calmed a bit at Standing Rock. This is the kind of activism that takes on a life of its own, and by spreading out so much -- rather than being concentrated in one spot -- the Water Protectors are ensuring their survival come what may.

It's not unlike the way Occupy dispersed after the coordinated violent crack down against it in 2011 and 2012. While I haven't got around to updating my Occupy links -- many are dead now -- I am quite aware that Occupy is still around and is still active, though for the most part they keep a low profile. As one of the Occupy mottos says, "You can't kill an idea."


That's pretty much where things stood on Monday. On Tuesday everything changed when Trump signed his pipelines memorandum. Keystone XL and Dakota Access were suddenly placed on the track for eventual approval, regardless it seemed of anything else.

The evacuation of the camps at Standing Rock halted and a call went out for Water Protectors to return -- so long as they were physically able to do so and could be self-sufficient once there.

The call did not go out from Archambault, it was issued by Chad IronEyes, one of the Standing Rock Sioux activists who has stayed on top of the evolving situation there and who has occupied the space between the Tribal Chairman and Council and the Water Protectors.

I haven't checked the activist notices today yet, but after Trump's action, there were demonstrations by Water Protectors and their allies in many cities throughout the country. As the Water Protectors reassemble in North Dakota, the state is preparing to force the issue and prohibit protest in so far as they can by law. They've even come up with some kind of law that legalizes running down protesters who block roads -- as long as it's an "accident."

Yes, well. We've already seen that happen during the actions last year. Sport, dontchaknow.

And there have been violent incidents at the Bridge in which numerous Water Protectors and allies have been injured by rubber bullets, water cannon, and other weapons wielded by the police. They've even set up a missile launcher apparently to shoot down drones flown by Water Protectors in order to document what's going on.

Please understand, this is all a dry run for the eventual suppression of any and all popular revolts and uprisings that might come to pass in the future.

The Indians at Standing Rock know this; many of their allies do too. But the general public remains oblivious.

I've pointed out in other fora that serious protest action in the United States has historically been met with serious and deadly force. Kent State is a well known example, but there were many others in those days and previously. Massacres of Indians, of course, were routine in the 19th Century, but strikers, protesters, and other activists who were perceived as threats by The Powers That Be were frequently subjected to use of deadly force by private guards as well as the National Guard and police, occasionally by the Regular Army.

People who understand this history of suppression of dissent know that the Water Protectors, as some of the most successful activists in recent times, are at severe risk of injury or death at the hands of the authorities, no matter where they are, but particularly so in North Dakota. I don't know how many have been injured so far, but hundreds were injured during the action on November 20-21 when water cannon were first turned on the activists at the Bridge.

This is deadly serious.

I've pointed out that the Water Protectors have been showing the way to effective resistance under the current circumstances. They are rebels, yes, but they are not in the mold of past resistance efforts. They are a step beyond them. First, they are grounded in Native American spirituality, something a lot of Anglos like to play with, but something few of them understand or can relate to. It's a different way of looking at the relationship between the Spirits and the People. It's a much more powerful thing than most Anglos can imagine, and it's part of the reason why so many of the Water Protectors can endure the suppression and the violence unleashed against them by the authorities. It's a reason why the Water Protectors understand they might lose from time to time, and they understand the Dakota Access Pipeline might be completed no matter what they do, but that in the end, they will be vindicated and victorious.

They  have endured so much so far, and the struggle is re-engaged, not only at Standing Rock but all over the country now.

It is part of the emerging struggle against the forces of wealth and power so perfectly expressed through the elevation of Trump and his cronies to run the government of these United States.

Water Protectors have led the way. They are the vanguard.

Where the struggle goes from here, we'll have to wait and see -- unless, of course, we are involved in actions to change the situation for the better.

White Men Behaving Badly

This is just one example of threats, harassment and violence that Indians in North Dakota have faced for many a long year. It's nothing new. But this incident was posted yesterday, and it reflects the attitude of some -- maybe most -- white residents of the area near Standing Rock toward the Water Protectors and their campaign against the Black Snake, as the pipeline has been called.



The precipitating cause is easy enough to figure out. It's not so much the actions of the Water Protectors against the pipeline.

It is that the Indians refuse to yield to White Supremacy on demand.

This is what is so threatening to white men, and this is what is at the root of the violence by "law enforcement" against the Water Protectors. The refusal to yield on demand to White Supremacy and to obey the orders of (mostly) white men in and out of "law enforcement" is seen as an existential threat by these same men. They call it "aggression." Any challenge to the authority of white men is considered a threat to "civilization."

This is what goes on in Indian Country almost all the fucking time. This is what too many Indian people live with day by day.

And this Caucasian Id, as I call it, has been unleashed by deliberate incitement from a presidential candidate who is expecting to swan into the White House come January, and it is being used by white folk against phantom enemies who "threaten" them.

Like "law enforcement" in North Dakota, though, they are not under threat, nobody is threatening them, nobody is harming them, nobody wants to harm them. But we've seen how violent and insane "law enforcement" becomes when they believe there is a threat from the Indians and allies in the struggle over the pipeline. Water Protectors may be doing nothing but standing there, existing in space, and "law enforcement" will interpret that as a threat to be neutralized. And they do, as brutally  and violently as they choose. All because "law enforcement" is afraid.

That extends to white men and some women in the general population as well. They believe they have the intrinsic authority to order and compel the Other -- be it an Indian or any other Other -- to do as they demand, and to punish disobedience or refusal -- because they are deemed by their God "superior."

That's what White Supremacy is.

The example here presented has probably been repeated hundreds of times during the actions in North Dakota against the pipeline, repeated by random white folks as well as "law enforcement" whose ultimate purpose is to enforce White Supremacy, not the law.

Standing Rock Is A Microcosm

So far, no new updates from our friends at Standing Rock, but it was gratifying to learn that they are/were safe and that they survived the sheriff's and mercenary attack on Sunday/Monday. The updates I've seen from others indicate that between 200 and 300 were injured -- essentially everyone who was "doused" with water in below freezing temperatures  -- and that some 26 or more were hospitalized with their injuries, including one woman who practically had her arm blown off by an explosive munition and may still lose it to amputation.

The official lies about what happened are never ending, and they change from moment to moment. Nothing like what they say happened is confirmed by the numerous videos taken on scene during and before the police action against the Water Protectors on Backwater Bridge Sunday night and into Monday morning. In fact, nearly everything they say is starkly contradicted by the evidence.

That's the playbook of suppression though. Has been for as long as I've been alive and much longer. The lies are integral, the violence toward critics, dissenters and protesters is typical, the moral failure -- especially in the face of Native resistance -- is built in.

As most of my readers know, I've lived among Native peoples through my wife's family for most of my life. If it hadn't been for them, I'm not sure I'd  be alive to tell about it, so that's something of a foundational matter for me. I can't claim any particular knowledge or understanding of Native culture and society. Although I am a member of certain Native organizations and am considered a welcome guest with others, I'm still a white outsider. That doesn't change. Ms. Ché on the other hand, as a Native with a Blue Card and CIB (tribal citizenship -- Cherokee Nation -- and Certificate of Indian Blood) is fully accepted as a Native everywhere she goes. It's especially true in New Mexico where Indians have perhaps a greater and more important presence than anywhere except Oklahoma and Alaska. And the way Natives are seen here is quite different than they are in those states, in part because of history, in part because of Native assertion of rights that have never been completely overturned or taken away. Even by the Spanish in the worst of times.

What I've learned from my Indian family and the many Indians we know in New Mexico is how ignorant I am. Not just from an academic point of view, but from a cultural and social one too. If I'd been born an Indian, it might have been different -- or it might not. Ignorance in and of itself is not a bad thing; sometimes it's useful, even necessary. On the other hand, "not knowing" can be disabling, too. I try to learn every day, but I'm so far behind, I doubt I'll catch up to my Indian family, friends and colleagues. That's OK, though.

The struggle at Standing Rock is an inspiration for Indigenous Peoples all over the world, and those brave activists standing firm at Standing Rock against the might of the State are showing us all what must be done in the face of Rogue Power. The North Dakota authorities shame themselves every time they attack the Water Protectors. They bring dishonor to themselves and the corporate interests they serve. They are not protecting the people, they are not protecting the water, and they are not protecting lives. They are protecting the private pecuniary interest of a rogue corporation against the interests of the people. Period.

It is obvious as sin.

And they know it.

We're told that dozens of the Pipeline Protectors have turned in their badges, saying "No more of this shit." But there are many more to take their place, eager to engage in Indian Fighting so it would seem. They live in a fantasy of supremacy and power, as if somehow, if they're just strong enough and just bad enough, they can finally defeat the Savage Other that's been tormenting them the entire time the settler/colonists have laid claim to this land.

It's the same theory of Power (White Power, let's call it what it is) that underlies the many overseas wars of aggression the US has engaged in and still does. Conquest of the Brown, Savage Other is so deeply rooted in the Anglo-American subconscious that even some of those who are not Anglo, not white, believe in it implicitly.

The Power must be employed to overcome and defeat the Savage Brown, or.... something something.

The logic of it has never made any sense, and the more it has been employed -- especially lately -- the less sense it makes.

The struggle at Standing Rock becomes a microcosm for the whole enterprise of White Power and its immoral, anti-human, anti-life, and ultimately anti-future underpinnings. They so hate the earth and everything on and in it that they would destroy everything they can without a qualm. It's their nature. It's their identity exposed.

The Sunday/Monday assault on the Water Protectors exposed the fraud of the Pipeline Protectors top to bottom. They may win the immediate struggle, who knows, but they cannot and won't win in the end. I won't call it "the war," because that's not what it is. It's not the moral equivalent of war at all; it's a contest, let's say, between a cult of death and destruction, and a way and understanding of life that has endured for endless generations, and cannot be defeated by the dark forces arrayed against it.

Cannot. Be. Defeated.

Efforts to defeat it in the Americas have been underway since First Contact hundreds of years ago, and they fail, inevitably. The efforts to defeat it overseas failed just as inevitably and miserably, and still the powers of darkness and rage carry on.

I've long asked "What are they so afraid of? What are they really struggling against?"

Why do the Indians scare them so?

In North Dakota, it's very obvious that the settlers are scared witless of this Indian Uprising, though no Indian I'm aware of has threatened the settlers in any way, at least not in this struggle. They don't threaten the militarized might arrayed against them. They don't even threaten the pipeline except from a moral and spiritual plane. In other words, they say the pipeline is wrong and those protecting it are doing wrong, and all that can change. They don't have to do wrong. They can choose to do right.

I think that's what scares the settlers and the pipeline protectors more than anything: deep inside somewhere, they know they're doing wrong, and they know they don't have to. They can choose to do right, and the Water Protectors are offering them a way.

The way is open, the offer is sincere.

And it's terrifying to the settlers and their protectors.

That's what I see happening throughout the Euro-American Imperial Project. It's being confronted with its own immorality and its death-love. The earth is resisting, not just the Indigenous victims.

I doubt we'll have a resolution soon. There are indications that the assault by the Pipeline Protectors was a deliberate distraction from the start of the drilling operation under the Great Missouri, the final stage of the pipeline completion. Could be, I don't know. Otherwise there was no reason for it at all. It was nothing but naked aggression against a non-threat.

Absurd on its face.

But that's where we are.

No Tie. Trumped Instead.

Or so it seems.

Much as I raised the question of whether the (s)election would turn into an Electoral College tie, I now ask whether Those Who Rule Us will allow Tuesday's results to stand. Right now, I suspect they will for reasons of their own -- to them, Trump is at worst a buffoon, at best an entertainer for the masses -- but because of some inherent instabilities in the systems they run, this might change overnight.

Trump himself brought it up with his constant claims that "the election is rigged," and the implication that he wouldn't accept the outcome if Hillary won. The unfortunate thing is that the System is most definitely rigged, and elections and their outcome can be rigged quite easily. Soooo.... Why should anyone accept a Trump victory any more than he was going to accept a Clinton victory?

It always depends on whose ox is getting gored, doesn't it?

It goes farther than that. Our elections have never been pristine. The idea that they are some kind of models of democracy is a hoary and perverse myth. They have always been subject to manipulation and outright fraud, and time after time, the winner of the popular vote (whether the count is accurate or not is another question) has been denied the Presidency thanks to the Electoral College and behind the scenes horse trading and chicanery. That is Our System.

In this case, it appears that Hillary won the popular vote, but Trump swept the Electoral College vote, but of course, in Our System the popular vote is an interesting but not determining data point. And if it looks like the popular and electoral votes will coincide to elect the Wrong Candidate, there is always the possibility of intervention by lawless outside forces, cf: 2000 election.

It's easy enough, however, to just just jigger the outcome by fixing the machines. They say it's easy-peasy, and it's done all the time, though I can't vouch for the claims, nor -- so far -- has anyone been able to do so in a completely convincing manner. The electronic voting machines with proprietary software, however, are a disaster for "free and fair" elections because they can be jiggered, sometimes undetectably and there's no way to know what has happened.

So Trump was claiming the election was rigged loudly and constantly and he said he would only accept the outcome if he won.

Well, I think it is worthwhile pursuing his claim that the election was rigged -- not in Hillary's favor, as he insisted, but in his own.

There are plenty of anomalies to be considered, starting with Pennsylvania, but it's probable that anomalies will be found throughout the electoral landscape.

Let's say enough anomalies are found to flip or tie the EC outcome. What do we do then? We don't know, do we?

Some have already said that because Hillary conceded, nothing at all can be done. The election is settled. Trump is the 45th President Elect, and that is that.

There are other ways TPTB can and most certainly will overrule this outcome -- if they want. We won't get into them now, but they exist, and we've seen examples of those Other Ways from time to time throughout our history.

Right now, it doesn't look like they want to overrule the outcome, whereas it was pretty obvious what outcome they wanted and would get in 2000. Perhaps they always wanted Trump and all the sturm und drang of the Elites over his buffonish, racist, misogynist candidacy was an elaborate charade and pretense to fool the rubes and snooker the Rabble. I don't know. The fact that there is an R majority congress and a radical R in the White House means that there will be no gridlock, any more than there was when the Bush Regime was installed back in the day. Oh, no! There was almost complete cooperation from the Democrats in the spirit of bipartisan comity, and after 9/11, (almost) anything the Busheviks wanted was theirs for the asking or taking. We've been in a police state and a world of hurt ever since. That is by deliberate design.

I'm quite sure that Trump as President will do nothing that doesn't somehow profit him personally. Profit can be money. Profit can be prestige. Profit can be naked power. Wielding the power of the presidency, particularly against perceived threats or enemies, foreign or domestic, is intoxicating. But Trump is always looking out for number 1, first and foremost, the rest of creation can get out of the way and fend for itself. So what he would do in office is "uncertain," and our Ruling Cliques hate uncertainty. No? They could get behind the disastrous Bush 2 Regime and stick with it long after it had proved its ruinous malignancy because they knew with almost perfect certainty what that outfit would do.

Many of them got richer than their wildest dreams in the process.

They profited from Bush 2, and they continued to profit mightily under Obama, as they would continue to do so under Clinton 2 -- so long as she didn't trigger WWIII (which she wouldn't, but that's another issue I won't deal with right now)  -- but what happens when El Jefe is the one, and only one, whose profits matter? That's Trump. Now what?

See the dilemma?

While he is an example of his class -- oh my yes -- he's something of a rogue example in that he is overtly a conman and gangster. He is a bully without question. A racist. A misogynist. A thief. One could go on and on. But strangely, there was almost no examination of his business behavior and the details of his personal life during the campaign apart from his obvious indiscretions. The "scandals" that were produced were on the order of the Clinton Scandals, prurient but essentially irrelevant because they didn't tie together the threads of a complete picture of who the man is -- and according to those who've known him a long time, the man-boy he's always been.

It's not a pretty picture. It should be deeply disturbing to anyone who cares about others.

But painting that picture was never done, at least no more than a rough sketch, perhaps because "everyone who mattered" thought he couldn't and wouldn't win. He was just too outrageous.

Um-hum.

Well, here we are.

This is not about Clinton or her campaign. That's a topic for another post. But she and the Democratic Pooh-Bahs should be deeply and mortally ashamed. They won't be. They're like the Bourbons in that regard. They learn nothing and they forget nothing.

I've been disturbed by some supposed "progressive" internet daily defenses of Trump -- particularly at NC, Ian's Place, and MoA. He is not defensible, but for some reason, these and other ostensibly "progressive" sites saw fit to daily trash Hillary for crimes real and imagined, and to present defenses of Trump in order, they said, to counter media anti-Trump propaganda and lies. Propaganda from the media? Who'd a thunk? The problem was, it wasn't necessarily lies.

As I said more than once, there are plenty of reasons not to vote for Hillary; there's no reason at all to vote for Trump, yet they were so determined to defend him, they would often opine that this or that factor was reason enough to vote for Trump. No. I do not respectfully disagree; I dispute and denounce the very idea.

The man is a thoroughgoing monster, and the only justification for voting for him is complete nihilism. Being somewhat naive about the way the federal government operates is no comfort.

The Busheviks knew all the levers of power and how to operate them, they were extremely well connected within the government, and they had a remarkably cooperative Democratic "opposition." They had every advantage going in, but it still took them 9 months and 9/11 to get their act together enough to consolidate their coup and inaugurate the New American Century as outlined in that infamous White Paper.

That plan is still the operating plan of Our Government and its Rulers. Obama provided an interregnum, but he didn't really change any of its primary aspects.

Trump has (sort of) vowed to shatter the whole thing, which I don't believe for a minute, and substitute something less globalist/hegemonic and more nationalist. Except he's got all these neoLibCons on his "team" -- so-called -- and their very presence means that nothing much is going to change with regard to the Plan, only that its current operators will be replaced with new or recycled ones, and they will be much, much meaner.

Of course this is not at all what he was talking about during the campaign, but you could see by his actions and who he had lined up as backers, it was what he would do. Typical con-man to re-negotiate the contract after closing the sale, too.

I don't want to go on and on and on about these things, but there are obvious signs of what's to come if he is allowed to become President. Clear as a bell, just as it was clear that the Busheviks were angling to get us into a hot war as soon as they could. It was a main reason why they were put in office. That and all the profits that would accrue to the Highest of the Mighty.

The question is will Our Betters allow the Trump rampage to get under way. If they do, they will not be able to control it no matter how highly they think of themselves and their power. I am certain enough that they don't care about what happens to the Rabble, but they do care about themselves and their power and position -- and their control of the government. All that is potentially out the window with Trump -- who only cares about himself. In other words, Our Betters have to demonstrate their loyalty to him before anything else, and even then they risk everything they've accumulated plus any future gains because of his pettiness and unpredictability. At least Hillary would have served them, just as Obama has done. With Trump, they just don't know.

And they have a range of means to stop him.

Will they?

¿Quien sabe?

Personally, I doubt they will take action until it is too late, then woe betide.

Note: I spent most of yesterday among a lot of Indians (ie: Native Americans, just to be clear), and to say they were devastated, sick at heart, clearly in mourning is to put it mildly. The outcome of the election has hurt them deeply, to the core. Those of us who have lived through a number of such elections can be somewhat sanguine about it, I suppose. "It's not going to be that bad," we can opine, and try to comfort our suffering brothers and sisters with nostrums like, "We'll get through this, too."

But this time... I don't know. I just don't know.

Then the White House Intervenes

and through the Corps of Engineers, tells the pipeline construction company to back the fuck down.

Which... they may or may not do, depending on what they think they can/will get away with. Initial reports were confused, to say the least, as the intervention from On High was not expected once the court denied the temporary restraining order. Obviously, however, the White House and the Corps were prepared with a counter-move should the court deny the request for a halt to construction.

I haven't read the court's order, but reports of what was in it struck me as condescending and deliberately inflammatory. North Dakota's governor probably got a heads up as did the White House and so the National Guard was activated as a back up in case those Indians got more unruly than they already are. The white folks who run things up there are clearly scared to death of the Indians, and they are preparing to do battle, just like in the Old West when it was so necessary for the good of white folks to kill off the savages in their multitudes and to confine whatever remnants that might survive to prison camps called "reservations."

Sigh.

What wasn't expected at all was that the White House, though the Corps, would essentially call a halt to construction until certain unresolved issues could be hashed out. The initial confusion was over just  what had been ordered and what had been requested. Apparently the pipeline route is supposed to tunnel under the Missouri River just north of the present Standing Rock Sioux Reservation boundary. The Corps controls the river access and Lake Oahe at that point. The Corps has apparently been directed to refuse to issue required easements for the pipeline crossing until additional environmental studies are considered (not necessarily undertaken) and Native issues addressed. Then in the fall, the Corps is supposed to convene a meeting or meetings with interested Indian Nations to see how they would like to proceed on these matters -- given current legislation -- and to find out how the Corps can consult with them better in the future.

The Corps has requested that the pipeline company cease construction within 20 miles east and west of the river crossing, but it is powerless to order cessation.

This intervention has nothing at all to do with the cultural sites, burial grounds and so on that are said to be in the path of construction or have already been destroyed by the bulldozers. Apparently the court ruling dismisses those concerns. The environmental issues, however, have been a stronger argument against the pipeline all along, specifically with regard to the potential hazards to drinking water for millions should there be a break in the pipeline in or near the Missouri River.

There are thousands of Indians and allies gathered in the vicinity of the Standing Rock Reservation, and it is clear that the North Dakota authorities simply want them to go away. They are an impediment to the Advance of Civilization. As they have always been since the first White Man set eyes on Dakota Territory.

It appears that the white rulers of North Dakota are unable to get over theit essentially fearful and contemptuous point of view. Indians are still in the way of Progress, regardless of whether that so-called Progress has any utility in the vast eternal scheme and regardless of any ultimate disaster(s) that Progress may cause.

It's not so much a matter of agreeing with the Indians as it is respecting them and their point of view.

Too many white folks in positions of power simply aren't ready to do that or possibly they're not capable of doing that, though in this case, the Indians seem to be doing everything in their power to induce a white Awakening.

It's really been remarkable to watch. The Indians have the high road and they know it. In a way, it doesn't matter what the white rulers do. They're fundamentally in the wrong, and their errors will simply compound if they don't change their ways. The Indians are trying to bring them to consciousness -- nonviolently -- and they know the struggle may be futile, but it must be undertaken.

So we have what we've seen, a huge encampment, growing daily, of Indians and allies from all over North America, engaged in spiritual warfare with an enemy that is basically "unconsciousness." It's not against white people, in other words, as many of the allies encamped in North Dakota are white. It is against the unconsciousness of so many white people (and others, it's not just them) in power.

To my mind, it's a brilliant strategy.

What I've read says that the Indians intend to press this struggle no matter what the eventual outcome
of the pipeline issue. It is bigger than the pipeline and necessary.

So far, they seem to have "awakened" quite a few otherwise somnambulant Americans.

Good.

Call Out The Guard -- Update: The Court Denies Injunction Against the Pipeeline

Powwow in Bismark coming up this weekend, so what does the gov do? Calls up the National Guard to Protect the Pipeline from all those Wild Indians.



This won't end well.

Court denies injunction.

Protests to continue.

Wild Indians

Up in North Dakota there is a huge gathering of Indians and allies who have been camping and protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline for months. They call themselves "Water Protectors" -- among other things -- and their goal is to prevent the construction of this pipline that is supposed to carry crude oil from Montana to Illinois, crossing the Missouri River twice as it does.

The complaint is that oil pipelines can't be secured from leaks and blow outs and water contamination is inevitable if the pipeline is constructed and put in operation. The Indians are trying to preserve and protect the water. Note has also been made of the fact that the route of the pipeline goes through Indian burial grounds, sacred sites and ceremonial grounds, and that already, numerous Indian remains have been destroyed by over enthusiastic bulldozers, including last Saturday when there was a violent confrontation between the protectors of the water and the protectors of the bulldozers. It did not turn out well.

Attack dogs were set upon the crowd by the security guards who'd been hired by the construction company and numerous individuals were bitten -- including a horse.The guards used pepper spray on the protectors. There were reports that a child was bitten by one of the dogs, but a published photo of the purported child victim had actually been taken in 2012, so the incident on Saturday in which a child was bitten was not yet documented as of Saturday.

The guards claimed that four of their number had to be hospitalized (a lie) and that two of their dogs were injured severely enough to be seen by a vet (unknown if true.) The guards claimed that the water protectors attacked them with sticks, flagpoles and horses, but it's clear from video of the incident that the attack came entirely from the guards and their dogs, and that at least one of the dogs actually turned on its handler and attacked her. At least one dog escaped from the leash and went wild in the crowd. In several cases, the protectors tried to defend themselves as best they could against the onslaught of dogs and pepper spray, and in other cases, protectors attempted to defuse the situation.

Story and video from Democracy Now!



Nasty business. Indian Country Today has a good story on the incident and there is more in their news section.

Students at the Institute of American Indian Arts where Ms Ché is studying are collecting food, water and donations to send to North Dakota in support of the action. The campsite is said to host thousands at this point, almost doubling during the weekend after Saturday's violence.

These incidents and protests are becoming more and more common as our neoLibCon overlords insist on exercising their might against any and all popular outcries. This pipeline, like so many others, simply isn't needed, and it is an active danger to water supplies for millions of Americans including the Standing Rock Sioux who are spearheading the protests. Our overlords do not care, and when they are challenged this way, they have a tendency to double down -- until they give up.

Give up they will, but not without any number of incidents like Saturday's.

People have been and are gonna get hurt. It's the way these things play out. But I don't see the Indians and their allies giving up.

It may be a small matter in the vast eternal scheme to stop this madness, but it has to be done.

March in Solidarity, October 6, 2016

In the Matter of Junipero Serra (Saint)

Oh fer gawdsake. I mean really. This man has been proclaimed a saint? Why?

For God's Sake, why?

Please understand, I grew up in California, and in 4th Grade California History class the story of Father Serra was told with such a romantic glow that it would be a wonder if he weren't eventually sainted and venerated and made holy, holy, holy by the Pope in Rome. The picture we were given of Father Serra and the California Missions was one of intrepid bravery and steadfastness in the face of untold perils and fear.


I attended 4th Grade at San Jose Elementary School in the San Gabriel Valley about 20 miles east of Los Angeles. Our class visited the San Gabriel Mission on a field trip, and later on a friend and I discovered a mano  and  metate while digging in the schoolyard one day. The archaeologists who came from Cal Poly to assess our finds declared that we had found artifacts remaining from a now long gone Gabrieleno Indian village that had no doubt once been affiliated with the San Gabriel Mission.

One of our class projects was to construct miniature versions of the California Missions. Many of the students made generic missions out of sugar cubes, cardboard and construction paper, but my friend and I chose to make miniature adobe bricks and build a version of the unique and iconic San Gabriel Mission we had recently visited.

Mission San Gabriel via Wikimedia

Well, it was quite a hit. We even had little bells in the belfry, and there were balsa wood doors that opened to reveal a painted interior.

San Gabriel Mission was founded by Father Serra, and it along with the eight or nine others he founded became the centers of mission life in California for the next sixty years or so.

According the the stories we were told, California history began with Father Serra and the Missions. Before that was... nothing, I guess.

Well, there were Indians, of course, but they didn't read or write. They were little more than naked savages foraging and suffering in barbarous ignorance. Until the arrival of the White Men from Spain what could one expect, no?

One thing we added to our mission model were Indian huts made out of sticks and grass. For the missions in their splendor -- and they tended to be rather splendid given the fact that they were built on the wild frontier -- couldn't exist without the labor of the Indians whose souls Father Serra set out to save.

In exchange for their salvation and various trinkets and hoo-hah the Spaniards brought with them, the Indians were required to work for their new -- kindly, we were told -- overlords. So they did.

The Mission system we were told about was a remarkable, indeed an amazing thing. Enormous plantation like ranches were attached to the missions, and each mission was not only expected to be self-sufficient unto its needs, it was expected to produce a surplus to trade and provide for the needs of civilian colonizers who came from Spain and Mexico -- and later from other regions of the world.

Each mission was actually a huge enterprise, and Father Serra was the CEO if you will.

We were told the Indians came to the missions voluntarily, submitting to the authority of the Spanish Crown and the Heavenly Father proclaimed by our hero, Junipero Serra (Saint.)

The bells. They came because of the bells. I heard that story often.

And when the missions were dissolved after Mexico gained independence, the Indians were turned loose to fend for themselves. Tragically, many did not survive.

What we were not told is that by the time the missions were dissolved in the 1830's there were very few Indians left. Many tens of thousands had already died, and very few were born to replace them. We were not told of Father Serra's cruelties toward the Indians -- "Nah, he was always kindly toward them...." We were not told of the shackles and the floggings and the executions, the disease and almost complete social and cultural destruction in the wake of the Spanish and the blessed Franciscan Fathers -- Serra, Lausen and Crespi.

No, we were not told, and I didn't find out for many years. I've been to most of the missions, San Diego and Mission Dolores in San Francisco being exceptions. Most of them have graveyards beside the churches, and many of those graveyards have simple wooden plaques that state that so many thousands of Indians are buried therein. Thousands and thousands of dead Christian Indians... wait. The Mission system was only in operation from the 1760s to the mid 1830s. How could thousands of Indians be buried in each mission graveyard? I found out.

They died primarily of imported diseases: smallpox, measles, cholera, typhus, syphilis and the like. But many were worked to death. Some were executed for rebellion or disrespect of the Glory of God. Some died of despair when their voluntary service at the mission became a life sentence of imprisonment. Some were killed in conflict that could not really be called battles with the soldiers who protected the priests.

Father Serra delighted in every baptized Indian's death for it meant yet another resident of Heaven.

I learned that Father Serra administered some of the punishment to rebellious or recalcitrant Indians himself, wielding whip or club or whatever was at hand to chastise the rebellious savages.

He also mortified his own flesh, so it's not as if the punishment of the Indians was all that much different from what a prideful priest might have to endure. Not all that much different at all.

The California mission system didn't last very long but it wrecked havoc on the California Indian societies it touched, and some were completely wiped out. Others never recovered.

Things only got worse for California Natives when the Anglos took over after the Mexican American War and the discovery of gold in them thar hills. Much worse indeed.

The Anglos didn't even try to mask their genocidal tendencies with clever references to the salvation of souls. They just came, stole, and killed.

I came to understand that Father Serra was not necessarily a kindly missionary to the benighted savages, though he may have been somewhat kinder than the hidalgos and grandees and caballeros who came to California in his wake. Serra was an arrogant Spaniard, primarily a politician intent on expanding and securing the power and territory of his king and country -- and saving a soul or two along the way.

So when I learned earlier this year that Junipero Serra was to be declared a saint by Pope Francis, I was perplexed. What was the Pope thinking? But then he also proclaimed John Paul II a saint, and John XXIII. What could he possibly thinking?

Many have pointed out that there are others much more worthy of sainthood than Serra, so why him?

As I listened to parts of the ceremony of sainthood at the cathedral in Washington, it became somewhat clearer. Serra was seen by the Pope as a heroic Hispanic figure in the Western Hemisphere. Apparently Serra is highly regarded elsewhere in Latin America and has long been considered an example of the best that Spain sent to the New World during the period of discovery and conquest.

His legend is known far and wide.

He was a Franciscan as well.

The Pope apparently had the notion to elevate Serra to sainthood in order to...

Well, I don't rightly know, but it seems that his goals include solidifying the Catholic Church's position among Hispanics in Latin America and the North.  By making Serra a saint, apparently, Hispanics who have felt abandoned by the Church (it's a long story) will be inclined to return...

Maybe.

Meanwhile, the descendants of the survivors of the California Mission period are less than amused by this fairly overt political maneuvering. One even suggested that Cesar Chavez was far more worthy of sainthood than was the founder of the California Missions.

I would agree. The political problem for the Church, though, would have been greater had Pope Francis chosen Chavez for elevation (which he might-could do... later) rather than Father Serra. Even some Hispanics, and certainly nearly all the Anglo ranchers and farmers in California and much of the West, despise Chavez and would no doubt bitch to the Heavens above were the Holy See to confer sainthood on someone who made their lives so miserable by shame and long-suffering and truthtelling.

Serra, on the other hand, is such a romanticized historical and cultural figure, the "Founder of Modern California" and all that, that few besides the Indians would dispute his saintly reward. Few indeed have any idea what the Mission period was really like and how so much of California's deepest culture -- at least in Southern California -- is still rooted in the efforts of Serra, Lausen and Crespi to evangelize and proselytize among the California Indians of the late 18th Century.

Anasazi Ways

[I'll try not to make this post too long, but no guarantees...]

Most Americans know little about "Anasazis" -- the Old Ones who lived in and beyond the Four Corners region of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. ("Anasazi" is a Navajo pejorative meaning "Ancient Enemies." It's rarely used among modern Pueblo peoples.)

It may or may not be widely known that the Pueblo peoples of New Mexico and Arizona are the living descendants of the Old Ones who built the magnificent ruins in Chaco Canyon and elsewhere in the region, but for the most part, these descendants are reluctant to speak with Anglos and their archaeologists and anthropologists about what they know regarding the Old Ones and ancient times. Consequently, a lot of mythology has been built up to explain the ruins and the people who built and then abandoned them.

One of the chief myths is that the "Anasazis disappeared." They didn't. Their descendants are alive today; they have been around throughout historical times; they have had much contact with the scholars and experts who came to study the ruins; and they have had very little to say about it.

On the other hand, Navajos, who are not the descendants of the Old Ones but who arrived in the Four Corners region in the period between 1400 and 1500, long after the buildings in Chaco Canyon and elsewhere in the region had largely fallen to ruin, have and tell lots of stories about them.

Consequently, much of what the Navajos have to say about the Old Ones is pure invention, some of which is clearly designed to please the scholars and confirm their biases -- though seemingly, it doesn't occur to the scholars that that could be so. Indians, like children, never lie, right?

As I've written about in the past, Ms Ché and I have been to Chaco Canyon a number of times (she more than me), and we've explored and gotten a pretty good sense of the place and what it was to the Old Ones -- and to some extent why it was allowed to fall into ruin.

The Chacoan world was extensive -- reaching far beyond Chaco Canyon -- and it was never completely abandoned. Still today, Pueblo peoples visit and perform ceremonies at any number of ancient sites throughout the region, and those areas that could support a Native variety of agricultural living have done so for untold ages. In effect, the "Anasazi" not only didn't disappear, some of them never left.

But there were hard times, very hard times in the region. Keeping going what had been created in the Four Corners during the relatively brief florescence of the "Chaco Phenomenon" didn't make a whole lot of sense, and rather continue what didn't work under the circumstances, most of the people moved away and only returned as (sort of ) pilgrims.

The circumstances were lengthy droughts that made farming almost impossible throughout much of the Southwest.

The Chaco Phenomenon depended on extensive and productive farming activities; when that was impossible due to lack of water and other resources, it was time to give up the phenomenon of spectacular building in relatively remote locations.

And so the Old Ones did. They moved away to relatively well watered areas (such as the Rio Grande valley) and gave up the spectacles of the Great Houses that have captivated scholars and others for many a long year.

Great Houses were not living quarters for the most part, nor was the bulk of these buildings used for storage when they were at their height. In fact, most of the ground floor rooms were empty when they were excavated. Many showed no signs of ever having been used for any purpose while others appeared to have once been used -- either for storage or living quarters -- long ago but hadn't been used for many years before the collapse. That's because they weren't "rooms" in the sense that most of us would understand the term. They were either built for or ultimately became foundations for upper stories. Much of these upper stories, in turn, became foundations for higher stories yet.

The Great Houses were essentially trading and ceremonial/celebratory centers. Something like pow-wow/trading posts.

They depended on farmers, craftspeople and artists to produce surpluses for trade, and on a wide variety of people to come to the Great Houses to exchange their goods for those available (often only available) at the Great Houses and to engage in their gathering together and ceremonial practices at the Great Houses.

When the droughts came and persisted, there was no surplus any more; there was great want instead. For a while, the Great Houses had enough supplies on hand to alleviate some of that want, but eventually their supplies were exhausted, and when that happened, there was no longer sufficient reason to regard the Great Houses as "centers" and they were largely allowed to fall to ruin.

Navajos say the ruins are filled with malevolent spirits, but the Pueblo peoples appear to disagree. Instead, they see the ruins as ... well, ruins. What used to be but isn't any more. Filled with neither "good" nor "bad" spirits but largely empty now because they are not necessary for the living. And if the scholars would leave them alone (but of course they won't) these places would be the peaceful resting places for Pueblo ancestors.

Unfortunately, the scholars have an urge to dig, dig, dig, and they recruit the nearby Navajos to assist.

To the Navajos, the whole "Chaco" thing is kind of creepy, understandably so from their point of view.

Because the scholars essentially can't find out from the Pueblo descendants of the Chacoans about how the Chacoan society worked in ancient times (they're not tellin') they have had to speculate given the physical evidence they find and the stories they've been told by those who will talk (primarily Navajos.)

Their speculations tend to find parallels between the Old Ones and whatever contemporary phenomena in "modern" society suits their fancy.

For example, the Great Houses were once considered by scholars to be vast apartment houses much like -- but larger than -- those being built in big cities at the time. Only they weren't. They may have been begun as living-quarter/storage compounds, but they fairly quickly became something else again, as their trade and ceremonial aspects came to the fore. Once their purpose was revised and their expansion was under way, they were never used primarily as living quarters again.

But for decades, scholars clung to the notion that they were apartment houses much like those being built in big cities.

They were more like shopping malls and theme parks, but that's not an accurate assessment, either, as I suspect the Old Ones didn't have those concepts in their own time.

The popular scholarly notions now focus on the collapse of the Anasazi Ways, in parallel with their anticipation of the collapse of Western Civilization due to climate change and over-exploitation of resources. What happened at Chaco and elsewhere in the Anasazi world is seen as a warning to the rest of us of what could happen if we go too far.

This is not unlike the theories of what happened at Rapa Nui when population pressure and resource depletion combined to cause chaos and devastation.

However, there doesn't appear to be evidence of chaos and conflict within Chaco Canyon itself. Instead, there is evidence of a gradual restriction of access. What had been open and relatively welcoming became constricted until ultimately there was no access to outsiders, and eventually even the "insiders" decided it was time to leave.

The idea that the Chaco Phenomenon and the Anasazi Way were the products of an elite -- perhaps from outside the region, either from Mexico or Central America -- is one of the persistent scholarly notions. This idea also parallels ideas regarding Western Civilization and its elites. The problem, as I see it, is that Native concepts of "elite" don't mirror those of the West. They are really quite different points of view, and the effort to make direct parallels is bound to fail. Particularly irksome is the notion that an elite from elsewhere would have to come to the Four Corners to show the simple Natives (a la colonialists) how to build and how to run a Great House enterprise.

As if these simple Natives couldn't figure it out for themselves.


Every indication is that there extensive trading and communications networks all over the Americas from a very early time, and signs are that the Chacoans were in regular trade contact with Mexicans and Central Americans as well as with the coastal peoples of North America. They probably had contacts well beyond any that have so far been recognized by scholars.

There is a tendency for scholars to consider each Native American group as an isolate, unconnected with other groups, particularly at any distance, but the evidence suggests there were highly developed intertribal trade and communications systems all over the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans. The notion that the Chacoans, for example, were some kind of isolated tribe who couldn't have done what they did without the intervention of a more advanced "elite" from elsewhere is nonsense. But it does fit the colonialist mindset almost perfectly.

What caused the collapse of the Chacoan system? It seems obvious enough, given what the system had originally been established to do: provide a "center" for surplus storage, trade, ceremonies and gatherings.

The system was given up when it was no longer possible to maintain it because of persistent and repeated droughts.

When the Chacoan system could not function -- due to lack of surplus production largely due to droughts -- the people didn't need or use it any more. They found alternatives that suited their needs better. One of the alternatives was the dispersal of "center places" and the disinclination to repeat the Chacoan pattern of vast Great Houses to serve as centers for surplus accumulation and trade.

Yet people from all over the region and beyond continued to visit Chaco Canyon and associated sites after they were largely abandoned and fell to ruin. The ceremonial aspects of these places seem to have endured through all sorts of adversity and over many centuries. Some of these ceremonies are still celebrated today.

There are few signs of conflict and struggle within Chaco Canyon itself, but there seem to be quite a few signs of conflict elsewhere in the Chacoan world. No doubt, as surpluses disappeared and the Great Houses could no longer perform the function of storage/redistribution/trade, what little was left in them became prime targets for raiders looking to their own survival. Some of those raids were highly destructive, leaving many dead and destroyed structures. Some scholars have speculated that the raiders were Navajo and Apache moving into the region from the north, but others dispute this, as they can find so little evidence that the Navajo and Apache were even in the area prior to about 1400, which would be a century or more after the conflict period. No, it seems more likely that such conflict as there was involved raids by other nascent Pueblo bands, descendants of the Old Ones just like those who were being raided.

Ultimately, the smaller Chacoan outposts were destroyed or abandoned and the survivors migrated elsewhere -- places where their descendants still are.

They maintain certain aspects of the Old Ways, aspects they may or may not be willing to discuss with scholars. But they have also been willing and able to adapt to new ways both of their own invention and brought by the various waves of conquest and immigration over the centuries. Pueblo culture and society isn't static any more than Chacoan culture and society was. It is always adapting, developing its own ways, and passing on the wisdom of the Old Ones too.

The best Anglo outsiders can do is give respect to the Old Ones and their Pueblo descendants and admit that ignorance is the fundamental state of Anglo being.

We don't really know and we're not likely to know what really happened to the Old Ones, and... it doesn't really matter.

They don't have the solutions for our present predicament, any more than the Indians could have solved all the psychic problems of the invaders.

Mario Martinez -- Indian Art, Indian Artist

Mario Martinez has a current exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art in Santa Fe. Some of the works in the video above are included in the exhibit.

Painting in an abstract style appeals to Mario Martinez (Pascua Yaqui, b. 1953) in part because it allows him to express Yaqui cultural traditions, knowledge, and spirituality without explicitly revealing them. In "Yaqui Flashback II" (1991), he incorporates decorative fabrics used in Yaqui ceremonial regalia. While he frequently depicts what he considers "essential" forms found in nature, more recent works such as "Brooklyn" (2004) also refer to the urban landscape of his current home.

Martinez's work is featured in "Vantage Point: The Contemporary Native Art Collection," on view through August 7, 2011 at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

Indian through and through, eh?

What Happens When The Market Moves On?

Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) in Santa Fe.

I'm still processing some of the material from the exhausting day-long seminar at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art in Santa Fe that Ms Ché and I attended yesterday. Oh, and I rallied and went marching at lunchtime with the People's Climate rallyers and marchers. It was a full day.

The main issue alluded to but never entirely clarified was that The Market (for Art) has moved on and those who don't move with it and don't move quickly enough are shit out of luck.

There was only one working artist on the panel who I could be sure was making a living from his art, Tony Abeyta, all the rest were reliant on academic or institutional positions for their day to day wherewithal and succor.

Now that's sad. Or perhaps not.

There were a number of artists on exhibit at the Museum, none of which were acknowledged during the seminar, this despite the fact that the work of one, Ric Gendron, surrounded the symposites who were so deeply discussing the matter of Art and specifically "Indian Art" inside an institution dedicated to the notion that Contemporary Native Art is... a thing. That is to say, artists of the Native persuasion have a vital contemporary perception and voice and they use them in ways that don't necessarily fit the standards and expectations of The Market or the dominant-culture institutions such as the New Mexico Museum of Art on the other side of the Plaza.

The fact that none of the artists on exhibit at MoCNA was mentioned, nor were any of the exhibits acknowledged in any way by the panelists -- or even by the Museum's own curator-hostess -- was the first clue to me that the seminar lacked grounding. It was instead at best an abstract and academic exercise.That's what made it exhausting and ultimately empty in my view.

Without grounding in The Art and the Artists Themselves, everything else is suspect.

And so it went.

This was not unlike the series of lectures we attended at the New Mexico Museum of Art last year and into the spring, in which the history of Art in New Mexico was highlighted -- well, the Legend was -- but without really connecting with the huge quantity of Art possessed by the Museum, some of which surrounded the attendees but went unmentioned unless someone attending (me?) asked about it.

The problem, as I saw it, is that The Market has moved on, and although Santa Fe is still one of the chief art markets in the United States, it ain't what it used to be, the level of competition among artists for attention, let alone making a living is insane, and the Market for Southwest Art isn't sufficient to support so many artists on the one hand, and Santa Fe's galleries and other art market outlets are concentrating their efforts and interests on art and artists from elsewhere, whether Europe or Africa or wherever.

The New Mexico Museum of Art has -- or had -- a vast collection of Southwest Art dating from the era of the First New Mexico Artists Blumenschein and Phillips (ahem) to very recently. They've sold off a good deal of what they had in order to acquire more contemporary works, expand their collections into more diverse styles and to acquire works by artists from other eras, genres and locations.

The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts also has a vast collection, most of which stays unseen like that of the New Mexico Museum of Art and practically every other museum I know of. The museum Market demands it be so, unfortunately -- or perhaps fortunately depending on your point of view. If the entire collections were available to view by the public, after all, it would be overwhelming on the one hand, and it would prevent the Museums from fostering/highlighting/promoting certain artists and elements in their collections while diminishing or ignoring others. But that's how the Market works, and every museum that wishes to be taken seriously must play the game by the rules of the Museum Marketplace or be ignored and defunded by the People Who Matter.

It's a terrible game they must play, but play it they do, or eventually they perish.

As I mentioned, Tony Abeyta was the only artist on the panels I was sure was not dependent on the Institution or the Academy in order to make a living. He makes a handsome living from his art. Not many artists in any field of any ethnicity can do that anymore -- if they ever could. He is a business, an enterprise, a factory. In other words, he knows how to work The Market to his advantage.

Most artists, at least in my experience, don't have the temperament or skill to do what Tony does, and he mentioned during his talk that when he came up to Santa Fe in the '80s to do his time at IAIA, the place was jam-packed with some of the most highly regarded and financially successful Native artists ever, and he mentioned some of them: Allan Houser, Harry Fonseca, RC Gorman, and so on, and he said that all of these artists were mentors to him and to other Native artists, and they provided the kind of richness of experience that he feels obligated to share with the artists he mentors, but it's not the same anymore.

It's not the same any more because the ferment driven by financial success isn't there any more. Only a few are able to make ends meet and have a little extra from the sale of their art, everyone else has to do something else to get by. Art for them, essentially by definition, is a 'hobby' not a career. Because they can't possibly make a living at it.

It doesn't matter whether they are skilled and creative as all get out; the fact is, The Market rules, and The Market has no interest in them, no room for their work, and most of all, The Market doesn't care a whit whether they succeed or fail. At various times, in the '80s when Tony Abeyta was coming up for example, The Market in Santa Fe and elsewhere was in love with Indian Artists and some were financially successful in ways not seen since.

As I process what came through the seminar yesterday, I recall with some clarity what The Market was like back then, and how that era has passed. It isn't like that any more. Not only are the (Indian) artists who were so prominent back then mostly passed to the other side, the interests and demands of The Market are quite different now.

So. What are Indian artists to do? And it's an important question. One for which there was no answer yesterday, one for which there may be no answer in the end.

Part of the thrust of the discussion -- to the extent there was a thrust -- had to do with whether one was an artist or an Indian first. If there was a resolution, and I'm not sure there was, one is both -- if one is an Indian artist. It's self-evident, but the question must be asked, over and over again, in part because "Indian Art" isn't the same thing as standard and expected Western (ie: Market) Art, and Indians are thought to be always torn between their ancient traditions and their contemporary reality. An "Indian Artist" may work in "traditional" or "contemporary" styles, may combine them or utilize both of them in different contexts, the possibilities are endless. But ultimately, according to those who know and those who matter, the individual must decide whether to be an Artist (outside ethnicity and tradition?) or to be an Indian (outside of Art in the Western and Market sense?)

As Tony Abeyta put it (probably a bad paraphrase): "I'm an artist and I can't not be an Indian."

There isn't an either/or, there's a constant Both.

There was talk of the Boarding School Era and the suppression of Indian culture that went with it, and there's a constant background fear that something like that or worse could happen again. Indians are free-er now than they have ever been under the United States, but there is still the lingering fear that the dominant culture will perpetrate something awful simply because they can, and that Indians will suffer for it. Most white people never experience and can't imagine living under that kind of deeply seated fear, but I will say this: more and more are learning to.

Consequently, some Indian artists (how many, I don't know) would rather not be identified as "Indian" but would rather go to Market as Artists, devoid of ethnic baggage. Some can do that, I suppose, but why should they?

Some writers, too.

The issue isn't that they are Indians, though they are that. It is that they are Artists most of all.

If there is a Market niche for such people, good enough. But so far as I can tell, there really isn't. A freemartin Art Market is not a reality.

There was talk of Globalizing Indigenous Art and Artists, becoming a global movement somehow. And I thought, "Really?" There was fierce talk of collaborating with and coming to know and understand the breadth and depth of Indigenous Art world wide, and I thought, "For whom?" Talk of Bienniales filled the room, particularly the Venice Bienniale, where Indians and other Indigenous apparently have quite a presence among People Who Matter, and there was resistance.

Oh good, I thought. "Why should we go to these so-called 'Bienniales?' Why don't we have our own? Why don't they come here?"

Yes, well... can't do that. You see, that's not how The Market works. We don't tell it where to go or what to do, we follow it wherever it leads. If that means Venice or Rio or Sydney, that's where we go. It doesn't come here. Pshaw.

Except that's not entirely... true.

The Bienniale system is a way for People Who Matter to have some control and say over the Art Market, and to force artists to submit as supplicants to the demands and dictates of that segment of People Who Matter. It is perhaps the very definition of "colonization." One becomes the creature of the other, the servant, the handmaiden, the worshipful outsider seeking and perhaps by chance finding the smile and nod from one's Betters. If one is accepted at one of these Bienniales, one achieves a certain cachet and stature, but one is always subservient to Those Who Matter.

For one of the supplicants to declare independence and to suggest that the Bienniale system should hie itself hitherwards is near-heresy. That's not how it works. The supplicants do not declare a Bienniale, only the People Who Matter can do that, and they will declare a Bienniale where and when they want, without regard to the interests or wishes of Those Who Don't Matter. Got it? Good.

The issue of an Indian Artists Manifesto was briefly touched on. Not well or comprehensively, I must say. It was more of a gloss. "Is it time and should there be a manifesto?" Some of the panelists said yes, some said no. But what an artists' manifesto is and why they come about seemed too deep a consideration for the experts on the panel.

But in Santa Fe, you can't really sidestep or escape the question. Manifestos and art movements have been fundamental from the Beginning, whether you date that Beginning to Blumenschein and Phillips and their Broken Wagon Wheel above Taos in 1898 or to Carlos Vierra's purchase of a photo studio on the Santa Fe Plaza in 1904 or 05 or to the Cinco Pintores or what have you.

The point of these many manifestos and movements is the development and marketing of distinctive styles of art. In other words, the manifesto and movement in the art world is almost always a factor of being excluded from and forcing penetration of The Market.

Sometimes they work. Often they don't.

But without the unity provided by the manifesto and the movement, exclusion from The Market is almost guaranteed to be permanent.

Of course, Indian artists are not excluded from The Market, in fact, in Santa Fe, there are a number of specifically Indian Art Markets that are immense and highly regarded nationally and globally. The ones we have attended are literally overwhelming. Exclusion is not the issue. The problem is that The Market -- which determines "success" through sales -- is over-saturated, too many artists, too much stuff. The Market cannot support the numbers of artists involved.

A manifesto and movement (or their plurals) could separate out a certain segment of the now over-saturated Indian Art Market to make it distinctive. The SWAIA Indian Market in Santa Fe, for example, recently underwent a split, partly because it had grown too large and many of the artists involved felt they were being neglected and there was too little chance for new artists to emerge. The other factor, of course, is that the SWAIA Market could not support the number of artists involved.

The discussion yesterday almost completely avoided any of that consideration however, and the queston of a Manifesto was pretty much sidestepped.

At the end of the morning session, however, the issue of Native/Indigenous Art as it relates to social, economic and environmental conscience and justice was brought up, and for the first time, I felt that the symposium was actually connecting with reality and with the future.

Yesterday, there was a rally and march in Santa Fe in concert with the People's Climate Movement that is holding a series of demonstrations in New York in concert with the UN's climate conference to be held next week. There is also a Indigenous People's World Conference at the UN beginning this weekend.

It's a confluence of interests and activism, and some of those at the seminar recognized that the "movement" that some were advocating for Indian artists was already underway: it is the climate/environmental/indigenous peoples movement which for the moment is represented by events like the Peoples Climate events all over the country and the world.

At the Climate Rally in Santa Fe.

As the seminar broke for lunch, I went out to the Plaza to join the rally and march. There were speeches and exhortations and a New Orleans marching band and maybe a thousand people -- mostly white and a lot of them middle aged it seemed to me -- gathered together to share one another's presence and march to the Cathedral where someone was having a wedding the way they do on weekends in Santa Fe. Then they marched down San Francisco Street, and it was tremendously festive.

Hardly anyone on the street or at the seminar had any clue to what was going on.

Their focus has been so narrowed, they could barely imagine something of this sort taking place, nor could they imagine the linkages.

A man from out of town was trying to parallel park in front of the Cathedral; he smashed his car into another vehicle with New Jersey plates while the other driver watched from the sidewalk. Many witnesses including me saw what happened. The man who caused the wreck got out to check the damage. The other driver stood there in a kind of shock while she inspected the parking ticket she'd pulled off her windshield. The man checked the damage, mostly to his car, while the woman read her parking ticket. She looked at the man: "Would you mind moving your car so I can see what happened to my car?" The man looked at her: "Is this your car?" "Yes, I saw it all." "Oh." The man, who was from Missouri, moved his car a few inches forward, and the woman took a look at the damage to her car. It wasn't more than a couple of short scrapes. The man was standing beside her ready to give her his insurance and personal information, and she said: "Oh forget it. The car's a 2006 and those scrapes hardly show. There's more damage to your car. Just let it go." His car had a good-sized dimple in the rear bumper. "Just let it go," she said, "it isn't worth the bother." The man said thanks, got in his car and drove away.

Oddly enough, no one jockeyed to get into the parking place he left open. Parking places on the street are like gold during the height of tourist season, even if you get a ticket. The woman whose car had been hit went off toward the Palace of the Governors. I think she'd been at the seminar earlier.

Later, I spoke to the woman who'd presented the climate/environmental/social justice segment, and I told her how much I appreciated the fact that she brought it up, because I didn't think anyone that day was going to mention it. She nodded agreement. I told her that I thought it was important for people to make and understand the connections, but I doubted very many in attendance did. Nevertheless, it was important to make the point.

She sighed. "It's another step..."

There's much more I could say about what happened yesterday, but at the moment, today Amy Goodman is covering the march in New York, and lots of celebrities are turning up among the indigenous marchers.

As we know, nothing is more important than celebrity gets...

Big Do in Santa Fe and Albuquerque on Climate Change

Sante Fe People's Climate March

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• Saturday, September 20, 12:00 PM Santa Fe Plaza
  

  Downtown Santa Fe

  Santa Fe, NM
  
  
  
  
  
  A large and diverse Coalition of groups are holding events in Albuquerque and Santa Fe calling on our local officials, President Obama and the governments of the United Nations to take more significant action to curb carbon pollution by implementing the highest possible climate pollution standards on power plants and make real investments in clean energy.

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People's Climate Pilgrimage

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• Saturday, September 20, 9:00 AM Immaculate Conception Church
  

  619 Copper Ave NW

  Albuquerque, NM 87102
   

EVENTS IN ALBUQUERQUE AND SANTA FE PARALLEL PEOPLE'S CLIMATE MARCH IN NEW YORK CITY

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We'll be in Santa Fe tomorrow for an all-day seminar on Indian arts and culture in the Modern World (ahem) which will no doubt integrate the issue of climate change and provide insight into Native American points of view and responses.

Also, too: http://peoplesclimate.org/global/

Disruption the Movie: http://vimeo.com/watchdisruption/movie