Special Note by Hunterbear: In sending this out -- morning of November 19 -- two recipients received a slighly incomplete version. My apologies. This is the totally complete version you both should have received. The other transmissions were OK.
Note by Hunterbear: Our well-received Native American Appeal regarding the tragic murders of Native people at Grand Forks, North Dakota, has engendered a number of good questions regarding American Indians. This is a substantially expanded response -- to several related questions -- which I originally posted on RedBadBear. Following this, I give our specific Website link to two very recent articles of mine involving the challenges faced by Native people. Hunterbear ALCOHOL AND PEYOTE AND NATIVE AMERICANS [Hunter Gray 11/19/01] This includes, among other things, a substantial discussion of a major Federal case involving an all-out governmental attack on the Native American Church. I coordinated the successful legal defense for this -- U.S. v. Warner -- which was based at the Devils Lake Sioux Nation [now Spirit Lake Sioux], Ft. Totten, ND and tried at Grand Forks in late 1984 in U.S. District Court. The judge was Paul Benson, who had presided over the frameup of Leonard Peltier in the Fargo trial of several years before. ===================================== This is simply a friendly clarification regarding traditional Native American drinking -- but especially a clarifying discussion of Native use of peyote. In "Pre-Columbian" times there were, of course, many thousands of Native tribal nations in the Western Hemisphere -- each a sovereign entity with its own distinctive national culture [total way of life.] Today, after what could be almost a hundred million Native deaths, between 1500 and 2000, as a result of the European incursion, there are still thousands of very solid and stable Native tribal societies in the Hemisphere which rightly perceive of themselves as sovereign [although much of this sovereignty has been functionally eroded by the Euro-Americans]; and whose basic cultures are still, despite considerable acculturation, essentially intact. This is the case in the United States where there are presently about 600 tribal nations. There is no evidence that use of alcoholic beverages was either widespread or frequent in the "old time." Some tribes, a minority as far as we know, did have very weak alcoholic beverages [ e.g., Apache "tiswin".] But these were tantamount to 3.2 beer and nothing stronger. When the Europeans came, with really strong stuff -- e.g., rum -- the Natives had no cultural controls in place for its usage and things for them moved into disastrous realms, liquor-wise. This was especially the case when strong alcohol was so frequently used by the Whites in a deliberately Machiavellian -- genocidal -- fashion: given to the Indians in order to kill, subdue, and cheat them. I certainly hold the European incursion "and all its works" directly responsible for Native alcohol problems in the First Cause sense. I do, of course, recognize that individuals [Native and otherwise] have a clear responsibility to avoid this disastrous canyon plunge or/and to return from it. [I should add that, assisting Native people in dealing with alcohol, has been something on which I've been focused for almost my entire life -- wherever I've been. In some instances this has involved formal programs [e.g., I was Vice-Chair for a long time of the all-Indian Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Program [ADAPT] at Chicago -- and this work has also involved a vast amount of my volunteer time [ much at night.] And, in situations where tribal nations were and are going through a very difficult period of adjustment vis-a-vis the increasingly looming Anglo world [e.g., the Iroquois in the latter 1700s into the first part of the 1800s, or the Navajo of today] alcohol usage can be heavy and catastrophic. To a great extent, the Iroquois pulled out of this -- very much via cultural revival and especially the rejuvenation of the traditional Longhouse religion through the teachings of the Seneca prophet, Handsome Lake -- and also by finding meaningful and challenging work in, among other things, the Western fur trade and then in still very wide-spread high steel construction trade. [Always very good union activists!] The most sedate bar in Rochester, New York, in the latter 1970s, was the Blue and White -- an all-Indian [mostly Mohawk] establishment. I often did much of my paperwork, as Diocesan director of social justice, in that always quiet, pleasant setting where the only music was traditional Iroquois and where only once do I recall a voice being raised. The Navajo are working through things at this present moment and it's been very tough and tragic. But they -- the Navajo -- or Dine' [as they call themselves, meaning "The People"] -- are making it right along. There is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Native Americans are racially vulnerable to alcohol in the genetic sense. And now to Peyote [Peyohtay or Peyoht]: This is the mildly mescaline root from the mescal plant of the northern Mexican highlands. Bitter tasting, it produces a dream-like, hallucinogenic state -- actually very mild in nature. Until the latter 1800s, its usage in what is now called the United States was restricted to the extreme southern portions of the Southern Plains and Southwest and it was utilized nowhere else. But, to make my most basic point of all, peyote was always traditionally used solely -- I repeat solely -- for carefully controlled religious ceremonials. And that is universally the case among Native American people today. It is never used for recreational purposes by the Indians. It is sacramental. The period from 1890 [and the Wounded Knee Massacre] into the 1930s was the nadir -- the lowest point of all historically -- for Native people in the United States. It was during this period, with the Native tribal religions under relentless Federal attack, that the use of peyote -- as this very special sacrament -- in essentially secret ceremonies, began to spread northward through the Plains and across much of the Southwest, then into the Great Lakes country and the Intermountain West. [It did not reach the East.] Attacked with venom by the Federal government and most Christian missionaries -- and sometimes by Native traditional leaders -- the peyote groups persevered and eventually joined together in several loose associations which all carry the name, Native American Church. Two basic versions of the Peyote Faith emerged: The theology of the Plains/Midwest/Lakes/parts of the Rockies -- in which many Christian elements are mixed with the local tribal cultures [the Winnebago of Nebraska and Wisconsin being a prime case in point]; and the Southwestern version which almost completely reflects the particular tribal culture involved [e.g., Navajo] and in which Christianity is quite minimal. In a great many Native settings, of course, the traditional religions are doing very nicely in their own right -- and one always finds, too, various Christian denominations in Indian Country. Although not an NAC member, I am familiar with the intricate NAC ritual which begins at dusk on a Saturday night and concludes at dawn on Sunday morning. And again, peyote -- "a way to see and feel God" -- is always used with great respect and under strict controls -- by all Native people. The onset of FDR's New Deal era in 1933 included the Indian New Deal of John Collier [backed up always by that most admirable human being, Eleanor Roosevelt]. A major piece of the Indian New Deal was the reversal of the generations-old Federal et al. policy -- happily unsuccessful owning to the stalwart resistance and recalcitrance and tenacity of Indian people -- of attempted assimilation [designed to break Federal treaty obligations and secure remaining Indian land and resources.] Instead, the Indian New Deal took the position -- quite rightly indeed! -- that Native tribal societies and cultures are viable and vigorous entities which should be safeguarded and enhanced. As part of this, Collier ended the Federal attacks on Native religions -- including the Native American Church groups. [Many years later, the 1978 Indian Religious Freedom Act strengthened all of this.] But the Peyote Faith continued to face all sorts of trials and tribulations -- and still does. In the late 1950s, Coconino County [my home county] authorities out of Flagstaff arrested, on state anti-peyote charges, a number of Navajo people who were performing a peyote ceremony on state jurisdiction not far from the Reservation border. But, in 1960, a local judge ruled in the case -- the Attakai decision -- that peyote use was permissible because these were Indians using peyote for religious purposes. A major peyote case developed in North Dakota in 1984 -- in which I was very deeply involved. State authorities seized John Warner [an Anglo] and his wife, Frances [ a Mexican-American] on the Devils Lake Sioux Reservation [Ft Totten], [now called the Spirit Lake Sioux] and confiscated a large quantity of peyote from their home. But these were the realities: Both John [Jack] Warner -- who had been raised on the Reservation -- and his wife were formal members of a local Native American Church congregation. They had been received into the Church many years before by a prominent peyote religious leader, Emerson Spider. The large quantity of peyote in the Warner home was there because the Warners had been formally designated by the Sioux congregation as the Keepers of the Sacrament. Caught up in the Reagan drug/witch-hunt, Federal authorities immediately took the case away from the state attorney general [a man less reactionary than he was just plain ignorant], and charged the Warners with various Federal felony crimes. They were released, against Federal wishes, on their own recognizance. Mrs Warner was immediately fired from her state job as an alcohol and drug counselor. I -- the only Native professor at University of North Dakota [Grand Forks] -- heard about this bizarre situation right away. I immediately called the US Attorney, Rodney Webb, who was responsible. I had our very capable Indian Studies secretary of that era, Carol Gourneau [Turtle Mountain Chippewa] on another phone -- and Webb had one of his assistants on a second phone on his end. We fought for an hour -- Carol often saying through the years that she had never known before that how angry I could get. I pointed out to Webb, again and again, that this was a gross violation of the First Amendment, an obvious violation of the 1970 Federal Drug Control Act which specifically exempts the religious use of peyote [and says nothing about race], a clear violation of the Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. His position was that the Warners were non-Indian and had no right to use peyote at any time or in any setting. [Mrs Warner, of course, as a person of Mexican descent had obvious Indian ancestry.] I told this US Attorney that he was putting the Federal government in a position where it was trying to tell a church congregation [the local NAC group at Ft Totten] just who it could have and not have as members: i.e., the US government was seeking to dictate Church membership policy. He told me, "There are less than 20 people in that church." And I told him, "Jesus started with fewer." That ended that. I immediately organized a large defense committee -- Indian and non-Indian -- and served as its coordinator. With the help of an ever-faithful colleague, Professor Doug Wills [Humanities], we sought and secured major assistance from the national ACLU. Two courageous local lawyers entered the fray -- Kevin Spaeth and David Thompson -- and ACLU sent a top defense lawyer, Jud Golden, from Boulder. We spent weeks preparing the defense: sought and secured top witnesses nationally -- including the well-known anthropologist, Omer Stewart, from University of Colorado who, although an Anglo, was himself an NAC member. A number of prominent Native religious leaders readily agreed to come. FBI agents were thick as fleas everywhere. The Warner trial took place in US District Court at Grand Forks in late October and early November, 1984. Judge Paul Benson -- who had presided at Fargo over the Leonard Peltier frameup -- was in charge of this affair. The prosecution was obviously confident. The atmosphere -- many, many people [ Warner supporters, media, observers, curious, witnesses] from all parts of the country -- was probably a little like the Scopes Trial. Grand Forks was full of Indians. When the jury was picked, we had twelve Anglos -- half of them Catholic and the other half Lutheran. [A faithful observer at the trial was Lisa Carney, then a UND student of mine, and presently a member of RedBadBear List.] The testimony was fascinating -- a major education in Native theologies, peyote, the Native American Church, conflicting Federal policies. The testimony given by the Warners was so obviously sincere that even hostile Judge Benson was visibly taken aback. And defense constantly reminded the jurors that Catholics and Lutherans take communion wine as a sacrament. When the Jury received the case, they stayed out only long enough to get supper-on-the-Feds. They then came back with a Not Guilty. It was one of Rodney Webb's very few defeats. The Federal government, it turned out, had spent a quarter of a million trying to convict the Warners -- and the defense spent about half that [and was duly compensated by the government.] Later, when prosecutor Webb was nominated for a Federal judgeship, we strongly opposed this -- but got little support from a pliant US Senate. I wrote extensively about the Warner case in an article -- "Their Long Travail" -- which was published by Liberty: A Magazine of Religious Freedom [May/June 1986.] We also helped Mrs Warner bring suit to regain her state job as an alcohol and drug counselor. A conservative Federal judge, Pat Conmy [a Reagan appointee], ruled in her favor -- but we lost at the Circuit level and lacked the resources to carry the case to the US Supreme Court. The Warners survived. It was tough for them -- but the basic victory was sweet. Since then, although it remains on pretty safe ground, there have been new legal conflicts around peyote -- but this great sacrament, always used carefully under very controlled circumstances in the Native religious settings -- continues to bring as many as 300,000 Native people in the United States "very close to God." ===================================================================== I'm now posting the link to our large website www.hunterbear.org which goes directly to my two very recent Indian articles: "Native American Struggle: One Century Into Another" and "Natives and Radicals." Each of these pieces -- and there is some natural overlap vis-a-vis certain background material and specifically delineated Native goals -- has its own special focus. Each is scheduled to be published very shortly in American socialist journals. The link to my two new articles: http://www.hunterbear.org/nativeamericans.htm ] Fraternally and In Solidarity - Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] Micmac / St Francis Abenaki / St Regis Mohawk -- and DSA, CCDS, SPUSA [and several labor unions] Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] www.hunterbear.org (social justice) Left Discussion Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Redbadbear _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
