Are some Indians feeling confined these days? Socially, psychologically, even physically? Is that what Indian anger is all about? Being used and abused?

We need to be really careful about how we present this issue. There are many conservatives and liberals who wish to see the reservations abolished. They think the reservations are the crippling element, and Indians would all be much better of without them. They say Indians should stop being separatists, and join the rest of society. Is this true?

Was Gen. William T. Sherman right?

But the more we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed the next war. For the more I see of these Indians the more convinced am I that they have all to be killed, or be maintained as a species of paupers.

General William T. Sherman (1820-1891)

Now, based on the whole treaty concept, it seems to me that Indians have the perfect right to be whatever they want to be. That sounds a bit ideological, but, consider the history: the government says, You stop killing white people, you stay here, in this area, and we'll take care of you forever. "As long as the grass grows and the wind blows" sort of thing. We'll give you whatever you need. Just stay there, and quite killing white people. Most unfortunately, the US never did keep a treaty. For Indians, it was one lie after another. Of course Indians 'battled on' after the so-called treaties. Things didn't settle until the Indian population was greatly reduced, and there simply were no more warriors. Enter: the reservation days.

Okay. So then, times went modern. Dental, electricity, plumbing, gas, insurance, etc. Were those all covered in the treaties? I'm afraid the cost of maintaining Indians has gone up, greatly. The government certainly can't keep up with it. And the Indian population has increased a bit--with all the "casino" tribes popping up all over the country. Speaking of casinos, it seems that this business still provides the only open door to Indian country financial improvement. But the fact that the national Indian casino "revenue" is approaching nearly $30 billion a year, and the BIA allotment is less than $3 billion, one has to question either the revenue figure (--and whom the money's really going to, like, the non-Indian owners), or question the government commitment after all.

In any case, in almost every tribe, there are customs and values that simply don't fit into modernity, into modern society here in America. There are certain social, familial customs that seem simply inappropriate. Early on in the reservation days, Indians learned how to "rent" out their own wives and children to perverts simply for a bottle of whiskey, or a bag of tobacco. Yes, yes, there is a deep, dark side to some reservations.

Yet, Indians have preferred the reservations. Our fathers bought them for us, with blood. The great social changes, the technology, the economy, etc., they did not anticipate, or plan for. They did not imagine living all that differently from the way they had always lived. That was the whole point of the reservation--a place where the Indian would be left alone. It seldom happened, of course; the treaties were seldom kept. The white man was after every blasted foot of the country. Every last inch! Nevertheless, the reservations still meant then and mean now--everything to the Indian. The reservations must never, ever be dissolved. America itself will dissolve when that happens. The states will dissolve. The word of the federal government, the word of the United States, will be forever broken. The United States cannot and will not ever let that happen. (Or, am I dreaming?)

Abolish the reservations--in the name of helping Indians? No. The reservations are not the problem.

The problem is human behavior. Human values. Human denigration. Now, some Indian "spokesmen" can scream in anger at America. They can blame America. They can say wrong is perpetuated, today, by white America. This may be true, at least to an unmeasured extent; but how is it that white America is still able to do this?

Vice. Plain and simple. Vice, and immorality. I should say, incorrect morality. There is in Indian country (as well as in all America) a certain lack of family values. A lack of respect for marriage. Sex itself has become a vice. The context of marriage is but a temporary playing field, abandoned easily enough. There is a simple absence of honor.

Sioux medicine man, a much needed entity, only with
moral medicine.

Historically, maybe the Indian "family," particularly the plains Indian family, wasn't such a tight thing. Men of age were gone often weeks at a time, hunting, raiding, or exploring. There were wars, with other Indians as well as whites. Who looked after the kids? Grandma. Grandpa (if he was alive). Mom was way too busy preparing food, clothing, shelter, etc. When the reservation days started, and so many of the men were dead, extended families took care of children. The "one mother, one father" concept was very much obliterated. It was aunties, uncles, and grandparents all the way.

Today, Indian men--and women, are absent not because they're out hunting or slaving for a living, but because they are drunk, out of state with some other sex partner, or just don't care. Grandma will take care of the child. And when a single Indian mother (with legitimate or illegitimate child) does work, someone else does have to take care of the child.

Agonizing as it is to talk about this, I think many Indians face a double weight of sin against the family--the historical sin of losing a way of life to another that was foreign and unwanted, and the sin of simply not wanting to adapt to new ways. Perhaps these things are beyond redemption. Then we would echo Sherman's words. But perhaps there are solutions--which simply haven't been tried, solutions which Indian leaders need to devote themselves, quickly and entirely, to devising.

As I said, technically, Indians have the right to do nothing, be nothing, to not care, to not be responsible. That is the heritage of our fathers' blood.

On the other hand, do we not owe something to our fathers? Do we not owe them the same kind of devotion to our people that they showed? They laid down their lives. Can we lay down a bottle of whiskey? Can we show respect and love for one another? Can we care?

I think so. We just need to outline some basic rules to live by in this modern age. I say it all starts with marriage. Yes, I know many Indians were coerced brutally into an abusive form of "Christianity," but, the fact is, monogamy, one man, one woman, forever, is the foundation of lasting social cohesion in today's world. Anything else is bound for denigration and disintegration. Yes, it may be a bit of a different concept for some Indians, even today, but, I think we do well to consider it. We don't live on the plains anymore. We don't hunt or gather our own food. We don't make our own clothes. We're part of a different world, like it or not.

In a way, some Indians could say, "Our fathers would rather die than be different." It could certainly be seen that way. Some chose death, rather than change. Nothing is more important to an Indian than being Indian.

So, is death the alternative? Is this what Indian suicide is all about? Well, I would believe that, if it weren't connected to alcohol and drugs, and those vices weren't connect to promiscuity and indiscriminate sex. I think there's a real deception, an cultural illusion going on here. Vice is the white man's heritage to the Indian. Vice causes the denigration, not poverty. Suicide by vice is giving old Sherman the win.

I say no. Let's live. Let's face new enemies, new challenges, new values. Now, media hypes up the lowest of the low, because media loves outrage. Media is not the solution. Decrying injustice in the media accomplishes nothing in the way of personal morality or behavioral change. We have to do it ourselves. Change comes deep from within. Perhaps it is the power of the Creator we should seek. That is the real medicine. Do we know how to do that? Do we know what that means? Do we know what we're asking for?

Do we know what we want?

Sioux war party, something that should fight for the family today.