6 OCTOBER 15, 2005
Smoke Signals
Broadsides From The Heart Of Native America
Wilma Mankiller and John Trudell Speak of Survival "we can't live on the credit of our ancestors'
Dy Ron Karten
"It's always struck me," said
Wilma Mankiller, former Principal
Chief of the Cherokee Nation and
current Wayne Morse Chair of Law
and Politics at the University of
Oregon (UO), "that after hundreds
of years of living together, they
know so little about us."
In an evening conversation Octo
ber 10 with John Trudell, Mankiller
continued what has been a lifelong
Kennedy in welcoming Mankiller
and Soap, "a Supreme Court Jus
tice will be Indian, and it takes this
kind of meeting to make it happen."
Kennedy attended the University
of Oregon in the 1960s.
Longhouse Interim Steward Gor
don Bettles (Klamath), Nick
Sixkiller (Cherokee) and the
Governor's representative Matthew
Poteet (Lakota Sioux) performed
people welcomed the first white men
with no idea of what was to come."
She was anxious for this revital
ization opportunity, she said, be
cause "lawyers put down the
cornerstone and people like me
build the house."
And build the house she did a few
nights later in conversation with
Trudell. The questions came from
students of the Native American
II ,. ..-.u-j v"V
Y A A U r p '
. ' M ,;
I f, V ..-M ,
Teacher on The Red Road On Monday, October 1 0, Wilma Mankiller and former American Indian Movement leader
JohnTrudell ended the University of Oregon's Indigenous Solidarity Day with a discussion about Tribal politics. The day's event
also played as the Native counterpart to Columbus Day and brought Siletz Tribal member Dino Butler to speak on Tribal issues.
effort to bring the rest of the coun
try up to speed. Trudell (mixed
Tribal blood), former American In
dian Movement (AIM) leader, is to
day a musician and poet, and
remains an incisive commentator
on the political scene.
The event also was the finale for
the university's Indigenous Solidar
ity Day which brought in Dino But
ler (Siletz) who introduced Trudell,
and Mark Franco, Tribal Headman
of the unrecognized Winnemem
Wintu Tribe of northern California,
that in September 2004 declared
war on America to protect the sa
cred sites along the McCloud River
where the Tribe's 125 people live.
The events of the day, held at the
university's student union
ampitheatre, also was the Native
counterpart to Columbus Day.
As Mankiller teaches and speaks
at the university through Novem
ber 30th, her husband, Cherokee
Community Organizer Charlie
Soap, will speak to groups across the
nearby countryside.
The two were introduced to the
university and Native communities
on October 6 at the UO's Many
Nations Longhouse where repre
sentatives came from the
Governor's office, and Indians were
represented by the Confederated
Tribes of the Grand Ronde and
Siletz peoples.
"One day," said Grand Ronde
Tribal Chairwoman Cheryle
Native welcome songs, UO deans
spoke and Charles Martinez, Vice
Provost for Institutional Equity
and Diversity, talked about the
"gateway between our university
V - I
y-" I 1
i "
S V
I- - s , ' I , J'
. 1 ,.; I .
J LJ
Our House Longhouse Interim Steward Gor
don Bettles (Klamath) welcomed Wilma Mankiller
with an honor song on Thursday, October 6.
and the Native communities."
"I'm a very visual person," said
Mankiller. "I was imagining what
it must have been like when the
Student Union, the Wayne Morse
Center for Law & Politics, Ethnic
Studies and the university's
Multicultural Center.
Mankiller and Trudell first met in
the late 1960s, a time
when "anything was pos
sible," she said. "We
looked for folks like Rich
ard Oakes (Mohawk) and
John Trudell to name it
for us."
"I started out to raise
hell," said Trudell.
In 1969, "Indians of All
Tribes" took over the va
cated Alcatraz Prison. As
surplus U.S. land, it
should by treaty have
been returned to Indians.
This was an example of
Oakes and Trudell "push
ing back and standing
up," said Mankiller. "It
was the first time I'd ever
heard anyone do that. At
home, they would say it,
but they would never
stand up and face down
the government. What I
saw was an authenticity,
not in all people, but in
some people."
Trudell described his
early life as "half on and
half off the reservation (the Santee
Sioux Reservation in Nebraska). I
learned to adapt in both worlds."
On the reservation, though, he saw
the trials ahead.
"I saw my future," he said, "so in
1963, I went into the Navy for my
survival. I tried college," he said, "but
you got to learn to let yourself be mis
treated if you want to succeed there.
"Then Alcatraz happened and I
went back to the Native community
through Alcatraz.
"I never wanted to go to prison,"
he said, "but ultimately, I went to
Alcatraz on my own."
That was the place, he said,
where "I knew I belonged."
He called Alcatraz "the second
most influential experience I had
- my reality changed there."
Though he never said what was
the first most influential experi
ence, it might well have been the
suspicious fire that killed his
wife, her mother and his three
young children in 1979, the day
after he spoke about F.B.I, ha
rassment of Indians on the steps
of the F.B.I, building in Wash
ington, D.C. Many think that
either government agents or
people paid by them were respon
sible, but there is apparently no
certainty about it.
One of the poems he read to the
audience that night included this
line: "I went down some roads that
stopped me dead in its tracks."
Today, Trudell has a light, you
could even say a fragile bearing
belied by his dark cap, dark jacket,
dark pants, dark shirt and sun
glasses. He has a funny little self
deprecating laugh and often ends
an incendiary bit like this one:
"the same way they took everything
from us, they're getting ready to
take it away from you. They pretty
it up, but it's still slavery. But lis
ten, it's your country" - and then
come the words, often repeated, "but
I'm not trying to start anything."
At the evening's opening, his re
sponse, following a standing ova
tion from a full ballroom with a side
room also opened up, was to shake
his head with a sad smile: "If you
only knew."
"We can't live on the credit of our
ancestors," he said later. "We have
to live our own reality. We need to
stay in focus. It isn't good enough
that our ancestors did it. We have
to do it."
"It was always about: 'Treat us
fair. Treat us right. We're human
beings.' The problem is, they don't
know what it is to be a human be
ing. They don't recognize it in
themselves."
Asked about feminism today,
Mankiller said, "Don't let society
define what it is to be a woman.
Girls and women have to have their
own identity, not from their boy
friends or husbands. Define it for
yourself in your own way."
"Every woman figures out her
own way to deal with sexism," she
said. "I never thought about being
a woman. Nobody told me I couldn't
do anything," she said. When she
first became a chief, the other chiefs
were so dismissive of her position
See MANKILLER
on page 7