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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 15, 2005)
Smoke Signals 7 Broadsides From The Heart Of Native America OCTOBER 15, 2005 MANKILLER continued from page 6 that at the first meeting, they did not put a chair out for her. "Instead of starting something divisive," she said, "I pulled a chair up from the audience and sat down." "I'm not a person who has a great need to be loved," she said. People say that Indians are sup posed to adapt to American culture, she said, "but nobody has ever been able to explain to me what they are trying to assimilate us into. People describe the final epi sode of The Survivor as a great cultural experience," she said, "Is that what you want for your cul ture? I talk about values." Among those values is context. Mankiller described the difference between the way the dominant culture looks at a picture and the way an Indian looks at it. The first focuses on the subject. The second focuses on the context in which the subject rests. "Too much is written about Na tive people," she said, "and not enough by Native people." On the mainstream media, Trudell said, "I wouldn't try to reach the majority, just reach out to those you can, and just be as coherent as you can. How much time do we waste because we don't control the media? Use clarity and coherence. Become less reactionary and more thoughtful. It will cre ate its own way of spreading. Reach whoever you can, but don't try to recruit. In a symbolic way, we become the media." "I agree with something Con gresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas once said," said Mankiller. '"If I thought that most Americans really were racist, I couldn't get out of bed in the morning.' I have to believe that most people can be educated, and every person has a responsibility to educate them selves and those around them. Al ways be extending a hand and say, 'Let's talk.' Related were the pair's answers to a question about leadership. "I don't like the idea of being a leader," said Mankiller. "I consider myself a facilitator. You have to never separate yourself from the people. Your only role is that of a spokesperson." "The danger," she added, "is when people look externally for solutions V r v .V-(.;..s i XCw ,! Tribal Council member Kathleen Tom to problems when they really need to look within themselves." "I don't want to be a leader," said Trudell. "I'm paranoid and don't want people behind me." He said that most times when people are objecting about their leaders, they are really just expressing how over whelmed and powerless they feel. "Listen to people," said Mankiller. "Give them a voice." And related to that was the question to Trudell about the les sons of AIM. "In AIM, it was fun to be the leader but it came with consequences. I wore that label (political ac tivist) as an identity. Only after I understood how limiting it was. In some ways, it limited us. Recognize it as a tool and not an identity. Be careful of politics. Use it like a tool but don't believe in it. Believe in as little as possible." He pointed again to think ing "clearly and coher ently," a term he could have said a hundred times over the course of the evening. The theme of the day was "Conscious Unity for Our Common Survival." More specifically, Trudell said, "It isn't about blame. It's about responsibility... I'm not guilty for what I did but I'm responsible for it. Guilt doesn't teach us to learn, it just produces more guilt." And as an example, he took down the most common label we hear to day. "I don't trust democracy," he said. "(In this society) it means the right of the entitled to rule." The solution to apathy, Trudell said, is "we need to show some re spect to ourselves." Mankiller agreed. "I don't think people are apathetic. They just need clarity. Charlie and I, we'll sit and talk to people to see what they want to do next. We need to see barriers as challenges. We need to give people an opportu nity to express themselves." Too much of what we hear about Native communities is negative, said Mankiller. "What we need is to celebrate ourselves and our communities. Our languages are still spoken. We still have a strong sense of family, clan and nation. And we're still standing." Asked what to tell the children, Trudell said, "To think. And it's not enough to tell them. We have to show them." Said Mankiller: "We survived." , . . i , ''' s" jj. l 'J I n ' f w - ; .. ,, j- -vt - " One People, One Pride Tribal Chairwoman Cheryle Kennedy presented Wilma Mankiller and husband Charlie Soap with gifts at a welcoming ceremony held at the University of Oregon's Many Nations Longhouse. "One day, a Supreme Court Justice will be Indian, and it takes this kind of meeting to make it happen," said Kennedy. No Evidence Of Mechanical Problems In Crash That Claimed Young Tribal Member By Toby McClary After nearly a year of investi gation, the National Transporta tion Safety Board (NTSB) has developed a hypothesis on an airplane crash near Grand Ronde that fatally injured Tribal member Travis Hofenbredl and two other teens. In mid-October of 2004, Certi fied Pilot Ross Havel, 18, Kristi Ward, 16, and Hofenbredl, 16, were on an afternoon elk-scouting trip in the foot hills of the Coastal Mountain Range about seven miles from Grand Ronde. According to a newly released report by the NTSB, an uniden tified hunter, who was in the general vicinity of the crash site, reported hearing an airplane when he looked up to see a light aircraft approaching from a southerly direc tion toward his position. "I was a little concerned about his altitude, which seemed to be rather low for the hilly terrain and timber," said the hunter in the NTSB report. "It looked very slow, almost at stall speed. The tail seemed to be lower than the front," he said. "I listened hard for any indication of engine trouble. The engine sounded smooth and powerful. Then it dis appeared over the timber to the east," added the hunter. The airplane was a 1971 Piper PA-28-140. It was a single engine, low wing, fixed landing gear air- plane. It was powered by a four cylin der, air-cooled, normally aspirated Lycoming O-320 engine, rated at 150 horsepower. The air plane was configured to carry a maximum of four occupants. After further investigation by the NTSB, there has been no evidence of a mechanical or control malfunction that would determine the plane to be uncontrollable. A toxicological screen showed that alcohol and drugs were A Piper Cherokee PA 28 similar to the one that the teens crashed in. not a factor. The NTSB has not written a final report on this inci dent, however, low speed and a low altitude seem to play a major role.
