What I want to know, is how does a white guy, a pretender, get a GRAMMY nomination for "Native American" music? Why do the frauds, the pretenders, the usurpers, and the interlopers gain recognition?...Oh yeah, cause it is the New Agers they pander to. Well, the New Age is reaching old age, and then the fad of the Native American STYLE Flute shall finally and thankfully pass. Me, I ain't got to shuck and jive, step and fetch for the dollar. Me, I am Lakota, and therefore I must be a little different than the prostitutes.
Anyway, check this guy's website. even sounds like he stole my own Siyotanka Story (It damn sure ain't his) for profit. lol. I guess this just illustrates the valuelessness of the wasicu system. Glad I am on the outside. What a joke. Check it out here: http://www.siyotanka.com/
(the following is from Wanbli Koyake, Lakota Sundance Leader)
Hau Mitakuyepi, Greetings My Relatives,
Our relative Wanbli Wiwohkpe (aka Jim Starkey) has raised an important
issue concerning our Lifeway: it centers around the siyotanka (flute)
that our ancestors made out of their relationships with Mitakuye
Owasin. It's important (not just to flute makers, or for today's Lakota
Oyate) for our unborn generations that we pay attention to what's going
on with this issue. If you have doubts about the seriousness or
importance of this kind of social issue, we need only look at the
reactionary –and disproportionate– response by the so-called "Native
American Flute" makers –who just happen to be Non-Native American. I've
only read their words online, so I can't say I know these people, but
judging from their concerted attacks on Jim, I'd say they're the
epitome of Wasicu kin, "Fat Takers".
As our elders have admonished us about being careful when we use the
word Wasicu (na wasicula), I want to point out that it isn't a racial
epithet –it's a metaphor for greedy behavior. In my experience, even
when Greed/greedy people appears to be reasonable, it is ever ready to
demonize –ruthlessness as a way of control. And greed is only too
willing to use such demonization as justification for lethal violence
–witness Iraq and Afghanistan, who are only the latest victims of
greed's incessant war-making. Such violence isn't always physical, it
takes on psychic forms –ideological, emotional, spiritual,
psychological, etc., etc. No wonder most of our people are afraid to
stand up and speak out when they see some such wrong happening. Another
form of fear is that of our people who act as apologists for wasicu
behavior: they see the hand that feeds them and aren't going to bite it
for fear of being punished, demonized, fired, deprived of
"opportunity", etc. They rightly see their interests as being with
wasicu interests –wealth, power, control.
Although the wasicu would like to frame this argument as a matter of
rights/property rights, we should remember, as our elders have taught
us, that we don't have "rights", we have responsibilities. If we
believe in Mitakuye Owasin, then we must act accordingly. Our Original
Instructions are On Po! "Live!": which means to be what we were made to
be –human beings and relatives to All That Is. You don't need a
spiritual leader or theologian to figure out what that means in terms
of responsibility.
For too many generations now, the Friendly People have been forced to
live as wasicula: we are educated (miseducated) in their ways to such a
degree that we don't question the wrong of those ways, whether they are
of a socio-economic, religious, legal, scientific, or historical
nature. In my travels and work in wasiculand (in every workplace,
institution, organization, cultural association, on the streets) I've
heard a common refrain, a mantra, that goes like this: "That's not how
we do things around here". It's invoked, whenever any upstart comes
along and sees some wrong, inefficiency, or waste, and suggests another
way to do things. Simple as it is, it'll stop you in your tracks: the
old way of doing things continues –no matter how weak, wasteful, or
wrong. It's about property/wealth/power _and control, which is the
means to the ends of Greed.
Lakol Wicohan kin, "The Lifeway of the Friendly People" or "Friendly
Lifeways", aren't owned by any one individual, because they're of our
People's relationship to Life itself: they're an expression of our
relatedness and interdependence with Life. I once asked Auntie Shirley
Keith what it meant to say "The People own the ways" as it's said in
English: she explained, "Lakol Wicohan kin, Lakota Oyate kin gluhapi
manipi", means, Walking, The Friendly People carry the Friendly
Lifeway." I take that to mean, as we walk Canku Luta, the Red Road of
Life, we keep our Lifeway alive and it keeps us alive. We also build on
our ancestors knowledge –according to the times we live in– for the
benefit of our unborn generations. As an educated Lakota, I know that
any branch of wasicu scientific knowledge (anthropology, history,
theology) can't explain Lifeway. The scientific perspective is not
purely objective, it denies the human subjectivity that is part and
parcel of any way of knowing. I read a lot, and frankly, I haven't read
anything that explains fully, let alone truthfully, the kind of
knowledge that Lifeway fosters.
It is also said that we do everything through dreams. Wasicu knowledge
would call that a spiritual, religious, or even superstitious, approach
to life. Being a holistic system of knowledge, Lifeway isn't bound by
particular disciplines of scientific knowledge. It takes humility to be
a dreamer, a relative. What little we know of our Lifeway today comes
from the real life risks and sacrifices that our ancestors made on our
behalf by keeping and passing on those Lifeways to us. And what little
we understand of Lifeway today, comes from the real life risks and
sacrifices we make when we stand on the hill, or sundance, or
participate in any of our Friendly Lifeways.
Based on my life experience, the wasicu or wasicula is incapable of
such. I don't mean white people, nor is that not to say white people in
general aren't capable of relatedness or humility: but those that are
humble, wouldn't try to take over, or "own", our Lifeway –which
encompasses such myriad things as art, culture, religion, law,
knowledge. Lifeway is not property: nor can it be misshaped into
intellectual property. As our ancestors said about the wasicu desire to
buy their land, "It's absurd, who would sell our Mother the Earth, upon
whose breast we feed and upon whose body we walk?" We know that their
defense wasn't enough to stop the wasicu from claiming legal ownership,
after paying some pittance in treaties, of course. So here we are once
again, being asked to sell our relationships (knowledge as intellectual
property) to the wasicu: and maybe too our refusal to sell our
relatedness and interdependence with Life will be ignored and instead
of a treaty, they'll give us a carrot and stick to tie to our heads.
Lifeway will be chained to some property form and we'll be denied
access to what our ancestors meant for us to learn how to live by.
As one of my teachers/elders, Kenneth Young Bear, said to me, "Such
knowledge is not free, I paid for it with my own pain and suffering."
Our ancestor's recognized the value of such knowledge, the offerings
that a family made, long ago, for spiritual help/healing/advice were
considerable in monetary terms. The material goods they offered were
invaluable as well because they made everything they gave: and the
things they made were of their relationships with Mitakuye Owasin. They
weren't buying a commodity, moreover, their offerings were a token, an
acknowledgment, of the power of such knowledge. They understood that
Lifeway has its source in Life/Mitakuye Owasin. Such knowledge can
never be property –the wasicu' greatest invention of all time.
The wasicu would like us to believe that it's form/artform and the
knowledge of it is for free, in the public domain: they would have us
believe that we are being racist or fascist for opposing their
propertizing and commodifying Original People's Lifeway. We mustn't
believe it. We mustn't allow them to attack our relatives for defending
our Lifeway.
As our elder Uncle Sidney Keith said, "Lifeway teaches us how to live,
there's nothing in the white-man's way that can do that". And just as
our ancestors learned how to live, they made a living for themselves
–without the extreme disparities of wealth and poverty, justice and
injustice, that we see at work in wasicu society today. Our ancestors
were able to do all that without owning property, without amassing vast
surpluses, without criminalizing the poor. Our ancestors operated on a
gift economy: what was given to them freely, they gave away freely. I
truly believe, as my elders taught me, it isn't necessary for me even
to pray for help. Our relatives (the four leggeds, wingeds, the plant,
spirit, star, water, air, fire peoples) have compassion for us two
leggeds –as their youngest siblings– they freely, gladly, give us what
we need to live through the daily sacrifices that their Original
Instructions move them to make.
So back to our relative, Wanbli Wiwohkpe/Jim Starkey, who has been
savagely attacked for defending our unborn generation's interest in a
byproduct of Lifeway, in this particular case siyotanka kin, the flute.
We should honor such bravery. This isn't about the ownership of things:
this is about our relatedness and interdependence with Life/Mitakuye
Owasin. Most of our people live today in extreme poverty: the very few
of our people who enjoy a higher standard of living seem to have
forgotten where they come from and maybe even who they are –it seems we
can't count on them for help. I pains me to read of how Jim was
attacked: it makes my heart bad: at the same time my heart is made
good, to realize that we still have brave hearts like Wanbli Wiwohkpe.
Mitakuyepi, Hoka he, blihiciya po .
