Frank C. Miller: Not the Indian way
April 2, 2005
Jesse Ventura must have had a good chuckle. He could have closed his eyes and visualized his fondest dream come true: hordes of "media jackals" confined behind a fence on the Red Lake reservation in the aftermath of the calamitous school shooting there.
I led with an attention-grabbing name because I want to pass on some serious advice to "media jackals" everywhere, or at least to those who might someday find themselves unexpectedly reporting a sadly sensational story from an Indian reservation.
The advice does not come from me. It comes from the late Dan Raincloud Sr., a wise and respected spiritual leader in the traditional community of Ponemah, across the lake and a 30-mile drive from the school where the killings took place.
In the summer of 1960 I took that drive for the first time. The tribal council had generously given me permission to conduct anthropological research, and the chairman took me to meet Dan, who received me with kindness and grace (and with a twinkle in his eye that seemed to say, "Good, another anthropologist I can have some fun with").
Dan agreed to teach me about Indian ways and something of the Ojibwe language (or Anishinabe, as some prefer to call it). Our classroom was a lovingly designed "learning environment": We sat in the grass on the shores of the lake, whose breezes kept the mosquitoes at bay. As part of my faltering efforts to learn the language, I collected long lists of words.
By the second afternoon, Dan would occasionally say, "I told you that one yesterday," and I would respond that I didn't think so. But I would check my notes and discover that he was always right.
A supremely patient man, Dan eventually became visibly bored and stopped responding. For a while we watched a kingfisher dive and scoop up fish.
Finally he broke the silence: "You know, Frank, it's interesting. We have no swear words in our language." I perked up but I tried to stay low-keyed.
"No swear words?"
"Not a one. We don't take the names of our gods in vain."
"How about dirty words?"
Dan hesitated. He was probably wondering how to explain things to such a naïve questioner. Then he put it delicately: "We don't think the doings of the body are dirty, so we don't have any dirty words either."
"So what do you say when you want to insult somebody?"
"Well, we call white people 'monkeys' because they have hair on their bodies and they chatter so much."
When I laughed and said "Ouch," he chuckled but again stopped talking and watched the kingfisher. Excited because I was getting good data, I pressed on and asked about other insults.
After hesitating he explained patiently, "The worst insult is to call somebody a pig or a hog. They're greedy and that's not the Indian way."
I asked when he would use those words and he fell silent again. Then, in a voice both gentle and stern, he said, "Now Frank, take your time, don't ask so many questions. Don't be a data hog."
That was the end of the interview but the beginning of a personal bond that grew ever stronger.
The news hounds have now been released from their pen at Red Lake, free to roam the reservation and ask questions. I have great respect for journalists, especially those who do the hard work of writing a newspaper every day. Since I fear that some of them may sometimes be news hogs, I wish that Dan were still here to teach some gentle lessons about how human beings should treat each other.
Frank C. Miller, a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, served on the committee that founded the Department of American Indian Studies in 1969. He lives in Minneapolis.
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Last updated on April 04, 2005