"Bully Bully!" My Chat With President Theodore Roosevelt Jr. On Native American Heritage Day

OK not exactly The President Teddy Roosevelt, also known as T.R., 26th Commander and Chief of the United States of America from 1901 to 1908 and known as The Conservation President, who used his authority to establish 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks and 18 national monuments on over 230 million acres of public land. And not exactly on Native American Heritage Day, a U.S civil holiday observed the day after Thanksgiving to pay tribute to Native Americans for their many contributions to our country, a recognition supported by the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) and 184 federally recognized tribes when President George W. Bush signed the bill into legislation back in 2008. Watch for a hilarious NIGA reference in this space in a future post.

No, Teddy was in reality the outstanding actor Joe Wiegand, bringing back to life the youngest man to ever be made President before our very appreciative eyes during the recent Saturday night show An Evening with Teddy Roosevelt, part of the South Haven, Michigan theatre series. I was front and center, and after booming God Bless America and an amazing one and one half-hour historical recount, when the man manifesting the spirit of TR opened it up for questions, my hand shot skyward. “You sir, down front. We all heard your enthusiasm singing God Bless America” (note: I really boomed it) “What’s your thought there?” “My first thought Mr. President is that I’m very proud to be an American, the inspiration for my singing. My second thought? You killed it up there tonight. WoW. My question, because it’s history I don’t know very well but look forward to learning all about, is: what was your relationship like with the Lakota people?

He began by citing his writings on the desolation of the area that is America’s Badlands, an area horribly bare yet picturesque at times to the extreme, describing them as “Hell with the fires put out.” I wasn’t exactly Paulie on the spot with my camera at first, but I steadied it, and caught the rest of his extraordinary answer. He pointed out that right around the time he began college at Harvard, General Custer made his great sacrifice at The Little Big Horn. “In the first book I published about my hunting and ranch life, I wrote, ‘It has been said that The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian , a quote sometimes attributed to General Sheridan, but he and his brother dispute that. As a a 27 year-old man, I wrote: ‘While this may be true in nine out of ten cases, and we may have to look closely at the tenth, I had many friendships with native peoples. In that region by circumstance of proximaty, there were still settlers who would disappear, thought to be killed by the Indians, by young braves who did not like life on the reservation and so would go out marauding out in the countryside.

In that first book I wrote of being out riding across the buttes — you never rode in the valleys as there was potential for an ambush — so when I was riding across one of those buttes, I suddenly saw three young braves riding very aggressively toward me. I dismounted my horse Manitou and set my Winchester out across the saddle. Those men came close enough that I could hear things like, "Me good Indian”, and inquired if I had any sugar. I replied, “I have nothing for you and you must leave me alone.” They uh, began riding about, encircling me, and eventually showed a familiarity with a certain set of English vulgarities as they rode away, unsuccessful at either waylaying me or stealing my horse and rifle. So those were troubled times to be a rancher out in the Badlands (note: as well as an Indian). You might know that one of my closest companions through my administration, a confidante on issues of the indigenous people of the Americas, was Quanah Parker, the Comanche, the war leader of the Antelope band of the Comanche Nation, the leader who brought the Comanche in from the war path. His Mother having been kidnapped, he himself growing half-native, half-settler.

He rode in my 1905 inaugural parade along with five other Indian Chiefs — the Ute’s Buckskin Charlie, Hollow Horn Bear and American Horse of the Sioux, Little Plume from the Blackfeet and the Apache warrior Geronimo. Marching behind them were 200 cadets of the Carlisle Indian School. You might know this as the school that gave us James Thorpe an athlete. I was of the mind that the Native American needed to Americanize themselves to our Western ways, the ways of capitalism and property ownership. So it’s a mixed record. Lately in the news, the statue outside of the American Museum of Natural History, the one that has me on horseback, accompanied by gun bearers — the museum has said that the hierarchy — that I am above the natives — is troublesome, so is being removed. And it was actually just announced within the last 48 hours that the soon to be built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library that will be in Medora, North Dakota, is going to accept the statue and contextualize it, using it as an opportunity to discuss these issues of race and cultural relations.

So I was a man who’s feet were made of clay. I wasn’t perfect on this issue of race relations. Nor was I perfect on the issue of conservation; I thought we should drain the Everglades, for it would be a great place to settle and ranch cattle. It’s a challenging and difficult issue, but I thought the Native American was entitled to what every other American was entitled to: a square deal. Nothing more and nothing less. But, sir, I am glad that you’ve brought up a challenging issue. Those challenging issues are all about us.” Indeed. While some Native folk call Thanksgiving the National Day of Mourning, believing it is in poor taste for Native American Heritage Day to be on Black Friday, a day of excess, gluttony, greed and aggressive capitalism, here we’ll continue to walk a crooked line between two worlds. Enjoy your Holiday weekend. We’ll be back next week with news on our closing classes and Ceremonies for 2021. Until then, Bully Bully.

The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer

I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my
inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission
to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it.
I have planted by the stars in defiance of the experts,
and tilled somewhat by incantation and by singing,
and reaped, as I knew, by luck and Heaven’s favor,
in spite of the best advice. If I have been caught
so often laughing at funerals, that was because
I knew the dead were already slipping away,
preparing a comeback, and can I help it?
And if at weddings I have gritted and gnashed
my teeth, it was because I knew where the bridegroom
had sunk his manhood, and knew it would not
be resurrected by a piece of cake. ‘Dance,’ they told me,
and I stood still, and while they stood
quiet in line at the gate of the Kingdom, I danced.
‘Pray,’ they said, and I laughed, covering myself
in the earth’s brightnesses, and then stole off gray
into the midst of a revel, and prayed like an orphan.
When they said, ‘I know my Redeemer liveth,’
I told them, ‘He’s dead.’ And when they told me
‘God is dead,’ I answered, ‘He goes fishing every day
in the Kentucky River. I see Him often.’
When they asked me would I like to contribute
I said no, and when they had collected
more than they needed, I gave them as much as I had.
When they asked me to join them I wouldn’t,
and then went off by myself and did more
than they would have asked. ‘Well, then,’ they said
‘go and organize the International Brotherhood
of Contraries,’ and I said, ‘Did you finish killing
everybody who was against peace?’ So be it.
Going against men, I have heard at times a deep harmony
thrumming in the mixture, and when they ask me what
I say I don’t know. It is not the only or the easiest
way to come to the truth. It is one way.

~ By Wendell Berry

The Story of Squaw Jim, We’Wha, Botés, Berdaches and Winktes

The black and white postcard above has been in my library as long as I can remember; I never studied it closely, thinking it was an old late nineteenth century - early twentieth century photograph of two native women, two sisters or female family members. Reminding me of two recent Higher Haven visitors, two sisterly gals who were happy to reconnect at a summer Ceremonial gathering, I corresponded with them later by mail, bringing the old photo to mind. Addressing it, I was surprised to find this blurb on the back:

“SQUAW JIM, Osch-Tisch ‘Finds Them and Kills Them’ (1854-1929). This remarkable photograph is titled ‘Squaw Jim and His Squaw’. On the left is Squaw Jim, a biological male in woman’s attire — a Crow Berdache or male homosexual afforded distinctive social and ceremonial status within the tribe. In addition to the special attributes that distinguished the berdache or boté, Squaw Jim served as an enlisted scout at Fort Keogh and achieved a reputation for bravery when he saved the life of a tribesman at The Battle of Rosebud, June 17th, 1876. This 1877 photo is the earliest known of a North American Indian Berdache.”

Interesting to note that my Teacher’s Teacher Chief Leonard Emmanuel Crowdog’s family was at the Rosebud battle, still residing to this day in south central South Dakota, USA. The Lakota people, too, had their Winktes, the contraction of an old Lakota word, winyanktehca, meaning '[wants] to be like a woman', historically, the winkte considered a social category of male-bodied individuals who adopt the clothing, work, and mannerisms that Lakota culture usually considers feminine. However, in contemporary Lakota culture, winkte is usually used to refer to a homosexual man. Like the Crow, the tribe regarded them as regular members of the community, and not in any way marginalized for their status, while other accounts held the winkte as sacred, occupying a liminal, third-gender role in the culture, and born to fulfill ceremonial roles that could not be filled by either men or women.

This regard in traditional cultures for gender bending tribal members made a recent appearance in a Google Doodle focused on We’ wha, a well-recognized member of the Zuni tribe. “The late We’wha was an individual who exemplified one of the core values of the Zuni people,” goes the backstory, “And that was compassion.” Born in 1849 in Zuni, New Mexico, in the northwest corner of the state that is the tribe’s home, We’wha was born a male but identified as lhamana or female. The tribe’s first ambassador, she was accepted for who she was and visited Washington D.C., playing an influential role in getting the Zuni people’s voice heard and bridged an important gap in cultural understanding.

“You can call her a he, you can call him a her, but in the Zuni language there is a third gender — ihamana — or two-spirit”, similar in some ways to the Lakota Winkte. They too were highly regarded for their special, dual-role in society. The rest of the Google Doodle story honors We’wha, and, as it states, the hope upon viewing is that all people feel a connection to their own ancestry, as well as the strong individuals who came before us, and start a dialogue on what is important to us in our lives, as a tribe. “To hear the story of We’wha and how revered he was amongst his people should be a point of pride for all people, and an inspiration to go back and bring about their old customs, and remind the younger generation to think about the ambassadors and the care givers, the mothers and the fathers, individuals from the past who exemplify the culture.” And whose Spirits are in ways still with us today.