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White Plume was
elected Oglala Sioux tribal vice president in 2004 and was moved into
the president's office after the recent impeachment of Cecelia Fire
Thunder. White Plume will serve until December, when another
president - or he himself - takes office.
White Plume is
running for re-election against Fire Thunder and Will Peters, the
only candidates known so far. The primary elections will be held in
October.
Living a spiritual
and cultural life is what drives White Plume. He was instrumental in
starting the sacred Big Foot Ride Memorial Ride in 1986 to complete
the circle for grieving families and to renew a spiritual life for
the Lakota. The ride begins on the Cheyenne River Reservation and
ends at the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Now White Plume is
placed in a position to renew a spiritual life for a nation. Shortly
after he took over as president, he devoted most of his time to the
protection of the sacred mountain, Mato Paha, or Bear Butte. He
camped and lived on the mountain frequently, taking time away from
his duties as president, and remained there for the entire first week
of August. He is an organizer for the Summit of Indigenous Nations, a
unity effort of indigenous groups from around the country and South
America.
The result of the
summit was to pass a resolution demanding the rescission of the
''doctrine of discovery'' to stop the continued colonization of all
indigenous people, something White Plume was instrumental in
presenting.
Indian Country
Today was able to meet with White Plume during the recent Gathering
of Nations Camp at Bear Butte. White Plume was asked about himself,
who he is and what, if anything, he could do to make positive changes
for the Pine Ridge Reservation.
White Plume: We
have the whole clan together, we put all our land together and
utilize all resources we have; we don't want to live on the grid, so
we got wind power and solar. ...
What has to happen
- we need to educate all of America, and all our colonized relatives,
not to judge us in their paradigm because they have been assimilated.
They have a central way of life. As Lakota people, we must learn more
about our language. As we learn more and we revitalize our culture
and our language, we realize we need access to our sacred sites. As a
nation we are getting sick because we are not allowed access to
sacred sites, it killed our language; today we are bringing our
language back.
All our ceremonies
are intact; we have chiefs and warriors. We have been real patient
and we have been real humble for the past 75 years that America would
one day wake up and realize, 'Hey, we have an agreement and this
agreement says they are supposed to have access to sacred sites; we
are supposed to protect ceded American Indian territory.' This has
never happened. So we are still being patient today, we are
continuing on, we are being patient, but now we are on a mission to
educate everybody about the true situation.
You see, the
American people left their honor on the treaties and by them
violating that, there is no honor in this country of U.S.A. Until
they start honoring the agreements they made ... the Black Hills has
always been disputed; we never signed an agreement to give our land
away - they just took.
We were estimating
how much money is owed. It's in the trillions of dollars, and this
country doesn't have enough money to pay us back for all the
hardships and loss of our spirituality.
Now we just want
access to our sacred sites and we want the broken treaties to be
honored.
Instead of
listening to us they consider us more of a problem than honoring our
request in honoring those documents that were made in 1868 and 1851
[the dates of the treaties].
Everybody wants to
save their culture and bring their rituals back.
On Sept. 6, it
will be 200 years that the Lakota had contact. Our language, our
ceremonies are still real; we didn't make any of it up.
Elders have
admonished us for using the word ''tribes.'' The original tribes were
Vikings, Celts, Germans, Irish. We are not tribes; we are clans, we
are kinship. Today we no longer consider ourselves tribes: we will go
back to the clan ways.
ICT: Can you take
your beliefs one step further and apply it to the governance of the
Oglala Sioux Nation_
White Plume: I
plan to take everything that we accomplish here back to the tribal
council to inform them of what the traditional people said; tell
their sad stories and what their wishes are. We have to draw a line
and say this is it, we won't take it anymore.
There are so many
nations here [at Bear Butte], it is so good to hear different
languages. For a long time I thought the only languages alive were
the Lakota, Spanish and English. It boosted my morale.
We realize that
the traditional people are the poorest on every reservation; it
shouldn't be, because they retained their culture, language, they
retained their rituals. They should be the millionaires on the
reservations, but they are all the poorest - why is that_
Our own people act
like colonizers.
It's a real
education experience, being here at Bear Butte Camp.
ICT: You are a
traditional Lakota; will you work to bring the old ways back to the
Oglalas_
White Plume: I
already initiated that. I brought a resolution to amend the election
code that only language speakers would be authorized candidates. [The
election is scheduled for November, with a primary in early October.]
Their excuse was
nobody taught them the language.
I declared our
language precious and we aren't going to lose it. I guess we have to
wait for the next administration and we'll get more traditionalists
in there so they can be adamant about our language, because the
Oglala Sioux Tribe, what they did was allow the colonization process
to continue.
ICT: Would a
traditional government stop the turmoil that now plagues the Oglala
Sioux Tribe_
White Plume: Yes.
ICT: Outsiders are
talking about the Oglala Sioux Tribe in a negative way after the
impeachment of Cecelia Fire Thunder.
White Plume: I
know. I came to a realization that we created all these problems by
using the English language because that's the general rule of thumb;
now we are trying to solve the problems using the same language, and
it's not working. So my feelings have to use a different language to
solve those problems, this is the only way this can happen.
ICT: Do you have
support for the traditional movement_
White Plume: All
the people are fighting to protect and preserve our way; we have to
bring that way back. We have to work on our relatives who fell off
into the melting pot and tell them it's okay to be Lakota, it's okay
to speak your language.
There is a
document that keeps us down as a people: it's the papal bull [that
established the doctrine of discovery]. We will ask the pope to
rescind that papal bull, that's the basis of all Indian law, and the
Lakota people across the U.S. have never won in any court.
So, that papal
bull is the one that they go by. America's history starts in 1492: we
ask the American people to reach out and find your history, find your
grandparents, your great-grandparents. Maybe they were Vikings at one
time, maybe they were Celtics. They need to know their history,
because today everyone is stuck in the rut of capitalism, they don't
worry about their relatives, they don't worry about themselves, they
just worry about how much money they can make and they take, take,
take from the Earth and they never give anything back.
This we have to
change around. The Lakota were givers; we give everything we have
away every year, never take more than we need. We need to educate all
of America about all the horrible things they are doing to our lands,
our sacred sites, our sacred places, our grasslands.
I hope I didn't
sound like a politician; I tried not to be.
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