Re-creating the Circle: The Renewal of American Indian Self-Determination

Introduction and Acknowledgments

LaDonna Harris, Stephen M. Sachs, Barbara Morris, Deborah Esquibel Hunt, Gregory A. Cajete, Benjamin Broome, Phyllis M. Gagnier, and Jonodev Chaudhuri

Re-creating the Circle is a collective undertaking by Indian people and their allies that focuses on American Indian and Alaska Native self-determination: the returning of Indigenous peoples and people to effective sovereignty, self-sufficiency, and harmony, that they may revert to living well in their own communities while partnering with their neighbors, the nation, and the world for mutual advancement. We have carried out this project in an Indigenous way, by weaving the perspectives and styles of individual contributors into a larger whole that provides a broader understanding of the issues and events than we could have achieved if we had compiled separate statements. We took this approach because American Indian affairs are extremely complex—so much so, in fact, that no one person can have a complete perspective or full understanding of them. We can provide a thorough analysis only through a dialogue of multiple voices. This traditional Native way of approaching life’s important issues, as chapter 1 shows, is increasingly being taken in the contemporary world, where, for example, participatory workplaces increase quality, productivity, and efficiency though team process, and physicians and other technical experts find functioning in teams necessary to produce satisfactory results.

This book arose from a series of collaborations that began in 1992 to develop articles and papers on a variety of interrelated topics. Our elder and advisor has been LaDonna Harris (Comanche), founder and president of Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) and a leading catalyst of progress in Native American affairs and policy for more than four decades. This volume is offered as a tribute to her continuing contribution to improving the lives of Native and other peoples; the issues the book discusses are among those in which she has played an important collaborative role in attaining major advances. Stephen Sachs presents a perspective on her career and approach in chapter 6. Harris took the lead in developing the theme of each chapter in consultation with the volume editors, and she provided guidance and specific input on their revisions. Thus, we designate her as this volume’s mentor and editor.

Two volume editors were involved in drafting the book and, along with Harris, in editing the entire work. Stephen Sachs, professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis and editor of the online journal Indigenous Policy, served as coordinating editor of the project and was involved in the drafting of all of the chapters. Barbara Morris (Comanche and Cherokee) served as a coauthor of chapter 3 and shared in the editing of the entire volume. She is professor of government and provost and vice president for academic affairs at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, and has long been involved in the leadership of the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Race, Ethnicity and Politics section, including serving as co-president in 1998–1999.

Five contributing authors were involved in the writing and editing of one or more sections of the book. Deborah Esquibel Hunt (whose maternal grandmothers are Cherokee) is a project officer at the American Indian College Fund. She has served Jefferson County Schools as program coordinator of the Title VII Indian Education Program at the Office of Educational Equity in Golden, Colorado, and is a former assistant professor of social work at Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. She partnered in drafting and editing parts of chapters 2, 5, and 6 and was the initial drafter of the section of a paper that was developed into section 3 of chapter 5, concerning healing individual and community dysfunction resulting from colonialism and appropriately working with and serving Indian communities and people.¹

Gregory A. Cajete (Tewa), Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, director of Native American Studies and associate professor in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico, drafted the major portion of the Indian education section in chapter 5 and shared in editing the entire section. Benjamin J. Broome, currently professor of communications at Arizona State University, while on the faculty of George Mason University was one of the facilitators in the inclusive participatory strategic planning process the Comanche used to build harmonizing community consensus that is discussed in chapter 4, section 1, and he cooperated in the drafting of that section. Phyllis Gagnier (Algonquin) provided the first portion of the title of this book (Re-creating the Circle), coauthored part of the education section in chapter 5, and assisted with editing several parts of the book. She is the creator of From the Heart Training and Consulting. She has worked with numerous Indian nations on educational development, nonviolent conflict resolution, and cultural projects, including the development of the Telly Award–winning video production From the Heart of a Child, about substance-abuse intervention, and the video production Awee Sha No Tsa (My Child Will Return to Me). Jonodev Osceola Chaudhuri (Muscogee), chief justice of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court and an appellate judge for the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians, as well as a practicing attorney and former judge for two other tribes, collaborated in writing chapter 4, section 2, concerning Indian nations indigenizing their dispute resolution, legal process, and law.

We are extremely appreciative of the assistance of several people in developing Re-creating the Circle. Michael Chapman, former special assistant to the assistant secretary of the interior for Indian affairs, and Faith Roessel, former coordinator of the Administration Working Group on American Indians and Alaska Natives, made extremely helpful comments and provided much useful information concerning the building of government-to-government relations between the federal government and Indian tribes, discussed in chapter 3. Jeff Corntassel, associate professor in the Indigenous Governance Programs at the University of Victoria, in Victoria, British Columbia, contributed important research and editing ideas to the drafting and revising of chapter 3 and made useful comments for the development of several sections of the book. Sharon O’Brien, professor of Indigenous Native Studies at the University of Kansas, undertook a thorough reading of the entire manuscript and contributed many helpful comments for improving the text. Edgar Sachs read the various drafts of all the chapters, providing numerous editing suggestions throughout this volume. Leah Ingraham assisted us in obtaining American Indian and Alaska Native health statistics and made a number of useful suggestions. Dianne Russell copyedited the manuscript, improving the presentation, and Bonnie Cobb compiled the bibliography. Robert Swanson compiled the index.

Re-creating the Circle is a holistic consideration of the ongoing process of returning American Indian and Alaska Native peoples to sovereignty, self-sufficiency, and harmony, enabling them to collaborate with their neighbors and tribal governments to be effective partners in the practice of federalism in the United States for the betterment of the country and the planet. The phrase Re-creating the Circle reflects the importance of the circle as a symbol of wholeness in Native American cultures (a topic chapter 1 develops), a quality that needs continuous renewal in the life of the people. In 1931, during the depths of the depredations that colonialism visited on Indians, Black Elk commented that the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered.² Today the hoop, or circle, of many Native nations is in the process of rejuvenation.

As a work on Indigenous renewal, this volume begins discussing in chapter 1 just what is being renewed: Native American traditions and how those ways are increasingly relevant today, both for Indigenous people and for the wider world. The underlying lesson of the chapter, and of the entire book, is how traditional Native values can be appropriately applied to the circumstances of the twenty-first century in ways that enhance continuing positive development.

Chapter 2 briefly examines the serious and continuing impact of colonialism on Indigenous North Americans and includes an outline of improvements that have been made over the last century, with indications of what yet needs to be overcome. This consideration sets the groundwork for the detailed analysis of the chapters that follow.

Because the basis for fostering Native renewal is self-determination and sovereignty (which we discuss further below), chapter 3 focuses on the re-creation of tribal governments and governance. It discusses how recognizing tribal governments as partners in U.S. federalism—partners that enjoy true government-to-government relations with federal, state, and local governments and agencies—is mutually beneficial to all the parties politically, economically, and socially. Chapter 3 examines the development of relations between tribal governments and other governments, showing what has been achieved to date and what the major pitfalls and promises are for further collaborative work.

Because tribal communities cannot effectively develop themselves or partner well with others unless their own decision-making and adjudication processes are well functioning, chapter 4 examines the problem of overcoming inappropriate forms of government that were imposed on Indian nations by the U.S. government and that clash with community culture. The discussion looks at what some Indian communities have done to bring back governance that is consistent with traditional values in ways that are effective in current circumstances, first in community consensus building and decision making, and second in adjudication.

Because the project of Indigenous renewal is an integral whole whose interrelated aspects must be advanced simultaneously to achieve success, the sections that make up chapter 5 look at the other areas of Indigenous advancement. First, sovereignty, well-being, and partnership with others require adequate economic development, including sufficient infrastructure and services. But experience demonstrates that to be effective, economic development must be appropriate to the needs and culture of the community, which, at the very least, must guide economic activity to ensure that it appropriately enhances the whole of tribal development, of which it is an integral part. This discussion shows that, indeed, the normal Western view of economics must be expanded to encompass living well in harmonious relationship with the environment, human and physical.

Second, a crucial key to Indian renewal is proper education, from preschool through higher education to lifelong learning. This is partly a matter of gaining sufficient funding, but, more important, it is a problem of developing ways of learning and teaching that are relevant to the culture and learning style of the specific Native people concerned and that empower them to become who they are and to act effectively in their own communities and the wider world. Finally, much healing must be undertaken by many Indigenous people and communities in order to return to wholeness. Such healing involves the undertaking of activities and services that fit the particular individuals and communities and partner with them to honor the value of their survival as individuals and as peoples and to emphasize that, despite colonialist put-downs, they have much to be proud of in their traditions. It should also provide means for overcoming and transforming historical and ongoing grief and guilt. In many cases, this work can be carried out with the assistance of traditional or equivalent contemporary processes.

Finally, chapter 6 explores how the paths to renewal that chapters 3 through 5 detail might be undertaken. This exploration involves an examination of what constitutes appropriate Native leadership for the twenty-first century and what are appropriate ways for working with Indian nations and people. The last section of the chapter provides a short integrative conclusion to the book. The section also points out that American Indian renewal has global implications in the time of the United Nations’ (UN) Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People, the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the rise of Native movements in Latin America that have had a significant impact on the region. Indeed, the book illuminates numerous lessons for development in other contexts from Native American experience.

In the course of the discussions in this volume, two questions of terminology raise broader concerns. First, the focus of this volume is on Native peoples and people in what is now the United States, although some of those Native nations and many of their relatives live outside the country’s current borders. Indeed, the basic problems of colonialism and what needs to be done to overcome it, to differing degrees and in varying ways are fundamentally the same for Indigenous people around the world. In general, Indigenous people prefer to be referred to as members of their own nation. We do that in this book when we are speaking of specific peoples. But the question of which term is best to use to refer to Native people collectively in the United States does not have a simple answer.

During the 1960s it became popular to say Native American both because the term includes the officially named groupings of Alaska (and Hawaii) Natives and American Indians and because the word Indian had been imposed by colonial Europeans. It is widely believed, even among Indigenous Americans, that naming the original inhabitants of the Americas Indians was an error by Columbus, who thought he had arrived in India, making that name inappropriate on its face. It seems more likely, however, that the origin of Indian is the Spanish en Dios, or in God, which stems from the positive things Columbus had to say about those he is credited with discovering on arriving in the New World. In any event, it has turned out that many Native people in the continental United States prefer Indian to Native American. Other terms, such as Indigenous, are sometimes used for collective reference. In our discourses here, we wish to be respectful of those of whom we speak, while at the same time we believe that some variety and avoidance of overcomplexity in language is a benefit to the reader. Therefore, although we sometimes use the official U.S. government term, American Indian and Alaska Native, as the most general collective term (and either Native or Indian as the more geographically specific collective), we often rotate among Native, Indian, and Indigenous when speaking intertribally.

Second, we are not entirely happy with the term sovereignty as defined in the Western lexicon. But because of its wide use, particularly in Indian affairs, we cannot avoid it. From the perspective of most Indigenous people, what is involved in sovereignty is a natural right to autonomy, or self-determination, that people have as individuals and as members of collective entities such as clans, bands, tribes, and federations. But because actions (and nonactions) have consequences and we are all related (all traditionally including not only human beings but all beings), autonomy is not absolute but exists within an agreed-to set of relationships, traditionally often seen as involving respect, responsibility, reciprocity, and redistribution in order to keep everything in harmony and balance or, as the Diné, say, beauty. This definition is not far from the way sovereignty is viewed in U.S. federalism, in which both the states and the federal government are often referred to as sovereign, meaning they each have independent spheres of jurisdiction within a larger relationship. As we consider that tribal governments are governments within the system of American federalism (a major focus of chapter 3), this definition of sovereignty is appropriate. However, we also note that the entire history of federalism has involved arguments about what the proper extents of jurisdiction are. Some would find the term self-determination more appropriate than sovereignty, and indeed self-determination has been a key legal term in Indian affairs since the 1970s. The problem with it for many Native people is that the actions of the federal government in relation to Indian nations have not always corresponded with the common meaning of self-determination. We argue in this work that Native self-determination would benefit all Americans if its full meaning were honored.

It is important to note that in speaking of federalism and tribal governments in this work, we do not give full treatment to two important issues. First, although the territorial jurisdictions of tribal governments are on tribal lands, mostly in rural areas, today, both as a matter of economics and past U.S. government policy, almost two-thirds of tribal members live off reservations, whereas most services for Native Americans are delivered on usually distant reservations. Thus, there is a pressing need to provide adequate services and a voice in how they are delivered to urban Native people. In addition, there is a need to ensure that off-reservation tribal members have an appropriate voice at home, for example, by including Comanches in some cities in deliberations of tribal policy (which we discuss in chapter 4), and by considering the proposal that Navajos in Albuquerque be empowered to organize their own Navajo governance chapter.³

Second, in focusing on federally recognized tribes (and to some extent state-recognized tribes) and their members, along with their relations with federal, state, and local governments, we do not develop the major questions concerning which nations are officially recognized and how the recognition process works. Similarly, crucial questions exist regarding who is and is not a tribal member and how such decisions are made. Unless these sets of concerns are equitably and appropriately resolved according to the principles set forth in the unfolding of this volume, the Indigenous restoration that we promote in these pages will be incomplete at best.

It is our hope that the discussion in the following chapters in some small way will assist in returning American Indian nations to sovereignty, self-sufficiency, and harmony as full partners in American federalism and society. More broadly, we hope these pages will be helpful in improving the condition of Indigenous people around the Earth and in bringing into being a better approach to development in general and improved ways of doing many things, for the benefit of all.

Notes

1. Sachs et al., Recreating the Circle. Hunt drafted Part 3, Section A.

2. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks, 230.

3. Indian and Indigenous Developments: U.S. Developments, Tribal Developments, and States, Localities, and Indian Nations, Indigenous Policy 17, no. 1.

Part One

The Harmony of the Circle and the Impact of Colonialism

One

The Harmony of the Circle

AMERICAN INDIAN TRADITIONS AND THEIR RELEVANCE FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Stephen M. Sachs

American Indian people today are struggling to return to effective sovereignty, harmony, and self-sufficiency after more than five hundred years of colonialism. Before the European invasion brought devastating physical and cultural genocide, the tribal and band societies of what is now the United States were in general quite harmonious and democratic, providing mutually supportive relationships and a relatively high quality of life for virtually all of their members. The more than five hundred Indian nations were each unique in the details of their quite varied cultures but shared a common set of core values.¹ These basic values, applied in different ways and to differing degrees by each people, and by the same peoples in changing circumstances, provided the basis for good lives in usually well-functioning societies. The heart of the struggle for renewal by Indian nations and people today is to find the freedom, resources, and ways to return to these traditional principles in the context of the twenty-first century. Thus, a reexamination of traditional ways is necessary to recover what many Indian people no longer remember due to cultural genocide. Revitalizing Indian traditions and developing ways to apply and integrate them appropriately to the circumstances of contemporary life with an eye to building a positive future is not only essential for Indian people but is also relevant to the entire world at the dawn of a new millennium.

In this period of both troubling and hopeful change, with all too often violent conflict in the United States and throughout the world, there is a growing concern for rediscovering community on all levels that will renew harmony among human beings and between humanity and the Earth. The collapse of so-called Communism in Eastern Europe (although it involves much more than this, and only partially involves this problem) reminds us that extremely collectivist approaches to human affairs generally fail to achieve the good lives for everyone at which they aim, because these unitary approaches deny the diversity of interest and outlook upon which any true community must be based.² At the same time, the current U.S. experience suggests that over-reliance upon individualism as the basis of social relations may create the very war of all against all within society that Thomas Hobbes and other prudent liberals sought to escape through the social contract.³ John Locke tells us that in forming a social contract, people escape the scarcity of the state of nature in order to enter a society that offers the opportunity for potentially unlimited abundance.⁴ Yet at the opening of the twenty-first century, we are approaching the carrying capacity of the terrestrial environment. We find that our lust for unending economic development threatens our very existence. Thus, the laws of the state of nature that require us to consume no more than we need now apply within society.⁵

In the midst of contemporary crises, it seems wise to reexamine our basic concepts of politics and public policy in hope of avoiding the dangers, while also grasping opportunities to move ahead in the best way possible. Although the places to which we can look for assistance in this enterprise are virtually unlimited, it is important to note that a great deal can be learned from societies whose members lived quite successfully in considerable harmony with one another and with nature on this continent on which we live. Traditional Native American societies, although not perfect, enjoyed a generally high quality of life, with virtually no poverty or crime, and with mechanisms to provide for those who were not well off. These societies furnished a great deal of emotional and physical support through the members of extended families, as well as a sufficient variety of choices of social roles, so that almost everyone could find acceptance and develop self-esteem. The virtues of these societies are attested to in numerous ethnographies and commentaries.⁶

Christopher Columbus’s first impression recorded in his diary of the Native people he encountered is relevant: They are loving people, without covetness. . . . They love their neighbors as themselves, and their speech is the sweetest and gentlest in the world. ⁷ More to the point is a statement in 1782 by Hector St. John Crevecoeur in Letters of an American Farmer: There must be in their [the Indians’] social bond something singularly captivating, and far superior to anything to be boasted among us; for thousands of Europeans are [have become] Indians, and we have no example of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans.⁸ This is not to say that Indigenous North American societies were perfect in conception or fully lived up to their basic values. No society is or does. Rather, it is to say that as imperfect human beings, we all have a great deal to learn from one another.

Indeed, there is a long history in Western political thought of learning from Native American traditions, although those traditions were generally misunderstood by those who commented on them.⁹ It is clear from reading The Second Treatise on Civil Government that Locke was influenced by reports of tribal life in North America.¹⁰ Several places in The Social Contract and the discourses indicate that the Indian experience had an effect upon Rousseau.¹¹ Much of Marx’s theory of social evolution follows from Locke’s and Rousseau’s understanding of Indigenous society and was later confirmed in his reading of Morgan’s studies of the life of the Six Nations, which we call the Iroquois.¹² Marx and Friedrich Engels found the quality of life and the level of interpersonal relations of what appeared to be earlier forms of society so fine when compared with those of their own time that they came to believe that those natural human relations could return in a new form once the problem of scarcity was solved by the development of capital to a sufficiently high level.

Moreover, new scholarship now makes clear that the Indian experience with democracy and federation had a profound impact upon the framers of the U.S. Constitution.¹³ However, the framers did not go as far in developing democracy as had the Indigenous people they learned from. Although we need not repeat the analyses of prior social thinkers, their positive reaction to North American tribal societies is an indication that surveying the Indigenous experience might be helpful in finding good ways to deal with our present difficulties. At the same time, it is useful for Indian people to do so in order to revitalize their traditional roots as they renew their own lives and societies in the context of the twenty-first century. Therefore, section 1 of this chapter surveys that tradition, and section 2 continues the survey to show the relevance of North American Native tradition to dealing with problems in contemporary American and world societies.

1. Traditional American Indian Politics, Society, and Culture

When we examine traditional (before the impact of European contact) politics among Native American tribes and bands, we see that politics had a somewhat different character than has been accepted by the mainstream of Western political theory beginning with Hobbes and, perhaps, Machiavelli.¹⁴ Traditional American Indian politics is primarily about finding consensus within a community.¹⁵ The primary function of traditional Native American political leaders is to facilitate the building of consensus.¹⁶ Power is an important resource for doing this, but it is not the central element for determining the authoritative allocation of values (or for determining who gets what, when, where, how).¹⁷ Moreover, power in American Indian tribal and band societies is only partly a vehicle for control. It is also a source of empowerment. Tribal and band politics have very important cooperative elements along with competitive aspects. At the heart of this politics is a set of communal relationships based upon mutual respect, emphasizing both the community and the individual, so that in a very important sense, the whole is equal to the part.

The principle of respect for all people and indeed all beings (including the Earth, which was considered to be alive) was developed from practical experience, which taught that unresolved conflict was very dangerous to everyone, and that to live decently—and often to survive—required cooperation among the people in the community. This could best be obtained through an inclusiveness that emphasized honoring each person in the community (including all those affected by a decision, who were given a say in processes that built consensus) and a generosity that ensured that the basic economic needs of everyone in the community were met. (Similarly, one needed to respect the nonhuman beings in the environment to keep nature in balance, so that there would be enough food and other products for the people to survive and live well over time.) Therefore, the aim of life and of the natural order was harmony and balance in all relations. But from this perspective, harmony and balance are not seen as automatic. One has to work continually to attain and maintain them at every level. As the Chaudhuris, who have long been involved with the Muscogee, say of them: Given the unpredictable elements of nature and the quirks of human nature, the search for harmony takes sustained effort in all social institutions.¹⁸ Hence, in personal inner work and in all relationships, including with the natural environment and all its nations of plants, animals, and other forms, one continually participates in processes for returning to harmony. Each Native culture did this in a different manner, but almost all followed the same general principles (at least until they become too large or events put them out of balance), an important aspect of which was working to build and maintain community consensus.¹⁹

We can see the consensus-building nature of traditional Native American politics consistently by surveying what is known about the life of tribes and bands in North America before European contact.²⁰ For example, among the Inuit, Unalit, and other Arctic bands that are commonly called Eskimos, there was no formal leadership or governmental process.²¹ Through an informal consensus, a man (often the best hunter) was deferred to for leadership of the community. So long as he was considered a good leader (i.e., he was wise and acted effectively in accordance with community values), people would follow his advice in community affairs (such as when and where to move the encampment or when and how to undertake a hunt). But as soon as people were not satisfied with him, they would no longer follow his leadership. If someone in the community acted sufficiently outrageously to be considered a danger or serious problem to the group, the community needed to reach consensus before action could be taken against the alleged offender. Often the leader, or headman, of the community would initiate the discussion (in effect, a trial), but nothing would be done unless and until general agreement was reached as to the propriety of any action.²²

The Yakimas of the Columbia River area in the Pacific Northwest also lived in small groups (of from 50 to 1,500 people, generally averaging from 100 to 150 people).²³ Residents of each village met together daily in a general council to discuss and decide important matters. Leadership was exercised by elders respected for their wisdom, outstanding individuals renowned for their virtue (particularly generosity, fairness, and bravery), and those who were skilled in activities of importance to the community, such as fishing and hunting. Leaders advised the group as a whole and held considerable influence, but decisions were made by consensus. Villages generally were led by a headman and a small council. These individuals held their positions only so long as they retained the ongoing support of the community. When such support was withheld, they ceased to be leaders and new leaders arose according to the needs of the village. Closely connected villages formed bands, and in times of stress, several bands or villages might temporarily come together, but no regular structures existed for formal collaboration.

Similarly, the Chiricahua Apache of the Southwest lived in small bands, each with its own consensus-based governance.²⁴ They lived by hunting, gathering, raiding, and agriculture. Each band and, within it, each local group, was guided by one or more recognized leaders assisted by a number of subordinates. Important decisions were made at band or local group meetings at which all adults were present and male heads of household usually spoke to represent their families, although wives and unmarried sons and daughters might contribute to the discussion. A man would become a leader if enough people respected him sufficiently to give him their loyalty, and he would maintain that leadership role only so long as he maintained that respect and loyalty. People dissatisfied with a local or band leader could simply move away to another band or group. As in many bands and tribes, being of good family was an advantage in gaining the respect necessary to become a leader, and a leader was almost always the head of an extended family. But the primary basis of leadership was being respected for ability and good qualities, as demonstrated by an individual’s achievements. He must be wise, respectful of others, able in war, capable in managing his own and his family’s affairs, and generous. Thus wealth was an aspect of qualification for leadership as a sign of ability and as a source of the generosity that leaders were expected to exhibit by hosting prominent people, putting on feasts, and providing for those less well off.

The functions of a leader included being an advisor in community affairs, a peacemaker, and a leader in war. Although leaders could command in combat, they had no power of control in civil governance beyond what was supported by public opinion. To the extent that they were respected and were persuasive (a quality contributing to respect), leaders exercised influence in the forming of community views. However, even in the peacemaker role, leaders had only the authority of mediators when deviant acts or major disputes occurred. Because Chiricahua individuals needed one another’s help in a variety of economic and social activities (as is normally the case in band and tribal societies), the main influence for following social norms, including reaching settlement when necessary, was the pressure of public opinion (in which women played an important role in traditional Indian societies, as we will discuss later). Thus, leaders were under continuing scrutiny to act well and needed to be concerned for the needs and views of the members of the community.

In particular, the band leader needed to listen carefully to and take into account the advice of the local group leaders. They, in turn, had to be especially responsive to the leading heads of family, who were obligated to be responsive to the adult members of their family. Thus, power and influence were widely disbursed in Chiricahua society. Respected elders had the most political influence, but this influence and respect itself rested upon the opinions of the community members in a culture that emphasized respect for all community members (and indeed all beings). This dynamic is typical in band societies, including the more dispersed Ojibwa, who lived generally in single-family units engaged in hunting and gathering in the woodland and lake country of what is now the northern Midwest and adjacent Canada; the hunting and gathering Utes of the Rocky Mountains; and the Comanches, who we will discuss below in connection with overcoming contemporary disharmony through returning to institutions and processes that apply traditional values in contemporary context.²⁵

The basic values and underlying pattern of consensus-based decision making of band societies were also found in the larger and more complicated tribal societies in North America who had not yet begun to develop the attributes of states. For example, the Diné, popularly known as Navajo, were a society governed largely at the band level with somewhat more complexity in their social organization owing to their strong clan structure.²⁶ Clans (extended family units) were important in public affairs in part because they were responsible for the behavior of their own members (e.g., regarding debts, torts, and crimes). Because clans gave considerable emotional and economic support to their members, pressure from kinsmen, especially elders, was likely to have exerted a strong influence. In speaking of more contemporary local governance, Kluckhohn and Leighton describe what oral history shows was true of the old band government and which was typical of traditional Native American government in general:

Headmen have no powers of coercion, save possibly that some people fear them as potential witches, but they have responsibilities. They are often expected, for example, to look after the interests of the needy who are without close relatives or whose relatives neglect them [a rare occurrence in traditional times], but all they can do with the neglectful ones is talk to them. No program put forward by a headman is practicable unless it wins public endorsement or has the tacit backing of a high proportion of the influential men and women of the area.²⁷

The two authors go on to say that at meetings, the Navaho pattern was for discussion to be continued until unanimity was reached, or at least until those in opposition felt it was useless or impolitic to express disagreement.²⁸ They point out, however, that although public meetings provided an occasion for free voicing of sentiments and the thrashing out of disagreements, the most important part of traditional Diné political decision making took place informally in negotiations among clan and other leaders representing their respective groups, who regularly discussed community concerns face to face. (We discuss the important role of women in traditional politics later.)

The underlying principles of consensus politics based upon mutual respect can be seen in somewhat different forms in two upper Plains tribes who lived quite differently from the Diné: the Hidatsa and the Lakota. The Hidatsa were a relatively sedentary people who farmed, hunted, fished, and gathered along the Upper Missouri River in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.²⁹ Formed from a mix of peoples, their exact living arrangements varied over time. From the late eighteenth century until 1845, they constituted three villages, which in one period were independent and in another politically linked. In 1845, they moved into a single new village. However, at various periods the Hidatsa moved annually from their summer residences to winter camps. Social organization was complex, with a system of clans and moieties and an age-grade system that emphasized the influence of elders in political life beyond the universal attributes of age (e.g., as relating to wisdom, developing an even temperament, having a proven record) as a factor in qualification for political leadership in traditional North American societies.³⁰ All else being equal, a person in a higher age grade would be chosen for a leadership position. If a young man of good record attempted to assert leadership, the elders would usually tell him to be patient: When you are older and have demonstrated your ability in other things, the people will want you to be their leader. . . .³¹

Indeed, it was thought that capable people of good character should have a chance at leadership when they were ready for it. Therefore, it was the custom that many civil positions—such as leader of the summer hunt, manager of the winter camp, or leader of ventures beyond the summer village—were held for short duration. This practice diversified power and fostered an equality following from the principle of mutual respect. War leaders might be more permanent, but they could lead only to the extent that other men were willing to follow them. Thus, upon finding dissatisfaction with their leadership, many war leaders had the tact (good manners were required by mutual respect) to invite discussion of the issues and attempt to satisfy the complainers. If they could not, they would suggest that someone else lead.

The same was true of civil leaders. A Hidatsa camp or village leader, advised by a council of elders, might be able to enforce decisions with the help of the men of the Black Mouth age grade (a partially senior grade below that of elder), who acted as police. But any family or person who wished to move elsewhere could do so. Moreover, important civil decisions and questions of war and peace were not made by leaders (although leaders were influential) but rather at council meetings where everyone was represented. Normally, considerable time was taken in making decisions so that every household and subgroup had a chance to consider the matter and have an elder male member express its views. No decision could be made until it was unanimously accepted, which might take extensive negotiation.

Religion was an important factor in all aspects of Hidatsa life, including politics (as it was in different ways and to different degrees in all traditional Indian nations, as we discuss later). Every village and village ward had a prominent spiritual protector, with a powerful bundle, and all top civil and military leaders were those of spiritual ability and often were leaders of important religious rites. Because spiritual leaders were not an organized priesthood, or hierarchy, in a society in which all members had medicine, religion sanctioned and did not diminish Hidatsa democracy on the basis of mutual respect. Thus, religion was a strong force in supporting and maintaining tribal values and ways with which, as a rule, it was fully consistent.

The Hidatsa’s neighbors, the Lakota (Western Sioux), functioned in the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century on the basis of essentially the same political principles, despite differences of social organization and economics.³² The Lakota were primarily wide-ranging hunters and gatherers. They had no clans, moieties, or age grades, and descent was effectively bilateral. The more varied life of the Lakota made more explicit the fluidity of governance common to the Hidatsa and a great many other Native peoples. The Lakota were widespread over the northern plains, with the buffalo the mainstay of their economy and hence central to life. They were one of an association of seven tribes that may once have been a federation. The Lakota themselves were composed of seven bands, whose members lived in independent camps, or tiyospaye, for much of the year.

A tiyospaye, in effect and sometimes in fact an extended family, could be formed any time enough people came together in a camp or related camps to establish a council of several categories of office. As was the case in units in quite a number of Indigenous societies, membership in a tiyospaye was voluntary. People could join and leave the camp at will. This placed a restraining influence upon political authority, pressuring leaders to treat people respectfully and keep them happy. Among the men of the council was the itancan, the symbolic father or titular leader of the tiyospaye. He acted as facilitator at council meetings, and through his moral and persuasive leadership and personal generosity, he carried out his responsibility for seeing to the welfare of the members of the tiyospaye. This responsibility included the heavy burden of caring for the sick, orphaned, and indigent. An itancan was chosen by his fellow council members, following the consensus feeling of the community. He was expected to be kind, generous, wise, patient, diplomatic, and brave. He would be removed by the council (if he did not resign) if he became ineffective or acted improperly. Typically, an itancan appointed two trusted friends, often younger warriors, to keep him informed of the affairs of the community and to act as his diplomats.

Major decision making was undertaken at council meetings at which anyone, including elder women, could speak. No decision could be made until a consensus was reached. Often the itancan would simply listen to the discussion, but he could be influential in commenting at key moments. Unlike many small bands, in which decisions were enforced by pressure of public opinion or on occasion by community members after a community leader had facilitated the making of a consensus on a course of action (in effect, a trial), the Lakota did have a regular mechanism for enforcing council decisions and established customary norms of behavior (as did many Indian societies that were larger than small bands). The Wakiconza was a committee of two to six men chosen every spring to oversee the movement of the camp, arbitrate disputes, supervise the community buffalo hunt, umpire games, and oversee all wagers. The Wakiconza was assisted by the Akicita, who were responsible for enforcement and carrying messages. The Akicita had sufficient independence to require anyone, including leaders, to obey their orders. The Akicita were kept within the limits of their job by careful selection, a limited term of office, and pressure of public opinion. Any Akicita who became tyrannical was taken in hand by the military societies, which played an important role in the warrior life of Lakota society. Thus checks and balances were built into social organization. That these checks and balances were devised deliberately is made clear by the traditional story of The Festival of the Little People, whose moral states: It is not wise to put the strong in authority over the weak.³³

When the camp moved, responsibility for governance rotated with the circumstances. The Wakiconza decided the route and led the line of travel. When movement began, the Akicita encircled the people, watching for signs of external danger while making sure no one fell behind, strayed from the chosen route, or acted improperly. If the people were threatened by enemies, the war leader (blotahunca) and his warriors took charge, just as they would if the camp were threatened. Once the people reached their destination, the Akicita of the march were dismissed and a more relaxed camp life returned. Similarly, when a buffalo hunt was undertaken, the Wakiconza sent out scouts and planned the hunt. Then the Akicita were put in charge to coordinate the movement of the hunters.

Although there was regularly cooperation among Lakota in different groups, each tiyospaye made its own decisions independently about whether to join in some larger activity. Furthermore, during the years when difficulties with the U.S. government became more intense, warriors in a tiyospaye sometimes acted on their own, without the agreement of the civil leaders or the consensus of the community. However, at times, particularly during the winter, several Lakota bands would come together in a single camp with governance following the pattern of the tiyospaye but adjusted for the larger community circumstance.

The band itancan and Wakiconza formed a multiband council with one of each of the tiyospaye types of officials performing his particular function for the multiband camp. Akicita were then appointed to police the camp, with any appeals resulting from their actions referred to the council. In addition, four warriors with the best character and achievements were selected as head shirtwearers to act as peacemakers in the camp. Shirtwearers served a life tenure but could be deposed by the council for major infractions. Although some of the details are different, camp governance was essentially the same for an annual Sun Dance as for other occasions, with the difference that spiritual leaders played the leadership roles. The Sun Dance was a major summer religious ritual for the renewal of the Earth and the people, and often attended by Lakota from more than one band. However, within the ceremony itself, spiritual leaders governed completely (although they were subject to the same pressures of public opinion as the secular leadership was, with the possibility that they could lose prestige and ceremony participants should they be seen as acting improperly).

Major decisions by the council in multiband Lakota camps involved the band leaders on the council acting in accordance with the consensus of their own tiyospaye and discussion moving back and forth between informal discussions among tiyospaye members and council meetings until a general consensus could be reached. This is the principle on which the larger federations of tribes typically operated. Examination of one such case presents helpful insight into the general nature of the power of leaders and the process of decision making that in different ways and to different degrees pervaded traditional North American Indigenous societies. Bruce G. Trigger describes the traditional ways of the Wendat, more widely known as the Huron, who lived around Lakes Huron and Erie.³⁴

The Huron were a confederation of several tribes numbering from thirty to forty thousand people in 1634. They lived partially intermingled with one another in settlements of as many as two thousand people that consisted of a central town and surrounding villages. Their social organization included a clan structure. In each community, each clan segment had two formal chiefs, known as Yarihawa (he is a great voice), who were chosen from among the men of the clan that held the right to serve in that office. Their primary functions were to announce decisions arrived at by a process of consensus formation that involved discussion by all the adult men and women of their group and to facilitate the discussion process. Chiefs could advise and persuade, but they could not decide. No action could be taken until it had been acceded to by every person who was affected by it. In practice, that meant that decision making tended to include the concerns of everyone involved. To reach consensus on a proposal, the group would continue to modify it to take into account each person’s concerns until almost everyone supported the decision, and the few who did not, having been heard and seeing nothing to gain by further discussion, accepted the view of the group.

The chief’s first duty was to assist his own group to come to a consensus and then to represent his people in negotiating with the chiefs of other groups. Trigger states:

Huron Chiefs had no constitutional authority to coerce their followers or force their will on anyone. Moreover, individual Huron were sensitive about their honor and intolerant of external constraints, and friends and relatives would rally to the support of someone who believed himself insulted by a chief. Overbearing behavior by a chief might, therefore, encourage a violent reaction and lead to conflicts within or between lineages. In the long run, chiefs who behaved arrogantly or foolishly tended to alienate support and would be deposed by their own lineages. The ideal Huron Chief was a wise and brave man who understood his followers and won their support by means of his generosity, persuasiveness, and balanced judgment.³⁵

The two chiefs of each clan segment at the local level were the civil chief and the war chief. The civil or peace chiefs, who were primary, were concerned with matters of everyday life, from settling disputes to arranging feasts, dances, and games to negotiating foreign treaties. The separation of peace and war chiefs, and the primacy of the civil chief, was typical of many tribes. Among the Cheyenne, for example, a chief of one of the military societies, upon becoming one of the forty-four peace chiefs, would have to resign his chieftainship of the military society.³⁶ This primacy of civilian over military leadership is similar to the U.S. Constitution having the president, a civilian, as commander in chief of the armed forces. It may well be that the older tribal practice is the basis, or at least a contributing source, for the U.S. practice.

The national government of each Huron tribe consisted of a council made up of chiefs of the clan segments in each community. (The one exception was the Tahontaenrat Tribe, which lived in a single settlement, so that its community and national governments were coterminous.) The confederacy council appears to have been composed of the civil chiefs of the various national councils. The national and confederacy councils had no power to compel the groups whom their members represented. Their function was to develop consensus through dialogue and mutual exchange among all the parties involved in the matters they considered. In order for the decisions of these councils to be effective, they had to be accepted by the constituents of the chiefs. This meant that national and confederacy affairs were discussed by citizens at the local level to a far greater extent than is true in modern federal republican governments, with the result that chiefs were usually far more representative of their constituency than elected representatives in the United States and many other Western and non-Western countries are today.

Underlying Huron politics was a culture that balanced strong concern for individual (e.g., person, family, clan) autonomy with a rigorous equalitarian moral sense of the good of all (e.g., family, clan, tribe) and respect for the views of others. Thus, there was an abhorrence of compelling action of anyone. But, at the same time, both by upbringing and ongoing experience, Huron people were very sensitive to the views of others and to the pressure of public opinion. If one acted improperly, one would lose honor and, eventually, necessary economic and social support if she or he went too far. In the Huron case, as in the case of many (but not all) Native North American peoples, this meant that, through honoring generosity, no one was allowed to be either poor or rich. Similarly, although certain political and social positions of authority might belong to specific clans or clan segments (but filled on the basis of perceived merit within that clan or segment), authority, and hence power, was widely dispersed so that individual offices carried limited authority. This system worked to keep effective the primary limitation on power: public opinion. This widespread arrangement in traditional North America is somewhat similar in effect to, although it is less formal and more extensive than, the later use of the combination of separation of powers, checks and balances, and direct and indirect elections by the framers of the U.S. Constitution, who almost surely were influenced by Indian practice (both directly and indirectly, as through influential English thinkers such as John Locke, who clearly incorporated Indian ideas and practice in their theories).

The Huron cultural and related structural basis of politics is in many ways typical of traditional Indian societies. In some way or other, virtually every North American culture developed its own unique way of dynamically balancing a set of seemingly opposite values to produce a harmonious unity (e pluribus unum?).

Beginning in terms of what we have been discussing, the first pair of opposites consists of freedom and autonomy for the individual (person and group) harmonized with the primacy of the whole (family, clan, working group or party, village, tribe, world, or whatever level of wholeness was relevant in a particular context). This balance is illustrated by the broad range of societies we briefly referred to above and can be seen in others representing additional geographic areas and ways of economic and social living.³⁷ The general principles applied even in the most diverse of cultures. For example, the collection of cultures in the Southwest referred to as Pueblos were strongly formal in their governance (particularly in contrast to the informality of their Diné neighbors).³⁸ Perhaps more than any other traditional North American societies, the Pueblos formally emphasized the spiritual nature of life. Life in the Pueblo cultures was tightly integrated with an emphasis upon unity that was perhaps the strongest of any traditional North American societies. Yet the individuality of person and group remained. In the cycle of the year’s highly organized rituals, each individual had a distinct role.³⁹

From what we know about them from the period of the Spanish Conquest of North America, Pueblos at first glance appear to be governed by a theocracy, which mostly follows their precontact practice. But the leading priests only set the spiritual and philosophical tone for government, and the governor (cacique, following the Spanish nomenclature) chosen by the council of priests, like chiefs elsewhere, could advise only, not command. The cacique and his assistants oversaw executive process and, like the European formal head of state, he announced decisions of the Pueblo council. But in legislative and judicial matters, including oversight of executions, decision making was undertaken through consensus by the council along the same general lines typical of Native American traditional government that we have discussed.⁴⁰ The consensus basis of Pueblo decision making can be seen to this day in a modernized form at Laguna Pueblo, where, over an extended period, discussion of issues goes back and forth between the members of the elected council and constituents until general consensus is reached and then made official by a unanimous council vote.⁴¹

Similarly, a number of traditional Native societies had strong hierarchical aspects that contrast with the general equalitarian nature of some of the Indian nations we have discussed. However, hierarchy in almost all of these societies did not carry so far as to negate the essential roles of participation and consensus building, although it might somewhat diminish them. The Kiowa, for example, had distinct socioeconomic classes, with strong competition for position and status, in which band leaders could give orders.⁴² Yet neither political nor social position were hereditary (although good parentage was an advantage), for both had to be attained and maintained by achievement and a reputation for right living. Moreover, as in some of the other cases previously discussed, band leaders were strongly restrained by the fact that their followers were at liberty to leave them at will and join or form another band.

This was the case even in Kwakiutl (and other Pacific Northwest Coast) society, where amidst huge natural bounty, there was a more permanent hierarchy of largely inherited positions with leaders competing to outdo one another in huge giveaways (potlatches).⁴³ But, in matters of subsistence for living and many other aspects of life, participation and the need for consensus based upon the dignity of each person remained, even as collaboration and sharing ensured that persons with the lowest status had enough to live comfortably.

Along with uniting the principles of individuality and wholeness in traditional North American society, there was a harmonizing of competitiveness (among individuals and groups) and cooperation. Among the Plains Indians, such as the Lakota, for example, there were numerous opportunities to compete for honor by undertaking socially desirable actions and exhibiting the four virtues: bravery, fortitude, generosity, and wisdom.⁴⁴ Such might take place in warfare in which a man would be recognized for being among the first in a battle to touch an enemy or for leading a raid to steal horses from an enemy camp. When a young Lakota man went on his first buffalo hunt or undertook some honorable action, his father would often have the camp crier go round the village announcing that the father was giving away a horse to a poor family in honor of his son’s deed.⁴⁵ Giving to those less fortunate was honorable and increased the community opinion of the benefactor. A woman would be honored for making beautiful articles of clothing and sharing them with others. Conversely, hoarding goods for oneself was dishonorable, and indeed any improper act reduced one’s standing.

By channeling competitiveness into promoting helpfulness, American Indian societies tended to encourage collaboration.⁴⁶ This was accomplished more directly in other ways, however. One of the most important of these was inclusiveness, by providing everyone with a role in community affairs, as exemplified by the consensus decision-making processes discussed above. An essential element in the development and maintenance of cooperation was the acculturation to collaborative values, stressing the well-being of the whole before everything else while also providing continuing opportunities to participate in supporting the whole through activities involving mutual support.⁴⁷

Extended family relations were also an important aspect of the maintenance of harmony and balance in community affairs. As Ella Deloria says of the Dakota:

Kinship was the all-important matter. Its demands and dictates for all phases of social life were relentless and exact; but on the other hand, its privileges and honorings and rewarding prestige were not only tolerable but downright pleasant for all who conformed. By kinship all Dakota people were held together in a great relationship that was theoretically all-inclusive and co-extensive with the Dakota Domain. Everyone who was born a Dakota belonged in it; nobody need be left outside. [And since being Dakota, as with Indian societies generally, was more a matter of participation in the community than blood, kinship included all who effectively joined the community, whether they married in or were adopted, a common practice throughout traditional Native America.]

I can safely say that the ultimate aim of Dakota life, stripped of accessories, was quite simple: One must obey kinship rules: One must be a good relative. No Dakota who has participated in that life will dispute that. In the last analysis every other consideration was secondary—property, personal ambition, glory, good times, life itself. Without that aim and the constant struggle to attain it, the people would no longer be Dakota in truth. They would no longer be even human. To be a good Dakota then was to be humanized, civilized. And to be civilized was to keep the rules imposed by kinship for achieving civility, good manners, and a sense of responsibility toward every individual dealt with. Thus only was it possible to live communally with success; that is to say, with a minimum of friction and a maximum of good will.⁴⁸

Deloria goes on to point out that kinship, like all the other principles we have been discussing, while not functioning perfectly, worked quite well in Indian