In South Dakota, the Lower Brule Sioux have found a way to promote their heritage and culture without the trappings of Native American cliches and kitsch. Now the tribe waits to see who will come.
Which spiel Jones gives depends on a form you fill out, indicating what you're interested in: Geology? History? Treaty issues? Reservation life circa 2007? And so on.
Jones, who directs the tribe's cultural protection and tourism efforts, is a big, pear-shaped man with a trim salt-and-pepper beard who doesn't look particularly native. As we drove west in his huge white truck, he chain-smoked and ate Doritos and corn nuts while he talked about Frank Herbert's Dune, the science fiction epic in which he sees some hope for Native America--a way to blend old and new, ancient and modern, into a new way to live.
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Writerfella here --
writerfella knows why and how the Brule Sioux seemingly have embraced Frank Herbert's SF writings into a portion of their philosophies. Luckily, Frank Herbert was one of writerfella's Clarion Workshop teachers in 1972 and 1973 at the University of ashington in Seattle, and Frank Herbert immediately took an interest in writerfella. Frank just had returned from a tour of Asian nations, including China, as a part of his involvement with the civilian World Without War Council. He just had finished testifying before Congress, in which he and the others said that the "have-nations" should cease humanitarian aid to "third-world" nations and instead focus their efforts on forcing the "third-world" governments into bringing their peoples into the modern world. Congress then said, 'Thank you, but no thank you.'
And Frank then invited writerfella along with two other student writers to his room to share some Jasmine tea from China. writerfella brought his first edition Ace paperback of the original novel DUNE for Frank to autograph. He gladly signed it and served tea to us three. Then he ignored the other students and fastened on writerfella, asking if writerfella knew the desert. The answer was yes, that writerfella's native Oklahoma fast was becoming a desert, that writerfella had camped out along the shores of Lake Mead in Nevada, and that he had hiked in the desert outside Tucson AZ in the past. Tell me what you saw, Frank said. And writerfella told that the challenge of the desert was several-fold: you sensed that the air temperature differed at your feet, at your knees, at your waist, at your chest, and on your face. Then, the arid expanse speaks to you in a language you recognize but you are unsure exactly what is being said. And finally, the desert holds echoes of ancient knowledge that keep you moving forward as you pass through it. Frank sat there silent, sipping the excellent tea, and then he hugged writerfella tight, making him spill his tea. "Muah-Dib!" he said, and he shed a few tears. This left writerfella mystified but Frank then handed writerfella a publisher proof copy of the novel, SOUL CATCHER and told writerfella to read it that night. The novel was excellent, telling Northwest Native tribal history and a story of hope after their devastation. writerfella discussed the novel with Frank the next day and said it was superb. Frank sighed and then said he believed he had done well in his job as its writer. Then he autographed the proof copy with an effusive appellation. Thereafter, Frank gave writerfella's Native workshop stories high marks and then defended them against any and all critics. He especially loved "Fifth And Last Horseman," writerfella's tale of the end of the human world because humans had destroyed the animals with whom they had shared evolution. In the story, Native Americans became the only humans to survive the extinction because they had begun to save the animals with whom they had lived.
writerfella had a similar experience with R. A. Lafferty and now he believes that Irish science fiction writers have an intrinsic understanding of Natives and tribal life, if only because their root people kept their own tribal origins intact before they spread out with the rest of Caucasians to explore and subdue and decimate and conquer the rest of the world.
Soon, writerfella will express what he learned from such men and teachers and their contacts in his own new story all by itself, "The Luck Of The Iroquois..."
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Writerfella here --
POSTSCRIPTUM: And now it has struck writerfella, after relating the above, that there is a lesson inherent in the original DUNE books that almost all readers miss. The current cultural domination of the human world by EuroMan is based on vastly mistaken assumptions and other misconstructions that somehow Earth's climate possesses both stability and dependability. Worldwide climatic change already is underway, quickly to become inexorable and ineluctable, and the signs are being ignored or at least minimalized in importance so that EuroMan's 'civilizations' can plunge onward more or less with business-as-usual. Within the next four decades, rising temperatures and resultant weather pattern shifts likely will disrupt world economic systems to the point that they no longer can support the human agencies that power both technologies and the populations dependant upon those. Oddly, only those who still maintain ties to their aboriginal identities will stand any chance of enduring and surviving beyond coming times of collapse, catastrophe, and chaos. EuroMan both has forgotten and divested himself of his own tribal origins and much is in danger from forces that he actually but only partially has helped to set in motion.
THAT is the lesson of DUNE and also in "Fifth And Last Horseman," in that Herbert's Fremen and writerfella's Native minions of John TallowHands represent the aboriginal on horseback as the fifth horseman, the only sign of hope riding along with the other four: War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
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