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Identity Enactment and the Occupation of Wounded Knee

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Identity Enactment and the Occupation of Wounded Knee View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UNL | Libraries University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 5-1-2002 MENDING THE SACRED HOOP: IDENTITY ENACTMENT AND THE OCCUPATION OF WOUNDED KNEE Sheryl L. Lindsley California State University, Stanislaus Charles Braithwaite California State University, Stanislaus, [email protected] Kristin L. Ahlberg University of Nebraska - Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Lindsley, Sheryl L.; Braithwaite, Charles; and Ahlberg, Kristin L., "MENDING THE SACRED HOOP: IDENTITY ENACTMENT AND THE OCCUPATION OF WOUNDED KNEE" (2002). Great Plains Quarterly. 39. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/39 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published in Great Plains Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 2 (Spring 2002). Published by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Copyright © 2000 Center for Great Plains Studies. Used by permission. MENDING THE SACRED HOOP IDENTITY ENACTMENT AND THE OCCUPATION OF WOUNDED KNEE SHERYL L. LINDSLEY, CHARLES A. BRAITHWAITE, and KRISTIN L. AHLBERG I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth­ you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead. - John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks (1961)1 This account by Oglala holy man Black Elk KEY WORDS: American Indian Movement (AIM), Ghost Dance, Oglala, protests, rhetoric, Wounded of the 1890 US cavalry massacre of three hun­ Knee dred Sioux Indians, mainly women and chil­ dren, helps us understand the rhetorical Sheryl L. Lindsley was an Associate Professor of importance of the American Indian Move­ Communication at California State University, ment's return to Wounded Knee eighty-three Stanislaus, at the time of her death in February 2000. Among her many honors for work in intercultural years later. The occupation ofWounded Knee, communication were the B. Aubrey Fisher Award from South Dakota, in 1973 by the leaders of the the Western States Communication Association, and American Indian Movement (AIM) repre­ the Outstanding Scholarship Award from the sented a culmination of frustration felt by International and Intercultural Division ofthe National Native Americans.2 Magazines as diverse as Communication Association. This paper was completed by Charles A. Braithwaite, Editor of Great Plains Time and National Review reported the inci­ Quarterly, and Kristin L. Ahlberg, doctoral candidate dent as a staged "pseudo-event" designed to in American history at the University of Nebraska­ amplify the oppressor/oppressed relationship.3 Lincoln. Ms. Ahlberg specializes in diplomatic history News coverage of Wounded Knee included and presidential history, and recently received a Moody headlines of mockery: "Of Fallen Trees and Fellowship from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. Wounded Knees," "Pain in the Knee," "Am­ bush at Credibility Gap," "Not With a Bang," [GPQ 22 (Spring 2002): 115-26] and "Bamboozle Me Not at Wounded Knee."4 115 116 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2002 Therefore, many national media responses may groups of the 1960s. As rhetoricians within be characterized as minimizing the seriousness movements such as black power and women's ofthe event and discrediting the rhetors them­ liberation became increasingly frustrated that selves. However, the historical significance of their concerns were not being addressed, their the Native American occupation of Wounded demands would often escalate "far beyond the Knee, as well as the ensuing trial, which was ability of the authorities to act." viewed as a major civil rights case for Native Intercultural barriers to understanding were Americans, justifies their rhetorical analysis another major hurdle faced by AIM rhetors. and augments understanding of the American As Cragan argued, "The Indians lacked expe­ Indian protest movement.s rience in creating rhetorical dramas which From a rhetorical perspective, these afore­ could be understood by white Americans ... mentioned news headlines may be viewed as a because of cultural differences."ll This gen­ failure by AIM leaders to achieve a rhetorical eration of urban Native Americans, the first identification with their audience in estab­ to be educated in Euro-American higher learn­ lishing broad-based support for their goals of ing institutions, were forced to try to make Native American sovereignty and return of convincing use of their newly acquired intel­ Native lands. When viewed through a tradi­ lectual and rhetorical skills in communicat­ tional rhetorical perspective wherein a rhe­ ing with a predominantly Euro-American torical transaction takes place in order to affect audience. the perception, beliefs, and goals of listeners, The final barrier consisted of multifaceted it is clear that the AIM rhetors failed to achieve forms of institutionalized racism which the desired changes in US government poli­ marginalized Native Americans' political and cies.6 Previous studies have identified a num­ economic positions within society and lim­ ber of issues that negatively impacted the ited opportunities for communicating their success of AIM members, including timing, own perspectives (e.g., Native American's lives "excessive demands,"7 and intercultural barri­ were often interpreted through Euro-Ameri­ ers to understanding.s Undoubtedly, multilay­ can ethnocentric perspectives). In addition, ered structural inequalities between Euro­ dominant society's stereotypes of Native Americans and Native Americans also con­ Americans as either "noble" or "ruthless" sav­ strained the enactment and interpretation of ages symbolically negated Native American the rhetorical message. identity through popularized mass media. The first major problem faced by members Jamake Highwater explained the Native of AIM, timing, was illuminated by John F. American dilemma in this way: Cragan in his dramatistic analysis of the failed rhetoric surrounding occupation of the Bu­ We had to release a tide of communication reau ofIndian Affairs (BIA) building in Wash­ between two worlds, and to do this we had ington, D.C., orchestrated by AIM in late to be a kind ofpeople who had never before 1972.9 Although this method of confronta­ existed. We had to abandon both Andrew tion through occupation had experienced some Jackson's "Wild Indians" and Jean Jacques successes in other social movements through­ Rousseau's "Noble Savage" and emerge as a out the 1960s, Cragan argued that "by 1972, cultural mutant-the "Intellectual Savage" the novelty of such dramas may have worn who was capable ofsurviving equally in two thin." In addition, he characterized the de­ worlds by tenaciously retaining the ritual mands by AIM members who occupied the apparatus ofprimal people at the same time BIA building as "excessive,"l0 and pointed out that we were attaining the intellectual and that making excessive demands follows a rhe­ communications paraphernalia ofthe domi­ torical pattern established by other protest nant societies. l2 MENDING THE SACRED HOOP 117 Therefore, each of these issues-timing, ment for better general education, more voca­ "excessive" demands, cultural communication tional training, adult education, and economic styles, and institutionalized racism-nega­ development plans, and it was another av­ tively impacted Native Americans' success in enue for federal withdrawal from the Indian this rhetorical event. In reviewing the nega­ business."14 tive news coverage of the occupation, and the Dwight D. Eisenhower's successors-John Native Americans' failure to achieve their F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson-rejected pragmatic goals, Wounded Knee can be seen the premise of federal abandonment of Indian as a rhetorical failure. However, rhetoric may tribes and instead advocated collaboration be viewed as multifunctional; it exists to in­ between tribes and the federal government. form, to influence, and also to express iden­ Kennedy, shortly after his inauguration, tity. The responsibility of the critic, therefore, charged his Interior Secretary Stewart Udall lies in determining if any rhetorical goals were with appointing a committee to study issues met by the Native American rhetors. Richard relevant to native populations. Members of B. Gregg's "ego-function of rhetoric" lends the resultant Task Force on Indian Affairs­ valuable insights into the psychological needs including former Wisconsin Lieutenant Gov­ fulfilled by protest rhetoric, that is, its role in ernor and future Bureau of Indian Affairs head expressing identity.13 In applying the ego-func­ Philleo Nash-concluded that the admin­ tion model to the discourse of AIM members istration should promulgate economic and and their supporters, we will explain how, from
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