BIA apology pervades Native American spirituality dialogue
9/13/2000
NOTE: A photograph will be available for use with this story. A sidebar, UMNS story #409, also is available.
By John A. Lovelace*
OKLAHOMA CITY (UMNS) -- The timing was exquisite - and ironic.
On the same day that the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) marked its 175th anniversary by apologizing for the agency's "legacy of racism and inhumanity," about 80 Native American Christians, Native religionists and non-Indian guests were raking the very idea of apologies over the coals.
One speaker at the Sept. 7-9 Third National Native American Ecumenical Dialogue characterized apologies to Indians as essentially, "Gee, I'm sorry. Can I keep your land?"
That's a form of cheap grace, insisted the Rev. George Tinker, an Osage, Lutheran clergyman and professor at United Methodist-related Iliff School of Theology in Denver.
"We have two healing jobs, ours and our brothers' and sisters'," he continued. "We can't give up our spirituality as we did our land. Before we attempt reconciliation with our white relatives we need to dig deeply into our spirituality."
Spirituality, the ecumenical dialogue's principal theme, wasn't addressed explicitly by the federal agency's chief executive, Kevin Gover, a Pawnee and native of Lawton, Okla. But its deep meaning to Native people was not hard to infer from his remarks, which two dialogue speakers quoted at some length.
"Never again," Gover said in Washington, "will we attack your religions, your languages, your rituals or any of your tribal ways. Never again will we seize your children, nor teach them to be ashamed of who they are. Never again."
It was almost as if the bureaucrat and the ecumenical dialogue were in some kind of electronic "chat room." In Oklahoma City, person after person told how he or she or his or her parents or grandparents had been sent away to BIA-run boarding schools.
"Legally kidnapped," one described it. Others told of being punished for speaking tribal languages or attempting to practice tribal rituals. One person added this interesting twist: "Our parents never had a chance to learn how to be parents."
Church-related mission schools fared no better in dialogue participants' stories. Many described themselves as having been "missionized" in those schools.
Even more painful - and self-incriminatory - were BIA attacks on native languages subsequently lost or endangered. One speaker cut to the core: "Language is going to be our survival -- IF we survive. And I know we will. Language is a gift from God. We need to keep it within ourselves."
Another speaker was blunt: "Without our language to describe who we are, we just become brown white people."
One speaker said only five or six speakers of his Native language "are alive on this planet. And when they're gone. …"
Another speaker said, "We are always only one generation away from losing our language." He asked how many people in the room were fluent speakers of their Native language. Less than a dozen hands went up. Your children? Only a hand or two. Your grandchildren? No hands.
The ecumenical dialogue did its part to keep Native tongues alive. Each morning began with songs in Native languages. Blessings before meals were offered in Indian languages, then translated into English.
One speaker exhibited the basically oral-only nature of many Native languages. He explained that the Kiowa word that sounds like "Ah-ho," said softly, is a friendly greeting. He encouraged participants to repeat the word after him. Then, he said, the same words spoken with stern passion, as in "Ah-HO!" mean "kill her or him." The repetition had a chilling effect.
The simple ritual of shaking hands even came under examination. One speaker identified the handshake as the all-inclusive Native sign of an unbreakable relationship. Another contrasted the Native handshake-"often no more than a light touch"-with the "white man" practice of gauging a person's character by the strength of a handshake. Yet another person said he was taught to shake hands "so you can make sure he doesn't have a weapon." One woman, speaking of a Creek burial, described the tossing of a handful of dirt onto a casket as "the final handshake."
Speakers, singly or in panels, presented such topics as the loss of traditions, traditional healing, the "glass ceiling" as it affects Native Americans, prisoners' rights, public education, native wisdom, relationship to the land, sacred sites and reconciliation.
This third in a series of national dialogues was guided and funded mainly by the United Methodist General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. Partners included Native American units of the United Church of Christ and Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and the National Council of Churches' Council on Native American Ministries.
Anne Marshall, an associate general secretary in the United Methodist agency, led the planning team for this dialogue. A Muscogee and native Oklahoman, she told the final session, "Europeans [whites] and African-Americans discuss reconciliation as including power, privilege and prestige. We add a fourth P: Permission. You don't have to ask permission to be Indian. For Native people, integrity is the very basis of our being. You were Indian before you were Christian or anything else.
"To us, power is not control but the freedom to move and do. We say to our partners, 'Don't stand behind me but stand beside me. We'll do this together'."
# # #
*Lovelace is editor emeritus of the Dallas-based United Methodist Reporter and a 1998 inductee in the United Methodist Association of Communicators Hall of Fame.
Related Story
Korean News
