Projects
American Indian Community Data Profile, 2002
Namadji Youth and Elders Project Report, 2001
Forum Reports
1997 Fall: Tribal Sovereignty and
American Indian Leadership
1996 Fall: Tribal Governments: What will they look like in the year 2010?
1996 Spring: The Threatened State of Tribal Sovereignty
Tribal Sovereignty and American Indian Leadership
October 17, 1997
Dr. Vine Deloria Jr.
University of Colorado
Larry Leventhal, AIRPI board member and attorney, quipped about how difficult it is to introduce an icon such as Dr. Vine Deloria Jr., because his list of accomplishments is well-known and seems to run on forever. Thus, instead of listing Deloria's credentials, he read from the transcripts of the 1973 trial of Dennis Banks and Russell Means for the Wounded Knee occupation, in which Deloria served as an expert witness. The crowd laughed along as Leventhal opened a window into a day when Deloria had to convince the judge and a flustered prosecutor that he qualified as an 'expert' witness, even though he often used humor and absurdity to illustrate his ideas regarding Indian history and politics.
Deloria, a noted legal scholar and author, is currently finishing a book about Congresses (meetings) held with American Indian tribes about Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) (1934). Through the IRA Congresses, John Collier, the original IRA author, spoke with Indian people around the country to raise support for the IRA bill. Deloria spent the last three years researching government documents and reading transcripts from the Congresses. In transcripts of elders speaking about the IRA, Deloria relates, "Indians for the most part have resigned themselves to allotment, but they've not given up the traditional clan and kinship customs and they're still looking at the tribe as composed of a series of families."
Deloria called for a return to American Indian traditions. He applauded AIRPI's recent report, Traditional American Indian Leadership: A Comparison with U.S. Governance, that summarizes the distinctions between traditional Indian leadership and the U.S. system of governance. The U.S. system of governance is based on fundamentally different principles than American Indian forms of leadership.
In United States governance, people elect politicians who campaign and seek positions of power. In this system, leadership authority resides in positions that exist independent of the leaders who fill them. Deloria asserted, "In the United States we have a hybrid government. We didn't want a monarch, but we wanted a lot of the power that monarchs had."
The United States government derives its authority and power from the consent of the people to be governed. This consent is based on the "social contract" in which the governed give up individual liberties for security and order. According to Deloria, the social contract means that "in the original state of nature, everyone would kill themselves...but for the fact that a government was formed." He added, "This sets up a social contract based on antagonistic principles. The principle conflict is already built in." In this way, he maintained, the United States government is based on antagonistic principles.
In comparison, Deloria reported, if you look at Indian culture, you start with the same idea that "there once was a small group in nature...and this group recognized the value of relatives. So they said 'We're going to have a society of responsibility. In order to belong to this tribe you have to do certain things. You have to treat your relatives a certain way, you have to treat society at large a certain way. You have to feed the poor, you have to take care of the orphans, [and] provide for the elders."
In American Indian tribes, leadership was based on relationships and kinship responsibilities. People were aware of their responsibilities because they grew up learning their obligations at every stage in life from those who went before them. He related, "You're born into this society and you're the beneficiary of the concerns of everybody who is older than you. As you age and go through that society you have different responsibilities." Deloria likened the way that Indian leadership traditionally worked to how people come together after someone has died. He said, "When you have memorial in any of your communities you don't need to set up a committee. People talk to each other...everybody immediately falls in line [to do what is needed]."
American Indian communities traditionally chose as leaders those who best served it. Deloria said, "That's how traditional governments really functioned. The people who could serve the community best then became the leaders." He further explained, "Originally leaders were leaders because people came to them to ask them for help. The old leadership was a poor guy hassled day and night because everybody knew he was a good person and would do things for them." Deloria reported in Indian tribes, "...formal institutions were unnecessary." The communities were relationship-centered and people worked together to survive and maintain tribal culture.
There are obvious fundamental differences between traditional American leadership and the U.S. system of governance. Deloria compared traditional American Indian leadership to the U.S. social contract form of government where the slogan is "It doesn't matter how you vote, just so you vote." In the U.S. system, he wryly observed, "You can line up all the morons in the world, they can all vote according to the emotional state they find themselves in when they pull the lever, and somehow this is supposed to be a wise decision. That's why we have the [U.S.] government we have."
Unfortunately, with the IRA of 1934, European-based governance systems were essentially imposed on tribes. Under the IRA, tribes were supposed to decide for themselves what form their government would take, but where it could, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) imposed European-based styles of government on tribes. The IRA transcripts report American Indian elders questioning the format of these governments. Deloria said, "The old timers stand up and say, 'I'm not sure we want to do this'...they're unable to translate the natural way of governing themselves into concepts that would make sense to the BIA lawyers." As a consequence, Deloria stated, "The BIA has forced a lot of tribes to adopt governments that...are really not more powerful than high school student councils." He explained, "Indian tribes have to be looked at as entities with inherent political powers, not with delegated political powers. So severe questions can and should be raised about the interference of the BIA in tribal affairs" Moreover, Deloria pointed out, "The law as written [that is, the IRA governments' structure], fluctuates tremendously depending on your Indian leadership." The tribes that fared the best under the IRA (1934) were those with strong leadership that went to the BIA and told them what they planned to do under the IRA, rather than letting the BIA impose their ideas about governmental structure on them. Deloria cites the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the Mescalero Apache, and the Yakima as examples of tribes that took full advantage of the benefits they saw offered in the bill. They pushed the laws to work in such a way as to restore the traditional tribal systems of leadership as much as possible.
A significant point made by Deloria was that the forms tribal governments have taken under the IRA are not working because they are not Indian. He commented, "If you have a clear idea of what Indian government was, then you can see very quickly how the government forms we're asked to use are absolutely the wrong forms." Nowadays, tribal councils often make institutional decisions that have nothing to do with the lives of the people. Deloria reflected, "Today if the tribal council makes a decision, you haul in 26 morons in three-piece suits and they talk about rules and regs., subsection 3A...It's not what the people want. People, I think, would prefer a free-flowing thing." Moreover, American Indian people need to redefine their understanding of leadership to reflect traditional Indian ways. Deloria asserted, "If you look at the last thirty years we have had millions of dollars poured into leadership...they are basically trained to do nothing. They have no character themselves, they just keep occupying positions." Instead of emulating European-based styles of government, Deloria suggested, "What we need to do is upgrade leadership in tribes and organizations and get them to follow more strong tribal ways."
Deloria told of two independent historical examples of how traditional leadership systems worked to the advantage of tribes in their negotiations with white settlers. There was a party of white men sent up to Dakota territory authorized to make treaties and gain cessions from the Dakota tribes they encountered. They stopped first at the Santee settlement to form treaties with them. They offered a treaty, and translated it for the Santees, who then replied that they would discuss the matter that night and come back with their decision the next morning. To the surprise of the white men, the Santees knew English and came back the next day with a written document stating their position and the terms they would not agree to in the treaty. Deloria reported the white response was, "It's pretty hard to deal with these Indians because they understand what we're talking about." The white men moved on, and further along on the treaty-making expedition, the party came to the Yankton settlement. The Yanktons appointed a spokesman to deal with the white men on the first day, who the white men assumed was the chief. He told them that he would take their proposal to his people and discuss it with them. The next day, a new spokesman was appointed, and the whites were confused. As it turned out, the Yankton elders and leaders decided it would be best to appoint a different spokesman every day so that no one individual could be bribed and the white people could not influence the entire tribe through one man. Like the Santee, the Yankton dominated the meeting by asking the elders and deferring to traditional ways.
Deloria suggests that in order to achieve a return to a traditional style leadership and avoid the corruption of today's tribal organizations, Indian people must begin by taking families and responsibilities seriously. Indian people need to feel responsible for each other in all of their actions. They need to work for each other outside of formalized structures and government agencies, as was the common practice before IRA tribal governments. Deloria suggested setting aside a day every week for storytelling as a strategy for helping people remember the importance of family and responsibility. He said, "One thing we have to do is set aside a day where you have as many people as will come, and you have the oldest people tell stories. It doesn't have to be, 'This is when creation came.' It can be about when they were kids in the 20s and 30s and what life was like then." In this way, he asserted, "You'll very quickly change the nature of tribal government because those kids will feel they belong to something of their own."
Deloria further advocated a return to traditional ways. In the traditional ways, he shared, "Everyone in the community knows what their responsibilities are going through the life change process...they learn by observing and participating." The return to traditions does not have to be regimented. He commented, "The great thing about the traditions you didn't have to have formal institutions. People knew who they were, they knew what they were supposed to do and they followed those things naturally." If American Indians start regular storytelling, we will not need the rigor of formal institutions to make sure everyone gets taken care of and fairly treated. People will begin to take on the responsibilities themselves, as it was in traditional American Indian ways. Deloria closed, "You've got to build up the moral character, but the way you do that is the way we've always done it, by having a community that knows who it is, practices traditions, and everybody looks out for each other."
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