Okay, I lied. I don't have a Cherokee grandmother. I am pretty sure my grandmother never met a Cherokee in her life. A few years ago, after a conference, we were all having dinner and as usually happens when two Indians meet each other, one of my co-workers asked another person at our table what tribe he was from. He smiled and said,
I am guessing that since that was the tribal program that had sent him to the conference, he was, too. I was thinking of this gentleman today when I was trying to explain why the Tribal Leaders Institute is different. You probably do face a little skepticism telling people you are Cherokee when every other person is claiming to have a grandmother who was a Cherokee princess (does anyone know if the Cherokee ever actually had princesses? It sounds kind of unlikely to me.)
Looking all over the web, I saw a lot of sites like this Native American Traditional Code of Ethics, which I have no idea whether it is written by three people who are enrolled members of a tribe in Arkansas (note to self: find out if there are any tribes in Arkansas) or by a New York City ad agency. Legitimate or not, it had a lot of nice sentiments like "Respect your elders," "Don't interrupt other people", "Be truthful". I could hardly object to this by arguing that it is better to disrespectfully interrupt people with lies.
Talking to Erich about it today, it finally dawned on me why these sites bothered me. In her book on the seven signs of moral meltdown, Marianne Jennings mentioned a couple of times companies like Enron that had "Ethics Codes" even won awards from organizations set up to recognize such things, at the same time that the company was defrauding stockholders and governments of millions of dollars, outright lying in its annual reports and so on.
There is a huge difference between having a nice-sounding ethical code and living it. Erich often says that the most crooked people are found in church. I am not sure about that. I go to church more than most people. On the other hand, I have to agree with him that going to church is no guarantee that you didn't spend the week embezzling a million dollars.
I think this is why so many of those "Native American creed" websites bother me. Over the years, I have known a heck of a lot of people who claimed to be "traditional", told me all about their culture, went to sweats or sun dances or a whole bunch of other things, but also flat out stole money from their programs, cheated on their wife right and left, did not support their children and were about as far from ethical as one can be.
Then, there are people like Erich, like Carol Davis, Lorraine Greybear, Nelrene Yellow Bird, Willie Davis and others, kind of like the man at dinner who really was half-Cherokee. They talk about their culture but they also seriously do their best for whatever program that employs them, work the hours they get paid and go out of their way to learn more, do more, help their community. They never claim to have any credentials like speaking Dakota fluently or having a graduate degree unless they really do have that. As we used to say when I was young, they don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk.
That, I think is the critical difference in the Tribal Leaders Institute. People are encouraged to live those values, to be examples and to challenge violations of the values that they claim to support. My grandmother would be proud.
In case you are wondering, although I doubt you are, this picture was taken on an island not all that far from where I would have grown up if my grandparents had not decided to emigrate to CANADA ! Having gone to visit, I wish my grandmother was still alive, not only because I miss her wisdom and good humor, but also because I want to ask her, "You moved from here to CANADA?! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?"
"Well, I know that every white person you ever met claims to be half Cherokee, but, ma'am, I really AM half-Cherokee."
I am guessing that since that was the tribal program that had sent him to the conference, he was, too. I was thinking of this gentleman today when I was trying to explain why the Tribal Leaders Institute is different. You probably do face a little skepticism telling people you are Cherokee when every other person is claiming to have a grandmother who was a Cherokee princess (does anyone know if the Cherokee ever actually had princesses? It sounds kind of unlikely to me.)
Looking all over the web, I saw a lot of sites like this Native American Traditional Code of Ethics, which I have no idea whether it is written by three people who are enrolled members of a tribe in Arkansas (note to self: find out if there are any tribes in Arkansas) or by a New York City ad agency. Legitimate or not, it had a lot of nice sentiments like "Respect your elders," "Don't interrupt other people", "Be truthful". I could hardly object to this by arguing that it is better to disrespectfully interrupt people with lies.
Talking to Erich about it today, it finally dawned on me why these sites bothered me. In her book on the seven signs of moral meltdown, Marianne Jennings mentioned a couple of times companies like Enron that had "Ethics Codes" even won awards from organizations set up to recognize such things, at the same time that the company was defrauding stockholders and governments of millions of dollars, outright lying in its annual reports and so on.
There is a huge difference between having a nice-sounding ethical code and living it. Erich often says that the most crooked people are found in church. I am not sure about that. I go to church more than most people. On the other hand, I have to agree with him that going to church is no guarantee that you didn't spend the week embezzling a million dollars.
I think this is why so many of those "Native American creed" websites bother me. Over the years, I have known a heck of a lot of people who claimed to be "traditional", told me all about their culture, went to sweats or sun dances or a whole bunch of other things, but also flat out stole money from their programs, cheated on their wife right and left, did not support their children and were about as far from ethical as one can be.
Then, there are people like Erich, like Carol Davis, Lorraine Greybear, Nelrene Yellow Bird, Willie Davis and others, kind of like the man at dinner who really was half-Cherokee. They talk about their culture but they also seriously do their best for whatever program that employs them, work the hours they get paid and go out of their way to learn more, do more, help their community. They never claim to have any credentials like speaking Dakota fluently or having a graduate degree unless they really do have that. As we used to say when I was young, they don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk.
That, I think is the critical difference in the Tribal Leaders Institute. People are encouraged to live those values, to be examples and to challenge violations of the values that they claim to support. My grandmother would be proud.
In case you are wondering, although I doubt you are, this picture was taken on an island not all that far from where I would have grown up if my grandparents had not decided to emigrate to CANADA ! Having gone to visit, I wish my grandmother was still alive, not only because I miss her wisdom and good humor, but also because I want to ask her, "You moved from here to CANADA?! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?"
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