Vizenor Concordance: On GOVERNANCE

“My first question that afternoon in the basement was about his singular book, Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, published a few months earlier in 1969.  He responded that “we really need the younger generation to come in and take over the whole structure of Indian Affairs.”  Vine was thirty six years old at the time of the interview, and in the next five years he inspired thousands of young natives to engage in politics and governance, participate in national organizations, and study treaty law and literature, and at the same time he graduated from the University of Colorado Law School, taught at Western Washington State University, advocated native fishing rights, and published five more books, We Talk, You Listen; Of Utmost Good Faith; God is Red; Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties; and The Indian Affair.” (3.1)

“Vine encouraged native movements that were progressive, clever, and embraced an ethos of governance, and celebrated the right of resistance in the ruins of civilization.  He declared that it was crucial that natives “pick the intellectual arena as the one in which to wage war.  Past events have shown that the Indian people have always been fooled by the intentions of the white man.  Always we have discussed irrelevant issues while he has taken our land.  Never have we taken the time to examine the premises upon which he operates so that we could manipulate him as he has us.”” (3.1)

“The delates were seated at five large round tables, eight at a table, and were invited to consider, discuss, and record the critical content of a constitution.  Each table named one delegate to summarize the discussions, and late that morning of the first convention the native delegates considered native sovereignty, rights and justice, banishment, community youth and elder councils, and the principle of communal reciprocity.  The ideas and specific principles were presented and later the recorded discussion notes were transcribed and discussed by the entire delegation.  The notes and principles discussed at the conferences were the basis of my duty as the principal writer, to consider the actual content of the articles of the constitution and present every proposed article for final consideration at the last convention.  The Constitution of the White Earth Nation has twenty chapters and one hundred and eighteen articles.  The United States Constitution was not an easy structure to consider as a model to declare a native ethos and principles of governance.  Luckily, my graduate studies included a critical review of the Constitution of Japan created by senior officers of the military occupation who served General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers.” (3.3)

““The Constitution of Japan provided uncomplicated chapters that clearly described the modern practices of governance,” I wrote in The White Earth Nation: Ratification of a Native Democratic Constitution, published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2012.  “I adapted the chapter style with thematic divisions, such as executive, legislative, judiciary, advisory councils, elections, citizenship, native rights, and the duties of elected representatives.  My adaptation of this forthright and uncomplicated structure made it much easier for me to consider and organize specific chapters on independent governance.”” (3.3)