IKTOMI IN HIS WORLD WIDE WEB

We pause to note the passing of the Lakota warrior Russell Means on October 22, a journey he faced bravely:

“I’m not going to argue with the Great Mystery. Lakota belief is that death is a change of worlds. And I believe like my dad believed. (…) When it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go. I’ve told people after I die, I’m coming back as lightning. When it zaps the White House, they’ll know it’s me.”

In researching recent interviews with Means, we discovered a remarkable video of a conversation with Amir Payam of BBC Persian, during which Means looks deep into the “integral soul” of his imperial wardens. Below the link, we offer our own slightly abbreviated transcript:

TESTIMONY OF AN AMERICAN INDIAN PATRIOT

Enter Iktomi, the spider:

Pine Ridge Reservation opens Chris Hedge’s lucid analysis of “sacrifice zones” in his book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt. He summarizes his journey through the assorted devastated zones in an interview with Bill Moyers:

One of the epigraphs for Hedges’ chapter on Pine Ridge is taken from D.H. Lawrence:

We were curious about the extended context for the quote, so we tracked down Chapter 5, a discussion of Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking novels, with editorial emphasis added in bold to the last line:

EXAMPLE OF A BREAK FROM STATIC ISOLATION

The products of disintegration are everywhere; imbeciles and braggarts rule the day, under the influence of Iktomi. Now the integral soul – Deerslayer – becomes restless, hungry to make things clean again and restore order. Let us hope that on the day when yet another “new move” shakes the world, there will be abundant sacred lightning in the sky to put an end to it.

In his last video, or at least the last that we have been able to find online, Means references a book on Lakota philosophy, co-authored with philosopher and Master Mariner Bayard Johnson:

IF YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN THE NAMES OF THE CLOUDS