| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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Article 5/07/05 |
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| Fear,
loathing over buffalo treatment
By John Potter, Billings Gazette Guest Opinion
5/07/05 |
I
love the buffalo.
I love everything about the buffalo.
From an artistic standpoint, I love their shape, size
and color; their marvelous bulk and their magnificent
grace and power. From a spiritual standpoint - well, hey,
I'm an Indian. I love them because they are my elders,
my older brothers and sisters, my teachers, my counselors,
my friends and family.
From a Native point of view, we are MADE of the buffalo,
as we are made of everything else.
Walking recycling machines
Science tells us that we completely replace the atoms
in our bodies every seven years. This means that we are
all walking recycling machines - and any thinking person
would then understand that we - all of us - are made up
of recycled mastodon and saber-toothed tiger. We are recycled
bunchgrass, stardust and - buffalo.
Any thinking person would then understand, too, that our
society, in its headlong effort to dominate the natural
world, is destroying all that we are MADE of. In effect,
by destroying and dominating all that lies in our path
of "progress," we are destroying ourselves.
To the Native mind, this is arrogance and stupidity of
monumental proportions. Which brings me, then, to the
few things in life that I FEAR. One of the things that
I fear most in life is stupidity, and those that seem
to want to embrace it as a lifestyle. (Yes, many times
I have scared myself half to death).
And any thinking person would understand, then, that I
am absolutely TERRIFIED of the Montana Department of Livestock
and its lackies among the Forest Service, the National
Park Service, and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. You
all scare the ever-livin' Indian tacos right outta me
by your rapt stupidity and indulgent ignorance in "dealing
with the buffalo."
Another thing that I fear - almost to the point of loathing
- is apathy.
Apathy runs rampant throughout the dominant society when
it comes to the raping of the wild world, the depletion
of our natural resources, and the destruction of the buffalo.
What scares me even more is that so many of our own Native
People are apathetic toward the buffalo, as well - and
this is just WRONG.
We Indians honor the buffalo in our art, our songs and
in our ceremonies, but are we helping to stop the new
slaughter of our older brothers and sisters? We hold our
sun dances and we raise our center poles with symbols
of the buffalo attached, but do we lift a finger to protect
the last of our elders being murdered by modern-day cowboys?
Battle for buffalo
No Indian can tell another what to do, but I can ask you,
encourage you, to join the battle that the Buffalo Field
Campaign has been wading into every day for eight years
now. These buffalo are the last genetic descendants of
the ones who fed and clothed and nurtured everyone from
the Plains Ojibwe to the Mountain Flathead. They have
the DNA memory of the White Buffalo Calf Woman coursing
through their blood.
The U.S. government has long believed that eliminating
the buffalo will erase the Indian from the Earth - and
they are correct in thinking so. They have been trying
to do just that for 150 years, in order to make the world
safe for their sacred cow, and they are still at it. When
the buffalo are gone, we will be dead.
We must stand up for our elders and do something. ANYthing
(within legal and nonviolent boundaries, of course). Call
or write or e-mail the governor of Montana and bend his
ear backwards. Send a dollar or two to the BFC. Send 'em
some long underwear, or some AA batteries. Stick a stamp
on a letter to your legislators, and tell them to support
legislation to protect the buffalo.
Working together to protect the buffalo is working to
protect ourselves, our spirits and our cultural identities.
NOT doing ANYTHING at all would be either stupid or apathetic.
Don't make me fear you.
I pray for peace. John Potter, an Ojibwe Indian originally
from Wisconsin, worked for nearly 20 years as an artist
and columnist for The Gazette. He now lives in the Northeast,
where he devotes his full time to his artwork and often
returns to his home in Montana.
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