Here's some of what he says:
If you are going down to the game, what I do ask of people is that if you are drunk and happen to be wearing a goofy headdress, please do not attempt to do the dance. (or even if you aren't wearing a headdress) In our minds, it's demeaning and stupid. You look like a monkey and smell like one too. (I didn't mean to write that line, but it fit). I was there last weekend and saw it happening over and over again. I can see why the protesters thought we were being insensitive...because we were.
Your interpretation of the dance isn't fitting, it isn't respectful and it isn't helping the cause. For more than 80 years, the keepers of the tradition abide by strict rules of conduct on and off the field. We held the tradition in reverence and while the tradition is no more, it doesn't mean that your recreation is any better.
We've been on the reservation, we've seen the honor and elegance of the dance. Attempting to recreate it out of a drunken stupor is not what I or the other chiefs call respectful. It took us months of training of the body and the mind to get the dance right and it's proper place is on the field...not next to your keg.
Outrageous, eh?!
2 comments:
Respectful?!?! At least if they are drunk that have some kind of excuse for that behavior--but to purposefully, soberly, go out on the field and "perform", and then just as purposefully and soberly, defend that action? What kind of excuse can there be for that? (I am just reading back a ways in your blog, and couldn't help commenting while I was there.)
Yes, Claire, what HE does is in some ways worse because they wear a cloak of what they call "honor." A cloak they wear in front of those they claim to honor, with those they claim to honor saying DO NOT DO THIS!!
Debbie
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