"There is a dark side to tribalism and that dark side may be the end of us if we can’t control it, or if we continue the failures to cooperate that have been our historical undoing.

There is no such thing as an Indian. We who maintain tribal relations understand that even if the dominant culture does not. They have historically given us “one size fits all” Indian policy. We must recognize that while all Indians are not the same or even similar, they are similarly situated vis-à-vis the United States.

This is not “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” This is a common need for cultural preservation within the federal system where all tribes are going to share a similar legal and political status whether they like it or not. This has always been the case. Our leaders have at times dealt with it well or poorly, but it has always been the case. This sensitivity to our common—dare I use the word?—plight must guide our politics more than it has.

Tribal sovereignty, if it is to survive in American law, must be more important than historical intertribal rivalries and more important than market share. The latter has been enough to set Indian against Indian and if it doesn’t stop all sides will learn the dismal arithmetic of dividing zero by whatever number makes them happy.

Race and Tradition
As I began to write these words my tribal election season was at hand. As usual, all the candidates claimed to be “traditional.” This is a claim easy to make and hard to disprove. What is traditional? We are now over half Christian, and more of us speak English than speak Cherokee. Many of the accoutrements of contemporary identity have roots in recent times: frybread, ribbon shirts, jingle dresses, pow wows. On the other hand, some items of earlier provenance, such as blowguns and turbans, surprise some modern Cherokees. We date our first written laws from 1808. Is written law traditional? More to the point, is the current Cherokee law of citizenship, a race-based law like that of most American Indian tribes, traditional?"

Get the Story:
Steve Russell’s New Book, Sequoyah Rising (Indian Country Today 7/20)