“Culturalcide” is a word coined in Indian Country

One sunny day, Tatanka Iyotanka (Sitting Bull) was sitting on a bench outside of his log home on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation conversing with his two wives when a Christian minister rode up to the house in his buckboard.

The minister exchanged a few pleasantries and then got down to the business that had brought him to the home of the great Sioux leader. He told the Chief that it was un-Christian of him to have two wives. It went against the will of God. It was barbarian. It was the way of heathens.

Sitting Bull listened patiently, probably with a small grin on his face because he had heard all of this before from the white man, and said to the minister, “Well, there they are. Now you tell them which one has to leave.”

Which of these Lakota women would you deprive of a loving home? It was an answer based on plain Lakota logic. But then Lakota logic had baffled the white man for a century. And well it should because it was logic based on centuries of cultural beliefs totally unknown to the European settlers.

The problems between the two races began because by not understanding the culture of the Lakota, the white man then disrespected it. He disrespected it by trying to remake it into something he could understand. If he could not remake it, he attempted to diminish it or destroy it.

Lakota logic and European logic did not blend. It was like trying to mix water and oil.

A Lakota man took more than one wife for many reasons. Perhaps a brother had died leaving a widow with children. In the Lakota way, the surviving brother then became responsible for his brother’s wife and children. It was his duty to give them food and shelter. His brother’s children became his children and his brother’s wife became his wife. Unchristian? Uncivilized?

When the settlers moved west they saw it as their responsibility to disrupt the civilization of the Lakota. Of course we know this as Manifest Destiny. Just as the Spaniards made it an edict to either convert the indigenous people of South and Central America or kill them if they did not convert, so too did the settlers moving west try to convert a people by destroying their culture. Culturalcide?

Of course, changing a culture is something that cannot be done over night. As so many conquerors have discovered in history, the best way to create a new culture in their own image is to start with the innocent children.

Institutionalization seemed to be the best way. But in order to do this the new government of the United States needed help. It turned to the many Christian churches and organizations that were already intent upon saving the souls of the so-called heathens. In the late 1800s the government and the church convinced tribal leaders like Red Cloud and others to donate land to the Catholic Church (and other religions) in order to construct Indian missions that would be turned into boarding schools.

Institutionalization had begun.

In collusion between church and state, the boarding schools sprang up all across Indian country. They were precursors of the federal boarding schools like Carlisle and Haskell, schools intent upon acculturation. Stewart, Pine Ridge, Phoenix, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque, were just a few of the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools that soon became familiar institutions across the west.

Hundreds of religious institutions from Arizona to Washington State to the Dakotas had already begun the tedious process of destroying the different Indian cultures and traditions. The same thing was happening across Canada. They called the schools “residential schools” up there. A continent-wide, methodical destruction of language, attire, religion and culture of many indigenous tribes had begun. The same thing was happening across Central and South America.

There will always be that argument by church and state that this was done for the good and for the survival of the Indian people. But was it? Didn’t the eventual illegal seizures of millions of acres of Indian land and resources enter into the equation?

The thinking was, at the time that if the Indian was made over in the image of the white man, there would be an end to the Indian problem. The acculturated Indians would assume their roles in society and the headache they presented would vanish. Everybody would just be plain and simple Americans.

However, the process of acculturation did not provide for inclusion. Indians were not recognized as citizens of the United States. They were isolated on lands known as Indian reservations. In Canada they were known as Reserves. They were excluded from participating in the governments of the newly formed states. The message was, “you can act like us, dress like us, speak English like us and worship our God, but you are not welcome to our table.

The process of acculturation was not a complete failure. Many Indians converted to Christianity and became, in the eyes of the federal government, productive citizens. Those who did not were shunned. They were given names by the converted Indians of bucks, wild Indians, full bloods and traditionalists. What is worse, this stigmatization forced the traditional Indians into various stages of poverty. They became the have-nots.

While those who acculturated and converted to Christianity prospered somewhat, the traditionalists remained as the poorest of the poor. And this condition exists even to this day.

Modern terminology still points this out. When someone does not conform, they are said to be “off the reservation.”

But I believe those who have been shunned for many years, the traditionalists, are winning over the hearts, mind and spirits of those who converted. The traditionalists have remained steadfast in their beliefs, they have retained their spirituality and language, and have set the example for those who thought that by abandoning their culture and traditions they would be better off.

When Sitting Bull told the minister to select the wife to leave his home, he spoke volumes of what was to become the assault upon the culture and traditions of the Lakota people.