Fear
and Loathing in Montana
By John Potter
The only things I inherited from my parents are things that
you can place absolutely no monetary value on: first, a passionately
artistic bent, and second, a strong feeling of what‚s
right and what‚s wrong. I also inherited a tendency
to lose hair where I don‚t want to, and GROW it where
I don‚t want to as well...and I tell ya, THAT is just
WRONG.
But I digress.
Part of the blessing of inheriting an artistic nature is that,
life is strongly defined by my emotional responses to things.
In short, life for me is shaped, moment to moment, by things
that cause feelings of love, loathing, joy, sorrow, fear,
and unsightly rashes.
There are many things that I love in life. I love the raw,
untamed, natural beauty of wild things and wild places. I
love candlelight on my wife‚s face. I love the rosy
glow of sunset light on the trees, the mountains, and on my
chocolate-chip cookie, before I shove it down my gaping pie-hole.
I love an exquisitely prepared Indian taco (I prefer ELK burger,
thank you...).
And, 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.
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 which we are all 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 DOL, and its lackies among
the Forest Service, the National Park Service, and Montana
Fish & Game. 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?
No Indian can tell another what to do, but I can ask you,
encourage you, to join the battle that the BFC 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 non-violent boundaries, of course). Call
or write or email the governor of Montana and bend his ear
backwards. Send a dollar or two to the BFC. Send Œem
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. Stick a banana up the tail-pipes of
the DOL‚s pickups and ATVs.
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 John Potter, an Ojibwe Indian originally from
Wisconsin, worked for nearly twenty years as an award-winning
illustrator and columnist for the Billings (Montana) Gazette.
He now lives in the Northeast, where he devotes his full time
to his artwork. John and his wife Janet have a home in Montana,
and plan to return there to live out the rest of their lives
- hopefully - in a place where wildness and natural beauty
are not only tolerated, but revered.
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