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The Rez of the Story





 

 

Hau

Mitakuyepi (Greetings My Relatives),

This is one of those FYI columns that will illuminate as well as possibly create enough intrigue in you to seriously consider delving into this matter further. These are concepts well worth exploring if you want to be a more informed and active voter or if you might be contemplating public office at some time in the future. Of particular interest is the contributive factor of Native American political and governance thought–suggesting and perhaps dispelling altogether, negative stereotypes some American non- Indians still cling to about Native people being savages at the time of so called “discovery.”

Here taken from my old friends Keoke and Porterfield from their book entitled, American Indian Contributions to the World, tell us that, “Socialism is a political philosophy that regards a class-free society–in which the collective good is valued over individuality as the ideal society. The Iroquois, indigenous to what is now New England, created the Iroquois League between A.D. 1100 and 1450. European political philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were influenced by the Iroquois ideas of government.

“Marx and Engels, both of whom were German, lived in England. They did not have contact with the Iroquois but learned of their constitution through the work of Lewis Henry Morgan, who would later come to be known as the father of American anthropology. He spent nearly 10 years in close contact with the Iroquois people and his writings were far more objective than any others until that point. . .

“Morgan detailed how the Iroquois had set up their government with checks and balances and equal distribution of wealth and power. Iroquois leaders were essentially servants who could be removed for any negative behavior relating to the people they served or to the office they held. Ordinary people were allowed religious and political expression, and women were allowed to participate in the political process.

“Most of the thinkers in the 1800s had difficulty grasping the concept of a society without private property or social classes. Up until this time Euro- peans saw other cultures only in terms of European knowledge and experience. Many authors attempted to describe the American Indians with words like feudalism and kingships– concepts that were based on the European system of private property. Morgan’s studies of American Indian people stood in sharp contrast to this way of thinking. His experience with the Iroquois led him to believe that the American Indian society without private ownership of property and without class worked because it was based on family ties and kinship relationships as opposed to private ownerships. At first glance the League of the Iroquois appeared more socialist in nature than democratic.

“All these concepts, and more, captivated Marx and Engels. They saw in Morgan’s book a political system that worked and was, at the same time, almost their ideal of a classless and leaderless state. Among the Iroquois, the idea of private property and the competition to acquire wealth was almost unheard of. These concepts appealed most to the two political philosophers. Morgan’s description of Iroquois of Iroquois society fit into Marx’s theories and was an alternative to the monarchy or the Russian czarist form of government that he was uncomfortable accepting. He felt that absolute rule placed too much power in the hands of one person and produced a very unequal distribution of wealth, in addition to which the masses has a few political choices or rights.

“After Marx read Morgan’s work, he became excited by the ideas and began writing a book incorporating Morgan’s theories with his own. Marx died before he could finish the work. Before he died, he declared Morgan’s scholarship a significant piece of writing that all socialist needed to read in order to understand the basis of his own theory. . .

“As late as 1964, Moscow hosted a symposium of the International des Sciences Anthropologigues er Ethnologies devoted to Morgan’s theories and writings. Inadvertently, the Iroquois had contributed greatly not only to the government of the Unites States of America, but to that of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as well.”

I think it is important to know that Native people had and continue to have a significant role to play in the unfolding of the global politic of the future.

And now you know the rez of the story.

Doksha (later).

Vince Two Eagles is a columnist for the times, his columns were born of an effort to help people in rural areas learn more about the beliefs and lives of Lakota and Dakota people. He has created a compilation of his columns in a book called “Rez of the Story- Volume One.” To order the compilation go to his website at: www.rezofthestory.com or call 605-660-0378. Vince can also be reached at otokahe@hotmail.com.


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