Freedom and Leaders.........

[pam]

These two passages are from a book called Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Elder by Kent Nerburn. I find them thought-provoking and pretty close to my beliefs........I've always thought if somebody has to give it to you it's not really freedom... I have always only followed somebody if they were worth following and even then I'm more likely to be beside them not behind them. There is a LOT of interestin things in this book, I put these here because they follow what we've been talkin about lately.

On Freedom....................................
"The most important thing for white people is freedom. The most important thing for Indian people is honor.

The white world puts all the power at the top. When someone gets to the top, they have the power to take your freedom. In your churches there is someone at the top. In your schools, too. In your government. In your business. There is always someone at the top, and that person has the right to say whether you are good or bad. They own you. No wonder Americans always worry about freedom. You have so damn little of it. If you don't protect it, someone will take it away from you.

When you came among us, you couldn't understand our way. You wanted to find the person at the top. You wanted to find the fences that bound us in. Your world was made of cages and you thought ours was, too.

Everything looked like cages. Your clothes fit like cages. Your houses looked like cages. You put fences around your yards so they looked like cages. Everything was a cage. You turned the land into cages. Little squares. Then you made a government to protect these cages. And that government was all cages. The only freedom you had was inside your own cage. Then you wondered why you weren't happy and didn't feel free.

We Indians never thought that way. Everyone was free. We didn't make cages of laws or land. We believed in honor. To us, the white man looked like a blind man walking. He knew he was on the wrong path when he bumped into the edge of one of the cages. Our guide was inside, not outside. It was honor. It was more important for us to know what was right than to know what was wrong.

We looked at animals and saw what was right. We saw how every animal had wisdom and we tried to learn that wisdom. We looked to see how they got along and how they raised their young. We did not look for what was wrong. Instead we always reached for what was right. It was this search that kept us on a good path, not rules and fences. We wanted honor for ourselves and our families.

The only time freedom is important is when others are trying to put you in chains. We had no chains so we needed no freedom. We had always had our freedom, so you had nothing of value to give us. All you could do is take it away and give it back to us in the form of cages.

You took our honor and gave us your freedom. And even you know that is no freedom at all. It is just the freedom to live inside your own locked cage. "

On Leaders..................................

"Sitting Bull was a leader. He was a real chief. People followed him because he was great. He never won any election or was appointed by any government. That's not how you get to be a leader. It was an honor you earned.

There are leaders and there are rulers. We Indians are used to leaders. When our leaders don't lead, we walk away from them. When they lead well, we stay with them.

Your system makes people rulers by law, even if they are not leaders. How can a calendar tell us how long a person is a leader? That's crazy. A leader is a leader as long as the people believe in him, and as long as he is the best person to lead us. You can only lead as long as the people will follow..

In the past when we needed a warrior we made a warrior our leader. But when the war was over and we needed a healer to lead us, he became our leader. Or maybe we needed a great speaker or a deep thinker.

The warrior knew when his time had passed, and he didn't pretend to be our leader beyond the time he was needed. He was proud to serve his people, and he knew when it was time to step aside. If he won't step aside, people will just walk away from him. He cannot make himself a leader except by leading people in the way they want to be lead."