"If you are frightened, that's not the same thing as not being courageous. Courage is going ahead and fighting back anyway. It's not the absence of fear, it's perseverance in the face of fear." --
A storm had gone through with a terrible wind, but now the sky was clear. The whole tribe had been highly alert during the roaring noise and now could hear small sounds that meant nothing. Wind days were good for creeping up on enemies, but made it hard to deal with the lodges, esp. the ones made of canvas. Now they were unpinning and rolling the lodgeskins, loading them onto travois. They were nervous.
Until the thump of horses moving towards them. The dogs began to bark frantically. Clear windless days let spears and arrows fly true and the men of the group quickly made theirs ready for defense. The enemy was coming fast. Not everyone would be ready in time, and the women needed to finish readiness to leave. They would have to leave some things until afterwards. In case they won against these raiders and could return for valuables.
One man stepped out from the group. He had hastily painted and was mostly stripped. He walked into the space between his people and their enemies, his spear in his hand. It was decorated with eagle feathers tied flat along the shaft so as not to interfere with its flight. Strongly he drove the spear into the ground and with its trailing rope he tied his ankle to the spear.
"Here I take my stand!" he shouted in his language, and prepared to die. He began singing his death song It would take long enough for everyone to leave or fight. He made a solitary decision that was for his entire people.
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This story is replicated in many cultures, quite vividly in the case of the Chinese man who stepped in front of a tank, witnessed by video. Sometimes it is an individual who stands on a bridge or in a doorway with weapon at ready to block an enemy, It is about courage, decision, and the tension between individual and group, between psychology and politics.
But this example is more than that. The practice became vivid at a time of "liminality," of chaos caused by the introduction of horses and gunpowder. The older practices of sneaking up on foot couldn't be done on horseback and the ones that would develop about "counting coup" by riding close, striking, and then escaping had not happened yet. So this standing and fighting to death was a liminal act according to the Victor Turner idea explained in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dygFtTWyEGM&t=10s and several other clips on youtube. According to the premise, this ceremonial defense of one's community had the potential of healing the larger culture of Plains tribes out of admiration and respect for the bravery. It is a ritual performance to acknowledge the confrontation of attack but mark it as a new thing.
It is also a performance, a presentation, the warrior makes to the enemy. He has no horse, he has no gun, but he has his death song and his fierceness to challenge their right to attack his community. It is theatrical, but as a demonstrated moral right rather than as entertainment. Though there is no escape, it is not a cage fight.
When one becomes a Bundle Keeper, one is directed to observe taboos on the innovations of the invading whites. For instance, don't use a fork. Previous imports had demanded other changes. Awls and needles are hard to keep track of in a lodge with no drawers, so cases made of leather were designed to be worn on belts, decorated brightly and distinctively so they could be located easily. Tea billies of copper and cast iron pots changed how people cooked, and made the use of fire to prepare food much easier than digging a hole, lining it with rawhide, and dropping hot stones into the contents. But then one had to guard the vessels from damage and loss, give them names and develop new concepts about hanging them over fires on tripods. One could fry bannnock instead of baking it wound around a stick. These were small things, not so exciting as battle, so not so much noted, neglected but significant parts of women's lives, never developed into rituals. A good sharp knife was appreciated by everyone and developed into the "Bear Knife Bundle" full of impressive risk. Part of a transfer was hurling the knife (a spear blade) at the head of the receiver.
Men's performance, augmented with flamboyant headdresses or the decoration of shirts or weapons, was colorful because it was meant to be observed, presented to an audience that was meant to be impressed. But the relationship of women to their things might be categorized as attachment. Not that men didn't attach to useful or beautiful things, but not in the way that women did.
Before metal knives, a cherished object for women was a digging stick, which was of vital use in digging up camas roots and other rhizomes. There are stories about the people starving because all meat prey had gone away, but being saved when the woman could still dig for food, as the grizzly bears use their digging claws. The Flathead story is about bitterroot. In the ceremony of the Sun Lodge, the oldest, most virtuous, and most hard-working woman wears a headdress that features her hand-worn, best-shaped digging stick.
Performance and attachment, which is to say, how we present ourselves and what we love, are key ways to gather identity out of the swirling range of possibilities when the body and its needs and instincts meet the world. Whether or not there is a ceremony, a ritual, prescribed objects (a ring, a veil), a certain act that locates one in time (smashing a glass), at the heart that propels the event are these two things: performance and attachment, as in a wedding, meant to create a new time and community.
The officiant at a traditional wedding says, "If there is anyone who knows why this marriage shouldn't take place, let that person say so now, or forever hold their peace!" What if someone stood up to block the aisle and try to stop time?
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