Rich Hall's Inventing the Indian

0:00:02 > 0:00:05This programme contains some violent scenes and some strong language.

0:00:05 > 0:00:07On May 2nd 2011, approximately 6pm Eastern Standard Time,

0:00:07 > 0:00:10as President Obama sat in a terse situation room with Leon Panetta, head of the CIA,

0:00:10 > 0:00:13and Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State,

0:00:13 > 0:00:16the tension was broken by a Navy Seal transmission

0:00:16 > 0:00:20from 6,000 miles away in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

0:00:20 > 0:00:25The transmission said, "Geronimo EKIA."

0:00:25 > 0:00:29Geronimo. Enemy. Killed in action.

0:00:29 > 0:00:33Now if you were a Native American, you could infer two things

0:00:33 > 0:00:35from this statement.

0:00:35 > 0:00:38One, that Geronimo, the most revered of Apache warriors

0:00:38 > 0:00:41was being equated with the world's most vicious terrorist.

0:00:41 > 0:00:44Or that Geronimo was just a term the US Army

0:00:44 > 0:00:46has been using since World War Two

0:00:46 > 0:00:49when paratroopers first started jumping out of planes.

0:00:49 > 0:00:52Geronimo times out perfectly between leaping and pulling the chord.

0:00:52 > 0:00:54In other words, it's just a word.

0:00:54 > 0:00:58So if that's the case, why didn't the operative just say

0:00:58 > 0:01:00"Fats Domino EKIA."

0:01:00 > 0:01:03Now who's upset? Fat pianists?

0:01:03 > 0:01:07No-one! Nonetheless, it shows you that 520 years

0:01:07 > 0:01:09since the discovery of America,

0:01:09 > 0:01:13120 years since the Massacre at Wounded Knee,

0:01:13 > 0:01:15and roughly 20 years since the release of a film

0:01:15 > 0:01:17called Thunderheart, an execrable piece

0:01:17 > 0:01:23of apologistic, overly sentimental, misty-eyed cinematic tripe

0:01:23 > 0:01:28starring Val Kilmer as a part-Sioux FBI agent,

0:01:28 > 0:01:32native Americans are still getting the short end of the stick.

0:01:32 > 0:01:35- 'They sent him to a foreign land.' - What's my cover?

0:01:35 > 0:01:39- 'In the middle of America.'- You're going in there as who you are.

0:01:39 > 0:01:41An American-Indian Federal Officer.

0:01:41 > 0:01:43'To uncover the truth.'

0:01:43 > 0:01:45Federal Officer, hands on your head, do it!

0:01:45 > 0:01:49- Who are you? - Walter Crow Horse, Tribal Police.

0:01:51 > 0:01:55- You must be the Indian FBI? - That's right.

0:01:55 > 0:01:57- What nation?- The United States.

0:01:57 > 0:02:00- What's your name?- Sure as Hell ain't Geronimo, chief.

0:02:00 > 0:02:04No other Indian figure has been more misrepresented, misappropriated,

0:02:04 > 0:02:09reinvented or just conjured from celluloid scratch as Geronimo.

0:02:09 > 0:02:12In 1939, the director John Ford stamped an indelible image of him

0:02:12 > 0:02:17as a bloodthirsty savage in Stagecoach.

0:02:17 > 0:02:20He burns down cabins and butchers women and children,

0:02:20 > 0:02:21for no apparent reason.

0:02:21 > 0:02:27No historical perspective, just a name that invokes fear, Geronimo.

0:02:27 > 0:02:30Nowadays of course, he's used to lure butt-weary travellers

0:02:30 > 0:02:34off of Route 66 here to pull into places like this and spend

0:02:34 > 0:02:36all their money on genuine Indian souvenirs

0:02:36 > 0:02:38made in Malaysian sweat shops.

0:02:38 > 0:02:41It's possible Billy Connolly has already covered this

0:02:41 > 0:02:44in his travelogue but at least I'm explaining it to you in English.

0:02:44 > 0:02:46Is it possible in a four-minute scene

0:02:46 > 0:02:48featuring an Indian attack on western settlers

0:02:48 > 0:02:51for America's pre-eminent western director

0:02:51 > 0:02:54to get at least ten things wrong? Well, let's count them.

0:02:54 > 0:02:58Stagecoach is supposed to take place in Lordsburg, New Mexico,

0:02:58 > 0:03:00an area where Geronimo spent much of his life.

0:03:00 > 0:03:04Clearly, this setting is Monument Valley, Arizona.

0:03:04 > 0:03:08Apaches wore wide cloth headbands,

0:03:08 > 0:03:10which covered the entire tops of their heads.

0:03:10 > 0:03:12These were invented by a costume designer

0:03:12 > 0:03:15to hold the actors' wigs in place. How do you get close enough

0:03:15 > 0:03:21to shoot an arrow into a guy's chest without everyone hearing you coming?

0:03:21 > 0:03:23Apaches never attacked in broad daylight.

0:03:23 > 0:03:25They sneaked in under cover of darkness.

0:03:25 > 0:03:29They didn't run around pointlessly firing their guns into the air.

0:03:29 > 0:03:31They're not Iraqis.

0:03:31 > 0:03:35If you want to stop a stagecoach, you shoot the lead horse.

0:03:35 > 0:03:39Number six - Apaches didn't jump off their horses onto other horses.

0:03:39 > 0:03:43The only person who could do that was a stuntman named Yakima Canutt.

0:03:43 > 0:03:47That man under the horse is Yakima Canutt.

0:03:47 > 0:03:51How is it possible to shoot two Indians with one bullet?

0:03:51 > 0:03:54Number eight - throwing rocks at your horse

0:03:54 > 0:03:56doesn't make it go faster.

0:03:56 > 0:03:58Apaches didn't have saddles on their horses.

0:03:58 > 0:04:01Only soldiers had saddles on their horses.

0:04:01 > 0:04:07And finally, that is one ugly baby. Wow.

0:04:08 > 0:04:11The 1962 version of Geronimo took painstaking steps

0:04:11 > 0:04:14to tell the story from Geronimo's perspective,

0:04:14 > 0:04:17that of a leader forced to surrender to US authorities

0:04:17 > 0:04:19over promises never kept.

0:04:19 > 0:04:23His people are made to endure vast indignity.

0:04:25 > 0:04:27I'm not an animal that has to be branded.

0:04:30 > 0:04:33In that version, Geronimo is played by a blue-eyed, pumpkin-tinted

0:04:33 > 0:04:38TV star and ex-professional baseball player named Chuck Connors.

0:04:38 > 0:04:40'Chuck Connors makes a complete departure

0:04:40 > 0:04:43'from the role that made him famous to create the heroic figure

0:04:43 > 0:04:47'of the Apache warrior who strove against impossible odds

0:04:47 > 0:04:49'for dignity and freedom.'

0:04:49 > 0:04:51Let me feel him kick.

0:04:51 > 0:04:56Careful there, Chuck. Your aim looks a little too high.

0:04:56 > 0:04:59In 1993's Geronimo: An American Legend,

0:04:59 > 0:05:03Hollywood finally hit on the idea of casting an American Indian

0:05:03 > 0:05:06in the lead role of a movie about an American Indian.

0:05:08 > 0:05:13The Cherokee actor Wes Studi gives a much more definitive portrait

0:05:13 > 0:05:16of the Apache warrior and his band of followers

0:05:16 > 0:05:19who spent five years trying to elude capture and forced settlement

0:05:19 > 0:05:20by the US Government.

0:05:20 > 0:05:25When I was young, the white man came and wanted the land of my people.

0:05:25 > 0:05:30When their soldiers burnt our villages, we moved to the mountains.

0:05:30 > 0:05:34When they took our food, we ate thorns.

0:05:34 > 0:05:38The film stars Jason Patric, Matt Damon,

0:05:38 > 0:05:40Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman

0:05:40 > 0:05:43and Wes Studi as Geronimo.

0:05:43 > 0:05:48In that order. The title character gets fifth billing.

0:05:48 > 0:05:51In truth, it's probably impossible to tell the story

0:05:51 > 0:05:54of the Indian on film because an Indian's notion of time itself,

0:05:54 > 0:05:57like travel, is always circular.

0:05:58 > 0:06:03The real Geronimo was offered the services of a car in 1905

0:06:03 > 0:06:06after he was incarcerated at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

0:06:06 > 0:06:07He turned the offer down.

0:06:07 > 0:06:11He didn't want a goddamn car. He wanted to be free.

0:06:11 > 0:06:12Four years later at the age of 79,

0:06:12 > 0:06:16riding back to his assigned home in the snow, he fell from his horse.

0:06:16 > 0:06:19A week later, he was dead of pneumonia.

0:06:19 > 0:06:22That's the real story of Geronimo.

0:06:22 > 0:06:26For the record, Bin Laden's code name wasn't even Geronimo.

0:06:26 > 0:06:30It was Jackpot. The code name for the operation was Geronimo.

0:06:30 > 0:06:33See, we're still getting it wrong.

0:06:33 > 0:06:36# They put Geronimo in jail down south

0:06:36 > 0:06:40# Where he couldn't look the gift horse in the mouth

0:06:40 > 0:06:45# Sergeant, sergeant, don't you feel

0:06:45 > 0:06:49# Something wrong with your automobile?

0:06:49 > 0:06:53# Whoa, take me back

0:06:53 > 0:06:57# I want to ride in Geronimo's Cadillac

0:06:57 > 0:07:01# Woah, take me back

0:07:01 > 0:07:05# I want to ride in Geronimo's Cadillac. #

0:07:11 > 0:07:15"OK, Rich are you going to spend this entire documentary

0:07:15 > 0:07:18"pontificating about how the Indians got a raw deal?"

0:07:18 > 0:07:20Because we all know the Indians got a raw deal.

0:07:20 > 0:07:22Is that what you're thinking?

0:07:22 > 0:07:25"Or are you going to let some Indians weigh in on the issue?"

0:07:25 > 0:07:28Well, this is Dallas Goldtooth. He is Dakota and Dine.

0:07:28 > 0:07:30- Hi.- Howdy.

0:07:30 > 0:07:33- What do you think?- About what?

0:07:33 > 0:07:36The whole Geronimo EKIA thing.

0:07:36 > 0:07:38I really don't know who Fats Domino is.

0:07:38 > 0:07:43He was a piano player. First name self-explanatory.

0:07:43 > 0:07:44Ah, Gotcha.

0:07:44 > 0:07:49You know, Geronimo is one of our heroes. This blazing figure

0:07:49 > 0:07:53in the memory of Indians everywhere and this whole usage of his name

0:07:53 > 0:07:57and association with Bin Laden, it's another notch in the proverbial club

0:07:57 > 0:08:03that we shall use one day against the white-skinned, blue-eyed,

0:08:03 > 0:08:09cowboy hat-wearing, unibrow-having nation of people,

0:08:09 > 0:08:10like you.

0:08:14 > 0:08:18So that whole John Ford thing, what do you think about that?

0:08:18 > 0:08:20Strident foreshadowing?

0:08:20 > 0:08:23You're doing good, man. You're doing really good.

0:08:23 > 0:08:26When it comes to portraying the Indian on film,

0:08:26 > 0:08:30how has Hollywood managed to get it wrong every single time?

0:08:30 > 0:08:31Because cinematically,

0:08:31 > 0:08:36the Indian had to be killed off before he could be reinvented.

0:08:36 > 0:08:38It begins with popular literature.

0:08:40 > 0:08:45In 1826, James Fenimore Cooper, a Connecticut writer,

0:08:45 > 0:08:47was vacationing on Long Island, New York,

0:08:47 > 0:08:49when he succumbed to sunstroke.

0:08:49 > 0:08:52Under this delirious condition, he began penning the second part

0:08:52 > 0:08:54of his trilogy of Leatherstocking Tales.

0:08:54 > 0:08:58The story is called Last of the Mohicans, effectively

0:08:58 > 0:09:02implying a tribe's extinction even before the first line of the book.

0:09:02 > 0:09:06The hero is a white frontiersman named either Natty Bumppo

0:09:06 > 0:09:08or Hawkeye depending on who's talking to him.

0:09:08 > 0:09:12Hawkeye knows the backwoods even better than his Indian counterpart

0:09:12 > 0:09:15Chingachgook, even though Chingachgook and his people

0:09:15 > 0:09:17have been around a few thousand years longer.

0:09:17 > 0:09:20This is the trope of White European superiority that will reappear

0:09:20 > 0:09:25again and again in books and films which, by nature of their titles,

0:09:25 > 0:09:27should be about the subject mentioned in the title.

0:09:27 > 0:09:30Unfortunately, the Indians in the book

0:09:30 > 0:09:32are more or less just a dramatic backdrop.

0:09:32 > 0:09:36Cooper, quite possibly because of sunstroke,

0:09:36 > 0:09:38couldn't quite seem to remember which specific tribe

0:09:38 > 0:09:41of Algonquin Indians he was talking about -

0:09:41 > 0:09:43either Mahicans or Mohegans -

0:09:43 > 0:09:46so he just blended them together and called them Mohicans.

0:09:51 > 0:09:54The book is a bloated, turgid, orotund work

0:09:54 > 0:09:57of spectacular historical misrepresentation.

0:09:57 > 0:10:00Naturally, it became massively popular,

0:10:00 > 0:10:03both with British readers and those Americans who could read.

0:10:04 > 0:10:06It's been made into a movie at least five times.

0:10:06 > 0:10:10Whatever thin credibility the book retained was lost to the movie,

0:10:10 > 0:10:13where the principal Indian characters are nothing more

0:10:13 > 0:10:16than cardboard, slightly hysterical stereotypes.

0:10:20 > 0:10:24It's complete bollocks, man. Is that what your people say?

0:10:24 > 0:10:28Not my people. Toward the end of the story, Chingachgook invokes

0:10:28 > 0:10:32the title by saying, "When my son, Uncas, follows in my footsteps,

0:10:32 > 0:10:35"there will be no more blood of the Sagamores,

0:10:35 > 0:10:38"for he is the last of the Mohicans."

0:10:38 > 0:10:41Thus Cooper effectively consigns an entire tribe to the trash heap

0:10:41 > 0:10:44paving the way for popular literature and later cinema

0:10:44 > 0:10:46to re-invent the Indian as it sees fit.

0:10:46 > 0:10:47And boy, have they ever.

0:10:47 > 0:10:50By the way, the Mahicans are still around.

0:10:50 > 0:10:53As are the Mohegans, who own the Women's NBA basketball team,

0:10:53 > 0:10:57the Connecticut Suns. Also, the Mohegan resort and casino

0:10:57 > 0:10:59in Uncasville, Connecticut.

0:10:59 > 0:11:00What is this stuff?

0:11:02 > 0:11:05That fried bread? It's fried bread.

0:11:07 > 0:11:09Man, I owe Scotland an apology.

0:11:15 > 0:11:18Although white moviegoers may have not been that savvy,

0:11:18 > 0:11:23Indians must've realized early on they were being contrived for the sake of a convenient story.

0:11:23 > 0:11:26When I was a kid, I'd sit on my dad's lap

0:11:26 > 0:11:30and we'd watch westerns, Rin Tin Tin or John Wayne, and he'd grumble.

0:11:30 > 0:11:33"Ah, those aren't Indians, look how he's walking, the way he's moving."

0:11:33 > 0:11:37All white man prayed.

0:11:37 > 0:11:40I think the image of American Indians in America

0:11:40 > 0:11:43is nothing short of slanderous, they ridicule the way we laugh,

0:11:43 > 0:11:46the way we sing, the way we dance.

0:11:46 > 0:11:49Our prayers, our names. Everything is ridiculed.

0:11:52 > 0:11:54Now I know why they call him Sitting Bull.

0:11:54 > 0:11:59We're talking about a figment of somebody's imagination, really.

0:11:59 > 0:12:02When you watch cowboys and Indians, like, as a kid you can't help

0:12:02 > 0:12:06but get caught up in it, you know? We played cowboys and Indians.

0:12:06 > 0:12:09I always ended up being a frickin' Indian.

0:12:09 > 0:12:11You always frickin' died as an Indian.

0:12:11 > 0:12:13Cousin always wanted to be a cowboy

0:12:13 > 0:12:17and he wouldn't let us kill him because cowboys don't die.

0:12:17 > 0:12:22Fuck. It kind of sucked being an Indian, now I'm thinking about it.

0:12:22 > 0:12:25Regardless of what terminology you choose -

0:12:25 > 0:12:29natives, first people, aboriginals or savages -

0:12:29 > 0:12:32the undeniable fact is there were hundreds of thousands,

0:12:32 > 0:12:36probably millions of indigenous people inhabiting the Americas

0:12:36 > 0:12:39before it was "discovered".

0:12:39 > 0:12:41The Indian was invented at the very moment

0:12:41 > 0:12:45we invented the word "Indian". We call Native Americans Indians

0:12:45 > 0:12:48because that's always where Columbus thought he had landed.

0:12:48 > 0:12:50He wasn't the first explorer to reach the Americas

0:12:50 > 0:12:52but he was the first to stick around and realise

0:12:52 > 0:12:54that it wasn't the paradise he'd envisioned.

0:12:54 > 0:12:58Which is kind of the difference between an immigrant and a tourist.

0:12:58 > 0:13:01Americans are brought up to believe that Columbus

0:13:01 > 0:13:04was America's first hero, because he embodied that very essence

0:13:04 > 0:13:09of mythical character. Explorer, adventurer, prospector,

0:13:09 > 0:13:15pacifier of savages, lawmaker, townbuilder.

0:13:15 > 0:13:16You know, cowboy.

0:13:16 > 0:13:21Driven by a sense of destiny and ambition,

0:13:21 > 0:13:25he crossed the sea of darkness

0:13:25 > 0:13:29in search of honour,

0:13:29 > 0:13:35gold and the greater glory of God.

0:13:35 > 0:13:39500 years after Columbus landed in what we now call the Americas,

0:13:39 > 0:13:42Ridley Scott attempted to put the Hollywood spin on him

0:13:42 > 0:13:45by casting him as a compromised hero.

0:13:45 > 0:13:49A man rebelling against the screwed-up value system of Europe.

0:13:51 > 0:13:54Columbus is portrayed by that renowned Italian actor

0:13:54 > 0:13:58Gerard Depardieu, as a man whose religious fanaticism

0:13:58 > 0:14:01leads to the tragic demise of the Taino Indian nation.

0:14:01 > 0:14:06The extraordinary story of the discovery of a new world.

0:14:06 > 0:14:111492: The Conquest of Paradise is turgid apologist hokum,

0:14:11 > 0:14:13but Americans want to believe anything but the truth

0:14:13 > 0:14:17about Columbus, because after all, we named a city in Ohio after him.

0:14:17 > 0:14:22And a Capital district. And a river and a Carry On film.

0:14:22 > 0:14:25But Columbus wasn't just America's first cowboy.

0:14:25 > 0:14:29He was a New World, God-bothering, long-haired, Jesus freak

0:14:29 > 0:14:31bible-humping cowboy.

0:14:31 > 0:14:35He loved Willie Nelson, he never kicked a puppy,

0:14:35 > 0:14:39had steerhorns on the front of his boat.

0:14:39 > 0:14:42He believed in his heart he'd been chosen by God

0:14:42 > 0:14:45to convert savages to Christianity.

0:14:45 > 0:14:47His journals depict him as a man desperate

0:14:47 > 0:14:48to find gold for Queen Isabella.

0:14:48 > 0:14:52But the Taino repeatedly tried to tell him there were other islands

0:14:52 > 0:14:55nearby where there was much more gold than sand.

0:14:55 > 0:14:57They were trying to get rid of him

0:14:57 > 0:15:00because frankly he was annoying the hell out of everyone.

0:15:00 > 0:15:02But Columbus kept coming back.

0:15:06 > 0:15:07For the next couple of centuries,

0:15:07 > 0:15:09the Indians of both North and South America

0:15:09 > 0:15:12would be systematically plundered and enslaved,

0:15:12 > 0:15:15both individually by the Spanish Conquistadors

0:15:15 > 0:15:18Cortes, Pizarro, De Soto,

0:15:18 > 0:15:20the English pirate Sir Francis Drake,

0:15:20 > 0:15:25but also corporately by the French Company of One Hundred Associates,

0:15:25 > 0:15:27The Dutch East India Trade Company,

0:15:27 > 0:15:29The British Hudson Bay Company.

0:15:29 > 0:15:31It wasn't just a rape. It was a gang bang.

0:15:32 > 0:15:35So when you get a moment, thank an Indian.

0:15:35 > 0:15:38For what? Oh, I don't know... Gold. Silver.

0:15:38 > 0:15:41Those rubber wellies you like to wear.

0:15:41 > 0:15:42Thank an Indian.

0:15:42 > 0:15:45The Indians gave us aspirin.

0:15:45 > 0:15:47Quinine for malaria.

0:15:47 > 0:15:50Got a coke habit? Like to toke on a fatty,

0:15:50 > 0:15:53maybe drink a little mescal tequila? Thank an Indian.

0:15:53 > 0:15:55Thank an Indian for beans on toast, for cotton,

0:15:55 > 0:15:58corn flakes, chocolate,

0:15:58 > 0:16:01fish and chips, pasties.

0:16:01 > 0:16:0460% of all the foods we consume are Indian in origin.

0:16:04 > 0:16:06Maple syrup. Corn syrup.

0:16:06 > 0:16:08Anything made from corn.

0:16:08 > 0:16:11It was the Pueblo Indians of this very area who discovered that

0:16:11 > 0:16:12if you soak corn in lime and ash,

0:16:12 > 0:16:16it made an alkaline solution that let the body absorb the nutrients.

0:16:16 > 0:16:19Thank an Indian.

0:16:19 > 0:16:20Potatoes. You like potatoes?

0:16:20 > 0:16:22Course you like potatoes, Britain.

0:16:22 > 0:16:24Mashed up, slathered in gravy...

0:16:24 > 0:16:25Well, you didn't use to.

0:16:25 > 0:16:27Brits thought the potato caused leprosy.

0:16:27 > 0:16:31Russians, French, all deathly afraid of that misshapen devil.

0:16:31 > 0:16:35Only those loveable starving Irish took a chance on the potato.

0:16:35 > 0:16:37The Indians had over 60 varieties of potatoes,

0:16:37 > 0:16:39but the Irish took all their potatoes

0:16:39 > 0:16:41and put them into one potato basket.

0:16:41 > 0:16:43Then when the blight came, they all starved.

0:16:43 > 0:16:45A lot of them had to move to America.

0:16:45 > 0:16:47One-fifth of the US Cavalry

0:16:47 > 0:16:49that fought the various Plains and South-western Indians

0:16:49 > 0:16:53for over 50 years was made of transplanted Irish.

0:16:53 > 0:16:55So thank an Indian for killing an Indian.

0:16:57 > 0:16:58Here on the Navajo land,

0:16:58 > 0:17:01the word for thank you is ahe'hee.

0:17:03 > 0:17:06You could also apologise for the 500 years of abuse

0:17:06 > 0:17:09and humiliation and systematic displacement,

0:17:09 > 0:17:11but it probably wouldn't do any good.

0:17:11 > 0:17:14Cos there's no word in Navajo for "sorry".

0:17:21 > 0:17:25The colonial expansionist movement was relentless in the New World.

0:17:25 > 0:17:28Their interactions with natives were at times amicable,

0:17:28 > 0:17:30but the over-arching agenda

0:17:30 > 0:17:34for those who came to the Americas in ships was to claim the land

0:17:34 > 0:17:38and the resources as their own by any means necessary.

0:17:40 > 0:17:42The Founding Fathers were looters.

0:17:42 > 0:17:44Jesus Christ, fucking looters.

0:17:44 > 0:17:47We always say that everything Americans have,

0:17:47 > 0:17:50they could've had it anyway, if they'd just asked!

0:17:50 > 0:17:52I mean, Jesus Christ, all you had to do,

0:17:52 > 0:17:54there's a saying somebody said,

0:17:54 > 0:17:57"Why do you obtain by hate? You could obtain by love."

0:17:57 > 0:17:59So we said, "Welcome," this and that

0:17:59 > 0:18:02and everybody just went apeshit, you know?

0:18:02 > 0:18:04So that's the building blocks on it.

0:18:04 > 0:18:08White expansion in America continued at a relentless pace

0:18:08 > 0:18:10throughout the 19th century.

0:18:10 > 0:18:13In 1830, President Andrew Jackson instituted

0:18:13 > 0:18:17the not-so-subtly named Indian Removal Act,

0:18:17 > 0:18:21which more or less declared Indians were an obstruction.

0:18:21 > 0:18:23Entire nations, particularly the Cherokee and the Choctaw,

0:18:23 > 0:18:26were forcibly removed from their lands in Georgia, Alabama

0:18:26 > 0:18:28and Tennessee and resettled

0:18:28 > 0:18:31onto arid hardpan reservations in Oklahoma.

0:18:31 > 0:18:36And for his efforts, Jackson now graces the 20 dollar US banknote.

0:18:40 > 0:18:43E Pluribus Unum. That's the motto that appears on all US currency.

0:18:43 > 0:18:47It means "out of many, one". Unity.

0:18:47 > 0:18:50The entire thrust of US history has been to preserve the Union.

0:18:50 > 0:18:53We fought a Civil War over it. Union won.

0:18:53 > 0:18:58Disunion got its ass kicked from Richmond to Vicksburg to Atlanta.

0:19:01 > 0:19:05When the war ended, the word became emblematic of progress.

0:19:05 > 0:19:09Western UNION Telegraph, The UNION Pacific Railroad.

0:19:09 > 0:19:12Naturally, this driving motto, "out of many, one"

0:19:12 > 0:19:14was applied to the Indians.

0:19:14 > 0:19:17The US government could not quite seem to accept that

0:19:17 > 0:19:20Native Americans weren't too keen on this.

0:19:20 > 0:19:23Forced unity went against the very grain of true freedom,

0:19:23 > 0:19:25something the US had long lost sight of.

0:19:25 > 0:19:28America's policy toward Native Americans

0:19:28 > 0:19:31is still pretty much the same and that policy is,

0:19:31 > 0:19:35"Why can't these people get with the programme?"

0:19:35 > 0:19:37Oh, the programme! We never wanted to be Americans.

0:19:37 > 0:19:40People come here, they want to be Americans.

0:19:40 > 0:19:43We never wanted to be. We have our own thing to this day.

0:19:43 > 0:19:46We're sovereign people and we don't want it.

0:19:46 > 0:19:49We have a better way of life to this day.

0:19:49 > 0:19:51And the other thing with Americans, they love going round the world,

0:19:51 > 0:19:54"We're giving these people freedom, we're giving them freedom."

0:19:54 > 0:19:56Indian people have always been free.

0:19:58 > 0:20:03We couldn't live that way.

0:20:03 > 0:20:05They tried to make us.

0:20:05 > 0:20:09The government cannot understand the Indian way of life.

0:20:09 > 0:20:11They think they could change their language

0:20:11 > 0:20:15and their way of life overnight.

0:20:15 > 0:20:17But they can't.

0:20:17 > 0:20:22They tried to teach them English, and they tried to...

0:20:22 > 0:20:26I used to go to school when they washed my mouth out

0:20:26 > 0:20:30with soap and water if I spoke Indian.

0:20:31 > 0:20:33And they used to whip me for it.

0:20:33 > 0:20:37Also, in the Declaration of Independence to this very day,

0:20:37 > 0:20:41it says "savage Indians" in it at least three times

0:20:41 > 0:20:43and I would say you'd think they'd have the wherewithal

0:20:43 > 0:20:47to change it to "savage Native Americans", at least. Shit.

0:20:47 > 0:20:50That's another word I never liked,

0:20:50 > 0:20:52because we are older than America,

0:20:52 > 0:20:55so how can we be native of something we're older than?

0:20:55 > 0:20:58The majority of indigenous peoples have creation stories

0:20:58 > 0:21:01that place them in a certain location at a certain time.

0:21:01 > 0:21:04It's not just like, "Oh, my people moved here."

0:21:04 > 0:21:06No, we were, we came out of that mountain right over there.

0:21:06 > 0:21:10That was where we emerged, and we're going to be here, you know?

0:21:10 > 0:21:13So the tragedy of being forcibly moved

0:21:13 > 0:21:15is not just about the suffering they had to endure

0:21:15 > 0:21:18during that movement, but actually being displaced from their land.

0:21:18 > 0:21:20Heck, yeah.

0:21:20 > 0:21:24I mean, it's a part of the human condition

0:21:24 > 0:21:26to bond to your location, I feel. You know?

0:21:26 > 0:21:29# Jesus told me and I believe it's true

0:21:29 > 0:21:34# The red men are in the sunset too

0:21:34 > 0:21:37# They stole their land and they won't give it back

0:21:37 > 0:21:42# And they sent Geronimo a Cadillac, come on... #

0:21:42 > 0:21:44They ought to shoot those darn Redskins

0:21:44 > 0:21:45while they've still got the chance.

0:21:45 > 0:21:48Yeah. The sooner they get rid of them,

0:21:48 > 0:21:50- the safer this country'll be for us Americans.- You bet your life.

0:21:50 > 0:21:53Right now, were we too weak from hunger,

0:21:53 > 0:21:55for our men forget ways of war.

0:21:55 > 0:21:58Apache never forget ways of war.

0:21:58 > 0:22:01Hollywood has always been less concerned about what an Indian is

0:22:01 > 0:22:02than who an Indian is.

0:22:02 > 0:22:05They assumed that viewers wouldn't be able to identify

0:22:05 > 0:22:08the individual aspects of any Indian tribe

0:22:08 > 0:22:09because they were lazy.

0:22:09 > 0:22:12So they just created this Frankenstein amalgam

0:22:12 > 0:22:15of what they imagined an Indian to be.

0:22:15 > 0:22:18They took Sioux war bonnets and stuck them on to Navajo warriors

0:22:18 > 0:22:20and then put them in Texas.

0:22:20 > 0:22:22They took the Indians' ceremonial body markings,

0:22:22 > 0:22:25usually used to indicate a social or marital status,

0:22:25 > 0:22:27and just called it "war paint".

0:22:27 > 0:22:30They stuck tipis in the desert.

0:22:30 > 0:22:32These characters generally communicated by whooping,

0:22:32 > 0:22:35or a series of protracted grunts,

0:22:35 > 0:22:37or some kind of anthropomorphic gibberish.

0:22:42 > 0:22:44For instance, in Raoul Walsh's A Distant Trumpet,

0:22:44 > 0:22:48a film about the US Cavalry confronting the Chiricahua Apache,

0:22:48 > 0:22:51Walsh employed Navajo actors to play Apaches.

0:22:51 > 0:22:54He told them just to make up their own dialogue.

0:22:54 > 0:22:57So, only if you were fluent in Dine Navajo,

0:22:57 > 0:23:00which Walsh clearly wasn't, would you even be able to understand

0:23:00 > 0:23:02what the Navajo were really saying.

0:23:02 > 0:23:05HE SPEAKS NAVAJO

0:23:10 > 0:23:11He's saying,

0:23:11 > 0:23:14"You're going to be a snake crawling through your own shit."

0:23:14 > 0:23:17HE SPEAKS NAVAJO

0:23:17 > 0:23:19"Obviously you can't do anything right now,

0:23:19 > 0:23:23"because you're going to be a snake crawling through your own shit."

0:23:23 > 0:23:24Seriously?

0:23:24 > 0:23:26Yeah, seriously.

0:23:27 > 0:23:29Cos I don't know whether to believe you or not

0:23:29 > 0:23:31cos you're wearing a headdress.

0:23:32 > 0:23:34That's irony, man.

0:23:35 > 0:23:39Indians can't do humour, but we sure as hell can do irony.

0:23:39 > 0:23:42'OK, Indians do irony, but they don't do humour.

0:23:42 > 0:23:45'Photographer Edward Curtis certainly knew how to capture

0:23:45 > 0:23:49'the ironic American Indian. He took thousands of photographs,

0:23:49 > 0:23:52'every one as stoic and resolute as a postage stamp.

0:23:52 > 0:23:54'So we need to ask the question...'

0:23:54 > 0:23:56Why don't the Indians have a sense of humour?

0:23:56 > 0:24:00In the treaty of 1868 with the government,

0:24:00 > 0:24:02we signed it away.

0:24:02 > 0:24:04We were tricked. We didn't know.

0:24:04 > 0:24:07Indians, we got to keep our dignity.

0:24:07 > 0:24:09Humour? It's not dignified.

0:24:09 > 0:24:12Chris Ayres' 1998 Smoke Signals,

0:24:12 > 0:24:14based on a Sherman Alexie short story,

0:24:14 > 0:24:18is one of the most highly-regarded indigenous films ever made.

0:24:18 > 0:24:19And probably the funniest.

0:24:19 > 0:24:21First of all, quit grinning like an idiot.

0:24:21 > 0:24:24Indians ain't supposed to smile like that. Get stoic.

0:24:24 > 0:24:27'Its humour is sly. It comes from the characters' self-awareness

0:24:27 > 0:24:30'that the world's perception of Indians generally vacillates

0:24:30 > 0:24:33'between sympathetic and romantic.'

0:24:33 > 0:24:37You got to look mean or people won't respect you.

0:24:37 > 0:24:40White people will run all over you if you don't look mean.

0:24:41 > 0:24:43You got to look like a warrior!

0:24:43 > 0:24:47You got to look like you just came back from killing a buffalo!

0:24:47 > 0:24:49But our tribe never hunted buffalo. We were fishermen.

0:24:49 > 0:24:51What?!

0:24:51 > 0:24:54You want to look like you just came back from catching a fish?

0:24:54 > 0:24:57This ain't Dances With Salmon, you know!

0:24:57 > 0:25:00Thomas, you got to look like a warrior.

0:25:09 > 0:25:12One of the great things about being an Indian is that if you've seen one

0:25:12 > 0:25:14in a film, you're going to see scores,

0:25:14 > 0:25:16and that means jobs, jobs, jobs.

0:25:16 > 0:25:19The sight of a band of fully costumed warriors,

0:25:19 > 0:25:22astride their magnificent steeds, thundering into the valley

0:25:22 > 0:25:25was the very cinematic essence of the term "spectacular".

0:25:25 > 0:25:28And nobody knew this better than Thomas Ince.

0:25:28 > 0:25:31Hollywood's first real mogul,

0:25:31 > 0:25:35Ince built a massive studio in the Santa Monica mountains,

0:25:35 > 0:25:37and he oversaw dozens of productions at once,

0:25:37 > 0:25:40crediting himself with directing every one.

0:25:40 > 0:25:44His most popular movies were cowboy and Indian two-reelers,

0:25:44 > 0:25:46and to keep up with demand for extras,

0:25:46 > 0:25:48Ince struck a deal with the federal government

0:25:48 > 0:25:49to import Oglala Sioux

0:25:49 > 0:25:53from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

0:25:53 > 0:25:55This was 1913. Only 23 years earlier,

0:25:55 > 0:25:58this same government had massacred the Sioux

0:25:58 > 0:26:00near Pine Ridge Reservation.

0:26:00 > 0:26:04To the many categories of Sioux that already existed -

0:26:04 > 0:26:07Oglala, Miniconjou, Hunkpapa -

0:26:07 > 0:26:11was added a new tribe, the Inceville Hollywood Sioux.

0:26:11 > 0:26:13They settled into tipi villages

0:26:13 > 0:26:16perched right outside Ince's studio overlooking the Pacific,

0:26:16 > 0:26:18and when they weren't working,

0:26:18 > 0:26:20they just kind of wandered around Los Angeles.

0:26:20 > 0:26:23According to Ince, they developed an affinity

0:26:23 > 0:26:24for brightly-coloured props.

0:26:24 > 0:26:27He kept having to go into their tipi camps

0:26:27 > 0:26:29to retrieve bits of his set.

0:26:30 > 0:26:34So many Indians were being used in the early reign of Westerns

0:26:34 > 0:26:36that studio owners struggled to fill the cast.

0:26:36 > 0:26:40Consequently, there was an endless parade of darkly complected Syrians,

0:26:40 > 0:26:43dusky Lebanese, effulgent Jews,

0:26:43 > 0:26:46tawny Mexicans, swarthy Italian Americans,

0:26:46 > 0:26:48adumbral Filipinos...

0:26:48 > 0:26:50I don't even know what that word means.

0:26:50 > 0:26:52Irradiated lifeguards, burnished surfers

0:26:52 > 0:26:55and other guys with sable-tinted skin

0:26:55 > 0:26:58skirting the edges of skin cancer passed themselves off as Indians.

0:26:58 > 0:27:01One of the most outspoken critics of this practice

0:27:01 > 0:27:03was none other than Jim Thorpe,

0:27:03 > 0:27:06often cited as one of America's greatest athletes.

0:27:09 > 0:27:12'An Oklahoma Indian lad whose untamed spirit

0:27:12 > 0:27:16'gave wings to his feet and carried him to immortality.

0:27:16 > 0:27:18'Here in the mighty cavalcade of sport

0:27:18 > 0:27:21'are all the giants who faced this champion among champions.'

0:27:23 > 0:27:27Thorpe was an Oklahoman from the Sac and Fox reservation

0:27:27 > 0:27:29who astounded the sporting world by winning gold medals

0:27:29 > 0:27:33in both the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics.

0:27:33 > 0:27:37He would go on to play professional baseball and football,

0:27:37 > 0:27:40and after his retirement, he began a new career as an actor,

0:27:40 > 0:27:43appearing in supporting roles that required a Native character.

0:27:43 > 0:27:46In the early 1930s, upon discovering

0:27:46 > 0:27:50that roughly 40% of Hollywood's so-called "Indian" actors

0:27:50 > 0:27:53weren't really Indian, Thorpe emerged as the leading activist

0:27:53 > 0:27:57against the practice of hiring non-Indians to portray Indians.

0:27:57 > 0:28:01He formed his own company of true Native American actors

0:28:01 > 0:28:02and hired them out to studios,

0:28:02 > 0:28:07thus guaranteeing the integrity of their bloodlines.

0:28:07 > 0:28:10'Jim Thorpe, all-American, the man of bronze who became...'

0:28:10 > 0:28:13Thorpe's life, both its ups and downs,

0:28:13 > 0:28:17was commemorated to film in 1951 in Jim Thorpe - All-American.

0:28:17 > 0:28:20The part of Jim Thorpe, athlete, actor and activist

0:28:20 > 0:28:24who stood up for native American authenticity...

0:28:24 > 0:28:26was played by Burt Lancaster.

0:28:26 > 0:28:30'It's Burt Lancaster as Jim Thorpe, the nation's all-American pride.'

0:28:30 > 0:28:33In 1951, you couldn't call up the bank

0:28:33 > 0:28:35to complain about identity theft.

0:28:35 > 0:28:38The annals of popular film are studded with white faces

0:28:38 > 0:28:40tanning up to play Indian parts.

0:28:40 > 0:28:44Burt Lancaster couldn't stop playing Indians.

0:28:44 > 0:28:47Tony Curtis starred in The Outsider.

0:28:47 > 0:28:50- How many scalps in your pocket? - I'm a Pima Indian, sir. We don't do that, sir.

0:28:50 > 0:28:53Natalie Wood in The Searchers,

0:28:53 > 0:28:55Burt Reynolds as Navajo Joe,

0:28:55 > 0:28:57Charles Bronson in Chato's Land,

0:28:57 > 0:28:59Elvis Presley in Flaming Star,

0:28:59 > 0:29:03Lee Van Cleef as Captain Apache,

0:29:03 > 0:29:05and this guy.

0:29:07 > 0:29:10But never is the Indian's character plumbed for any degree

0:29:10 > 0:29:13of shading or nuance or background.

0:29:13 > 0:29:16They're just superficial constructs, malleable metaphors,

0:29:16 > 0:29:19big chunks of Play-Doh to be moulded

0:29:19 > 0:29:21into whatever is convenient to the story.

0:29:21 > 0:29:24If we want to show a tragic Indian, we make them a drunkard.

0:29:24 > 0:29:25Whaddya need, a sideshow?

0:29:25 > 0:29:27And when we want to show a savage Indian

0:29:27 > 0:29:29we just let John Wayne lead us to them.

0:29:29 > 0:29:34They outnumber us four to one. Do we talk or fight?

0:29:34 > 0:29:36GUNSHOT

0:29:42 > 0:29:46This is the invented Indian. Written cinematically.

0:29:46 > 0:29:50Based on adventure yarns, diluted stories of early contact,

0:29:50 > 0:29:53filtered through the sunstroke delirium

0:29:53 > 0:29:56of some pudgy guy sitting at a holiday beach resort,

0:29:56 > 0:29:59pulped in the dime novels of Ned Buntline

0:29:59 > 0:30:01and other cardboard fantasists,

0:30:01 > 0:30:05and then re-invented in travelling Wild West shows,

0:30:05 > 0:30:08shifted, distorted, polarised for entertainment purposes.

0:30:08 > 0:30:11And always at the margins. Why?

0:30:11 > 0:30:14Because they're Indians.

0:30:17 > 0:30:22Beautiful ladies, what do you say? Bring 'em inside.

0:30:24 > 0:30:27Are you guys all Navajo?

0:30:27 > 0:30:29Yeah. You?

0:30:29 > 0:30:30I'm Navajo and Dakota.

0:30:30 > 0:30:33Oh, Dakota. You do sundance?

0:30:33 > 0:30:35- Yeah.- Right on. Pierced?

0:30:35 > 0:30:37Yeah.

0:30:40 > 0:30:43As we've already established, Indians did not, as a rule,

0:30:43 > 0:30:47hang underneath their horses or jump from one to another

0:30:47 > 0:30:48Stagecoach-style.

0:30:48 > 0:30:51The only time this does happen is

0:30:51 > 0:30:53when they're about to be trampled at the rodeo.

0:30:53 > 0:30:56You guys riders? You riding tonight? What's the top prize?

0:30:56 > 0:30:59- Almost 200.- 200?

0:30:59 > 0:31:01- 2,000.- Really?

0:31:01 > 0:31:032,000 first?

0:31:03 > 0:31:06Good luck, man. Take care of yourself.

0:31:08 > 0:31:12But in a backhanded way, Hollywood does give credit to the Indians

0:31:12 > 0:31:14when it comes to horsemanship.

0:31:14 > 0:31:18In 1680, the Pueblo Indians revolted against the Spanish

0:31:18 > 0:31:21and drove them off their land and back to Old Mexico.

0:31:21 > 0:31:23The Spanish were forced to leave their horses behind.

0:31:23 > 0:31:27So the Pueblo Indians began to breed the horses and then trade them

0:31:27 > 0:31:30to other tribes, particularly the Kiowa and the Comanche.

0:31:30 > 0:31:33The confluence of horse and buffalo

0:31:33 > 0:31:36represents one of the most profound changes in the Indians' history.

0:31:38 > 0:31:41Being mounted allowed Indians to hunt buffalo more adeptly.

0:31:41 > 0:31:44And it was buffalo that provided food,

0:31:44 > 0:31:46shelter in the form of tipi hides,

0:31:46 > 0:31:48winter protection in the form of hides and footwear.

0:31:48 > 0:31:52The Plains Indians would have become extinct if it wasn't for buffalo

0:31:52 > 0:31:55and the horse allowed them to travel vast distances, chasing the buffalo.

0:31:55 > 0:31:57It gave them a tremendous advantage over tribes

0:31:57 > 0:32:00who still travelled on foot.

0:32:00 > 0:32:02But the buffalo are a protected species

0:32:02 > 0:32:06and Indians don't roam the range on horseback any more.

0:32:06 > 0:32:08Nowadays their mode of transport

0:32:08 > 0:32:10is more likely to be a rusted-out Dodge.

0:32:13 > 0:32:14How, folks.

0:32:14 > 0:32:17This old cowboy's on the warpath with heap big savings.

0:32:17 > 0:32:19All our choicest stock.

0:32:19 > 0:32:24Come on down off the res or the ranch and check out your pony today.

0:32:24 > 0:32:27Jonathan Wacks' Pow Wow Highway, made in 1989,

0:32:27 > 0:32:30was considered a landmark film because it was one of the first

0:32:30 > 0:32:33films made by an Indian director with an all-Indian cast.

0:32:33 > 0:32:37And it dealt with contemporary Indian issues.

0:32:39 > 0:32:41I want to buy one of your fine ponies.

0:32:41 > 0:32:44Take a look around.

0:32:44 > 0:32:48One of its most sustaining images is that staple of modern Indian life,

0:32:48 > 0:32:50the res car.

0:32:54 > 0:32:55Whose car is this?

0:32:55 > 0:32:59This is Protector, the war pony.

0:32:59 > 0:33:00Oh.

0:33:01 > 0:33:03ENGINE STRUGGLES TO START

0:33:04 > 0:33:06Hang on.

0:33:07 > 0:33:09This is how white man learns.

0:33:09 > 0:33:10HE CHUCKLES

0:33:10 > 0:33:12OK, do it.

0:33:12 > 0:33:15ENGINE STARTS

0:33:16 > 0:33:18White man got it started.

0:33:18 > 0:33:20THEY LAUGH

0:33:20 > 0:33:23White man got it started. Great job.

0:33:27 > 0:33:29There goes our war pony.

0:33:32 > 0:33:33So this is a res car?

0:33:33 > 0:33:35Sounds like it, it is.

0:33:35 > 0:33:39Love this car, man, draws a lot of attention round here.

0:33:39 > 0:33:41Gets the girls too.

0:33:41 > 0:33:45It's taken me long ways, you know, different reservations,

0:33:45 > 0:33:47different women.

0:33:52 > 0:33:56That's the old president's house there, you know.

0:33:56 > 0:33:59The Navajo nation.

0:33:59 > 0:34:01Beautiful country.

0:34:01 > 0:34:02God's country.

0:34:02 > 0:34:04I'm feeling the spirit right now.

0:34:04 > 0:34:07- Feeling every bump. - Mostly in my ass.

0:34:07 > 0:34:10Ahh. That's good.

0:34:10 > 0:34:13About half of the native American population live on reservations

0:34:13 > 0:34:17and these areas of land total 55.7 million acres -

0:34:17 > 0:34:21that's just over 2% of the land area of the United States.

0:34:21 > 0:34:24You can see why American Indians are a little pissed off.

0:34:24 > 0:34:28There's no stop signs, these roads are all corroded,

0:34:28 > 0:34:31corrupted, we're an impoverished nation,

0:34:31 > 0:34:36almost like a third-world country, but we do all right.

0:34:36 > 0:34:40Still, it's better than Sunderland.

0:34:40 > 0:34:43Like any impoverished area, Indian reservations are stricken with

0:34:43 > 0:34:45chronic unemployment, depression,

0:34:45 > 0:34:49ennui, health and nutrition problems and domestic abuse.

0:34:49 > 0:34:52Five of the top ten causes of death among Native Americans

0:34:52 > 0:34:55are related to the abuse of alcohol.

0:34:55 > 0:34:58On most reservations it's illegal to buy or consume it.

0:34:58 > 0:35:01We're running on fumes - we need to get some gas.

0:35:01 > 0:35:05White man, go do your work. Slave amongst us warriors here.

0:35:07 > 0:35:10So what's this, er, white guy doing down here?

0:35:10 > 0:35:13Is he trying to reinvent the Indians?

0:35:13 > 0:35:19He's doing it on behalf of er, of er, British people I guess.

0:35:19 > 0:35:23- Ah, those people?- Yeah.- Jeez!

0:35:23 > 0:35:25You know, they drink tea.

0:35:25 > 0:35:28Oh, yeah. They like their tea.

0:35:28 > 0:35:32- "Top of the morning to you" kind of people, you know.- Oh, yeah.

0:35:36 > 0:35:38ENGINE SPUTTERS AND STOPS

0:35:38 > 0:35:39Uh-oh.

0:35:40 > 0:35:42- Trouble, trouble.- Come on, war pony.

0:35:42 > 0:35:44- Come on, baby.- Come on, war pony.

0:35:44 > 0:35:47- Is there some chant that works here? - Throw your flashers on.

0:35:49 > 0:35:52When a res car can no longer function as a res car,

0:35:52 > 0:35:55it usually becomes something else, quite often a dog house.

0:35:55 > 0:35:57After that, a storage shed.

0:35:57 > 0:36:01Thus the res car is the most environmentally efficient

0:36:01 > 0:36:03vehicle on the planet.

0:36:03 > 0:36:06It preceded the Prius by several decades.

0:36:06 > 0:36:09But its initial breakdown often leaves the Indian on foot

0:36:09 > 0:36:12which, given his historical perspective,

0:36:12 > 0:36:14isn't really all that unusual.

0:36:15 > 0:36:17Navajo are used to walking.

0:36:17 > 0:36:19There was a time they had to walk much, much further.

0:36:19 > 0:36:22But before we tell that story it's probably a good idea

0:36:22 > 0:36:24to tell you a few things about the Navajo.

0:36:24 > 0:36:27They are first and foremost, artisans.

0:36:27 > 0:36:31When the Pueblo Indians ran the Spanish off back to Mexico,

0:36:31 > 0:36:34the Spanish were forced to leave their horses and sheep behind.

0:36:34 > 0:36:38Well, the Navajo had no use for horses - there were no buffalo -

0:36:38 > 0:36:43but sheep? Now you're talking! Wool, blankets, rugs, all tradable items.

0:36:43 > 0:36:47Quite often the man they traded with was Kit Carson.

0:36:50 > 0:36:53Kit Carson was a trapper, scout, Indian agent,

0:36:53 > 0:36:56soldier and authentic legend of the West.

0:36:56 > 0:36:59Few trappers became more integrated into the Indian world

0:36:59 > 0:37:01than Kit Carson.

0:37:01 > 0:37:04He travelled and lived extensively among them.

0:37:04 > 0:37:07His first two wives were Arapahoe and Cheyenne women

0:37:07 > 0:37:09and the Indians called him Rope Thrower.

0:37:12 > 0:37:16But Carson would become one of those, you know, compromised heroes.

0:37:16 > 0:37:19In 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War,

0:37:19 > 0:37:22Kit Carson was conscripted by the Union Army.

0:37:22 > 0:37:24What happened after that

0:37:24 > 0:37:27is not generally viewed as heroic amongst Indians.

0:37:27 > 0:37:31Kit Carson was recruited to come into Navajo Country

0:37:31 > 0:37:34and subdue the Navajos once and for all

0:37:34 > 0:37:38on what he called the Scorched Earth Campaign.

0:37:42 > 0:37:46The Navajo grew peaches, right down in that canyon.

0:37:46 > 0:37:49They had 5,000 peach trees. Only the Navajo ate peaches.

0:37:49 > 0:37:50No other Indians.

0:37:50 > 0:37:53So Carson divided his troops into two regiments

0:37:53 > 0:37:56and entered from each end of the canyon.

0:37:56 > 0:37:57The idea was to round up Navajo.

0:37:57 > 0:38:00But the Navajo hid up above and just threw rocks down at his troops,

0:38:00 > 0:38:02also curses.

0:38:02 > 0:38:05Carson did a lot of things to the Indians.

0:38:05 > 0:38:08He gave them blankets riddled with smallpox.

0:38:08 > 0:38:12He made them walk 300 miles to live on an unarable piece of land

0:38:12 > 0:38:17outside Bosque Redondo reservation. He let them starve along the way.

0:38:17 > 0:38:20But for Christ's sake, how can you burn someone's peaches?

0:38:20 > 0:38:25Carson kept trying to resign but the Army wouldn't let him.

0:38:25 > 0:38:30His troops devastated the Navajo land and its people.

0:38:30 > 0:38:34Those that survived the onslaught eventually surrendered

0:38:34 > 0:38:36and in January 1864,

0:38:36 > 0:38:406,000 Navajo Indian were ordered to take the Long Walk.

0:38:40 > 0:38:42That is a point in time that is pivotal

0:38:42 > 0:38:45or momentous to Navajo people.

0:38:45 > 0:38:51Our ancestors were herded like animals.

0:38:51 > 0:38:53Everybody had to walk

0:38:53 > 0:38:55because there were no wagons for anybody to ride.

0:38:55 > 0:38:59If you were a child, if you were elderly,

0:38:59 > 0:39:02people who slowed the group down were shot on sight and left behind.

0:39:02 > 0:39:07People were not allowed to slow down, stop and bury them.

0:39:07 > 0:39:13A lot of babies died because under stress the mothers could not...

0:39:13 > 0:39:17Their bodies couldn't make milk.

0:39:17 > 0:39:20By the time they had arrived 18 days later at Bosque Redondo,

0:39:20 > 0:39:24200 of them had perished.

0:39:24 > 0:39:28Carson is buried in a cemetery outside Taos, New Mexico.

0:39:28 > 0:39:32Every night, Indians make a slightly unsteady procession

0:39:32 > 0:39:34to his gravesite to urinate on it.

0:39:34 > 0:39:37Yep. Indians are used to walking.

0:39:41 > 0:39:43What?

0:39:48 > 0:39:53Really, Rich? Indians are used to walking?

0:39:53 > 0:39:55Well, I didn't say they enjoy it, did I?

0:39:55 > 0:39:57I just said they're used to walking.

0:39:57 > 0:40:00You know something amazing, being a part of this documentary

0:40:00 > 0:40:03I'm actually learning a lot about Indians I already didn't know.

0:40:03 > 0:40:05You did a good job on Google there, Rich.

0:40:05 > 0:40:08All right. Convey to me the essence of the nomadic Indian.

0:40:08 > 0:40:11Well, see, there you go right there, it's a generalisation.

0:40:11 > 0:40:13Not all Indians were nomadic.

0:40:13 > 0:40:18You can't make generalisations about Indians. That's dangerous water.

0:40:18 > 0:40:21You start with generalisations, you start making stories up,

0:40:21 > 0:40:23and that hurts us as a people.

0:40:25 > 0:40:27Do you know where we are, Rich?

0:40:27 > 0:40:30Goodwater Indian Site - that's what the sign said.

0:40:30 > 0:40:33There was a massacre, Rich.

0:40:33 > 0:40:37In 1866, the three great nations of the Inuit,

0:40:37 > 0:40:41Lakota and the Seminole met at this very point to settle a blood feud

0:40:41 > 0:40:42that had lasted for 100 years.

0:40:42 > 0:40:44To make a blood pact.

0:40:44 > 0:40:50We were going to unite the nations on this great continent.

0:40:50 > 0:40:55General Tex Amico heard of it and in the middle of the night

0:40:55 > 0:41:00he circled the village and without warning

0:41:00 > 0:41:04released this 35-foot raptor upon the village...

0:41:06 > 0:41:08..attacking the women and children.

0:41:08 > 0:41:10Ate 'em.

0:41:12 > 0:41:16He didn't ate 'em - raptors don't eat meat.

0:41:16 > 0:41:18He just kind of licked 'em with his tongue

0:41:18 > 0:41:20and used its mandibles to inflict damage.

0:41:20 > 0:41:24It was disgusting. Point is, Rich, not everything's a joke.

0:41:29 > 0:41:31These aren't called mandibles.

0:41:33 > 0:41:37# Cos we'll go driving away from home

0:41:37 > 0:41:39# 30 miles or more

0:41:42 > 0:41:47# And we'll go moving away from home

0:41:47 > 0:41:50# Without a care... #

0:41:51 > 0:41:54This is Pine Ridge, Shannon County, South Dakota.

0:41:54 > 0:41:56When news shows want to show you the ground zero

0:41:56 > 0:41:59of Native American grievances, they always come to Pine Ridge.

0:41:59 > 0:42:02When they want to show the centre of Native American activities,

0:42:02 > 0:42:06they come to Pine Ridge, the home of the American Indian Movement.

0:42:06 > 0:42:09Three out of ten people here have jobs.

0:42:09 > 0:42:10Anyone here have a job?

0:42:10 > 0:42:11- No.- Me.

0:42:11 > 0:42:14OK, one out of ten people here have jobs -

0:42:14 > 0:42:16most of them are with the Bureau Of Indian Affairs

0:42:16 > 0:42:19or the Indian Health Services, who are funded by Washington DC.

0:42:19 > 0:42:21Or they work for the Oglala Tribe, which gets its money

0:42:21 > 0:42:24and subsidies and treaty payouts from Washington, DC.

0:42:24 > 0:42:27For the record, the richest town in America

0:42:27 > 0:42:29is Leesburg, Loudon County, Virginia.

0:42:29 > 0:42:31Most of the people there work for agencies

0:42:31 > 0:42:34and sub-contractors to the federal Government.

0:42:34 > 0:42:36They get their money from Washington DC.

0:42:36 > 0:42:41So answer me this - why doesn't Pine Ridge look like Leesburg?

0:42:41 > 0:42:48- Because Pine Ridge is different... - I found one of those green things.

0:42:48 > 0:42:51It's as good an answer as anything.

0:42:58 > 0:43:02Here on the Oglala reservation, I've already learned a lot of useful tips

0:43:02 > 0:43:05that you can apply to your own life.

0:43:05 > 0:43:08If a dog runs after you, yell "wahampi!"

0:43:08 > 0:43:10That means "soup". The dog knows that

0:43:10 > 0:43:12if he doesn't back off, he's going to become soup.

0:43:12 > 0:43:16Before moving your house on to a new set of blocks,

0:43:16 > 0:43:18cover the bricks in dishwashing liquid,

0:43:18 > 0:43:22then the house will slide on slicker than deer guts on a doorknob.

0:43:22 > 0:43:26Ashes can remove blood from any wooden floor.

0:43:26 > 0:43:30Warm a drum hide head with a blow-dryer before you play it

0:43:30 > 0:43:33and it will sound ten times better.

0:43:33 > 0:43:36A knock on the door and no-one's there?

0:43:36 > 0:43:39Someone you love is going to die soon.

0:43:50 > 0:43:53Nebraska, the good life.

0:43:53 > 0:43:56It's only 40 yards from the Nebraska state line

0:43:56 > 0:43:58back to the Pine Ridge Reservation,

0:43:58 > 0:44:00but when you walk back to South Dakota,

0:44:00 > 0:44:04the temperature's the same but the life expectancy drops by 12 years.

0:44:04 > 0:44:08The town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, population 12,

0:44:08 > 0:44:12is a vortex sucking the life out of the Sioux people.

0:44:12 > 0:44:17The four liquor stores here sell 4.5 million cans of beer a year.

0:44:19 > 0:44:21From sun up to closing time,

0:44:21 > 0:44:24the town is clustered with small dark clouds

0:44:24 > 0:44:29of bleary-eyed, paralytic, zombified drunken Indians,

0:44:29 > 0:44:33each one waiting for the next beer to appear like a minor miracle.

0:44:33 > 0:44:36Now, if you're British you're probably looking at this thinking,

0:44:36 > 0:44:39"Hey, when did this show become a holiday travelogue?"

0:44:39 > 0:44:42But before you book your ticket to Whiteclay, Nebraska,

0:44:42 > 0:44:43bear this statistic in mind -

0:44:43 > 0:44:46the biggest killer of people on the Pine Ridge Reservation

0:44:46 > 0:44:50isn't cancer, heart disease or diabetes, it's car crashes.

0:44:50 > 0:44:54Pine Ridge doesn't have a problem with just drink-driving.

0:44:54 > 0:44:58Pine Ridge has a problem with drink-walking.

0:44:58 > 0:45:03Do you find the town of Whiteclay over here to be a nemesis

0:45:03 > 0:45:07to keeping safety and sanity in the reservation?

0:45:07 > 0:45:10It's creating a lot of pain and hardships here.

0:45:10 > 0:45:11Last year for... Well, actually,

0:45:11 > 0:45:13for the last part of six, seven years or so,

0:45:13 > 0:45:16we've been on the highest as far as car crashes

0:45:16 > 0:45:18in the nation for fatalities.

0:45:18 > 0:45:20Majority were the result of alcohol.

0:45:25 > 0:45:27Do those signs indicate a fatality?

0:45:27 > 0:45:28Correct.

0:45:28 > 0:45:31Even if you see a cross, because a lot of them

0:45:31 > 0:45:33don't have the X-marks-the-spot sign

0:45:33 > 0:45:35so a lot of them will actually have a cross

0:45:35 > 0:45:38or you'll see some flowers or candles in the road ditch

0:45:38 > 0:45:41and that simulates the same thing, that there was a fatality there.

0:45:41 > 0:45:46In the last year, a concentrated police and community campaign

0:45:46 > 0:45:49to enforce seat-belt safety and child restraint devices

0:45:49 > 0:45:52has lowered the Oglala fatality rate considerably.

0:45:52 > 0:45:57Last year we had 47 fatality car crashes. This year we had six,

0:45:57 > 0:45:59so we're not at the top any more.

0:45:59 > 0:46:02# Call him drunken Ira Hayes

0:46:02 > 0:46:04# He won't answer any more... #

0:46:04 > 0:46:08The existence of a place like Whiteclay, Nebraska

0:46:08 > 0:46:10underscores the widely-held belief

0:46:10 > 0:46:12that Indians are tragically susceptible to alcohol.

0:46:12 > 0:46:17There's never been a shred of scientific evidence to prove this.

0:46:17 > 0:46:18Whisky.

0:46:18 > 0:46:22The Hollywood image of the Indian as a hapless victim of alcohol

0:46:22 > 0:46:25without ever showing the underlying conditions,

0:46:25 > 0:46:27such as poverty, depression and unemployment,

0:46:27 > 0:46:31only proves one thing - that Indians are susceptible to stereotyping.

0:46:34 > 0:46:35Perhaps the main reason

0:46:35 > 0:46:39the American Indian has been so historically taken out of context is

0:46:39 > 0:46:42because historically they've never had a lot of text to begin with.

0:46:42 > 0:46:44Traditionally, the history of the Indian has been

0:46:44 > 0:46:47passed down orally from generation to generation.

0:46:47 > 0:46:52In traditional form, storytellers were taught from the very beginning

0:46:52 > 0:46:58of their instruction that you need to remember every word by its word,

0:46:58 > 0:47:01you can't change the facts, because there are these critical moments

0:47:01 > 0:47:04in our history that we all as people recognise

0:47:04 > 0:47:06this impacted our people to such a great degree

0:47:06 > 0:47:08that we need to remember this.

0:47:08 > 0:47:10You don't change the oral history

0:47:10 > 0:47:13because that's how we learn, that's how we remember.

0:47:13 > 0:47:16Astoundingly, it wasn't until well into the 20th century

0:47:16 > 0:47:19that anyone came up with a scholarly idea

0:47:19 > 0:47:24of documenting the Indians' history by actually going to the source.

0:47:24 > 0:47:28That source was named Black Elk.

0:47:28 > 0:47:32In 1930, an American poet and writer from Nebraska named John Neihardt

0:47:32 > 0:47:37spent 18 months interviewing the Oglala Sioux spiritual leader.

0:47:37 > 0:47:41Neihardt published a book and called it Black Elk Speaks.

0:47:41 > 0:47:43Instead of a short interview,

0:47:43 > 0:47:46Black Elk gave Neihardt a complete narrative of his own life

0:47:46 > 0:47:50and that of his people, the Oglala Lakota.

0:47:50 > 0:47:54It was a story of burned-out tipis, slaughtered buffalo

0:47:54 > 0:47:56and slain relatives.

0:47:56 > 0:47:59It also includes Black Elk's personal description

0:47:59 > 0:48:02of the events of Wounded Knee.

0:48:02 > 0:48:04While Neihardt was living with and documenting Black Elk's life,

0:48:04 > 0:48:07a two-year drought had taken over South Dakota,

0:48:07 > 0:48:09so Black Elk took Neihardt to the top of Harney Peak,

0:48:09 > 0:48:12the highest mountain in South Dakota.

0:48:12 > 0:48:15In a feeble, faltering voice he uttered a Lakotan prayer

0:48:15 > 0:48:18and suddenly the skies opened up.

0:48:18 > 0:48:20This prayer appears word for word in Niehardt's book.

0:48:20 > 0:48:22This life-giving essence appears to be both

0:48:22 > 0:48:26the perfect ending to a book and to an old man's life.

0:48:26 > 0:48:29The only thing was, Neihardt hadn't brought his interpreter along

0:48:29 > 0:48:32so he couldn't possibly have known what Black Elk really said.

0:48:32 > 0:48:35Also, Black Elk wasn't as feeble as he was letting on -

0:48:35 > 0:48:37he lived another 17 years.

0:48:37 > 0:48:41Roughly 40 years later, Black Elk Speaks would become

0:48:41 > 0:48:44a bestseller, the official hippie bible,

0:48:44 > 0:48:50not for its historical content, but for its environmental aesthetic.

0:48:50 > 0:48:53# And the seasons, they go round and round

0:48:53 > 0:48:57# And the painted ponies go up and down

0:48:57 > 0:49:04# We're captive on the carousel of time... #

0:49:04 > 0:49:07It was an aesthetic that hippies, folksingers

0:49:07 > 0:49:10and mystical magpies could easily distil,

0:49:10 > 0:49:14slather in patchouli oil and put a few chords underneath.

0:49:14 > 0:49:20# Round and round and round in the circle game. #

0:49:20 > 0:49:22Religion is not a concept that Indians use

0:49:22 > 0:49:25because Indians don't use the word "religion".

0:49:25 > 0:49:27If they do, it's for our appeasement.

0:49:27 > 0:49:29They don't run up to each other and say,

0:49:29 > 0:49:30"Hey, what religion are you?"

0:49:30 > 0:49:33Because religion implies that things are always going to end badly -

0:49:33 > 0:49:36holy wars, crucifixion, annihilation.

0:49:36 > 0:49:40Indians believe in spirits and spirituality.

0:49:40 > 0:49:44Spirituality consists of two things, nature and creation.

0:49:44 > 0:49:49This circular logic is broken down into quadripartite divisions.

0:49:49 > 0:49:51Sun. Moon. Sky. Stars.

0:49:51 > 0:49:53Red. Green. Blue. Yellow.

0:49:53 > 0:49:57Four seasons. Four Winds. Four directions.

0:49:57 > 0:50:01These are things that Dallas Goldtooth has told me.

0:50:01 > 0:50:04That's right, that big galoot,

0:50:04 > 0:50:07that guy who looks like a waterlogged version of David Walliams,

0:50:07 > 0:50:08has actually taught me a few things.

0:50:08 > 0:50:13There's no manual there to explain what spirituality means

0:50:13 > 0:50:16for Native people because there's hundreds and hundreds

0:50:16 > 0:50:18of different viewpoints on the world

0:50:18 > 0:50:23and to try to accumulate that all into one definition is really hard.

0:50:23 > 0:50:28Me, I'm a Dakota man and our word for the Creator,

0:50:28 > 0:50:33the essence, the energy that created all things, people say Wakontaka.

0:50:33 > 0:50:37That simply means, "the great sacred, the great mystery,

0:50:37 > 0:50:42"this unknown power that is out there," nothing beyond that.

0:50:42 > 0:50:45There's no research being done in Lakota colleges, Dakota colleges,

0:50:45 > 0:50:49trying to figure out what is this unknown being. What is it?

0:50:49 > 0:50:50It just is.

0:50:50 > 0:50:54It's this unknown power that has created everything around us.

0:50:54 > 0:50:58It's all one, who we are, our essence.

0:50:58 > 0:51:02Don't have any separation of the culture or the religion.

0:51:02 > 0:51:05We have the sun, the wind, Mother Earth.

0:51:05 > 0:51:09We pray and use different plants and different herbs to pray with.

0:51:09 > 0:51:13And the wind takes our prayers.

0:51:13 > 0:51:17These are some of our beliefs. We don't have cathedrals.

0:51:17 > 0:51:21Our cathedrals are the great south west

0:51:21 > 0:51:27or the Black Hills where the Lakota, the trees and the waters...

0:51:31 > 0:51:34Black Elk lived in a lot of different places

0:51:34 > 0:51:37in the Dakota territory, including this cabin.

0:51:37 > 0:51:39At the age of 16 he was designated a healer and a medicine man.

0:51:39 > 0:51:42Five years later he would embark on a totally new experience.

0:51:42 > 0:51:46In November of 1886, Black Elk the medicine man

0:51:46 > 0:51:51joined 133 other Lakota and boarded a train from Rushville, Nebraska

0:51:51 > 0:51:54to Showbiz Land.

0:51:56 > 0:52:00Black Elk became a member of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

0:52:00 > 0:52:05Each Lakota was paid 25 a week, once they'd agreed to be baptized.

0:52:05 > 0:52:08It's probably safe to say that none of the Indians who appeared

0:52:08 > 0:52:12in The Wild West Show, which at times included Sitting Bull,

0:52:12 > 0:52:14Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce and Geronimo,

0:52:14 > 0:52:16were actually driven by an acting bug.

0:52:16 > 0:52:19Sitting Bull was forced to perform in the Wild West Show

0:52:19 > 0:52:22because he was a prisoner of the United States -

0:52:22 > 0:52:24it was a chance to get off the reservation.

0:52:24 > 0:52:27The modern day equivalent would be if a Guantanamo detainee

0:52:27 > 0:52:28suddenly had to appear on X Factor.

0:52:28 > 0:52:32The Wild West Show performed at Madison Square Garden

0:52:32 > 0:52:35in New York City for four months, to monster reviews,

0:52:35 > 0:52:39and on March 31st, 1887, the entire Lakota entourage

0:52:39 > 0:52:41set sail for England.

0:52:41 > 0:52:46On the transatlantic voyage, Black Elk was by turns fearful and amazed.

0:52:46 > 0:52:48He actually thought that the boat was going to

0:52:48 > 0:52:51sail off the edge of the world because, you know,

0:52:51 > 0:52:54he was 21 - he wasn't presumably thinking circuitously yet.

0:52:54 > 0:52:55When the boat hit a heavy storm

0:52:55 > 0:52:58and the crew had to pass out lifejackets,

0:52:58 > 0:53:01the Lakota started chanting their own death song.

0:53:01 > 0:53:03What's a death song?

0:53:03 > 0:53:06Huh?

0:53:06 > 0:53:09I don't know, everyone has their own.

0:53:09 > 0:53:10Do you have one?

0:53:10 > 0:53:11Yeah.

0:53:14 > 0:53:17HE WAILS Creator!

0:53:17 > 0:53:21I don't want to die! I don't want to die!

0:53:21 > 0:53:23HE SOBS

0:53:27 > 0:53:32On May 11th, 1887, Black Elk was one of five Lakota

0:53:32 > 0:53:36included in Buffalo Bill's command performance for Queen Victoria.

0:53:36 > 0:53:40The train left London for Birmingham and then Salford,

0:53:40 > 0:53:43but Black Elk didn't make it because he and three friends got lost

0:53:43 > 0:53:46wandering around London and were actually arrested by police

0:53:46 > 0:53:48as suspects in a murder

0:53:48 > 0:53:50that was eventually attributed to Jack the Ripper.

0:53:50 > 0:53:53So then Black Elk joined The Mexican Joe Shelley show,

0:53:53 > 0:53:56which was a knock-off of the Buffalo Bill Show but paid twice as much.

0:53:56 > 0:53:59Then he headed for Europe, all the while forming

0:53:59 > 0:54:03a clearer understanding of white Christianity and its practice.

0:54:03 > 0:54:07One day, at a breakfast table in France,

0:54:07 > 0:54:09he suddenly fell off his chair, unconscious.

0:54:09 > 0:54:13A doctor showed up and pronounced him dead. A casket was ordered.

0:54:13 > 0:54:18But Black Elk was actually having a dream vision and in that dream,

0:54:18 > 0:54:20he was back home,

0:54:20 > 0:54:22circling high above his mother's perfectly round tipi.

0:54:22 > 0:54:25He saw all his relatives mourning his death.

0:54:25 > 0:54:28Then he woke up, announced he was fine

0:54:28 > 0:54:31and a week later, boarded a ship back to America.

0:54:31 > 0:54:34Black Elk couldn't quite understand the significance of the dream.

0:54:34 > 0:54:37Three years later, in the aftermath of Wounded Knee,

0:54:37 > 0:54:38it would all make sense.

0:54:38 > 0:54:41It wasn't Black Elk's death the Lakota people were mourning.

0:54:41 > 0:54:42It was their own.

0:54:42 > 0:54:46Tensions had reached a plateau between the Lakota

0:54:46 > 0:54:47and the US Government.

0:54:47 > 0:54:50More of their land was being signed away

0:54:50 > 0:54:52and the tribes were being systematically rounded up

0:54:52 > 0:54:54and moved to camps.

0:54:54 > 0:54:56It was a time of suffering and degradation

0:54:56 > 0:55:00and the Lakota were looking for something, anything to believe in.

0:55:00 > 0:55:03The attempts to baptize and indoctrinate them into Christianity

0:55:03 > 0:55:07had crystallised into a mutant strain of evangelism

0:55:07 > 0:55:09called the Ghost Dance movement.

0:55:09 > 0:55:11'Now they resorted to a new faith

0:55:11 > 0:55:16'and a dance was part of that faith. If they danced with fervour,

0:55:16 > 0:55:19'they renounced war and loved all people,

0:55:19 > 0:55:23'the buffalo would return, the white man would be swept away

0:55:23 > 0:55:26'and the dead rise.

0:55:26 > 0:55:29'It became known as the religion of the Ghost Dance.'

0:55:31 > 0:55:34Convinced the Ghost Dance was a prelude to all-out war,

0:55:34 > 0:55:37the Army decided to move in and shut the ritual down.

0:55:37 > 0:55:39Instead of discouraging the practice,

0:55:39 > 0:55:42the ban actually expanded it.

0:55:42 > 0:55:45Fearful of a total uprising, federal troops were

0:55:45 > 0:55:48brought into Pine Ridge to round up the Ghost Dancers.

0:55:48 > 0:55:50500 Lakota were arrested.

0:55:50 > 0:55:53The cavalry - in fact, the entire Northern Plains Army -

0:55:53 > 0:55:56was already in a fairly vindictive state.

0:55:56 > 0:55:59Only two weeks earlier over on the Standing Rock reservation

0:55:59 > 0:56:01they'd killed Sitting Bull, the former star attraction

0:56:01 > 0:56:04of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Travelling Show.

0:56:04 > 0:56:08Now, many other Lakota were fearful of further reprisals.

0:56:13 > 0:56:20On December 23rd, 1890, a group of 300 Hunkpapa and Miniconjou Lakota,

0:56:20 > 0:56:23led by the Miniconjou leader Big Foot,

0:56:23 > 0:56:26left their Cheyenne River reservation to join up with

0:56:26 > 0:56:29Chief Red Cloud's Pine Ridge reservation Indians.

0:56:29 > 0:56:33They mistakenly thought they'd be safer.

0:56:33 > 0:56:35This only made the cavalry more nervous

0:56:35 > 0:56:38and orders were quickly made to disarm the Sioux.

0:56:38 > 0:56:41They were intercepted by the 7th Cavalry on December 28th

0:56:41 > 0:56:45at the site of Wounded Knee Creek, a few miles from Pine Ridge.

0:56:45 > 0:56:48Leonard Little Finger is a teacher

0:56:48 > 0:56:50from the town of Oglala, South Dakota.

0:56:50 > 0:56:53His grandfather survived the massacre.

0:56:56 > 0:57:01Chief Big Foot and his family were going to be loaded up onto boxcars

0:57:01 > 0:57:04and taken to Florida.

0:57:04 > 0:57:06The rationale of the military at that time was

0:57:06 > 0:57:09if they took the leaders out

0:57:09 > 0:57:13then the people would quietly enter the reservations

0:57:13 > 0:57:16and be there for the rest of time, so to speak.

0:57:20 > 0:57:24In the morning, all were gathered together

0:57:24 > 0:57:26and my grandfather was with the group

0:57:26 > 0:57:29and although he was 14 years old at the time,

0:57:29 > 0:57:32he still would be considered as a warrior.

0:57:32 > 0:57:37He was told by an interpreter that they wanted to demonstrate

0:57:37 > 0:57:40what they would do in the event that

0:57:40 > 0:57:45some of them broke away from the group and tried to escape.

0:57:45 > 0:57:49All of the soldiers were lined up opposite

0:57:49 > 0:57:53and he kept his eye on the one that was immediately facing him.

0:57:55 > 0:58:01He noticed that as they pulled the bolt of the rifle backward,

0:58:01 > 0:58:06a shell went into the chamber and he locked it,

0:58:06 > 0:58:11and at that instant he knew that they were going to shoot him

0:58:11 > 0:58:17and so he took a running jump at that soldier and he said,

0:58:17 > 0:58:20"I hit him as hard as I could and I knocked him down."

0:58:20 > 0:58:24And point blank, the shooting started.

0:58:27 > 0:58:32They were literally slaughtering all these people,

0:58:32 > 0:58:34mostly women and children.

0:58:39 > 0:58:42Leonard Little Finger's grandfather was shot twice

0:58:42 > 0:58:44but managed to escape.

0:58:47 > 0:58:49Many didn't live to pass their stories down.

0:58:49 > 0:58:52150 Lakota men, women and children were dead,

0:58:52 > 0:58:57amongst them Spotted Elk. Army casualties numbered 25.

0:58:57 > 0:59:01Eyewitnesses said that the Army officers lost control of their men

0:59:01 > 0:59:03as they randomly shot women and children

0:59:03 > 0:59:05who were running for cover.

0:59:08 > 0:59:11He said, "My thought was, these are cowards.

0:59:11 > 0:59:13"They're not soldiers, they're cowards."

0:59:17 > 0:59:19The Massacre at Wounded Knee, many of whose victims

0:59:19 > 0:59:22are buried in this mass grave,

0:59:22 > 0:59:23marks the end of 50 years of hostility

0:59:23 > 0:59:26between the cavalry and the Plains Indians.

0:59:26 > 0:59:29And the Plains Indians were and still are

0:59:29 > 0:59:30vastly relegated to reservations.

0:59:30 > 0:59:33In 1890, the unofficial American policy of containment

0:59:33 > 0:59:37and manifest destiny of Indians turned to subsidising them -

0:59:37 > 0:59:41subsidised housing, subsidised rations, subsidised education.

0:59:41 > 0:59:46From here on in, it was cheaper to feed an Indian than to fight 'em.

0:59:47 > 0:59:53In February 1973, Wounded Knee would regain historical prominence

0:59:53 > 0:59:57when 200 Oglala Sioux, followers of the American Indian Movement,

0:59:57 > 1:00:01seized the area and took up arms against Government policy.

1:00:01 > 1:00:04The Wounded Knee massacre site was cordoned off

1:00:04 > 1:00:06by Tribal Police and then the FBI.

1:00:06 > 1:00:09The stand off between activists and Government officers

1:00:09 > 1:00:11lasted 71 days.

1:00:14 > 1:00:18The term Wounded Knee - what does it mean to people,

1:00:18 > 1:00:20to Indians in particular?

1:00:20 > 1:00:24This place represents in its full embodiment, you know,

1:00:24 > 1:00:29the struggle of native people, you know, at two different time frames.

1:00:29 > 1:00:34In both cases, native people were the terrorist threat to America

1:00:34 > 1:00:36at this location.

1:00:36 > 1:00:41We were the terrorists that needed to be rubbed out.

1:00:41 > 1:00:46That we threatened the very ideals of America, at this location.

1:00:48 > 1:00:52And in one instance...it was death

1:00:52 > 1:00:56and the other instance it was a sort of triumph,

1:00:56 > 1:01:00that feeling that we finally took control of something.

1:01:07 > 1:01:09The phrase "bury my heart at Wounded Knee"

1:01:09 > 1:01:12comes from a Stephen Vincent Benet poem about American place names.

1:01:12 > 1:01:16In 1970, the author and historian Dee Brown

1:01:16 > 1:01:18used it as the title for his book.

1:01:18 > 1:01:20It became a phenomenal bestseller

1:01:20 > 1:01:23and a definitive text on Native American history.

1:01:23 > 1:01:26Americans went from knowing nothing about Indians

1:01:26 > 1:01:28to thinking they knew everything about Indians.

1:01:28 > 1:01:31You could read it and swallow a giant guilt pill.

1:01:35 > 1:01:39With this newfound acknowledgement of the Indians' existence,

1:01:39 > 1:01:40it was only a matter of time

1:01:40 > 1:01:43until it would morph into wholesale commercialism,

1:01:43 > 1:01:46because America's way of apologising to people they've screwed over

1:01:46 > 1:01:50is to stick 'em on a T-shirt or a package.

1:01:50 > 1:01:53Madison Avenue learned along time ago that there was money to be made

1:01:53 > 1:01:57in exploiting Native American spirituality - after all,

1:01:57 > 1:01:59Indians were the first Green Party, weren't they?

1:01:59 > 1:02:02Thus, if Indians were to make, I don't know, cigarettes,

1:02:02 > 1:02:05well, they'd have to be more spiritual than regular cigarettes,

1:02:05 > 1:02:07wouldn't they?

1:02:07 > 1:02:09Because smoke was sacred to Indians. It always has been.

1:02:09 > 1:02:12It's used as a medium to send prayers to the Creator.

1:02:12 > 1:02:16So the makers of Natural American Spirit cigarettes

1:02:16 > 1:02:19want you to believe that not only are you filling your lungs

1:02:19 > 1:02:20with chemicals and nicotine,

1:02:20 > 1:02:24you're actually sending great big billows of prayer to the sky.

1:02:24 > 1:02:28The only thing is, these cigarettes aren't remotely Indian.

1:02:28 > 1:02:32They're just another RJ Reynolds, British American Tobacco product.

1:02:32 > 1:02:38You know, they're cigarettes with a fucking Indian on the front.

1:02:38 > 1:02:41The Indian became a shibboleth, a brand, a flavour,

1:02:41 > 1:02:43a mascot, a fashion.

1:02:43 > 1:02:46Everyone under 30 suddenly discovered

1:02:46 > 1:02:48they had a little Cherokee or Cheyenne in them.

1:02:48 > 1:02:51Usually on their great-grandmother's side.

1:02:51 > 1:02:53Because suddenly Indians were cool.

1:02:53 > 1:02:56It pisses me off, man.

1:02:56 > 1:02:59It gets up to the very core of a lot of Indian people's anger,

1:02:59 > 1:03:05this idea that our culture, our stories, our history, is up for sale.

1:03:05 > 1:03:10And I think that's where the societies butt heads all the time.

1:03:10 > 1:03:13You know, it's just making a mockery of who we are as a people.

1:03:13 > 1:03:17When you're making fun of a people through characters and...

1:03:17 > 1:03:21Like professional sports - you know, you have football teams,

1:03:21 > 1:03:25they call themselves The Washington Redskins, Kansas City Chiefs,

1:03:25 > 1:03:30bucktooth characters of Indian like Cleveland Indians.

1:03:30 > 1:03:35That's degrading and humiliating to be doing that to a people,

1:03:35 > 1:03:40and you don't see them doing that,

1:03:40 > 1:03:45making fun of African Americans or doing that to Hispanics.

1:03:45 > 1:03:50Every summer in South Dakota, I think there's like 80 Sundances.

1:03:50 > 1:03:53It's also the same time that thousands of Europeans

1:03:53 > 1:03:56flock to western South Dakota.

1:03:57 > 1:04:01'In the past, the Sundancers fasted and danced continuously

1:04:01 > 1:04:03'for several days and nights.

1:04:03 > 1:04:06'The Sundance was one of the most important tribal ceremonies

1:04:06 > 1:04:08'of the Plains Indians.'

1:04:08 > 1:04:12They come in droves to experience this. They come just all prepared,

1:04:12 > 1:04:15you know, they have frickin' buffalo robes

1:04:15 > 1:04:20and they smell like frickin' sandalwood and they don't shower.

1:04:20 > 1:04:23It's all a means of them trying to access in their mind,

1:04:23 > 1:04:26some connection, some better connection to,

1:04:26 > 1:04:31I don't know, the druids? I don't know what culture they have.

1:04:31 > 1:04:35But they're frickin' cultural raccoons. Cultural vampires.

1:04:35 > 1:04:39We got people coming in from - I don't want to offend you guys -

1:04:39 > 1:04:42but from Europe coming here, singing our songs.

1:04:42 > 1:04:43Really?

1:04:43 > 1:04:47And sometimes know those songs better than our own people. Why?

1:04:47 > 1:04:50Because they want to feel whole, they want to be part,

1:04:50 > 1:04:53I guess, of this universe, of Mother Earth.

1:04:53 > 1:04:56A lot of them pay for Sundance,

1:04:56 > 1:05:00but if they do that, that doesn't mean anything.

1:05:00 > 1:05:04There's no spiritual there, spirituality there -

1:05:04 > 1:05:07they're just dancing for nothing.

1:05:09 > 1:05:11'Today, the Sundance is fully understood

1:05:11 > 1:05:13'only by the older members of the tribe.'

1:05:16 > 1:05:18Hi, wannabes.

1:05:18 > 1:05:21Are you tired of being left out in the cold with no native heritage?

1:05:21 > 1:05:25Unaware of your Indian roots, or perhaps you have no Indian roots?

1:05:25 > 1:05:28Feel uncomfortable at pow-wows?

1:05:28 > 1:05:31Well, soon you'll be out there

1:05:31 > 1:05:36singing and dancing with the rest of us, thanks to Generokee.

1:05:40 > 1:05:41This is a dreamcatcher.

1:05:41 > 1:05:44Do you know who has one of these tattooed onto her ribcage?

1:05:44 > 1:05:45Miley Cyrus.

1:05:45 > 1:05:48- That's right - that Disneyfied- BLEEP

1:05:48 > 1:05:51has taken an Indian symbol and put it onto her body.

1:05:51 > 1:05:54It makes a perfect target for when you want to punch her.

1:05:54 > 1:05:57But tourists love to snap these things up,

1:05:57 > 1:05:59thinking that by buying some made-in-China spider web

1:05:59 > 1:06:02they'll be connected to the spiritual world.

1:06:02 > 1:06:03Well, they're not.

1:06:03 > 1:06:06The dreamcatcher was originally used by Ojibwe Indians -

1:06:06 > 1:06:09they hung it above their children's bed to keep away nightmares.

1:06:09 > 1:06:11That's it. It's a charm.

1:06:11 > 1:06:13So when some crystal-waving New Age poodle

1:06:13 > 1:06:15hangs one of these from their rear-view mirror,

1:06:15 > 1:06:17all it really indicates

1:06:17 > 1:06:19is that they tend to fall asleep at the wheel a lot.

1:06:19 > 1:06:22"That's very interesting," you're thinking, "Rich,

1:06:22 > 1:06:24- "but did you really just call Miley Cyrus a Disneyfied- BLEEP?"

1:06:24 > 1:06:27Yes, I did. What you gonna do about it, Miley?

1:06:27 > 1:06:30Oh, run tell your dad, that one-hit wonder, mulleted hillbilly?

1:06:30 > 1:06:34Come on down here, Billy Ray, come on.

1:06:34 > 1:06:36I'll give you an achy breaky jaw.

1:06:37 > 1:06:41Generokee - now, you may not be able to prove it

1:06:41 > 1:06:43but you'll know it in your heart.

1:06:43 > 1:06:46Caution - side effects may include suicide, poverty, disease

1:06:46 > 1:06:48and general loss of land.

1:06:52 > 1:06:56It's one thing to be almost comically unaware

1:06:56 > 1:06:58of why you are appropriating someone's culture.

1:06:58 > 1:07:01But to take the heart and soul of a people's spiritualism

1:07:01 > 1:07:06and to turn it into a white man's artefact is another thing entirely.

1:07:08 > 1:07:13In 1970, a drunken, irascible Irishman named Richard Harris

1:07:13 > 1:07:16reduced the Lakota Sundance ritual

1:07:16 > 1:07:21to ham-fisted auto-erotica by appearing in A Man Called Horse.

1:07:21 > 1:07:25Probably no film has pissed Indians off more.

1:07:27 > 1:07:31Harris plays a British fop named John Morgan, who is bird hunting

1:07:31 > 1:07:35in the Dakota territory when he's kidnapped viciously by Sioux.

1:07:36 > 1:07:39Richard Harris is a man called Horse.

1:07:39 > 1:07:42For most of the movie,

1:07:42 > 1:07:44Morgan is tortured and humiliated by the Sioux,

1:07:44 > 1:07:46spends a lot of time showing off his torso

1:07:46 > 1:07:48and delicately obscuring his junk

1:07:48 > 1:07:52with the help of various dingles, dongles and editing tricks.

1:07:52 > 1:07:55The film was promoted as "the most authentic description

1:07:55 > 1:07:57"of North American Indian life ever filmed".

1:07:57 > 1:08:01If your idea of authentic is a Brit screaming obscenities like he's

1:08:01 > 1:08:04just been served an under-cooked roast in a shit restaurant.

1:08:04 > 1:08:11Christ, I've had enough, you bunch of bloody bastards.

1:08:11 > 1:08:16I am not a horse. I am not an animal.

1:08:16 > 1:08:19A Man Called Horse's most memorable scene is when he is strung up

1:08:19 > 1:08:23and suspended by his chest to prove his macho courage.

1:08:23 > 1:08:26Thus the filmmakers turn the Sundance Ceremony,

1:08:26 > 1:08:29the most sacred of Indian religious rites,

1:08:29 > 1:08:32undertaken to prove a man's humility to the spirits

1:08:32 > 1:08:35by mortifying his flesh, and turn it into torture porn.

1:08:35 > 1:08:38SCREAMING

1:08:42 > 1:08:46Now, having been accepted by the Lakota, in no time he proves

1:08:46 > 1:08:50that he's pretty much better than them at everything they do.

1:08:50 > 1:08:53In the end, the film manages to perpetuate the idea

1:08:53 > 1:08:55of Euro-Caucasian superiority.

1:08:58 > 1:09:02The movie's scenes are exquisitely confounding to most Indians,

1:09:02 > 1:09:03particularly this one,

1:09:03 > 1:09:07where Morgan appears to be shooting Ozzy Osbourne.

1:09:08 > 1:09:12So while Richard Harris was being hung by his man boobs

1:09:12 > 1:09:15apparently for no other reason than to prove his man-boobliness,

1:09:15 > 1:09:20in the real world something far more significant was taking place.

1:09:20 > 1:09:25Namely, the Native American takeover of Alcatraz Island in California.

1:09:25 > 1:09:28Suddenly the Indian issue was at the forefront.

1:09:28 > 1:09:30What was the Indian issue?

1:09:30 > 1:09:32Well, that depends on which viewpoint you take.

1:09:32 > 1:09:35The white, benign viewpoint was that current Indian rights

1:09:35 > 1:09:37needed to be clarified.

1:09:37 > 1:09:40But the Native American viewpoint was not only that existing rights

1:09:40 > 1:09:44needed to be defended, but that past rights needed to be reclaimed.

1:09:44 > 1:09:48On November 20th 1969, at the height of anti-war activism

1:09:48 > 1:09:50and dissidence in the US,

1:09:50 > 1:09:54a group of American Indians occupied Alcatraz Island

1:09:54 > 1:09:56outside San Francisco

1:09:56 > 1:09:59to stake a claim to land that was previously theirs.

1:09:59 > 1:10:01Well, we're trying to hang on to our culture,

1:10:01 > 1:10:03to our religion, to be Indians.

1:10:03 > 1:10:06The occupation of Alcatraz preceded the stand off at Wounded Knee

1:10:06 > 1:10:08by over three years.

1:10:08 > 1:10:12Alcatraz was the beginning of the American Indian Movement or AIM.

1:10:12 > 1:10:16AIM is both an ideal and an organisation,

1:10:16 > 1:10:18whose existence to this very day

1:10:18 > 1:10:20is still a contentious issue to the US Government.

1:10:20 > 1:10:23I hitch-hiked out there when I was a student.

1:10:23 > 1:10:26It took me two days but I wanted to see what that was all about.

1:10:26 > 1:10:29That was my start in the Indian Rights Movement.

1:10:29 > 1:10:34We were looking for events that would allow us

1:10:34 > 1:10:37to participate in them and give voice.

1:10:37 > 1:10:41We have to do our part to educate white society

1:10:41 > 1:10:45that we have these feelings, we're upset with the way...

1:10:45 > 1:10:47The conditions and the treatment of our people.

1:10:49 > 1:10:52The occupation lasted until 1971

1:10:52 > 1:10:55and was forcibly ended by the US Government.

1:10:55 > 1:10:58But it was seen as a victory by those taking part

1:10:58 > 1:11:02because it brought Indian issues to national attention.

1:11:02 > 1:11:06Belatedly, of course, Hollywood woke up and took notice.

1:11:06 > 1:11:10The cinematic Indian and the real Indian had reached a confluence.

1:11:14 > 1:11:19Soldier Blue uses the Indian as a proxy for the massacres

1:11:19 > 1:11:20at My Lai in Vietnam.

1:11:20 > 1:11:24It shows a graphic annihilation of the Cheyenne

1:11:24 > 1:11:27at Sand Creek, Colorado in 1864.

1:11:27 > 1:11:30In fact, the brutal scene is what most people remember about the film,

1:11:30 > 1:11:35and because it is used metaphorically it manages once again

1:11:35 > 1:11:37to distort the Native American's existence.

1:11:37 > 1:11:41- Why? Why? Why?! - Shut up! I'll shoot you!

1:11:41 > 1:11:43Why?!

1:11:48 > 1:11:51Rubbing people's faces in bloodshed wasn't really going to do that much

1:11:51 > 1:11:57for a nation that was used to watching the real thing on television every night.

1:11:57 > 1:11:59The modern Indians' real appeal was discovered by youth.

1:11:59 > 1:12:04Rebellious youth. Disaffected youth. Pay attention to kids.

1:12:04 > 1:12:06They're not looking for victims.

1:12:06 > 1:12:10They're looking for heroes, and in 1971 they found one.

1:12:10 > 1:12:12When Jean and the kids at the school

1:12:12 > 1:12:17tell me that I'm supposed to control my violent temper,

1:12:17 > 1:12:23and be passive and non-violent like they are, I try.

1:12:23 > 1:12:25I really try.

1:12:25 > 1:12:30Though when I see this girl...

1:12:30 > 1:12:34of such a beautiful spirit...

1:12:34 > 1:12:36so degraded...

1:12:36 > 1:12:41I just go BERSERK!

1:12:41 > 1:12:43Billy Jack is one of the most phenomenally successful

1:12:43 > 1:12:46action heroes to ever appear on film.

1:12:46 > 1:12:49Tom Laughlin's one-man show of directing, producing and acting

1:12:49 > 1:12:53was a true example of American independent film-making

1:12:53 > 1:12:56and it preceded Rocky by five years.

1:12:56 > 1:12:58They'll kill you, Billy.

1:13:00 > 1:13:03I wish there was something I could say to change all that.

1:13:03 > 1:13:06An Indian isn't afraid to die.

1:13:06 > 1:13:09Don't ever expect a white man to understand that.

1:13:09 > 1:13:11I understand it.

1:13:13 > 1:13:17Billy Jack is a half-breed Indian and a former war hero

1:13:17 > 1:13:21who uses hapkido to settle redneck transgressions on the res.

1:13:21 > 1:13:24It's an anti-war movie where everybody who isn't anti-war

1:13:24 > 1:13:26gets their butts kicked.

1:13:26 > 1:13:28You know what I think I'm going to do then?

1:13:28 > 1:13:30Just for the hell of it?

1:13:30 > 1:13:32Tell me.

1:13:32 > 1:13:34I'm going to take this right foot...

1:13:36 > 1:13:40..and I'm going to whop you on that side of your face.

1:13:40 > 1:13:43And you want to know something?

1:13:43 > 1:13:47There's not a damn thing you're going to be able to do about it.

1:13:47 > 1:13:49Really?

1:13:49 > 1:13:51Really.

1:13:57 > 1:14:00The movie can be embraced as a political statement

1:14:00 > 1:14:02or as just a good old fashioned fist-fest.

1:14:02 > 1:14:06Either way, its timing couldn't have been more appropriate.

1:14:09 > 1:14:10He was the man. I mean,

1:14:10 > 1:14:13he was my idol back in the days when I was growing up,

1:14:13 > 1:14:14and at that time I looked at it,

1:14:14 > 1:14:16he was standing up for the rights of our people.

1:14:16 > 1:14:19See, much of the appeal of Billy Jack

1:14:19 > 1:14:22was that he bridged the polar gaps of political sentiment at the time

1:14:22 > 1:14:24because he was violently anti-violent.

1:14:24 > 1:14:26He was a hippie and he was a war hero.

1:14:26 > 1:14:28And he was a half-breed,

1:14:28 > 1:14:30which is always a safe route for Hollywood to take,

1:14:30 > 1:14:33because a half-breed hero is always going to be a fierce fighter

1:14:33 > 1:14:35AND a convenient victim.

1:14:35 > 1:14:37'Why is Billy Jack

1:14:37 > 1:14:39'one of the most popular pictures of our time?

1:14:39 > 1:14:44'People all over America have paid more than 30 million to see it.'

1:14:44 > 1:14:48Billy Jack was a half-breed. I don't know what the other half was

1:14:48 > 1:14:51cos they never said what tribe he was from.

1:14:51 > 1:14:52So he was this generic Indian,

1:14:52 > 1:14:57and also he was a half-breed so it gave him licence

1:14:57 > 1:15:00to be a little bit smarter than the regular Indians.

1:15:00 > 1:15:04You see that with Val Kilmer in that god-awful movie Thunderheart

1:15:04 > 1:15:10where the FBI is the fucking hero on the Indian reservations - oh, Jesus.

1:15:10 > 1:15:14And also what I saw was that it all had a tint of culture

1:15:14 > 1:15:19of the tribe where he was at, too, which was pretty cool.

1:15:19 > 1:15:23CHANTING

1:15:32 > 1:15:35When we see the amalgamated Indian on-screen,

1:15:35 > 1:15:38more times than not, we're seeing the Sioux.

1:15:38 > 1:15:42Because the Sioux bring a lot of sizzle to the show -

1:15:42 > 1:15:45headdresses, drums, tipis, buffalo.

1:15:45 > 1:15:48The Sioux are the Elvises of the Indian World.

1:16:05 > 1:16:10In 1990, Kevin Costner came a lot closer to getting it right,

1:16:10 > 1:16:11if "getting it right" means

1:16:11 > 1:16:14showing a more dimensional representation of Indians.

1:16:14 > 1:16:17Dances With Wolves shows the Lakota as warm, affectionate,

1:16:17 > 1:16:21humorous, friendly people with a true sense of justice.

1:16:21 > 1:16:23Real characters.

1:16:23 > 1:16:27So much so that Costner's Lieutenant Dunbar wants to be an Indian,

1:16:27 > 1:16:28in much the same way

1:16:28 > 1:16:31as any six-year-old kid wants to be an Indian.

1:16:31 > 1:16:33There ain't nothin' here, Lieutenant.

1:16:33 > 1:16:35Everybody's run off and got killed.

1:16:35 > 1:16:37What about Indians?

1:16:37 > 1:16:39HE SHOUTS

1:16:47 > 1:16:50Costner cast Native Americans in most of the parts.

1:16:50 > 1:16:53Graham Greene won an Academy Award nomination

1:16:53 > 1:16:54for his portrayal of Kicking Bird,

1:16:54 > 1:16:57Floyd Red Crow Westerman plays Ten Bears,

1:16:57 > 1:16:59Rodney Grant is Wind In His Hair.

1:16:59 > 1:17:02Samuel L Jackson is Snakes On A Plane.

1:17:02 > 1:17:04I'm kidding - he wasn't in it at all!

1:17:05 > 1:17:08This tends to make the Sioux characters seem authentic -

1:17:08 > 1:17:10because they are.

1:17:10 > 1:17:13And each Sioux character has a correlative white opposite

1:17:13 > 1:17:15- who is clearly... - HE WHISTLES

1:17:19 > 1:17:23Says here you've been decorated, and they sent you here to be posted?

1:17:23 > 1:17:26- Actually, sir, I'm here at my own request.- Why?

1:17:26 > 1:17:29I've always wanted to see the frontier.

1:17:29 > 1:17:31You want to see the frontier?

1:17:31 > 1:17:34Yes, sir. Before it's gone.

1:17:34 > 1:17:38Dunbar's commanding officer is some kind of Anglocentric nutcase

1:17:38 > 1:17:42who talks down to Dunbar like a king dismissing his subjects.

1:17:42 > 1:17:44What Costner the director is trying to show you

1:17:44 > 1:17:47is that these early descendants of British settlers

1:17:47 > 1:17:49can't possibly really fit in in America,

1:17:49 > 1:17:51especially here on the frontier,

1:17:51 > 1:17:53where they're way out of their element.

1:17:53 > 1:17:57Cos you know, there's no EastEnders here,

1:17:57 > 1:18:02no snuggy comfy front rooms and sofas and biccies and tea.

1:18:02 > 1:18:05You know. Bunch of poofs.

1:18:05 > 1:18:06Thank you. That is all.

1:18:19 > 1:18:20Sir Knight?

1:18:23 > 1:18:26I've just pissed in my pants...

1:18:28 > 1:18:31..and nobody can do anything about it.

1:18:35 > 1:18:38Essentially, this kind of lunacy primes the viewer to accept

1:18:38 > 1:18:40that it's the Lakota who really have it together.

1:18:44 > 1:18:45You there!

1:18:45 > 1:18:49The scene where Dunbar first encounters the Indians

1:18:49 > 1:18:51is almost an exact remake of A Man Called Horse -

1:18:51 > 1:18:55a civilised Indian stumbling onto a naked white savage.

1:18:55 > 1:18:58Nice comic inversion there, Kevin.

1:19:10 > 1:19:11Buffalo.

1:19:11 > 1:19:14Although what we're really seeing is a kind of baptism.

1:19:14 > 1:19:17Dunbar is shedding his Euro-American veneer,

1:19:17 > 1:19:21and as the film progresses, we see his almost childlike rebirth,

1:19:21 > 1:19:24his transformation into Indian-ness,

1:19:24 > 1:19:25if such a word could exist.

1:19:27 > 1:19:30Just like A Man Called Horse, he marries a squaw,

1:19:30 > 1:19:33even if she does happen to be conveniently white.

1:19:34 > 1:19:37When he leads the Lakota to an elusive herd of buffalo,

1:19:37 > 1:19:40he becomes a full-fledged member of the tribe.

1:19:40 > 1:19:43And, because this is still a story about a white man,

1:19:43 > 1:19:46he proves to be as adept, if not better, at being a Lakota

1:19:46 > 1:19:47than the Lakota.

1:19:47 > 1:19:50Costner changed the ending of the story

1:19:50 > 1:19:52in order to make himself more of a martyr.

1:19:52 > 1:19:56When Dunbar is captured by the cavalry and charged with treason,

1:19:56 > 1:19:58he knows that he can't go back to live with the Dakota

1:19:58 > 1:20:01because the cavalry will attack them for harbouring him.

1:20:01 > 1:20:06So he just disappears into the wilderness, never to be found again.

1:20:06 > 1:20:08The film received particular praise

1:20:08 > 1:20:11for its use of authentic Lakota language -

1:20:11 > 1:20:13you gotta give Costner credit for that.

1:20:13 > 1:20:15Its extremely moving last scene,

1:20:15 > 1:20:18as Wind In His Hair waves goodbye to Lieutenant Dunbar,

1:20:18 > 1:20:20is pretty courageous for a Hollywood film.

1:20:20 > 1:20:24Cos few viewers would actually know what Wind In His Hair is saying.

1:20:24 > 1:20:25Although if I had to guess,

1:20:25 > 1:20:28he's trying to talk Costner out of making Waterworld.

1:20:31 > 1:20:34Dances With Wolves was a box-office smash.

1:20:34 > 1:20:38It won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1990.

1:20:38 > 1:20:41It's credited with re-reinventing the Western,

1:20:41 > 1:20:42and setting the record straight,

1:20:42 > 1:20:45and spawning a more enlightened approach

1:20:45 > 1:20:47toward Indians in filmmaking.

1:20:47 > 1:20:51But it is set in that very safe, cinematic "Wild West" period

1:20:51 > 1:20:53of 1840 to 1890,

1:20:53 > 1:20:57a period that very few filmmakers ever let the Indians out of.

1:20:58 > 1:21:00It's a romantic vision of Indians

1:21:00 > 1:21:04living in environmental paradise ruined by the white man.

1:21:05 > 1:21:08The epilogue of the film says that 13 years later

1:21:08 > 1:21:12the Lakota will be defeated completely, never to roam again.

1:21:12 > 1:21:13Still here.

1:21:14 > 1:21:17Every effort to foreground themselves,

1:21:17 > 1:21:1940 years of activism,

1:21:19 > 1:21:22every attempt to claim the present and reclaim the past,

1:21:22 > 1:21:27make a better life for themselves, as far as Kevin Costner is concerned

1:21:27 > 1:21:33disappears into a romantic postcard sunset.

1:21:43 > 1:21:45So Kevin Costner's Dunbar

1:21:45 > 1:21:47turns out to be a better Lakota than the Lakotas.

1:21:47 > 1:21:50And Costner the director is better at being a white director

1:21:50 > 1:21:53of an Indian film than other white directors.

1:21:53 > 1:21:54Whoop-de-fucking-do.

1:21:54 > 1:21:57Why, in all these quasi-enlightened, cod-apologist films

1:21:57 > 1:22:00does the white man end up being superior?

1:22:00 > 1:22:02Well, do we even have to ask?

1:22:02 > 1:22:05Because they're made in Hollywood, by white producers,

1:22:05 > 1:22:08and written by white screenwriters for white audiences

1:22:08 > 1:22:10who are sitting in their plush cinema seats,

1:22:10 > 1:22:13thinking they're being enlightened while blissfully unaware

1:22:13 > 1:22:16that even the popcorn they're stuffing down their yaks

1:22:16 > 1:22:17is an Indian invention.

1:22:18 > 1:22:21If a studio is going to pony up the money for a big production,

1:22:21 > 1:22:24they're damn well gonna reward the viewer

1:22:24 > 1:22:26by making him seem superior.

1:22:26 > 1:22:29So if that's the case, how come no-one has ever made a film

1:22:29 > 1:22:32about a white guy who moves onto a reservation

1:22:32 > 1:22:35and ends up being better at living on the reservation than the Indians?

1:22:35 > 1:22:37You know, he gets all the shitty cars running again

1:22:37 > 1:22:38and he fills in the pot holes

1:22:38 > 1:22:41and he rounds up all the stray dogs and gives them a flea dip.

1:22:41 > 1:22:45Then he cures diabetes and builds a Walmart. Where's THAT film?

1:22:45 > 1:22:48Is it even possible for a white person to talk about Indians

1:22:48 > 1:22:51without coming off as patronising, paternalistic,

1:22:51 > 1:22:54and generally just looking like an asshole,

1:22:54 > 1:22:56such as I've been doing in this presentation?

1:22:56 > 1:22:58- No.- Thank you.

1:22:58 > 1:23:01I've wasted 80 minutes of your time. Well, I'm done talking.

1:23:03 > 1:23:05DALLAS: The last 20 years has seen the emergence

1:23:05 > 1:23:08of indigenous Native American cinema.

1:23:08 > 1:23:10Films made by us for anyone who wants to see them.

1:23:10 > 1:23:13So while you're all sitting around

1:23:13 > 1:23:15watching another white man play Tonto,

1:23:15 > 1:23:18Indians are inventing Indians.

1:23:18 > 1:23:21You know, as an indigenous person,

1:23:21 > 1:23:24this has been such a beautiful journey for me -

1:23:24 > 1:23:27learning about my history, my culture

1:23:27 > 1:23:29from a gravel-voiced white man from Montana

1:23:29 > 1:23:31who looks like the lizard from Rango.

1:23:31 > 1:23:35But ultimately when it ends, what I want to say

1:23:35 > 1:23:38is that what we're dealing with is a colonial legacy here.

1:23:38 > 1:23:42A legacy in which the mainstream society of America

1:23:42 > 1:23:45has pre-determined what matters and what doesn't matter

1:23:45 > 1:23:47when discussing history.

1:23:47 > 1:23:50You can ask me if a non-Native person

1:23:50 > 1:23:53can make a film about Native people.

1:23:53 > 1:23:55Ultimately, I'll say yes.

1:23:55 > 1:23:58Whether that film merits indigenous authenticity

1:23:58 > 1:24:01is not really the main issue for me here.

1:24:01 > 1:24:05It's the colonial legacy that's the main issue for me.

1:24:06 > 1:24:10Indigenous peoples, along with countless other ethnic minorities,

1:24:10 > 1:24:12have been excluded for far too long

1:24:12 > 1:24:14from this whole creative process of making stories

1:24:14 > 1:24:16that are supposed to be about them.

1:24:16 > 1:24:19A pivotal moment in my life as a Native person,

1:24:19 > 1:24:22as a Native artist, was the movie Smoke Signals.

1:24:23 > 1:24:29It empowered us as artists to tell our own stories in our own words.

1:24:29 > 1:24:33Because of that movie we were able to make Skins, Imprint,

1:24:33 > 1:24:35The Fast Runner, The Whale Rider.

1:24:35 > 1:24:39Yes, it's a Maori film, but it's a Native eye,

1:24:39 > 1:24:41and it's about Native people.

1:24:41 > 1:24:44You have amazing directors like Sterlin Harjo.

1:24:44 > 1:24:47You have Chris Eyre, Georgina Lightning.

1:24:47 > 1:24:50You have Blackhorse Lowe. KNOCK AT DOOR

1:25:07 > 1:25:10My name is Leonard Little Finger.

1:25:10 > 1:25:12I am an Oglala Lakota.

1:25:12 > 1:25:15My name is Ailema Benally. I am Navajo.

1:25:15 > 1:25:19My name is Charlie Hill. I'm an Oneida from Wisconsin.

1:25:19 > 1:25:21To answer the big question,

1:25:21 > 1:25:24why don't Indian people get with the programme?

1:25:24 > 1:25:27It's because the programme is that we're supposed to be dead.

1:25:27 > 1:25:29And we're not.

1:25:29 > 1:25:32We're still here, living our lives.

1:25:33 > 1:25:37The government had a genocidal programme against us

1:25:37 > 1:25:40and then people always say, "Well, that was a long time ago."

1:25:40 > 1:25:43Well, hey, 9/11 was ten years ago!

1:25:43 > 1:25:45Get over it! That was a long time ago.

1:25:47 > 1:25:52We are all here today because they came home.

1:25:52 > 1:25:56Whatever it took, whatever strength or power they had,

1:25:56 > 1:26:00they did it for us who are here today.

1:26:00 > 1:26:03My name is Lenny Foster. I'm a Dine Navajo.

1:26:03 > 1:26:05Society's always changing,

1:26:05 > 1:26:08and eventually society will understand

1:26:08 > 1:26:10and become more sensitive and aware,

1:26:10 > 1:26:14then they'll drop that name "Redskin", or "Chiefs" or "Braves".

1:26:14 > 1:26:19My Indian name is Annokasohoba.

1:26:19 > 1:26:21What's gonna happen in the future?

1:26:21 > 1:26:23We're still gonna be here.

1:26:24 > 1:26:26We're still gonna be here.

1:26:35 > 1:26:37I think that's it. I'm off.

1:26:37 > 1:26:40It's been good working with you, Dallas. I appreciate everything.

1:26:40 > 1:26:43Nah, nah, don't hug me - rustle the mic.

1:26:43 > 1:26:45Back to Minneapolis?

1:26:45 > 1:26:47Yeah. Well, Minnesota.

1:26:49 > 1:26:50How are you getting there?

1:26:50 > 1:26:52I'm walking, of course.

1:26:52 > 1:26:54Isn't that what our people like to do?

1:26:54 > 1:26:56Walk?

1:26:57 > 1:26:59I might shapeshift on you - watch out!

1:26:59 > 1:27:01Got those powers. Wooo!

1:27:04 > 1:27:06It was Joe Frazier!

1:27:06 > 1:27:07Honky. Huh?

1:27:07 > 1:27:11The knock at the door. Joe Frazier. Smokin' Joe.

1:27:11 > 1:27:13I loved that guy.

1:27:13 > 1:27:16I loved that guy too, Rich.

1:27:16 > 1:27:18Huh. See you around.

1:27:21 > 1:27:23Children of nature.

1:27:23 > 1:27:25Unflinching stoics.

1:27:25 > 1:27:27Human curiosities.

1:27:27 > 1:27:29Bloodthirsty savages.

1:27:29 > 1:27:30Noble warriors.

1:27:30 > 1:27:32Victims of Manifest Destiny.

1:27:32 > 1:27:34The American Indian has been routinely regarded

1:27:34 > 1:27:36as anything but what he actually is,

1:27:36 > 1:27:38which is a true-to-life actual human being.

1:27:38 > 1:27:42You could almost argue that those early so-called "bad" Indians

1:27:42 > 1:27:45from TV and films were less insulting to the intelligence,

1:27:45 > 1:27:47because the prejudice was right there on the surface.

1:27:49 > 1:27:52The so-called new wave of revisionist or accurate films

1:27:52 > 1:27:56that began with Soldier Blue in 1970 are a little more confusing,

1:27:56 > 1:27:59because we're meant to believe this is the real story.

1:27:59 > 1:28:02Consequently, our interpretation of the ending is always confounding -

1:28:02 > 1:28:05part shame, part guilt, part admiration.

1:28:05 > 1:28:08A whole lot of obsequiousness, pandering,

1:28:08 > 1:28:10and a shitload of patronisation.

1:28:11 > 1:28:14And that's if we think about them at all.

1:28:15 > 1:28:17But this one thing is true.

1:28:17 > 1:28:21Wherever you stand in this country, an Indian stood here first.

1:28:28 > 1:28:31# Come on, boy Take me back

1:28:31 > 1:28:36# I wanna ride in Geronimo's Cadillac

1:28:36 > 1:28:39# Whoa, boy, take me back

1:28:39 > 1:28:43# I wanna ride in Geronimo's Cadillac

1:28:43 > 1:28:44# Everybody

1:28:44 > 1:28:46# Oh, Lord, take me back

1:28:46 > 1:28:50# I wanna ride in Geronimo's Cadillac

1:28:50 > 1:28:52# I wanna ride

1:28:52 > 1:28:54# Take me back

1:28:54 > 1:28:57# I wanna ride... #