Pages 35-40
Rather than dwell on the slaughter of his adopted people, such as the 1870 slaughter of 53 women and children of Heavy Runner’s peaceful Blackfeet band by the Second Cavalry under Major Eugene M. Baker, the author focuses on the stealing of the metaphysical dimension in which these people had lived, by way of the cold quantification of their sacred ways and the false naming of their sacred places:
”Most anthropologists do not know how to unlock the code leading to ceremony and are unable to acquire the authentic sacred knowledge…Medicine Men have o qualms whatsoever about giving disinformation to the anthropological investigators. These particular informants see it as essential to protect their knowledge from these prying people.”
In the matter of the classification and shelving of this culture, Ronald writes a statement that might well apply to every culture remaining on earth as our ancestral ways are turned over like so much earth to fertilize the monocrop of the Global Mind, “Losing its solitude, and the dreams that sustain it, the Blackfeet culture will continue in a death spiral.”
