Red Power
Het, Theodore B.
Red Power The New Indians, by Stan Steiner. Harper & Row. 348 pp. $7.95. Reviewed by Theodore B. Hetzel To achieve manhood and to gain the power of the spirit that would guide and protect him...
...They are preparing to serve their people on the reservations, rather than to serve selfish personal interests...
...But it is a tribalism that is expanded from that of the narrow home community to include other Indians...
...They are the advocates of "Red Power," the power, ability, and responsibility to manage their own affairs...
...Not only in the matriarchal societies, such as the Navajo and Iroquois, but Indian women generally are in better mental health—with the roles of home-maker and employment that are open to them—than is true of the males, who have more difficulty finding suitable employment and filling their role as providers...
...The avid desire of non-Indians to buy, rent, or steal reservation land should make it obvious that the land has economic value (not to mention sentimental and religious value...
...But because of their shorter life expectancy, most Indians are less than twenty-one years of age, and therefore most Indian problems relate to youth and to its prospects for the future...
...A still younger group of leaders is emerging, still more radical...
...Indians are not a vanishing race...
...The New Indians will help people realize that reservations are not concentration camps from which Indians should be "liberated...
...They were often not representative of traditional Indian values, but chosen only for their ability to deal with non-Indians...
...He has researched the subject thoroughly and presented the facts expressed with their feeling...
...Education for today is more arduous than the traditional search for a vision, or the trial of the sun dance, but the new Indians are equal to the task...
...They are increasing in number about twice as fast as the rest of the population...
...If we do not learn to revere the earth as a principle of life, as a religion, if we continue to destroy its non-renewable resources, then it will not sustain us for long...
...Steiner covers a wide range of Indian problems (which, as he points out, are usually white problems), and he makes few factual mistakes...
...they want to control what it consists of and how it is administered...
...They are rejecting the competitive, individualistic culture of the mainstream, and returning to a tribal orientation...
...They respect the culture of their grandparents more than that of their parents...
...Indian leaders of the recent past have been those who could best complain about harmful or inadequate legislation, and could wheedle the most from the Bureau of Indian Affairs...
...Our own survival depends on this enlightenment...
...Now the ordeal is four years at a university, to get in tune with the spirit of these times...
...There have been a number, and recently, and Indian women have more influence and are in more positions of power than is characteristic of women in our cities, states, and nation...
...Reviewed by Theodore B. Hetzel To achieve manhood and to gain the power of the spirit that would guide and protect him through life, an Indian youth used to go through an ordeal of four days on a mountain...
...We white men who are so powerful, and think ourselves to be so superior, will find that our 100 per cent Americans and other tribal people can teach us to be more human, happier in our relations with other people, and enriched in our relations with our surroundings...
...Most reservations are characterized by segregation and poverty, but they are not prisons...
...They want all the education they can get, to increase their power and well-being, Steiner points out, since "it is becoming necessary to be modern in order to preserve the old way...
...They, like the Black Power advocates, want education...
...We need to understand and appreciate Indians in order that we may learn to live with (and profit from) them and other tribal people of the world...
...The New Indians is the message of youthful Indians who are already speaking for their people...
...His prose has caught much of the poetic, dramatic style of Indian oratory...
...But they were frustrated by the power of bureaucracy, by the paternalism of all white agencies, and often lacked the ability to cope with the problems that beset them...
...They do not attempt to fight the mainstream of American life, and they do not intend to be overwhelmed by it, but to use the tools and methods of contemporary America selectively to accomplish their own purposes...
...their tribal, cooperative, harmonious culture does not give them a high standard of living...
...The "new Indians" of this book are the young adults, college educated, with a nation-wide view of Indian interests and problems...
...For instance, he seems to be ignorant of the Council on Indian Affairs, the cooperative organization of agencies which have Indian interests...
...As Alanis Obomsawin, a talented young Canadian Indian woman said to me, "We need to learn from you, and you better learn from us...
...He frequently quotes Peter LaFarge, but he does not mention numerous other contemporary poets and singers who are Indians or who speak for them (Buffy Sainte-Marie, Leonda, Pat Sky, Johnny Cash, and others...
...They included many of the so-called Uncle Tomahawks, who had abandoned Indian ways and were guided by the institutions of the larger society...
...Indians need the feeling of pride in their heritage, pride in knowing that they have something of value to contribute to the world...
...Stan Steiner had hoped that they would write their story themselves, but they have not yet done so...
...He has read widely in the literature, and he has met and learned from a great many Indians, but he could have obtained a more balanced knowledge by consulting more and different organizations and individuals who are informed and involved in Indian affairs...
...Steiner is wrong in stating that there has never been a woman as tribal chairman...
...They are radical in their independence, and also in their return to the roots of their Indian heritage...
...Our individualistic, competitive, materialistic culture does not make us all happier or make our future more secure...
...The total picture he presents is correct, but he might have given credit more widely where due...
...Stan Steiner deserves thanks for writing this book which European Americans can read with pleasure and profit, and which Indian Americans should read too...
Vol. 32 • May 1968 • No. 5
