Walking with Grandfather by Joseph M. Marshall III

Author:Joseph M. Marshall III
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Body, Mind & Spirit/Prayer & Spiritual
ISBN: 9781591798729
Publisher: Sounds True
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

5

The Shadow Man

Figure 5

Wars and warriors invariably become part of a young boy’s imagination, especially after hearing stories of heroes like Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota and Spotted Tail, a Sicangu Lakota. Both became naca, overall leaders of their respective bands, but both had been exemplary fighting men as well. Those were the heroes most boys aspired to when playing at war. In Lakota culture, such play and the games of war are intended to teach the skills necessary to fight an enemy. They also help awaken something inside the boy.

I can’t recall the precise moment the question arose in my mind, but I think it was prompted by two seemingly unrelated events. In a seventh-grade history class, a non-Indian teacher had talked at length about Indian “braves” going on the “warpath.” Sometime later, while walking across a meadow with my grandfather, we saw a badger chase a coyote away from the mouth of its hillside den. Something about that incident prompted me to ask my grandfather what the word for “war” was in Lakota. After a thoughtful moment or two, he concluded that although there was a word for “fighting,” wicakizapi, and “battle,” wicokize, he could think of no word that encompassed the broader meaning of the English word war.

That particular moment has risen to the top of my pile of boyhood memories more than many others. At the very least, probably because I am now more aware that cultural definitions of the same word, especially those representing more abstract things, often point to philosophical variances rather than semantic nuances.

For example, the Lakota word akicita has come to mean “soldier.” Its original meaning was to denote the members of “warrior societies,” or akicita omniciye. Thus, in the rationale applied by non-Indian linguists, akicita was the Lakota word for “warrior,” a seemingly logical assumption. However, as my grandfather pointed out, the phrases zuya ye and zuya mani meant “going to battle” and “walking to battle.” Colloquially, then, the phrases meant “going off to war.” Zuya wicasa meant “man who battles” or “man who goes to battle” and later was deemed comparable to the English word “warrior.” Today, anyone who has served in the modern military is described as akicita opa, meaning he or she “was a member of the soldiers,” no matter what branch of service he or she served in.

I concluded later that the label “warpath” was the Euro-American society’s attempt to describe an aspect of Lakota culture. Likewise, the word “brave” was an ethnocentric, perhaps even a racist, label for native fighting men, a jibe at a culture considered quaint and inferior.

The unavoidable fact was that warfare and “going to battle” were necessary parts of the Lakota lifestyle, especially after contact with Euro-Americans. The nomadic hunting lifestyle necessarily meant that the male fulfilled the societal role as a provider, or the hunter— waye wicasa or wakuwa. The other part of a male’s societal role was as the zuya wicasa, the “man who goes to battle.” Overall, the male was the hunter/warrior.

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