The End of the States as We Know them

Writing my research paper on the failure of the 1890 Ghost Dance of the Lakota Sioux, it seemed that though the Lakota had been unable to bring about a millenarian destruction of the invading European-Americans, their fierce sense of independence and traditional religious practices still held strong, and has carried their culture through Western dominance till today. In this light it is fairly amazing, but not at all surprising to see that the Lakota People have declared independence from the U.S. government, finally able to overcome 150 years worth of broken treaties, and are inviting anyone who lives in the five surrounding states to join them in their new Nation. Furthermore, the Navajo are also seeking support for their own tribal Constitution, and it seems that there is a broad push across the country for American Indian tribes to take up the mantel of self-governance. I think this is splendid, and it's about time that peoples who have been oppressed for the last century and a half are finally able to take a stand for their autonomy. We can only wonder if states like Vermont will now make their own pushes to secede.

Over the summer I had a chance to check out the new National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian Institute in D.C., and was informed of the some of the difficult problems faced with trying to establish representation for a people who are not one central body-politic, but countless tribes, each with their own distinct culture and mytho-historical milieu. While the museum is run by a tribal council, it turns out that only the richest tribes responded to the open call for artifacts, leading to claims of unfairness by the unrepresented tribes. Consequently, the museum exhibits suffered from trying to give the broadest view to the most distinct of tribes across the Americas, often loosing any sense of context that didn't seem to do any justice to the wealth of cultures, or the influence of Western European ideas and practices on traditional patterns of behavior, such as this ritual prayer circle marked with quotes from the Book of Revelations:



Such apocalyptic fantasizing may not always have a place in American Indian mythologies (the Mayans aside, but when you believe time is cyclical, would you predict that the world will end in 2012?), but the icy climes of Norway certainly lend themselves to their Ragnaroks, which might be why the Norwegians have built a 'doomsday vault' to house a collection of all the world's seeds. When Lif and Lifthrasir inherit the earth after the doom of the Aesir at the jaws of the Fenrir wolf and the Jormungand serpent, the surviving humans will surely want something to eat, and the means necessary to continue culture.

Personally I am in support of such "7th Generation" contingency plans, and while I'd like to believe I have a more enlightened (and less terrified) view these days of what the future holds, there's never any telling if crazy idiots with itching fingers wouldn't just release a nuclear apocalypse. Perhaps more likely, in my opinion, would be an immanent break down of technology. It frightens me that the world is moving all of its media onto digital, and that if one day the parts for computers are no longer available, or the tools to repair them, or any combination of technological failures, then what will become of culture? While storing seeds is a valiant idea, I would also like to see a "time-proof" vault created to store paper copies of the world's greatest literature, philosophies, scientific manuscripts, dictionaries, a true hermetic(ally sealed) library, so that in some distant age people can still maintain an idea of the history of culture, without having to figure out what to play these shiny little discs on.