The name, “American Indians,” derives from the colonizers’ world-view; it is a name given to the Indigenous Peoples of the continent by outsiders and strangers. Most of us know the story: Columbus (his Spanish name gives away his secret: Cristobal Colon; the Christian colonizer) thought he was going to India, and, being a vain and self-important man, insisted he had found it; he named the people he met “Indians.” The “American” part came later, after everyone but Columbus admitted his error, and the continent had been named for another Italian navigator, Amerigo Vespucci.

In addition to naming entire Peoples, colonizers developed naming practices applied to individuals among these Peoples. One analysis describes “the renaming of Native Americans” as a “cultural project: to fashion and normalize a standard patriarchal family-system deemed suitable to [U.S. and Canadian] citizenship, property rights, and civilized, moral conduct.” [James C. Scott, John Tehranian, and Jeremy Mathias, “Government Surnames and Legal Identities,” in Carl Watner, ed., National Identification Systems (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2004). The analysis originally appeared as “The Production of Legal Identities Proper to States: The Case of the Permanent Family Surname,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 44:01, pp. 4-44 (January 2002); available at Cambridge Journals Online.]

An 1897 essay by the Superintendent of the U. S. Boarding School for Crow Indians, Montana, illustrates the cultural policy of “naming the Indians”: “The Indian Department has continually urged this matter upon its agents, superintendents, and other workers ‘in the field.’ The command to give names to the Indians and to establish the same as far as possible by continuous use has been a part of the ‘Rules and Regulations’ for years past. … In this thing, as in nearly all others, the Indians do not know what is best for them. They can’t see that our system has any advantages over their own, and they have fought stubbornly against the innovation.” [Frank Terry,” Naming the Indians,” American Monthly Review of Reviews (New York: March, 1897). This essay is available as an e-text from the University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center.]

It is common to hear criticism of the name “American Indian,” coupled with an insistence on the use of “Native American,” which came into vogue as part of a late-20th century concern for “multiculturalism.” This was an effort to acknowledge ethnic diversity in the United States while insisting on an over-arching American unity. Under multicultural naming practice, people are identified as hyphen-American: African-American, Irish-American, Italian-American, and so on. For the indigenous inhabitants of the land, the correct term became Native-American.

“Native American,” however, faces dilemmas as serious as the name it was to displace. First, the word “native” has a generic meaning, referring to anyone or anything that is at home in its place of origin: anyone born in America is a native American. Even if we insist on the significance of an upper-case letter, we have to admit that Native American has an ordinary language problem. Second, as applied to Indigenous Peoples who have been subjected to colonialism, the word “native” has a culturally pejorative meaning, as in “The natives are restless tonight.” The word carries a connotation of “primitive,” which has both a generic definition, meaning “first” or “primary,” and a pejorative use, meaning “backward” or “ignorant.” Third, as we have seen, “American” is not an indigenous name, but derives from that other Italian.

“Native American” does not avoid the problem of naming from an outsider’s perspective. Moreover, multiculturally “correct” names focus on surface appearances, and may even obscure the demographic, political and economic situations of the named Peoples. As John Trudell observed when “Native American” first became fashionable, “They change our name and treat us the same.”

If we want to be true to the principle that a People’s name ought to come from them, we have to discard both “American Indian” and “Native American.” The consequence of this is that the original inhabitants ought to be called by whatever names they give themselves. There are no American Indians or Native Americans. There are many different Peoples, hundreds in fact, bearing such names as Wampanoag, Cherokee, Seminole, Navajo, Hopi, and so on.

But the conundrum doesn’t end here. Some apparently “real” names are not actually derived from the People themselves, but from their neighbors or even enemies. “Mohawk” is a Narraganset name meaning, “flesh eaters.” “Sioux” is a French corruption of an Anishinabe word for “enemy.” Similarly, “Apache” is a Spanish corruption of a Zuni word for “enemy,” while Navajo is from the Spanish version of a Tewa word. If we want to be fully authentic, we have to inquire into the language of each People to find the name they call themselves.

The important thing in naming is to acknowledge the fundamental difference between how a People view themselves and how others view them. In this context, it is not surprising to find that a People’s name for themselves is often a word for “People,” or for their homeland, or for some differentiating characteristic as seen through their own eyes.

It’s been asked, “What’s in a name?” Sometimes the answer is everything, as when the name is Rumplestiltskin; sometimes nothing, as with the rose, fragrant by any other name. N. Scott Momaday, in The Names: A Memoir, writes about the meaning of who we are that is contained and not contained in our names. Names are mysterious, sometimes revealing, sometimes concealing our identity or the identity of a People or place.

Names can have great power, and the power of naming is a great power. History and law, as well as literature and politics, are activities of naming. The Judeo-Christian Bible tells a story of God giving Adam the power to name the animals and other parts of Creation, a naming that signals a power over Creation. This story established a relation that became crucial in the encounters of Christianist colonizers with the inhabitants of the “New World.”

In studying Indigenous Peoples, we do not need to completely avoid incorrect or colonial terminology whose significance is widely understood. Indeed, the shortest way to penetrate the histories of Indigenous Peoples may be to analyze the names imposed on them by others. These names are part of world history, politics, and culture. As a component of “Indigenous Peoples Studies,” an inquiry into names can develop toward an understanding of nationhood, homelands, and self-determination.

I first visited the Native American Circle at MCI Gardner, a Massachusetts prison, to meet the inmates and discuss possible litigation to protect American Indian spiritual practices.

Slow Turtle, the Wampanoag Medicine Man and Executive Director of the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs, had invited me to the Circle this night to see for myself the program he had initiated. The following morning, I wrote this memoir of the visit.

******

Prison at night is all light—not stars or moon, but floodlight—orange-bright, glinting off razor-tipped concertina wire atop high fences: a boundary of steel and light. Two rows of fences separate a clear-zone perimeter, a no-man’s land like the Israeli or Berlin wall or any other high-insecurity border. Lights glare against the buildings and reflect from snow into sky, obliterating stars and moon. Denial of night vision, of night darkness, is one of the pains inflicted on the incarcerated.

Guards and dogs patrol at the edge of the orange glow, where earth’s night overwhelms even the brightest man-made lamps. A guard directs me to park in the lot behind the trees, leaving the front of the building for official vehicles. He is curious, cautious for any sudden strangeness beyond the ordinary strangeness of an unknown visitor. The dog hangs on its leash like any dog, sniffing, panting, and waiting for any command.

A small crowd of family visitors mills in the lobby, waiting to be called to pass through the “trap”—the search and metal detector—into the prison interior. I peer through the lobby to the heavy glass partition behind which two guards converse as if there were no one waiting to enter, as if there were nothing to do but chat. I suddenly remember that these guards will ask for my ID. My wallet is in the car (because cash is contraband within the prison), so I turn and leave, wondering whether this will attract the guards’ attention. I suspect they are watching more carefully than they appear, their indifference being a studied attitude.

A driver’s license is the normal form of identification, with its state seal and photo. My bar association card might be a trump card, alerting them to the possibility that I have a right of access, more clout than a family member. I take both, and leave my keys under the seat because they too are contraband. Institution rules permit only what is “essential”—whatever that may mean to a guard at the gate—so my glasses will not be challenged and my pen may not, but cash and keys would be.

Despite my precautions, the guard at the trap challenges the ring I am wearing: turquoise in silver with a Navajo Yei figure on each side. It once belonged to my son Julian and I wear it as a small remembrance of his life.

“Is it religious?”

“Yes, it is.”

The guard pauses; “OK, you can keep it.”

I save the story of my son. The guard doesn’t need it. Perhaps spiritual stories cannot be told. Perhaps they are beyond the rules.

Or are they?

This is the question that has led me to visit the prison tonight. I have come to attend the Native Circle—to share in its observance, and to hear the grievances of its members. The prison authorities have subjected the Circle to edicts and reversals regarding ceremonial practices and objects. Headbands, drums, smudge sticks, sweet grass braids, tobacco, and the ceremonial pipe have been alternately allowed and prohibited, subject to varying views and attitudes of different superintendents, commissioners, and governors.

Native Americans’ lives have been circumscribed for decades and centuries by reservation boundaries and special government regulations. Their spiritual practices are a lightning rod for politics, especially about land, the fulcrum of Native spirituality.

Inside prison, almost any spiritual practice can trigger an issue of “institutional security.” Spirituality in prison is the classic contest between God and Caesar, between the “now” of cosmic eternity and the “now” of alarmed gates and floodlit barriers.

For reasons embedded in the historical battle between Christian colonists and Indigenous Peoples, Native spirituality attracts more than its fair share of controversy within prison. A major source of trouble is the absence of an institutional hierarchy of Native spiritual authority. Native spirituality recognizes Medicine People, but Medicine People are not credentialed like priests and ministers. In an important sense, Native spirituality is not “religion” at all. It offers no parallel to the institutional structure of churches, no bureaucratic reference point for prison administration.

In this Massachusetts prison, different superintendents have presented differing perceptions of threat to security. So far, none has been able to find a way to accept a “sweat lodge,” though prisons elsewhere accommodate this important purification ceremony.

Part of the problem with administration has to do with objects. A perhaps more crucial part is the prison’s attempt to restrict Native practices to inmates who are “officially recognized Indians.”

There are two issues: one is a person’s right to engage in spiritual practices—to wear garments, use objects, eat food, make and display images. The other is the right to practice whatever spirituality one finds meaningful. These two issues are most often bound together, as for example when a Roman Catholic inmate wants to carry a rosary. With Native spirituality, however, administrators often separate the issues, questioning not only a particular practice—wearing a headband, for example—but also the right of a particular individual to engage in that practice. I have never heard of objection to an inmate’s request to meet with a priest or a rabbi on the grounds of lack of baptismal record or proof of Jewish blood, but it is often the case that a request to meet with a Medicine Person is denied on grounds of lack of “Indian blood” or “tribal identification.”

When law is exerted against spiritual practices in the United States, Constitutional questions arise—First Amendment freedom of religion, Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection. Law is articulated around issues of human behavior—what is the proper way to behave? Spirituality is articulated around ontological issues—what does it mean to be? Not surprisingly, courts tend to side with claims about behavior when these conflict with claims about being.

An inmate wears a sacred Native headband. The superintendent calls it a disguise, or says it is unsanitary, or that it may provoke rivalry with another inmate. The court says the superintendent’s view is “reasonable” and that “reasonableness” is all that is necessary under the Constitution. Yet, in fact, the headband is too small for an effective disguise, while woolen caps are not prohibited and would make excellent disguises, and a sacred skullcap is permitted for another religion. There is, moreover, no evidence of any rivalry about headgear, and cleanliness of all clothing is equally a concern or no concern. Do these facts not matter because they were not presented to the court or because the court did not find “unreasonableness” in them?

These questions are in my mind as I wait to be processed through the “trap.” I have given the guards my driver’s license, not wanting to alert them to my legal interests, wanting to see what happens to a regular visitor to the Circle. The search is routine, polite; they inspect my coat, belt, boots, and pockets. I joke that they could shine the boots; laughter is sometimes more effective than officiousness at locked gates. The far door is opened, and a guard escorts me across the yard to an interior building, where the Circle meets.

I wonder, as I walk, what else has been imposed here—will there be sage to purify the Circle, tobacco to smoke in the prayer pipe?

“Name?”

It is the guard inside the new building. He finds my name on a list and directs me to the third floor where the Circle is being held.

In the third floor hall, two men are standing, conversing. They look casual, but I sense they are waiting for me. I ask for the room. “All the way to the end.” As I pass them, I smell sage and sweet grass. I smile, and my heart opens. The Circle will be clean. Not everything has been taken away. A few moments after I enter the room, the two from the hall join the Circle. They had been waiting for me. They were guarding the purification of the Circle.

The chief and sub-chief—who have corresponded with me—greet me with a hand-to-forearm grip and an arm clasp around the back.

“Greetings! And thank you for coming!”

“Glad to be here!”

I walk around the room, greeting and being greeted. Someone makes a place for me in the Circle: my first face-to-face meeting with these people, after a year helping Slow Turtle, the Wampanoag Medicine Man, in his efforts to push back the bureaucratic roadblocks that threaten this Circle.

One of the men points out that more than half the men are wearing headbands, some beaded or painted, now that a confiscation has been reversed under pressure from Slow Turtle.

“The superintendent was pissed. He told us that we had better ‘learn to march to his drum.'”

“Is he aware of what he said? Does ‘drum’ mean anything to him?” They laugh at my reference to the sacred instrument.

They tell me the superintendent has not limited himself to attacking Native spirituality, but attacks birds, flowers, and trees as well.

“All the bird houses in the yard have been removed and a patch of sunflowers cut down, for ‘security reasons.’ Forty trees were cut down or lopped off above the trunk.”

I am amazed. Are there actually “reasons” for this? Is anything the superintendent calls “security” a reason? Is his obvious insecurity in relation to the natural world a valid “security” concern for the institution?

I eventually tell my story: “It’s been more than twenty years since I first got involved with American Indian legal issues. That’s when I began to understand the spiritual basis of life. My education prepared me to do legal work, but it was a dead weight on my spirit. I had to learn the difference between being a good person and being in a ‘good’ role in the system. As a lawyer, I can see inside the law, but my spiritual perceptions make me a critic of what I see.”

The meeting is not only about complaints. Several men tell stories about friendly guards, cooperative superintendents. The predominant theme of their stories is how the Circle has changed them for the good. One after another tells me, “I was a rebel in the prison, violent and angry.” “I had constant disciplinary reports.” “I don’t act out any more, because I learned to deal with anger and pain in a different way.” “I know that the guards want me to get mad; it ‘feeds’ them and justifies their anger.”

The lives of these men are evidence that the Circle has reshaped their understanding of what it means to be human, though incarcerated. We talk about the situation in states where “sweat lodges” are allowed in prison, where prison authorities marvel at the reduction in inmate violence and the surge of inmate learning that follows from Purification and other ceremonies. Why is this prison administration so recalcitrant? Is it only the craziness of this superintendent, or is it also the politics of a governor and a public who feed on stereotypes of crime, who need to reinforce these stereotypes in order to reinforce their own self-images as powerful, successful, deserving people?

I am pleased to be pulled back from complaints. I fear my habits as a lawyer might cannibalize the good of the Circle this night, focusing energy on wrongs and rights rather than on mutual fellowship and integrity that the Circle provides.

“No amount of legal action can accomplish anything unless the reality of this Circle is maintained.”

Several of them smile, and assure me they are not “bummed out” by the discussion of problems, and have not lost sight of the Circle.

A couple men get up and start serving coffee and dessert: Food for the body as for the spirit. The Chief fills a pipe, lights it, and offers prayers to the directions. He passes it around the Circle. A final prayer follows, for those who are sick or in other need, homeless, or hungry—prayers in the traditional way, not for oneself but for others.

Out of the room, down to the door, waiting for the escort guard, I share a few last comments. Some of the men stay behind to clean up and pack the ceremonial items. I walk into the false brightness of the yard with the escort, followed by most of the men now. The Chief is drumming softly behind me. I turn at the final drumbeat.

“Aho!”

I wave and leave them, returning to the true darkness of the night outside the prison walls.

* * *

Trapp, et al. v. DuBois, et al., Massachusetts Superior Ct., Civil No. 95-0779, Appeals Court, No. 2000-P-1640, was filed in April 1995. In March 2003, the case was settled according to the terms of a court-ordered Agreement. In July 2003, the first Purification Lodge ceremonies were held in three Massachusetts prisons.

I received a notice from the Superior Court of a hearing on a motion for contempt filed by Randall Shield Wolf Trapp, lead plaintiff in the lawsuit that had won protection for Native American Indian religious practices in Massachusetts prisons. Shield Wolf had filed the motion pro se, “for himself,” without representation, so it’s unusual that I got a notice to appear. More unusual is the fact that I had been an attorney pro hac vice in the case, meaning that I am not a member of the Massachusetts Bar, but was admitted for the purposes of this case only, on motion by my co-counsel, Robert Doyle, who is a member; but Bob didn’t get a notice of this hearing!

We figured something was screwy, but we went to court. We got the papers from the clerk and saw what Shield Wolf had filed: a motion to show cause why the Department of Corrections (DOC) should not be held in contempt of the court-ordered Agreement, because it has prohibited the use of tobacco in the kinnickkinnick mixture (for smoking and in Medicine bundles). The Agreement states that religious ceremonies in the prisons shall be based upon Wampanoag traditions. Shield Wolf’s motion argued that a tobacco mixture is in accord with Wampanoag tradition.

We saw that the court had issued a habeas writ, ordering the DOC to bring Shield Wolf to court for the hearing. When we looked for him, however, we found he had not been brought to court. We were disappointed not to see him. He is a thoughtful person, whose conversation always opens philosophical vistas. He had been the inmate leader of the original Native American Circle at the time the original litigation began.

Bob and I went to the courtroom at the scheduled time, to see what might happen and what, if anything, we could do. Staff Attorney Joan Kennedy appeared for the DOC. The judge, Ernest Murphy, told the court officer to find Shield Wolf, but he could not be found; he was not in the building and there was no information about his whereabouts. The judge took no action to enforce his habeas order, and, instead, said he wanted to “have a discussion” about the motion. He recognized that neither Bob nor I represented Shield Wolf, but said, since we were familiar with the case he wanted to explore the Constitutional and Native American religious issues. We said we had only seen the motion that morning; the DOC attorney said she had not seen it at all. The judge told her to “calm down,” and handed her the court’s copy and said she should read it and then speak to it. We had a few minutes break while she read the motion and looked through her whole file, making notes. When she was ready, the court reconvened.

The judge asked Kennedy to speak first. She talked about the Native Circle being in existence a long time, and said it was working well. She said she had spoken to the Superintendent at Gardner prison recently and been told there were no complaints about anything with the Circle. She said tobacco was not mentioned specifically in the Agreement, and that the proper route for complaints was not a contempt hearing, but through the DOC Religious Services Committee. Then she said that one of the names on a Circle member list looked like a Muslim name.

Bob and I both spoke. We pointed out this was a pro se matter, that we had not entered appearances at this hearing, and that Shield Wolf was doing a good job with the motion and should be provided an opportunity for a hearing through enforcement of the habeas. I said the DOC attorney was confusing different prisons, that Shield Wolf was at Norfolk, not Gardner, that I was aware of many complaints from Native Circles in several prisons that had been made to the Religious Services Committee with no results, and that a contempt hearing was appropriate. I also said the remark about a Muslim name seemed irrelevant to the issue and designed to arouse suspicion in the current political climate.

The judge said, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” I heard this as an acknowledgment of a problem with the smoking mixture, but he refused to get involved. He said nothing about the ignored habeas. He said the existence of other complaints meant this motion is only the “tip of the iceberg” and anything he ruled would not end the overall troubles. He said Shield Wolf should take the matter to the Appeals Court, since it had ordered the settlement Agreement. I pointed out that the Agreement says it shall be enforceable in Superior Court; the judge said that didn’t matter. I argued that the other issues were not before him — only the motion from Shield Wolf — and he said again it didn’t matter. He denied the motion.

We were very upset, and walked out without waiting for Attorney Kennedy. On the way home, we talked about various options for Shield Wolf. Before I could bring myself to write about those, I wrote the prose poem. It got much off my chest.