Food for thought:
Most non-Indians seem to consistently misunderstand or misconstrue what the
term "warrior" means. The word "akicita" in Lakota, which distinctly means
"warrior" or "soldier," has its roots in concepts such as "look out for
another," "hunt for another" (meaning watch over and supply another with
food), "show respect for another," and so on along that line. The meaning
of the word is so complex and interpenetrated with side-meanings as to be
conceptually indivisible with those meanings.
To be "akicita" is to do the most menial or the most arduous task for the
*oyate* ("the People" in the sense of the band, tribe, or nation); to
subsume one's own desires for the larger good; and to recognize that the
giving of one's life in the protection of the people is not an ultimate
sacrifice but a part of the duty one takes on as part of the responsibility
of being a warrior in this context.
The Lakota are representative, in this traditional sense, of nearly every
other tribal group on this continent. This is probably the main reason
that Indians are as overrepresented in the US armed forces as we are; we
make up less than 1% of the population of the US and yet make up nearly 10%
of the armed forces. For anyone interested in some of the facts, figures
and philosophy behind this phenomenon, I recommend:
Denigration of the Indian concept of warrior by its attachment to
caricatures such as "Chief Wahoo" is deeply insulting to those of us who
have served in the US military and who are warriors by choice and by
recognition within our tribes.
The attempts I have seen to rhetorically separate the issues of use of the
word as an appelation from the image to which it is attached are typical of
post-modernist deconstructionism, and ignore the holistic way in which
these symbols are intertwined, the word-symbol and the visual-symbol. As
such, these arguments are specious.
"Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls - Native American Veterans of the
Vietnam War," Tom Holm. Austin: University of Texas, 1996.
ISBN:0-292-73095-0.
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