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Throwback Thursday: The Indians of God! · Tales From Aztlantis

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: This episode of Tales from Ostlantis is brought to you by Ostlantis Premium.
• 0:05
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• 0:09
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• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: Just visit talesfromastlantis.com and click Go Premium or follow the link in the show notes.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: And now, on with the show.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: But you remember a lesson.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: A lesson in honesty.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: We are your hosts, Curly Tlapoyawa.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: And Rubenariano Tlakatekat.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: So how are you doing, my brother?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Chillin' chilling, like we say over here in the OC like a villain.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Is it still hot?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's uh actually gotten better.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: We're now experiencing uh mild to cool temperatures of the upper eighties and lower nineties.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: So considering that we were hitting triple digits over the summer, that's that's a welcome yeah, for sure.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I was just out in uh Boston and um Michelle and I we went out to Boston and it was uh surprisingly nice weather out there.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: This time of year it's usually really really hot, or it can be really, really hot and humid, but the entire time we were there, like the weather was perfect.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: Nice, nice.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: And what were you doing out in Boston?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: Uh visiting Quetzpalin, our youngest daughter.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool, cool.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: How's she doing?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: She's doing great.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: She's loving life out there.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: She took us all around.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: We went to the beach and swam, and one day we made a um a day trip up to Salem and just kind of went and checked out all the uh the stuff up there.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: Something really interesting that I I saw was a um like this memorial made to uh the women who were killed, who were murdered.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: I've heard about the uh the the witchcraft trials.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: So it was it was interesting to see that because it'll have like the name and they're not all women, there were some men there too, but it would have the name of the individual, uh the the year that they were killed, you know, the date that they were killed, yeah, and then how they were killed.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: And uh a lot of uh pressing was listed as their execution method, which is horrible to think of.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: Pressing Yeah, that just sounds like the worst way to die.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: But it was interesting, you know, because one of my uh ancestors here in New Mexico was actually accused of of witchcraft and and brought before the uh the Spanish Inquisition.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was cool to explore some of that history, right?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: Of witchcraft and and how it was used to vilify women.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: Women, yeah.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then there's this interesting uh idea that they they think that there might have been uh arsenic poisoning too going on that was messing with everybody's heads.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: I've heard of that theory, yeah.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know, uh you know, I've I've very superficially read it, but I would like to look into that more because it's it's it was something that was produced naturally, that people that they were consuming, I believe that's the idea behind that.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like drinking water or something.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it was making people act weird and and have these weird sort of hallucinations and become very paranoid.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, when you live in a very religious society, a puritanical, I mean, literally that's yeah, the term comes from you know, it can lead to very um uh extreme circumstances like what happened to these women, unfortunately.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I I did want to and thank you for sharing that.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh um, and I did want to, before we get on with the episode, I did want to give a shout out to um the Kalbuli here in Dallas, who uh hosted uh a very uh nice uh event not that long ago uh called the Tla Tlatokan down at the Latino Cultural Center here in Dallas.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was a two-day event.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we, as uh tells from Atlantes, uh were invited to to go and and live stream the event and just be part of the the festivities and the celebration of indigenous peoples from the South.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: It was showcasing specifically, you know, southern um meaning, you know, from like South Mesoamerica, South America.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And we also had some Apache dancers as well.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um very very, very cool dancing.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, all my years of being at Pows, I don't think I had ever witnessed uh that specific type of dancing that the Apache do.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: I forget what it's called now.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Were they doing the crown?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, where they they have the crown and and and they do a lot of like uh to me it sounded like deer uh sounds and like maybe even like wolf sounds, like a call and response kind of thing.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: It was really great.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's actually.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, man, that is that is amazing.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so we had a variety of of uh dances, of course, Mexica, we had uh also representatives from uh Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, Taino dancing and uh Afro-indigenous and and things like that.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: So big shout out to the Kabuli, a big shout out to everyone who was involved with that.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: And thanks for having us.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I did my best, you know, um uh since I was the only one there, uh currently you could make it, but um, I think uh maybe moving forward if we do some of these things, you know, we can be better prepared.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: So this is our first sort of live stream event for Tills from Aslantis.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: So a first for us, you know, there's always a first.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: So um just wanted to make make a little shout out to the people that were involved.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds like a really cool event.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was, it was, and I I think they were trying to make it a yearly event, so we'll see.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe next year uh we'll have a better showing in terms of like the podcast, and maybe we can um because this was our first event, at least my first event doing this.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I wasn't fully prepared for everything that I needed uh to do it.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and plus you need multiple people, you know, the one one person to s to be with the equipment set up and and then someone else kind of roaming around.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh doing.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Doing the live shots and doing interviews and things like that.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: So so if we do this again for sure, um we need to have more folks on hand uh to either assist and help out.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, uh let me see what else is going on here in Dallas.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh can't really think.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, there's supposed to be this um event coming up that the Kalpuli da Dansa uh uh here in Dallas is involved with.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: I was asked to participate, but I haven't heard back from the people that are putting it together, so I'm not sure what my involvement's gonna be.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but they're doing a Chicano fest coming up uh later on in this month of September, towards the end of September.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: So um anyone in Dallas that's uh you know looking to do something to celebrate Chicanidad, Chicanismo, Chicano culture, uh look it up.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: You could probably find it on your usual social media sites.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: La Chicanada.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I had been meaning, well, both of us had been meaning to get into this topic, today's topic, uh, since like the inception of this podcast, I think was one of the first topics that we talked about that we should we should discuss.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, many episodes later we're finally getting around to it.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: Season three.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: Finally.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, finally, season three.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: So um, yeah, I think we should just get into it.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh it's a it's a topic that I um I think is worth addressing.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: The origin of Indio.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: Back in 1998, I was employed as a graphic designer at the Fort Worth Star Telegram.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: And when my cowtown-born co-workers weren't torturing me by insisting that we listen to whatever country pop garbage was playing on the radio, they tortured me by listening to whatever top 40 pop garbage was playing on the radio.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: And one morning, while listening to the Kid Craddock morning show, my otherwise erudite sensibilities were assaulted by a particularly racist comedy bit, and I used the word comedy loosely, performed by Craddock and his co-hosts.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that show wasn't really that funny.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I tried, man.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: I tried listening to it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh my goodness, what are these people doing?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and every morning would sit down to start Horrible.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's not the best way to get your creative juices flowing, let me tell you that much when you're doing graphic design.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: So in the bit, Craddock and company decided it would be fun to give themselves Indian names, quote unquote, based on their worst attributes.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: As the bit went on, I remember the names becoming more and more crass, causing some of my co-workers to anxiously glance in my direction to see if I was offended.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Immediately after the bit ended, an individual called into the show to express his disapproval of the racist bit.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I don't remember everything that the caller said, but two things remain firmly burned into my brain.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: One, the caller identified himself as indigenous.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: It may have been Comanche, but I I don't remember for sure.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: I do know that he he called himself Indian.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: And two, he attempted to correct the radio show hosts by informing them that they shouldn't be so disrespectful of Indian names, because the word Indian means of God, being a corruption of Christopher Columbus's expression that the people he encountered in the New World were Indios.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: Get it?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: Indios.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then that became Indios.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yikes.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, when asked where he learned this from, the caller stated, It's in the dictionary.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: To which Craddock responded, You must, and this is exactly how I how he f fucking said it, it got so under my skin.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: Craddock said, You must be reading the Indian dictionary.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: At which point he hung up on the collar.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: God damn it.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: So typical.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: And for what it's worth, by by the way, it's not in the dictionary.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: So Indian or otherwise.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: Spoiler alert?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: One of my coworkers turned and asked if what the caller said was true regarding the origin of the word Indian.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_03: I simply said, nah, that was a bunch of bullshit, but fuck Kid Craddock.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I got back.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then I got back to work on whatever shitty auto dealership ad they had me designing.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I should note that Craddock did pass away in 2013, obviously the victim of some ancient Indian curse.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's what you get main.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: That's what you get for fucking with us.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: Interestingly, this would not be the only time I encountered this alleged etymological origin for the word indio.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Every so often, either at a ceremony or social gathering, I would hear someone uncritically repeat this claim as fact, that Indio comes from indios because Columbus thought that we were people of God.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: So where does this claim come from?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: And how much of the claim is based on actual evidence?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, my investigation proved interesting to say the least.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: When I started exploring the origins of the Indios Equals in God claim, the most widely cited source was surprising.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: Comedian George Carlin.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: That is surprising, actually.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: In his 1997 New York Times best-selling book, Braindroppings, Carlin wrote.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the Indians, I'll call them Indians because that's what they are.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: They're Indians.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing wrong with the word Indian.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, it's important to know the word Indian does not derive from Columbus's mistakenly believing he had reached India.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: India was not even called by that name in 1492.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: It was known as Hindustan.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: More likely, the word Indian comes from Columbus's description of the people he found here.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: He was Italian and did not speak or write very good Spanish.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: So in his written accounts, he called the Indians Una gente indios, a people in God.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: In God, Indios, Indians.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's a perfectly noble and respectable word.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Man, that's that's kind of sad to know about Carlin.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: But what does he know, right?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean Yeah, yeah.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: He was just repeating what somebody else said.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: Because this myth did not originate with Carlin.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: Although he has probably done more than anyone else to popularize it.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: An earlier source can be found in the opening pages of Peter Matheson's 1984 book, Indian Country.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: But even here, it is simply repeating a story that has been told elsewhere.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: Have you picked up your Mexica calendar for the year 12 Flint?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: Or how about a paperback copy of the four disagreements?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: Just visit talesfromostlantis.com for all the latest merchandise and show some love for your favorite podcast.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_03: That's TalesFromostlantis.com for all the latest merchandise.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Now, back to the show.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: It has been suggested that Columbus named them Indios not because he imagined them to be inhabitants of India, which in the 15th century was still called Hindustan, but because he recognized that the friendly, generous Daino people lived in blessed harmony with their surroundings.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Una gente indios, a people of God.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: How infantilizing.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's so infuriating.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the book Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends by David Wilton has this to say about Matheson's claim.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Matheson is falling into an old trap and attempts to weasel out of it.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: He wants to use the story to illustrate a point, but he cannot find evidence that indicates that the story is true.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: So he uses the magical phrase, quote unquote, it has been suggested that.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: With this, he absolves himself of all responsibility for the truthfulness of the next statement.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever one encounters phrases like, it has been suggested or it has been said, warning bells should go off.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: What follows is very often not true.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, this is something that I always used to, well, I still do tell my my daughters, you know, like if anybody starts off a sentence with, well, what I heard, or what they're saying is or people are saying, I'm hearing.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, come on.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: But my investigative trail did not end with Matheson's 1984 book, as my research eventually led me to a Mother Jones article written by none other than Russell Means in the December 1980 issue.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: In it means states.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: There is also some confusion about the word Indian, a mistaken belief that refers somehow to the country India.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: When Columbus washed up on the beach in the Caribbean, he was not looking for a country called India.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Europeans were calling that country Hindustan in 1492.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Look it up in the old maps.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Columbus called the tribal people he met Indio from the Italian Indio, meaning in God.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: So note that all three of these claims state that India was actually called Hindustan at the time of Columbus's 1492 voyage, thereby making it impossible for Columbus to have called the indigenous people he encountered Indians due to his mistaken belief that he had landed in India.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: But is that 1492?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Columbus selled the ocean blue.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: He found people in Hindustan.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_03: Not in India.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: But is this really true?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, once again, from the book Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends by David Wilton.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: The word India has been in English use since the 9th century.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: It is from the Latin name for the land, which in turn is from Greek and ultimately from Persia Hind and the Sanskrit Sindbu, meaning river, specifically the Indus River.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Alexander the Great in the 3rd century BC referred to the Indos River and called the inhabitants of the region Indikoi.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Maps that predate Columbus's 1492 voyage label the land Indie with an E.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: The word Hindustan, or more accurately Indostan, with an O in the middle, Indostan, to use the early spelling, on the other hand, did not enter common European use until the 17th century.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: If Columbus were to use a name for the land, it would be India, not Hindustan.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: The use of the adjective Hindu in European languages is even a bit later, dating to the late 17th century.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, so there you go.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: Easily debunked, right?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was not called Hindustan until much later.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: Or was it?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: Bomb bum bum.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: So now that we know that the India was actually called Hindustan when Columbus came to the Americas claim is not true.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: Let's take a look at what Columbus actually did say about the people and places he encountered in his first letter to the King of Spain.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: In thirty-three days I passed from the Canary Islands to the Indies.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: And Trentis Dias pas de Canaria a las Indias.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: His first reference to the inhabitants comes in the second paragraph.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: To the first island which I found I gave the name San Salvador.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: The Indians call it Guanajani.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: A la primera que yo aye puse nombre San Salvador.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Los Indios le llaman Guanajani.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: In all, Columbus makes a total of six mentions regarding India or the Indies and four references to Indios throughout his letter.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: Nowhere in the letter does he use a phrase even remotely resembling una gente indios.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, Columbus would go on to state to speak in conclusion only of what has been done during this hurried voyage.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Their Highnesses will see that I can give them as much gold as they desire.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: If they will give me a little assistance, spices, cotton, as much of their highnesses may command to be shipped, and mastic as much of their highnesses choose to send for, which until now has only been found in Greece, in the Isle of Kiosk, and the Signora can get its own price for it.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: As much line aloe as they command to be shipped, and as many slaves as they choose to send for are all heathens.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Man, some of the word in here is kind of strange.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that's the old the old uh I mean this is a translation from the original, which was in Spanish, maybe?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_03: That was uh from Letter of Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to America, 1492.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: So which was it?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: Did Columbus view indigenous people as heathens, ripe for slavery, which he just said, or as docile people.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: People in God.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: Which he never says.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: So at this point, the answer should be obvious.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: Sadly, this particular linguistic urban legend still makes its way into the mainstream.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: While researching this episode, I came across a Latino history website which states Gente de Dios was later shortened to Indios, then Indios, and finally Indian.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, Indian.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: They were called Indians, La Prensa adds, not because they were thought to live in India, but because they were children of God.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I love the weird, like clearly these people aren't linguistic, you know, linguists.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're just like, well, yeah, gente de Dios was shortened to endios, then endios, then Indian.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: Fuck it.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: You know.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: The natural evolution of things.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: And as we have shown in this episode, this is pure nonsense.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: So this leaves us with the question: who exactly invented the claim in the first place?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: Unfortunately, the trail ran cold with the 1980 Mother Jones article by Russell Means.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: I cannot find any earlier source for the claim.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: Honestly, I had sort of hoped to discover a link between the claim made by Means and one of the many Mechikayot-affiliated individuals we have mentioned throughout the course of this podcast series.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: But for now, I will have to be satisfied with Means as the origin of this etymological myth.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I have to be honest.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this was one of the things that that sort of stuck out with me early on.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I mean, someone who is has a history background.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Back then I was I hadn't been to college yet, but like growing up, like I read a lot, and some like I'm pretty sure that's not true.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like that don't seem right.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: I've read the letters, and then yeah, uh that's not in there, but you know, you try to talk to people, and and and it sometimes you can have a fruitful discussion that goes nowhere.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes people just you know get mad and and turn the other way, and and you're like, okay, so that conversation went nowhere.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean it's it's interesting that you you say that your first encounter with the term was through that caller that called into Kid Crack.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was the first time I'd ever heard it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, because I was under the impression that it was something that went back to Tlacael, because you know, Tlacael uh from Mexico City, uh who is someone who is um, as we've talked about on this podcast on the show, was one of the the key um people who introduced a lot of these ideas of Mexica into the US through some not only himself early on in the 70s, but people who were some of his disciples that later came on their own and started their own groups and and started disseminating some of this information.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, there's that connection between Tlacaele and Well, I wanted to say that in Leonard Crow dog, you know, dog because so this is what I did discover, and this is where I thought I was gonna find the connection in the book Um El Sexto Sol.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, Los Hijos del Sexto Sol is what the book's called.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: Great book.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um in it he talks about Lacael hooking up with a bunch of Chicanos and coming to the United States for like this conference.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that was a good one.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Was it one of those uh the the Florida uh conferences, right?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: Probably I think so.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: And while he was here, Leonard Crodog extended an invitation to him to visit Pine Ridge.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: Pine Ridge, yeah.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: And that he went there and participated in ceremony, and that's where he you know learned about the Sundance, and and this happened in 1980.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_03: Is when this when when Lacaelel went to the Pine Ridge and that's the year that Russell Means is credible with having created this this modern pure speculation on my behalf, but it is entirely possible that Lacaele said something while he was there and they picked up on it, and Russell Means repeated it.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I think I think you're onto something.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because think about it.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Russell Means I'm not sure if he like was well versed in in like other languages to have thought of thinking, well, Indians sounds a lot like like saying indios in Spanish, right?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's I think that that that's why I always attributed to Tlacaello because to me it sounds like a Spanish speaker is someone who would be making this claim.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, right.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: So that makes sense.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: But the only problem is I haven't found anything written or recorded by Tlacaello that makes this claim.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: So that's that's my smoking bullet for that hypothesis right there.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um smoking bullet or smoking gun?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's the smoking bullet from now on.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I was I was just thinking that I need to go back and and uh read uh his book.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: Now we meet again because it might be in there, it might be in that book.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh just didn't have time to do it for uh for this episode, but you know, we maybe we could do a follow-up uh or maybe just uh offer a uh a brief uh sort of addendum in the future episode if we if we find the source, because we're gonna keep looking.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of this stuff that we do, this is not the end all be all, this is not the end of the road.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're still digging.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: And speaking of digging, so as you were doing your own digging, I was digging around myself because, like you said at the beginning of the episode, we've been both of us have been looking at this for a long time, and uh in my digs, same as you, I did find that the original source, at least in print in English, goes back to Russell Means.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: And what I found was one of the earliest um versions of this, besides Means, it also goes back to uh Peter Matheson, but this is before he published his book Indian Country, which was published in 1984, if I'm not mistaken, right?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: In 1981, and in his article, um he um at the end of it, he uh it states that that um this story or this article, this little essay, um was originally let me let me get this straight before I make a false statement here.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um it says that it's like 17 pages long.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it says that acknowledgement, an earlier version of this paper was delivered as uh first Belkin Memorial Lecture at the University of California, San Diego in the spring of 1979, and then it says copyright 1980, Peter Matheson, but that's at the end of the article.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: At the start of the article, and this again, this is in the Parabola magazine from 1981, spring of 1981, and this is the first story uh in in that issue, and it's called Native Earth by Peter Matheson, and from the very start, from the very beginning, the very first paragraph, this is what he says.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: Christopher Columbus, going ashore in the Antilles, was struck by the profound well-being of the island Arawak.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: He called them Indios, not because he imagined them to be inhabitants of India, which in the fifteenth century was still called Hindustan, but because he recognized that these friendly, generous Daino peoples, soon to be extinct, right?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like this idea of extinction is always looming in the background with Indians, right?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: Lived in blessed harmony again to the Kumbaya idea of indigenity.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Their surroundings, they lived in blessed harmony with their surroundings.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, surroundings.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then it says, Una gente in Dios.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Two separate words, right?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: In Dios, a people in God.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the end of the paragraph, and there's an asterisk, and you go down to the bottom of the page, and it says, Courtesy of Russell Means.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: Oh damn.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: So there you have it.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Russell Means, as far as we know, is in effect the originator in print of this idea that the term Indian uh originates as Columbus's acknowledging and recognizing this the uber religiosity and spirituality of indigenous peoples of the America, which you know we speculate is possibly something that was influenced through his connections uh with Leonard Crow Dog and Tlaka Elin, but we haven't found any evidence of that.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: But the truth is out there somewhere.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so I also wanted to to bring this up because um the same the same uh article that that we just quoted earlier from 1980 that is attributed to uh Russell Means, you said you found your your version of it in the Mother Jones um magazine, right?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Mother Jones, it's the cover story.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was I was digging around further and I found um a copy of it posted in a website called theanarchistlibrary.org.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: And it's one word, the anarchanarchistlibrary.org.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: If anyone wants to go and find it for themselves, you can download it as a PDF, which is what I did.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the title of this, which is a speech that Russell Means gave, it's called For America to Live, Europe Must Die.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, for America to live, Europe must die.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: That was a speech uh that he gave, and I'll just read the description here.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: It says, the following speech was given by Russell Means in July of 1980 before several thousand people who had assembled from all over the world for the Black Hills International Survival Gathering in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: It is said to be Russell Means' most famous speech, again with the It Is said stuff.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: I I it just irks me when I see that written.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: It is said.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Who said it?
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, um, so that's the description.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is a speech, and and you can tell, like, I'm not gonna read the whole speech because the thing is like almost eight pages long on a PDF, uh, single space, not even double space, single space.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's pretty long.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna read the introduction and then I'm gonna read the um the last three paragraphs of this long speech because I think it's important that people understand the context from which that little idea of indios comes from and how it's been sort of taken out of its context and used in a different way than what he even intended.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: If he even intended anything with it to begin with, right?
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's kind of like an offhand statement that he made.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty much.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's like an offhand remark.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty much.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: So so here it goes.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: This is the actual text.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: This is how it begins.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: Russell Means, 1980.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: The only possible opening for a statement of this kind is that I detest writing.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: The process itself epitomizes the European concept of legitimate thinking.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: What is written has an importance that is denied the spoken.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: My culture, the Lakota culture, has an oral tradition, so I ordinarily reject writing.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: It is one of the white world's ways of destroying the cultures of non-European peoples, the imposing of an abstraction over the spoken relationship of a people.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: So what you read here is not what I have written.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: It is what I have said and someone else has written down.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: I will allow this because it seems that the only way to communicate with the white world is through the dead, dry leaves of a book.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really care whether my words reach whites or not.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: They have already demonstrated through their history that they cannot hear, cannot see, they can only read.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, there are exceptions, but the exceptions only prove the rule.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm more concerned with the American Indian people, students and others who have begun to be absorbed into the white world through universities and other institutions.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: But even then, it's a marginal sort of concern.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's very possible to grow into a red face with a white mind, and if that's a person's individual choice, so be it.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I have no use for them.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: This is part of the process of cultural genocide being waged by Europeans against American Indian peoples today.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: My concern is with those American Indians who choose to resist this genocide but may be confused as to how to proceed.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: You notice I use the term American Indian rather than Native American or Native Indigenous People or Amerindian when referring to my people.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: There has been some controversy about such terms, and frankly at this point I find it absurd.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: Primarily it seems that American Indian is being rejected as European in origin, which is true, but all the above terms are European in origin.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: The only non-European way is to speak of Lakota, or more precisely, Oglala, Bule, etc., and of the Danay, the Mikosoki, and all the rest of the several hundred correct tribal names.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this is the part that people quote over and over again that I'm about to read out loud here.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: There is also some confusion about the word Indian, a mistaken belief that it refers somehow to the country India.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: When Columbus washed up on the beach in the Caribbean, he was not looking for a country called India.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Europeans were calling that country Hindustan in 1492.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: Look it up in the old maps.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: Columbus called the tribal people, he met Indio from the Italian Indio, meaning in God.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's the one paragraph out of this entire entire speech that he delivered that people And it's even a parenthetical statement.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's a parenthetical, it's exactly like you were saying, it's an aside.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's an aside, right?
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: And and I just find it interesting because the the people who quote this over and over again are misreading his speech.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because if we continue, if you allow me to continue to read some more of his speech, by all means, Dr.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: Ariano, you will see that Russell Means could care less about these terms.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: He just told us in the previous paragraph, I don't care.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: Use your own people's words.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's what he's saying for yourselves.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we're we're having this debate today, right?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is relevant because we still have people denying other indigenous people their indigenity because they don't have a card, they're not recognized by a certain government entity or what have you.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, I digress.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: So this is Russell Means, continuing.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: It takes a strong effort on the part of each American Indian not to become Europeanized.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: The strength for this effort can only come from the traditional ways, the traditional values that our elders retain.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: It must come from the hoop, the four directions, the relations.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: It cannot come from the pages of a book or a thousand books.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: No European can ever teach a Lakota to be Lakota, a Hopi to be Hopi.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: A master's degree in Indian studies or in education or in anything else cannot make a person into a human being or provide knowledge into the traditional ways.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: It can only make you into a mental European, an outsider.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: Damn.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: I should be clear about something here because there seems to be some confusion about it.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: When I speak of Europeans or mental Europeans, I'm not allowing for false distinctions.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying that on the one hand there are the byproducts of a few thousand years of genocidal reactionary European intellectual development, which is bad, and on the other hand, there is some new revolutionary intellectual development, which is good.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm referring here to the so-called theories of Marxism and anarchism and leftism in general.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't believe these theories can be separated from the rest of the European intellectual tradition.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's really just the same old song.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: Damn.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's laying it down.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: This Rosamine is like you people out there who think you're so radical and so revolutionary and so against the grain and decolonial.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't using the term decolonial because that wasn't really a thing that people were expressing.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the idea was there, but the term itself the popular vernacular.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: But that's really he he would have included it in this list of things, right?
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so he this is the at the so what I just read is the the first several paragraphs of the beginning of the speech.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now I'm gonna continue and skip down to the end of the speech because a lot of the criticism that he lays out for for these various isms, um uh he explains them very thoroughly, and like I said, those of you that are interested can go and search for this on your own.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: We'll we'll put this in the in the show notes.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we can do that as well.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so these are the last three paragraphs of that speech.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: To cling to capitalism and Marxism and all the other isms is simply to remain within European culture.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: There is no avoiding this basic fact.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: As a fact, this constitutes a choice.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: Understand that the choice is based on culture, not race.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Understand that to choose European culture and industrialism is to choose to be my enemy.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: Damn, his enemy! And understand that the choice is yours, not mine.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: This leads me back to address those American Indians who are drifting through the universities, the city slums, and other European institutions.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: If you are there to learn to resist the oppressor in accordance with your traditional ways, so be it.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how you manage to combine the two, but perhaps you will succeed.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: But retain your sense of reality.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: Beware of coming to believe the white world now offers solutions to problems it confronts us with.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: Beware too of allowing the words of native people to be twisted to the advantage of our enemies.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: Europe invented the practice of turning words around on themselves.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: You need only look to the treaties to the treaties between American Indian peoples and various European governments to know that this is true.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: Draw your strength from who you are.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: A culture which regularly confuses revolution with continuation, which confuses science and religion, which confuses revolt with resistance, has nothing helpful to teach you and nothing to offer you as a way of life.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: Europeans have long since lost all touch with reality if they ever were in touch with it.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: Feel sorry for them if you need to, but be comfortable with who you are as American Indians.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I suppose to conclude this, I would state clearly that leading anyone toward Marxism is the last thing on my mind.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: Marxism is an is as alien to my culture as capitalism and Christianity are.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I can say I don't think I'm trying to lead anyone toward anything.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: To some extent, I try to be a leader in the sense that white media like to use that term.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: When the American Indian Movement was a young organization, this was a result of a confusion that I no longer have.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot be everything to everyone.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_02: I do not propose to be used in such a fashion by my enemies.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: I am not a leader.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: I am an Ogala Ogala Lakota patriot.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: This is all I want and all I need to be, and I am very comfortable with who I am.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: The end.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Damn.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: He laid it down.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_03: Laid it down, man.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_03: What's interesting there is um the use of I am an Oglala Lakota Patriot.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's uh I see that well if I see that phrase used a lot in uh the old aim writings.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because in his criticism of Mark.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: Marxism in the in some of the parts that I skipped, he acknowledges that people who view it through a Marxist lens would call him a cultural nationalist.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, I'm okay with that.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: He says, I'm okay with being called a cultural nationalist.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and and that's what he's saying here, that he's a patriot for of his people, of his tribe.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, this is something that I um I try to point out is when people start uh you know attacking Chicano indigenity and say it's based on nationalism, blah blah blah blah blah.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh they must not hang out with very many tribal members because I could tell you uh Dene are very nationalistic.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: The Hopi are very nationalistic.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like they you know their nation means everything to them, you know?
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_03: And there's and it's not this uh you know noble warrior we all live in peace type stuff.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_03: There's definitely friction that happens between different indigenous groups to this day, based on the nationalism of each group.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_03: So it's uh it's really interesting.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think sometimes we forget, we forget that, you know, just like we're complicated today, uh, you know, our our the people who came before us who have been on this road and who were on this road before they passed on, we're complicated people as well.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like on the one hand, I disagree with with his assessment of where the term Indian comes from, and that's fine.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm not gonna discount the rest of what he's saying here just because of that one little thing, right?
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, just because of one disagreement.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: One disagreement out of his entire speech with that, which I think, you know, like this is something that that you and I have been sort of dancing around for a while, but I think you you were kind of very straightforward on uh in your book, I think we will rise.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think you you you were very straightforward about how you felt about you know Marxism and capitalism, because there's been this tendency, you know, and and here he's describing the tendency among you know Native American peoples here in the north, but like even during the Chicano movement, like a lot of the legacy of the Chicano movement that that has been left over it has been this tendency to lean towards uh Marxist uh political ideology because there was a lot of that going around back then as well.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, if if that's who you are, so be it.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_02: But as long as you know that if you're looking at it from an indigenous perspective, which is what you were you were the first person, currently, I think, that really uh not that I was a Marxist myself, right?
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: But like I understood Marxism and I understood its place in the movement during the Chicano movement.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: I understood its its uh its place in society at large as as an being opposite to capitalism, but it really wasn't until I met you when you told me, well, you know, our ancestors weren't Marxists, they weren't communists.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: Our ancestors, you know, they had their own on that, and you know But back then, you know, you phrased it in terms, you know, we had Mexicayo, right?
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like that makes sense.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's what we have.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_02: We have our own thing, so we don't need to rely on all these European isms, as Russell Means would say.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think it's still to a large degree still still true today.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of our people who who um refuse to um acknowledge their indigenity or who especially the ones that are uberly critical of our indigenity as as Chicano Mexicanos, like they're subscribing to this notion, this European version of well, you can't be this because you know you're that, or you yeah, you don't check enough boxes to be this one thing based on on this idea of what what society has has you know prescribed for for you to be and and that's what he's going after here in in this in this speech.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_03: It was um when I interviewed John Trudell for um our old zine that that he used to put out right back in the day.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_03: He he told me that uh specifically he was uh uh he didn't he said I don't prescribe to pan Indianism, I am a Lakota patriot.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_03: That I was like, oh damn, yeah.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_03: So that that was interesting.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: It was two two of the aim uh originators that are no longer with us, yeah.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, did I ever tell you about the very surreal moment in my life when Russell Means called me at my house?
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, I don't know.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh maybe you have, I don't remember that story though.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_03: So we had just moved back from Texas, and we were living in our new house, and one day I get this phone call, and you know, we didn't have caller ID or anything.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_03: I pick up the phone, and uh this voice I don't know is like, is this curly?
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, yes.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_03: He's like, and he just goes, Russell Means.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, get the fuck out of here.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Maine.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_03: But uh Yeah, we talked for like an hour.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_03: He just called me up, and he at the time he was thinking of running for governor of New Mexico.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: Of New Mexico?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and he wanted to know if I would help uh in the campaign.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_03: Was he living in New Mexico at the time?
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: So what'd you say?
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right on, let's do this.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was like, yeah, sure, but then he decided not to uh not to run after.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I was gonna say, I don't think I remember him running for governor, but hey, that would have been something.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: Was this around the time that that Bill Richardson was governor or when he ran for governor?
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_02: Or was it after or before?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_03: It may have been Johnson.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_03: Gary Johnson.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_03: Speaking of Bill Richardson, rest in peace.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_03: He just passed away not too long ago.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, R.I.P.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_03: Bill Richardson.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_03: I uh he came in to the newspaper I was working at once, and uh he was walking around, you know, shaking hands and stuff, and I don't know if you remember this t-shirt.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I think Isaac gave it to me.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_03: I had it's this black t-shirt, and it said, Do not elect politicians.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, vaguely remember that.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_03: And then on the back it said, kill them.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right, right.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_03: I was wearing that shirt to work that day, and he walks up and he's like, Oh, don't elect politicians, huh?
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I hope I got your vote, and he shakes my hand, and I'm like, yeah, and then I turn around and he sees the back of my shirt.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like, oops.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like, oh, god damn it.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_03: I got a talking to that day.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, I don't, I didn't know he was gonna be there.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_03: Come on.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, leave me alone.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_03: So there you have it.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_03: The uh the unfiltered truth behind the origin of Indiol coming from Indios.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_03: Indios.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you know what I like to say about the truth.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_03: What's that, girl?
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_03: The truth is like medicine.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't always taste good, but it is always good for you.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_03: And that's all, folks.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: Indios.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for listening to Tales from Osatlantis, a project of the Jamali Institute of Mesoamerican Arts.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_03: If you enjoy the show, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_03: You can do this by visiting TalesFromositlantis.com and clicking support the podcast.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_03: Your continued support will help keep the podcast ad free and independent.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_03: Until next time, Demoy Taz.