Survival Arts

A Comanche speaks out on warriors & weapons

A reader, David A. Yeagley, left a comment on my piece on homeschooled Ye Bin Mok. I've been checking out his site, and see a large number of very interesting articles on a surprising variety of topics (aren't people fascinating?), including one on warriors & weapons and one with related points in the context of Yeagley's meeting with Chief Russell Means.

In the Warriors & Weapons article, he notes:

In modern America, women seem to have turned against their own men over the gun issue, judging by the polls and the Million Mom March.

Indian women have a different mindset. It was the women who taught Comanche boys how to use their weapons. Long before anyone ever heard of Xena the Warrior Princess, a woman called the “adiva,” or governess ran the Comanche training camps.

Americans nowadays seem to be forgetting what it means to be a warrior. They don’t value preparedness. They think the government will always be there to defend them from enemies and criminals.

And the Russell Means article:

But I cannot follow a man who denies the warrior traditions of my Comanche people. Those traditions are real. They were passed down to me by my ancestors. No amount of New Age psychobabble about matriarchy, tolerance and multiculturalism can erase them.

An Indian leader must draw from the traditions of his ancestors – not from the New Age doctrines of white feminists, crystal gazers, therapists and channelers, obsessed with their private fantasies of noble but peaceful savages.

I recommend checking out BadEagle's website. Lots of good reading there.

Posted by Russell Whitaker at January 20, 2003 12:36 PM | TrackBack