Title: A Sacred People: Indigenous Governance, Traditional Leadership, and the Warriors of the Cheyenne Nation by Leo K. Killsback (review)
Abstract: Reviewed by: A Sacred People: Indigenous Governance, Traditional Leadership, and the Warriors of the Cheyenne Nation by Leo K. Killsback Cornel Pewewardy (bio) A Sacred People: Indigenous Governance, Traditional Leadership, and the Warriors of the Cheyenne Nation by Leo K. Killsback Texas Tech University Press, 2019 After reading Leo Killsback's A Sacred People: Leadership, Citizenship, and the Covenants of the Cheyenne Nation," I feel confident in saying that Killsback represents one of the most consistent, challenging, and coherent Native/Indigenous scholars in contemporary American Indian Studies. I see how he is helping to regenerate a "sacred scholar" both continentally and globally. His books and articles have revealed a Cheyenne-centered perspective of history as contrasted by Western writers of Cheyenne and Native American history. A Sovereign People: Indigenous Nationhood, Traditional Law, and the Covenants of the Cheyenne Nation is Killsback's first book. A Sacred People: Indigenous Governance, Traditional Leadership, and the [End Page 72] Warriors of the Cheyenne Nation is his second book. This sequence of publications means Killsback has back-to-back book publications and continues this momentous tradition of decolonizing writings. A Sacred People is both a meditation on how Cheyenne sacred knowledge, identity construction, and ceremonial covenants have generated Native/Indigenous communities that are vital to encountering and overcoming intractable situations, and a celebration of Cheyenne sociopolitical communities and intellectual creativity. Killsback begins the introduction by saying: "The purpose of this book is to reconstruct, reclaim, and reimagine a Cheyenne world for the sake of preserving the Cheyenne way of living and thinking for the next generations of Cheyenne people" (p. xxvii). With this statement and throughout the Introduction chapter, Killsback unravels the processes of colonization that enfolded modern society, primarily focusing on the oppression of the Cheyenne people. His starting point is the short story of a young boy named Stink Bat, which reveals a powerful culture of resilience and the essence of traditional Cheyenne identity. His book tries to answer questions about how Cheyenne people thought and how they lived under the processes of European colonization. Stink Bat's story details the benchmark of Cheyenne leadership and warrior thought as the foundation for rebuilding and healing the Cheyenne Nation. Killsback attempts to explain the world of Stink Bat and re-create that story as it relates to contemporary society: a story that goes beyond the personalities of a so-called dying culture, beyond the details of battles buried in time, beyond the romanticism of Plains warriors clouded by idealists who search for their own identities or who try to re-create distorted, manufactured realities and histories that are readily accepted by mainstream academics in ivory towers. Killsback contends that his theoretical approach to writing history does not fit within the conventional Western paradigm. Thus, he advocates for a decolonized methodology and moves to rewrite history from an Indigenous position, or even closer, from a Cheyenne perspective. Writing from an Indigenous perspective is needed to understand the true story of Indigenous people, but new questions must be asked from questions based in deep sacred knowledge of the languages and cultures on their own terms. Killsback's holistic writing style reflects learning how all things are interconnected and how important the patterns of language are in informing our understanding of life. His theoretical and ideological writing style was both influenced and affirmed by Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Just as important is Killsback's commitment to protecting Indigenous cultures in academe. For many Indigenous peoples like the Maori, the purpose of education is to instruct the next generation about what is valued and important to a society. Killsback's discussion on the identity construction of Plains Indians focuses on a critical moment where he writes about the debate [End Page 73] over race relations, interrogating the variable and contradictory conception of race and its complex intersections with the dynamic categories of class, gender, and tribal nations. He mentions that very few people know of the ravages of genocidal wars and assimilation policies of the U.S. government and how these policies took a heavy toll on vibrant tribal cultures like the Cheyenne. He contends that few tribal leaders today know enough of the old Indian...
Publication Year: 2021
Publication Date: 2021-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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