By Stephen M. Sachs, IUPUI, ssachs@earhlink.net

A paper presented at the 2005 annual meeting of the Western Social Science Association, Albuquerque, NM, April 13-16. 2005.

Traditionally, American Indian societies functioned extremely well on the basis of inclusive, participatory, decision making that incorporated the voices and concerns of all their members. This produced cooperative communities of mutually supportive members, whose identity with their tribes or bands channeled action for personal interest into community benefit to a very high degree.¹

Leadership in Native North American was largely a matter of inclusively facilitating the forming of community consensus, while providing guidance for reinforcing traditional values and applying them in the current context. Out of the core value of respect, leaders had responsibility to make sure that everyone's views were heard, and so far as practicable, included in finalizing decisions. To preserve respect for all, and to keep decision making representative of the community, power was dispersed among a variety of leaders, who often could be changed with the shifting consensus of the populace. The traditional forms of leadership and the processes through which they functioned varied from tribe to tribe, and in the same nation over time to meet changing circumstances. The general nature of traditional Native American leadership, however, was virtually universal across North America, with some exception in those societies that grew large enough that they began to become states.

As a colonial power, the United States forced Indian nations to function with more fixed and central leaders. While there was an advantage to centralized leadership in dealing with the colonizers, the imposed culturally inappropriate western forms of governance, in which leaders decided for those who were used to participating in decisions, often became major sources of disharmony in native communities.²

As Indian societies are regaining external respect, and an appreciation for tribal sovereignty, the author believes that it will be most helpful for them to return to functioning in currently appropriate modes that apply the traditional values of mutual respect, by governing through inclusive participatory consensus building. To achieve this, leadership needs to be carried out in a more traditional, inclusive consensus building and facilitating way.

The career of LaDonna Harris (Comanche), founder of Americans for Indian Opportunity and a major catalyst in the development of Indian affairs for four decades - whom the Ladies Home Journal in 1979 declared the Woman of the Year and the Decade - is an excellent example of such leadership and activism for overcoming the inequality imposed upon native peoples. By bringing the interested parties together in an inclusive and respectful manner, she has facilitated major advances in Indian legislation and in developing government-to-government relations between tribal and other governments. By applying traditional values appropriately for new circumstances, she has sparked the development of Indian leadership and organization, while collaborating with native communities to return to harmony through inclusive consensus building.

Similarly, those working with Indian nations as allies or consultants are most helpful when thy act inclusively, as facilitators and resource persons. There is a long history of failures of programs imposed upon tribes. When outside experts have collaborated with Indians in developing their own solutions, success has been far more frequent.³

Part I: Returning to traditional leadership in Indian nations: the example of Ladonna Harris

LaDonna Harris⁴, Comanche, founder and President of Americans for Indian Opportunity has been a strong voice for the advancement of all Native Americans for over four decades. Her role in such work as developing Native American leadership, improving tribal governance and developing government-to-government relationships between tribal governments and federal, state and local governments in the United States exemplifies the application of the traditional American Indian values of respect and inclusive, participatory leadership, appropriately for contemporary circumstances.

Raised during the great depression on a farm in the Comanche community around Walters, OK by her maternal grandparents, an Eagle Medicine Man, who also worked with peyote medicine, and a devout Christian Woman, Ms. Harris learned the traditional principles of relating to people on the basis of mutual respect and freedom for personal choice.⁵ Combined with those traditional values, her bicultural upbringing, speaking only Comanche at home while learning English and main stream American ways at school, contributed to her developing an abiding belief that there is room for all traditions. Both by temperament and personal philosophy, following the traditional Comanche preference for collaborative endeavor,⁶ Ms. Harris strives for the attainment of goals through focusing on the positive and by relating to others from the heart, though she can be tough when necessary. This is reflected in my first visit to her home in Washington, DC, for a gathering in 1991, when I experienced so much warmth in the house that I found it almost physically impossible to leave.

LaDonna Harris first came into national prominence in 1963 when she began to organize Native Americans in Western Oklahoma, following a meeting with members of the Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Starting with a meeting of Comanches in her living room, organizing expanded to seven communities, with assistance from the Center faculty members. Angie Debo reports of one these local efforts.⁷

In Lawton a successful program was launched, mainly through the leadership of two gifted women of the Comanche tribe: Mrs. Iola Taylor, county home demonstration agent for Indian work, and Mrs. LaDonna Harris, the wife of the rising young politician Fred R. Harris.

The result of all this was a called meeting of Indians and non-Indians at the University [of Oklahoma] on June 14, 1965. It turned out to be the most important gathering of Oklahoma Indians since the last intertribal council met in 1888 to fight dissolution. Nineteen tribes were represented. They discussed their problems and organized a committee with Mrs. Harris (her husband was now in the [United States] Senate) serving as chairman. The Unity of the diverse tribes was "downright astounding," a Seminole participant reported; and looking back, the leaders agreed that it was largely due to the ability and enthusiasm of Mrs. Harris. Quickly she appointed key persons to report to their tribes, learn their wishes, and prepared an agenda for a statewide meeting.

At that meeting, held at the University on August 7 with over 500 Native Americans attending, Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity (OIO) was formed as a nonprofit organization. Ms. Harris was elected President and a group of 41 Directors was selected "that reads like a roll call of Oklahoma tribes."⁸ In a manner that has been typical of Ms. Harris' inclusive style, OIO, with Ms. Taylor (now Ms. Hayden) as full time Director, developed a network of community interest and relationships with existing agencies throughout the state to begin reversing the stifling socio-economic conditions that were impacting Indian communities. With the help of an initial grant from the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), OIO put together an office and field staff (living in the areas they serve) that grew with expansion of its activities. OIO shortly developed projects in community development, carried out collaboratively at the grass roots level by Native Americans and non-Native Americans; work orientation, connecting Native Americans with employers for training and apprenticeships; and youth development, including a strong focus on helping Native American high school students acquire leadership character and skills, and in helping schools provide education in Native American heritage and history through such activities as supplying sets of books to the libraries of public schools with large Native American enrollments.

With a strong traditional recognition that young people are the future, considerable effort was undertaken in youth activities including establishing state wide annual Indian Achievement Conferences. The first of these was held in October of 1966 with 750 Native Americans participating and the Secretary of Health Education and Welfare, John W. Gardner, as keynote speaker. Following OIO's philosophy of empowerment of Indians in their own self development and individual achievement, combined with building understanding and acceptance in the white-oriented community, awards were made to individuals and to the town that had done the most to involve Native Americans in total community life. The following March, OIO put on the first of its annual Oklahoma Youth Conferences with 1000 students participating from 40 high schools and Senator Robert Kennedy the principle speaker.

Ms. Harris continued to be reelected President of OIO each year until she resigned in 1968 to become Chairman of the National Woman's Advisory Council of the War on Poverty. This was the first of several national bodies on which she served with distinction.⁹

On arriving in Washington D.C, Ms. Harris undertook considerable effort to have the traditional principle that those involved in decisions have input into making them. Her method was to share views respectfully, clearly explaining the advantages for those concerned about a policy. However, when appropriate, she could express herself forcefully. Her style was to collaborate with others interested in an issue, drawing in those who would support a coalition. Thus, with the collaboration of others, she succeeded in having President Johnson, establish the National Council on Indian Opportunity by executive order on March 6, 1968, in order to move American Indian policy forward in a coordinated manner with representative input from Indian Nations. The Council consisted of the Vice President, then Hubert Humphrey, serving as Chair, the six cabinet members whose departments were concerned with Indian land and people, the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, and six Indians and/or Alaska Natives. Because of the tumultuous events that followed its establishment (including Robert Kennedy's entering into the Presidential race, Johnson's withdrawal from the race, Kennedy's Assassination and Humphrey's obtaining the Democratic Nomination for President), the Council had yet to hold its first meeting when Nixon became President. Since the new President agreed with President Johnson on the need to improve the lives of Native Americans through developing self-determination without fear of termination,¹⁰ he had promised the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) during the election campaign that he would "fully support the National Council on Indian Opportunity."¹¹ However, "it was not activated until January 26, 1970, when Vice President Spiro Agnew called the first meeting at the angry insistence of Mrs. Harris."¹²

Indeed, for a number of years LaDonna Harris, working with a small group of American Indians including Ada Deer (Menominee), Pat Locke (Yankton Sioux), Alma Patterson (Tuscarora), Minerva Jenkins (Mohave), Mary Jo Butterfield (Makah), Helen Sherbeck (Lumbee) and Lucy Covington (Colville), was able to keep Native American issues on the national agenda. This forward movement was supported by increased Native American political activity, an improving American Indian public image, favorable presidents, and some key interested members of Congress. In some of this she partnered with her then husband, Senator Fred Harris (among other milestones, she became the first Senator's Wife to testify before a congressional committee). This included helping achieve the return of Taos Blue Lake to the people of Taos Pueblo, helping obtain a settlement of Native Alaskan claims in line with the thinking of Native Alaskan leaders, and assisting in the return of federal recognition to the Menominee Tribe (which lead to the ending of the federal government's policy of tribal termination). More generally, she played an important role in guiding the development of virtually all the major Native American reform acts that passed Congress in the 1970s.

A key factor in Ms. Harris' success was her ability to bring together virtually all of the key people, and representatives of all but the most extreme positions, to talk through an issue, helping the parties to understand each others concerns, and to reach at least something of an initial consensus for a policy proposal. That meant that Indian interests would have to compromise on some issues initially, but had a fair chance of achieving what was important to them. Though later amendment by Congress or executive agencies would often reduce Indian gains, without the initial consensus building, in most cases considerably less was likely to have been achieved. Within the Indian community in Washington, Ms. Harris also played an important roll in bringing together its members for gatherings on a regular basis. When Ms. Harris left DC, she was much missed as the hub of the community.¹³

Working in the same way, LaDonna Harris has made a concerted effort to realize the development of true government-to-government relations between the tribal governments and federal, state and local governments (and agencies). This has included work to bring about institutional development to facilitate making Indian nations partners in federalism, and day-by-day efforts to lift the consciousness and change the culture of policy makers. Concerning the federal government, it is significant that virtually every one of the structural innovations that have been undertaken since 1968 to improve coordination of federal Indian programs with responsiveness to American Indians, and decentralization of governmental functions to empowered tribal governments, has been previously advocated by Ms. Harris (though the adopted form or the quality or effectiveness of implementation have often been somewhat less than what she was striving for). This includes the initiation of American Indian advisory committees in federal agencies under Johnson, the establishment of Indian Desks in agencies dealing with the tribes under Nixon and the holding of Annual meetings at the White House with tribal leaders combined with the creation of an interagency working group with representation in the White House Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and extensive decentralization of Indian programs to tribal governments under Clinton.¹⁴ Moreover, she was instrumental in the adoption of government-to-government oriented official Indian policies by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture. Thus she has played a major role in the slow evolution from paternalistic, virtual monopoly, control of Indian programs by the BIA (at its height prior to the New Deal Reform efforts lead by John Collier, 1933-45) toward partnership in Federalism which is considerably, but not yet fully, achieved today.

The primary vehicle for LaDonna Harris' work after first coming to Washington, DC has been Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO), which she founded in 1970, and for which she continues to serve as President. Since its inception, AIO has been engaged in a wide variety of activities and a series of projects in a number of fields to enhance the cultural, social, political and economic self-sufficiency of tribes. These efforts include working to strengthen tribal governance, promoting the rise of government-to-government relations, and nurturing up and coming Native American leaders.

In all of this, Americans for Indian Opportunity has served as a catalyst for new concepts and opportunities for Indian people. In working to strengthen tribal governance, Ms. Harris and AIO (in cooperation with OIO in Oklahoma) have collaborated directly with the Winnebago, Poach Band Creek, Oklahoma Apache, Cheyenne-Arapaho, Comanche, Pawnee and Menominee tribes. AIO has provided assistance in assessing how these nations can reincorporate traditional dispute resolution methodologies and methods for building community consensus and harmony into contemporary tribal government. The Indigenous Leadership Interactive system (ILIS) was developed for this purpose by AIO in collaboration with Alexander Chistakis of George Mason University and CWA limited.¹⁵

This process of strategic planning by consensus decision making, assisted by computer mapping, was used quite successfully by four Oklahoma tribes (as is discussed more fully in Part II) and has been a useful format for considering complex issues with tribal people in other formats in the United States and internationally. A recent example is AIO's facilitating an inclusive, participatory Indigenous Leadership Interactive system Forum for the United Nations of All Tribes Foundation conference, "Strengthening Children and Families: Networking Urban Indian Centers in the U.S.," in Seattle, in May 2003¹⁶ Those who have worked with ILIS, generally, have been quite impressed with the process. Former Winnebago Chairman Reuben Snake commented that ILIS "is a good match for traditional problem solving strategies. This is so because traditional people remain, to this day, holistic thinkers favoring the inclusion of many ideas into solutions rather than one idea overpowering another."¹⁷ Stanley Paytiamo, former Governor of Acoma Pueblo, said that the ILIS process "enables a group to accomplish in two and a half days what it takes traditional decision makers two and a half years to accomplish."¹⁸

In the course of working to make tribal governments equal partners in American federalism, AIO, under Ms. Harris' leadership, has put on hundreds of forums and workshops from small meetings to large national and international conferences, published a number of significant papers^,19 and engaged in several important projects. For example, in order to assist the Environmental Protection Agency in developing tribal government capability to operate environmental protection programs, AIO first engaged in the "Messing with Mother Nature Project" to comprehensively assess the environmental problems and concerns of federally recognized tribes in the United States. AIO then undertook "To Govern or Be Governed: American Indian Tribes at the Crossroads" (or the "Governance Project"), assisting tribal governments in developing their capability to improve their own policies and to run their own programs so as to act as effective partners with the EPA and other federal agencies.²⁰ In helping tribes plan for the future, AIO has created INDIANnet, the first Indian owned and operated computer telecommunications network, which is dedicated to establishing and developing free public access and communication services for Native Americans, and which is now a part of Native American Communications.

AIO's leadership development efforts have been carried out primarily through the vehicle of its Ambassador Program: "Medicine Pathways to the Future." This program annually brings together young Americans Indians to learn to use traditional tribal values in a contemporary setting. This includes participation in participatory decision making with the ILIS process. following traditional inclusionary principles, alumni of the program continue to be involved in an active network, and participate in ILIS process discussions of new directions for AIO, and of how best to approach broader Indian issues. Since there are now Ambassadors in every major national Indian organization, and in every federal agency that deals significantly with Indians and Indian issues, this network and discussion process has been a valuable communication resource for Indian country. This sharing of information and ideas beyond one's immediate organization is an application of the traditional value of generosity as an aspect of collaboration for the general good. It is an application of the idea that the long run results are better for all if reciprocity is maintained through mutual gifting, rather than through market competition.

In the course of working on numerous issues, Ms. Harris and AIO have also launched a number of other national Native American organizations. These include the National Indian Housing Council, the Council of Energy Resources Tribes, the National Tribal Environmental Council and the National Indian Business Association.

In addition, Ms. Harris is an active participant in the broader civil rights, environmental, women's and world peace movements. One of OIO's first projects in the 1960's was cooperating with African American organizations to integrate Oklahoma. As the Vice Presidential Candidate on the Citizens Party Ticket with Barry Commoner, in 1980, she collaborated in making environmental issues a permanent area of major concern in Presidential election campaigns. She was a founding member of Common Cause and the National Urban Coalition and has served on many national boards and advisory committees.²¹ Ms. Harris' breath of concern and collaboration with a wide variety of organizations and efforts is part of a traditional, holistic, tribal outlook, that understands that everything is related, and sees one's own interest in the context of the long term, in which one gains the most through fostering mutual relationships of collaboration, supporting each others goals, whenever it is possible to do so.

Ms. Harris' work has also extended her efforts to the international arena. She was an original member of the Global Tomorrow Coalition and served as U.S. Representative to the OAS Inter-American Indigenous Institute. More recently, she has been a member of the board of Women for Meaningful Summits. Currently she is engaged in developing Advancement of Indigenous Opportunity International (AIO International) as a networking vehicle for international indigenous cooperation for improving the globalization process for the benefit of all peoples. AIO International held its first board meeting in Crete, in July 2003, in conjunction with its founding organizations, AIO and Advancement for Maori Opportunity (AMO), participation in the "Agoras of the Global Village" Annual Conference of the International Society for Systems Sciences. The meeting included AIO and AMO facilitating the indigenous "Wisdom of the People Forum," using the ILIS process. In recognition of her far reaching contributions on many levels, LaDonna Harris was declared "Woman of the Year and of the decade" by The Ladies Home Journal in 1979.²²

For almost four decades LaDonna Harris has been, and continues to be, an amazing activist of the heart, demonstrating that traditional inclusive, collaborative ways of proceeding are especially appropriate in the contemporary world. Her compassion, vision and sense of justice have gifted us with a deeper and richer understanding of the true meaning of public service. She is helping the world to see that traditional tribal ways need to be integrated with "modern" technologies, if all the people of this planet are to survive and prosper as we enter the new millennium.²³ In so doing, she has provided an excellent model for contemporary American Indian leadership.

Part II: Facilitators and resource persons for the people: consulting with indian nations as collaborators

Indian Nations are currently struggling to return to harmony by replacing culturally inappropriate forms of tribal government, imposed by the U.S. government, with culturally appropriate governmental forms and processes.²⁴ Indeed, from the late Nineteenth Century to the 1930's the thrust of U.S. Indian policy was to attempt to force culturally inappropriate polices on Indians, in the hope of assimilating them to U.S. mainstream culture.²⁵ That entire set of policies was a failure.²⁶ Indians were not assimilated, were put into extreme poverty and suffered considerable, often unresolved, historical grief, as was pointed out by the Meriam Report in 1928.²⁷

While the U.S. policy toward Indian nations has improved since 1928, most notably since the current policy of Indian self-determination was instituted in the 1970's, many programs and initiatives continued to be largely imposed, and hence were not effective. This has particularly been the case with economic development. In this field, the results have been disappointing, except where Indians have had a large say in their own development. One exception is the establishment of casinos, which have not always been designed and managed in culturally appropriate ways, but usually still have been profitable. Even with tribal casinos, the operations have run more effectively when managed by Indians, or in consultation with tribal personnel. For tribes with self-directed economic development, the results have not only consisted of increased income, but have included improvement in services, education, employment and other aspects of social well-being.²⁸ Similarly, as Indian nations have been able to run their own social service programs, these have become far more effective, particularly in overcoming the difficulties created by outside providers who ran health, education, substance abuse and other services in ways that conflicted with tribal culture.

So it is, that the ineffectiveness of the imposed forms of tribal governance along with the accompanying decrease in individual political power are major contributors to the serious economic and social problems that beset Indian reservations, including underdevelopment, high unemployment, and poverty, accompanied by extremely high rates of: suicide, drug and alcohol abuse and various forms of violent behavior.

As a result of this history, a major issue today for Indian nations is to return tribal governments to operating according to their own traditional values, applied appropriately for contemporary circumstance. There are three interrelated aspects of this. The first is to find ways to return tribal decision making to being of a participatory nature, inclusive and respectful, that fit the particular culture and situation of each Indian nation. The second is to insure that tribal programs function appropriately for tribal people, both in terms of their goals and the way in which tribal agencies and personnel interact with tribal members. The third is to develop programs holistically, so that they take into account the full range of tribal needs over time, while providing interactive coordination of projects and their administration, in order to keep all aspects of development in balance. In All of these undertakings, an essential factor is that while Indian nations have a common set of core values,²⁹ each nation has its own specific culture and way of applying those values. In order to be effective, social science and academic professionals who are invited to collaborate with Indian nations in efforts to strengthen tribal sovereignty and community well-being must be prepared to work in culturally responsive ways.

Appropriate Consulting in Collaborating with Indian Nations

Recent experience has begun to demonstrate that Indian nations can benefit from appropriate external consultation. Appropriate consulting (and provision of services) involves respectful collaboration with equals to facilitate attaining their goals in ways they find culturally harmonious. It also depends on being aware of the nation's history and culture, and on listening carefully and speaking in a supportive manner to assist tribal participants to draw on their own strength and knowledge. When this is accomplished, trust can be facilitated, and other useful information and networking can be provided. A critical element of appropriate consultation is facilitating (and, if necessary, assisting the development of) Indian people taking ownership of the project so that as early as practicable the consultant is no longer needed. On some occasions, consultants have asked representatives of tribal governments if the tribe had the capability to handle the project on its own, which on reflection, was found to be the case. When consultants keep tribal self-direction at the heart of the process, true empowerment occurs.

The goal of all culturally responsive work is to support empowerment. In the broadest sense, empowerment is defined as “increasing personal, interpersonal or political power so that individuals, families and communities can take action to change their situations.”³⁰ For that change to be beneficial, the process of deciding what is to be done needs to take into account the full range of relevant community needs and concerns, both at the moment, and for the future. Each project that is undertaken needs to fit appropriately into the larger set of goals, and be administrated to harmonize with the rest of the nation's undertakings. Thus, good consultants, and those who employ them, will question how a particular project best fits into the whole of the tribe's vision and activities.

A number of assumptions, attitudes and skills are needed for empowerment to occur. The first assumption is that oppression is destructive to the whole. In the Native way, everything is related. The pain of one is the pain of all. All humanity shares common ground and has common needs. Therefore, we need each other to attain empowerment. In other words, both the oppressor and the oppressed are afflicted and bound when any of the people are unable to have a reasonable degree of direction over their own daily lives. In healing oppression, relationships must be based on equality and mutual respect. This respect is reflected in the attitude that people empower themselves. Therefore, people must define their own reality, in their own terms and language. Problems must be articulated and solutions must be designed by those most directly affected by the situations at hand.³¹

The interaction of personal and political realities impacts relationships within the community as well as for the individual and between the community and the outside political and social environments. On a personal and community level, empowerment requires a critical consciousness. For native people and communities, that includes an awareness of the effects of colonization³² and historical trauma.³³ When one is aware of one’s own history, and remembers the pain and grieves for the losses, it is possible to reduce self-blame by normalizing and validating one's responses to trauma.³⁴ Community and self-empowerment can be enhanced by assuming responsibility for change, thereby enhancing confidence and skill.³⁵ Self aware and responsible partners in the political process of change can help to realistically assess the opportunities and barriers in external and internal social structures. Pro-active advocacy by people who display sovereign confidence are more likely to impact and modify social structures for the reallocation of power and resources.³⁶ Control of power and resources must return to the hands of indigenous people, and on their own terms, for true sovereignty to be realized.

Current empowerment issues in Indian nations include strengthening sovereignty and increasing self-determination. This is particularly true in the era of devolution and decentralization of programs and funding to states, counties and tribes. The challenge for Indian nations is to restore harmony and balance from within while simultaneously building government-to-government relations with states and local entities. Culturally competent consultants can help facilitate the achievement of these relationships which call for increasing mutual respect. No matter what the consulting or provision of services involves, consultants can be helpful in maintaining, if not increasing, sovereignty and self-determination by functioning in a culturally conscious and empowering manner.

It is important to realize that building relationships requires trust, and that takes time to accomplish. An essential requirement for non-native consultants is to understand the history of betrayal of Indian nations by the U.S. federal government and the culturally inappropriate way in which many, even well meaning, non-Indian individuals and institutions have interacted with native people and peoples. History is the foundation for what is believed to be possible in future relations. If outside governments, economic development interests, service providers and consultants truly wish to work with Indian people, it will be important for them to really listen for understanding regarding the hurt, distrust, and anger over the past efforts to destroy native people and culture and the ongoing lived experience of racism. Whenever possible, governments need to reconcile past hurts with sincere apologies, and non-governmental people and organizations need to act with compassionate understanding. It is really all right to say in effect, “What happened was not right. The U.S. federal government was dishonorable in its approach to indigenous people of this land.” It is good to express sincere regret for the actions of one’s ancestors and bring ones own heart into a humble and empathetic place. In working responsively with traumatic histories, validating the grief is essential.

The importance of understanding colonialism cannot be overemphasized in culturally responsive work with American Indian people. Colonialism is based on the notion of racial superiority, as in “Manifest Destiny.” Colonialism requires political, economic and social domination of one group by another. This is acted out through deliberate exploitation, oppression and control. The mechanisms for control are prejudice and discrimination, dehumanization, and blaming the victim. One of the marks of a colonized people is internalized shame and negative self-image, hopelessness and powerlessness and internalizing the characteristics of the oppressor. Sadly, in all oppressed groups is seen the phenomenon of the “oppressed become the oppressor” by committing crimes against members of their own group and in working to keep their own people down.³⁷ The goal of colonialism is complete cultural genocide and assimilation of the natives into the dominator culture. To accomplish this end, the history belongs to the colonizer. Thus, not only do the descendants of the colonizer fail to recognize their ancestral “karma" in the perpetuation of oppression, the oppressed are also denied access to the reason for their grief.

Each tribe has its unique experience with European colonizers and with the evolving policy positions of the U.S. government. Therefore, consultants from outside the nation should also actively learn about the tribal history before and after contact.³⁸

Fortunately, a passionate renaissance of traditional values and methods of governance is emerging in indigenous nations. This resurgence of cultural strength is bolstered by increasing opportunities to administer their own programs under federal devolution, increasing economic development that is culturally appropriate, and a movement toward government reform that is more responsive to the people. Culturally aware, sensitive, and responsive consultants are playing a vital role in this movement.

In summary, consultants can be most helpful when they are prepared to collaborate with tribes for optimal empowerment. A humble heart and mind is aware of historical trauma and oppressive histories of the people. Really listening without interrupting or interpretation allows trust to develop, especially when the strengths and resiliency in survival are validated. It is extremely important to recognize levels of power and privilege and the ongoing effects of racism and living on the margins of power. When the consultant is of European ancestry, it is important to acknowledge that privileges exist and certain experiences have not been experienced by the consultant. Not only does trust take time, an open heart and mind, humility and self-awareness, it also takes keeping the commitments made and investing for the long-term. It means making lifetime relationships. It means “working to dismantle structures of inequality.”³⁹ It means being willing to be tested for that commitment by the community the consultant wishes to serve.⁴⁰

Cases of Collaboration in Returning Indian Governance to the Wisdom of the People

Three useful cases illustrate the application of traditional participatory and inclusive values based upon mutual respect in ways that are appropriate for the current, developing situation of the Indian nation concerned. In the first instance, the Comanche, and several other Oklahoma tribes, used the Indigenous Leadership Interactive System (ILIS), a culturally adopted participatory strategic planning process, mentioned in Part I, to build community consensus.⁴¹ ILIS is an interactive management process, developed by Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) in collaboration with CWA, Limited to be consistent with traditional Indian values of inclusive consensus decision making. ILIS has the advantage of building the competence of the participants to solve complex problems collaboratively as they work through their own community’s issues. Unlike processes that are based on the consultants values and/or only deal with narrow issues, ILIS allows Indian people to deal holistically, in their own terms, with the full range of issues confronting them as they build their own future. Moreover, the ILIS process is applied differentially in each setting to fit the culture of the people involved.

ILIS was carefully developed over two years, during which it was tested with participants from a number of Indian nations. The process was first employed by AIO and CWA in 1987 with eighteen participants from the Winnebago tribe to build consensus on a self-sufficiency plan for the year 2000, following which it was used with other tribes on issues such as economic development and long range planning. ILIS is based on "Interactive Management" (IM), which is a computer-assisted group design process aimed at identifying and resolving complex issues through consensus.⁴²

In general terms, the ILIS process begins with a problem definition phase that enables the tribe to develop a deeper understanding of its current situation. It then moves on to a second design phase that provides the tribe with a clearer vision of its direction for the future. In a third phase, participants proceed to define activities to bridge the gap between current reality and the desired future. This is followed by the assignment of roles and responsibilities for carrying out those activities. In this way the tribe can create a vision of its own future and then empower itself to become that vision.

More specifically, ILIS functions through facilitated group interaction, guided by trained group facilitators and supported by computer assistance. The process is designed to aid group participants with diverse viewpoints to get below the surface of discussion to explore the deeper logic of issues. During each of the phases of group work, ILIS takes the group through several stages, beginning with an idea generation session in which responses are provided to a triggering question. The triggering question, which is carefully worded to stimulate ideas about the primary issue of the participants' concern, is chosen prior to the beginning of the design sessions by the participants with the help of the facilitators. It is important that the participants develop the triggering question themselves so that the process is truly theirs, and does not result in their being intentionally or accidentally manipulated by others in directions different from the collective will of the group. Similarly, the make up of the participating group needs to include members of all significant factions and subgroups in the community if the process is to be representative and have legitimacy. In a large or wide spread community, the process can be carried out going back and forth between sessions at the general (or tribal) level and sessions involving subgroups (or diverse communities) until general consensus is developed.

In the opening stage, and all of those that follow, consistent with Indian traditions, the group sits in a circle, and each person in turn has the opportunity to respond, or to pass, until everyone feels that they have contributed all that they wish at this stage. With this process, each person becomes the center of the circle in turn, so that all have an equal chance to participate without having to fight to be heard, and all statements are valued as a contribution to the overall discussion. All of the ideas presented are recorded on butcher block paper and posted on the wall for everyone to see.

Idea generation is followed by a round for people to clarify their responses. In order to select the most important ideas for further group work, unit voting by secret ballot takes place, in which each participant votes for the 5 ideas they perceive as most important. In the final stage, a computer-assisted methodology, called Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), is used to help the group explore the relationship among those ideas that received the most votes. In both the problem definition phase and the vision phase of group work a structural "map" is developed that shows how the ideas influence one another. In the options phase, a "field" of possible activities is produced, consisting of categories of options, from which participants are asked to select those actions that are most appropriate for the purposes they have defined. Finally, key actors are identified and assigned responsibility for carrying out the options which have been selected by the group.

Before this kind of consensus decision making process can be undertaken successfully with any group, sufficient team building needs to take place. This time must be allowed in order that participants feel adequately connected to the group and its purpose and that they will trust each other and the process enough to participate openly and freely. Thus, as the opening part of a ILIS session with tribal people, a locally appropriate ceremony is carried out. This is the first of several mechanisms that recognize the critical role tribal identity and tribal values can play in discovering new ways out of complex and deeply rooted problems. Gift giving and public recognition of service in the interest of the tribe are appropriate additions that add to strengthening tribal identity. Blessings, Pipe Ceremonies and/or prayers go much deeper than the typical western greeting or statement of welcome. For tribal participants, their attention is drawn to their common bond and all that it means. If outsiders are involved, the ceremony tends to elevate the status of tribal identity and values and places participants in a mode of mutual respect for one another.

The bonding necessary for a successful process can also be enhanced by calling on each participant to track their kinship ties to the rest of the group, since tribal cultures heavily emphasize kinship relations. Cross-links between individuals and their inherent relational obligations immediately begin drawing the group together and help make tribal values and tribal identity the focus of the group’s attention. Often the strongest component of the tribal vision statement developed by the process is the continuation of "the people." Group identity is synonymous with being tribal, and where group identity is strong, preservation of the group and its value system become all-important. The reiteration of kinship terms calls forth those values and practices that set the group apart and immediately bonds the group around a common cause.

In addition, asking participants to express what being a member of the tribe means to them brings forth a deep affirmation of cultural values, often expressed subliminally. These values, if captured and clarified, become a useful reference point during all the subsequent steps of the process. In ILIS sessions, as much as one third of the time spent together has been absorbed with these preliminary activities whose chief function is to bind the participants together into a single collaborative group. This is far greater than is the practice with other issue management models, but it provides extremely crucial groundwork in most Indian settings. It tends to create a spirit of optimism about the potential for overcoming the immediate set of problems, given all the participants and the Indian nation have overcome in the past. It is important to implement these bonding activities at the beginning of the process, but it is especially important before the period of generating options for dealing with problems that the group has identified.

In many tribes, much of the discussion that takes place during the early stages of public meetings involves a strategy by various participants to position themselves and establish a role in the group. This is partly a reflection of the importance of honor and of the relational sense of identity of traditional tribal cultures. It is also a reflection of the importance of feeling in Native American cultures and the fact that many people feel strongly about the issues under consideration (or background issues related to the discussion). Until they have the opportunity to vent their feelings, many participants will not be able to engage in open discussion and consensus building. Since ILIS forums separate the generation of issues from the generation of new options for dealing with those issues, and since each participant has an opportunity to address the group in turn, posturing and venting become integrated with issue generation and become acceptable parts of the process without interfering with the more difficult generation of alternatives that takes place later on in the forum. It is important for consultants socialized in Western “efficiency” methods to adjust their expectations of time for collaborative process. Differing values concerning time, the need to develop relationships before productive work can be done, and the honoring of all voices are all matters on which external consultants need to make adjustments. To be effective in collaboration with native people, the process must be valued equally with the product.

Two supporting roles are extremely important in ILIS forums. First, a tribal elder or visionary leader interjects statements, such as a historical overview, from time to time, to keep the sights of the group high as the participants deal with a myriad of complex local problems that are very close to their every day life. These vision statements provide periodic reminders of the achievements and perseverance of the Indian nation and the meaning of tribal membership and tradition, and work to maintain the momentum of the session. They are particularly helpful in preserving a sense of unity and purpose immediately before voting on prioritized issues or proposed activities. Second, the facilitators play a key role in empowering the participants to take ownership of the process, for the success of ILIS in developing consensus and harmony rests on the ability of the participants to fully and actively come together as a unity, with full respect for the diversity of views, experiences, etc. of the members of the group. This is a delicate task, for the facilitators need to be active enough to make sure the participants are clear about how the process works and to provide adequate guidance to keep the process proper and in balanced motion without ever being perceived as controlling it or as partial to any person, position or outcome. This means, especially, that outside facilitators, who serve initially as consultants to commence the process, truly act as facilitators and quickly let go of the process, training local people to replace them so that the process fully belongs to the tribe. Similarly, the outside facilitators, while requiring the invitation of the tribal Council or its equivalent, need to be clear that they are acting as consultants to the nation as a whole (and the participants as a group) and not to the members of the Council as individuals.

The underlying point is that the process must be established and operated in a way that gives ownership of it to the participants. There are numerous cases of supposedly participatory processes, which have failed to meet their potential because inappropriate forms or personnel were used, or because appropriate participatory attitudes and skills were not developed. Even worse are instances where pseudo-participatory processes have been applied in deliberate attempts to manipulate people.⁴³ However, appropriate care in establishing and maintaining the process can lead to very positive results in empowering the group and the larger community to meet issues in ways that are extremely representative of the all who are involved. Because the process is based upon mutual respect, with each participant being given a chance to be truly heard and to have their concerns included in the deliberations in very supportive ways, the tendency of the process is to promote increasing levels of discussion and the generation of greater numbers of views in an extremely civil discourse that tends to reduce antagonism and infighting. Moreover, since the focus of the dialogue is upon mutual problem solving, rather than fighting for position, the process tends to be extremely creative as it encourages participants to react positively to, and build upon, each other's ideas (i.e. to produce synergy). Such a process tends to build community harmony not in the sense of limiting the range of expression or of channeling discourse along narrow lines. To the contrary, it tends to produce a polyphony⁴⁴ of many diverse voices by working positively and creatively with conflict to harmonize the interests of each, so far as is possible, for the wellbeing of all.

In 1990, the Comanche Business Committee invited Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO), Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity (OIO), the Department of Communication at George Mason University, and CWA, Limited to help the tribe overcome problems of conflict and infighting that were causing a variety of community problems and making it difficult for the business committee (the Comanche governing body) to develop and carry out a program. The Comanche began the ILIS process at the tribal level with two meetings in which representatives of every major group among the four main Comanche communities in Oklahoma participated in creating a vision and suggesting specific plans for realizing that vision. All of the participants were very enthusiastic about their experience in returning to inclusive consensus decision making. As one participant stated, "I'd like to say that I'm really impressed. I really feel honored to be here because these are the concerns that I've had for a long time and they're not even voiced by most of us because you're not always able to say something for fear of stepping on someone's toe or saying something that's not reflecting something that you really feel, and someone misinterprets what you say a lot of times. And I just really appreciate being able to deal with these things. I just feel the oneness that I've always wanted to feel about my culture^."45

Following this initial success, the Comanches began a series of meetings going back and forth between tribal level sessions and local general meetings in each of the four communities. The local meetings did not use computer assistance, but otherwise followed the participatory consensus decision making principles of ILIS. This lead to the carrying out of a number of projects at both the local and tribal levels. In June of 1992, the Four communities formalized the two level ILIS process in the "Comanche Community Participation Units Articles of Voluntary Association" which was officially made part of the Tribal governance process in a resolution of the Comanche Business Committee of July 11 1992.

During the early 1990's, a number of issues were discussed to the point of consensus through the two level process. When the resulting proposals were brought to the Business Committee, they passed easily. Proposals that had not gone through the ILIS process, typically failed to pass the Business Committee for lack of support, regardless of their substantive merit. Meanwhile, a sense of harmony and trust began to return to the community. The next general tribal meeting achieved the largest turn out in a number of years, and for the first time in at least a decade, confidence in tribal governance rose sufficiently so that a Tribal Chair was reelected.

Clearly, ILIS, was a culturally appropriate vehicle for building community consensus. It functioned well, consistently with long established Comanche values. However, because of the long experience with an imposed form of government, considerable time making decisions through the ILIS process was required for it to become established as the proper way to deal with community issues. Thus a new Tribal Chair did not appreciate the value of the process, failed to replace the tribal ILIS facilitators when they left their positions, and did not use the process (though three of the four local communities were continuing to use their version of it as of 2002). When two important issues arose in 1996 that the new Tribal Chair believed needed quick action, he simply made his own proposals to the Business Committee. The result was that people who had begun to appreciate being involved, as their values indicated they should be, felt betrayed at not being given the opportunity to participate in making the decisions. Thus Comanche affairs became even more disharmonious than they had been prior to the institution of ILIS. The earlier experience shows that ILIS and other inclusive methods of building consensus show great promise for returning many Indian communities to harmony, but only if their use is nurtured sufficiently until tribal members can be reacculturated to handling community affairs in a neotraditional manner.

The second instance concerns the ongoing efforts of the Navajo Nation to decentralize power to its 110 local chapters. The goal has been to improve the quality of political discourse and decision making by developing ways of proceeding appropriately in communities whose people have varying levels of traditional and adaptive culture. Spread over three states, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, the Navajo Nation is the largest Indian tribe in the United States both in terms of population and geographical reach. Traditionally, the Dine, who Spanish intruders named Navajos, lived in widely dispersed autonomous bands. Their decision making was extremely democratic on the basis of consensus. This was often achieved through extensive networking discussion in which families and clans played a major role. Bands often cooperated with each other, as they were relatives and allies, but they had no overarching government.⁴⁶ Living across a wide expanse, where they interacted with different peoples, the Dine developed a degree of cultural diversity, though they shared a core culture and identity.

Over time, in response to pressure from the U.S. Government and mainstream society, the Navajo Nation developed a tightly centralized government of three branches, mirroring the U.S. Government, while creating 110 chapters providing local governance. This governmental system, while now familiar, does not fit Dine tradition, and has been very bureaucratic, slow and unwieldy, with the national government often isolated from many local people. For a number of years, partly in response to local and popular expressions of concern, the Navajo Nation has been working to improve its governmental system, with the Commission and Office of Navajo Government Development assisting the national legislature in designing change while facilitating implementation on various levels. As with virtually all Indian nations, the process of creating appropriate governance processes after all that has occurred in the last several centuries has been complex. One cannot just put back the old ways. The conditions of life and governing have changed substantially, and the culture has become more diverse as Navajo people have responded in different ways and to different degrees to contact with other cultures. Thus there is disagreement about just what is traditional, as well as over what aspects of tradition to apply now, and how to implement it in current circumstance.

Consistent with the practical, political and psychological need to be sovereign and self determining, the Navajo Nation has been independently undertaking the work of governmental improvement, attempting to be responsive and inclusive in the course of redeveloping the tradition of participatory governance. There has been some place for external consultants in this process, and this author has collaborated with the Commission and Office of Navajo Government Development on some matters.⁴⁷

The Office first assisted the Navajo legislature in preparing measures to decentralize many government functions to the chapters. When this was achieved with the passage of the Navajo Nation Local Governance Act (26 Navajo Nation Code) in 1998, the Office began working on ways to help chapters improve their decision making process, as some chapters ran very well with strong community participation, but others did not. In addition, The Office has been engaged in helping develop ways to make the national Navajo government operate with less bureaucracy and more citizen participation. All of this work has involved research into Navajo traditional ways and current conditions and the experiences of other Indian nations, discussions with elders and traditional medicine people (some of whom are directly involved in the work), national government leaders, chapter leaders and a sampling of Navajo people. Some of the last has been done through focus groups. The process is a continuing one, with the Navajo legislature passing new legislation or amendments, with advice from the Office of Navajo Government Development, other Dine executive agencies, the chapters and the Dine public, to meet problems in realizing the decentralization. For example, it has been found necessary to adjust accounting procedures and rules to empower chapters, some of which have very small staffs and little government fiscal experience, to become certified to receive discretionary funding for self-governance, while insuring fiscal competence and accountability.

Meanwhile, the leadership program at Dine College has assisted in implementation by working with individual chapters on improving their community discussion and decision making, and by teaching Dine philosophy. The consultants have collaborated with the office and the leadership program, joining in brainstorming sessions, sharing information, experiences of other Indian nations and available resources, and in raising concerns about questions that seem important for the Dine to consider. In a few instances it has been useful to rely on outside experts to provide technical assistance or to do specific pieces of training. However, this has been done only when the outside providers have been willing and able to do so appropriately for the specific situation and culture of Navajo Nation and its chapters.

Making sure that external consultants and technical experts really are oriented toward the needs and wishes of the nation, often takes some vigilance and effort by tribal officials. Indeed, it is a too common occurrence, in all settings, that many consultants become overly focused on their own agendas, and do not take sufficient note of the realities of the particular circumstances in which they are working, or of the needs, wishes and values of their clients. A common difficulty is for consults to be overly concerned about what worked well in another setting, or about theory, developed under circumstances that may not be the same as those of the current situation. Thus it is critical that outside experts observe and listen well, check and double check that they understand the goals and observations of those they are working with, and continually review that the project is developing well in accordance with the clients goals, with willingness to make adjustments in dialogue with those with whom they are collaborating.⁴⁸

The third case involves the efforts by the Southern Utes of Colorado to return to inclusive and cooperative governance. This began in the late 1990s with Southern Ute augmenting general quarterly meetings with monthly tribal forums. This was followed by the introduction of monthly opportunities for tribal members with concerns or complaints about tribal government or services to meet individually with the Tribal Council. Then, in 1999, the Southern Utes became the first Indian nation to participate in a project funded by the U.S. Children’s Bureau. At the request of the tribal chair and council, a consulting team from the Social Research Institute at the University of Utah was asked to help facilitate a Design Team. This allowed the tribe to create a community collaboration to build team-work and coordination of programs among their social service agencies. The intent was to overcome the narrow foci of individual agencies, that often failed to meet the full range of needs of those they served, and sometimes took conflicting actions. Professionals and administrators, along with community consultants who were former service recipients and elders worked to fulfill their self-defined mission:

To provide culturally relevant, supportive and integrated services to insure that all Southern Ute children are successful in school and in life.

The Design Team has helped the community to redefine and embrace a vision of healing. Given all that has been said about post-colonial dynamics of disharmony, the commitment, courage, honesty and energy witnessed by the facilitators has been truly inspirational. According to one facilitator, “setbacks, disappointment and criticism are balanced by a passion for creating a better future for the tribe’s children.”⁴⁹

The Design Project was organized so that it would be carried out on a regular basis by the Utes. The external consulting team facilitated the organization of the process at its inception, sharing professional expertise as part of the dialogue leading to decisions by the local community participants. Then for over a year, the facilitating team returned to moderate monthly meetings, where they could collaborate in the development of the project by raising important issues and sharing concerns and information that the Ute team could take into account in moving the process forward. By being involved at frequent regular intervals over an extended period, the consultants provided supporting incubation for the Utes to firmly establish their interagency collaboration.

As the American Indian experience makes clear, participation by outside experts in institutional and process development can only be helpful when such participation is undertaken as a true collaboration in which the outside consultants serve knowledgeably and appropriately as resource people for their partners. This means that consultants must understand the history, culture and situation of their clients, acting to empower by carefully listening to and speaking directly to the needs of their clients as partners.⁵⁰ Since innovations can only be effective when they are compatible with the system they are being applied to or developed for, innovations must be adapted for the situation and culture of the users in ways in which the users can take ownership of them for their purposes. Thus the job of consultants is to collaborate in facilitating their partner’s becoming more fully who they already are.

Returning to The Traditional Wisdom of the People in Facilitating the Progress of Indian Nations in the Twenty-First Century

It is clear that both internal leaders and outside consultants and experts need to act as collaborating facilitators and resource sharers in cooperative decision making partnerships, if Indian nations and their citizens are to be effective in returning to sovereignty, self-sufficiency and harmony. It has been shown that traditional values centered on mutual respect, requiring that everyone effected by a decision have a say in it are still widely held in most native American communities. This requires processes that, regardless of their specific forms, build community consensus inclusively in some version of a participatory manner, that fits the culture and circumstances of the people involved. Participation in deciding about community affairs cannot function effectively unless leaders and experts act in a participatory way that retains the respect of the members of the community. Indeed, as the Comanche experience with the ILIS process demonstrated, leadership in the form of good facilitation that keeps the process of community discussion and decision making participatory, and reminds participants to function with respect, is necessary for the dialoging process to function in a good way. If the members of the community are to really hear each other and take each other into account, their leaders need to be able to function in just that manner. To the extent that leaders listen accurately and compassionately, and speak knowledgably of the circumstance and issues, and consistently with the values of the community, they can have an effective positive influence as advisors to the people. It is also helpful if leaders remind the people to view issues holistically, and to be prepared to act proactively. The same can be said of those who act as advisors to the people, in sharing expertise.

In many native communities and contexts, today, it is especially important that leaders and consultants act as inclusive participatory facilitators. In traditional times, if they did not, the people would replace them as leaders and advisors. Today, when communities are attempting to return to deciding through the wisdom of the people, it is necessary to have leaders and advisors who will build, reinforce and incubate such ways. It takes time to reestablish these processes, and where, as happened with the Comanche, new leaders come to office who do not understand and continue the consensus building, the processes collapse, with a loss of community harmony.

Moreover, where a group of people are attempting to overcome fractious factionalism, and to reconcile long unresolved differences, which is the case in many Indian communities, a special effort at respectful, compassionate and inclusive facilitation is needed. Fortunately many elders are very skilled at and oriented toward doing just that. They are good role models and teachers for younger native people, who may also learn such skills from mainstream experiences, now that western society is being forced to deal with fragmentation by reinstituting indigenous methods,⁵¹ while team work in becoming essential in postmodern organizations.⁵² Additionally, if Indian communities are to bridge the range of divergent values and views that have developed in the course of colonialism and the impact of modern communication and transportation, it will be necessary for native communities to dialogue openly and inclusively to find common ground in approaching these issues, with leaders inclusively and respectfully facilitating the discussion.

American Indians, today, as individuals, as communities, and as nations, are engaged in renewal and healing. One of the results of the application of ILIS with the Comanche was that by being able to participate in working for the good of the tribe, with which they identify, tribal members felt better about themselves and their nation. By participating in a well facilitated inclusive consensus building process, members achieved a significant measure of personal and community healing. Thus it is clear that an inclusive and participatory leadership can play an essential role in the recovery and advancement of Indian nations.

This is not to say that there is not a time and place for other styles of leadership and action. It was extremely helpful for the usually collaborative LaDonna Harris to speak angrily in order to get the Nixon administration to take notice that it was more than time to initiate the National Council on Indian Opportunity. The American Indian Movement (AIM) made some important political gains for Indian people in the 1970's with confrontive demonstrations, which assisted the negotiations of native leaders functioning with more collaborative styles of interaction. Internally, when leadership fails to include everyone's concerns in making decisions, it may be useful for those left out to act confrontationally in order to call the community's attention to injustices. But once the necessary awareness has been gained, it will be necessary for leaders to be inclusive, conciliatory, and collaborative in order to rebuild the harmony of the community and facilitate its moving ahead, for its own welfare, and to contribute to the wellbeing of the wider world, which traditional wisdom says is in the long term interest of the community and each of its members. Indeed, as Indian nations return to functioning from a holistic perspective, with their leaders respecting the interconnectedness of all interests, all people, and all that is, they can assist the world at large in returning to such an understanding, and in recreating vehicles for realizing mutual and ecological respect, which the wider world struggles to do increasingly every day.⁵³

FOOTNOTES

1. Sharon O'Brien, American Indian Tribal Governments (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1989 Ch. 2; and Stephen M. Sachs, "Remembering the Circle: The Relevance of Traditional American Indian and Other Indigenous Governance for the Twenty-First Century," (Reno, NV: Western Social Science Association Meeting, 2001).

2. LaDonna Harris, Stephen M. Sachs and Benjamin J. Broome, "Wisdom of the People: Potential Pitfalls in Efforts by Comanches to Recreate Traditional Ways of Building Consensus," American Indian Quarterly, vol. 25, No. 1, 2001.

3. Stephen M, Sachs and Deborah Escobel Hunt, "Appropriate Consulting with Indian Nations: Facilitating Returning to the Wisdom of the People," Proceedings if the 2000 American Political Science Association Meetings (Washington DC: American Political Science Association, 2000).

4. Much of what is discussed in Part I was included in Stephen M Sachs, "LaDonna Harris, Founder of Americans for Indian Opportunity: Leadership in the Tradition of Native American Women's Voices," in A Leadership Journal: Women in Leadership: Sharing the Vision, Fall, 1998.

5. Except where otherwise noted, biographical information concerning Ms. Harris is from a biographical statement about her by AIO, undated [post 1990], B.T. Klein, Reference Encyclopedia for the American Indian, 6th edition (West Nyak, NY: Todd Publications, 1993), p. 537; W.H. Rollings, The Comanche (New York, Chelsea House, 1989), p. 103, M. Schwartz, Contemporary Native Americans: LaDonna Harris (Austin, TX: Steck-Vaughn Co., 1997); and the authors personal experience with Ms. Harris since 1990. Some information was provided to the author in personal discussions with Ms. Harris.

6. E. Adamson Hoebel, The Law of Primitive Man: A Study in Comparative Legal Dynamics (New York: Atheneum, 1976), p. 131.

7. Angie Debo, A History of the Indians of the United States (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989),, pp. 408-409. The information before the quote is partly from Debo, 1989, but has been amended by information provided by Ms. Harris.

8. Debo, A History of the Indians of the United, p. 409. The information following the quote on OIO in the late '60s is from Debo, pp. 409-410. President Johnson's policy on Indian affairs is set out in his special message to Congress of March 6, 1968, reported in part in Francis Paul Prucha, Documents of American Indian Policy, Second Expanded Edition. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), Document #155, pp., 248-249.

9. She was appointed: by President Johnson to the National Council on Indian Opportunity; by President Nixon to the White House Fellows Commission; by President Ford to the U.S. Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year; by President Carter to the Commission on Mental Health and as a representative of the United States on the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization; by President Clinton to the Institute of American Indian Arts Advisory Board; and during Clinton's Administration, by Secretary of Energy, Hazel O'Leary to the Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board and by Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown to the Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure.

10. President Nixon's Indian policy is set forth in his special message to Congress on Indian Affairs of July 8, 1970, reported in part in Prucha, Documents of American Indian Policy, Document #158, pp. 256-258.

11. Debo, A History of the Indians of the United, p. 413.

12. Debo, A History of the Indians of the United, p. 413.

13. Comments by several Indian leaders who were in Washington, DC at the time to author Stephen Sachs.

14. For a discussion of this development, including much of LaDonna Harris critique of each of the initiatives, see LaDonna Harris, Stephen Sachs and Barbara Morris. "Native American Tribes and Federalism: Can Government-to-Government Relations Be Institutionalized?" Proceedings of the 1997 American Political Science Association Meetings (Washington: DC: American Political Science Association, 1997).

15. A technical description of ILIS (Previously known as the Tribal Issues Management System: TIMS) is provided in Benjamine J. Broome, "Collective Design of the Future: Structural Analysis of Tribal Vision Statements," American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1995, pp. 205-228. A short report of ILIS use by the Comanche is in Harris, Sachs and Morris, "Native American Tribes and Federalism." An extensive analysis of ILIS as used by the Comanche, with short descriptions of its application by three other Oklahoma tribes, is in LaDonna Harris, Stephen M. Sachs and Benjamin J. Broome, "Wisdom of the People: Potentials and Pitfalls in Efforts by the Comanche to Recreate Traditional Ways of Building Consensus", American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 1, Winter 2001.

16. Native American Policy, Vol XIV, No. 2, Fall, 2003, p. 6.

17. LaDonna Harris, Stephen M. Sachs and Benjamin J. Broome, "Recreating Harmony Through Wisdom of the People: The Case of the Comanche and Other Oklahoma Tribes," Victoria, BC: University of Victoria Center for Dispute Resolution, "A [Canadian] National Conference on Aboriginal Peoples and Dispute Resolution: Making Peace and Sharing Power," p. 11.

18. Ibid.

19. Among LaDonna Harris AIO papers are: "To Govern or Be Governed: Indian Tribes at a Crossroads," "Partnerships for the Protection of Tribal Environments," "Indian Business Opportunities and the Defense Sector," "Alternatives for Agriculture: Successful Tribal Farms," "Hard Choices: Development of Non-Energy and Non-Replenishable Resources" and "Tribal Governments in the U.S. Federal System."

20. See "A Proposal Submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency By Americans for Indian Opportunity, Inc.," January 8, 1985, a copy of which is in the LaDonna Harris Collection, at NAES College (Native American Community Education) in Chicago, which consists of most of AIO's papers from approximately the early 1970s until about 1989. Earlier AIO papers are housed with the papers of Senator Fred Harris at the University of Oklahoma. More recent papers are in the files of AIO in Bernalillo, NM.

21. Among these are: Girl Scouts USA, Independent Sector, Council on Foundations, National Organization of Women, National Urban League, Save the Children Federation, The National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing and the Overseas Development Corporation. Boards upon which she currently serves include: the Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium, the National Indian Business Association, Partners for Livable Communities, Women for Mutual Security and the Jacobson Foundation. She also serves on the following advisory boards: The National Museum of the American Indian, National Institute for Women of color, National Institute for the Environment, Pax World Foundation, Delphi International Group, National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, And Every Child By Two.

22. Michael Schwartz, Contemporary Native Americans: LaDonna Harris. Austin, TX: Steck-Vaughn Co. 1997, pp. 35-36.

23. See Sachs, "A Transformational Native American Gift: Reconceptualizing the Idea of Politics for the 21st Century" Proceedings of the 1993 American Political Science Association Meeting (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 1993), Part II, for discussion of this issue.

24. Many of the issues is Part II of this paper were discussed in g and Deborah Esquibel Hunt, "Appropriate consulting with Indian Nations: Facilitating Returning to the Wisdom of the People," Proceedings of the 2000 American Political Science Association Meeting (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 2000).

25. See Debo, A History of the Indians of the United States, Ch. 16 and 17. The effect of the assimilation policy is considered in Lewis Meriam, et al., The Problem of Indian Administration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1928), discussed in Debo, pp. 336-337; and James S. Olson and Raymond Wilson, Native Americans in the Twentieth Century (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1984), pp. 100-112 and 193. A representative excerpt is published in Francis Prucha, Ed., Documents of United States Indian Policy, Second Edition, Expanded (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), No 136, pp. 219-221. For a perspective on how badly Indian policy was applied, see Edgar Cahn, Ed., Our Brother's Keeper: The Indian In White America (New York: New American Library, 1969).

26. See Hilary N. Weaver and Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, "Examining two facets of American Indian identity: Exposure to other cultures and the influence of historical trauma" and Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, "Oyate Ptayela: Rebuilding the Lakota Nation Through Addressing Historical Trauma Among Lakota Parents," in H.N. Weaver Ed., Voices of First Nations People: Human Service Considerations (New York: Haworth Press, 1999); and Stephen M. Sachs, LaDonna Harris, Barbara Morris and Deborah Esquibel Hunt, "Recreating the Circle: Overcoming Colonialism and Returning to Harmony in American Indian Communities,” Proceedings of the 1999 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 1999), Parts II and III, a.

27. Meriam, et al., The Problem of Indian Administration, discussed in Debo, A History of the Indians of the United States, pp. 336-337 and Olson and Wilson, Native Americans in the Twentieth Century, pp. 100-112 and 193. For some perspective on the problems of overcoming unresolved historical grief, see Sachs, Harris, Morris and Hunt, "Recreating the Circle: and Eduardo Duran and Bonnie Duran, Native American Postcolonial Psychology (Albany, NY: State of New York University Press, 1995).

28. Stephen Cornell and Joseph P. Kalt, Successful Economic Development and Heterogeneity of Government Forms on Indian Reservations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1995).

29. See A. Timas and R. Reedy, “Implementation of cultural-specific interventions for a Native American Community,” Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol.5, No. 3, 1998, pp. 382-393.

30. L. M. Gutierrez, "Beyond coping: An empowerment perspective on stressful life events,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare," Vol. 21, No. 3, 1994, pp. 201-19.

31. J.A.B. Lee, The Empowerment Approach to Social Work Practice (New York: Columbia Press, 1994).

32. Michael J., Yellow Bird, Deconstructing Colonialism: A First Nations Social Work Pespective (Unpublished manuscript, 1998); and Duran and Duran, Native American Postcolonial Psychology.

33. Maria Yellow Horse Braveheart and L. DeBruyn, “So she may walk in balance: Integrating the impact of historical trauma in the treatment of American Indian women,” in J. Adelman and G. Enguidanos, Eds., Racism in the Lives of Women: Testimony, Theory, and Guides to Antiracist Practice (New York: The Haworth Press, Inc., 1995), pp. 345-368.

34. Sachs, Harris, Morris, and Hunt, “Recreating the Circle.”

35. L.M. Gutierrez, “Beyond coping.”Karla K. Miley, Michael O’Melia and Brenda L.DuBois, Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach (Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1998).

36. Karla K. Miley, Michael O'Melia and Brenda L.DuBois, Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach (Needham Heights, MA: Alln & Bacon, 1998).

37. Paolo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Revised edition (New York: Continuum Publishing, 1993).

38. An excellent resource for understanding the experiences of many tribes is Lee Miller, From the Heart (New York: Random House, 1996 (paperback).

39. L. Gutierrez and B. Nagda, “The multicultural imperative in human services organizations,” in P. Rafford and A. McNeece, Eds., Future issues for social work practice (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1996), pp. 203-213.

40. L. Gutierrez and E. Lewis, “Community organizing with women of color,” Journal of Community Practice, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1994, pp. 23-44.

41. For a more extensive discussion of the use of the ILIS process by the Comanche and several other Indian nations see Harris, Sachs and Broome, “Returning To Harmony through Reactivating the Wisdom of the People: The Comanche Bring Back the Tradition of Consensus Decision Making,” and "Wisdom of the People."

42. Numerous consensus decision making, problem solving and strategic planning processes have been developed, but most of these processes were not designed to deal with complex issues. The IM process on which ILIS is based is specifically developed to deal with difficult situations that have consistently resisted successful resolution, such as those confronting Native American tribes. An overview of IM can be found in Benjamin J. Broome and D. B. Keever, "Next Generation Group Facilitation: Proposed Principles," Management Communication Quarterly," Vol. 3, pp. 107-127, 1989. For a more extensive description of complexity and of the theory guiding IM, see J. N. Warfield, Societal Systems: Planning Policy and Complexity (New York: Wiley, 1976) and A Science of Generic Design: Managing Complexity Through Systems Design (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1995). This is not to say that tribes and their consultants always need to focus on a wide range of issues. When expertise is required on a narrow set of points, then consulting is best focused on that range of questions. But to deal well with even a specific technical question, consultants need to function in their collaboration in accord with the broader cultural and situational framework.

43. A particularly glaring case of sudoparticipation can be found in the misuse of employee participation as a method of employee manipulation initiated under the guise of employee empowerment through participation. It is reported in Guillermo Grenier, Inhuman Relations (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988). Other examples of how participatory processes, that when appropriately and honestly applied benefit employees while increasing organization effectiveness, are sometimes misused are discussed in Michael Parker, Inside the Circle: A Union Guide to QWL. (Boston: South End Press, 1985).

44. Polyphony, as used by J.S. Bach, is a harmony produced by the interaction of equal musical themes, as opposed to the more usual approach to harmony in Western Music in which secondary themes ("harmonies") harmonize with a main or dominant theme. The former is a democratic or equalitarian approach to harmony while the latter is as an oligrchic or hierarchical approach.

45. Benjamin J. Broom, "Promoting Greater Community Participation in Comanche Tribal Governance: Planning Sessions held March 26-28 & May 13-15, 1991" (Fairfax, VA: Department of Communications, George Mason University, June 1991), reprinted in Harris, Sachs and Broome, “Returning To Harmony through Reactivating the Wisdom of the People".

46. Clyde Kluckhohn and Dorethea Leighton, The Navaho (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 111-123. Robert W. Young, A Political History of the Navajo Tribe (Tsaille, Navajo Nation, AZ: Navajo Community College Press, 1978), pp. 15-16, 25-27, reports that, according to Dine legend, the people lived in independent, self sufficient camps, in which, like other band societies, decisions were made by the community by consensus and headman (Hozhooli Naat’) only acted as advisors. They usually were proficient in leading at least one ceremony, governed by persuasion, “expounded on moral and ethical subjects, admonishing the people to live in peace and harmony. With his assistants he planned an organized the workday life of his community, gave instruction in the arts of farming and stock raising and supervised the planting, cultivating and harvesting of the crops. As an aspect of his community relations function, it was his responsibility to arbitrate disputes, resolve family difficulties, try to reform wrong doers and represent his group in its relations with other communities, tribes and governments. He had no functions whatsoever relating to war because the conduct of hostilities was the province of War Chiefs. “A headman was a man of high prestige, chosen for his good qualities and only remained a leader “so long as his leadership enlisted public confidence or resulted in public benefit.”

47. In one instance with Deborah Esquibel Hunt, with whom the author has previously written on this topic, and who involved him the Southern Ute Design Project, discussed below, for which she was a member of the facilitating team.

48. Several examples of unfortunate results of external experts not doing their homework in advance of a project, and failing to sufficiently dialogue with those for whom they were working are related in Sachs and Hunt, "Appropriate consulting with Indian Nations."

49. D.E. Hunt, M. Gooden, & C. Barkdull, “Walking in moccasins: Indian child welfare in the 21st century,” in K. Briar Lawson, H. Lawson, & A. Sallee, Eds., New Century Practices with Vulnerable Children and Families. Dubuque, IA, Eddie Bauer Publishing, 2000). The three authors, two of whom are Indian, but not Ute, have been the primary facilitating team at Southern Ute. Stephen Sachs, who has a long association with Southern Ute, was a participant at several meetings in 2000.

50. For example, to assure that that would be the case, when Stephen Sachs consulted with the economic analysts at the Czech Confederation of Trade Unions for three months in 1993, the analysts spent the first several weeks educating their external colleague about their situation and the details of the Czech economic condition. They were aware of the necessity for beginning in this fashion after having experienced too many foreign consultants who arrived with incorrect preconceptions about the Czech situation, and simply presented their inappropriate proposals based on those misconceptions, without ever sounding out or dialoguing with their clients about their actual needs and circumstances.

51. Stephen M Sachs, "Acknowledging the Circle: The Impact of American Indian Tradition Upon We4stern Political Thought and Its Contemporary Relevance," Proceedings of the 2002 American Political Science Association Meeting. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 2002, Part II.

52. For an overview of this, see Stephen M. Sachs, "The Interaction of Forces for and Against Political and Social Transformation," Proceedings of the 1997 American Political Science Association Meeting. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association,1997.

53. See the development of this point in Sachs, "Acknowledging the Circle," Part II.