Recovering the Sacred: the Power of Naming and Claiming

Review: Recovering the Sacred: the Power of Naming and Claiming By Winona LaDuke Reviewed by Byron Anderson Northern Illinois University, USA Winona LaDuke. Recovering the Sacred: the Power of Naming and Claiming. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2005. 294 pp. ISBN: 13: 978-0-89608- 712-5. US18. 00 (paper). Economist, writer and activist Winona LaDuke uses stories, facts and examples to explain why recovering that which is sacred to Native Americans is critical to social justice struggles as well as the survival of the planet. The book documents numerous efforts by Native Americans to reclaim land, resources, culture, religion, genetic information, and all else that rightfully belongs to them. What is at stake, for example, is the fate of the approximate two hundred thousand Native American remains held in public and private museums, something LaDuke labels imperial anthropology in a chapter by the same name (pp. 67-86). Skeletons and other artifacts mummified by collectors are being held against the will of their rightful inheritors, and recent efforts at repatriation have returned less than 10 percent to date. The power to name leads to the right to claim. Cherokee jeeps, Crazy Horse beer, and Indian motorcycles are all corporate products that claim the name with no consideration or recompense to Native Americans. The 600 educational institutions that use Native American mascots trivialize and demean individuals and erase a culture. LaDuke says, … it is time for the settler to end the process of naming that which he has no right to own, and for us to collectively to reclaim our humanity (p. 149). Native culture is essentially defined as being in contrast to the culture most Americans know. Such contrasts include, for example, wage labor versus communal work, privately held property versus collectively held property, communalism versus capitalism, and living in harmony with the land versus exploiting earth's resources. LaDuke believes that the integrity of what is sacred to Native Americans will be determined by the government that has been responsible for doing everything in its power to destroy Native American culture (p. 11). The Dawes Act of 1887 is a good example of this. The European concept of privately held property was forced on tribal people whose land had been held collectively. Eighty-acre plots in 118 reservations were allotted to individual families, including non-Natives. By 1957, two- thirds of the land had been taken from Native Americans through the allotment process. The 1980 Chiloquin Act was the only instance of land