Response to Theodore Binnema

I wish to express heartfelt thanks to Theodore Binnema for taking the pains to read and review my book Huron-Wendat, the Heritage of the Circle and explain his perception of it to audiences often at a loss to understand how Indians view their past and their evolution. This brief response is meant to further assist all engaged in this search for understanding the "deeper American roots."

First, I wish to say that I do not "reject the standards of Western historiography and Western Civilization," as Binnema puts it. Instead, my whole argumentation, based on an intense, uninterrupted reflection with those versed in my circular Indigenous thought, has been about the senselessness of wanting to fit the Indigenous cosmovision into prefabricated Western historiographic and civilizational boxes. I have relentlessly attempted, as Binnema observes, to make both civilizations more conversant with each other. The fact, however, that is especially hard to accept for many non-Indigenous Americans (speaking continentally) is that it is neither realistic nor logical to expect Indigenous people to trade the fundamental axioms of their own civilization for others that have not functioned intellectually, socially, or spiritually in the locales they were imported from. At other levels, however, there can be all the exchanges that are normal and necessary between humans of all backgrounds, and, indeed, there can be and there is a shared pride in "Americanness."

Second, I quite understand Binnema's dilemma with not wanting to utilize Western standards to review my book and still comparing it with works by Bruce Trigger and Conrad Heidenreich. To clarify, my book is not an attempt to produce another clinical (Western) history of the Huron-Wendat, even though I wholeheartedly admit that those are necessary bridges between the two worlds, which, I find, can best be built by non-Indian practitioners of the discipline. My book is my best humble attempt to define the sort of mental and spiritual disposition that is necessary in order to bring us collectively out of patterns of historical and social analysis that were once established on the colonial percept of "Might makes Right." I merely wish to increase collective awareness of and pride in a truer, deeper sense of our common "Americanness" by infusing a new, badly needed capacity for admiration of the American Indian civilizations. For my people, such recognition will be the only kind that will send us a credible signal that our participation is wanted, that there is caring for our existence.

Finally, I wish to state that one day, when we are not only able but willing and eager to talk together, we will "develop an Indigenous historiographic tradition, with its own approaches and standards of excellence," because an Indigenous tradition cannot be developed by Indigenous people alone. The very word circle implies that anything, to have true, lasting value, must include the vision of each and every person. Meanwhile, I personally will continue to listen intently to all and to speak for the eventual building of the definite bridge that, one day, has to unite us all. For this one opportunity to speak, I thank Theodore Binnema.