That Dream Shall Have a Name: Native Americans Rewriting America

5. The Last Laugh

5 THE LAST LAUGH Humor and Humanity in Native American Pluralism Let’s start with universals and move quickly to the particulars of Native American humor. 1. Generally, and mysteriously, humor “happens” through a structural reversal, a surprise. The unexpected quip or act or juxtaposition sets up irony, the incommensurability of language and reality, a mismatch of what is said and what is meant. A pun links incongruous categories. A vertical man slips on a banana peel and becomes horizontal. Then laughter “happens.” 2. Humor humanizes by bringing us down to earth, where we discover the ground of our humility. A ground theory must account for this factor . Etymological linkages are useful here: humor, human, humus, humility. Thus grounded humor is humane, yet Indigenous humor extends to and grows from the ground of a more-than-human world. 3. As in most ethnicities, Native American humor divides into the ingroup and the out-group tease, but the particulars are crucial: a. In-group tease = Can you shed your ego to identify with the community ? = unshika (pitiful/humble in Lakota terminology). b. Out-group tease = America, can you shed your story to identify with reality? = historical humility. 4. Thus, linking 1, 2, and 3, the biggest joke on America is the survivance of Indians because that’s a reversal of America’s originary, founda- The Last Laugh 301 tional, constitutive story of the vanishing Indian. The vanishing Indian stereotype and narrative function as the rationale to cover up the reality not only of ongoing Native nations but equally of stolen land as the foundation of America; thus the fact that Indians never vanished means that America is and was always already a failure in its own values of freedom and justice for all. How ironic! Ha! Ha! It is not unique to Native American humor that there is a dark side to the comedy, but the historical circumstances of Indian survivance, and the power of humor in that many-generational act, are unique. As Low Man Smith, the protagonist of Sherman Alexie’s short story “Indian Country,” bitterly and ironically contemplates the bigoted, homophobic, self-righteous Native American Christian sneering at him across a dinner table (an absent father alienated from his lesbian daughter), “Low knew for a fact that everything was funny. Homophobia? Funny! Genocide? Hilarious! Political assassination? Side-splitting! Love? Ha, Ha, Ha!” (The Toughest Indian in the World 144). Being able to laugh in the face of history is both humbling and empowering. Political Postindians: The Biggest Joke on America Carol Juneau, a member of the Hidatsa and Mandan tribes, has been a Democratic Party member of the Montana House of Representatives and later the Montana Senate. Her roots lie in both the Ft. Berthold Reservation of North Dakota and the Blackfeet Reservation in her longtime state of residence . For more than a decade she has been a leader in the Montana capital among a fresh handful of Indigenous senators and representatives in promoting and passing, with the necessary support of the broad majority of non-Indian legislators, the 1999 legislation Indian Education for All, MCA 20–1-501. This measure implements and funds the unique provision, included in Montana’s revised 1972 Constitution, to honor and foster the state’s Indigenous cultures. Article 10, Section 1(2) of the Montana Constitution declares, “The state recognizes the distinct and unique cultural heritage of American Indians and is committed in its educational goals to the preservation of their cultural integrity.” The constitution and the legislation recognize that Indian cultures are relevant not only to reservations but statewide to all Montana residents. Now, after decades of neglect, that recogni- 302 The Last Laugh tion is emerging through this legislation in the schools. Five hundred years after Columbus, these political actions indeed carry millennial resonance. Carol Juneau’s niece, Denise Juneau, a lawyer, is currently the elected superintendent of schools for the state of Montana. If such news seems like a joke on America’s story of manifest destiny, Indians and their allies are more than laughing. They are still fighting the Indian wars, now in the courts, the legislative halls, and the classrooms. As Silko writes, “Deep down the issue is simple: the so-called Indian Wars from the days of Sitting Bull and Red Cloud have never really ended in the Americas ” (Yellow Woman 123). The ironic dynamics of retelling the story of America as not conquest...