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The Ways of Means

By Katie Arnold
“Hello, my name is Russell Means. I’m an American Indian activist.” It’s an overcast summer Saturday during Indian Market, and Means—one of the most outspoken defenders of American Indian rights in contemporary history—has taken the stage of Borders Café in downtown Santa Fe. Three or four rows of black plastic chairs sit vacant in front of the podium; a dozen listeners are scattered haphazardly along the counter and at tables, deliberately distant, noncommittal. To properly see Means, they must turn their heads or swivel their chairs, angling their bodies in uncomfortable positions toward the stage. They are armed with double lattes and books and newspapers. They are fidgeting. The palpable fear of booksigning letdown hangs in the air like a threat

    At six-foot-one, in a traditional woven shirt and hip-length gray-black braids, Russell Means commands, and demands, an audience. Problem is, there’s not much of one today. Standing on a small plywood platform in front of the small, nervous crowd, he mumbles—into a microphone, no less—something about botched publicity and someone “dropping the ball.” It’s an awkward moment, with much furtive looking about and staring at feet by the spectators, but still, some tension goes out of the room. Means has called it as it is. He has acknowledged the problem and assigned blame. Now he can get on to the real business at hand, which is to sell books and CDs and provide a brief tutorial in the long legacy of abuse against American Indians.

     “The reason I wrote my book is because the American Indian doesn’t exist in the 20th century,” Means says to kick things off, gesturing to a copy of his best-selling 1995 autobiography, Where White Men Fear to Tread, now in its 11th printing. “In 1924, the U.S. Government forced us into being U.S. citizens.” For a man who’s spent the better part of his 65 years raging against all manner of systematic injustice, Means is surprisingly soft-spoken. In fact, it’s almost difficult to hear him over the clamor at the café counter.

     “The reservation system caused the destruction of the Indian male psyche,” he continues. Somebody has ordered a cappuccino, and the milk steamer whirs loudly in the background. “If you go to any Indian reservation, any one of us suffers from low self-esteem, and in most cases, extremely low self-esteem.”

     More agitated milk-frothing. “Would you like whipped cream with that?” the barista asks.

     If Means is distracted, he doesn’t show it. Over the years, he’s given countless speeches to far tougher crowds. “Every reservation is a prisoner-of-war camp,” he says in a voice that, though no louder, has become chattier; he’s talking from memory and instinct. “Matriarchy is one of the reasons we’ve survived the onslaught.”

     Slowly, more people trickle in, sliding into empty stools and chairs, setting books and magazines aside, starting to pay attention. A family of four files into the third row of theater seating. A woman with a thick black ponytail and a fresh pink pedicure grabs the last empty table. Soon there is a crowd of 40 or 50.

    “One root of our sacred tree of life remains alive, and we must find that root,” says Means. He turns his head and looks away for a few long seconds, staring off beyond the stacks of books to some unseen place beyond, unable to speak. The audience, once ambivalent and uneasy, is now totally gripped. Could it be that Russell Means—the revolutionary who led the armed takeover of Wounded Knee in 1973 and seemed to court violence and controversy at every turn—is fighting back tears? His gaze returns, steelier than before. “We must find that root,” he says, “and we must nourish it.”

     To get to the root of Russell Means, there are a few things you should know: Born an Oglala Lakota on the Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1939, Means was raised off the rez, in suburban San Francisco, in a world of petty crime, alcoholism, and abuse. He began dealing drugs at 16, dropped out of school soon after, skipped from job to job—printer, mail boy, ballroom dance instructor, accountant—married a string of women, fathered seven kids, lived on the streets of L.A., began wearing braids, and participated in his first Indian-rights protest—the 1964 occupation of Alcatraz—at age 25.

     Five years later, he joined the American Indian Movement (AIM), a national coalition committed to native sovereignty. As a hothead new recruit, he camped in defiance atop Mount Rushmore, vandalized a replica of the Mayflower during a Thanksgiving parade at Plymouth Rock, marched the “Trail of Broken Treaties” to Washington, and stormed the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters. After being elected AIM’s first national director in 1973, he and several hundred activists took over Wounded Knee, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, in a dramatic 71-day standoff with the FBI that left two agents and an Indian protester dead. By the mid-1970s, AIM, plagued by internal feuding, had begun to fall apart, and Means had been convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to four years in prison.

     Released for good behavior after a year, Means continued pushing the message through a series of increasingly unlikely outlets: In 1984, he signed on as Hustler publisher Larry Flynt’s vice presidential running mate in a short-lived publicity-stunt-cum-campaign for the Republican nomination; two years later, he allied himself with Contra guerillas in their clash with the Sandinista Indians, the National Liberation Front, and the Nicaraguan government; and in 1988, he made another brief run at the White House on the Libertarian ticket. From politics, he turned to pop culture in the 1990s, taking roles in The Last of the Mohicans, Natural Born Killers, and Disney’s animated Pocahontas. He wrote a book, recorded a couple of CDs, made more movies, wrote screenplays, lent his name and support to regional indigenous efforts from Canada to New Zealand, took up art and began painting and etching, and continued to rage.

     To understand the tireless 21st-century revolutionary Russell Means, there’s one thing you must know: He will not abandon the cause—his life is the cause.

     Three days after the Borders booksigning, at the 18th-century adobe compound he shares with his fifth wife, Pearl Daniel Means, in the village of San Jose, 40 miles east of Santa Fe, where the Sangre de Cristos slide off into high plains, Means seems more like his gruff old self. He’s wearing knee-length jean shorts, a faded blue tank top, a low ponytail, and he’s not smiling. In the slanting, late-afternoon light of the living room, he takes his seat in a wide-body leather lounge chair like a king upon his throne.

     Means long ago mastered the art of oration by intimidation, and there are unspoken rules when talking to him. For starters, don’t talk. Just listen; he has opinions on just about everything, and he’ll share them all in due time. Pay close attention, because he will assume you are not. Do not take things personally. Do not use the term “Native American,” which he abhors. “It is a generic government term used to describe all the indigenous prisoners of the United States.” Most of all, if he starts to rant, let him rant.

     Right now he’s ranting, not about the disintegration of AIM or the U.S. government’s 371 broken treaties with American Indians or the 12 criminal lawsuits brought against him, but about Hollywood, specifically his most recent role, in Steven Spielberg’s 2005 TV miniseries, Into the West. “I’m really, really ashamed I was in it. I don’t even want to talk about that piece of … ” But before he can stop himself, the tirade has begun. For Means, anger is a reflex.

    “That movie is the worst!” Means shouts. “Just when we thought Hollywood was catching on and starting to treat us with dignity, they make two movies here—in New Mexico, of all places! The Missing set us back, culture-wise and racist-wise, 50 years. Into the West had every stereotype of Indian people that you could imagine, and they even added some new ones! Follow me here! I’m talking about Spielberg’s movie, man! It’s the most racist movie ever done!” He’s actually bellowing now, so loud it seems the framed painting behind him will be dislodged from the wall. “If I ever meet Spielberg, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind. He’ll be lucky if I don’t assault him!”

     Then, just as suddenly as it began, his outburst is over. He turns to Pearl, sitting quietly in a straight-back chair by the window, and giggles. It seems impossible that this squeaky little-boy laugh can come from such a big, angry man. “My role was tiny. I’m not even sure why I was in it. Every once in a while I’d show up and make a wise saying.” He giggles some more, laugh lines fanning out around his eyes. “And then I’d be gone!”

     Despite his bluster, Means is seriously committed to Hollywood, having made 15 movies in the past 15 years. “I consider acting an art. It’s a tremendous venue for expressing what my people need expressing.” Not everyone sees it that way. Critics have called him a sellout for dumbing down his hardcore belligerence for such seemingly cornball roles as Daniel Day Lewis’s stoic, silent father in The Last of the Mohicans, and the voice of Chief Powhatan in Pocahontas.

     Means won’t entertain that idea. “Pocahontas is the finest movie ever made about American Indians because it told the truth about the settlers at Jamestown, that they only came to rob, rape, and pillage. It’s the only movie about our women, how strong they are. They are the true leaders of Indian people!” He’s gathering steam again, his voice rising to what appears to be its natural volume, somewhere between a yell and a scream. “We’re a matriarchal society, which no one ever talks about! No one! So I do!”

     In case you couldn’t tell, Means has matriarchy on his mind. It’s an ironic crusade for the graying militant, considering his alpha-male temper and his dubious track record with women, but for Means, it’s part of a natural evolution. No longer front and center in highly charged political protests, he now uses his force of personality to promote a kinder, if not gentler, message: feminine power. And the stakes are just as high. Matriarchy, he insists, has quietly, inconspicuously sustained American Indian culture for thousands of years. Without it, the fate of native peoples—and of all of Western civilization as we know it—is at risk.

     “Women live longer, have more endurance, and can stand more pain,” he argues. “Those are facts! We have 6,000 years of documented history showing that men are incapable of leading. If women regain their power and their strength, we will have a balanced society. They can run the world!” It sounds like a tall order, but he’s quick with examples: the women of Wounded Knee who refused to negotiate with the federal government, and, more recently, antiwar activist and bereaved mother Cindy Sheehan, whose protest this summer outside President Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch attracted worldwide media attention. “You want to see matriarchy? Look at the woman in Texas! She’s going to end the war!”

    There’s more to it, of course. Matriarchy is a way for Means to stay current—he’s writing a book on the topic with Pearl, 45, who was raised in a matriarchal Navajo community—and controversial. To hear him tell it, unless women claim their rightful roles as leaders, we can expect the following unpleasantries to continue: rampant consumerism and workaholism, imbalanced global economies, the irretrievable loss of humanity. “What I love about patriarchies is that they’ve all been destroyed from within,” says Means. “Look at our decadence! We’re in the throes of the American empire in disintegration, and I’m enjoying every minute of it!” He giggles again. “And I consider myself an optimist! If I wasn’t, I would have killed myself a long time ago!”

     Indeed, Means isn’t all vitriolic doom and gloom. With Pearl’s help, he has hatched a plan to reinvent native education by starting the country’s first Total Immersion School, on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Modeled on a Maori school he visited on New Zealand’s South Island in the early 1990s, Means’s school will teach Lakota children aspects of traditional culture, including dance, art, science, and oral history. The school, scheduled to open in January on Means’s 160-acre ranch in Porcupine, South Dakota, will be the first step in educating a new generation of leaders. “There’s a saying in West Africa,” he says. “‘It takes a village to educate a child.’ That’s what we’re going to do—nurture well-rounded human beings, teach them how to get along with everyone.”

     Russell Means is mellowing. It’s long past dark, and every few minutes he allows himself a deep, body-shaking yawn. The conversation has shifted to a new twist on an old goal: freedom. He’s spent his life fighting for his own and his people’s freedoms, and though he’s the first to say that American Indians still have a ways to go, in his estimation, he’s probably as close as he’s going to get. “As long as the government is in place, Indians as a whole will not be better off,” he says. “But right now I’m as free as I can possibly be in the U.S. I don’t have a driver’s license. I don’t have a job. I don’t have an income. There’s not one white man who can tell me what to do!” Far from sounding antagonistic or egotistical, he just sounds, well, content.

     That’s because Means no longer measures freedom by government treaties or headline-grabbing protests, but by something far more elusive: peace of mind. “That’s my ultimate ambition. No one talks about it, no one values it, but I’m finally beginning to feel it, just like my elders have always felt it,” he says. “It’s about wanting nothing, needing nothing.”

     How this compulsive activist will downshift into detachment is anyone’s guess. In between an aggressive fundraising campaign for the school—which includes breeding horses for profit and, down the road, generating wind power to sell back to the local utility company—he’s busy shooting movies (he has roles in three upcoming films, including the horror flick Unearthed), making etchings and paintings, contemplating a new CD (“I’m gonna do the blues—reservation blues!”), shopping around his Wounded Knee screenplay to Hollywood producers, serving as a partner in a native law firm at Pine Ridge, and appealing his latest lawsuit (In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the Navajo Nation is legally able to prosecute him for the 1997 alleged assault of his father-in-law, even though he is not a tribal member). And then there’s his role as elder statesmen, can-do problem-solver, mentor, and—he would shudder at the term—patriarch of his Lakota people. “There’s always someone on the phone, calling about a lawsuit they need help with,” he explains, “or someone’s son is in jail, or a baby has been taken away by welfare.”

     At this, Pearl chimes in. “A few years ago, I suggested he start thinking about retirement. He was shocked! It was a foreign concept.”

      “I said, ‘Retire from what? Life?’” Means slaps his knee and laughs. Yet there’s a truth to this. It’s only here in San Jose that he can escape his relentless crusade, however temporarily, for his idea of true freedom. “All I really want is a daily routine and a woodshop. I’d learn how to sculpt. In a perfect day, I’d get up, have coffee, do my sit-ups and push-ups, go for my run, do some yard work, maybe check my messages, get something to eat, work in my studio.” He pauses as though pondering the impossible, trying to figure out how such simple, private pleasures fit into the bigger mission.

     Then he cracks a wide, knowing smile. “In Western culture, artists are always the first to recognize the need for change,” he says. “They are the true revolutionaries.”