|
The Preface
to the New Book
Alcohol-related problems and alcoholism constitute
serious threats to the health and social stability
of many Native American and Alaskan Native communities,
but the understanding and resolution of these problems
continues to be plagued by “firewater myths” that
misrepresent the history, nature, sources and potential
solutions to Native alcohol problems. The origin
of the designation of alcohol as “firewater” can
be historically attributed to two sources:
1) the practice of adulterating alcohol with hot
peppers and
2) the practice of testing an adequate proof of
alcohol by seeing if it would burn when thrown
into a fire.
| To
speak of Native alcoholism without speaking
of successful Native prevention and recovery
movements constitutes a harmful misrepresentation
that has endured for more than two centuries. |
“Firewater myths” is the term used
to collectively designate misconceptions about
the source and nature of alcohol problems among
Native peoples, the most important of which are
that Native people are “constitutionally
prone to develop an inordinate craving for liquor
and to lose control over their behavior when they
drink.”
To portray Native alcohol problems as a biological
taint, or to portray alcoholism as the most significant
problem facing Native communities, ignores the
enormous variability of alcohol problems across
and within Native tribes and diverts attention
from the political, economic and cultural conditions
within which alcohol problems first arose and have
been sustained within Native communities. To speak
of Native alcoholism without speaking of successful
Native prevention and recovery movements constitutes
a harmful misrepresentation that has endured for
more than two centuries.
There have been recent efforts to accurately reconstruct
the historical relationship between Native peoples
and alcohol. Unfortunately, that knowledge lies
buried within the scholarly literature while racial
stereotypes continue to masquerade as historical
facts within the popular culture. Our goal in the
coming pages is to weave this recently revealed
evidence into a meaningful whole that challenges
how the dominant culture has viewed Native American
alcohol problems and how Native peoples have viewed
their own personal and cultural relationships with
alcohol.
| In this book, we will offer the historical
evidence of how Native peoples resisted and
recovered, and today continue to resist and
recover, from alcoholism and other alcohol-related
problems. |
In this book, we will offer
the historical evidence of how Native peoples
resisted and recovered, and today continue to
resist and recover, from alcoholism and other
alcohol-related problems. The heart of our story
unfolds in the mid-eighteenth century, spans
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and continues
with long-enduring and new recovery movements
among Native peoples. Twelve “truths” constitute
the backbone of this story:
Native tribes had
an exceptional knowledgeable of botanical psychopharmacology
prior to European contact. They lived in harmony
with the power of these plant-based substances
(including alcohol in some tribes) by respecting
the spirits and rules of the plants from which
they were derived.
The initial response of Native tribes to alcohol
availability following European contact was not
one of drunken mayhem and widespread alcoholism.
Native alcohol problems and alcoholism emerged
as Native tribes came under physical and cultural
assault and when alcohol shifted from a ritual
of social contact to a tool of economic, political
and sexual exploitation.
“Firewater myths” that
portrayed Native Americans as genetically inferior
(inherently vulnerable to alcoholism) to Europeans
provided ideological support for the decimation
and colonization of Native tribes.
The legacy
of these “firewater myths” has
been generations of stigma (the “drunken
Indian” stereotype), racial shame, and a
fundamental misconstruction of the sources of,
and solutions to, alcohol problems in Native communities.
Native leaders actively resisted the infusion
of alcohol into tribal life and continue to resist
such infusion today.
Early indigenous responses to alcohol problems
included the development of sobriety-based religious/cultural
revitalization and healing movements that constitute
the first recovery mutual aid societies in the
world.
Alcoholism recovery is a living reality in
Native American communities and has been for more
than 250 years--a century before the Washingtonian
revival of the 1840s and two centuries before the
founding of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Recovery
traditions in Native communities continue today
through abstinence-based religions, the “Indianization” of
Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon, new recovery-based
cultural revitalization movements (e.g., the Wellbriety
Movement), and the rise of culturally-informed
alcoholism treatment.
The most effective and enduring solutions
to Native alcohol problems have emerged and continue
to emerge from the very heart of tribal cultures.
The history of resistance and recovery within
Native American tribes is a testimony to cultural
forces of prevention and healing that continue
to constitute powerful, but underutilized, antidotes
to alcohol problems.
A period of great healing, recovery, renewal
and resilience has begun within Native communities.
Recovery is a vibrant force in Native American
communities and has been for more than 250 years.
We have provided documentation of the sources
that support these conclusions, but we do so with
the recognition that traditional scholarly resources
often fail to accurately reconstruct early Native
American history. Historical documents recorded
by non-Natives are particularly problematic. Non-Native
observers of Native cultures brought particular
biases to their choices of what and what not to
record and their own interpretations of what they
observed or were told. Many Native stories are
missing from written history because Native tribes
withheld or selectively interpreted knowledge of
their cultures to outsiders out of a fear that
such knowledge would be misunderstood or used against
them. To counter such omissions and distortions,
we have tried to balance the use of archival records
with oral histories of tribes that are central
to our story. We include such oral histories with
the awareness that certain aspects of Native experience
are too sacred to discuss in any context and as
a result will leave voids within parts of the story
we are trying to tell. Because so much Native history
has been lost, the reader will likely share our
wonder about how many Native recovery and revitalization
movements not recounted here escaped documentation
and are forever lost. That our story is woefully
incomplete does not diminish its power as a testimony
to Native resistance and recovery.
It
is time the “firewater myths” were
replaced with the rich history of Native
resistance and recovery. |
We have written this book for
multiple audiences. For Native
people who have
not yet found the Red Road, we offer you the
gift of your own history––accounts
of thousands of Native people who found sobriety,
their heritage and their reclaimed selves on the
Red Road. For the preventionist
and addiction treatment specialists, we offer evidence of the power of
revitalized Native culture as a medium of personal,
family and community transformation. To policy
makers and researchers, we invite you to see Native
alcohol and other drug problems in a larger historical
and cultural perspective. To
tribal leaders, we
offer a humble reminder of the power of community,
the power of sober leadership and the inseparability
of personal and community health.
We have tried to reflect in our language the diversity
of how the aboriginal peoples of the Americas refer
to themselves. As such we use the terms Native
Americans, American Indians, Indian Peoples and
Native Peoples interchangeably in this text. We
have also tried to reflect the enormous variation
in spelling of names of tribes and individuals
by choosing the latest rendition of spelling preferred
by a tribe or an individual and then placing alternative
spellings in parentheses (the latter to aid readers
who wish to pursue further research.)
It is time the “firewater myths” were
replaced with the rich history of Native resistance
and recovery.
Don Coyhis
Colorado Springs CO
February, 2005
Bill White
Port Charlotte FL
February, 2005 |
