"HOKA-HEY!"

[Sugar Smack]

This was the war cry of the Lakota tribe as they went into battle. It means "It's a good day to die".

My best friend and I were at the beach when the thought came into my head: that this is such a fitting attitude to have during our current horrifying snowball of events. It threw me out of my vegetable torpor, but good. (A few vacation days are great for perspective!)

Any minute could be our last. I decided to own ALL my mistakes right then, have some gratitude and take stock of my life, and of the tools at my disposal. First, I've been fearful for so long that frankly I'm quite BORED with it. I'm going to try to be alert instead. If humor is your tool, laugh at all the things some consider juvenile because it helps you. We can go into battle with war paint or with naked faces. We can use our vocabularies, our energy, and our anger as tools. I can't turn away from this decision because it's changed me dramatically in the last few weeks.

"Hoka-Hey!"

[hwmnbn]

1. HOKA-HEY to the limit......

I agree. Living like this under this shithead administration is slow torture before certain death. Fuck it, what is left to lose?

This is not a matter of tactics, it's a matter of attitude. However I choose to resist, I'll do it with commitment and intensity. Thanks for planting the seed in my brain and lighting the Lakota fire in my soul.

HOKA-HEY, motherfucker, HOKA-HEY!!

[Sugar Smack]

2. hwmnbn, you're a man after my own heart.

I can take a beating, but I'm still here. I'll do whatever I have to to protect myself and the people I love. I trust my instincts at this point, because I believe what I see. If people underestimate me, that's their business.

[IChing]

3. ""HOKA-HEY!"" ---Nice words...kick n/t

[Sugar Smack]

4. I love your posts, IChing.

Thank you so much. The words add perspective.

[sarahlee]

20. Please note your incorrect translation

See my post at #5

[sarahlee]

5. Actually

"Hoka He" does not mean "it is a good day to die."

I like your message, but felt I needed to correct this misconception. "Hoka He" just means "Onward" or would be similar to yelling at a bunch of your frinds to "Come on!" Depending on context it can also be an alert that something else is going to happen.

When a sundance chief is calling upon the dancers to line up to go into the arena - he will say "Hoka He!" Obviously, he is not telling them it is a good day to die.

The "good day to die" bit comes from what chief Crazy Horse was supposed to have said as he lay dying. And those words were something like,
"anpe'tu kile mitawa" or "anpe'han kile mitawa" (close as I can get without diacritical marks) And translates closer to "today is mine to die."

Anyway, "It is a good day to die" would be "Anpetu waste' kile mi"


Writing from Lakota Territory....

[Sugar Smack]

22. Thank you! This is interesting, and

I remember it was attributable to chief Crazy Horse. The meaning of the words was probably changed through time, and stuck.

[sarahlee]

25. True

But Hoka Hey is not that meaning.

You wrote:

"HOKA-HEY!" ...
This was the war cry of the Lakota tribe as they went into battle. It means "It's a good day to die".

I am trying to explain that is not correct. See Iktomiwicasa's message here, where he says the same thing:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4783964&mesg_id=4785382


"Hoka He" or "Hoka He" only means to "come on!" or "Onward!" It is a phrase very commonly used in Lakota and it does NOT mean "It is a good day to die."

That is what I am trying to clear up. You are giving an incorrect translation. Trying to give meaning to Lakota words that do not exist between Lakota people. I don't know where you read that, but it is incorrect.

[donco6]

6. As a cancer survivor. . .

that's a lesson I learned 6 years ago. You gotta live it all now, because you don't know when you'll get that call from the doctor's office.

Hoka Hey!

[me b zola]

7. HOKA-HEY

I believe some ghost dancing is also in order.

[Iktomiwicasa]

8. Introduction

My name is Orrie Bearshield. I live on the Pine Ridge reservation in S. Dakota, where I am an enrolled tribal member. I've lurked here for awhile, and recently registered and started posting.

I grew up with my language, and didn't speak english untill I started grade school. The closest translation to "Hoka hey" in english would be "come now".

I am niether Democrat nor Republican, and consider myself Lakota, and not American.

I hate to say this here,but the plain but sad truth from the traditional native standpoint is that there has been no meaningful difference in policy or action between the Reps and the Dems with regard to native issues. Will the democrats finally honor all the broken treaties? Return land that the Supreme Court itself says we have title to? Free our political prisoners? Your great liberator Bill Clinton promised all these things, and failed to follow through with a single one. We as traditional natives don't want your government. We have our own. We don't want a "piece of the American pie"...we have our own pie and we want it back.

Sorry, but I don't trust your culture, or any government that comes from it.

I initially posted this on another thread, but it has dropped back a few pages and I hoped what I have to say could be up front here where folks can read it

[ET Awful]

9. Indeed. No tribe has ever received it's due or what it was promised.

From the time Europeans first set foot on this continent up through today, the cycle has continued.

My great grandmother was Cherokee and was for all intents and purposes sold to my great grandfather who was half-white (Scottish to be exact)/ half-Cherokee. I was never brought up nor involved in that part of my family, and the majority of that branch of the family tree has vanished.

[all.of.me]

10. hey and welcome to du!

i live in taos, nm, and i have always said that if i had the kind of money that some of the people here have, i'd buy all the land and houses, and give it back to the people of taos pueblo. i feel honored to live here, and i greatly respect your point of view.

[sarahlee]

11. Greetings,

from a neighbor n Rosebud, who will confirm and agree with all you wrote.

[hwmnbn]

12. Welcome to DU Orrie Bearshield.....

I don't know how best to address your issues. Will you stay and post some suggestions about what we can do to support your goals?

I'd like to learn more.

[riverwalker]

14. Hau Koda

Welcome, welcome, welcome friend. Please continue to post here on DU.

[knight_of_the_star]

15. Well-written

As far as I know I am native in no way, but I agree with what you believe in. No people should be forced to live in a way that is not of their own choosing.

[Mend]

16. To give to you, we have to take it from them

and they scream and vote us out of office every time we try. They call us the "tax and spend party" and make us the minority in government we are now.

[Iktomiwicasa]

17. The point I am trying to make.......

....is that Democratic administrations have been just as native un-friendly as the Republicans. More promises and good words come from the democrats, yes, but when it comes down to it, they are all empty words. That is why we as a people do not trust your governments, regardless of party. Your system does not work for us, it can't ever work for us. We have our own system that works for us.

You see, instead of following real leaders, your people elect and follow politicians who actively seek and campaign for power. In our eyes, this automatically makes them suspect. Our real chiefs are people who lead without authority..you see, authority and power corrupts even the best of people. That is why our chiefs have no power.....it makes them stronger leaders. It is a concept that is perhaps completely foreign to your culture.

[shadowknows69]

19. I don't think its foreign to our culture

I just think our culture of greed has trumped it in most cases. My blood is about as european as it comes but please believe that there are some of us who paid attention to the pitifully inaccurate lessons of our white man's "history" classes and still realized that my people have blazed a wanton bloody trail throughout most of history and I stand ashamed. Does this fix anything? Does it make me a better white man than any other? Probably not. Just know there are some whose souls do suffer for the injustice you've been given and whose souls have envied your culture and wished it for their own.

[gulfcoastliberal]

21. A lot of progressives are more worried about Palestinians than

honoring any commimtments to the native people we decimated via genocide and broken treaties. Just an observation. I'd rather we looked inward than outwards like that. Hypocritical.

[shadowknows69]

18. kick

[DanCa]

13. Qaplagh - klingon for sucesse gawd am such a dork.

[nofurylike]

23. Hoka-Hey!

[no name no slogan]

24. Nominated

As the John Lydon said in that PiL song: "anger is an energy". We can either let it consume us, or direct it toward something positive.

We can either cry our eyes out, or laugh in the face of our enemies. I choose the latter.


And it's always good to be alert-- because the world needs more lerts.

:hi: