When the poker-hot intensity of the American Indian Movement faded in the mid-1980s, firebrand Russell Means was symbolically homeless. Both tortured and driven by his low self-esteem, he sought a new mission to justify his existence.
So he ran for president of the United States.
“That was the first time I changed, in 1987,” said this mercurial Indian activist whose violent and forbidding reputation was forged by forceful protests during the 1960s and ’70s, years of prime-time rebellion against government agents and the John Wayne mentality that the best Indian is always a dead Indian.
“I used to have what I called my stern AIM look, my don’t-get-near-me look,” he added. “All of a sudden, running for president, I had to smile, shake hands and hold babies. I never want to experience that again. What a radical change.”
Means, son of a mixed-blooded Oglala Sioux father and full-blooded Yankton Sioux mother, migrated from politics to Hollywood, a short distance really. He soon learned crusty speeches were more palatable, even embraced by the masses, once they were wrapped in the majesty of celluloid. John Wayne could be fought on his own terms.
But after his first acting role, in “The Last of the Mohicans,” the first of six feature film appearances, Means was forced to confront the demon that threatened to consume him from within: his emotions. He entered an addiction center in Tucson in 1992 to be treated for anger.
“That was the turning point in my life and the second time I changed,” said Means, 55. “It literally saved my life. AIM was a healthy way to channel my anger, fighting for the rights of my people and myself. When that vanguard waned in the mid-’80s, because we had succeeded beyond our wildest dreams and Indian people were self-determining their own communities, my anger didn’t have anywhere to go except back on myself.
“In treatment, I learned to cry and not feel embarrassed about it. To feel and not be ashamed. The anger had covered my low self-esteem.”
His transformation from a zealot who brooked no surrender to a passionate, yet more negotiable, patriot for his cause has helped to catapult Means in front of an audience he couldn’t reach eight years ago on the political stump–in part because some of his new constituents weren’t living then.
Beginning this month, Means carries his continuing message of historical deceit and white society’s denial of Indian rights to the children of the world as the reasonable, yet strident, voice of Powhatan, who was chief of an Algonquin Indian federation in the early 1600s and father of the legendary Pocahontas.
The June premiere of Disney’s animated film “Pocahontas” (it opens Friday in Chicago) begins what Means perceives as a never-ending platform for his never-ending commitment to Indian recognition. Politicians can lose every four years. Disney is forever, and it is this shelf life that can win endless converts.
“Disney is entrusting the truth to children,” Means said. “Until now, as far as Indian people are concerned, Hollywood has refused to address the truth. I don’t think Hollywood has the guts for anything really, which is why they are entrusting children and not adults with the truth.
“There are only four movies, in regards to Indians, I think are worth anything: `Little Big Man,’ Clint Eastwood’s `Outlaw Josey Wales,’ `Last of the Mohicans’ and `Thunderheart.’ They showed Indian people as human beings with feelings and relationships, four-dimensional and not just one- or two-dimensional.
“Now Disney has come up with this revolutionary, historic movie. I am so fortunate that the Great Mystery continually guides my path into history. The finest movie of this century on American Indians, and I get to be a major part of it. Everything in this movie, and this is what I love, is based on historical fact.”
Some historians, however, have challenged Disney’s make-believe plot as the industry giant attempts its first animated film about a real person. The implied romance between Pocahontas and Capt. John Smith, before and after she asked Powhatan to spare his life, is a central theme in the movie, yet unconfirmed by any historical document, including Smith’s journal.
Artistic license?
The trumped-up ending in which Smith is shot trying to protect Powhatan from an English bullet is pure plot device. Children never hear the name of John Rolfe, the Englishman Pocahontas would eventually marry and with whom she would venture as a converted Christian to England, where her name was changed to Rebecca. She died in Gravesend, England, in 1617 and is buried at St. George’s Church.
“The naysayers and politically correct infidels, I have to feel sadness for them and their loss of innocence,” Means said. “They have covered their child within. I don’t put any credence into what scholars want to argue about.
“Children don’t look for negatives. They are going to this movie, number one, to have fun. If they learn something out of it, so much the better. If you are going to save someone’s life as Pocahontas did, there has to be some kind of relationship there, friend or an older man she admired.”
The moral of the movie is the central truth, Means stressed, not historical nit-picking.
“What I want the movie to leave with children is four specific things, and four is sacred to Indian people,” he said. “First, the truth about why European men came over here in the first place. They came to rob, rape, pillage the land and kill Indians. That’s the Columbian legacy.
“Secondly, there’s the continuing environmental message that `Bambi’ and `The Lion King’ gave to children. My generation abhors sports hunting because of `Bambi.’ Thirdly, there’s the integration of animals and birds with human beings, the force of the natural elements.
“Lastly, the movie introduces the Indian people to the children through the woman, rightly and justly so. Because the vast majority of Indian people are matriarchal societies. The women are our strength and power. Pocahontas proves out to be wiser than the wise man, wiser than her father, and tells the children that bone structure and pigmentation are not important in human relationships. That is a message kids will see over and over for years.”
A violent life
Means hopes this young generation, once it matures, will be influenced by “Pocahontas” to attend his upcoming movie project: “Wounded Knee, 1973.” Daniel Day-Lewis, star of “Last of the Mohicans,” has script and director approval of a film Means will produce for Warner Bros.
In what seems like another lifetime, Means led the way when he and an estimated 200 armed supporters seized Wounded Knee on Feb. 27, 1973. They announced that a tribal government would be initiated to replace the “puppet” government at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where Means was born and lives today with his fourth wife. The confrontation ended May 8. Indicted on 10 felony counts for the occupation, charges later dismissed, Means would eventually be sent to prison in 1977 for rioting in another incident.
“The rest of the AIM leadership wasn’t as militant as I was,” Means said. “I have an autobiography coming out in September with St. Martins Press and people will learn in the book how violent I really was and how spiritual I am. There have been eight assassination attempts on my life, five in this country and three in Nicaragua.
“I was arrested just last October in Puget Sound over treaty fishing rights,” Means added as if brandishing a recent photo from the family album of protest. “Heh, that’s supposed to be going to trial soon. I better check. Might be a federal warrant out right now for my arrest.”
He laughed at the thought, perhaps thinking such a fate would be great public relations for “Pocahontas.” He doesn’t mind argument, nor even deny the idea that he is being “used” by Disney because of his radical past. Remembering that Arab-American criticism for ethnic insensitivities descended on Disney with the release of “Aladdin,” the company was careful to avoid a similar pitfall by its alliance with Means.
For the kids
Means said: “All I care about is what the children come away from the theater with and that’s all positive. I’ve heard I’ve gone Hollywood from a couple dysfunctional Indians, but I put that in the class where it belongs. We’re in the lull before the next storm in society and, this time, I’m counting on America to lead the way and not the Indians.
“The revolution has started and who would have thought it would come from the Right? No one I knew in the 1960s and 1970s. You know, it’s still not out of memory what happened to me as a child.
“The teasing in high school when it rained–`Russ, tell your mom and dad to quit dancing.’ Those were fighting words. I became a juvenile delinquent; that was my escape, selling dope and doing dope, breaking into drugstores to get dope.
“But, now, go check out my children. I’ve got 14, just adopted four more, and my 15-year-old is the spitting image of Disney’s Pocahontas. I don’t keep track of how many are adopted and how many aren’t. But I’m a damn good man judging by my children. That’s where it’s at. That’s immortality.”
Russell Means has entrusted his future reputation to the children, his own and the generations that will see “Pocahontas.” Disney has locked his message into a time capsule.
