Fakelore and Social Strata at the North American Rainbow Gathering, 3/2/98 by Jesse Carew: for Phyllis Gorfain Engl. 373, Mid-Term Exam‘And it will come to pass that three young warriors from the inner passage shall take back the heart of the ocean and profess to the various tribes gathered that the age is upen us to embrace what is ieft of our dying mother and they will breathe deeply of her briny waters and become as the whales, residents of the deep. These words were never spoken by a Native American, These ideas were never embodied in any prophecy whatsoever. These words were written above by myself, a disillusioned young white man, in hopes of showing that anything, depending on the mental state of the audience, and the tone used, could be taken to be a prophecy in this day and age. This form of lore, ideas authenticated by an authoritarian tone steeped in prophetic mysticism is a verifiable cultural phenomena in this moder age. Personified earth, sea and sky spirits, coupled with the barely imaginable imagery of modern media seem to capture the imagination of an easily enchanted generation divorced from any strict set of cultural and spiritual roles. The reintroduction of hallucinogenic ideas into the daily life of mainstream youth provides an extra catalyst for the purveyors of these fakeloric fabrications to spout, if only for a short period in their intellectual development, into the bubbling stew of revolutionary and evolutionary spirituality, half baked and ethnocidal ideologies. The concept of elitelore, as defined by J.W. Wilkie (1976) classifies a certain brand of discourse between individual elites, possessors of elite qualities and ideologies and those they wish to manipulate. As he puts it: “Lore is defined as a non institutionalized knowledge in elitelore (found in conceptual and perceptual information and views manipulated by unique individuals to justify leadership wherein they manipulate or change the life situation of their followers) and folklore (found in its traditional or popular sense especially in justification or explanation about one's situation in life).1 Though these phony “prophecies” and the reasons for their circulation may very well constitute this "non institutionalized knowledge" as such, it may seem questionable as to whether the context they are found in is one of, the necessary social stratification and thus the inherent need to manipulate “followers.” The idea of status, which will be developed further, once divorced from traditional western guidelines which arguably always entail at feast one of the following: political contro! of the subaltern and or financial means exceeding that of the middle class, is subject to the rules of context. For example: On the Colombia River at any time during the summer months, one can feel the excitement brewing around a certain spot frequented by locals, The rave in the air would seem to be driven by a new pair of mags" on a shiny jeep barreling over the dunes, or a freshly painted ski boat loaded TLorey and Wilkie p4 1with coked-up teenagers putting conspicuously past the camping sites. Ten miles down the road at the fair-grounds there may be seen hundreds of dilapidated Volkswagens among a variety of shiny new "parent's cars" each having carried their limit of shabbily clad young-at-hearts anxiously awaiting a folk-revival concert centered around a preachy, ideology-ridden ensembie hung-over from the seventies. Though geographically these situations are happening inside of the same pin prick on a national map, they couldn't be farther apart in social make-up. And though these events are classified as "leisure" in the books and don't make up the official identity of the people invalved, it can safely be said that the events experienced will be on the minds of everyone present for some time and that unofficially they will base some of their identity on it if only for that reason alone. Inside each of these scenes there are radically different precedents being set for those possessing and hoping to possess a higher status within their social group. And though it may seem from an exoteric standpoint that the physical objects mentioned make up the “unique individual” possessing the desirable social stature vehicles, clothing, stereos, once inside it becomes clear that as always, attitude is everything. So the stage has been set for the item of folk speech which is to be examined in this paper. Needless to say that taken out of context it will mean virtually nothing to a reader therefore context will dominate much of the text. Fakelore and Social Strata at the North American Rainbow Gathering ‘The North American Rainbow Gathering prides itself on embodying none of the traits that have historically contributed to the downfall of utopian ‘communities in the United States. For one there are no leaders; the presence of any person or group at a North American Rainbow Gathering claiming to have founded, organized, or secured such a loosely ordered association of people would be unofficially denounced as a raving lunatic because it is common knowledge there that no one person or group controls in any way the goings on that constitute what is known as a North American Rainbow Gathering? On the other hand there is definitely some form of organization that goes into the gathering of what is commonly upwards of twenty thousand people in a strategically chosen piece of American wilderness every July for a peaceful celebration devoid of alcohol, law enforcement and environmental damage. What the system breaks down into are various webs of communication, verbal, printed and digital, that spread the information (where, when and how) fairly proficiently to an audience of their peers and anyone else who might be interested. One such printed newsletter is unofficially the official newsletter of the North American Rainbow Gathering’ it is Gtled Al Ways Free . Ail Ways Free functions as a collective 2Niman 2and as such is not a commercial publication, it also has no permanent staff or location, the volunteer publishers are chosen anew each year by the "Family Council”, a council of elders, if you will, who decide by the consensus of all present (anyone interested enough to attend the Council) on all decisions affecting present or future Gatherings The concession is granted none the less to those collectively deemed capable of such a task and therefore is always left in the hands of a tight group of Rainbow veterans at the top of the aforementioned web of communication. A group of people, friends inherently, all living close enough to manage such a task as this would and do find themselves with the usual problems found in such situations: layout, editing materials and printing, But outside of the obvious necessities of production and informational content lies aesthetics and literature. And what would such editors choose to publish their publication than traditional Rainbow-lore. So it came about that the cover of a recent issue of All Ways Free included among various iconography borrowed from traditional Hopi decor, a paraphrased “prophecy.” It read as follows: "Tt is said that when the earth is weeping and the animals are dying that a tribe of people who care will come. They will be called the Warriors of the Rainbow.5" On the surface it can be taken lightly; a hokey New Age slice of optimistic propaganda. But on second thought it raises several questions. For ‘one, Was it ever really said? The initial text to which the statement can be traced was written in 1962 by William Willoya and Vinson Brown. In their book Warriors of the Rainbow, an all encompassing treatise of Native American thought which can hardly be called a subtle piece of neo-Christian propaganda’ they attribute the prophesy of the “heros|sic] of the new age" to Hopi spiritual tradition. There is no doubt that this is the original source of the now widespread ideology which, upon further investigation goes much deeper than simply proclaiming the Rainbows as a “tribe of people who care.” It can be said that Rainbows have embodied every stereotypical aspect of Hollywood's “Indian” from foincloths to feathers and from tee-pees to sacred pipes, and, not surprisingly, all this came about among a relative absence of Native Americans within the Gatherings. In fact many Rainbows will claim that they are the reincarnates of the long-lost "Indians of old” that Willoya writes about. Left unhindered this rumor/ prophesy has run rampant and in an environment free of "bad vibes" the issue will remain uncontested. In > another version of the rainbow warrior prophecy often postéd inside the North American Rainbow Gathering Native American culture if it still exists at all, is nearly defunct. It reads: “In the moment in which the culture of the Red people would seem to be almost completely destroyed, and the rivers would be poisoned and the buffalo would be dead and the birds would man pid 4Niman p42 SNiman pi35 $Niman pi36 3start dying~in that moment there would be a spirit, an ancient spirit coming back from the Red people that would start reaching aiso to the White people of all different nations and religions. ‘And this spirit would unify people around the vision of a tribe made up of members of many nations working together (etc. etc) And these people would be called the Rainbow Warriors.” ‘As was the case with Communism and Nazism where the desirable traits of a race or people were be embodied by the populace while the systematic genocide of these peoples was being carried out, so do the proprietors of these conspicuously placed tracts of propaganda proceed to undermine the heritage of a flourishing modern culture in the minds of their audience while appropriating assumed ideals of that very same community ali the while demeaning the validity of the adopted rituals by relying on a Hollywood definition to conceptualize their grand vision. in an utopian vision such as these, were the realization is always only moments away, the urge to question practices going on within is always suppressed by the whole, The objection to any objection to the process is summated in the overused metaphor "If you're going to make an omelet you're gonna have to break soine eggs.” However for the Rainbows, the justification is simple, being that gatherings are open to anyone who would come, the Indians are taking part in their reincarnation as much as they choose to. Of course since most Native ‘American spirituality did not recognize reincarnation, who can blame them for not having a greater turnout at their own funeral/ parturition. And what would one think if while summoning their ancestors they were informed that an esteemed forefather couldn't be there because he or she had run off to join the Rainbows. The item, at any rate, can be treated as a particular form of folk-speech. Though it is passed off as a prophesy and should also be treated as such it can be analyzed weli within the framework and with the variable interpersonal import of a rumor. In Accounting for Rumor (1995) Gary Alan Fine locates three conceptual clements of rumor that contribute to it's validity or lack thereof: remove, realm, and motive, To'Fine;-Temove is-aameasure-of.the metaphorical distance of the-speaker from the event constituting his or her truth claim. In a situation like the above, the element of remove factors into the position of the audience as well. In the Rainbow warrior prophesy the separation between the event being mentioned is the same for all folks. The big question: "Can you feel it?” is being asked, however by one person or one “collective” as the case may be. The audience, in the case of rumor is likely to question the authority of the source on which the truth-claim is based®, the prophesy, however is a case of "who feels it knows it" and to question the source is to question the likeliness of the popular concept of divinity, an 7Niman p135 SFine p127 4“emporer's new clothes" type situation begins, An easy reply in this case to any question of authenticity could invoke even more questionable topics such as spirit quests and planetary alignment which are completely different ‘cups of tea or cans of worms depending on your outlook. The difference between the rumor and the prophecy is that, though the prophecy can be taken literally, it cannot be a fact until after the alleged events are seen to be taking place. The similarity in this case between prophecy and rumor is that in the correct context and with the proper conditioning and stimulation, this prophecy can in fact appear to be taking place. The concept hinted at in All Ways Free and then further developed once inside the grounds rests at once within the realm of tangible phenomena and that of spiritual belief. ‘The-realm. of extra-normal perceptions, according to Fine, are considered suspect in most elite communities’. Children of these elite communities however, once released from their boundaries, do not necessarily feel this way, in fact many may feel strongly that any remnants of a spiritual world are being snuffed out like an old fire and in reaction to this they may grab hold of any remaining embers they find. Fine touches on a similar idea when he excuses from the standard equation, rumors told in the aftermath of a “cataclysmic disaster.” "In such a situation,” he writes, "the context, the striving for information of any kind, outweighs the evaluation of the narrator."0Add to this a chronic distrust in all institutionalized information and you have a green-skinned recruit to the army of rainbow warriors. Another key factor that should not be overlooked is the relevance of hallucinogenic drugs in the definition of the realm. Popular public opinion seems to overemphasize the hallucinatory aspects of drugs like LSD and psylocibin mushrooms, in fact the visuaily stimulating qualities of hallucinogens pale in comparison to the alterations of an ingester's physical and mental state. Faced with a heightened sensory perception and a new awareness of a living, breathing world all around, a child is often frightened by what he or she experiences, in this vulnerable state an answer to the immediate fear is acceptance into an immediate community around you, which can only be realized with the acceptance of common ideology. This absolute exposure sometimes has the long-term affect of carrying one night's truths around to other people in similar situations. In affect this sort of clan mentality begins many irreversible cycles. In noting the dynamics of context as related to the dispersal of rumor, Fine writes: "The identical text can be treated as truth by one, as a plausible account by another, as a wild speculation by a third, and as a deliberate fabrication by a fourth.” In the case of the rainbow warrior prophesy however, one person embodies all of these opinions at once and can move back and forth between them all in the period of one night Fine p29 10Fine p130 5‘Though rocking the boat is not commendable within the rank and fife, it is doubtful that a Rainbow experienced enough to be granted the concession of Ail Ways Free has not found out one way or another that the “Hopi Prophecy’ is not in fact Hopi at all but came from a book of evangelical propaganda, So having established that personal doubt is in this case innate the question remains; To what end do you wish your audience wouid progress? Why publish the phony prophecy? I believe the reason stems from the narrators own personal doubt. Personal doubt is the motive. If everyone believed in the fantasy along with them, it would be a reality. The reality of the prophecy is by no means a nasty picture either, the fact is that it is not rapidly becoming a reality ond even though the Rainbows pride themselves on being a “people of deeds, not words""! the prophecy itself has evolved more rapidly than their actions. In fact most veteran Rainbows are still driving the same gas guzzlers everyone else abandoned in the late seventies. It isn’t the ends to which the prophecy looks however that poses a problem. The problem fies in the appropriation of an other's heritage justified by a conspicuous piece of fakelore. History has shown that literature can transform one cultures conception of another. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, with One Hundred Years of Solitude,painted a certain peacefully primitive picture of indigenous peoples in Central America that is still felt, sf only subconsciously today and affects our view of their political situation.i? As did Costa-Gavras with his 1973 film State of Siege about guerrilla warfare in South Americal3, In all cases the initial motivation was not to alienate the subjects in any way but in all cases the audience adopts a fabricated idea of what the subaltern is without ever seeing first-hand. In a fitting response to the rainbow warrior issue Thomas Banyaca, a Hopi elder entrusted with issues involving prophecy said, "Its not right... We hope they will stop it” UNiman p34 12, orey and Wilkie p7 12Lorey and Wilkie p& 6Works consulted: Niman, Michael I. People of the Reinbow- A nomadic Utopia: Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1997. Lorey, David and Wilkie, James W. 1987 "'I’ as ‘We’ in Elitelore: The merging of Individual and Collective Lores." Journal of Latin American Lore, 43:1, p.3-27. Fine, Gary Alan, p.122-36 "Accounting for Rumor: The Creation of Credibility in Folk Knowledge.” from: Folklore jaterpreted: Essays in Honor of Alan Dundes, eds. Regina Bendix and Rosemary |. Zumwalt. New York, Garland Press, 1995. ‘Toelken, Barre. p.137-56 "Elfinic Selection and Intensification in the Native American Powwow" from: Creative Ethnicity, eds. Stern, Stephen and Cicala, john Allan. Logan, Utah State University Press, 1991.