Barbara Wilkes
much [suffer]. You understand? [Stay on one path?] Yeah, just in
one place. They’re all gonna want you to go with them [to other
Sundances]. But just stay in one place and learn what you need to
learn. If you’ll go, after you do your four years, then it’s gonna be
ok [if I teach you]. But if you’ll go in one year or two years it will
be hard. I can teach you that. Pi’ita is saying that it’s ok [that you
are worthy to be taught]. In that dream he’s telling me it’s ok. And
I know you. I know how you are inside. I’ve seen you for a long
time now. I’ve watched you. I know who you are [I am Ni’itsitapi,
a real person. A Blackfoot compliment, a way of indicating I have
few pretensions and am one of them]. And so I’m gonna tell you
how it happened [how he became Sundance leader]. I’m gonna
talk about all those choices that I made. And then you’ll see how
it [the Sundance] came here. How it came to me. How I brought
that Sundance here because of all my decisions. Because of all the
things I’ve done. And my family’s done. And so that’s it. I think
it’s pretty clear. It’s a good message. It’s good you’re here. This is
where you should be. It’s where He [Creator] wants you to be. And
so that’s it. And it’s an answer. It’s a good answer. And so it’s up to
you. Pi’ita is telling you that you need to make a choice. You need
to make that decision. That’s all I have to say. (Fieldnotes, April
26, 1998)Kainai Conception of “True” KnowledgeCycles. Circles. Ages. Stages. Relations. Interdependence. Balance.
Harmony. Flux. Change. Growth. Knowledge. Concentric circles and
interrelations. These are the preconditions of knowledge production
among the Kainai. Although I understood that at an intellectual level
before the Sundance, only having lived these principles in conjunction
with the ecstatic experiences that led me to them, made them real, a
part of who I am and, thus, made them available to me as tools in the
production of knowledge and ethnography.
Fabian’s “out of mind” is neither a flight of pure fantasy nor a work
of fiction. Ecstasis is akin to a Sundance, a ceremony, a vision quest,
or a dream in the Kainai world. To be “out of mind,” in this way, is