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I was in northern Arizona recently doing a video about 18-wheelers with triple trailers (it’s a living) and had a chance to go to a Hopi reservation and meet a medicine man. He was a fascinating character. I had expected a lot of feathers and war paint—like the Frederick Remington paintings—but instead, he was a gracious elderly gentleman in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki slacks.
He could see that I was taken aback and said, “You were expecting maybe Crazy Horse?” I was humbled.
Soon enough we were talking seriously about the plight of Native Americans (the white man has nothing to be proud of), the difficulty of keeping teenagers in school (see “nothing to be proud of”), and finally the Hopi religion. I was especially interested in the kachinas since I had bought a couple of the dolls on a previous trip.
My friend explained that the kachinas were an integral part of Hopi beliefs. They are spirits—there are over 200 different ones—who come down from the mountains in the Four Corners area for six months every year. According to “Rainmakers From The Gods,” an online exhibit (© 1997 President and Fellows of Harvard College), the kachinas are “messengers who accept Hopi gifts and prayers for health, fertility, and rain and carry them back to the gods. Their role as rainmakers is particularly important to the Hopi, whose agriculture in the high, arid desert of northeastern Arizona has always been precarious.”
The Hopi and their traditions have been around since long before the birth of Christ. It stands to reason that the rainmakers must be doing something right or the Hopis would have dropped corn production and tried to develop new recipes for cactus.
The need for rainmakers, Native American or not, hasn’t slacked off. Most Native American cultures have some sort of rainmaking tradition, and we’ve all heard about barnstorming pilots dumping dry ice into clouds hoping to stir up a thunderstorm.
Translate The Hopi Spirit Into Boardroom Decisions
What does all this have to do with the legal profession and rainmaking? I’m certainly not suggesting that your chief business person don a kachina outfit and burst into the local country club. That tends to scare the diners and you wouldn’t want one of them choking on a crumpet. Besides, it might have a tiny tendency to reflect poorly on the firm. Also, rain dances, while certainly entertaining, are distracting in front of your building or outside an office. While I’m not personally aware of such activities, I’m fairly sure reactions from observers wouldn’t be positive.
So what’s the point other than to give you a hint of my interest in Native American culture? I have a great deal of respect for the culture of the Hopis and other tribes. (In Hopi families, by the way, the women own all the land and are the dominant members of the family. So there.) One of the reasons I respect them is their firm commitment to tradition and their patience and resolve in adhering to it.
Those of you who are charged with dragging new clients into the teepee might keep in mind that new clients are looking beyond the networking, sales pitches and snazzy brochures. They want to see who you really are, to see if you can keep a promise, and if they can trust you. They want to know about your traditions and hear your stories. While building a campfire and passing a peace pipe may be going over the edge, being at peace with yourself and transferring that to a new client isn’t.
“”Wisdom comes only when you stop looking for it and start living the life the Creator intended for you.” – Hopi Indian
Now you can go dump some dry ice on the conference room table.
Nice column, and I like Mark’s approach. The accompanying photo of Easter-egg-colored teepees on green grass is comical and, for those of us who live in northern Arizona, slightly annoying. The Hopi reservation occupies a starkly beautiful part of the world. There are surely millions of photos available. The medicine man Mark talked to does NOT live in pink teepee. A photo of his actual environment would anchor Mark’s comments in reality, and isn’t that what we need in the law? To understand the client, the jury, judges, the public, as real people? As Mark writes, “They want to see who you really are.” And they want to know you can see who they really are.
Interesting web site!
Unfortunately many people believe that the indigenous people of the United States all lived in teepees and/or still do. We do not dress with feathers in our hair and wear buckskin clothing as part of our daily wardrobe and utter ughs. Many of us are educated and some are even lawyers! While Mark figured that out, he still has a very disrespectful view of Native people. He jokes about our ceremonies and practices. Appropriating these aspects of our religious ceremonies for their own use or misuse is not funny. Here is an idea to write about Mark – how about the lack of accountability of US Attorneys who will not prosecute rape cases in Indian Country?
This is what I wrote to the editors of Arizona ELegal, a periodic email publication sent to Arizona Bar members after I saw this article in a hyperlink:
What? What is this article from the Complete Lawyer entitled “What Do Native Americans And Rainmaking Have to Do With the Law” doing in the Arizona elegal publication? I clicked on the hyperlink because I wanted to see who would write something so crude as “[w]hen you drag new clients into the teepee….” in reference to Native Americans.
The article was apparently written by some marketing exec, who, while ostensibly trying to demonstrate his interest in and respect for Hopi culture, instead demonstrates his apalling ignorance. He meets a Hopi medicine man in Northern Arizona and is surprised to see him in a “Hawaiian” shirt and khaki shorts, rather than “a lot of feathers and war paint.” He refers to the Kachinas the tribal member discusses with him as “dolls.”
His flippant tone (his attempt to be amusing?) while comparing Hopi rainmaking ceremonies with the legal profession is sophmoric and offensive. (“I’m certainly not suggesting that your chief business person don a kachina outfit and burst into the local country club. That tends to scare the diners and you wouldn’t want one of them choking on a crumpet.”) He states that “rain dances, while certainly entertaining, are distracting in front of your building or outside an office.”
He makes a perjorative and stereotypic reference to “teepees”–a dwelling used at one time in the past by Plains Indians, not Hopis–when he writes, “[t]hose of you who are charged with dragging new clients into the teepees might keep in mind that new clients are looking beyond the networking, sales pitches and snazzy brochures.” And it doesn’t end there. He goes on to say, “[w]hile building a campfire and passing a peace pipe may be going over the edge, being at peace with yourself and transferring that to a new client isn’t.”
And finally, to add insult to injury, the article is illustrated with a clip-art drawing of pastel-colored teepees.
It’s not funny. It’s stupid and offensive. Surely you can find better filler articles for your email publication than this.
I am pleased that the writer believes I “got it” about Native Americans, and anybody who knows me well will confirm that. And one of the things that I “got” a number of years ago was a deep and abiding respect for those Native Americans. It would be too easy to react with a list to support my feelings. I will say for the record, however, that I have been called a lot of things, but never once has anyone said I was disrespectful of any culture. I certainly didn’t mean to imply any disrespect in my article, but there is no way for me to control those who see what they want to see. As for the lack of accountability of US attorneys who won’t prosecute rape cases in Indian Country, shame on them. The law may indeed be a noble profession, but some people clearly haven’t gotten that message. If I implied anything other than my deep respect for Native Americans and their culture I am sincerely sorry. We can all learn from the first Americans. They have much to teach.
Mark
Mark