LITTLE ROCK AIR FORCE BASE, Ark. -- As part of their jobs globally, Department of Defense employees learn about the people, cultures and customs of other countries. Civilians and Airmen at a recent American Indian Cultural, Communication, and Consultation Course held at the Walters Community Support Center Sept. 12-14, at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, learned how to work with tribal cultures and people in their own backyards.
“I’ve been offered an eyeball to eat,” said Anita Dragan, Office of Secretary of Defense instructor for the course. “I put the eyeball in my shoe and I squished it, but to turn it away was disrespectful. So you just find a way to take the offering.
“Getting and eating food is very critical to survival,” she said. “The tribes offering of food is another symbolic way of bringing you in for conversation to occur, of establishing relationships.”
This anecdote was part of the three-day course covering such topics as federal and Native American law, communication techniques and culture. The course merged Airmen and civilians from Air Force bases nationwide to teach them skills necessary to establish and maintain good relationships with federally recognized tribes, while meeting their base’s mission requirements.
The course is important for the DoD because the department has a trust relationship and trust responsibility to Native American Indian tribes, said Alicia Sylvester, a course instructor and DoD senior adviser and liaison for Native American Affairs.
The Federal Trust Responsibility is a legal obligation under which the United States has charged itself with moral obligations of the highest responsibility and trust toward Indian tribes. It is also a legally enforceable financial obligation on the part of the U.S. to protect tribal treaty rights, lands, assets and resources, as well as a duty to carry out the mandates of federal law with respect to American Indian and Alaska’s native tribes and villages.
During the class, various instructors focused on that trust responsibility, DoD’s obligations to Native American Indians, their cultures, and, most importantly, how to communicate and establish relationships with them.
“It’s about respect, and learning more about the cultures, before you start meeting with the tribes,” Sylvester said. “It’s a general understanding of the tribal histories, the tribal culture and the department doing its due diligence to learning about these tribes before they consult with them, so they can establish and build a working relationship with them.”
Defense personnel work with local tribes on such things as land-disturbing activities, construction, management and protection of properties of traditional religious and cultural importance, activities involving access to sacred sites and disposition of cultural and funerary items.
“The department needs to consult with (Native American) Indian tribes,” Sylvester said. “The consultation process is pre-decisional, so in the planning stages, the installations need to get with tribes before any construction, before any land-disturbing and other activities take place.”
The class ended by detailing some best practices on consultations. This included a big discussion about communicating with the tribes, knowing about the tribes’ cultures, and how to avoid the pitfalls while interacting with the tribes.
“One of the things we talked about in the executive session is the critical importance of gift giving to almost every tribe you are going to be dealing with,” Dragan said. “When you go to visit the tribe, you need to anticipate and expect that is going to occur, more likely than not. The refusal of a gift is remembered long after you have disappeared. Anticipate this so you never have to refuse. Talk with your legal counsel beforehand and figure out what it is you do.”