Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Symposium presented by the Anthropology Graduate Student Association

Even though Mad Bear seems to have had honorable intentions in his activism efforts, his stature and position as an activist never went unchallenged. Scholars accuse his achievements as simply show for the media to consume while the real issues were neglected. Laurence Hauptman supports this accusation and demonstrates it in several of his own writings. In the latest of his works, Seven Generations of Iroquois Leadership, Hauptman mentions in his concluding statements about Iroquois leadership:

…there was another side to activism: self-promoting opportunism... Wallace ‘Mad Bear’ Anderson, a Tuscarora ‘media hound,’ was one such self-styled ‘leader.’ By entertaining rather than educating, Mad Bear deflected attention away from real issues – land loss, jurisdictional concerns, poverty, treaty rights – expressed by recognized leaders, condoled chiefs, clan mothers, tribal presidents, and well-respected longtime advocates such as the Indian Defense League of America (Hauptman 2008).

He further comments in his endnote, referring to Edmund Wilson, “He was always accessible to journalists and gave them a ‘good story,’ whether real or not” (Hauptman 2008). In a review of Hauptman’s work, Donald Grinde, Jr. criticizes Hauptman for continuing to favor Iroquoianist anthropology experts over actual Indian voices in his work. Regarding these comments on Mad Bear, he argues that Hauptman blatantly ignores valid sources and that “Anderson is attacked for certain behaviors without any real evidence” (Grinde, Jr. 2010).

In his earlier work, The Iroquois Struggle for Survival, Hauptman was not shy about criticizing Mad Bear in his discussion of the Red Power movement. In describing the Tuscarora protests, he says:

The dramatic protest, at a time of civil rights foment in the South, brought media attention for the first time to a young, unimposing merchant seaman, Wallace ‘Mad Bear’ Anderson, who previous to this incident had lived largely in reservation obscurity. The media was soon focusing on the gregarious and dynamic Anderson rather than on the issues involved in the controversy. Anderson’s role was magnified by the media’s looking for a ‘good story,’ and seeking Indians in traditional garb to photograph. Despite the news stories to the contrary, Anderson was not at the time of the protests a political leader on the reservation. His role in the events of 1958-60 is much exaggerated, largely perpetuated by the writings of Edmund Wilson and Anderson’s own skillful manipulation of the media (Hauptman 2008).

While Mad Bear did have many media stories devoted to his actions with the protest⁴², he was not the only individual receiving attention. Hauptman’s argument begins to fall apart when he explains that Mad Bear’s attention was a response to media “seeking Indians in traditional garb to photograph.” Can the same statement not be applied to Chief Clinton Rickard’s popular attention-receiving garb that emphasized Plains headdresses and regalia rather than traditional Haudenosaunee outfitting? In relation to Indian activism and protest events, not exclusively Tuscarora, the media has been used as a tool to not only garner sympathy to Indian causes but to gain support and increased awareness from a non-Native world that forgot indigenous people existed. Mad Bear’s attention from the media is in no way unique or distinguished from other Indian activist efforts nor is his use of dress and presentation much different from that of Rickard’s. Hauptman’s dubious source within his reference attributes his information from “Hauptman Field Notes, 1971-84” and his statements about Mad Bear’s manipulations are unsupported and unexplained by any documentary or interview evidence. Strangely, he also devotes a few paragraphs in his book to directly compare Mad Bear to Chief Rickard’s son, William and goes as far as to dispute Vine Deloria’s praise of Mad Bear, explaining that Deloria must have been misled (Hauptman 1986). He later, again, discredits Mad Bear’s recognition for his efforts in the American Indian Unity Caravan, attributing the reason to his need to be in the spotlight (Hauptman 1986).

In a perhaps related instance to Hauptman’s discrediting of Mad Bear, Anderson is curiously absent from most of the discussion within Rickard’s book. Wilson writes of Mad Bear that “Clinton Rickard became his hero, and he wanted to carry on Rickard’s work. He has informed himself about Iroquois history, and, unlike some of the other nationalists, he has seen a good deal of the world” (Wilson 1960). Mad Bear’s brother, Duane, alludes to a connection between the two Tuscarora activists, yet Duane warns that something went wrong in their friendship and they seemed to have parted ways. He attributes it to the fact that they had different ideas and approaches to the SPA protest, Rickard wanting to pursue litigation within the courts and Mad Bear determined to fight it on Tuscarora soil at the front line. Barbara Graymont, editor of Clinton’s book and Iroquois historian, also downplayed Mad Bear’s significance as a community leader (letter/personal communication, 2007).

Duane also mentions that the Chief’s Council had a sometimes contentious relationship with Mad Bear because “he tended to keep the chiefs in line and he wasn’t afraid to criticize them and tell them what they need to be doing” (Anderson, Interview, 18 November 2010). It seems the chiefs were also unafraid to voice their distaste for Mad Bear as seen in a 1962 New York Times article that highlights the spectacle of Tuscarora forgiveness toward Robert Moses in a peace pipe exchange. Here, Moses calls Mad Bear “a part-time squatter on the reservation” and Chief Greene states that “he really was not mad at Mr. Moses after all: that it was some of those younger rabble-rousers like Chief Mad Bear – who bore a grudge” and that he was “not displeased” that Mad Bear was gone away in the Merchant Marine (New York Times 1962b).

This tension could be traced back to the SPA battle when conflict and mistrust was at a high, but interviewees point out that corruption has been apparent since even before the SPA problems. There has been wrongdoing in regards to people’s land deeds, tribal rolls and membership regulation, controversy surrounding the split of the bear clan into “brown bear” and “white bear,” and the process of choosing the political leadership (Dougherty, Interview, 4 December 2010). Even though these shady practices were allegedly happening, nobody was speaking up about these issues and up until the SPA protests, “the General Council was dead until Mad Bear began to run things” (Anderson, Interview, 18 November 2010). Traditionally, clanmothers are supposed to be the ones keeping the chiefs in line, but because this was seen as not being done, Mad Bear seemed to step in to their role. One example of this process is in a report to the General Council on July 20, 1967 describing Mad Bear’s role as mediator between the people and the leadership. This report details discussion of the dangers of the Termination Bill and the need to protest to which he says, “I invited the Chiefs that were present to sit-in to our Council. My pleas fell on deaf ears. I asked some of them whether or not they were planning on attending, to this I received no definite reply. As our General Council got underway, the people were disappointed with the way our Chiefs were acting in general” (Anderson 1967). A friend of Mad Bear’s stated that Mad Bear was the only one he could recall that would stand up to the chiefs without fear and that he has seen things go downhill since Anderson has passed away (Dougherty, Interview, 4 December 2010).

Peculiarities of his behavior and personality as well as personal disagreements of his approaches to issues also added fuel to rumors and controversy. A statement by a young Indian man from Utah sums up the complexity of Mad Bear’s persona: “’For one of the most friendly people you’d ever hope to meet, he can be one of the most ferocious whenever he needs to be’” (Boyd 1994). Wilson, who met him in his mid-30s, described him as: “…he has combined the effective qualities of a self-controlled audacity and… a certain tactical shrewdness. He has also a robust enthusiasm, a sly humor and an easy affability which contribute to a personal magnetism of the kind that commands allegiance. I found that people strongly took sides either against him or for him” (Wilson 1960). A neighbor of Mad Bear’s remarked humorously that Mad Bear would started getting people riled up and angry about the way things were carrying on and then would take off with the Merchant Marines and leave the mess for the chiefs (Dougherty, Interview, 4 December 2010).

After the SPA legalities were settled, Mad Bear took a highly controversial action when “Anderson was hired as a laborer for Merritt-Chapman and Scott, the largest contractor on the SPA project” (Hauptman 1986). A news story shows, days after the defeat was announced, Mad Bear began work as a laborer and the New York Times newspaper took to ridicule in no time. They labeled this as hypocrisy because he “is fed by hand he would bite,” however, Mad Bear insisted he buried the hatchet but “it’s not buried so deep it can’t be dug up again” (New York Times 1958c). A separate article shows that taking jobs from the State Power Authority was not unusual at that point as the Tuscarora community members had to make a living: “…they take jobs with the authority, sell food to non-Indians with the authority and rent land for authority trailers to park on” (New York Times 1958b). While this can easily be seen as hypocritical, Mad Bear’s brother argues that this explains his ability to forgive and not hold grudges, and the fight was over at that point (Duane Anderson, Interview, 18 November 2010).

Mad Bear seemed to understand deeply the controversy behind his presence. He once stated to Boyd, “People are hard to figure! They either declare you don’t know what you’re talking about, or that they don’t want to hear it anyway …” (Boyd 1994: 202). Indeed many people – the Tuscarora leadership, scholars writing of Mad Bear’s pursuits, and others – “don’t want to hear it anyway.” It was because of his ability to directly challenge the Chief’s Council, the federal government, and corporate interests that his actions have been shrouded in controversy and his accomplishments belittled. The fact was that he was not afraid of the consequences of upsetting the status quo and crossing lines that made him an unpopular man. The controversy is merely a cloud that covers the true meaning of his legacy.

Beyond the scope of the Tuscarora reservation, Mad Bear’s life evokes many questions for scholars. As an activist, his activities point toward some of the inherent problems in American Indian activism. How does one protest both internal tribal governments and external bureaucratic forces while upholding tribal sovereignty and traditions? Is it possible to create political change and upheaval without arousing suspicions and controversies? Does one need to be an elected or chosen political leader to protest and create real change? How does the role of the media change the dynamics of Native activism and controversy? Mad Bear’s activist career touches on each of these quandaries, dancing along the lines of presuppositions that scholars often put forth. I would argue that Mad Bear knew where change was needed and how to arouse attention to these issues, much to the dismay of the multiple levels of leadership and bureaucratic systems. It is because of his actions and his bravery to call attention to injustice and unscrupulous practices that his legacy has been muddled with controversy, belittlement, and invisibility. He is proof that one need not be an official political leader to make change within a community. While he probably will not ever have his own statue, his story deserves more attention than it has been given and will hopefully be followed up with a more complete picture in future research endeavors.

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Chapter 12

Anthropology

In this paper, I will combine data from my field experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer with what little media coverage there was of the events of Spring 2008 in Cameroon to argue that the true sorcerers in the shadows were not Cameroonian politicians, but transnational forces related to Arjun Appadurai’s (1996) “scapes” model. However, these sorcerous forces do not influence social practice through “disjunctures”, as Appadurai theorized in 1996, but through overlap and convergence. At the same time as the past decades have witnessed examples of Appadurai’s (1996) “deterritorialization”, various forms of globalization have also led to the development of what I would call transterritorializations like the economic zones of exception Aihwa Ong (2006) studied in China and the Franco-Algerian political activists Paul Silverstein (2004) studied through the networks connecting Algeria and France. I argue for the retooling of Appadurai’s “scapes” model using the works of Ong and Silverstein to better understand such transnational convergences. To reflect this new perspective, I put forth a new type of scape: the transcape.

Like ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes, transcapes are, to quote Appadurai, “not objectively given relations that look the same from every angle of vision but, rather, … are deeply perspectival constructs, inflected by the historical, linguistic, and political situatedness of different sorts of actors” (Appadurai 1996). However, Appadurai’s five scapes emphasize “disjunctures” and “deterritorialization” (1996) as an explanation for what he describes as the “complexity of the current global economy” (1996) and “the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization” (1996). Appadurai sees in transnationalism “the loosening of the holds between people, wealth, and territories” (1996). In contrast, Ong sees the proliferation of what she terms “hybrid values and subjects” (Ong 2006). Silverstein positions transnationalism as “related to the nation-state in some intimate way, while itself being constituted in the nation-state’s limits” (Silverstein 2004). The emphasis in Ong and Silverstein is thus on convergence— on the formation of new holds between people, wealth, and territories, and on the reworking or adaptation of old holds to fit changing situations.

This is what I want to emphasize through the concept of transcape. It is not just another dimension of “global cultural flows” (Appadurai 1996), it is a new conception of the process of flowing itself. To better illustrate what I mean, I will use my concept of transcape to analyze the civil unrest and media silences in the spring of 2008 in Cameroon. But what do I mean by “civil unrest”? As with most protests that are accompanied by violence and looting, in Cameroon in 2008 it was not always easy to determine who the actors were in each event and whether there was overlap between the different types of actions and motivations. Were those looting downtown retail stores the same people who wanted to protest the increasing costs of living and the continued high unemployment? Did the striking taxi drivers burn down Douala’s main market? Rather than imply undetermined links between protestors and rioters, or imply judgments of methods and actions by categorizing them as either a “protest” or a “riot”, I will describe the spring 2008 events as “civil unrest”. I use this term to represent a spectrum of possible actions ranging from nonviolent to violent, as well as a spectrum of motivations. “Civil unrest” highlights the fact that the actors in the events of spring 2008 were overwhelmingly citizens of Cameroon and civilians rather than professionals in the military or the government, as well as the fact that these civilians chose actions outside of their normal routines to demonstrate their disagreement or frustration with policies the government had or was in the process of enacting.

The growing number of examples of such demonstrations of civilian discontent— like the events this year in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, and England, to name a few— underscore the importance of research focusing on not only the context surrounding civil unrest, but on the factors which help to shape it and on the ways in which the international community (be it nations or the media) reacts to it as well. To better explore these issues of what might be called transnational sorcery in the shadows in my case study of Cameroon, I have divided my paper into four parts. First, I will provide background on the history of Cameroon. Second, I will describe the main narrative of the civil unrest in 2008 framed by my own experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer living in Batouri in Cameroon’s East province while teaching English as a Foreign Language at the local technical high school (Lycée technique de Batouri). Then, I will tie these sections together using the work done by Appadurai (1996), Ong (2006), and Silverstein (2004) on transnationalism and globalization to argue that the Cameroonian President Paul Biya’s accusation of sorcery was not unfounded. It was just misdirected.