Wasi'chu: The Continuing Indian Wars Bruce Johansen Author

The first people who lived on the northern plains of what today is the US called themselves Lakota, meaning the people, a word which provides the semantic basis for Dakota. The first European people to meet the Lakota called them Sioux, a contraction... Read more

The first people who lived on the northern plains of what today is the US called themselves Lakota, meaning the people, a word which provides the semantic basis for Dakota. The first European people to meet the Lakota called them Sioux, a contraction of Nadowessioux, a now-archaic French-Canadian word meaning snake, or enemy.The Lakota also used a metaphor to describe the newcomers. It was Wasi'chu, which means takes the fat, or greedy person. Within the modern Indian movement, wasi'chu has come to mean those corporations and individuals, with their governmental accomplices, that continue to covet Indian lives, land, and resources for private profit. Wasi'chu does not describe a race; it describes a state of mind.This book is about resistance to that state of mind and to the economic system that rewards it.  Less