I enjoy reading about the American Indians. They were once a brave, proud race who inhabited our continent. We managed to dispose of them pretty effectively. Hitler admired us for our method of genocide. The Anglo-American settlers killed most of them by the diseases they brought to the new world. The Indians had no immunity to any of our usual childhood disease and a case of measles was usually fatal. Smallpox was a big killer. Those who didn’t perish from disease were put to the sword or rounded up and placed on the worthless land of desert reservations where they became alcoholics.

We go to Santa Fe, New Mexico each summer and there you can see some of the remnants of these original Americans. They are sitting around the Plaza and Governors Palace selling their jewelry. Most are old and toothless. When my young granddaughter first saw them she was very disappointed. She had expected what we see in the movies. She expected young warriors, armed with bows and arrows, with face paint and feathered headdresses.

One of the Indian stories I like is about Kutoyis. This was an Indian brave, of the Blackfoot tribe, who was supposedly born from a drop of blood. Kutoyis traveled about from one village to another freeing those who were treated unjustly. It’s too bad the Blackfoot didn’t share him with the other tribes as a consultant.

My son and I were talking this week about the problem with the Indians. I think a major problem is that they promoted from within and there was too much inbreeding within their organization. If they would have acted like Americans businesses they might have survived. Rather that promoting a hard working young brave, with a belt full of scalps, to chief; they should have hired a chief from another tribe. Geronimo, of the Apaches, could have been replaced with Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota. The Sioux could have obtained a top brave from the Comanche’s as their chief. It really didn’t matter if Sitting Bull defeated Custer, he should have been replaced to ensure the continued success of the Sioux by giving them a new mission and vision. I guess the Indians didn’t have the means to pay the high salaries of chiefs recruited from the outside. There simply weren’t enough buffalo to pay them what they were worth. No American business promotes from within. The new CEO always comes from the outside. The new CEO then comes in and fires everyone on the executive staff or those in a leadership position and replaces them with his own team. The Indians should have used this business method; maybe they would be around rather than selling their jewelry in Santa Fe or laying around sot drunk on the reservation.

Even though the Indians didn’t succeed it’s fun to read about them as I sit in the porch and imagine some of their exploits in my mind. I think it would have been more fun being an Indian chief rather than the CEO of a big company like Exxon. The Indian chief was willing to die and suffer with his people. I don’t think the average CEO would be willing to do that. At least I would be able to go to the happy hunting ground with a clear conscience.