Ways and Means

But Wounded Knee had a ripple effect. It brought anti-Indian racism into the newspapers and prompted a measure of social change. Sixty-six-year-old Lorraine White Face, who lives on Pine Ridge, says: "Before Russell Means took over Wounded Knee, the stores in [nearby] Nebraska would have signs on them saying, 'No Indians Allowed.' You couldn't go to the movies or a cafe. After Wounded Knee, all that changed."

America's romance with Indians surged, and, in his defiance, Means seemed like a reincarnation of such Lakota legends as Sitting Bull, Rain in the Face, Gall and Crazy Horse. When Means went to court in the wake of the Wounded Knee mayhem, Marlon Brando and Harry Belafonte showed up, voicing support. (Means was found not guilty of burglary and larceny charges.)

Then, in 1976, Andy Warhol invited Means to New York to sit for a portrait. In Warhol's silk-screen, Means is fierce, staring straight out of the frame. He wears a white bone neck choker and what looks like a brown leather rawhide robe. An imaginative viewer can almost hear buffalo thundering away out on the Plains. But still in Warhol's silk-screen there is something fake and disquieting about Means's face. It's a mask-like splash of tan paint. The image is reminiscent of the cheap coloration in long-ago Sunday comics pages. The caption, Warhol seems to be telling us with a wink, could read, "Wild Indian, Authentic."

At our first interview, over breakfast, Means was surly from the get-go. Within five minutes of shaking my hand, he accosted me for my "[expletive] white racist arrogance. There's only one reason you people came to this continent," he said. "Greed! We Indians have our spirituality. We have our land, but Americans have no culture except greed."

I changed the subject, asking Means how many Lakota backed his independence claim. "That's not germane," he barked. "In all my years of international relations, not once has anybody ever questioned my sovereignty. Even if I am only speaking for myself and my brother, and I'm not, my sovereignty exists. It's spelled out in the treaties."

Eventually, I'd learn that Means has only six or eight active Lakota supporters scattered throughout North and South Dakota. Many other Lakota quietly share his contempt for the U.S. government; some even long for a return to the hallowed days of Lakota independence. And, while Means won 46 percent of the vote when he ran unsuccessfully for Pine Ridge tribal chair in 2004, he has not endeared himself with his desperado-style secession.

"I'm a little frustrated that he just went ahead and went to Washington," says Alex White Plume, a bison rancher who serves on the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council, which fights for Indians' land rights. "It's not like he came up with a brand-new idea. We've talked about separating from the U.S. at treaty council meetings. No traditional Lakota wants to be colonized, and actually I wanted to bring a group to Washington myself. But I wanted to bring thousands. Russell didn't build that kind of consensus. He never even sat down with our traditional elders."

"Russell didn't do the protocol," echoes Floyd Hand, also on the treaty council. "What I do is, I make people welcome at a meeting. I buy everybody some meat and vegetables and fry bread. Russell went solo."

AIM is more severe in its critique of Means. In a press release, it has called him "clownish" and has taken pains to note that Means has "resigned from the American Indian Movement at least six (6) times, the latest on January 8, 1988." No one from AIM would comment for this article.

But, for Means, the burned bridges behind him simply show that he's nobody's lackey. He's free, and freedom is his foremost priority. He calls his republic the "epitome of liberty," promising that, once it's up and running (and that could take decades, he says), it would issue its own licenses and passports as it allowed its citizens a tax-free existence. There would be no police and no jails. The economy would be based on wind power.

"We get enough wind in our country to power the entire United States 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he told me. "We've formed an LLC, legal under U.S. law, and we're going to join with large coal companies. We'll go to individual landowners, both Lakota and non-Lakota, and lease their land and put windmills on them. We have a business plan."

Means refused to share it, though. He was more interested in talking about Lakotah's government, which, he said, would be matriarchal. "A lot of people think that just means that women run everything, but that isn't right," said Means, who is, technically speaking, the chief facilitator for Lakotah's provisional government. "Matriarchy is where you celebrate the strengths of each sex. Both men and women know their roles. People get along."