Printed without Permission from Rocky Mountain News
Wednesday August 25, 1993
Column by Peter Blake
Tribal rituals involving an eagle feather and body paint helped rescue
Ben Nighthorse Campbell's faltering Senate campaign last fall.
So says forthcoming biography and Campbell agrees.
The Democratic congressman had frittered away a big lead in the polls
and with less than a month to go, Republican rival Terry Considine had
pulled into a dead heat.
Word of Campbell's discouragement soon reached fellow members of the
Northern Cheyenne tribe, writes biographer Herman J. Viola.
"Immediately the various warrior and religious societies of the tribe
began praying for him and holding sweats on his behalf. It was obvious
to them that some sort of evil was surrounding Campbell and that he
should take certain precautions to protect himself and save his campaign."
Johnny Russell, a Vietnam veteran active in the Chief's Society, called
Campbell and told him to start carrying the tuft of an eagle feather
in his pocket and to daub a special paint on his body.
Russell even faxed him a diagram showing where the paint should go: a
dot on each palm, another above the heart and a fourth on the top of
his head.
When Campbell said he didn't have the proper paint, Russell sent some by
express mail.
The candidate then asked his wife Linda, who isn't a tribal member, whether
he should proceed. "Why not?" she replied. "What have you got to lose?"
"I did everything just as they told me," Campbell told Viola. "I know
most people will find all this hard to believe, but I have to admit
that almost immediately things got better, and my standing in the polls
began to climb. By the night of the election we had reversed the skid
and were even pulling away from Considine."
Campbell said Tuesday there was one more ritual, "smoking," that Viola
doesn't include in his book, which will be out in the fall.
Smoking doesn't seem to involve inhaling, however. "You burn sweet
grass or cedar berries that they sent me, and you brush the smoke
over you," Campbell said. The ritual is designed to provide protection
and spiritual strength.
Campbell has never publicly disussed these practices and worries how
they will sound. "To an average guy, that's paganism, " he said.
Paganism or shamanism, it worked for him. "If you're in any kind of
trouble and under a lot of stress, you may go into a church by yourself,"
he said. "Basically that's what I was doing."
Not that Campbell, who was raised in a Catholic orphanage, doesn't
pray in church, too. When he was thinking about running for the
Senate in 1990, against Hank Brown, "I spent all night in a Catholic
church in Washington, by myself. I asked the priest if he'd open it
up, and he did."
The result? "I decided not to do it."
Did he continue carrying the feather and painting on the dots
after the election?
"No, I didn't," he admitted, "but maybe I should have during the last
tax package."
Viola, who's written several other books about Native Americans, did
extensive research on Campbell's ancestors an turned up lots of
information that was new even to the senator.
"I didn't know my grandmother was murdered on the streets of Pagosa
Springs," he said.
Fortunata Campbell was gunned down by a jealous lover who got 10
years for second-degree murder.
Then there was his great-grandfather, Black Horse, who participated in
the Battle of Little Bighorn and ended up being pursued for months by
the U.S. cavalry. "He was a rough bastard," Campbell said with pride.
"He axed a bunch of people before he got shot down himself."
The book is respectful but not puff piece. Viola makes it clear that
Ben Campbell is no saint.