By ROBERT JUMPER
One Feather Editor
“The term ‘grapevine telegraph’ was first published in an 1852 American dictionary to refer to the wires of a telegraph that appeared to be the coiled tendrils of a grapevine. In California, the wires were actually hung on trees, which strengthened its visual similarity. There is a reference to this as early as 1876 in The Reno Evening Gazette: ‘It would seem that the Indians have some mysterious means of conveying the news, like the famous grapevine telegraph of the negroes in the (American Civil) War.’ The term’s popularity increased tenfold during the American Civil War a decade later, and people started referring to ‘hearing things through the grapevine’ to express their uncertainty at the verity of a story that had been passed through the telegraph lines. Grapevines also carry the connotation of rural poverty, and could thus indicate mouth-to-mouth gossip between people who couldn’t afford more sophisticated technology.” (writingexplained.org)
First, I apologize for the earworm I just planted in your head. If, like me, you are a fan of both Gladys Knight and the Pips or Marvin Gaye, the song “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” will be bouncing around in your head for at least another few hours after reading this piece.
We, our community, love our grapevine. Some of us call it the Indian News Network. A few have devoted social media pages to communicating the “news” to a select group of friends. Someone secures a little nugget of fact and begins to build a story around it, then shares both the fact and the created story with anyone who will listen. Speaking in confidence doesn’t seem to have a realistic place in modern society.
When someone walks up to you and says, “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but…”, you have to wonder how many people before the one who is speaking to you said that before sharing supposedly “secret” information. There have even been Tribal Council members who admitted on-air that closed sessions didn’t seem logical because, within an hour of a closed meeting adjourning, some community members knew what went on in the meeting.
Grapevine information, or gossip, is an attractive form of communication, partly because we like to be in the know on clandestine activities, partly because we buy into the “knowledge is power” theory (although personally I like the “ignorance is bliss” theory better), and partly because in makes us feel included.
“Some people gossip to seek revenge. People who do not like a person will typically seek out other people who share a mutual dislike for the same person. Subsequent conversations center on negative evaluations of that person. The dislike for the target of the gossip is validated and justifies hurtful behavior. However, most people gossip because gossiping is enjoyable for the sense of power it gives them. Talking about other people gives an individual a sense of relief because he or she is not experiencing the same calamities. People also like to gossip because it gives them a sense that they possess secret information about another person, which gives them a sense of power. People want to be seen as being in the know when it comes to the latest gossip about others. If knowledge is power, gossip is turbocharged power. In order to display their power and reinforce their egos, people must share the information with other individuals. Gossiping comes naturally and most of the time occurs almost unconsciously to break up the monotony of routine activities or simply to spice up conversations. Social media is an ideal platform for gossip. Comments are posted anonymously about an individual. Gossip on social media tends to be more harmful because the negative information has a wide audience and remains visible for a long time.” (psychologytoday.com)
Back in the day, and maybe still today, in the mountains and on the Qualla Boundary, some areas just don’t get modern technology. And before the days of electronic encryption, many of our grandmas and grandpas would get vital community information via a scanner. Now, most young people’s understanding of what a “scanner” is might be limited to what happens in a Walmart self-checkout line, where you hold the item’s barcode up to a glass portal and it adds the item to your bill. But these scanners, many people call them “police scanners”, receive frequencies from the radios of emergency service and utility personnel. If you have listened to a police scanner, communication tends to be short and sweet. As Joe Friday used to say on Dragnet “Just the facts.” And remember, gossip typically starts with a little fact or facts surrounded by supposition. So, the ingredients for grapevine gossip have been around for a good bit on the Boundary.
There is a governmental push to relegate much of the public information that we now receive, which primarily comes from the open sessions of the Tribal Council, to be put behind a security portal. This move is being touted as a way to provide tribal members with a way to get information, yet not share it with the “outside world”. And as I have said in the past, I totally get why we must hold our cards close to our vests regarding some information. It would be difficult to negotiate land and business agreements on the scale that our government does if they shared our financial position. The issue with withholding information is not having a standard by which to determine what information needs to be proprietary.
Most recently, the standard was any proposed law that mentioned a dollar amount was required to be discussed in a closed session, which meant over half of the session was spent out of the view of the public and the community. That included resolutions for grant applications for as little as $20,000. The proposed portal would answer some of the questions about access but creates another challenge for tribal members and tribal media. For those receiving information, there now seem to be three categories of information: public, tribal, and confidential. What do you and I do with the information we get from the portal? Are we limited to discussing it with other tribal members, or do we discuss it at all? It is not our tradition to hold our tongues. We are storytellers.
In the absence of facts or even limited information, we fill in the blanks. So much of what we hear daily is conjecture, opinion, and speculation. For the One Feather’s part, we do our best to keep opinion out of reporting and only provide factual information so that you, the reader, can make clearly informed decisions about what you read and see. Not all media and purveyors of information on the internet do this. In fact, if they cannot get a solid piece of information, they will conduct “man on the street interviews” and use those as legitimate news. Don’t get me wrong, opinions of our community members are important, but they should not be represented or published as facts without verification.
A tribal portal is an excellent step forward. Along with it there will have to be guidance as to how to treat information pulled from the portal by the community. In addition, the Tribe needs to strengthen its commitment to public information with a dedicated public information office and clear guidelines for what and how information is released to the tribal membership and general public. The grapevine, gossip, and Indian News Network are great for their entertainment value, but our people need a safe place they may go for factual information for the health of our community.
