PETER COYOTE

Heyoka Magazine: Early on in your book sleeping where I fall. you say "Acting was a way to excel at something that existed outside the construct of winning and losing. it demanded much and was unforgiving of failure, but it was great fun - and best of all my victories caused no one else great pain. in fact the reverse was true. Audiences want people to succeed on stage. They get nervous if they see lapses of confidence in a performer. When I recognized this fact, it unleashed large amounts of previously conflicted energy in a  very constructive manner".   

Peter Coyote: Even as a boy, there was something about competing and forcing other people to lose that troubled me. I hated losing and was often humiliated in athletic contests by my father. If "winning" made someone else feel as badly as I did I wanted no part of it. I took a deep vow "not to play" and didn't realize at the time that I was banishing myself from the world of men, for whom contests and play are a large part of life. I was drawn to solo pursuits, spent much time in the woods trapping and hunting; became a crack shot and a good tracker, things that I could do on my own. 
 

HM: Where these conflicting energies primarily around success and failure and what else would you say were some of your biggest acting lessons in the early days? 

Peter Coyote: I think that more than success or failure they revolved around issues of humiliation; beating someone else down which seemed "extra" and besides the point of victory. They were all tangled up in my mind as a kid, and the only way I knew to get out of the briar-patch was to side-step the whole issue. These things had nothing to do with acting really.

My earliest acting lessons were observing my family---parents and grandparents. My father and his people were larger-than-life, powerful and dangerous people. I remember vividly sitting at the table and listening to the tales and exploits, the recounting of fights and struggles. (My grandfather killed his horse with a hammer for biting him. Get the picture?) There were also times when I could see the difference between the way they behaved and the way they actually felt. That was the big door that opened for me; demonstrated that there is a life behind the life we all participate in and I wanted to understand that life. 

Sleeping Where I Fall: A Chronicle

HM: You mention your friend Peter Bergs description of a theater breaking the glass. "the convention of theater sitting in an audience, watching a play was like the convention of being a  member of society watching television.... if you broke the glass people would stream through to the other side of the stage and become life actors"
 
This brings to mind Antonin Artauds theater of cruelty. Where he defined the goal of the theater in spiritual terms. Its "sacred" goal, he claimed, is to communicate delirium whereby the spectators will experience trances and inspiration.

Peter Coyote: We actually read and liked Artaud, but it's also true a) that he was crazy and b) that there was nothing about his writing that you could actually do. It was very poetic and evocative, but that's about it.4. Did any of these breaking the glass performances and the breaking down of boundaries between actor and audience incite any  kinds of unusual or unexpected reactions from the audience, etc

We had many incidents where large social events were incited just by standing on a street corner and singing. Several times, Haight Street was blocked off and taken over by the community just deciding to party after several of us began to sing and claim the public space as our own. Also many times soldiers came into the Free Store and left their uniforms on the rack and disappeared into the streets in clothes they got there. Many people "got" the idea of Free Food and the Free Frame of Reference and changed their lives quite radically. I'd say it worked really well.
 

HM: How much did the commedia dell' arte impact your acting style or your later film or theater work?

Peter Coyote: Commedia d'el arte is very very freeing. Everything is done with the entire body because it must be "seen" outdoors, even if you can't hear. An actor learns that he still has to be "full" inside; has to be working off very specific images in his mind to complement what he's doing. It's where I learned to take the greatest risks, and experiment. Conventional stage work and film work scales it down, but you're still using the basic elements of body, speech, and mind.

HM: Mongolia and that part of the world has a tremendously rich history and culture of shamanism. Since your father was born there, is this one of the reasons for your interest in indigenous culture and shamanism or did this stem from something else?

Peter Coyote:  Actually my grandfather was an Uzbek, one of the tribal people from that region, but he was definitely Mongolian. My grandmother tells me that when my father was born he had a blue birthmark on his back, which is a sign of the Mongolian race. He also had jet black hair and epicanthial folds on his eyes. Still, I can't say that this influenced me very much in my interest in shamanism and indigenous cultures. It was more that I was living on this continent and didn't know anything about it.

The people who lived here for  thousands  of years had a huge, encyclopedic understanding of this place and great intimacy with it. I wanted to learn that and pass that on to my children; to change from being occupiers to real inhabitants of Turtle Island. As I began to study, I learned that all indigenous people had the same relationship to their land and that their entire culture was evolved around trying to protect it. I got deeper and deeper into it and realized that the Shaman, aside from his curing of specific illness, was really the one who kept the human and natural worlds in balance. I guess I got hooked and never saw a reason to stop studying and thinking about this.

In the early Seventies I spent some time with David Monongye, a Hopi Snake Priest. He kept me up for days, teaching me the Hopi Legends and prophesies; was extremely kind. I had gone to see him as a kind of pilgrimage, despite the fact that people had told me that no "white" men could stay overnight at Hotevilla. I guess I convinced him that I was not "white", but a human being, because he moved me into his house and guest room (with my beloved Coyote-dog, Josephine) and we would talk every day. At the end of some weeks I realized that I would never be taught the deepest knowledge of the Hopi people because I was not a Hopi. I had no one to bring me into the Kiva, or one of the clans. Shortly later, I began the study of Buddhism because it was a world religion and I knew they had to take me. I think at root, all religions and spiritual practices are based on a common transcendental insight. I figured I'd just have to get there through the back door, but I remain extremely grateful and close to the Hopi people for that teaching.  Some years ago, at an Indian show, I saw a blanket that I knew should not be there because it was sacred. I bought it, wrapped it with Cedar and stored it for almost fifteen years until I found the right person and returned it to the tribe.  I try to go to the Bean Dance every year in the Winter and watch the beginning of the Kachina cycle. This last year, I was invited to stay in the Coyote clan house. A big honor for me.

 

HM: In your book you also talk about when you met Shoshone medicine man Rolling Thunder and how you came up with your name. Did he have any other kind of an influence over your work?

Peter Coyote: RT was a complex and interesting man. Half carnival-barker and half real-thing medecine man. I saw lots of amazing things with him. He was an influence on me, and initiated me into some mysteries in the world that I would never have encountered had I not met him. 
 
HM: Did you ever experience Rolling Thunder heal anyone and if so what was this experience like?

Peter Coyote: I saw RT do a number of 'cures'. I lived with a fellow on a commune named Kevin who was bat-shit crazy. He'd nail himself into his room, shit in newspapers and throw them out the window. Take food through a hole cut in the door. At night, he'd come out and wander around with an axe, calling me "Dr. Death" and standing outside my door. Everyone wanted to get rid of him, but I knew he had no where to go and fought it. Then fires began breaking out spontaneously here and there---on the roofs of buildings while Kevin was present. We called RT who came and did a 'sucking cure' on Kevin's back. Damn near filled a one pound coffee can with some green muck. Kevin slept all day and when he woke he was totally normal. I ran into him some years later at a Zen monastery in Hawaii and we meditated together for seven days. He was a bit 'loopy', but that was Kevin. Otherwise he was completely sane.

Another time, I was really, really sick with hepatitis. (I'd been doing a lot of IV drugs.) I couldn't walk. RT came to see me, and as soon as he entered my room he said, "There's a rattlesnake in here."  I said "no" there wasn't but he insisted. Suddenly I remembered my hat, hanging in the closet. When I'd been camped in the desert, I'd killed and eaten a rattlesnake and made a hat band of the skin. I sent him to the closet and he pulled it out. He grabbed my arm and pointed to my puncture wounds and said, "That's where the snake bit you." I had to take the band over the hat, pray on it, offer tobacco and such and drink a tea called Bitterroot that made me sweat like a pig, but two weeks later I was up and about.

HM: What are your thoughts on the incarceration of Leonard Peltier?

Peter Coyote: I've been a friend of Leonard's since the Sixties when he traveled through here as a bodyguard for another friend of mine named Robert Free. I helped them with ID and raising money for guns for wounded knee. I knew him then by the name Alec. Years later, when I read about his case, I sent him some commissary money for tobacco and stuff and got a letter back from him. He remembered me and my Coyote dog and admitted that Alec was really Leonard. We've been close ever since and along with Peter Mathiessen I remain one of two non-native advisors to Leonard.

His incarceration is a travesty of justice. I went to Washington to try and free him, visited the Senate, helped get people into Clinton. Unfortunately, some of Leonard's supporters make more trouble than they help. During the clemency hearings for instance, I begged the Defense fund to keep a low profile. I told them, we are adressing an "audience of one" - the President. Now public forums will help us and will only alert the FBI.  I can understand why they didn't trust or listen to me perhaps, but Jennifer Harbury and the Defense Committee began holding public vigils in Washington and they were counter-productive. Every Senate or Congressional office I visited had been visited just before me by the FBI carrying pictures of the dead agents, and I got nowhere.

We did manage to convince Clinton's lawyer of Peltier's case and he told us to "write the speech" for the President. However, word came to me that Tom Dashiell went to the President and told him that they were having a very tough race in South Dakota and that if pardoned Peltier that they'd have a Republican Senator. I've never been able to confirm that, but needless to say, Leonard's still in Jail.

In 96 I was a delegate at the Democratic Convention, a 'special delegate." They wanted celebrities there because they would attract media. I came on the understanding that they would introduce me to high-level Justice Department people, and they did, a deputy. I briefed him on the Peltier case. He called me back three days later and I'll never forget what he said to me:

"Mr. Coyote, when you first spoke to me I thought you were some kind of wild-eyed radical. I've tracked down everything that you said to me and I'm embarrassed to admit that everything you told me is true. All I'm at liberty to say is that there are some very powerful people in Washington that don't want Mr. Peltier released."

I said to him, "Could his initials be W.W.?" (thinking of William Webster, ex head of the FBI) and he said, "You said that, I didn't."

HM: Since Marlon Brando the Native Americans have not had too many supporters or spokespeople in terms of white celebrities speaking out on various issues.. Do you think this Native American cause is much more complex or difficult than some others. Do you think there some kind of a taboo in this country surrounding  these matters?

Peter Coyote: I' m afraid that most white Americans (I'm not 'white' by the way. 'white' is a state-of-entitled-mind that I don't share. I'm Caucasian, but in my state-of-mind, I'm a human being.) think that Native issues are old history. They don't understand the genocidal roots of all the wealth that they participate in today. Consequently, they bear no responsibility for it. By the same token, most Americans are struggling under a very repressive economic system that keeps them running to catch up. They don't have time to study these issues.

HM: What are your thoughts on the desecration of Geronimo's remains and why do you think his remains have not been returned yet? 

Peter Coyote: I'm afraid that I don't know the whole story about Geronimo's remains. My feeling is that is the Passamaquoddy or one of the wealthy gaming tribes were to contact their representatives and insist, that something would happen quite quickly. Geronimo's bones should be in purified by his people, and handled traditionally as far as I am concerned.

 

HM: Do you ever believe the Fort Laramie Treaty will ever be respected and upheld by our government and have you heard anything about the environmental situation in South Dakota?

Peter Coyote: On the face of it, the Fort Laramie Treaty appeared to be an honorable settlement with a sovereign nation. The United States pledged its "honor" to uphold it. Obviously they have defaulted, which gives a pretty clear idea of the degree to which the US Government values its honor. I think that the uranium mining and waste issues in the Black Hills Country, is like the water extraction and coal extraction in the Four Corners areas: an attempt to turn those regions, those sacred lands into National Sacrifice Areas for the benefit of ignorant urban people. Uranium is a blight on the planet. It kills all replicating cells and should not be above ground. The only possible good is that the risks are so enormous that this is an issue on which European immigrants and Native people might coalesce and form a real power base to stop it.

 

Photo Copyright 2000 by Mark Hollabaugh, all rights reserved

HM: Why kind of impact do you think the hippy culture still has on our culture today and do you think that sort of thing could ever happen again? 

Peter Coyote: If you think about it, all the political agendas of the Sixties failed: we didn't end racism, capitalism, imperialism, etc. but all the cultural agendas succeeded. There is no where in the country today where you cannot find:

organic food

alternative spiritual practices

alternative medical practices

environmental groups

peace groups

women's groups....for instance. I think these cultural events have permeated the culture very deeply and will have long term effects. The problem is that they take time and we don't see the changes very rapidly. Just think about food though. Once people begin to question their food and its purity and decide that they want food without chemicals, it sets in motion a chain of events that begins to cut away at the foundations of agro-industrial farming. That's HUGE. The counter-culture (I don't use the word "hippie"--it was a word coined by our enemies) is aligned with the forces of nature. In the end, that's the most powerful force there is, and the one I'm sticking with.

 

HM: In an article you write entitled, Celebrity Nation -  Why do we dismiss the opinions of stars when we hang on their every move?
 
You state "When you hear a good actor speaking out, remember that you are listening to a person who has won the limelight in the most venal, competitive, throat-cutting mud-wrestle outside of Hussein's regime. This person did not get to the top and stay there by being stupid, careless or indiscriminate in his or her observations and strategies"
 
Do you think speaking out on social issues is more a thing of the past and how would you compare celebrities speaking out these days as opposed to the 60s?

Peter Coyote: I made that remark in response to the way that media tries to silence actors when they get 'political.' There are entire industries set up to capitalize on every aspect of a celebrity's life: where they shop; where they eat; who they screw; what detox they're in---everything but what they think. I was trying to lay the claim that people who are successful in this industry are not lightweights and have as much credibility to demand attention and respect as a captain of industry for instance. 

As far as celebrities speaking today or yesterday, I think that conscience is timeless. A 'celebrity' is just a pipeline to a little media attention. If they know what they're talking about, it's a good thing. If they don't....  I'm not sure it's a great idea for celebrities to be spokespeople. Perhaps what we should do is always make it a point to appear with a real expert on the issue, say a few words thanking the people for coming and then turn the floor over to them.

HM: What do you believe is one of the biggest problems this country faces today?

Peter Coyote: Greed and lack of shame.

www.petercoyote.com