Before missionaries ever arrived in Winnebago land over 300 years ago, Winnebago native philosophers were fully aware of the existence of a spiritual struggle common to all people. They visualized this struggle as a struggle between the left arm of universal ideas, values, and principles and the right arm representing the forms a culture uses to satisfy universal needs.

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Unknown to secular academia, the apostle Paul described this struggle common to all as a “war” between the "law in our members” aka the law of universal needs and "law in the mind" aka universal ideas, values, and principles “written  on the heart” (Romans 5:15; 7:22-23).   This battle to satisfy the bodily needs of the body and a  life-way direct by “the Law written on heart” is described below as a battle between the left arm of Trickster battling with his right arm as how to skin a buffalo. 

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War between the Left Arm and Right 

 As Trickster walked along, suddenly, he came in sight of a knoll.  As he approached

it, he saw, to his surprise, an old buffalo near it.  'My, my, what a pity!  If I hadn't

thrown away that bundle of arrows, I would have been able to kill and eat this animal,'

he exclaimed.  

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Thereupon he took a knife, cut down the hay and fashioned it into figures of men. 

These he place in a circle, leaving an opening at one end.  The place was very muddy.  Having constructed this enclosure, he went back to where he had seen the buffalo

and shouted, 'O ho!

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My younger brother, here he is!  Here he is indeed eating without having anything

to worry about.  Indeed let nothing prey upon his mind!  I will keep watch for him

against intruders.'

 

Thus he spoke to the buffalo who was feeding to his hearts content.  Then he

continued, 'Listen younger brother, this place is completely surrounded by people! 

Over there, however, is an opening through which you might escape'! 

 

Just then the buffalo raised his head unsuspiciously and, to his surprise, he seemed

really to be completely surrounded by people.  Only at the place of Trickster had

designated did an opening appear.  In that direction, therefore, the buffalo ran.  Soon

he sank in the mire and Trickster was immediately upon him with his knife and killed

him.  Then he dragged him over to a cluster of trees and skinned him.  Throughout all

these operations he used his right arm only.

 

In the midst of these operations suddenly his left arm grabbed the buffalo.  'Give

that back to me, it is mine!  Stop that or I will cut you up to pieces, that is what I

will do to you,' continued his right arm.  Thereupon the left arm released its hold.

But, shortly after, the left arm again grabbed hold of the right arm.  This time it

grabbed hold of his wrist just at the moment that the right arm had commence to

skin the buffalo.  Again and again this was repeated.  

 

In this manner did Trickster make both his arms quarrel.  That quarrel soon turned into a vicious fight and the left arm was badly cut up.  'Oh, oh!  Why did I do this?  Why have I done this?  I have made myself suffer!'  The left arm indeed was bleeding profusely.Then he dressed the buffalo.  When he was finished he started off again. As  he walked along the birds would exclaim, 'Look, look!  There is Trickster!'  Thus they would cry and fly away.  'Ah, you naughty little birds'!  I wonder what they are saying?  This continued right along.  Every bird he met would call out, 'Look, look!  There is Trickster!  There he is [aimlessly] walking about!"  

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                                          Two Interpretations of the Struggle

The existential question the “outside” social scientists must ask is: Just what is the author of this story trying to tell his fellow tribesmen?  The story is not meaningless.  Is he attempting to explain to his fellow tribesmen that he has solved the riddle concerning how pre-humans became humans possessing ethical values as proposed by anthropologist Paul Radin, or, is he describing a universal spiritual condition common to all peoples described as a war between two arms, the left arm of innate positive universals and the right arm of learned cultural forms selected to satisfy the needs of the body. 

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For the Winnebago story teller there clearly exists two ways of doing things. These ways of existing are symbolized in the skinning of the buffalo.  Trickster's use of the right arm implies the use of forms which are harmful to society.  Through the use of satire the storyteller is informing his fellow tribesmen that these selected forms, forms which have been passed down from one generation to the next, are the source of disorder. 

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As a committed materialist, Radin’s evolutionary perspective does not permit such an interpretation. To interpret the story as satire portraying a spiritual war between a right way and wrong way of doing things would imply the existence of transcendent way of doing things "woven into very fabric of human existence.” 

 

For Radin, the story is about the mysterious evolutionary emergence of ethical values represented by the left hand. He writes:

"No ethical values exist for him.  And how does he kill and butcher the buffalo? 

With only one hand, his right. The next incident shows why only one hand has

been used.  He is still living in his unconscious, mentally a child, and this is here

symbolized by the struggle between his right and left hand in which the

left hand is badly cut up. He himself is hardly aware of why this has occurred."

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In contrast, there is the perspective of psychologist Karl Kerényi.  For Kerényi, the struggle between the right arm and left reflects that “disorder belongs to the totality of life, and the spirit of disorder in the trickster.”  Regardless of the society or culture, there exists within every cultural operating system particular forms that bring about a particular kind of disorder.

 

Out of a moral order there emerged disorder.  Understanding the problem, the apostle Paul informed the church at Rome that “everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Romans 3:23). The satirist would agree. The satirist would agree. The Winnebago had violated a transcendent standard. 

 

But for Paul Radin, no universal standard exists.  The story does not teach that mankind has a flaw, an existential “disorder belonging to the totality of life,”  rather, the butchering of the buffalo with the right hand represents an evolutionary explanation as to how sub-humans without ethical standards became ethical beings as symbolized by the emergence of the left hand. 

 

Radin assumes that Trickster initially was a one arm pre-human waiting for the left arm to emerge in order to become a human having ethical values.

 

Now the problem with Radin’s interpretation is this: How does impersonal amoral Nature give birth to a transcendent-self which knows right from wrong?  What biological process converted inert matter into a rational, thinking being having an immaterial soul?  Radin has no answer.

 

Finally, there is the interpretation of psychoanalyst Carl Jung who declared: ”All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes,” including the idea that there exists within all people universal forms which are not learned because they have been “woven into the fabric of or existence.” But whenever these universal froms are in fundamental oppositions to the forms selected to satisfy universal needs, such forms must be suppressed.

 

The actions of the left arm must be terminated and brought to and end.  Such ideas, values, and principles are described by Jung as being a  “shadow.”

 

The “shadow” archetype suggests there exists ideas, values, principles, and forms which are so unacceptable to Winnebago society that they must be suppressed lest they replace the forms selected to satisfy universal needs.  Whatever forms are selected to satisfy universal needs, the selection will demand the following:

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1. the rejection of the nuclear family as a positive universal.

2. a replacement of the covenantal “one-flesh” principle of husband-wife with the selection of a biological “one-flesh” principle.  I discovered that the biological selected by the Chácobo of Bolivia was that of mother-daughter and that of the Miccosukee of South Florida being sister-sister.

3. The construction of a new family type.

4. The replacement of the Biblical kinship with a classificatory system.

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“Because the shadow are so disagreeable to Trickster’s ego, it [ideas like the reality that the nuclear family is a  universal and that no cousin should be classified as a sibling] has to be repressed into the unconscious.”  The cultural operating system must be protected regardless of the consequences.

With the suppression of positive ideas, values, principles and universals forms,  Trickster is represented as a society aimlessly “walking about” exclaiming “Why have I made myself suffer”! 

 

Convictions

1. The Trickster myth of the left arm fighting the right illustrates man's continual struggle in life, that of getting the ideas, values, and principle of one’s cultural way of living to conform to the "law of the mind." This was the cry of the Psalmist who wrote, "Oh, that my actions would consistently elect your principles" (Ps. 119:5).

2. The Winnebago story teller is informing his hearers that life is a struggle between a life-way tethered an innate "law of the mind” represented by the left hand and a cultural life-way designed specifically to meet the needs of the body.  

3. Whenever a society tethers its life-way to cultural forms derived from SOCIAL EXISTENCE in a particular environment, the effects of such a tethering will be a loss of human freedom and an increase in disorder, envy, anxiety, and mental suffering. 

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