Rhino Katrina Rebuilding Fund

Gary Rhine, 6/26/51-1/9/06

In Memory of long time Plenty volunteer, benefactor, and award winning Native American documentary film maker, Gary Rhine (AKA "Red Rhino") Plenty has established the Rhino Katrina Rebuilding Fund. Donations to this fund will be used to help the indigenous peoples of the Bayou region southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana who were battered and flooded by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. These include the United Houma Nation, Pointe-au-Chien Tribe, Isle a Jean Charles Band of Biloxi Chitimacha, Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of the Biloxi Chitimacha, and the Bayou Lafourche Band of the Biloxi Chitimacha.

Native American author and former Plenty Board Member, Jose Barreiro, wrote the following In Memoriam:

In memoriam - Gary Sherwood Rhine -- the Great Rhino
Hundreds of family members and friends of Gary Sherwood Rhine gathered in San Francisco January 15th and 16th to honor the life and contributions of a generous and talented man who dedicated his life to friendship and partnership with Indian peoples and Indian causes. Gary died January 9th in a single-engine plane crash in Lancaster, California. He was 54.

Many memories poured forth for the great "Rhino" in San Francisco and certainly -- from the growing publishing record on his untimely and tragic passing -- in many other places as well. Quietly, progressively throughout twenty-five years, this wonderfully gifted man was there for many people, families and on behalf of major and important issues. Our most sincere and heartfelt condolences are extended to family and friends of this fruitful and creative individual whose path through life touched the Four Winds.

The sentiments and memories shared by those gathered in San Francisco provide the beginning of a narrative on a life of many merits. At the funeral service a close friend, in recalling the high human quality being celebrated, embraced his Gary's full circle of friends, whom, he said, now come to him "pre-screened" by Rhino's own integrity. At a memorial hosted by the Intertribal Friendship House, CEO Helen Waukazoo, expressed that "the Bay Area Indian Community will always be grateful for his generosity and selflessness." She offered the prayers of the Indian community for Gary's wife Irene, his mother Sherlee, his children Leah, Emmy, Odessa, Casey and David, his sister Gail, brother Michael and all the others who loved and will miss him." Hana Brown, HoChunk, spoke of meeting Rhino through Reuben Snake, when Rhino produced a crucial documentary that helped turn the tide in the struggle by the Native American Church of North America to preserve the right to use their sacred sacrament. And, Martin Waukazoo, Lakota, expressed that "Gary was a gift to our community. He persisted in helping. He was a rare individual of genuine concern. He recognized the importance of recovering spirituality. He walked that good Red Road in a good way. Rhino was an Indian."

Also at the Friendship House, prayers were formally offered in a cleansing ceremony by Lakota Spiritual Leader, Richard Moves Camp. The next day, in a service held at Congregational Beth Israel-Judea in San Francisco, Tom Cook (Mohawk) and wife Loretta Afraid of Bear Cook (Lakota), were requested to assist in offering prayers and another cleansing burn to the Four Directions. A strong representation of Native people, including film prominents, Benjamin and Peter Bratt, NARF attorney Walter Echohawk, Cante Pierce, Katsi Cook, Grandmother Beatrice Weasel Bear, among others, joined the family and hundreds of friends in mourning and celebration.

If a man's life is a record of his deeds, the full recounting of the deeds of Gary Rhine will take more than one volume. He was a big man, with many interests and skills, mostly known for the past decade as a superb and award-winning documentary maker. The record of that particular career -- just one in the chronicle suggested by his well-lived life -- will endure the test of time and these will come to be seen as magnificent pieces produced by an individual who consistently married his craft and art to the elevation of Indian community voices to emerge into the discourse. This valuable and fresh approach, one that spoke to the Indian community consciousness directly, resonated with audiences. Gary's love of truth and justice shines through each and every one of the productions, many of them in partnership with Native producers, whom he always mentored wisely.

Rhine's first film, "Wiping the Tears of Seven Generations," 1992, was directed at helping bring peace and harmony among various sides in the tumultuous legacy of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre. Rhine filmed the 100th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Ride, a ceremonial pilgrimage by young and old Lakotas that retraced the route of Chief Big Foot's Band, massacred in 1890. It was well-reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, which called it, "moving" and "an effective consciousness-raiser." This was followed in 1994 by "The Peyote Road," a hugely useful documentary that told the Indian point of view of the use of the Peyote sacrament. Attorney James Botsford, who assisted the late Winnebago leader, Reuben Snake, in taking the Peyote case to court and congress, recalled in San Francisco how the well-respected Snake recruited him and Rhine, among others, into the successful campaign. "Once I met Rhino and his writer, Phil Cousineau, I knew we had won," he said. From his experiences with Reuben Snake in the Peyote issue, Rhine produced one of the finest ever profiles of Indian leadership with his documentary on Reuben, called "Your Faithful Serpent." The death of elders from diabetes propelled Rhine to produce next the highly acclaimed and useful, "Red Road to Sobriety" (1995), which again, allowed the Indian people, in this case those challenging the deadly cycle of alcoholism, to speak for themselves. "Rezz Robics for Indian Couch Potatoes" is another gem of well-meant usefulness. His most recent documentary and book, "A Seat at the Table: Struggling for American Indian Religious Freedom," is on the protection of traditional indigenous spirituality and languages.

Gary Sherwood Rhine, a fifth-generation San Franciscan, left the University of Oregon in 1970 to join a caravan of several hundred hippies in Tennessee, where he lived for 13 years. "The Farm" in Tennessee became a high-service community, which allied with Native causes naturally. Under the banner of Plenty USA, the too-easily dismissed "hippies" organized volunteer efforts in relief and reconstruction and later development projects with Native people from Pine Ridge to Guatemala. Rhine was often point man in these relations, always making things possible. The Farm's signal service of health and midwifery training was enjoined in the mid-1970s by women crews from the Haudenosaune communities in New York State, particularly Akwesasne and Onondaga. Rhino and his family were among the leaders in receiving, hosting and helping to train Native midwives from traditional peoples. With Rhino's participation, the Farm provided the medical back up for the Longest Walk events of 1978, and as early as 1981, Rhino played a central role in developing and training an EMT and ambulance service for the Akwesasne Mohawk community. As one speaker said, "There are a lot of Mohawk people alive today because of Gary Rhine."

Mohawk midwife Katsi Cook, who trained in Rhine's health clinic, sang an honor song for "brother Rhino," and recalled his firm yet gentle ways of training. "With his humor and his love, he was the perfect connector, always relating people to one another."

Gary Rhine "Rhino" was a big-hearted visionary whose deeds will be retold. But as Botsford and others pointed out, it was Rhino's humor that most characterized his relations with all people. His wife Irene Romero-Rhine, a pillar of poise, comforted the congregated, "Gary always walked his talk. And he told a mean joke."

Most recently, his dedication to blogging gave the Rhino ample opportunity to share his humor. Here is a vintage Rhino "Insight" (from his last formal blog, Late December, 2005):

"According to the Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring. Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a female.

"We should have known. Only women, while pregnant, would be able to drag a fat man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night, not get lost, meet an impossible deadline, and do it all out of good will."

In the best expression of his family, "Although Mother Earth claimed him before we were ready to let go, we had him in our midst if only for a while, for those of us who knew and loved him, we are truly grateful."

Visit http://www.dreamcatchers.org and http://www.kifaru.com to see more about Gary's work.