Conceptions of Humor: Lakota (Sioux), Koestlerian, and Computational

The Lakota (Sioux) sacred clowns (heyoka) of traditional religious practice offer a glimpse of the clown phenomenon found in many of the world's indigenous traditions. By illustrating the unified Lakota and Western conceptions of humor, the logic of how particular entities of the natural environment are understood as relatives according to Lakota thought is brought to light in hopes of introducing the idea that such insights were not only statements or observations about the external, physical world, but also about the internal or mental world. Introduction and Prefatory Remarks Any investigation into any non-Western social paradigm (or "culture") will be fraught with difficulties if the investigator is too hasty by immediately "fragmenting" the body of knowledge held under scrutiny according to his or her own intellectual tradition's dicta (Battiste & Youngblood Henderson 2000; Deloria Jr. 1979; Gayton this volume). It is part of this author's intention to attempt to understand and convey one related sliver of a particular tradition of the Plains. It should be understood that this glimpse is vastly incomplete and truly lies within a much broader context and network of Lakota thought. A result of this tendency, relegating or equating a specific population's thought to the category of religion is not accurate if the tradition under scrutiny does not separate the two. Moreover, it would be erroneous to claim that the following investigation probes "religion", rather, if anything, it is an examination of a portion of a culture as it is a way in which a people view a number of phenomena (hence "thought"). The Lakota (Sioux) tradition does not, nor does their lexicon reflect such a qualitative distinction between "religion", "thought", or "social paradigm". Take, for instance, the observation that the nature of the experience of humor (i.e. laughter) resembles lightning is not a "religious" observation, per se. Rather, it is and can be understood in a completely secular manner. In one sense,