Boulder, Colo.

A week ago, at the conference of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT) meeting at the Morongo Casino Resort, the evening banquet opened with a ceremony that begins most formal Indian gatherings. Several Indian men, often military veterans, march in with flags and place them on the stage. The American flag leads the procession. Last week, the Ute Mountain Ute Indian leader Ernest House carried in the Star-Spangled Banner, and then stood and faced it, as if reunited with a treasured comrade. After the others had left the stage, he gave the flag an intense salute and parted from its company.

Non-Indians familiar with the history of the invasion and conquest of North America might be puzzled or even troubled by this ceremony. No residents of this country have better reasons for anger at the imperial powers of this nation than do Indian people; no American citizens have a better-grounded historical reason to put the American flag at the end of the procession, or to refuse to carry it.

And yet, most native people are loyal and committed patriots. The American flag appears at ceremonies and rituals; stars and stripes are woven into beadwork and incorporated into powwow clothing.

Indian people, in other words, are complicated human beings, despite centuries of efforts to reduce them to narrow and simple stereotypes.

Patriotism is one element of that complexity. As a younger, more skeptical person, I might have mustered a patronizing sense that Indians serving in the military were a co-opted and exploited group. Now, guided by respect and consideration for their choices and privileged to watch veterans salute their flag, I have put aside the skepticism.

I take my bearings from the reality that these are people with an extraordinary knowledge of both the promise and the tragedy of this nation. "When I was about 30 years old," A. David Lester, director of CERT and a Muscogee Creek Indian, remembers, "the Blackfeet Indian leader Earl Old Person told me, 'One of our responsibilities is to teach our neighbors what it means to be American.' "

No one in these circles would advocate historical amnesia; making a peace with the injuries of the past is quite a different matter from forgetting those injuries. It is, in fact, a national misfortune that the Indian wars have faded from the memory of most citizens. We have surrendered the chance to learn lessons from the wars that might well guide our military and diplomatic policy today.

Much of what we have taken to calling "the lessons of Vietnam" - perhaps especially the difficulty of sequestering noncombatants from violence, as well as the complex moral choices raised by confronting guerrilla war - could just as easily have been learned as "the lessons of the Indian wars." If Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ever hints at even the slightest interest in exploring the historical meanings of the Indian wars, I will be on the next plane to D.C.

In the meantime, my mind lingers on the fact that many Indian tribes held mourning or honoring ceremonies on behalf of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. I think of a group of Lummi Indian artists, led by Jewell James, who carved totem poles to place in recognition of the 9/11 victims at the sites of the attacks.

And I hold on to the memory of the remarks made by the Yakama Indian thinker and speaker Ted Strong as he introduced the entrance of the color guard at the CERT banquet last week. "In true tribal custom," he said, "we will post the colors of our nations. The American flag represents our allegiance and commitment to the well-being of our land, our neighbors and our country. ... Our families and friends have fought and sacrificed their lives to secure human rights for us and our future generations."

Next in the procession, after the American flag, came a staff bearing eagle feathers and "representing all tribes," Mr. Strong said. "The eagle," he explained, "is symbolic of the human effort to live free and soar above the weaknesses on earth."

Paralysis enforced by bitterness and resentment is an understandable response to historical injury. But spending time in the company of Indian people in 2005 offers a spirit-raising chance to know what it means when human beings "soar above weakness" and choose life over defeat and despair.

Patricia Nelson Limerick, director of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado and the author of "The Legacy of Conquest" and "Something in the Soil," is a guest columnist for two weeks.

E-mail: limerick@nytimes.com