What is Your Warrior Pledge by Mark Hatmaker

Nea kaht’u mak’u meek’u,

Nea t’zare tubuniti,

Nea t’zare supikaahkat’u.

Scratching your head at that?

It’s OK, Comanche is a dying language and I’ll offer the translation in a moment; the video will provide the tonal qualities.

Warrior cultures the world over, past and present, make much of living ready, being ready.

It is not mere lip-service. Something to be scanned in an online article, nod assent to and then proceed to the next bit of trivia to scan and nod to.

Awareness, presence, aliveness is something to aspire to.

Something to strive for.

Something that must be worked for.

Warrior cultures have always recognized the easy temptation to make “eyes open, senses alive” go dead by distraction or being lost in one’s own thoughts.

Remember, lost in thought is lost in the world.

Sentries must be awake; you are the sentry of your own life.

Scouts must see sign, you are the pathfinder of your own life.

Warrior Cultures asked Warriors not for lip service, but for pledges, emphatic stated intentions.

Warriors were and are asked for commitment.

To further seat a commitment, or pledge, make it daily [or even several times daily]. Make it aloud.

All the more powerful if there is an action provided with the pledge, whether that be an empathic fist-pump or the Sign Language of the Plains Indians as I have provided in the video.

And make the Pledge public. Let your tribe, your cadre, your crew, your family know your intent.

Once committed, your crew can [and should] let you know when you have fallen from living the Pledge to mere lip-service.

Your Warrior Pledge can be one of your own devising, or one culled from a Warrior Ethos that moves you.

The key is to make that Pledge and move from scanning and nodding, and agreeing to living and moving and doing what you say.

My Pledge is from the Comanche Warrior tradition.

Nea kaht’u mak’u meek’u,

Nea t’zare tubuniti,

Nea t’zare supikaahkat’u.

[I live right here, right now.

I am awake.

I am alert.]

What’s your Pledge?

For more on Walking the Historical Warrior Path see the RAW Crew.