From Kevin Abourezk’s column “Red Clout”

Criticism Over Tribal Airport Borders On Racism

By Kevin Abourezk

The first salvo of public criticism directed at tribes receiving federal stimulus came recently when a South Dakota newspaper blasted the Rosebud Sioux Tribe for receiving funding for an airport.

That tribes would be criticized for trying to pull themselves out of conditions most would describe as beyond those of a depression was inevitable.

That the criticism would be couched in language bordering on racist is shameful.

In a May 19 editorial, Madison (S.D.) Daily Leader Publisher Jon M. Hunter criticized $4.1 million of stimulus money that will pay for an airport for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.

Hunter didn’t question that construction of the airport would fall under the provision of rebuilding infrastructure, one of the stated goals of the federal stimulus act. However, Hunter questioned whether a new airport was what was most needed on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, “where alcoholism and poverty are pervasive, education is substandard and healthcare quality is questioned.”

While failing to support his assertions with facts or statistics, Hunter continued to rail on the horrendous conditions of the reservation.

“Since many tribal members don’t have enough money to buy a used car or the gasoline for it, we would guess that there are a limited number of private or corporate airplanes at Rosebud,” he wrote.

And that’s where Hunter revealed his ignorance.

Not enough money to buy a used car or gasoline?

I think it’s safe to say Hunter has never visited the Rosebud Reservation, or any reservation for that matter. If he had, he would know just how much Indians like to cruise in used and new cars.

While poverty certainly is rampant on the Rosebud Reservation, there are still plenty of people who can afford to buy cars, gasoline and, yes, even plane tickets.

Rosebud Tribal President Rodney M. Bordeaux retorted in a column this week on Indianz.com, saying some tribal members are so angry over Hunter’s “derogatory racial stererotypes” they are considering legal action.

“If the only factual support for these statements are the gut feelings of whoever ‘we’ are, why not simply say all Native Americans are alcoholic, poor, lazy, and uneducated people?” Bordeaux wrote.

I would add that Hunter’s statements are patronizing, yet further proof of the we-know-what’s-best-for-those-poor-ignorant-Indians attitude that so many white leaders in South Dakota demonstrate.

While those leaders constantly fail to do anything to improve the lives of the Indians in their state, they can always be relied upon to criticize tribes for trying to improve their own conditions. When a tribe pursues gaming, those leaders indignantly attack tribal leaders for taking advantage of their own, while failing to offer any other solutions to severe unemployment.

Further, the notion that a tribe has no need for airport access is demeaning at best.

As Bordeaux pointed out, the airport will allow the tribe to transport critically ill patients from the reservation to larger hospitals. A significantly smaller airport on the reservation is barely able to support the more than 270 flights a year that take patients to hospitals beyond the tribe’s borders. Construction of the airport will create about 150 jobs, thus meeting a very clear goal of the stimulus act: job creation.

Hunter’s editorial reminds me of the criticism directed at former Sen. Ted Stevens for his efforts to gain federal funding for the notorious “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska. Where that argument breaks down in this context is in the idea that the Rosebud Reservation is “nowhere.”

Rather, more than 20,000 tribal members call the reservation home. They are mothers, fathers, children and elders who require adequate access to emergency health care. So if an airport can help them get the care they need, that’s exactly what they should use their share of stimulus money to build.

Ignorant white leaders be damned.

Kevin Abourezk’s “Red Clout” columns are available for syndication. Please contact reznet to purchase republishing rights.

Kevin Abourezk, Rosebud Lakota, is a reporter and editor at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star. He writes reznet’s “Red Clout” political blog and teaches reporting at the Freedom Forum’s American Indian Journalism Institute. Abourezk was awarded a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism in 2006.

 

“Trespass legal for government employees”

By Brenda Aplin

April 22, 2009

One of the saddest days for all Americans happened on April 21, 2009, when precedent was set in the Eighth Circuit Federal Court, Rapid City, SD. Judge Richard H. Battey sentenced Marc Wisecarver to 3 years in prison for protecting himself against a trespasser who had threatened Wisecarver’s life.

Eventually it became known that the trespasser, named Duke Bourne, was a soil conservation officer for the federal government, who said on the stand that he could go anywhere he wanted because he worked for the government.

On April 29, 2008, Bourne drove onto Wisecarver’s property, passed ‘No Trespass’ signs, ignored Wisecarver as he tried to get his attention, and proceeded to chase Wisecarver’s horses with a pickup truck. As the horses circled, Bourne continued to pursue them at a high speed in a tighter and tighter circle.

Wisecarver ran to his house and got a rifle. Firing a shot into the air, he was finally able to get Bourne’s attention. Bourne then turned his vehicle on Wisecarver as if to run him over. That’s when Wisecarver fired a round through the radiator aiming for the ground.

Bourne wasn’t scared. He jumped out of the truck and ran towards Wisecarver stating, “You shot my tire.” Wisecarver said “No, I shot your radiator and your trespassing so get off my property.” At no time did Bourne identify himself or what he was doing on Wisecarver’s property. After being order to leave because he was trespassing, Bourne walked off the property and Wisecarver called the police.

That evening, Wisecarver was arrested for discharging a firearm and destruction to government property. Bourne was never arrested or charged with anything because he was a federal soil conservation officer. Why would a soil conservation officer not identify himself, and why would he deliberately chase horses?

This incident happened on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Tribal Police Officer, Paul Forney, that evening arrested Wisecarver and said that he was ordered to arrest Marc by the Bureau of Indian AffairsSuperintendent, Robert Ecoffey, along with the Police Captain Milton Bianas and Police Chief Joe Herman or lose his job. Eventually, the charges of Discharging a Firearm and Demage to Government Property were dropped with prejudice in Tribal Court so the charges could not be brought up again. However, that didn’t please the BIA Superintendent so he had charges filed in Federal Court. That’s where the precedent was set that affects all Americans.

On Jan. 29, 2009, a jury immediately found Wisecarver innocent of assaulting a federal employee by reason of self-defense. However, the true assailant, the federal employee Duke Bourne, has never been charged with trespassing, or assault with a dangerous weapon, or attempted murder. This opens the gate for any government employee to assault any American citizen and not be held accountable.

Nevertheless, the Federal Judge Richard H. Battey ordered the jury to consider the destruction to the weapon, the pickup truck, as a charge separate from the acquittal of self-defense. How can blocking a weapon generate a criminal charge? The U.S. Constitution states that citizens have the right to protect themselves.

Of course, Wisecarver damaged the pickup truck. That was the only way he was going to stop Bourne from running over him, in the middle of the country where there were no witnesses. So the jury, under threat of contempt of court by Judge Richard Battey, found Wisecarver guilty of deprivation of government property. The same charge had already been dismissed in Tribal Court. Isn’t this double jeopardy?

On April 21, 2009, Judge Richard H. Battey sentenced Marc S. Wisecarver to three years in a federal prison plus three years supervised release for damage that was less then $2,400.

Wisecarver was trying to protect himself and his property. That is allowed under the U.S. Constitution. The Judge said that Bourne as a government official could go anywhere he wanted. This is where the danger starts for all American citizens. It used to be that only the police could enter property if a crime was being committed. Now, with this case, any government official: city, state, county, tribal, or federal, can enter a person’s property, and if that person tries to defend themselves, they could be sent to prison. The precedent has been set.

The criminal minded will relish this court decision. Even though some states, including South Dakota, have “castle protection laws” allowing a resident to use physical force to protect themselves and their property, which is also in the U.S. Constitution, this Battey ruling sets federal precedent and will impact state laws.

Wisecarver’s public defender is appealing the sentence. In the meantime, however long it takes for the appeal to overrule this judgment, the rest of the United States is wide open to the trespass by any government official, and help the poor soul who tries to defend himself or his property. He or she could get sentenced to three years in a federal prison. What damage has been done to the U.S. Constitution?

####

Brenda Aplin, Exeter, England, has been working with Native American people of the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, U.S.A for almost 7 years. She may be contacted at www.lakota-aid.co.uk

Please comment. http://www.indianz.com/News/2009/013362.asp Thank you.

United Nation Human Rights Council

Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 1^st Session

October 1 – 3, 2008

Palais de Nations, Geneva Switzerland

Joint Oral Statement, Points for Consideration of the EMRIP Study on Education

by the International Indian Treaty Council and the

United Confederation of Taino People  

October 2, 2008

Presented by Andrea Carmen, IITC

 

 

Thank you Mr. President.  Taking note of the Council on Human Rights resolution L.17 calling upon the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to “prepare a study on lessons learned and challenges to achieve the implementation of the right of Indigenous Peoples to education”, we briefly offer the following recommendations for the essential elements we believe should be included in the framework of consideration for this study.

 

1.  “Truth in Education” for Indigenous and all children in public schools is  the foundation for the full recognition of past injustices and the development of new relationships based on justice and equality.  

 

We call upon the EMRIP members to examine the ways that States have used public education to rewrite history regarding Indigenous Peoples and the pervasive impacts this has upon the realization and recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples by and within countries.  Approved school curriculums often justify past brutalities and current inequities by portraying the actions and impacts of colonization in the guise heroism and noble causes. At the same time they minimize and distort the historical and intellectual contributions as well as the rights of the Indigenous Peoples concerned.

 

In the United States, for example, distortions in history are still being regularly taught in public schools to both Indigenous and non-indigenous children. This has very real impacts in the denial of Indigenous Peoples rights, and even their very existence, in the real world of policy and practice. 

 

Examples include the designation of sites where Indigenous Peoples were massacred by soldiers and settlers as “battlegrounds”.  Myths of discovery and conquest are still perpetuated, from Columbus to the California gold miners, as the heroic actions of “courageous explorers and settlers” laying claim to unused and unoccupied lands, bringing “progress” to untamed wilderness and savages alike. The genocidal brutality that accompanied the introduction of Christianity in the American continent is eliminated or glossed over.  Another glaring example is the so-called fact taught in public schools and repeated by public officials in many countries, that there are no longer any Indigenous peoples left alive in a given Country and region and that these cultures can be relegated to the archives of history.  This falsehood has been consistently repeated regarding islands of the Caribbean, countries such as Costa Rica and around the San Francisco Bay Area of California USA to name just a few examples. 

 

Due to the protest and persistence of many Indigenous Peoples, in some cases the members of the supposedly “nonexistent” Peoples themselves, to correct this systemic misinformation in education systems.  This has begun to be corrected in some places, although far from all.  Case studies where new, more accurate curricula has been introduced could be examined and included in this study.  

 

We also recommend that the EMPRIP call for submission of examples where human rights education, including new school curricula based on Treaty rights and the UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples for example, has been successfully incorporated into public  educational systems for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. We encourage the EMRIP to request examples of these best practices and improvements as well as examples where work still needs to be done in this area. 

 

2.  The historic and current role of imposed and dominant-culture educational systems on the destruction of Indigenous Peoples’ languages, cultures and social structures.   We underscore the profound concerns for the role of public and state sponsored education regarding continuing threats to the survival of Indigenous languages in many regions round the world. Indigenous Peoples recognize that their languages are essential components for the transmission of Indigenous culture, traditional knowledge, spirituality, natural world relationships and understandings and are the basis of our identities as Peoples.  Unfortunately in many countries, the effects of education provided by the state, religious or private entities have undermined  the vitality and even the survival of Indigenous languages. 

   

      We underscore the statement by the North America Regional caucus to the UNPFII7 in April of this Year that “a major factor in the dire situation of many languages and the threats to their survival in the US and Canada is the legacy of deliberate and planned government policies in both countries, including the forced removal of generations of children from their homes, families and communities, attempts at forced assimilation carried out by government agencies, churches, schools and other entities.” 

 

      The IITC calls upon the EMRIP to fully examine the role of dominate culture-based education models as an element of termination policies which continue to have severe and ongoing impacts on Indigenous Peoples’ languages, culture and social structures.

 

      We also invite Indigenous Peoples who have, through their own efforts, created alternative or complementary educational programs, often without any state or other outside support or financing for many years, to preserve and strengthen the use of Indigenous language for new generations of children.  Notable examples are the educational programs in Native languages developed by the Maori of Aotearoa, the Native Hawaiian Peoples, many Indigenous Peoples of Canada and Indigenous communities in Alaska including Chickaloon Village to name only a few examples.  Indigenous Peoples who have achieved successful partnerships with states to incorporate Indigenous languages into state-funded schools and public education programs, for example programs based on use of Indigenous languages in Guatemala and other countries, should be encouraged to present successful models for inclusion in this study.    

 

3.  The essential role of the family and tribal community as well as the vital role of traditional culture in the successful education of Indigenous children.  The removal of children from their communities or “group” is a well-recognized and well-defined violation of international human rights law, and violates articles 7, 8, 10, 12 and other articles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.   In the United States, Indigenous youth are less than 2% of the population yet they are 15- 20% of the population of incarcerated youth.  Similar or higher rates occur in other countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and in some provinces and regions in these countries the rate is 80% or more. Many Juvenile Detention Centers and correctional facilities consistently deny Indigenous youth equal access to their spiritual practices that could maintain their cultural ties and identity with their communities.  One of many negative impacts is disproportionately high school dropout rates, with many Indigenous children never completing even a basic education.  High rates of youth suicide also attributed to these practices. 

 

In Canada, government and religious authorities have recently apologized for the continuing  inter-generational trauma caused by the forced removal of thousands of Indigenous children in the guise of providing them with “education” in past generations.    

 

The Canadian residential system closed in 1996, but the systematic removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities continues through the Canadian Governments’ foster care program.  At the current time, the Canadian government estimates that one in every eighteen Indigenous children in Canada is in state-sponsored foster care custody, more than at any time during the residential school era.  Indigenous organizations in Canada estimate that more than 27,000 children are in state foster case custody.  

 

The impact on the all round spiritual, intellectual and cultural development of children and youth, as essential underpinning for any successful education model for Indigenous children, cannot be minimized and also warrants attention in this study.

  

4.  Finally, we believe that the implementation of key relevant articles in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is essential to providing an effective rights-based framework for this study.  In particular, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and the corresponding obligations of states affirmed in Article 14 are of central relevance and importance.   These include the rights of Indigenous Peoples to establish and control their own educational systems providing education in their cultures and languages; the rights of Indigenous Peoples especially children to equal access to education provided by the state; and the rights of children living in and outside their communities to have access to education in their own language and culture, as well as state obligations to provide measures in conjunction with Indigenous Peoples to facilitate this access. Case studies of successful models and examples, ongoing obstacles and challenges in the implementation of these rights, as well as support (or lack thereof) provided by states will be of great interest with regards to this study.

 

In closing we express our appreciation for your attention these concerns, and commit ourselves to assist you in this effort.   The education of our children is a shared responsibility of upmost importance for the realization of the human rights and development of the most vulnerable among us, who are also the hope and future of our Nations and Peoples.    

 

Thank you. For all our relations.

Yellow Bird Inc., Heove ve ‘keso

Ft. Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run

PO Box 1138  Lame Deer, MT. 59043  (406)477-8720, www.yellowbirdinc.org

 

For Immediate Release

 

DATE:                        January, 2009

TO:                        All Media

FROM                        Coordinators, Phillip Whiteman Jr. & Lynette Two Bulls

                        (406)477-8720 or spiritseeker@rangeweb.net

RE:                        Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run

 

Starting January 9^th through the 14^th, 2009 the Annual Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run will be celebrating it’s 10^th Anniversary of running the 400 miles from Fort Robinson, Neb. to Busby, Mont.

 

On January 9, 1879, at 10:30 pm, approximately 130 sick, starving Northern Cheyenne people, primarily elderly, women, and children, broke out of their wooden barracks attempting to escape from Fort Robinson, Neb. to return to their homeland in Montana. Although most were killed at the door step, some fled 40 miles before the Calvary caught up with them. They sought cover in a deep depression, where they were slaughtered and buried.  This location is known as, “The Last Hole.” A small group also found safety among Red Cloud’s people. Oral history of the Oglala Lakota and those of Cheyenne descent state that an encampment of these survivors were fed and given blankets infected with small pox by Calvary soldiers. Remains of these Cheyenne ancestors have been discovered on the banks of Cheyenne Creek, just outside of Pine Ridge.

 

Today, “The Last Hole,” and “Cheyenne Creek,” will be among numerous sites revisited on the 400 mile spiritual journey by Northern Cheyenne youth runners and elderly participants. All of whom have been brought together to honor their ancestors, learn of their history and to address the issues of historical trauma so they can strive towards a better future.

 

The run’s participants include a wide range of ages, from 10 year old 5^th graders, young adult college students to the elderly. After arriving at Fort Robinson, the runners will spend the next day, January 9^th, visiting historical sights, listening to their ancestors’ stories and learning about their Northern Cheyenne heritage. That evening the runners will break out of the rebuilt barracks at the approximate time and on the exact location that their ancestors broke out of 130 years ago.

 

The following day on January 10^th, the runners will follow a new route through the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and stop at Cheyenne Creek that evening to hear the oral history of that location. On this day they will be joined by Oglala Lakota runners. The alteration of the original route to go through the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is in commemoration of the 10^th Anniversary of running the full 400 miles from Fort Robinson to Busby. It is also in memory of and to pay homage to those killed at Cheyenne Creek. Later, that evening both Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne Tribal Presidents and officials will be honoring the Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run participants at the Prairie Winds Casino.

 

The run will resume the original route the next morning on January 11^th, through the sacred Black Hills, from Hot Springs, Custer and onto Deadwood. The runners will make a special stop at Crazy Horse Monument at noon to give a gift of appreciation to Ruth Ziockowski and her family for their continued contributions and support of the run. That evening, a meal will be organized for the runners by Debbie Eagle Elk at 6 pm at the Mother Butler Center. The community is invited to help with the meal and support the runners and participants.

 

January 12^th marks the longest day of mileage for the run. Runners will start in Deadwood and will continue into the night until they reach Hammond, Mont. On this day runners will cover over 100 miles. On this evening, the Butte County Historical Society and members of the Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce will provide and serve a meal to the runners. The meal in Belle Fourche is significant because it creates a bridge between cultures and stimulates cultural awareness and understanding. These concepts are taught to the runners throughout the run.

 

The evening of January 13^th, 2009 the runners will reach the reservation boundary in Ashland, Mont. where they will be welcomed home by hundreds of family and tribal members. Saint Labre Catholic School will provide the meal that evening. The final day of the Fort Robinson Spiritual Outbreak Run will end at the Two Moons Monument in Busby, Mont. This is the site where the remains of the Northern Cheyenne who were killed at, “The Last Hole,” are laid to rest.

 

The 10^th Anniversary of the Fort Robinson Spiritual Outbreak 400 Mile Run will end at the Allen Rowland Gymnasium in Lame Deer, Mont. The runners will be honored with a meal provided by community members. Their 400 mile journey ends, but their journey in life continues with a strong sense of spiritual justice.

 

For specific route information, location, dates and times please see attached schedule. For more information regarding the Fort Robinson Spiritual Outbreak Run’s coordinators, Phillip Whiteman Jr. and Lynette Two Bulls and their non profit please visit www.yellowbirdinc.org. 

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/home/content/36045919.html

Many years ago, Wizi, with all the politeness that Lakota culture expects of young people in interacting with their elders, presented me with a letter. It was a formal request to serve as an intern. With the letter was a tobacco offering.

Humans have some flaws that need to be disciplined. I had my own flaws and they were protesting: It’s a lot of trouble! There’s funds to be raised and time to be committed towards developing the learning activity and the supervision! Then I looked at the tobacco offering in my hand and Wolakota started drifting like a warm, wispy fog through my being. Tobacco offerings are offered in humility and with honor. It can be refused, but I personally don’t know of such an instance. You just don’t.

So, I reached out and took his hand and thanked him for the honor. After all, he was the grandson of my father’s close relative for whom he had great respect. My Euro-nicity chimed in, “He’s a Yale student!” (I have a smidgeon of Irish blood that I could lose in a nosebleed.)

And so commenced my own education about the younger generation and the possibilities of acculturation. 

The funding was in place, but keeping a Yale student raised by a Lakota grandmother on a learning curve would be a challenge. His first assignment, I think he did in his sleep. No sooner had I asked for a complete listing of all the tribes in this country when I received back that list. Hmm, what next? I raised the bar a bit. There was a treaty gathering coming up. Get on the agenda and give a presentation of traditional values expected in leadership. For any young person, that was a formidable task! To get on the agenda to address Lakota-speaking elders would require extraordinary diplomacy. To research and to present leadership values to those who already know would have to be exceptionally creative.

The treaty gathering came and I saw Wizi fidgeting, but it was hardly noticeable. “I ask my wise elders to forgive a young man for speaking in their presence. These are things we need to remind ourselves about”, he began.  Most people just ramble off the standard four virtues of bravery, compassion, wisdom, and fortitude. He went further into disciplines that, in this time and in the American culture, are not expected anymore of leadership. He spoke of marital fidelity and being humble in a confident way.

I glanced at the audience around me. Their full attention was on Wizi. When he finished with, “I thank you for listening to a young man trying to be what you are”. The applause lingered on and on as people walked up to him and shook his hand. A leader in the making, I thought, not one of today’s politicians, but one who understands the traditional process of leadership!

As I was preparing to travel to Geneva, Switzerland, Wizi called, polite as usual, “Can I come? I saved my money and I can pay for my own expenses. I’ll be helpful.” So off we went to the United Nations.

I was there to make a appeal on behalf of the buffalo that were being slaughtered in Yellowstone and also to ask the World Health Organization to pay attention to the health risks were being imposed on indigenous peoples by confined animal feeding operations (Rosebud Hog Farm specifically). Since the line-up of speakers is long and time is short, getting to speak twice is unlikely. So, Wizi signed up and earnestly began the task of drafting an abbreviated 6-minute intervention. You have to make your case in the allotted time on complicated issues! His draft passed through the hands of lawyers and other seasoned delegates and marked up in red. He redrafted and redrafted with patience and persistence. Finally Wizi delivered a very moving speech on behalf of the buffalo that are sacred to his people. Once again, people were on their feet and the applause lingered on. His speech exceeded the time limit, but Madame Diaz didn’t even notice! She gaveled me thirty seconds short earlier that day!

When he was considering the position with Tom Daschle’s office, he didn’t ponder the decision on his own. He gathered his parents, his grandmother and a few others and asked for their opinions. He was always careful in his decision-making. The question wasn’t: Would this be good for ME? The deciding factor was always: Through me, how would this be good for my people? 

And now, he will be at the elbow of the President, helping to bring dignity back to the American people, dignity back to people of all colors. The night that Obama won the election, I danced with my great-granddaughter in my living room, finally feeling like an American. When Wizi’s appointment was announced, I raised my face to the sun and did my Lakota woman thing: wicaglata.

I have much hope now. I have hope that the tribes for whom the buffalo is the core of their culture can sit in an honorable way with the government agencies and negotiate sensible ways to respect the role of a sacred, keystone species. Sacred species are indicators of the health of the planet. We’ve always known that, but we were invisible and silent, until now. 

Obama has acknowledged that the U.S. needs to build an honorable relationship; a consultation process with the Native Americans. We take his word on that.

Wizi, my nephew is a Lakota and he will continue to honor his heritage as he takes on another challenge. We will be inspired to compose and sing songs for our young leaders.

 

The Rights of the Land

The Onondaga Nation of central New York proposes a radical new vision of property rights

BY ROBIN KIMMERER

BEFORE FIRST LIGHT we board a bus and at last light we return, just as the October hills of central New York shade to burgundy and the lights come on in dairy barns for evening chores. Teachers, students, clan mothers, chiefs, journalists, scientists, activists, and neighbors like me—I see all our faces reflected in the bus windows. For the Onondaga, this trip to federal court in Albany to defend their right to care for their land has been a long time coming, a journey of generations.

The highway rises out of the enfolding hills to a ridge, where the land suddenly spreads out below. I see forests, farms, orchards, and, in the distance, the lights of downtown Syracuse. Plumes from smokestacks catch the rosy light above Onondaga Lake, a pewter oval reflecting the sky.

The first part of this tale is familiar, which makes it no less shameful. The ancestral territory of the Onondaga stretches from the Pennsylvania border north to Canada. Historically, it was a mosaic of rich woodlands, expansive cornfields, lakes, and rivers. Rights to these lands were guaranteed by treaties between two sovereign nations, Onondaga and the United States. But over the years, illegal takings of land by the state of New York diminished the aboriginal Onondaga territories from 2.6 million acres to a tiny reservation of just 7,300 acres.

The Nation’s current territory does not even include the heart of their ancestral home, Onondaga Lake, one of Native America’s most sacred sites. In the seminal Onondaga story of the Peacemaker, a figure appeared across the water of Onondaga Lake during a time of war, a beautiful youth in a white stone canoe. The stone canoe signifies the weight of the message with which he was entrusted, the Great Law of Peace. Most people of the warring nations turned him away; few would listen. But as the Peacemaker grew to old age, one by one the leaders finally heard the message of peace and set aside their war clubs. On the shore of Onondaga Lake, the Peacemaker gathered together all fifty of the reconciled chiefs. To signify the peace, they cast their weapons into a great hole, on top of which the Peacemaker planted an enormous white pine.

The five bundled needles of the white pine represent the union of five tribes: the Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, and Mohawk. Its roots, spread out to the four directions, represent the invitation to all to live by the Great Law, which sets forth a vision of right relationships between people and the Earth. Thus was born what the European settlers understood as the Great League of the Iroquois, what the people themselves call the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the oldest continuous democracy on Earth.

Chief Irving Powless Jr., an Onondaga elder, likes to remind listeners that walking beside the Peacemaker was Hiawatha—not Longfellow’s invention, but the real one. It was Hiawatha, standing by this very lake, who bound together the five arrows. One arrow alone, he said, can be broken, but the bundle of five is too strong. The structure of the Iroquois Confederacy became the model for the colonist’s new union, and the symbolism stands today: the eagle in the great seal of the United States holds those five arrows in its talons. It was beneath that very seal that the Onondaga pled their case in federal court.

Chief Powless also likes to say that when the colonists adapted Haudenosaunee ideas for their government, they took only the parts that they liked. “If it were up to us, we wouldn’t have written the Bill of Rights without a Bill of Responsibilities,“ he told me.

Despite its status as the birthplace of American democracy, there is no monument on the shores of Onondaga Lake. Today, the soil where the Peacemaker walked is a Superfund site. In fact, it’s not soil at all, but a slippery white mass of industrial waste, thirty feet deep, left over from soda ash production by Allied Chemical. More than 144 million tons of mercury-laden waste were spewed onto the lake bottom. The water is a stew of sewage and assorted toxic wastes. If you walk on the waste beds, you can see rusting barrels, oozing leachate. The sacred and the Superfund share this shore.

ON A FIELD TRIP to the lake with school kids from the Onondaga Nation, Audrey Shenandoah shares her memories, recalling the lake as a place “where the willows touch the water”—a beautiful place, a place for fishing, for gathering plants, for family picnics, for ceremonies. Audrey is a clan mother, writer, and teacher. As an advisor to the United Nations, she has been a voice on behalf of indigenous peoples and the environment all over the world. The teaching of “think not of yourself, but of the seventh generation” is not an abstraction for her. “We were told to hold tight to our way of life,“ she says, “to honor our ancient teachings, not just for ourselves but for everyone.“ Just as water and birds and fish were given certain responsibilities in the world, so too were the people. They are called upon to give thanks and to take care of all the other gifts.

For these school kids, the day begins and ends not with the Pledge of Allegiance, but with the Thanksgiving Address, known also as the “words that come before all else.“ This river of words calls out to every element of the living world. Water, trees, fish, birds, and berries are thanked for the gifts that they provide, for meeting their responsibilities and sustaining life. Clan mother Freida Jacques explains it this way: “We have a culture of gratitude. These words are used to open and close all gatherings in our daily lives, bringing the listeners’ minds together in offering thanksgiving, love, and respect to the natural world.“

Audrey gazes out over the lake, her snowy hair swept to a graceful knot at the nape of her neck. “When I was a little girl,“ she says, “I always heard talk about a land settlement. This was the dream I’ve heard all of my life.“ That dream is finally inching closer to reality, and with it, quite unexpectedly, comes a process of healing and transformation for an entire region.

ON MARCH 11, 2005, the Onondaga Nation filed a complaint in a federal court in Syracuse seeking title to their lost homelands. Their claim is made under United States law, but its moral power lies in the directives of the Great Law: to act on behalf of peace, the natural world, and the future generations. The motion begins with this statement:

The Onondaga people wish to bring about a healing between themselves and all others who live in this region that has been the homeland of the Onondaga Nation since the dawn of time. The Nation and its people have a unique spiritual, cultural, and historic relationship with the land, which is embodied in Gayanashagowa, the Great Law of Peace. This relationship goes far beyond federal and state legal concerns of ownership, possession, or other legal rights. The people are one with the land and consider themselves stewards of it. It is the duty of the Nation’s leaders to work for a healing of this land, to protect it, and to pass it on to future generations. The Onondaga Nation brings this action on behalf of its people on the hope that it may hasten the process of reconciliation and bring lasting justice, peace, and respect among all who inhabit this area.

The lawsuit is not a land “claim,“ because to the Onondaga land has far greater significance than the notion of property. Sid Hill, theTadodaho, or spiritual leader, of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, has said that the Onondaga Nation will never seek to evict people from their homes. The Onondaga people know the pain of displacement too well to inflict it on their neighbors. Instead the suit is termed a “land rights action.“ When they finally got their day in court last October, members of the Onondaga Nation argued that the land title they’re seeking is not for possession, not to exclude, but for the right to participate in the well-being of the land. Against the backdrop of Euro-American thinking, which treats land as a bundle of property rights, the Onondaga are asking for freedom to exercise their responsibility to the land. This is unheard of in American property law.

In other land claims around the country, some tribes have negotiated for cash, land, and casino deals, reaching for relief from grinding poverty on the last shreds of their territories. But the Onondaga envision a radically different solution that honors their ancestral land and their spiritual responsibilities to it. Above all, the land rights action seeks title for the purpose of ecological restoration. Only with title can they ensure that mines are reclaimed, toxic waste removed, and Onondaga Lake cleaned up. The action strengthens the ability of the Onondaga to exercise their traditional role as stewards of their homelands. Tadodaho Sid Hill says, “We had to stand by and watch what happens to Mother Earth, but nobody listens to what we think. The land rights action will give us a voice.“

The legal action concerns not only rights to the land, but also the rights of the land, its right to be whole and healthy. Audrey Shenandoah makes the goal clear. “In this land rights action,“ she says, “we seek justice. Justice for the waters. Justice for the four-legged and the winged, whose habitats have been taken. We seek justice, not just for ourselves, but justice for the whole of Creation.“

The land rights action could have incited a backlash. In other parts of New York State, citizens opposed to land rights cases have mounted responses as ugly as they are ill-informed, including handmade roadside signs decrying native land rights and inflammatory letters to the editor. But in Onondaga territory, the response has been different, marked by thoughtful conversation, by respect, and, in some places, singing.

AS THE ONONDAGA NATION stands up for justice, it is not standing alone. At the forefront of this community support is a grassroots organization of central New Yorkers called Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation, or NOON. It is an outgrowth of the Syracuse Peace Council, the oldest continuing peace and justice organization in the country. Andy Mager, a young father and skillful community organizer, had pulled many of us together for the bus trip to Albany, but the work of the Neighbors goes far beyond that.

As a bulwark against intolerance, NOON has made pathways between the Onondaga Nation and the wider community. Andy knew that the process of healing needed to begin with truth-telling, and with listening. The average person in Syracuse knows almost nothing about the sovereign nation that sits just six miles south of their city, and some folks were wary that the Onondaga action would somehow jeopardize the surrounding community.

Because opportunities for misconception abound, bringing unheard stories to a wider audience has been a focus for NOON. Every few weeks for over a year, NOON has orchestrated a community program entitled “The Onondaga Land Rights Action and Our Common Future.“ On warm summer evenings and dark snowy nights, people have come to a local theater to hear about the history and culture of the Onondaga, stories that escaped the history books: of the origin of consensus-based democracy, of a society based on a balance between male and female leadership, of a culture of gratitude and the Great Law of Peace. Most evenings, there were two spotlit chairs on the dark stage, chairs filled by some combination of indigenous scholars, university professors, clan mothers, grassroots leaders, politicians, scientists, lawyers, all come to think collectively about what the land rights action could mean.

One night, Chief Powless addressed the crowd, framing the land rights action in a historical context. “Sharing our ancient teachings is not just for understanding the past, but for a vision of what the future can hold,“ he said. Fumbling with something in his lap for a moment, he drew from its deerskin wrap a wide belt intricately woven of shell beads: the historic Two Row Wampum. He held it between his outstretched hands and explained that the two paths of purple wampum that travel the length of the white-shell belt represent the treaty between the Dutch and the Haudenosaunee more than four hundred years ago. The white ground of the belt represents the river of life down which we all travel. One purple band stands for the indigenous people, traveling in their canoe. The other represents the newcomers, in their ship. The belt documents the agreement that the two lines do not intersect, the colonists carry their ways with them on the ship, the Haudenosaunee hold theirs in their canoes, and neither will try to steer the other’s vessel. “Two boats on the same river,“ he said, is “an agreement to live side by side. But we’re both on the same river. We need the same water. We’re going to the same place.“

“This belt,“ he continued, gently putting it back into its wrapping, “reminds us that our futures are linked. The only way we have is forward, into the future, together.“ Holding the audience in the spell of his gentle voice, he explained that if the land is not healed, if the waters are not clean, then neither of us has a future. The land rights action is for us all.

Because of the bold action of NOON, people whose paths had never before crossed find themselves on common ground. Teachers are inspired to tell new stories in their classrooms, and citizens are organizing public meetings on the future of the lake. Neighborly relations have begun to blossom from casual conversations into work parties on the reservation, shared dinners, and other community gatherings. The past few years have brought the Nation and the city together at a concert by a community-wide choir singing to the lake, candlelight vigils in the city square, shared ceremonies on the shore, and a community celebration with Onondaga members teaching the Friendship Dance. The Onondaga have also formed an alliance with minority neighborhoods in the city, calling for environmental justice and stringent lake cleanup.

Out of this climate of community building, the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment has taken root at a local university, the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. One of its first programs was to hold a teach-in on the land rights action that reached thousands of students and community members. The curriculum now includes “Onondaga Land Rights and our Common Future,“ a class co-taught by faculty from SUNY-ESF and the Onondaga Nation, in which students envision alternative environmental futures growing from the philosophy of the Thanksgiving Address. What would it be like, they ask, to care for and be cared for by the land? Their proposals imagine a future where the interests of great blue herons have equal standing with those of property owners, where urban developments are modeled after the lifestyles of maple trees, powered by solar energy and carbon-neutral. Wounded landscapes would not be abandoned so that new ones could be plundered, but nurtured back to health with the tools of restoration ecology. Communities would cement their relationship to the places that sustain them with ceremony and celebration.

The state of New York has argued that the land rights action will be disruptive, but so far it has been profoundly creative of community—a whole community, a democracy of species, both human and nonhuman. “The beauty of this action breaks my heart,“ one woman said. “But it makes me want to be brave, too. If the Onondaga can stand up for this place, then why can’t I?“

The Onondaga now wait for a ruling on the land rights action. They may have to wait a long time. But then again, they’ve waited before.

HISTORICALLY central New York has been known as a birthplace of democracy, a birthplace of abolition and of women’s rights. Through the leadership of the Onondaga and the hunger for wholeness among the rest of the people who live here, this landscape could be a birthplace again—a birthplace of the rights of the land itself and of a community’s willing responsibility to care for it.

In time, the land rights action could also lead to the rebirth of Onondaga Lake. In the last few years, the lake has given signs of hope, with marked improvements in water quality. The shifts have come as the factories have closed and sewage discharge has been reduced. The water, too, has done its part. With lessened inputs, the lakes and streams seem to be cleaning themselves as the water moves through. In some places, plants are starting to inhabit the bottom. Just this spring, trout were found once again in the lake. It seems to me that the waters are reminding the people: if you will use your healing gifts, we will use ours.

And now, Allied Chemical, which eventually merged with Honeywell, Inc., is finally being held accountable for the condition of the lake. After decades of foot-dragging, the company and the state and federal governments have offered a cleanup plan that calls for dredging the most contaminated sediments and covering the rest with a few inches of sand. Unfortunately, this leaves the bulk of the contaminants spread over the entire lake bottom, where they can easily enter the food chain. Chief Powless characterizes the solution as “prescribing a Band-Aid for cancer.“

The Onondaga Nation has called for a thorough cleanup of their sacred lake, but, without title, their voice has not been heard. The U.S. legal system has not been friendly toward indigenous land rights. Too often, when the well-being of its lands are being discussed, the Nation has had to litigate its way to the table instead of being invited as a sovereign entity.

Joe Heath is the attorney and tireless advocate for the Onondaga Nation. Lately, Joe’s phone rings with requests from towns throughout the aboriginal territory for inclusion in the dreamed-of restoration. These communities too have been damaged. They too have been marginalized by corporate interests. Joe carefully tracks the reports of environmental injury, creating a growing list of work to be done. The Onondaga, once made voiceless by the law, are gaining respect as a voice for the land.

And while the Onondaga didn’t take this action with the intent of acquiring other people’s lands, lands are coming to them nonetheless. A local businessman is calling upon the county legislature to return lakeshore lands to the Nation. Others are willingly selling lands adjacent to the reserve to protect them from suburban development. Another extraordinary example, miles from the reservation, is a beautiful old dairy farm of green meadows and maple woods. It has been in one family for generations, bestowed by New York State for services rendered in the Revolutionary War. Those well-loved acres have been passed down again and again. But the deed carries a clause written by that long-ago forebear that one day the land must be returned to “the Indians from whom it was taken.“ A few years ago, the last heir, now elderly, contacted the Nation to give back what was rightfully theirs.

A neighbor of mine wonders, “Should I give back my land, too?“ But that’s not what the Onondaga are teaching. They don’t ask that we give the land back, but that we give back to the land, to care for it as if it were our home, too.

I think that the land rights action is an invitation for the people of this watershed to engage in becoming indigenous to place. No newcomer can ever match the Onondaga’s identity with these hills, but what does it mean for an immigrant culture to start thinking like a native one? Not to appropriate the culture of indigenous people, not to take what is theirs, but to throw off the mindset of the frontier, the mindset that allows people to bury sacred sites under industrial waste, to fill a lake with mercury. Being indigenous to place means to live as if we’ll be here for the long haul, to take care of the land as if our lives, both spiritual and material, depended on it. Because they do.

The Earth is generous with us—and forgiving. We can be the same with each other. Becoming indigenous to place also means embracing its story, because the restoration of the land and the healing of our relationship mirror one another. Coming to terms with injustice is an act of liberation. By making the past visible, we can then see our way forward. I suppose that’s why some of us rode the bus to court with our Onondaga neighbors—to bear witness to the telling of truth and to accept the hand offered in healing.

Even after everything, that the people who suffered so greatly can now turn to their neighbors with such a gift seems an act of immense generosity. The Onondaga people are offering us a gift of vision. Out of their endless thanksgiving for the land, they are inviting us to dream of a time when the land might also give thanks for the people.

My love-hate relationship with Turkey Day

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This time of year always fills me with deep contradictions. To be blunt, Thanksgiving, in its purest form, is a celebration of the eventual subjugation, domination, and massacre of millions of indigenous people of this land. As a man who is a proud member of the Ojibwe nation, I viscerally feel disgust at the roots of this holiday and all it represents to those that carry the burden of history.

 

As a person descended from slaves, who still has family in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, the place where my family was held in bondage, I was taught that Thanksgiving was a time to celebrate our freedom and the strength of family and community that got us through and brought us over. Thanksgiving is the celebration of our metaphorical crossing of the River Jordan or, perhaps, the Ohio River.

The truth is that Thanksgiving should be a time where we honor the spirits of those living and dead that fought, bled, and died so that our communities could survive. It is a time to gather around our friends and family and to show them through words, food, and laughter that we appreciate their presence and their love. But it is also a time of obligation.

No two peoples living on this land known as the United States of America have such a tragic and intertwined history as African-Americans and Native Americans. Throughout our shared history of enslavement and genocide, forced labor and forceable removal from our homelands, our fates have touched one another: sometimes in acts of solidarity such as the taking in of runaway slaves by the Cherokee and Seminole and other native nations, and sometimes in acts of violence where slaves served with continental armies participating in the massacre of indigenous communities and indigenous communities that served whites as slave catchers.

Since the end of slavery, the relationship between African-Americans and Native Americans has, again, sometimes been one of solidarity such as the brown/black power movements of the 1960s and sometimes one of  betrayal, such as the stripping of citizenship from black members of the western Cherokee Nation earlier this year.

Yet the truth remains that at this time of profound social change and opportunity, leaders of the African-American community and leaders of both urban Indian and Indian nations should be working together on common goals related to sovereignty, reparations, and reclamation. At times the survival of entire segments of the black community have depended on our native brothers and sisters. That history was, intentionally, kept quiet by mainstream authorities. Divide and conquer has always been their primary tactic.

This Thanksgiving, I challenge our communities to commit to not only celebrating our freedom and our family but also developing strategies to build deep relationships with our native kin. In Humboldt County, California, a small grassroots collective called Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (DUHC) has partnered with the Seventh Generation Fund on a relatively new project called the Honor Tax. The two organizations are working closely with small businesses, non-profit organizations, and individual citizens encouraging them to make a yearly tax payment to the Wiyot Nation. The nation on whose lands Humboldt County sits. This is not a charitable contribution but a tax payment acknowledging that the land itself is not owned by those who sit on it but by the peoples that historically belong to it.

These are the types of endeavours that should be championed by people of African descent. If we, the grandchildren of those held in bondage, are to righteously, and justly, demand reparations in recognition of the trillions of dollars of wealth created from our unpaid labor, then it is our moral and civil obligation to advocate for at least as much  for the indigenous peoples of the United States. In the end, it is my hope that one day all of this land will be restored to those from whom it was taken, but until that day comes, it is our duty to work hand in hand to hold up and restore each as we collectively move towards a just and liberated future.  Let’s transform Thanksgiving into a holiday of thanks for each other and an opportunity to create new river crossings on black and red bridges.

Original posted: Wednesday November 26, 2008 12:30 P.M.

 

It was just this past summer that RC Journal called. Someone has suggested a native blog and that certain someone further suggested that I could do it. Given my busy-ness and travel, I wasn’t too warm to the idea, but when Dacotah’s name was brought up, I felt like a deer caught in headlights, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It was just one of those challenges that, by the Lakota codes of conduct, you just can’t refuse.

This is one of those times that seem to stand still while spiritual energy floats around and touches everyone in profound ways.

Dacotah was a young man that came to teach us what it really means to be Lakota. A few short, yet long days ago, he returned to the spiritual world; wanagiyata. He left us to reflect his existence and his passing and to further ponder our shortcomings and our challenges as Lakota people and as human beings.

It is young people like him that make us, the elders feel hopeful that everything is going to be alright. There are young people that can grasp the influences and the teachings and live them. Dacotah taught those good ways, without making much noise. I heard something that immediately brought him to mind, “Passing wisdom from the previous generation to the next generation is this generation’s responsibility and if you need to use words sometimes, do so”.

There is much to be said yet, but not just by me alone. There are many perspectives, many ways he touched people’s lives. That needs to be shared. He influenced this blog and to remember him here is the honorable thing to do. He was extraordinary for these times. For us to get a true glimpse of Lakota culture, we need to define for ourselves what it was that he embodied. He lived wacintangya. He was a good relative. 

I know that there are many people that feel a great need to honor his presence and grieve his absence. Please feel welcome here.