RECLAIMING OUR SACRED
FINDING DAWN
I did get to go to a workshop on domestic violence and rape. It was called “Reclaiming our Sacred.” It was in Seattle, cohosted by Daybreak Star and WomenSpirit coalition.
We saw a Canadian Documentary called “Finding Dawn.” This was the second time I had seen the movie. It broke my heart again. I allowed myself to cry this time.
Dawn was a beautiful young Native woman who was a sex worker on the streets of Vancouver British Columbia. She disappeared without a trace. Eventually a pig farmer was discovered to be a serial killer. He picked up prostitutes, took them to his farm, tortured and killed them. Remains of missing women were found on his farm. He was charged with their murder.
Dawn’s DNA was found on the farm. The farmer was not charged with her murder because there was only enough DNA to identify her, but not enough to charge him with her murder. I don’t understand that. It sounds like simple racism to me.
Dawn had gone to Vancouver to live. She had no education or job skills. A friend she had made was a sex worker. She recruited Dawn. But Dawn could not bring herself to have sex with her first customer. Her friend introduced her to drugs. She told Dawn they would relax her and allow her to provide sex to the customers. She became addicted and allowed her sacredness to be violated.
That is what is also happening in our communities. Alcohol and drugs break down our knowledge and respect for the sacred in our lives. We no longer see the sacredness in ourselves or each other. We rarely hear the teachings.
DAWN RISING
This documentary “Finding Dawn” shows how Native women have been devalued in both Canada and the United States. The ones who care and try to understand what happened are friends and relatives.
Dawn had a sister who also died in an Eastern Canadian city. She and Dawn had been put into white foster homes when they were children. They were both sexually abused in their first home.
Their foster father had violated the sacredness of Dawn and her sister. He broke their hearts and their Spirits.
Many children were raped at residential schools. They brought home that seed of destruction to plant in our communities. It flourished and destroyed the sacredness within succeeding generations. We can no longer see the sacredness in ourselves or other people.
Dawn’s brother was interviewed. He kept in touch with both of his sisters. Both would call him in the middle of the night and talk about being sexually abused as children.
The brother leads a march every Valentines day in support of missing and murdered Native women in Canada. Valentines Day is the day to express love. He does this for his two sisters and to bring attention to the cases of murdered and missing Native women.
The documentary showed a stretch of highway where Native women have disappeared. Some bodies have been found. They told the story of a teenage girl that is missing.
She had asked her older sister for a ride into town. Her sister had something else to do so the girl hitchhiked. No one has seen her since. That was a few years ago. Her parents still drive around the country, to powwows etc. hoping to find someone that has seen their daughter.
THE PROPHECIES
If the Mayan prophecies are right then this world as we know it will end on December 20 2012. If the Hopi prophecies are right then we have to get ourselves back on the good road or Mother Earth and all of humanity will die. We only have four years to do all of that if we are to survive.
We get back on the right road by getting in touch with the Creator. We do that through prayer.
We lost our way when the “white man” or the United States government outlawed our religions. We were forbidden to practice or participate in our ceremonies.
Some of the bigger Tribes with bigger reservations were able to continue their ceremonies deep in the countryside away from white eyes. Some hid their ceremonies behind Christian holidays. Some hid their ceremonies behind Christian symbols. Some simply took their faith underground.
It is our belief here in the Pacific Northwest that our prayers and songs and dances feed the Spirits of all life. We have songs for the Killer Whale, and eagle etc. When our songs and dances were forbidden to us other species began dying. We did too. We could no longer feed the Spirits of our relatives and helpers. We could no longer feed our own Spirits.
EXTINCTION IS A CHOICE
The Makah were and are whale hunters. They voluntarily stopped hunting gray whales when white New England whalers hunted them to near extinction. The white whalers did not hunt gray whales for food as the Makah did. They took the whales for oil and to make corsettes for their women.
The Makah never forgot the gray whale or their Spiritual relationship with them. They still sang the songs for the gray whale and did the dances. They told stories of how their grandfathers had fasted, prayed and bathed in icy rivers to get ready for whale hunts. It was the Makah love for the gray whale that brought them back from extinction.
The ivory billed woodpecker was thought to be extinct. This was a sacred being of the south eastern Tribes. Those People kept using the ivory billed woodpecker in their art. They told stories of it helping to heal the people. It was a medicine power. A white fisherman saw three of those woodpeckers. He reported it to the authorities. More sightings occurred. They had come back from extinction.
One of the teachers in our Traditional Foods classes is a Mohawk physician. She works at one of the Tribes. She uses both the white man’s medicines and Indian medicines with her patients.
She said at the last class that if we don’t use our Traditional foods and medicines they will think that we don’t want them anymore and will leave us. They are sentient beings too.
A few years ago I decided I would gather gooseberries for our Traditional foods dinner. I couldn’t find any where my mother and I used to pick them. I asked some of the elders where they used to pick. I went to where they told me and found none.
I was invited to speak at a workshop on Traditional Foods and Medicines at the Lummi Tribe. I told my story of the gooseberries disappearing from my reservation. An elder man spoke up saying that where we were is called Gooseberry Point. He said that was because it used to be covered with gooseberries. He hadn’t realized that they were gone until I told my story.
I have been telling this story for years to encourage people to be aware of the changes happening in our world. Last year one gooseberry plant appeared at the river. This year there are three and I have seen others around the reservation.
We have gotten some gooseberry plants from another reservation to reintroduce to our own home. Had they decided to leave us because they thought we didn’t want them anymore? Did they come back because we talked of how important they are to us? Is this superstition or evidence that we are part of a greater whole?
If changing our thoughts can bring back species from extinction, what will happen if we change our thoughts about ourselves?
What will happen in our Tribes if we start treating our children as sacred beings who have come to us directly from Spirit? What will happen if we again have the knowing that if they feel unwanted they can decide to leave us and they will die?
What will happen if we again acknowledge that women are sacred beings? Women are Mother Earth’s representatives in human form. Could a man hit a female knowing he is in reality punching Mother Earth? Could a man rape a female with the knowledge that he is actually raping Mother Earth?
What will happen when men again realize their own sacredness? They were given physical strength to fish and hunt to feed The People. They are here to represent the Creator and protect The People. Would someone that knows his own sacredness abuse that gift of strength to hurt or control someone else?
We have seen by the example of the ivory billed woodpecker, gray whales, and gooseberry plants that extinction isn’t always permanent.
We are our own rescuers. We need only to get back in touch with the Creator. We begin by talking to God and listening to him. We do that through prayer.
All life is sacred. That includes us. Once we recognize the sacred within ourselves and each other our world will begin to right itself. If we don’t then extinction is the inevitable end of our path
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
MOM
MOM
I write this to honor Mom and for the younger members of the family. So they will know better the lady called “Grandma Jane” on the Elwha Reservation.
It’s been over a year now since Mom left us. She was in the hospital for about a month as her body shut down one organ at a time.
Mom never did like to be alone. A young niece volunteered to stay at the hospital with her. She was too young to watch Mom die. She wound up crying. She said she couldn’t do it.
Another cousin volunteered to stay with Mom. She wound up crying saying she couldn’t do it either.
I steeled myself to stay with Mom until the end. I moved into the hospital with her.
I wasn’t the favorite. We have lived our lives at cross purposes. In the end I realized that I was the one that she counted on.
Mom was born and grew up on the beach at Little Boston. She and her friends would take the bigger oyster shells and fill them with sand. They would stand smaller mussels shells in the sand. The oyster shells were boats or cars and the mussel shells were the people.
Grampa and the other men hollowed out logs and fitted them together. They laid them out on poles stretching them from the creek to divert water to the houses. People would pull out the plugs and fill their buckets with cold fresh water. I am constantly amazed at the simple engineering skills of my ancestors. They knew how to live on the land without harming it.
Grampa worked in wood. He made canoes and skiffs or rowboats. He also made furniture. He carved a spinning wheel so my aunt could make yarn.
Once Mom showed me a brittle newspaper that contained an article about Grampa, who he was and about his carving. It described Mom as a beautiful little girl with bright shining eyes. The article called her a princess. Grampas father was our last chief of the Port Gamble band. We have had Tribal Councils since then. Grampa was our first Secretary Treasurer because he could read and write. It was his job to communicate with Washington DC.
Grampa told my Aunt Martha to keep a journal of what happened to our People. He told her to put them in cans and bury them. He wanted an accurate account of our history. I don’t think he trusted the white man to do that. My aunt passed this job to me.
Aunt Martha was from Grampas first marriage. Her mother was from the Katzie Tribe in Canada. She was a lot older than Mom, only ten years younger than Mom’s mother. She would refer to Grampa as “my father.” It made mom jealous. She said that’s our father. She was small and began calling Aunt Martha’s husband “our husband.” She thought they shared everything.
When mom was born she was given the Indian name Kristonia. Christina was chosen as her English name because it sounded similar.
Mom said that she didn’t face racism when she went to public school. She understood the Klallam language but refused to speak it. Dad said he didn’t talk white man until he married Mom.
Members of the Tribe started moving to save our language before it disappeared. When someone outside the family would ask Mom questions about the language she would become afraid. She would say she didn’t know.
My uncle Tom from Canada moved to the rez to help in the language program. He would come see Dad for help remembering words. One day they were discussing how to say something. Both men were very hard of hearing. They were almost shouting at each other. Mom was in the kitchen working. She stepped into the living room and told them the word they were trying to remember. Dad laughed because he knew Mom knew more than she let on.
I never did get the story from her about why she was afraid for people to know she understood the Klallam language. Something had happened to her. That was a secret she took to her grave. I can only assume that she was tortured as many were for speaking her language.
Lummi elder Joe Washington said that his tongue was burned with a match for speaking his language. He could not force himself to speak the language though he understood. Some survival instinct kicked in and wouldn’t allow him to do it. His wife would talk to him in Indian when they didn’t want anyone to know what they were talking about. He would nod and answer in English. We always figured it out that way.
Dad was born and grew up at the spit in Port Angeles. It was our last traditional village site. Our Shaker Minister is our last Tribal member born there. I call her our last wild Indian. The rest of us are Rez Indians.
Mom had moved to the Jamestown village to baby sit for a relative. It was her first job. The girl who became her best friend was Dad’s first cousin.
Dad would rent a bicycle from Port Angeles and bike to Jamestown to pick up Mom. She would sit on the bar handles and they would ride around the countryside. That was their dates.
They married and moved into a house on the spit in Port Angeles. Just before World War 2 the federal government condemned the houses and moved the residents to what became the Elwha Reservation.
Elwha was an original village site. Early white settlers coveted the land. They thought that since it was at the mouth of the river it would be good farm land like the mouth of the Mississippi river.
One night whites broke into the Elwha longhouses and started shooting. The People ran and kept going. They went to wherever they had relatives. The white farmers moved on to the land.
The Elwha valley is fishing country not farmland. The soil is either clay or rocks. It is river bed. The land would not cooperate with those white men.
The kind hearted farmers sold their stolen land to the federal government for the landless Indians. It was just before World War 2 and the government wanted our last village site on the spit for a Coast Guard Base. Our people were forced out of their homes onto the reservation.
Many of us can trace our Klallam blood through the western villages back to Clallam Bay and Sekiu and well into Makah territory. My great-grandmother was from Ozette. Elwha is an original village site. Those of us who live here now are descendants of the survivors of the western bands of the Klallam Tribe.
Port Gamble is an original village site. Yet they are also the descendants of the survivors of the eastern bands of the Klallam Tribe. That is where Mom is from. We buried both her and Dad there.
Dad was drafted into World War 2. Mom took her three children back to her own rez to be with her family. When Dad came back from the war he was drinking. So was Mom.
Dad’s relatives said he was fun loving when he was young. He loved baseball and fishing. I never knew that man. Alcohol and violence had set in by the time I was born.
An older relative of Dad’s from Neah Bay, Aunt Nora, once asked me if it was true that Dad beat Mom. I was a teenager by then. She said she couldn’t believe it. She told me that my grandfather had beaten my grandmother. She said Dad would take care of his mother when the beating was over. He would gently wash the blood from her face. He would pick up my grandmother and put her in the car. He wouldn’t let anyone else touch her. He would drive her around until she regained consciousness. I couldn’t imagine that kind gentle loving part of Dad. All I had known was violence.
Our lives growing up was hard. We had entered that dark transitional period in Indian history. We didn’t have our ceremonies to help and guide us. Christian churches destroyed our traditional life but wasn’t equipped to deal with the destruction they had wreaked.
I was talking with a cousin/friend who is on the council. I told her I wanted to go to a workshop on domestic violence and rape. She was happy I was interested in the subject. No one wants to touch it or acknowledge that it is a problem in our communities.
We talked about how violence had affected our lives. She too had watched her Mom be beaten by her boyfriends. She didn’t have a consistent father figure in her life. She thought that was the problem. I had my dad but didn’t fare any better than she did.
She entered an abusive relationship when she married a white man. She stayed in the relationship for her children. She finally left him and moved back to the rez and is working on her healing as I am.
Our mothers were strong people. I can see that now. I didn’t always think that. I always blamed Mom for not leaving Dad. I loved Dad but not his violence.
I understand now that she didn’t have the money or the means to leave him. She had no education and no marketable skills. She made the best choices in a situation that gave her no choices.
My nieces and nephews may be hurt by this part of our family history. But we must face it to heal it. Mom and Dad had stopped drinking by the time they came along. The physical violence had stopped. The damage had already been done to my sisters, me, my cousins and friends who had also grown up with violence.
My sisters, my cousins, my friends all got involved in abusive relationships. Since we had grown up with it we thought it was normal. We thought there was something wrong with us. I ran from relationships. I didn’t want to be trapped.
Dad died a little over ten years before Mom. My older sister and my brother never did forgive him for what he had put us through. When the hospital told Mom that Dad had passed away she collapsed. I left her with the rest of the family and went to sit with Dad’s now empty body.
I cried and told him how he had ruined my life. I told him that I forgave him. I told him that I had always loved him even though I hated what he put me through. I think I had an easier time with his death than my brother and sister because I forgave him.
Mom was lonely for the rest of her life although she was surrounded by her family. There were few left of her own age. She went through a period of missing Dad. She told me once that when she died she didn’t want to be with him. I think she was remembering the violent part of their lives together.
She fell once and cracked a disc in her spine. It was so painful for her. Luckily I had been staying with her. It was very early in the morning. She was making coffee. I had to call my sister and her son to help pick her up.
She loved going on the canoe journeys. She was so proud of the young people who paddled. Dad had lived long enough to see the return of the canoes. They were among the first elders to support the journeys.
At that time you had to have the permission of an elder to be in the canoes. One of Dad’s grandnieces came to him for permission. He stared at her for a second then said yes. He was honored and proud at the same time. Dad’s grandfather had made a canoe for him before he passed away. It was lost in a flood. Dad had fished in a canoe and was so happy to see their return.
Mom was usually the oldest person at the canoe events. She was gifted many blankets for that honor. Dad liked to tease her about that.
Mom fell and broke her hip. That was the beginning of her downhill slide. That last time she wound up in the hospital it was with pneumonia. We found out that her esophagus wasn’t working properly. She couldn’t swallow. Remnants of food would get into her lungs and cause infections. They were giving her oxygen.
She was seeing Dad regularly now. He would fish in the bay during the day. He would come in and sit on the beach until it got dark. He would come into Mom’s room. He would leave when it got light.
Mom was worried that he would get in trouble with the hospital. She asked a nurse if it was okay if her husband stayed with her. The nurse laughed and made fun of her. That was when Mom started getting rowdy. No one could control her. She was demanding to go home, but the hospital wouldn’t release her. That was when I moved in with her.
The doctor would tell me that Mom’s body was giving out and she probably wouldn’t make it through the night. I would call the family together and she would be happy and rebound. It went on like that for a month. I had always thought Mom was frail. I couldn’t believe how her body fought to survive.
The doctor told me that we had to decide what to do. She said that Mom could no longer eat because she could no longer swallow. She would have to be fed by a tube in her stomach. Her lungs no longer worked properly. She would have to be on a breathing machine the rest of her life.
I didn’t want to put anyone else through making that decision. I told the doctor to take her off life support. I called my older sister and told her what I had done. She cried and said it was best, that it was okay. I called my brother. He cried and told me it was best. I called my sister who was caring for her husband. He was dying of cancer. She also cried and said it was okay.
Mom miraculously lived a few more days. She was able to see all the people that she had loved.
I had gone back to my house to shower and change. As I was driving back to the hospital I saw in my minds eye a big longhouse. Dad walked to the center of it. Mom’s brothers lined up on either side of him. I knew the time had come.
One of my nephews was in mom’s room. He had been staying with us the last few nights. He would sit with mom, go for a walk and come back. He was worn out like everyone else. He wanted to go home but would stay if I wanted him to. I asked him to stay one more night.
I didn’t tell him of my vision. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to be by myself when she left us. He slept soundly on the other bed. I sat next to Mom and slept fitfully.
Mom was having a series of heart attacks. Everything was set up for me to give her morphine. For some reason I couldn’t do it. I would call a nurse and they would administer it. All I could do was hold Mom and pray for her until the pain subsided. The nurses were understanding and patient with me.
I sat up when I heard her breathing stop. I went to her bed. I took her in my arms and told her that I loved her. I told her that I had always loved her.
I went to the nurses station and told them that Mom had passed away. The nurse went into the room to check and removed the oxygen and iv’s.
I woke my nephew and told him that Mom had just passed away. He kissed Mom and called his own mother to give her the news.
I had always judged Mom and the other women of her generation for being weak and making the wrong decisions. I was the wrong one. I see now that they were very strong. They did the best they could in situations that gave them no options.
They suffered violence and racism and ate shit so that we could survive. I lift my hands to all the Indian women of the preceding generations.
May all my Indian sisters and I do as well with the same courage and strength as our mothers had.
I write this to honor Mom and for the younger members of the family. So they will know better the lady called “Grandma Jane” on the Elwha Reservation.
It’s been over a year now since Mom left us. She was in the hospital for about a month as her body shut down one organ at a time.
Mom never did like to be alone. A young niece volunteered to stay at the hospital with her. She was too young to watch Mom die. She wound up crying. She said she couldn’t do it.
Another cousin volunteered to stay with Mom. She wound up crying saying she couldn’t do it either.
I steeled myself to stay with Mom until the end. I moved into the hospital with her.
I wasn’t the favorite. We have lived our lives at cross purposes. In the end I realized that I was the one that she counted on.
Mom was born and grew up on the beach at Little Boston. She and her friends would take the bigger oyster shells and fill them with sand. They would stand smaller mussels shells in the sand. The oyster shells were boats or cars and the mussel shells were the people.
Grampa and the other men hollowed out logs and fitted them together. They laid them out on poles stretching them from the creek to divert water to the houses. People would pull out the plugs and fill their buckets with cold fresh water. I am constantly amazed at the simple engineering skills of my ancestors. They knew how to live on the land without harming it.
Grampa worked in wood. He made canoes and skiffs or rowboats. He also made furniture. He carved a spinning wheel so my aunt could make yarn.
Once Mom showed me a brittle newspaper that contained an article about Grampa, who he was and about his carving. It described Mom as a beautiful little girl with bright shining eyes. The article called her a princess. Grampas father was our last chief of the Port Gamble band. We have had Tribal Councils since then. Grampa was our first Secretary Treasurer because he could read and write. It was his job to communicate with Washington DC.
Grampa told my Aunt Martha to keep a journal of what happened to our People. He told her to put them in cans and bury them. He wanted an accurate account of our history. I don’t think he trusted the white man to do that. My aunt passed this job to me.
Aunt Martha was from Grampas first marriage. Her mother was from the Katzie Tribe in Canada. She was a lot older than Mom, only ten years younger than Mom’s mother. She would refer to Grampa as “my father.” It made mom jealous. She said that’s our father. She was small and began calling Aunt Martha’s husband “our husband.” She thought they shared everything.
When mom was born she was given the Indian name Kristonia. Christina was chosen as her English name because it sounded similar.
Mom said that she didn’t face racism when she went to public school. She understood the Klallam language but refused to speak it. Dad said he didn’t talk white man until he married Mom.
Members of the Tribe started moving to save our language before it disappeared. When someone outside the family would ask Mom questions about the language she would become afraid. She would say she didn’t know.
My uncle Tom from Canada moved to the rez to help in the language program. He would come see Dad for help remembering words. One day they were discussing how to say something. Both men were very hard of hearing. They were almost shouting at each other. Mom was in the kitchen working. She stepped into the living room and told them the word they were trying to remember. Dad laughed because he knew Mom knew more than she let on.
I never did get the story from her about why she was afraid for people to know she understood the Klallam language. Something had happened to her. That was a secret she took to her grave. I can only assume that she was tortured as many were for speaking her language.
Lummi elder Joe Washington said that his tongue was burned with a match for speaking his language. He could not force himself to speak the language though he understood. Some survival instinct kicked in and wouldn’t allow him to do it. His wife would talk to him in Indian when they didn’t want anyone to know what they were talking about. He would nod and answer in English. We always figured it out that way.
Dad was born and grew up at the spit in Port Angeles. It was our last traditional village site. Our Shaker Minister is our last Tribal member born there. I call her our last wild Indian. The rest of us are Rez Indians.
Mom had moved to the Jamestown village to baby sit for a relative. It was her first job. The girl who became her best friend was Dad’s first cousin.
Dad would rent a bicycle from Port Angeles and bike to Jamestown to pick up Mom. She would sit on the bar handles and they would ride around the countryside. That was their dates.
They married and moved into a house on the spit in Port Angeles. Just before World War 2 the federal government condemned the houses and moved the residents to what became the Elwha Reservation.
Elwha was an original village site. Early white settlers coveted the land. They thought that since it was at the mouth of the river it would be good farm land like the mouth of the Mississippi river.
One night whites broke into the Elwha longhouses and started shooting. The People ran and kept going. They went to wherever they had relatives. The white farmers moved on to the land.
The Elwha valley is fishing country not farmland. The soil is either clay or rocks. It is river bed. The land would not cooperate with those white men.
The kind hearted farmers sold their stolen land to the federal government for the landless Indians. It was just before World War 2 and the government wanted our last village site on the spit for a Coast Guard Base. Our people were forced out of their homes onto the reservation.
Many of us can trace our Klallam blood through the western villages back to Clallam Bay and Sekiu and well into Makah territory. My great-grandmother was from Ozette. Elwha is an original village site. Those of us who live here now are descendants of the survivors of the western bands of the Klallam Tribe.
Port Gamble is an original village site. Yet they are also the descendants of the survivors of the eastern bands of the Klallam Tribe. That is where Mom is from. We buried both her and Dad there.
Dad was drafted into World War 2. Mom took her three children back to her own rez to be with her family. When Dad came back from the war he was drinking. So was Mom.
Dad’s relatives said he was fun loving when he was young. He loved baseball and fishing. I never knew that man. Alcohol and violence had set in by the time I was born.
An older relative of Dad’s from Neah Bay, Aunt Nora, once asked me if it was true that Dad beat Mom. I was a teenager by then. She said she couldn’t believe it. She told me that my grandfather had beaten my grandmother. She said Dad would take care of his mother when the beating was over. He would gently wash the blood from her face. He would pick up my grandmother and put her in the car. He wouldn’t let anyone else touch her. He would drive her around until she regained consciousness. I couldn’t imagine that kind gentle loving part of Dad. All I had known was violence.
Our lives growing up was hard. We had entered that dark transitional period in Indian history. We didn’t have our ceremonies to help and guide us. Christian churches destroyed our traditional life but wasn’t equipped to deal with the destruction they had wreaked.
I was talking with a cousin/friend who is on the council. I told her I wanted to go to a workshop on domestic violence and rape. She was happy I was interested in the subject. No one wants to touch it or acknowledge that it is a problem in our communities.
We talked about how violence had affected our lives. She too had watched her Mom be beaten by her boyfriends. She didn’t have a consistent father figure in her life. She thought that was the problem. I had my dad but didn’t fare any better than she did.
She entered an abusive relationship when she married a white man. She stayed in the relationship for her children. She finally left him and moved back to the rez and is working on her healing as I am.
Our mothers were strong people. I can see that now. I didn’t always think that. I always blamed Mom for not leaving Dad. I loved Dad but not his violence.
I understand now that she didn’t have the money or the means to leave him. She had no education and no marketable skills. She made the best choices in a situation that gave her no choices.
My nieces and nephews may be hurt by this part of our family history. But we must face it to heal it. Mom and Dad had stopped drinking by the time they came along. The physical violence had stopped. The damage had already been done to my sisters, me, my cousins and friends who had also grown up with violence.
My sisters, my cousins, my friends all got involved in abusive relationships. Since we had grown up with it we thought it was normal. We thought there was something wrong with us. I ran from relationships. I didn’t want to be trapped.
Dad died a little over ten years before Mom. My older sister and my brother never did forgive him for what he had put us through. When the hospital told Mom that Dad had passed away she collapsed. I left her with the rest of the family and went to sit with Dad’s now empty body.
I cried and told him how he had ruined my life. I told him that I forgave him. I told him that I had always loved him even though I hated what he put me through. I think I had an easier time with his death than my brother and sister because I forgave him.
Mom was lonely for the rest of her life although she was surrounded by her family. There were few left of her own age. She went through a period of missing Dad. She told me once that when she died she didn’t want to be with him. I think she was remembering the violent part of their lives together.
She fell once and cracked a disc in her spine. It was so painful for her. Luckily I had been staying with her. It was very early in the morning. She was making coffee. I had to call my sister and her son to help pick her up.
She loved going on the canoe journeys. She was so proud of the young people who paddled. Dad had lived long enough to see the return of the canoes. They were among the first elders to support the journeys.
At that time you had to have the permission of an elder to be in the canoes. One of Dad’s grandnieces came to him for permission. He stared at her for a second then said yes. He was honored and proud at the same time. Dad’s grandfather had made a canoe for him before he passed away. It was lost in a flood. Dad had fished in a canoe and was so happy to see their return.
Mom was usually the oldest person at the canoe events. She was gifted many blankets for that honor. Dad liked to tease her about that.
Mom fell and broke her hip. That was the beginning of her downhill slide. That last time she wound up in the hospital it was with pneumonia. We found out that her esophagus wasn’t working properly. She couldn’t swallow. Remnants of food would get into her lungs and cause infections. They were giving her oxygen.
She was seeing Dad regularly now. He would fish in the bay during the day. He would come in and sit on the beach until it got dark. He would come into Mom’s room. He would leave when it got light.
Mom was worried that he would get in trouble with the hospital. She asked a nurse if it was okay if her husband stayed with her. The nurse laughed and made fun of her. That was when Mom started getting rowdy. No one could control her. She was demanding to go home, but the hospital wouldn’t release her. That was when I moved in with her.
The doctor would tell me that Mom’s body was giving out and she probably wouldn’t make it through the night. I would call the family together and she would be happy and rebound. It went on like that for a month. I had always thought Mom was frail. I couldn’t believe how her body fought to survive.
The doctor told me that we had to decide what to do. She said that Mom could no longer eat because she could no longer swallow. She would have to be fed by a tube in her stomach. Her lungs no longer worked properly. She would have to be on a breathing machine the rest of her life.
I didn’t want to put anyone else through making that decision. I told the doctor to take her off life support. I called my older sister and told her what I had done. She cried and said it was best, that it was okay. I called my brother. He cried and told me it was best. I called my sister who was caring for her husband. He was dying of cancer. She also cried and said it was okay.
Mom miraculously lived a few more days. She was able to see all the people that she had loved.
I had gone back to my house to shower and change. As I was driving back to the hospital I saw in my minds eye a big longhouse. Dad walked to the center of it. Mom’s brothers lined up on either side of him. I knew the time had come.
One of my nephews was in mom’s room. He had been staying with us the last few nights. He would sit with mom, go for a walk and come back. He was worn out like everyone else. He wanted to go home but would stay if I wanted him to. I asked him to stay one more night.
I didn’t tell him of my vision. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to be by myself when she left us. He slept soundly on the other bed. I sat next to Mom and slept fitfully.
Mom was having a series of heart attacks. Everything was set up for me to give her morphine. For some reason I couldn’t do it. I would call a nurse and they would administer it. All I could do was hold Mom and pray for her until the pain subsided. The nurses were understanding and patient with me.
I sat up when I heard her breathing stop. I went to her bed. I took her in my arms and told her that I loved her. I told her that I had always loved her.
I went to the nurses station and told them that Mom had passed away. The nurse went into the room to check and removed the oxygen and iv’s.
I woke my nephew and told him that Mom had just passed away. He kissed Mom and called his own mother to give her the news.
I had always judged Mom and the other women of her generation for being weak and making the wrong decisions. I was the wrong one. I see now that they were very strong. They did the best they could in situations that gave them no options.
They suffered violence and racism and ate shit so that we could survive. I lift my hands to all the Indian women of the preceding generations.
May all my Indian sisters and I do as well with the same courage and strength as our mothers had.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
SAVING MOTHER EARTH
Saving Mother Earth
On February 11 2008 group of Native Americans headed by the American Indian Movements original founder Dennis Banks left the west coast on a five month journey across the United States to Washington DC. They walk to bring attention to Indian issues and for the healing of Mother Earth and protection of our sacred sites.
It is a timely topic. Many ancient Indian village sites throughout the United States are being desecrated in the name of progress. In Port Angeles Washington the Klallam village of Tsewhitzen was unearthed as the State Department of Transportation built a graving yard to repair the aging Hood Canal Bridge.
The Elwha Klallam Tribe worked furiously to save ancestral remains from being overrun by the state’s bulldozers. The body count mounted. The speed destroyed many historical objects.
Over 300 fully intact remains were unearthed before the Elwha Klallam Tribe told the State that this must stop. Millions more shards of human bone were found. They had been destroyed by a mill.
Racism ran rampant in Port Angeles again as angry whites blamed the Tribe for the loss of much needed jobs. The city’s timber and fishing economy had crashed a couple decades before. Tensions hadn’t been this high since the Makah Tribes whale hunt.
Death threats were made against the Tribal Chairwoman. She had to endure racism and insults as signs bearing her name were put up through out the town. A cowardly anonymous caller told the Tribal staff that he could sit on top the hill and shoot Tribal members as they came out of their houses.
A Tribal member parked her car in downtown Port Angeles for a few minutes. She returned to find that someone had thrown bones into the backseat. Testing proved that they were from barbecued ribs.
Insensitive townspeople stated that the Tribe should just get over it. These were just dead bones. It shouldn’t stop progress or the millions of dollars they thought they could make from the construction of the state’s graving yard.
The Klallam Tribe had once stretched from the tip of Kitsap Peninsula to the Hoko River. At the time of first contact we were the largest Tribe in what is now Washington State. European diseases, small pox and influenza killed most of our People. Graves from that time were unearthed traumatizing the Tribe.
We were reminded that at one time the United States government deliberately introduced smallpox and alcohol to us. We had no immunity. Death blew through our communities like a cold north wind.
There has been no psychological study on the effects of genocide on Indian people. How do you live with the knowledge that you are not wanted in your own country? What happens to the survivors of a cold hearted attempt to murder a whole race?
Our people suffered unexplained sorrow and anger. Elders had strokes and heart attacks. We are now left with the problem of how to rebury hundreds of remains.
This is happening to many Tribes across the country as construction of malls and other buildings unearth ancient burials. Many sacred sites have been destroyed or desecrated in the name of commercial progress.
Our own Creation Site and a vision quest site are buried beneath two dams on the Elwha River. We are again vilified because we support removal of those dams. Affluent whites will lose summer homes built alongside those man-made lakes.
The dams had negatively impacted salmon runs. Their numbers declined as they could no longer reach their spawning grounds. We lost access to shellfish beds as the Straits of Juan de Fuca was no longer held at bay by the force of the Elwha river.
Mother Earth and our People are in great need of healing. I appreciate those people who are walking across this country for our curing.
The fate of Indian People and Mother Earth are eternally intertwined. She depends on our prayers songs and dances for her life. She feeds us and cares for us as our Mother. She was hurt as much as we were when our religions were outlawed by the United States government. Many species became endangered or extinct as our songs and prayers could no longer feed their spirits.
The gray whale was hunted to near extinction by New England whalers. The love, prayer, songs and dances of the Makah kept them alive and brought them back. The Makah are now maligned because they want to resume their relationship with the whale.
They have lived in symbiosis with the gray whale for millennia. Special ceremonies were performed as the whalers readied for the hunt. Hunters purified themselves to meet the one that would give up its life to feed the people.
Alcoholism and other social ills set in as the Makah lifestyle was interrupted by the outlawing of our religions. The natural balance between men and women was destroyed by the misogynistic Christian churches and European beliefs. This happened to Tribes across the continent.
Women are Mother Earth’s human representatives. We have the mandate to care for The People as she does. How a man treats the females in his life is spiritually how he treats Mother Earth.
If a man beats his wife or girlfriend or any female he is beating Mother Earth. If a man rapes his wife or girlfriend or any female he is raping Mother Earth.
The healing of The People is intertwined with the healing of Mother Earth. We must heal our thinking and our attitudes. Our spirituality was dismissed as superstition by the invaders.
Our world fell apart as we could no longer do our prayers, songs and dances. Our ceremonies had ordered the world we lived in. Everyone had a place and responsibility. Everyone was important and contributed to the well being of the community. There were hunters and fishermen, cooks, gatherers, artisans, ceremonialists and teachers.
When we forgot the sacredness of ourselves and each other abuse moved in. We stole power from each other. Men forgot that women represent Mother Earth. They began beating their wives and girlfriends. They forgot that children are sacred because they come to us from Spirit. They began beating and raping the children, our future.
As we forgot our teachings the more lost we became. Domestic violence and rape became common place. It is not Traditional behavior it is introduced behavior.
Many women state that they watched their mothers being beaten and thought it was normal. They entered abusive relations and stayed in them for years.
Healing is coming slowly but it is coming. As we return to our prayers, songs and dances we begin to once again see the sacredness in ourselves and each other. We remember our responsibilities.
Mother Earth will be healed as we heal ourselves. We must bring balance back between men and women. It must be more than simply mouthing the words. It will take action.
The American Indian Movement has stated their intent to heal Mother Earth by this walk. That means bringing back respect for the Grandmothers, mothers and daughters in our communities.
As we honor the women in our communities we honor Mother Earth. If we continue to allow the beating and rape of our women and children we are killing our own future.
The death of our environment can be attributed to corporate greed. Healing is in our hands.
On February 11 2008 group of Native Americans headed by the American Indian Movements original founder Dennis Banks left the west coast on a five month journey across the United States to Washington DC. They walk to bring attention to Indian issues and for the healing of Mother Earth and protection of our sacred sites.
It is a timely topic. Many ancient Indian village sites throughout the United States are being desecrated in the name of progress. In Port Angeles Washington the Klallam village of Tsewhitzen was unearthed as the State Department of Transportation built a graving yard to repair the aging Hood Canal Bridge.
The Elwha Klallam Tribe worked furiously to save ancestral remains from being overrun by the state’s bulldozers. The body count mounted. The speed destroyed many historical objects.
Over 300 fully intact remains were unearthed before the Elwha Klallam Tribe told the State that this must stop. Millions more shards of human bone were found. They had been destroyed by a mill.
Racism ran rampant in Port Angeles again as angry whites blamed the Tribe for the loss of much needed jobs. The city’s timber and fishing economy had crashed a couple decades before. Tensions hadn’t been this high since the Makah Tribes whale hunt.
Death threats were made against the Tribal Chairwoman. She had to endure racism and insults as signs bearing her name were put up through out the town. A cowardly anonymous caller told the Tribal staff that he could sit on top the hill and shoot Tribal members as they came out of their houses.
A Tribal member parked her car in downtown Port Angeles for a few minutes. She returned to find that someone had thrown bones into the backseat. Testing proved that they were from barbecued ribs.
Insensitive townspeople stated that the Tribe should just get over it. These were just dead bones. It shouldn’t stop progress or the millions of dollars they thought they could make from the construction of the state’s graving yard.
The Klallam Tribe had once stretched from the tip of Kitsap Peninsula to the Hoko River. At the time of first contact we were the largest Tribe in what is now Washington State. European diseases, small pox and influenza killed most of our People. Graves from that time were unearthed traumatizing the Tribe.
We were reminded that at one time the United States government deliberately introduced smallpox and alcohol to us. We had no immunity. Death blew through our communities like a cold north wind.
There has been no psychological study on the effects of genocide on Indian people. How do you live with the knowledge that you are not wanted in your own country? What happens to the survivors of a cold hearted attempt to murder a whole race?
Our people suffered unexplained sorrow and anger. Elders had strokes and heart attacks. We are now left with the problem of how to rebury hundreds of remains.
This is happening to many Tribes across the country as construction of malls and other buildings unearth ancient burials. Many sacred sites have been destroyed or desecrated in the name of commercial progress.
Our own Creation Site and a vision quest site are buried beneath two dams on the Elwha River. We are again vilified because we support removal of those dams. Affluent whites will lose summer homes built alongside those man-made lakes.
The dams had negatively impacted salmon runs. Their numbers declined as they could no longer reach their spawning grounds. We lost access to shellfish beds as the Straits of Juan de Fuca was no longer held at bay by the force of the Elwha river.
Mother Earth and our People are in great need of healing. I appreciate those people who are walking across this country for our curing.
The fate of Indian People and Mother Earth are eternally intertwined. She depends on our prayers songs and dances for her life. She feeds us and cares for us as our Mother. She was hurt as much as we were when our religions were outlawed by the United States government. Many species became endangered or extinct as our songs and prayers could no longer feed their spirits.
The gray whale was hunted to near extinction by New England whalers. The love, prayer, songs and dances of the Makah kept them alive and brought them back. The Makah are now maligned because they want to resume their relationship with the whale.
They have lived in symbiosis with the gray whale for millennia. Special ceremonies were performed as the whalers readied for the hunt. Hunters purified themselves to meet the one that would give up its life to feed the people.
Alcoholism and other social ills set in as the Makah lifestyle was interrupted by the outlawing of our religions. The natural balance between men and women was destroyed by the misogynistic Christian churches and European beliefs. This happened to Tribes across the continent.
Women are Mother Earth’s human representatives. We have the mandate to care for The People as she does. How a man treats the females in his life is spiritually how he treats Mother Earth.
If a man beats his wife or girlfriend or any female he is beating Mother Earth. If a man rapes his wife or girlfriend or any female he is raping Mother Earth.
The healing of The People is intertwined with the healing of Mother Earth. We must heal our thinking and our attitudes. Our spirituality was dismissed as superstition by the invaders.
Our world fell apart as we could no longer do our prayers, songs and dances. Our ceremonies had ordered the world we lived in. Everyone had a place and responsibility. Everyone was important and contributed to the well being of the community. There were hunters and fishermen, cooks, gatherers, artisans, ceremonialists and teachers.
When we forgot the sacredness of ourselves and each other abuse moved in. We stole power from each other. Men forgot that women represent Mother Earth. They began beating their wives and girlfriends. They forgot that children are sacred because they come to us from Spirit. They began beating and raping the children, our future.
As we forgot our teachings the more lost we became. Domestic violence and rape became common place. It is not Traditional behavior it is introduced behavior.
Many women state that they watched their mothers being beaten and thought it was normal. They entered abusive relations and stayed in them for years.
Healing is coming slowly but it is coming. As we return to our prayers, songs and dances we begin to once again see the sacredness in ourselves and each other. We remember our responsibilities.
Mother Earth will be healed as we heal ourselves. We must bring balance back between men and women. It must be more than simply mouthing the words. It will take action.
The American Indian Movement has stated their intent to heal Mother Earth by this walk. That means bringing back respect for the Grandmothers, mothers and daughters in our communities.
As we honor the women in our communities we honor Mother Earth. If we continue to allow the beating and rape of our women and children we are killing our own future.
The death of our environment can be attributed to corporate greed. Healing is in our hands.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
TRADITIONAL FOODS AND MEDICINES
TRADITIONAL FOODS AND MEDICINES
The end of the class celebration has finished . We have been learning modern methods of using our Traditional medicines through the Northwest Indian College. We have made salves and creams. Today we made a powerful incense out of cedar, sweetgrass, sage and other medicines. My backpack smells so good right now.
These kinds of classes weren’t available when I was a student. I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it as much as I do today.
My cousin John was invited to do the prayers for the class. He plays prayer songs on his flute. His opening prayer must have been heard because everything went perfectly.
We are considered leaders in the Traditional Foods movement because we are going into our eighth year. Our dinners are to reintroduce Traditional Foods back into our diets. We also give thanks to those who give up their lives that we might live.
I was invited to speak about what the two year long project had been about. All sagas start with The Creation Story.
The trees and plants were the first people. This was good, but something was missing. The Creator then made the animals and they were The People. Still something was missing. The Creator then made all that is Spirit. Everything was good, but still not quite right.
The Creator reached into the earth and pulled out the red clay. He fashioned it the way he wanted it. There is a rock with a deep impression along the Elwha River. It is now covered by a dam.
The Creator filled it with water. He bathed each creation in the water. He lifted it to each direction so all existence would know it. He breathed life into this new creation. He worked out in each direction from the Elwha River. He placed each new creation where he wanted them. These humans are the new people.
He gave us laws to follow. We were to love one another and take care of one another. We prayed and talked with the Creator. We listened to his teachings.
Everything was good. Then we started forgetting. We stopped praying and listening to the Creator. We stopped loving each other and taking care of each other. We did unspeakable things. The Creator became sorry he made us. He decided to destroy his creations.
Those that still prayed knew of his plan. They got their canoes ready. They gathered food and fresh water.
The rain started. The waters rose and swiftly covered the land. The fresh water became salty and undrinkable as the oceans rose. Most of life was killed as the world flooded.
In the mountains there are accounts of this story. They are carved into the rocks. They tell how many canoes or rafts made it through. They tell how long it rained and how long it took the waters to recede. Our Ancestors documented the animals they saw. They told which families survived.
When this was over there wasn’t enough food for both the animals and the humans. It was decided that they would play a game. The winner would be allowed to eat the loser. Our Ancestors won the game. Today we honor those who still keep their word and give up their lives that we might live.
We were told of a white race of people that were in danger of becoming lost. The Creator said that if they did lose their way they would be sent to us. We were to help them find their way onto the path intended for humans.
The lost ones showed up. They weren’t seeking enlightenment or help. They were filled with the seeds of destruction. They carried diseases that killed us more efficiently than any army.
They didn’t see the value of our resources in the sacredness of life. They counted value by what could be made in their money.
Our People that survived the wars and diseases were forced onto reservations. We were supposed to die there. We didn’t. A few families took our spark of knowledge underground and became secret societies.
Our ceremonies that had guided us through our lives were forbidden to us. Our songs and dances that healed us and Mother Earth were outlawed. We both started dying.
Our chiefs were stripped of power. The new government gave us a new set of laws. Leaders were elected to power not trained for it. Without spiritual training some gave in to the seeds of destruction. Leaders no longer prayed for guidance in each decision. The Creator was now left out of all equations.
Alcohol was introduced to us. It suppressed our need for a connection with our Creator. Later on drugs would do the same. They both suppress our innate knowledge of right and wrong. Our people became unbelievably lost.
Alcohol suffocates our teachings. We forget how to be good people. We don’t see the sacred in each other. Many men have forgotten that they are protectors of The People. They steal power from their wives and children by physical violence and sexual abuse.
Many women have forgotten that they represent Mother Earth. We have forgotten that power and knowledge travel through us. We haven’t always protected and cared for our children as Mother Earth has shown us to do. We haven’t held our men accountable to be the best humans they can be.
We used to hear that children are sacred because they come to us directly from spirit. We are supposed to treat them as sacred beings so they won’t leave us. If life is too hard for them they can choose to die. We don’t hear that teaching anymore.
Tribes will make proclamations that our children are our future. How are we treating our future? Many are physically, emotionally and sexually abused.
These learned behaviors are killing us just as efficiently as smallpox and influenza did. We have strayed far from our correct destiny. We are once again totally lost.
The Creator hasn’t abandoned us though we have forgotten him. He has given us seeds of hope. We just have to find them.
The first was the canoe journeys. It grew from the dream of an elder to see the return of the ocean going canoes. We are taken back to our most basic teachings. We learn that we have to trust and respect each other. We learn to pull together to reach our destination. We have remembered to respect the waters. We see in the oceans the sacredness and power of Mother Earth.
The Creator never abandons us. When everything looks lost and hopeless there will always be one man or one way that will have the knowledge to help.
The Creator said that if we became completely lost he would hide our help in one seed. That seed was one word. It was hidden in one document where no one would think to look. That word was whaling. The document was the Makah Treaty.
The Makah had stopped whaling when white American whalers had hunted the gray whale to near extinction. When the gray whale rebounded the Makah readied for the hunt.
Antiwhalers gathered to stop the Makah. The cowboys and Indians propaganda was fought in the media. The whale hunt was televised as it happened.
In the first light of morning we saw the Makah hunters head out to sea. They closed in on a whale while the antiwhalers slept. Every Native that was awake and watching the early morning news was praying the same prayer. We prayed for the safety and success of the hunters.
We learned the power of prayer. We had found our path home.
Diabetes is the new plague among our people. It is the result of generations of trauma. Our bodies have worn out under all the stress. We have been denied our traditional foods that were given to us for our strength and healing. We are told when we are sick to eat our Traditional foods. It has what our Creator gave us to heal our body, spirit and mind.
When we gather our Traditional foods, again we learn to depend on each other. We learn to respect each other’s talents and abilities. We are hunters, fishermen and gatherers.
Our children feel that they are not needed or are in the way. Many have no one to show them love and kindness. No one teaches them to hunt, fish, or to gather plant foods and medicines for the community.
They have the most strength and energy to contribute to the Tribe. One of the most healing thing we can do is have dinners for our communities. What happens spiritually when we eat together is we all become even.
The Elders who are tired or sick take what they need from the collective energy. Others who are sick take what they need for their healing. Our youth contribute the most strength and energy. In return they get the teachings from our speakers.
We have been given three ways to help ourselves. Is there one more coming?
Is it the unprecedented number of ancestors that are returning to us as new archaeological sites are unearthed? We are learning what we used to be, what we can be.
The Tsewhitzen site had the powdered red clay everywhere. Thousands of years ago we did everything in prayer. The red clay is used for blessing and protection.
The first step in our return to our correct destiny is prayer. We will be back in touch with our Creator. We will be like those who knew enough to ready their canoes and gather food and water before the great flood. We will be the ones to survive the days to come.
The end of the class celebration has finished . We have been learning modern methods of using our Traditional medicines through the Northwest Indian College. We have made salves and creams. Today we made a powerful incense out of cedar, sweetgrass, sage and other medicines. My backpack smells so good right now.
These kinds of classes weren’t available when I was a student. I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it as much as I do today.
My cousin John was invited to do the prayers for the class. He plays prayer songs on his flute. His opening prayer must have been heard because everything went perfectly.
We are considered leaders in the Traditional Foods movement because we are going into our eighth year. Our dinners are to reintroduce Traditional Foods back into our diets. We also give thanks to those who give up their lives that we might live.
I was invited to speak about what the two year long project had been about. All sagas start with The Creation Story.
The trees and plants were the first people. This was good, but something was missing. The Creator then made the animals and they were The People. Still something was missing. The Creator then made all that is Spirit. Everything was good, but still not quite right.
The Creator reached into the earth and pulled out the red clay. He fashioned it the way he wanted it. There is a rock with a deep impression along the Elwha River. It is now covered by a dam.
The Creator filled it with water. He bathed each creation in the water. He lifted it to each direction so all existence would know it. He breathed life into this new creation. He worked out in each direction from the Elwha River. He placed each new creation where he wanted them. These humans are the new people.
He gave us laws to follow. We were to love one another and take care of one another. We prayed and talked with the Creator. We listened to his teachings.
Everything was good. Then we started forgetting. We stopped praying and listening to the Creator. We stopped loving each other and taking care of each other. We did unspeakable things. The Creator became sorry he made us. He decided to destroy his creations.
Those that still prayed knew of his plan. They got their canoes ready. They gathered food and fresh water.
The rain started. The waters rose and swiftly covered the land. The fresh water became salty and undrinkable as the oceans rose. Most of life was killed as the world flooded.
In the mountains there are accounts of this story. They are carved into the rocks. They tell how many canoes or rafts made it through. They tell how long it rained and how long it took the waters to recede. Our Ancestors documented the animals they saw. They told which families survived.
When this was over there wasn’t enough food for both the animals and the humans. It was decided that they would play a game. The winner would be allowed to eat the loser. Our Ancestors won the game. Today we honor those who still keep their word and give up their lives that we might live.
We were told of a white race of people that were in danger of becoming lost. The Creator said that if they did lose their way they would be sent to us. We were to help them find their way onto the path intended for humans.
The lost ones showed up. They weren’t seeking enlightenment or help. They were filled with the seeds of destruction. They carried diseases that killed us more efficiently than any army.
They didn’t see the value of our resources in the sacredness of life. They counted value by what could be made in their money.
Our People that survived the wars and diseases were forced onto reservations. We were supposed to die there. We didn’t. A few families took our spark of knowledge underground and became secret societies.
Our ceremonies that had guided us through our lives were forbidden to us. Our songs and dances that healed us and Mother Earth were outlawed. We both started dying.
Our chiefs were stripped of power. The new government gave us a new set of laws. Leaders were elected to power not trained for it. Without spiritual training some gave in to the seeds of destruction. Leaders no longer prayed for guidance in each decision. The Creator was now left out of all equations.
Alcohol was introduced to us. It suppressed our need for a connection with our Creator. Later on drugs would do the same. They both suppress our innate knowledge of right and wrong. Our people became unbelievably lost.
Alcohol suffocates our teachings. We forget how to be good people. We don’t see the sacred in each other. Many men have forgotten that they are protectors of The People. They steal power from their wives and children by physical violence and sexual abuse.
Many women have forgotten that they represent Mother Earth. We have forgotten that power and knowledge travel through us. We haven’t always protected and cared for our children as Mother Earth has shown us to do. We haven’t held our men accountable to be the best humans they can be.
We used to hear that children are sacred because they come to us directly from spirit. We are supposed to treat them as sacred beings so they won’t leave us. If life is too hard for them they can choose to die. We don’t hear that teaching anymore.
Tribes will make proclamations that our children are our future. How are we treating our future? Many are physically, emotionally and sexually abused.
These learned behaviors are killing us just as efficiently as smallpox and influenza did. We have strayed far from our correct destiny. We are once again totally lost.
The Creator hasn’t abandoned us though we have forgotten him. He has given us seeds of hope. We just have to find them.
The first was the canoe journeys. It grew from the dream of an elder to see the return of the ocean going canoes. We are taken back to our most basic teachings. We learn that we have to trust and respect each other. We learn to pull together to reach our destination. We have remembered to respect the waters. We see in the oceans the sacredness and power of Mother Earth.
The Creator never abandons us. When everything looks lost and hopeless there will always be one man or one way that will have the knowledge to help.
The Creator said that if we became completely lost he would hide our help in one seed. That seed was one word. It was hidden in one document where no one would think to look. That word was whaling. The document was the Makah Treaty.
The Makah had stopped whaling when white American whalers had hunted the gray whale to near extinction. When the gray whale rebounded the Makah readied for the hunt.
Antiwhalers gathered to stop the Makah. The cowboys and Indians propaganda was fought in the media. The whale hunt was televised as it happened.
In the first light of morning we saw the Makah hunters head out to sea. They closed in on a whale while the antiwhalers slept. Every Native that was awake and watching the early morning news was praying the same prayer. We prayed for the safety and success of the hunters.
We learned the power of prayer. We had found our path home.
Diabetes is the new plague among our people. It is the result of generations of trauma. Our bodies have worn out under all the stress. We have been denied our traditional foods that were given to us for our strength and healing. We are told when we are sick to eat our Traditional foods. It has what our Creator gave us to heal our body, spirit and mind.
When we gather our Traditional foods, again we learn to depend on each other. We learn to respect each other’s talents and abilities. We are hunters, fishermen and gatherers.
Our children feel that they are not needed or are in the way. Many have no one to show them love and kindness. No one teaches them to hunt, fish, or to gather plant foods and medicines for the community.
They have the most strength and energy to contribute to the Tribe. One of the most healing thing we can do is have dinners for our communities. What happens spiritually when we eat together is we all become even.
The Elders who are tired or sick take what they need from the collective energy. Others who are sick take what they need for their healing. Our youth contribute the most strength and energy. In return they get the teachings from our speakers.
We have been given three ways to help ourselves. Is there one more coming?
Is it the unprecedented number of ancestors that are returning to us as new archaeological sites are unearthed? We are learning what we used to be, what we can be.
The Tsewhitzen site had the powdered red clay everywhere. Thousands of years ago we did everything in prayer. The red clay is used for blessing and protection.
The first step in our return to our correct destiny is prayer. We will be back in touch with our Creator. We will be like those who knew enough to ready their canoes and gather food and water before the great flood. We will be the ones to survive the days to come.
Monday, January 22, 2007
THE INDIAN CIVIL RIGHTS ACT
WHERE DID HONOR GO?
Part one
Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 (25 U.S.C. §§ 1301-03)
§ 1301. Definitions
For purposes of this subchapter, the term -
1. ''Indian tribe'' means any tribe, band, or other group of Indians subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and recognized as possessing powers of self-government;
2. ''powers of self-government'' means and includes all governmental powers possessed by an Indian tribe, executive, legislative, and judicial, and all offices, bodies, and tribunals by and through which they are executed, including courts of Indian offenses; and means the inherent power of Indian tribes, hereby recognized and affirmed, to exercise criminal jurisdiction over all Indians;
3. ''Indian court'' means any Indian tribal court or court of Indian offense.
§ 1302. Constitutional rights
No Indian tribe in exercising powers of self-government shall -
1. make or enforce any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for a redress of grievances;
2. violate the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable search and seizures, nor issue warrants, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized;
3. subject any person for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy;
4. compel any person in any criminal case to be a witness against himself;
5. take any private property for a public use without just compensation;
6. deny to any person in a criminal proceeding the right to a speedy and public trial, to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and at his own expense to have the assistance of counsel for his defense;
7. require excessive bail, impose excessive fines, inflict cruel and unusual punishments, and in no event impose for conviction of any one offense any penalty or punishment greater than imprisonment for a term of one year and [1] a fine of $5,000, or both;
8. deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws or deprive any person of liberty or property without due process of law;
9. pass any bill of attainder or ex post facto law; or
10. deny to any person accused of an offense punishable by imprisonment the right, upon request, to a trial by jury of not less than six persons.
§ 1303. Habeas corpus
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall be available to any person, in a court of the United States, to test the legality of his detention by order of an Indian tribe.
The first law of a chief is to feed the people. Chiefs were trained, spiritually, physically, emotionally and mentally. They had to be able to get a salmon, deer, or whale. They had to know how to bring it home. Then they had to be able to clean and butcher it. Then they had to know how to cook it. Finally a chief has to be humble enough to serve it to his people. No man can call himself a chief until he can do all those things.
Tribal chairmen/women are not trained. They may have a degree in business administration. Most lack the spiritual training. Many have not undergone a healing for the generations of genocide that we have endured. Internalized oppression is a symptom of that genocide.
Two of the most abused programs in a corrupt Tribal regime are Indian Child Welfare and Housing. You must be quiet and do as your told or you will lose your children and your home.
There was a time when business was conducted by the whole community. If someone had to go to a meeting, a hat was passed to collect the travel money. Everyone contributed. That person reported to the community what happened at the meeting he or she attended. Issues were discussed and everyone had a say.
I used to go with my Dad to the Tribal meetings. What I loved were the stories used to open the meetings. One old man would tell the creation story. Another would tell how the Elwha village came to be.
In another village there was a man with a deep voice. He couldn't speak softly. His voice would boom across the waters like a foghorn. Everyone made fun of him. Their laughter peeled the skin from his arms. He took his family and moved to the mouth of the Elwha River. His descendants are the Elwha, "The Deep-Voiced People." They are sensitive, quick to anger and fight.
Another old man would tell of the white man. He was few in numbers at first, seeking and friendly. As their numbers grew they became more bold. One night as the Elwha slept, white men broke into their longhouses and began shooting. The survivors ran. They sought refuge with relatives from other Tribes.
Those murderers wanted to be farmers. They assumed that the Elwha valley would be fertile and would produce many crops. The Elwha river meaders. It constantly changes course. The whole valley is sand and clay and river rocks. This is fishing country, not farmland.
Those failed farmers sold the stolen land to the United States Government for the landless Indians, so they could have homes. That stolen land, that old village site became the Elwha reservation.
The story of the treaty was told. Those first white men came as drops. Now we were engulfed in a flood. There were forts and soldiers to protect the invaders. The white man's government was divided. They were getting ready to fight each other in a civil war. Troops would be pulled from the local forts.
The US government sent Washington Territory Governor Stevens to make peace treaties with the Tribes. They wanted to ensure the safety of the white people when the soldiers were withdrawn. In return they promised many things.
Our Ancestors secured the right to continue our place in the circle of life. We are fishermen, hunters and gatherers. We agreed to allow the white men who remained to fish and hunt for their subsistence unharmed.
They drew lines around the land that would confine us. They promised housing and education. The Chiefs made an X next to their names on a piece of paper. The white men packed up their papers and left.
Paper meant nothing. Our Ancestors had moved a big rock to the place the treaty was signed. It was placed there to witness and remember the words said that day. A Coast Guard Base now sits on the site. The Daughters of the American Revolution decided to honor the Treaty Rock. It now has a plaque and a white picket fence around it. It vibrates with power and honor and anger.
We didn't have a Tribal Center when I was a child. Important meetings were held in the one church on the reservation. I would go with my Dad to those meetings to hear those stories told. I never tired as they told them at each meeting. I would sit in the back pew and pretend to read the bible and song books that were in the back of the seat in front of me.
The Business Committe does not tell the stories of our people. They follow Robert's Rules of Order. Tribal business today is not connected to our history. That Treaty Rock remembers the vows of the white man and our Chiefs. Could a chairperson or councilperson stand in front of that rock and say, "I am still feeding The People."
We went to court in the 1970's to secure our treaty right to fish, to force the State and Federal Governments to live up to their word. Are we still bound by the vows and practices of our Ancestors or are we finally white men too? Are we individual citizens now or are we still Tribal, a part of the Whole?
The Treaty promised us housing and education. You see those programs being abused. Students who are related to Business Committee members or who come from big families will get services. It is that way in all the programs.
The Elders Program serves a select few. Many in need are ignored. The trips and goodies are for the same people over and over again. Jobs are political appointments, usually to buy votes. They are not to provide services to The People.
Last fall approximately 70 Tribal members received eviction notices from the Tribal HUD housing program. The Tribe is violating our own Treaty by this travesty. Is this the action of a Chief or a corrupt politician?
We hear stories from other reservations of Tribal members being tazered for singing and praying in public. Teenagers are harrassed and beaten for being in large groups. Where are they supposed to go?
Children from all reservations are being abused. They are beaten and raped. If the perpetrator is a person of power that crime is ignored despite all the laws to protect them.
What happened to our teaching that children are sacred? Children and elders are sacred because they are closest to the Spirit world. A child is not bound to this earth until after he is ten years old. He can decide to die and leave this world without harming his soul. Is that what crib deaths are? Did those souls decide that the world we are providing is too harsh?
Our Elders are preparing to leave this world. They are changing and are in a sacred state. They stop eating, to cleanse their body for the next journey. They will only eat their favorite foods until they get their fill. We see Elders at our Traditional Foods dinners who have lost their appetites for the white man's food. They will eat with great relish a fish head. That is the food most asked for at dinners. Sometimes you will see a younger more modern Indian watching them in horror.
When did we forget that our children and Elders are sacred? When did we stop honoring our Chief's vows to feed The People. When did we start taking for ourselves first and start taking care of those who will vote for us?
When did Tribal Governments become a replica of a corrupt US government? Where did our honor go and how do we get it back?
Thursday, January 04, 2007
BLOOD QUANTUM
BLOOD QUANTUM
There is no quicker way to start an argument on the internet among Indians than to bring up the issue of blood quantum. I discovered that recently. You will hurt feelings and make enemies.
It is an issue with which many Tribes are struggling. Some Tribes have dropped blood quantum in favor of descendancy. You no longer have to prove a certain level of Indian blood. You do have to prove that you are a direct descendant of an original enrollee with the Tribe.
One of the questions is “Does Indian blood run out at some point?” If someone is 1/32 Indian and 31/32 white could they still be considered Indian? Will they still think and act like an Indian? The general American public will most certainly consider them to be white. They will probably be culturally white.
During the 1950’s and 1960’s the federal government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs had a program called “Termination.” It was the death blow to Indian status. Some enrolled Tribal members were lured into voting for termination by greed. If a vote for termination was passed, the Tribal members would receive a money settlement and they would no longer be considered Indian by the federal government.
That is a fear of many Tribal members who oppose doing away with blood quantum or lowering it. Most of those who voted for termination did not live on their reservations. They did not want to. They wanted to move into white society. They could and should do that on their own without jeopardizing the whole Tribe.
The question of blood quantum becomes one of morality and loyalty. Will the person who is 1/32 Indian and 31/32 white be loyal to the Tribe or to white society in general? Will their thinking still be Tribal? Will they look out for the good of the whole Tribe? Or will they look out for themselves before anyone or anything else?
In the Pacific Northwest Treaty Rights had to be proven and secured in court. That included fishing, hunting, shellfishing and gathering medicines, and plant food and whaling.
On May 17, 1999 the Makah successfully hunted their first gray whale in nearly a century. Animal rights activists from around the world came to protest. They used stereotypes and racism to turn local citizens against the Makah. Racists did not differentiate between the Makah and other Tribes in the area.
Seashepherd International, headed by Paul Watson, advertised for anyone with Indian blood to speak out against the Makah whale hunt. In Port Angeles he found one woman claiming to be Navajo and one man claiming to be Chippewa. Neither one appeared to be Indian. They were not enrolled. They wrote letters to the editor and made speeches as “Indians” who were opposed to the Makah Hunt.
Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were actually 1/32 Indian or less. Their loyalty was to their white blood.
The local Tribes unanimously supported the Makah Treaty Right to hunt whales. Those with a faint drop of Indian blood chose to stand with the racists.
Jonathan Paul of Ocean Defense International called a press conference demanding that the federal government revoke and renegotiate all our Treaties. He wanted the phrases retaining our rights to hunt removed.
Jonathan Paul is an animal rights activist that was convicted of arson in 2006. Self-proclaimed Indian, Ward Churchill did a benefit speaking engagement for Jonathan Paul and his cohorts.
Churchill is a coordinator of the Denver Autonomous American Indian Movement and their annual Columbus Day protests. He held a position as professor and head of Native American Studies at the University of Colorado. He held those positions as an Indian. Many researchers have proven that he has no Indian blood.
If Churchill had the miniscule amount of Indian blood that he claimed, he committed what amounted to treason to the Tribes when he performed the benefit for Jonathan Paul and his merry band of homegrown terrorists.
Would a real Indian support someone who wants to do away with our Treaties?
He needs to come to one of our Traditional Foods dinners and witness the elders eat the deer, duck, salmon and clams that is guaranteed to us by Treaty. Our Traditional Foods heal our body mind and soul.
He should talk with men and women who went away to boarding school, college or the army. They tell stories of knowing when salmon enter the river. They can feel it in their blood. They can sense the deer in the woods. We have a symbiotic relationship with those that give up their lives to feed us.
We were never able to get that through to the animal rights activists who fought the Makah treaty right to hunt whales. Another Indian should have understood that. Ward Churchill didn’t understand or he wouldn’t have done the benefit for Jonathan Paul. If he actually does have Indian blood, his white blood overwhelmed it.
Should someone who is descended from a French trapper with 1/32 French blood be recognized as a Frenchman? Should that person be able to vote for their president or to extinguish French land and culture?
What of those with an English sea captain or Irish or Scots sailor hiding in their woodpile? They might belong to the Secret Societies and speak their language. They might have lived their whole life on the reservation. White society would certainly consider them to be Indian.
No one can take away the right to claim whatever Indian blood a person may have. Many Tribes are struggling with whether or not to grant legal status to anyone who can prove Indian blood no matter how miniscule.
The big question facing us is whether or not we can trust those with a microscopic amount of Indian blood with our future. Will they care? Will they live up to the responsibility taught to us by our Ancestors?
There is no quicker way to start an argument on the internet among Indians than to bring up the issue of blood quantum. I discovered that recently. You will hurt feelings and make enemies.
It is an issue with which many Tribes are struggling. Some Tribes have dropped blood quantum in favor of descendancy. You no longer have to prove a certain level of Indian blood. You do have to prove that you are a direct descendant of an original enrollee with the Tribe.
One of the questions is “Does Indian blood run out at some point?” If someone is 1/32 Indian and 31/32 white could they still be considered Indian? Will they still think and act like an Indian? The general American public will most certainly consider them to be white. They will probably be culturally white.
During the 1950’s and 1960’s the federal government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs had a program called “Termination.” It was the death blow to Indian status. Some enrolled Tribal members were lured into voting for termination by greed. If a vote for termination was passed, the Tribal members would receive a money settlement and they would no longer be considered Indian by the federal government.
That is a fear of many Tribal members who oppose doing away with blood quantum or lowering it. Most of those who voted for termination did not live on their reservations. They did not want to. They wanted to move into white society. They could and should do that on their own without jeopardizing the whole Tribe.
The question of blood quantum becomes one of morality and loyalty. Will the person who is 1/32 Indian and 31/32 white be loyal to the Tribe or to white society in general? Will their thinking still be Tribal? Will they look out for the good of the whole Tribe? Or will they look out for themselves before anyone or anything else?
In the Pacific Northwest Treaty Rights had to be proven and secured in court. That included fishing, hunting, shellfishing and gathering medicines, and plant food and whaling.
On May 17, 1999 the Makah successfully hunted their first gray whale in nearly a century. Animal rights activists from around the world came to protest. They used stereotypes and racism to turn local citizens against the Makah. Racists did not differentiate between the Makah and other Tribes in the area.
Seashepherd International, headed by Paul Watson, advertised for anyone with Indian blood to speak out against the Makah whale hunt. In Port Angeles he found one woman claiming to be Navajo and one man claiming to be Chippewa. Neither one appeared to be Indian. They were not enrolled. They wrote letters to the editor and made speeches as “Indians” who were opposed to the Makah Hunt.
Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were actually 1/32 Indian or less. Their loyalty was to their white blood.
The local Tribes unanimously supported the Makah Treaty Right to hunt whales. Those with a faint drop of Indian blood chose to stand with the racists.
Jonathan Paul of Ocean Defense International called a press conference demanding that the federal government revoke and renegotiate all our Treaties. He wanted the phrases retaining our rights to hunt removed.
Jonathan Paul is an animal rights activist that was convicted of arson in 2006. Self-proclaimed Indian, Ward Churchill did a benefit speaking engagement for Jonathan Paul and his cohorts.
Churchill is a coordinator of the Denver Autonomous American Indian Movement and their annual Columbus Day protests. He held a position as professor and head of Native American Studies at the University of Colorado. He held those positions as an Indian. Many researchers have proven that he has no Indian blood.
If Churchill had the miniscule amount of Indian blood that he claimed, he committed what amounted to treason to the Tribes when he performed the benefit for Jonathan Paul and his merry band of homegrown terrorists.
Would a real Indian support someone who wants to do away with our Treaties?
He needs to come to one of our Traditional Foods dinners and witness the elders eat the deer, duck, salmon and clams that is guaranteed to us by Treaty. Our Traditional Foods heal our body mind and soul.
He should talk with men and women who went away to boarding school, college or the army. They tell stories of knowing when salmon enter the river. They can feel it in their blood. They can sense the deer in the woods. We have a symbiotic relationship with those that give up their lives to feed us.
We were never able to get that through to the animal rights activists who fought the Makah treaty right to hunt whales. Another Indian should have understood that. Ward Churchill didn’t understand or he wouldn’t have done the benefit for Jonathan Paul. If he actually does have Indian blood, his white blood overwhelmed it.
Should someone who is descended from a French trapper with 1/32 French blood be recognized as a Frenchman? Should that person be able to vote for their president or to extinguish French land and culture?
What of those with an English sea captain or Irish or Scots sailor hiding in their woodpile? They might belong to the Secret Societies and speak their language. They might have lived their whole life on the reservation. White society would certainly consider them to be Indian.
No one can take away the right to claim whatever Indian blood a person may have. Many Tribes are struggling with whether or not to grant legal status to anyone who can prove Indian blood no matter how miniscule.
The big question facing us is whether or not we can trust those with a microscopic amount of Indian blood with our future. Will they care? Will they live up to the responsibility taught to us by our Ancestors?
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
DOG SOLDIERS AND FOG SOLDIERS
DOG SOLDIERS AND FOG SOLDIERS
FBI Lies Part Two
"The dog soldiers were the elite military organizations in the tribe. They were the last line of defense for the people. And so they were greatly esteemed. The warriors in the society were outfitted with a particular sash, which trailed the ground. And each member carried a sacred arrow. And in time of battle, the dog soldier would impale the sash to the ground and stand the ground to the death. They had a song which only the members could sing, and only in the face of death. So you can imagine, that children, when they saw a dog soldier go by, must have just -- Ahhh, wow! Look at that guy, he's a dog soldier!" N. Scott Momaday
The FBI has used the image of Plains Indian Dog Soldiers to frighten the white public. During Leonard Peltier’s trial they said that American Indian Movement Dog Soldiers were coming to town. The allusion was that AIM’s biggest and baddest were coming to break their brother Leonard Peltier out of jail.
Extra protection was provided for the jurors. The windows on their bus were painted black. Nilak Butler said that she and her friend with her children were made to hide while the jurors unloaded. Nilak said the FBI didn’t want people to see AIM as every day people, like mothers with children. AIM had to be seen as dark and dangerous, a threat to white existence.
At that time the FBI still wore Robert Stack’s face as Elliot Ness in the public mind. They were elegant cops in their business suits and grim professional manner. They mowed down underworld gangsters with machine guns. They had to do that to protect the public and the American Dream.
In real life and real time during the 1960’s people of color began banding together to find ways to improve life for their people. The Black Panther Party began serving breakfast to school kids. They simply wanted to give children of color a fighting chance in the classroom.
The Black Panther Party was infiltrated and destroyed by the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program. Those stylish cops kicked in Panther doors and murdered their leadership just like Robert Stack had done to the mob.
The white American public barely batted an eye as they watched the grandchildren of slaves be beaten and murdered for demanding simple human dignity.
When the FBI turned to the American Indian Movement they changed tactics. They wore fatigues and carried rifles. They staged a military style invasion and occupation on the miniature third world country, the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Most American Indians lived on remote poor reservations. Up until that time the FBI were basically urban cops. Most of the FBI’s Indian war was fought on the Pine Ridge reservation.
In February 1973 the Oglalla Sioux Civil Rights Organization sent out word to all Indian activists to come and help occupy the little town of Wounded Knee. Indians came from Canada and the United States.
The occupation was quickly surrounded by the FBI, US Marshals, BIA police, the United States Army, and white vigilantes. The little village was held for 71 days.
Pine Ridge was a small version of a third world country. There was a corrupt Tribal Chairman that was a dictator with a personal guard called the goon squad. Pine Ridge had uranium. That meant nothing to the Tribal members, but meant big money to the United States government.
Did the FBI foment civil war on the Pine Ridge reservation in order to steal land and uranium from the Lakota? According to Buffy St Marie interview in the documentary “In the spirit of Annie Mae,” Anna Mae was very much involved in researching uranium mining on reservations. She talked about it a lot.
Buffy St. Marie was a friend of Anna Mae Aquash. She says Anna Mae told her that she was being stalked. Anna Mae confided that she thought the stalkers were “government folks.”
COINTELPRO WAR AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
The FBI seemed to test public reaction to the bloody murders of Black Panther leaders. There was no outcry as Panthers were shot as they slept. Few cared that some Black Panthers were convicted of murders they couldn’t have committed.
White America seemed afraid of possible revenge from a Black uprising. They were willing to accept the unacceptable behavior of various city police and the FBI in their disruption of Black Unity.
AIM men grew their hair long. Aim women also let their hair grow out and wore it straight and free. It was a simple declaration. Boarding Schools had cut our hair. To us that was a symbol of shame or mourning. We took back our own sense of beauty and pride.
News photos showed armed AIM warriors against the skyline holding rifles with eagle feathers fluttering in the wind. The leadership made bold, tough, witty statements on the six o’clock news.
Tribal chairmen in business suits or cowboy shirts made counter-statements. President Richard Nixon formed the National Tribal Chairmen’s Association in an attempt to contain growing Indian unrest. The flames of civil war were lit as the Tribes elected officials were pitted against their own people. The fire grew hottest on Pine Ridge.
The FBI sent Doug Durham to infiltrate the American Indian Movement at the top. He was a white man who pretended to be Indian. He dyed his hair black, dressed and strutted like the AIM warriors.
He is a haunting figure but in a different way than Anna Mae. How did this white FBI agent gain access to AIM’s inner circle? How was he able to trick key people into believing that he was Indian?
He had needed skills. He was a photographer, writer and pilot. He had access to money or whatever the AIM leadership needed. He was a man who could get things done. He made himself indispensable to Dennis Banks, AIM’s top leader.
The FBI spread rumors that certain AIM members were informers or collaborators. The FBI would arrest Anna Mae along with her friends. She would be released before everyone else. The FBI carefully set her up. It looked like she was cooperating with the FBI.
Doug Durham was exposed as an informer. He was allowed to leave. No retaliation was taken. He wasn’t even slapped around for his crimes. What damage did he do as Director of National Security for AIM?
Anna Mae was a fund raiser and organizer. Who and what was she a danger to? What information could she have provided to the FBI that Doug Durham and other informants hadn’t?
What would be the FBI’s real fear of Anna Mae? The leadership was held hostage by court cases or they were on the run. If all the men were out of the picture, would this tiny woman be in charge? She would have cleaned up AIM and gotten it back on track, in service to The People.
That didn’t happen. Anna Mae disappeared sometime during that winter of 75 – 76. Stories leaked or were leaked out.
FOG SOLDIERS
Paul Demain said in his timeline that it would be Dog Soldier protocol for Arlo Looking Cloud to receive the gun to kill Anna Mae Aquash on Lakota Territory. Demain promotes FBI propaganda that the murder of Anna Mae Aquash was an AIM Dog Soldier operation.
Let’s pretend that Looking Cloud and Graham were Dog Soldiers. They were prepared to offer their lives to protect The People. Anna Mae would have to have been the most treacherous of collaborators for that elite warrior society to step in. If it still existed.
Would Graham and Looking Cloud have staked themselves down to shoot a woman in the back of the head?
The Dog Soldier lie is one of the most improbable. What honor would have come of killing a tiny girl? They didn’t track down and kill Doug Durham. He called a press conference to announce to the world that he was an FBI operative working at the highest levels of AIM. There was only FBI planted suspicion of Anna Mae.
Paul Demain has said that after Anna Mae’s murder several women broke off from AIM and formed the Women of All Red Nations. WARN. That was the pie patrol. They are the same women he accuses of beating Anna Mae at her alleged interrogation at the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee office.
Most of the FBI lies are improbable. Through repetition some of those lies have become accepted as truth.
It is hard to see through the fog created by the FBI and their spinmeisters. There are hard sell and soft sell attempts to stop the examination of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.
It has been over 30 years since the disappearance and murder of Anna Mae Aquash. Some say that it is an old story and no one cares. That may be true for some people.
We will never get the truth from the FBI and the US Court System. The American Indian Movement took on the military might of the United States Government. That war was like Steve Hendricks says a battle for the soul of Indian Country.
AIM was imploded from within by infiltrators and their own failings. Massive egos and ambitions of the leadership divided the loyalties of the rank and file of AIM membership. The FBI took advantage of that.
What stood up at the occupation of the BIA in 1972 and the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 was the best part of us. It was defiled by the developing science of how to destroy a people, Cointelpro.
There is a part of us that the FBI will never be able to conquer unless we personally allow it. That is our minds and souls.
I like to think that there is a Supreme Court in the next world. It is made up of all our greatest chiefs: Seattle, Joseph, Captain Jack, Crazy Horse, Geronimo and all the others.
The FBI and the US government won’t be held accountable for their atrocities against Indian People. I like to think that Anna Mae waits on the other side for retired FBI agent David Price to cross over. She will escort him before our high court to stand trial.
In the meantime we can demand truth. The FBI did nothing about the murder of Anna Mae Aquash for almost 30 years. Key witnesses have died and FBI lies have taken hold.
We can stand up for those who stood for us and gave their lives. We can use our hearts and minds to examine the story and evidence or lack of evidence.
The story of Anna Mae Aquash is a big one. It is the modern day wrongdoings of the US government. It is the promise and failure of the American Indian Movement. It is the story of the best and worst in us. We must own it.
FBI Lies Part Two
"The dog soldiers were the elite military organizations in the tribe. They were the last line of defense for the people. And so they were greatly esteemed. The warriors in the society were outfitted with a particular sash, which trailed the ground. And each member carried a sacred arrow. And in time of battle, the dog soldier would impale the sash to the ground and stand the ground to the death. They had a song which only the members could sing, and only in the face of death. So you can imagine, that children, when they saw a dog soldier go by, must have just -- Ahhh, wow! Look at that guy, he's a dog soldier!" N. Scott Momaday
The FBI has used the image of Plains Indian Dog Soldiers to frighten the white public. During Leonard Peltier’s trial they said that American Indian Movement Dog Soldiers were coming to town. The allusion was that AIM’s biggest and baddest were coming to break their brother Leonard Peltier out of jail.
Extra protection was provided for the jurors. The windows on their bus were painted black. Nilak Butler said that she and her friend with her children were made to hide while the jurors unloaded. Nilak said the FBI didn’t want people to see AIM as every day people, like mothers with children. AIM had to be seen as dark and dangerous, a threat to white existence.
At that time the FBI still wore Robert Stack’s face as Elliot Ness in the public mind. They were elegant cops in their business suits and grim professional manner. They mowed down underworld gangsters with machine guns. They had to do that to protect the public and the American Dream.
In real life and real time during the 1960’s people of color began banding together to find ways to improve life for their people. The Black Panther Party began serving breakfast to school kids. They simply wanted to give children of color a fighting chance in the classroom.
The Black Panther Party was infiltrated and destroyed by the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program. Those stylish cops kicked in Panther doors and murdered their leadership just like Robert Stack had done to the mob.
The white American public barely batted an eye as they watched the grandchildren of slaves be beaten and murdered for demanding simple human dignity.
When the FBI turned to the American Indian Movement they changed tactics. They wore fatigues and carried rifles. They staged a military style invasion and occupation on the miniature third world country, the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Most American Indians lived on remote poor reservations. Up until that time the FBI were basically urban cops. Most of the FBI’s Indian war was fought on the Pine Ridge reservation.
In February 1973 the Oglalla Sioux Civil Rights Organization sent out word to all Indian activists to come and help occupy the little town of Wounded Knee. Indians came from Canada and the United States.
The occupation was quickly surrounded by the FBI, US Marshals, BIA police, the United States Army, and white vigilantes. The little village was held for 71 days.
Pine Ridge was a small version of a third world country. There was a corrupt Tribal Chairman that was a dictator with a personal guard called the goon squad. Pine Ridge had uranium. That meant nothing to the Tribal members, but meant big money to the United States government.
Did the FBI foment civil war on the Pine Ridge reservation in order to steal land and uranium from the Lakota? According to Buffy St Marie interview in the documentary “In the spirit of Annie Mae,” Anna Mae was very much involved in researching uranium mining on reservations. She talked about it a lot.
Buffy St. Marie was a friend of Anna Mae Aquash. She says Anna Mae told her that she was being stalked. Anna Mae confided that she thought the stalkers were “government folks.”
COINTELPRO WAR AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
The FBI seemed to test public reaction to the bloody murders of Black Panther leaders. There was no outcry as Panthers were shot as they slept. Few cared that some Black Panthers were convicted of murders they couldn’t have committed.
White America seemed afraid of possible revenge from a Black uprising. They were willing to accept the unacceptable behavior of various city police and the FBI in their disruption of Black Unity.
AIM men grew their hair long. Aim women also let their hair grow out and wore it straight and free. It was a simple declaration. Boarding Schools had cut our hair. To us that was a symbol of shame or mourning. We took back our own sense of beauty and pride.
News photos showed armed AIM warriors against the skyline holding rifles with eagle feathers fluttering in the wind. The leadership made bold, tough, witty statements on the six o’clock news.
Tribal chairmen in business suits or cowboy shirts made counter-statements. President Richard Nixon formed the National Tribal Chairmen’s Association in an attempt to contain growing Indian unrest. The flames of civil war were lit as the Tribes elected officials were pitted against their own people. The fire grew hottest on Pine Ridge.
The FBI sent Doug Durham to infiltrate the American Indian Movement at the top. He was a white man who pretended to be Indian. He dyed his hair black, dressed and strutted like the AIM warriors.
He is a haunting figure but in a different way than Anna Mae. How did this white FBI agent gain access to AIM’s inner circle? How was he able to trick key people into believing that he was Indian?
He had needed skills. He was a photographer, writer and pilot. He had access to money or whatever the AIM leadership needed. He was a man who could get things done. He made himself indispensable to Dennis Banks, AIM’s top leader.
The FBI spread rumors that certain AIM members were informers or collaborators. The FBI would arrest Anna Mae along with her friends. She would be released before everyone else. The FBI carefully set her up. It looked like she was cooperating with the FBI.
Doug Durham was exposed as an informer. He was allowed to leave. No retaliation was taken. He wasn’t even slapped around for his crimes. What damage did he do as Director of National Security for AIM?
Anna Mae was a fund raiser and organizer. Who and what was she a danger to? What information could she have provided to the FBI that Doug Durham and other informants hadn’t?
What would be the FBI’s real fear of Anna Mae? The leadership was held hostage by court cases or they were on the run. If all the men were out of the picture, would this tiny woman be in charge? She would have cleaned up AIM and gotten it back on track, in service to The People.
That didn’t happen. Anna Mae disappeared sometime during that winter of 75 – 76. Stories leaked or were leaked out.
FOG SOLDIERS
Paul Demain said in his timeline that it would be Dog Soldier protocol for Arlo Looking Cloud to receive the gun to kill Anna Mae Aquash on Lakota Territory. Demain promotes FBI propaganda that the murder of Anna Mae Aquash was an AIM Dog Soldier operation.
Let’s pretend that Looking Cloud and Graham were Dog Soldiers. They were prepared to offer their lives to protect The People. Anna Mae would have to have been the most treacherous of collaborators for that elite warrior society to step in. If it still existed.
Would Graham and Looking Cloud have staked themselves down to shoot a woman in the back of the head?
The Dog Soldier lie is one of the most improbable. What honor would have come of killing a tiny girl? They didn’t track down and kill Doug Durham. He called a press conference to announce to the world that he was an FBI operative working at the highest levels of AIM. There was only FBI planted suspicion of Anna Mae.
Paul Demain has said that after Anna Mae’s murder several women broke off from AIM and formed the Women of All Red Nations. WARN. That was the pie patrol. They are the same women he accuses of beating Anna Mae at her alleged interrogation at the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee office.
Most of the FBI lies are improbable. Through repetition some of those lies have become accepted as truth.
It is hard to see through the fog created by the FBI and their spinmeisters. There are hard sell and soft sell attempts to stop the examination of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.
It has been over 30 years since the disappearance and murder of Anna Mae Aquash. Some say that it is an old story and no one cares. That may be true for some people.
We will never get the truth from the FBI and the US Court System. The American Indian Movement took on the military might of the United States Government. That war was like Steve Hendricks says a battle for the soul of Indian Country.
AIM was imploded from within by infiltrators and their own failings. Massive egos and ambitions of the leadership divided the loyalties of the rank and file of AIM membership. The FBI took advantage of that.
What stood up at the occupation of the BIA in 1972 and the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 was the best part of us. It was defiled by the developing science of how to destroy a people, Cointelpro.
There is a part of us that the FBI will never be able to conquer unless we personally allow it. That is our minds and souls.
I like to think that there is a Supreme Court in the next world. It is made up of all our greatest chiefs: Seattle, Joseph, Captain Jack, Crazy Horse, Geronimo and all the others.
The FBI and the US government won’t be held accountable for their atrocities against Indian People. I like to think that Anna Mae waits on the other side for retired FBI agent David Price to cross over. She will escort him before our high court to stand trial.
In the meantime we can demand truth. The FBI did nothing about the murder of Anna Mae Aquash for almost 30 years. Key witnesses have died and FBI lies have taken hold.
We can stand up for those who stood for us and gave their lives. We can use our hearts and minds to examine the story and evidence or lack of evidence.
The story of Anna Mae Aquash is a big one. It is the modern day wrongdoings of the US government. It is the promise and failure of the American Indian Movement. It is the story of the best and worst in us. We must own it.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
WHO KILLED THE RED MESSIAH
FBI LIES
The FBI tale played out in the four day trial of Arlo Looking Cloud. The lies they had been laying for years came together in the story that was told at the trial. It can be found on Jordan Dill and Paul Demain’s sites. They have promoted the FBI story for years. http://www.dickshovel.com/time.html
A new book by Steve Hendricks chronicles the history of the war between the American Indian Movement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is called “The Unquiet Grave.” One of the casualties of that war was Anna Mae Aquash. She was unquestionably the most charismatic and intelligent AIM member to come out of that era.
Hendricks sued the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain new documents. The first chapter and the endnotes are published on his site. http://www.stevehendricks.org/
The endnotes are critical reading because they cite new documents forced from the FBI hands. These new FOIA documents could radically change things for Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham. They tell a different story than the one crafted by the United States Government.
THE BUZZ BEGINS
There was once a young lady called Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. She was beautiful and smart. She was a Mic Mac Indian born of red earth. Her heart pumped blood and revolution.
She was audacious in her defiance of the FBI’s firepower and treachery. She didn’t run when her friends chose to believe those FBI lies that she was a traitor.
A body was found in the South Dakota badlands on February 24 1976. The FBI said she had died of exposure about 10 days before. A second autopsy said she didn’t freeze to death. She was killed by a bullet to the brain.
Hendricks notes the description of three different girls. They were three different heights, three different weights. Did Dr. Brown actually autopsy a girl that died of exposure?
The FBI had the Wanblee body’s hands cut off and sent to Washington, for identification they said. The FBI said that while this was not normal procedure it was not unusual either.
This brings up some horrible thoughts. If there were three bodies, were they buying time by severing the hands and sending them to Washington DC for identification? Or did they sever the hands because the body in the first autopsy was not Anna Mae?
Could Anna Mae have still been alive when the Wanblee body was found by the rancher Amiotte? On page 391 of “The Unquiet Grave” endnotes FBI agent David Price states in a memo that he had Anna Mae under surveillance in February 1976. He describes the clothes she was wearing. The names of the people she was with and the place they were seen are blacked out.
Could the people Anna Mae was with in February of 1976 be the real killers? Were they imbedded operatives? Are they still among us?
Anna Mae was no martyr waiting to happen. She was experienced in self defense. She knew karate. She knew how to live with the land.
It is ironic that the FBI and their spin meisters now portray her as a pathetic victim. They say she was overwhelmed and taken prisoner by two young men Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham and a middle aged woman Theda Nelson Clark. In reality she could have defended herself if she wanted to.
The court accepted FBI story says she was tied to a board and put into the back of a Ford Pinto. She was a tiny lady, five foot two and one hundred and ten pounds. It would be impossible to fit a board the length of even a girl that small into the back of a tiny Ford Pinto car.
The appeals court said in their denial of his appeal, that if Arlo helped carry her from the house tied to a board, then he knew she was to be killed. No one asked how a board with a five foot two woman tied to it could be fit into the rear compartment of a Ford Pinto.
Anna Mae was driven to Rapid City allegedly to be questioned by the Wounded Knee Legal Offense Defense Committee. What happened to the board and the ropes that bound her? There is no more mention of her being bound to a board. If they had managed to fit her tied to a board into the Pinto cubbyhole, then when was she released from it? There isn’t a description of her being carried into Thelma Rios’ empty apartment still tied to that silly board.
If the interrogation did happen, where were Arlo, John and Theda during the interrogation of Anna Mae? Did they go back to the apartment to sleep or were they cooling their heels outside the office?
Why did they go to Dick Marshall’s house? If they were intent on murder why did they leave a trail a mile wide and create so many witnesses? Why did they try to leave her with the Marshalls?
Were they sent to Bill Means house on Rosebud? Who sent them and why? If they were ordered to take Anna Mae to Bill Means house then why did they try to leave her with Dick Marshall? Was this hapless wandering part of a direct action or is it a story to implicate as many AIM members as possible?
Our desolate, lethal trio hobble back to Pine Ridge with Anna Mae in tow. They look for a safe out of the way place to kill her. Why did they have to kill her on Pine Ridge? Why didn’t they kill her at Rosebud if they received orders there? Why did they leave her body to be found?
Why didn’t they take the time to bury her? No one would have found her body if they had taken a little more time. There would have been no way to trace it back to anyone.
Her body was placed or left there to be found. What purpose was that to AIM? Who benefited from the murder of Anna Mae Aquash? Who benefited from the way the FBI says it happened?
Anna Mae had many chances to escape if she wanted to. Would the karate expert have walked placidly to her death? She had two young daughters to live for. She would have fought to live for the two most important people in her life.
Once there was a young lady named Anna Mae Aquash. She shot through our lives like a comet across the night sky. She was bold and beautiful and smart.
Anna Mae once said that anyone who walks in my footsteps will know what I know. Is there anyone brave enough to do what she was killed for?
She called Paul Giese on December 20 1975 and told her she would see her after the holidays. Could Paula have proven that Anna Mae was still alive after December 12 1975?
Did the US government wait until key witnesses were dead to bring this case to court?
A new book by Steve Hendricks, “The Unquiet Grave” quotes new Freedom of Information Act documents obtained from the FBI for his book. New interviews and FOIA documents are referenced in the endnotes.
Hendricks cites a memo that shows that the FBI was concerned about Anna Mae’s meteoric rise within AIM and her growing influence. Was the FBI worried that Anna Mae could be the Red Messiah that might unite us?
Could the real reason that she was killed was that she was a person of the people. She could talk to the educated and uneducated, the Indian and non-Indian. She could have brought all of us together. That was her danger.
I believe our teaching that we don’t get out of this life until our work is done. In my heart I have a sinking feeling that if Anna Mae had lived, life would be different, better for us.
The FBI tale played out in the four day trial of Arlo Looking Cloud. The lies they had been laying for years came together in the story that was told at the trial. It can be found on Jordan Dill and Paul Demain’s sites. They have promoted the FBI story for years. http://www.dickshovel.com/time.html
A new book by Steve Hendricks chronicles the history of the war between the American Indian Movement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is called “The Unquiet Grave.” One of the casualties of that war was Anna Mae Aquash. She was unquestionably the most charismatic and intelligent AIM member to come out of that era.
Hendricks sued the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain new documents. The first chapter and the endnotes are published on his site. http://www.stevehendricks.org/
The endnotes are critical reading because they cite new documents forced from the FBI hands. These new FOIA documents could radically change things for Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham. They tell a different story than the one crafted by the United States Government.
THE BUZZ BEGINS
There was once a young lady called Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. She was beautiful and smart. She was a Mic Mac Indian born of red earth. Her heart pumped blood and revolution.
She was audacious in her defiance of the FBI’s firepower and treachery. She didn’t run when her friends chose to believe those FBI lies that she was a traitor.
A body was found in the South Dakota badlands on February 24 1976. The FBI said she had died of exposure about 10 days before. A second autopsy said she didn’t freeze to death. She was killed by a bullet to the brain.
Hendricks notes the description of three different girls. They were three different heights, three different weights. Did Dr. Brown actually autopsy a girl that died of exposure?
The FBI had the Wanblee body’s hands cut off and sent to Washington, for identification they said. The FBI said that while this was not normal procedure it was not unusual either.
This brings up some horrible thoughts. If there were three bodies, were they buying time by severing the hands and sending them to Washington DC for identification? Or did they sever the hands because the body in the first autopsy was not Anna Mae?
Could Anna Mae have still been alive when the Wanblee body was found by the rancher Amiotte? On page 391 of “The Unquiet Grave” endnotes FBI agent David Price states in a memo that he had Anna Mae under surveillance in February 1976. He describes the clothes she was wearing. The names of the people she was with and the place they were seen are blacked out.
Could the people Anna Mae was with in February of 1976 be the real killers? Were they imbedded operatives? Are they still among us?
Anna Mae was no martyr waiting to happen. She was experienced in self defense. She knew karate. She knew how to live with the land.
It is ironic that the FBI and their spin meisters now portray her as a pathetic victim. They say she was overwhelmed and taken prisoner by two young men Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham and a middle aged woman Theda Nelson Clark. In reality she could have defended herself if she wanted to.
The court accepted FBI story says she was tied to a board and put into the back of a Ford Pinto. She was a tiny lady, five foot two and one hundred and ten pounds. It would be impossible to fit a board the length of even a girl that small into the back of a tiny Ford Pinto car.
The appeals court said in their denial of his appeal, that if Arlo helped carry her from the house tied to a board, then he knew she was to be killed. No one asked how a board with a five foot two woman tied to it could be fit into the rear compartment of a Ford Pinto.
Anna Mae was driven to Rapid City allegedly to be questioned by the Wounded Knee Legal Offense Defense Committee. What happened to the board and the ropes that bound her? There is no more mention of her being bound to a board. If they had managed to fit her tied to a board into the Pinto cubbyhole, then when was she released from it? There isn’t a description of her being carried into Thelma Rios’ empty apartment still tied to that silly board.
If the interrogation did happen, where were Arlo, John and Theda during the interrogation of Anna Mae? Did they go back to the apartment to sleep or were they cooling their heels outside the office?
Why did they go to Dick Marshall’s house? If they were intent on murder why did they leave a trail a mile wide and create so many witnesses? Why did they try to leave her with the Marshalls?
Were they sent to Bill Means house on Rosebud? Who sent them and why? If they were ordered to take Anna Mae to Bill Means house then why did they try to leave her with Dick Marshall? Was this hapless wandering part of a direct action or is it a story to implicate as many AIM members as possible?
Our desolate, lethal trio hobble back to Pine Ridge with Anna Mae in tow. They look for a safe out of the way place to kill her. Why did they have to kill her on Pine Ridge? Why didn’t they kill her at Rosebud if they received orders there? Why did they leave her body to be found?
Why didn’t they take the time to bury her? No one would have found her body if they had taken a little more time. There would have been no way to trace it back to anyone.
Her body was placed or left there to be found. What purpose was that to AIM? Who benefited from the murder of Anna Mae Aquash? Who benefited from the way the FBI says it happened?
Anna Mae had many chances to escape if she wanted to. Would the karate expert have walked placidly to her death? She had two young daughters to live for. She would have fought to live for the two most important people in her life.
Once there was a young lady named Anna Mae Aquash. She shot through our lives like a comet across the night sky. She was bold and beautiful and smart.
Anna Mae once said that anyone who walks in my footsteps will know what I know. Is there anyone brave enough to do what she was killed for?
She called Paul Giese on December 20 1975 and told her she would see her after the holidays. Could Paula have proven that Anna Mae was still alive after December 12 1975?
Did the US government wait until key witnesses were dead to bring this case to court?
A new book by Steve Hendricks, “The Unquiet Grave” quotes new Freedom of Information Act documents obtained from the FBI for his book. New interviews and FOIA documents are referenced in the endnotes.
Hendricks cites a memo that shows that the FBI was concerned about Anna Mae’s meteoric rise within AIM and her growing influence. Was the FBI worried that Anna Mae could be the Red Messiah that might unite us?
Could the real reason that she was killed was that she was a person of the people. She could talk to the educated and uneducated, the Indian and non-Indian. She could have brought all of us together. That was her danger.
I believe our teaching that we don’t get out of this life until our work is done. In my heart I have a sinking feeling that if Anna Mae had lived, life would be different, better for us.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
TRYWORKS
TRYWORKS
(Ward in Wonderland)
We understand each other through myth. During the Creation times our world was dark. We had to steal light and fire. I can say we flew to the sun and stole light. A Mohawk and Cherokee from back east, a Sioux from the plains and a Pueblo from the desert will understand that an act of mythic proportion has just taken place. They may have different Creation stories, but they will understand the meaning.
We can call each other into line and remind each other of familial obligations with one word, “cuz.” “Don’t hurt me, we have the same blood,” or “Watch it, don’t shame our family.”
We mourn with the Cherokee when they tell the story of how their Ancestors were hounded from their homelands and force marched halfway across this continent. We can feel the old ones and babies, those too weak to keep up and those that starved.
Our eyes shine with tears and pride and defiance when we see photos of the great Chiefs that broke out of our reservations and made the last desperate fights. They were killed or exiled to lands they weren’t made for, an unspeakable punishment for an Indian. You are born of your land. She takes care of you and feeds you and holds you in her embrace when your journey is over.
I received emails from people who told me they bawled like a baby when they read about my Tribe having to remove the remains of our Ancestors from an old village site where the State of Washington wanted to build a graving yard. It took over a year for the Tribal Council to get a backbone and tell the State to stop and leave.
Today is Tribal elections. I received a flyer from a campaigning councilman telling how much he has done and will do. He talked of how many jobs the graving yard will provide and how much money it will bring in. They have sold us out for money. That is their admission. Both councilmen rewon their positions. We had a chance to change things, to protect our ancestors and we blew it……….again.
We have all these stories in common. We have experienced the loss of lands, the death of our people, the outlawing of our religions and languages and the betrayal of our own leaders.
We have survived the genocide. Many “tax paying citizens” now deny that a holocaust happened here in the United States, like the skinheads deny that a holocaust in Germany happened.
We know that aging is a natural progression. On our reservations there are people that everyone calls Aunty and Uncle. There are those everyone calls Mom and Dad. There are the blessed ones that everyone calls Grandma and Grampa. We know that not everyone is allowed to live such a long life. We know that they have earned a lot of knowledge.
White people think that aging is a failure. Anti-aging is a multimillion dollar business as they fight the certainty of growing older.
How do we talk with the white man without a common mythical background, or an understanding of how the world works? We understand their language and religion because it was beaten into our parents and grandparents.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
A friend gave me one of Ward Churchill’s books to read. A couple chapters upset me. One was about the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. The other was about the reign of terror on Pine Ridge during the 1970’s.
Churchill attacked a friend of mine, blaming him for creating the Indian Arts and Crafts act to get rid of competition. My friend Earl Biss has made the transition back home, a common theme in his paintings. http://www.earl-biss.com/
Churchill made fun of Earl’s style of dress, saying it set the standard for “The Santa Fe Indian Artist.” According to Churchill, Earl wore “Blanket vests and coats and a big brimmed hat.” He was a striking figure.
Pendleton jackets and vests are the Rez version of black tie. Only slightly behind that is a red teeshirt with an eagle, wolf or killer whale on it.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Act simply states that art being presented as Indian Art has to be made by real Indians. The act protects the integrity of Indian art.
Those of us who attended The Institute of American Indian Arts have a special bond. We forged new pathways for our work. Painters like Earl Biss, TC Cannon, Alfred Youngman and Bill Soza also made political statements, not just pretty pictures. Mixed media also included poetry.
Arlo Looking Cloud attended the Institute of American Indian Arts. He was a painting major.
The other chapter upset and prompted me to contact Ward Churchill. At the end of his chronicle of the reign of terror (1973 to 1976) he listed all those that died. He listed the men as AIM members and the women as AIM supporters.
The internet was fuming with discussions about the Anna Mae case. Many thought the movement was dead or dying. I thought it was worth trying to save. Before that could be done we have to confront and stop the sexism. I said on one list I wished I could talk with Churchill about the examples of sexism in his book. Someone sent me his address.
I emailed Ward Churchill and told him I wanted to talk with him about the sexism in his book. I told him that declaring the men killed during the reign of terror as AIM members, and the women as AIM supporters was an insult.
Churchill called me a dipshit and told me to prove that those women were AIM members. Those women are dead so I can’t get a statement. I gave up after a few more emails.
I was aware of Ward Churchill now. I saw proclamations made by him. He seemed to thrive on controversy and chaos.
I knew that Colorado AIM had not supported Arlo Looking Cloud during his trial. They did not contend the obvious lies made by the Federal Government. They were with Robert Branscombe on the steps of Federal Building when he gave a press conference.
I began wondering why Colorado AIM was supporting the FBI story. I couldn’t reconcile an AIM chapter being in the pocket of the FBI. When did the FBI and AIM become friends?
A friend told me to check out a blog called tryworks. They are supposedly a group of students that support Ward Churchill. They claimed to be a reading group. I checked out the archives. They don’t discuss books. They make adolescent attacks on any who question Churchill.
They were attacking another friend for questioning the FBI story about Anna Mae’s death. I posted and asked why Colorado AIM supported the FBI against Arlo. Their story is full of holes after all.
The Churchill gang attacked me. They demanded that I prove he isn’t Indian and that he killed Jon Benet. Others have proven he isn’t Indian. He can’t prove that he is Indian. I restated my question. Why is Colorado AIM supporting the FBI. That is so unaimlike.
They tried to distract me from that issue by demanding that I prove that I am Indian. I had seen him do that before. He can’t prove that he has an Indian ancestor. He attacks those of us whose ancestry is documented.
I told them to do their own research. They could contact my Tribe and the BIA. Both organizations don’t like my politics, but I am enrolled. He called me a sell out for registering with a federal agency. I knew he would.
He claims that having no status as an Indian is an act of defiance. You have to have Indian blood to be enrolled.
I signed one of my posts “Veteran of Wounded Knee 1973.” He said he had heard that I wasn’t there. He said I was like Vernon Bellecourt. He spent that time in Rosebud and Minneapolis according to Churchill. I told him my photo and an interview with me was in the “Voices from Wounded Knee” book.
We had been told that Vernon was on the outside organizing food and supplies for us. One day a group of young men from Minneapolis AIM packed in supplies for us. They didn’t sneak by the FBI and Marshals. They shot their way in. They said they wanted to be here with us. They were told that they were needed to organize on the outside. They spent the day talking with us, They reluctantly left at dark time. We could hear a furious gun battle moving away from us. We didn’t see them again.
I held to my question. Why did Colorado AIM support the federal government against Arlo? I had pointed out federal lies, why didn’t they? I have always believed that the FBI killed Anna Mae.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
I responded to one of tryworks posts. When I hit the send button I was taken to a private chatroom. I was told “You have accused us of murder, tell us your evidence and give us your timeline.”
These were obviously feds. What were they doing on the tryworks blog? Who gave them a key to the back door?
They tried to bully me and scare me away from defending Arlo Looking Cloud’s right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. There was no evidence presented at his trial linking him to the kidnap rape or murder of Anna Mae Aquash.
I told them that neither coroner said there was evidence of a beating or rape. They agreed there was no evidence of that. They said that a bullet in her head was found.
I said yes, the government couldn’t link that bullet to Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham.
They told me I wasn’t in the loop and knew nothing. They demanded to know who I thought killed Anna Mae.
I said David Price. They spit me out of that chatroom as quickly as they grabbed me.
Ward Churchill pretends there is a grand conspiracy out to get him. He doesn’t think it’s because of his lies and masquerading as an Indian. He writes like a white man about Indian issues. He doesn’t write from the perspective of an Indian on the inside of those issues. He has stolen the job intended for Native American faculty. He steals and twists our voice in his books.
He accused me of being buddies with Vernon Bellecourt, Suzan Harjo and Ernesto Vigil.
I don’t know Vernon personally. I have heard him speak several times. I saw him at the occupation of the BIA in Washington DC.
I met Suzan Harjo in New York City when she worked at WBAI radio. I was the playwright in residence at the first Native American Theatre Ensemble at Cafe La Mama in New York. Most of us were hired out of the Institute of American Indian Arts. Suzan was one of the founding members of the American Indian Press Association.
I have never met Ernesto Vigil, but of course I knew of him. He was part of that prominent Chicano group The Crusade for Justice headed by Corky Gonzales. They were part of the Poor People’s Campaign and supported Indian Treaty rights. Ernesto was the first or one of the first Chicanos to refuse induction into the Vietnam war. He was wounded and a friend killed by police. He has written a book about those fiery times. I pulled Churchill’s nose by saying if I ever DID meet Ernesto I would call him cuz.
Vernon and Suzan have said that Churchill is not Indian. His membership in a Cherokee band is honorary because he cannot prove actual blood. Churchill and his grizzled band of students continually attack Suzan and Vernon for their expose of his lies about his Indian blood.
Ward Churchill’s attack on Vigil is the most puzzling and alarming. He accuses the Crusade for Justice of helping AIM when they were being hunted by the FBI.
If that incident actually did happen why is Churchill attacking the Crusade for helping AIM? Is he trying to cause trouble and disruption between Chicanos and other Native groups? That makes no sense.
I was banned from the tryworks site when I was ejected from that chatroom. They continued to attack me and I was unable to respond.
A woman called Rose tried to scare me with Bob Robideau. She asked me if I knew him, Bob from Seattle AIM. To my knowledge he hasn’t made a statement about this mess.
Another women called me Granny after she finished her tirade. Poor girl doesn’t know that she called me Commander and swore allegiance to me. Not many reach the rank of Grandmother.
It is obvious to me that tryworks is a fed site. The question is why are they supporting the head of Colorado AIM?
(Ward in Wonderland)
We understand each other through myth. During the Creation times our world was dark. We had to steal light and fire. I can say we flew to the sun and stole light. A Mohawk and Cherokee from back east, a Sioux from the plains and a Pueblo from the desert will understand that an act of mythic proportion has just taken place. They may have different Creation stories, but they will understand the meaning.
We can call each other into line and remind each other of familial obligations with one word, “cuz.” “Don’t hurt me, we have the same blood,” or “Watch it, don’t shame our family.”
We mourn with the Cherokee when they tell the story of how their Ancestors were hounded from their homelands and force marched halfway across this continent. We can feel the old ones and babies, those too weak to keep up and those that starved.
Our eyes shine with tears and pride and defiance when we see photos of the great Chiefs that broke out of our reservations and made the last desperate fights. They were killed or exiled to lands they weren’t made for, an unspeakable punishment for an Indian. You are born of your land. She takes care of you and feeds you and holds you in her embrace when your journey is over.
I received emails from people who told me they bawled like a baby when they read about my Tribe having to remove the remains of our Ancestors from an old village site where the State of Washington wanted to build a graving yard. It took over a year for the Tribal Council to get a backbone and tell the State to stop and leave.
Today is Tribal elections. I received a flyer from a campaigning councilman telling how much he has done and will do. He talked of how many jobs the graving yard will provide and how much money it will bring in. They have sold us out for money. That is their admission. Both councilmen rewon their positions. We had a chance to change things, to protect our ancestors and we blew it……….again.
We have all these stories in common. We have experienced the loss of lands, the death of our people, the outlawing of our religions and languages and the betrayal of our own leaders.
We have survived the genocide. Many “tax paying citizens” now deny that a holocaust happened here in the United States, like the skinheads deny that a holocaust in Germany happened.
We know that aging is a natural progression. On our reservations there are people that everyone calls Aunty and Uncle. There are those everyone calls Mom and Dad. There are the blessed ones that everyone calls Grandma and Grampa. We know that not everyone is allowed to live such a long life. We know that they have earned a lot of knowledge.
White people think that aging is a failure. Anti-aging is a multimillion dollar business as they fight the certainty of growing older.
How do we talk with the white man without a common mythical background, or an understanding of how the world works? We understand their language and religion because it was beaten into our parents and grandparents.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
A friend gave me one of Ward Churchill’s books to read. A couple chapters upset me. One was about the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. The other was about the reign of terror on Pine Ridge during the 1970’s.
Churchill attacked a friend of mine, blaming him for creating the Indian Arts and Crafts act to get rid of competition. My friend Earl Biss has made the transition back home, a common theme in his paintings. http://www.earl-biss.com/
Churchill made fun of Earl’s style of dress, saying it set the standard for “The Santa Fe Indian Artist.” According to Churchill, Earl wore “Blanket vests and coats and a big brimmed hat.” He was a striking figure.
Pendleton jackets and vests are the Rez version of black tie. Only slightly behind that is a red teeshirt with an eagle, wolf or killer whale on it.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Act simply states that art being presented as Indian Art has to be made by real Indians. The act protects the integrity of Indian art.
Those of us who attended The Institute of American Indian Arts have a special bond. We forged new pathways for our work. Painters like Earl Biss, TC Cannon, Alfred Youngman and Bill Soza also made political statements, not just pretty pictures. Mixed media also included poetry.
Arlo Looking Cloud attended the Institute of American Indian Arts. He was a painting major.
The other chapter upset and prompted me to contact Ward Churchill. At the end of his chronicle of the reign of terror (1973 to 1976) he listed all those that died. He listed the men as AIM members and the women as AIM supporters.
The internet was fuming with discussions about the Anna Mae case. Many thought the movement was dead or dying. I thought it was worth trying to save. Before that could be done we have to confront and stop the sexism. I said on one list I wished I could talk with Churchill about the examples of sexism in his book. Someone sent me his address.
I emailed Ward Churchill and told him I wanted to talk with him about the sexism in his book. I told him that declaring the men killed during the reign of terror as AIM members, and the women as AIM supporters was an insult.
Churchill called me a dipshit and told me to prove that those women were AIM members. Those women are dead so I can’t get a statement. I gave up after a few more emails.
I was aware of Ward Churchill now. I saw proclamations made by him. He seemed to thrive on controversy and chaos.
I knew that Colorado AIM had not supported Arlo Looking Cloud during his trial. They did not contend the obvious lies made by the Federal Government. They were with Robert Branscombe on the steps of Federal Building when he gave a press conference.
I began wondering why Colorado AIM was supporting the FBI story. I couldn’t reconcile an AIM chapter being in the pocket of the FBI. When did the FBI and AIM become friends?
A friend told me to check out a blog called tryworks. They are supposedly a group of students that support Ward Churchill. They claimed to be a reading group. I checked out the archives. They don’t discuss books. They make adolescent attacks on any who question Churchill.
They were attacking another friend for questioning the FBI story about Anna Mae’s death. I posted and asked why Colorado AIM supported the FBI against Arlo. Their story is full of holes after all.
The Churchill gang attacked me. They demanded that I prove he isn’t Indian and that he killed Jon Benet. Others have proven he isn’t Indian. He can’t prove that he is Indian. I restated my question. Why is Colorado AIM supporting the FBI. That is so unaimlike.
They tried to distract me from that issue by demanding that I prove that I am Indian. I had seen him do that before. He can’t prove that he has an Indian ancestor. He attacks those of us whose ancestry is documented.
I told them to do their own research. They could contact my Tribe and the BIA. Both organizations don’t like my politics, but I am enrolled. He called me a sell out for registering with a federal agency. I knew he would.
He claims that having no status as an Indian is an act of defiance. You have to have Indian blood to be enrolled.
I signed one of my posts “Veteran of Wounded Knee 1973.” He said he had heard that I wasn’t there. He said I was like Vernon Bellecourt. He spent that time in Rosebud and Minneapolis according to Churchill. I told him my photo and an interview with me was in the “Voices from Wounded Knee” book.
We had been told that Vernon was on the outside organizing food and supplies for us. One day a group of young men from Minneapolis AIM packed in supplies for us. They didn’t sneak by the FBI and Marshals. They shot their way in. They said they wanted to be here with us. They were told that they were needed to organize on the outside. They spent the day talking with us, They reluctantly left at dark time. We could hear a furious gun battle moving away from us. We didn’t see them again.
I held to my question. Why did Colorado AIM support the federal government against Arlo? I had pointed out federal lies, why didn’t they? I have always believed that the FBI killed Anna Mae.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
I responded to one of tryworks posts. When I hit the send button I was taken to a private chatroom. I was told “You have accused us of murder, tell us your evidence and give us your timeline.”
These were obviously feds. What were they doing on the tryworks blog? Who gave them a key to the back door?
They tried to bully me and scare me away from defending Arlo Looking Cloud’s right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. There was no evidence presented at his trial linking him to the kidnap rape or murder of Anna Mae Aquash.
I told them that neither coroner said there was evidence of a beating or rape. They agreed there was no evidence of that. They said that a bullet in her head was found.
I said yes, the government couldn’t link that bullet to Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham.
They told me I wasn’t in the loop and knew nothing. They demanded to know who I thought killed Anna Mae.
I said David Price. They spit me out of that chatroom as quickly as they grabbed me.
Ward Churchill pretends there is a grand conspiracy out to get him. He doesn’t think it’s because of his lies and masquerading as an Indian. He writes like a white man about Indian issues. He doesn’t write from the perspective of an Indian on the inside of those issues. He has stolen the job intended for Native American faculty. He steals and twists our voice in his books.
He accused me of being buddies with Vernon Bellecourt, Suzan Harjo and Ernesto Vigil.
I don’t know Vernon personally. I have heard him speak several times. I saw him at the occupation of the BIA in Washington DC.
I met Suzan Harjo in New York City when she worked at WBAI radio. I was the playwright in residence at the first Native American Theatre Ensemble at Cafe La Mama in New York. Most of us were hired out of the Institute of American Indian Arts. Suzan was one of the founding members of the American Indian Press Association.
I have never met Ernesto Vigil, but of course I knew of him. He was part of that prominent Chicano group The Crusade for Justice headed by Corky Gonzales. They were part of the Poor People’s Campaign and supported Indian Treaty rights. Ernesto was the first or one of the first Chicanos to refuse induction into the Vietnam war. He was wounded and a friend killed by police. He has written a book about those fiery times. I pulled Churchill’s nose by saying if I ever DID meet Ernesto I would call him cuz.
Vernon and Suzan have said that Churchill is not Indian. His membership in a Cherokee band is honorary because he cannot prove actual blood. Churchill and his grizzled band of students continually attack Suzan and Vernon for their expose of his lies about his Indian blood.
Ward Churchill’s attack on Vigil is the most puzzling and alarming. He accuses the Crusade for Justice of helping AIM when they were being hunted by the FBI.
If that incident actually did happen why is Churchill attacking the Crusade for helping AIM? Is he trying to cause trouble and disruption between Chicanos and other Native groups? That makes no sense.
I was banned from the tryworks site when I was ejected from that chatroom. They continued to attack me and I was unable to respond.
A woman called Rose tried to scare me with Bob Robideau. She asked me if I knew him, Bob from Seattle AIM. To my knowledge he hasn’t made a statement about this mess.
Another women called me Granny after she finished her tirade. Poor girl doesn’t know that she called me Commander and swore allegiance to me. Not many reach the rank of Grandmother.
It is obvious to me that tryworks is a fed site. The question is why are they supporting the head of Colorado AIM?
Monday, April 10, 2006
Classic Cointelpro
(The story of Anna Mae Aquash
and
Arlo Looking Cloud)
I don’t have words to name the anguish I have carried for Anna Mae, Arlo and John. Thirty years ago hope was a luminous butterfly breaking out of her cocoon in my heart. The days of the old movement, the 1970’s brought out the best in us, and the worst.
We flew to the sun and stole light at the occupation of Wounded Knee 1973 as our rag tag band of Indians yanked our history and destiny from the hands of the United States government. Wounded Knee had been synonymous with the death of our way of life. Close your eyes and you can see Big Foot and his people, frozen where they fell, shot by American soldiers.
Open your eyes and there we are, long haired, armed, drawing a line in the snow with our lives. Armed Indian men from across the United States and Canada returned the US Government’s fire. Indian women cooked cleaned and did all the work to keep the camp going. The heart and backbone has always been Woman.
Most of us walked in and out of Wounded Knee through the government forces that surrounded us. We swore an oath to stand for our People. We staked ourselves out for those who were felled by alcohol and drugs. We raised our voices for those who were silenced by corrupt Tribal Councils supported by the federal government.
Pine Ridge chairman Dick Wilson was every corrupt Tribal politician that dragged us into the sludge and left us trapped. The Lakota at Pine Ridge have born the burden of the history of all Indian People. In this the most affluent country that the world has seen, Pine Ridge is the poorest county in the country.
It is impossible for outsiders to understand why we choose to live on our reservations. We could make a better living in the big cities. We would be free from oppression of corrupt Tribal chairmen. It is the land herself that holds us.
It doesn’t matter who has legal title to our land. It is ours. We are responsible for it. We carry it in our hearts. Maybe that’s why Indian hearts are so big.
We feel guilt when we leave it. The borders press against our ribs until we return home. Our land is us and we are our land in a way that the white man will never understand. Reservations were created by Treaties to be our prisons. We were supposed to die there, out of sight, out of mind.
For many years our reservations suffocated us. We grew stagnant. Alcohol and drugs numbed our bodies and minds and spirits. We forgot. We forgot what happened to us and who we are.
Those who should have belonged to the warrior societies turned on each other and forgot to protect The People. The oppressors stole power from our men. In those unspeakable times the men turned and stole power from those in their care, the babies, the old ones, the women. Violence and sexual abuse became authority in our sick defeated state.
Those who should have been our Clan Mothers and Lady Chiefs had their sacredness destroyed. Many forgot it is they that choose the future of our people. They were unable to hold their heads or the men’s above water. Our hearts and backbones collapsed under the burden of poverty and little hope.
It was into this darkness that the Movement reached its hand. It wasn’t Dennis and Russell or Vernon and Clyde. It was the idea of freedom. It was the worm turning into a butterfly. It was the Sasquatch cry in the midnight woods. It was the part of us that never died or surrendered.
The call from the Lakota to come back to Wounded Knee also came from deep within our hearts, the collective soul of our people. It’s time to wake up. The long sleep is over. Your People need you. Hit the ground running.
We came from the four directions. We brought our broken Treaties and our broken hearts to be healed. The gun fire at Wounded Knee in the 1800’s signaled the end of our freedom. The gun fire at Wounded Knee 1973 signaled our awakening.
We made special clothes and Ghost Danced in the open. This time the guns didn’t cut us down. The Creator hadn’t forgotten us. He was just waiting for us to find our way back home.
We also packed in with us the dysfunctional learned behaviors that were destroying us. The cream and the dregs floated to the top.
Men believed the Hollywood version of the Indian warrior. Women were treated badly. They thought we were there to serve them not The People.
There were stars that shown. I don’t mean the media stars. There were those born of earth whose goodness burned from their hearts. Pedro Bissonette and Anna Mae Aquash were such lights. They symbolized the best in us.
Pedro would walk out of Wounded Knee at first light and spend the day negotiating with the government. He fasted in solidarity with us. We were starving at that point. We ate one meal a day. The old lady cooks saved a plate for him when he walked back in at night. He was quiet and humble, a Traditional leader. He was assassinated after the occupation was over.
Anna Mae was a warrior woman. She helped make quilts, packed a gun on patrol and could talk Treaties and strategy. She was assassinated amid jealousy and rumors. She died alone and abandoned. She represented the best of Woman and the worst that could happen to us.
The facts of her murder are cloaked in intrigue and stink of an FBI conspiracy. The description of the body found at Wanblee didn’t fit Anna Mae. She was ten years younger and four inches taller than Anna Mae. The coroner said she had been dead about ten days.
ARLO’S TRIAL
The testimony at Arlo’s trial is filled with confusion. The odyssey that took Anna Mae from Denver to Rapid City began with a call to Angie Begay Janis. She testified that Thelma Rios called her with instructions to bring Anna Mae to Rapid City. Angie then went to Troy Lynn Yellow Wood’s house to deliver the message.
According to Janis’ own testimony she was at the meeting at Yellow Woods house to decide if Anna Mae was an informer. If that meeting actually did happen, was her fate decided there? Incidents appear in this story like magic to support the government’s contentions. Sometimes these incidents make absolutely no sense.
This was a most unfortunate time for Arlo to show up at this house. He was looking for a friend to go have a beer with him. He says Theda Clark asked him to drive them to Rapid City. A request from an older woman would have equated a command.
Angie stated that Arlo was at the meeting. That is doubtful. A meeting of that magnitude would not have included the rank and file. It would have consisted of those considered to be leaders.
Janis stated that Anna Mae was brought from the basement tied to a board. Arlo’s attorney Tim Rensch reminded Janis that she had not mentioned Anna Mae’s hands being tied or being tied to a board in her grand jury testimony. He asked if she had spoken with BIA cop Robert Eccoffey about this.
Simply driving Anna Mae to Rapid City would not be a federal offense. Troy Lynn Yellow Wood testified that Anna Mae did not want to go, but went of her own volition. A charge of kidnapping was needed so the myth of Anna Mae being carried out of the house tied to a board was fashioned.
Yellow Wood stated that she tried to stop them from taking Anna Mae from her house but was ordered by her aunt Theda Clark to mind her own business. Theda was apparently a domineering mean older woman. Few would dare cross her.
When Arlo, John and Theda left with Anna Mae, Yellow Wood called the police. Angie Janis took the phone from her and hung it up. Janis told Yellow Wood to stay out of this.
Although Janis testified under oath that Anna Mae’s hands had been tied and then she was tied to a board that did not alarm Angie enough to call the police herself. She still stated that she didn’t think Anna Mae was in any danger.
If Angie Janis did not tell this story when she testified before the grand jury, then when and why did she invent it? It would seem that this was created to be the lynch pin for the charge of kidnapping.
Janis could not remember the color of the rope or the board. Rensch also asked Amiotte, the rancher that found the Wanblee body, if there was a rope near the body. Amiotte didn’t see a rope. We have another mystery in this story. Where did the rope and board go?
Next we move to the famous alleged interrogation at the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee office. Candy Hamilton testified that she was waiting at WKLDOC for a ride to Sioux Falls to testify at Russell Means trial. Anna Mae was in a room with a group of people.
Anna Mae came out of the room to get a cup of coffee. She talked a while with Candy. There were phones and doors in the office. Anna Mae didn’t try to call for help. Neither did she try to run.
Hamilton states that she told Anna Mae that Oglalla could be a really safe place for her to stay. Candy was offering asylum. She had heard rumors of Aquash being an informer. Candy wanted to let Anna Mae know that she would be protected in Oglalla if she wanted it. She didn’t. The two women spoke for another minute then Anna Mae returned to the room. Aquash had many opportunities to escape if she was being held prisoner.
Hamilton couldn’t remember if it was before or after they heard that Anna Mae had been killed when she spoke to Madonna Gilbert about the incident. She asked Gilbert what became of Anna Mae after they talked with her. Gilbert said, “Oh, we just told her to get out of there.”
The myths that have grown up around this story are volatile. They are fueled by Jordan Dill on his websites and Paul Demain in his newspaper.
Dill and Demain sound like bellowing wrestlers in their proclamations. They have ranted about a ten tooth beating during the alleged interrogation of Aquash. Actually, according to “The life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash by Johanna Brand,” Anna Mae wore partials, which she had lost.
Dill and Demain quote Minnie Two Shoes quoting Iris Thunder Cloud as saying that Anna Mae told her that Leonard Peltier put a gun in her mouth as he questioned her at an AIM conference. There is no eye witness to affirm that this incident actually happened.
During Robert Eccoffey’s testimony he states that Arlo told him that when they crossed the fence, she (Anna Mae) knew what was going to happen. Roger Amiotte had testified that the fence had not been there in 1976, the year he found the body.
Why did Arlo have a detailed memory of crossing a fence that would be built years later? Why did he recall that by crossing that yet-to-be fence Anna Mae knew she was about to be killed?
Eccoffey thinks he sees rope burns on the corpse’s wrists in the crime scene photos. It is here that the kidnapping story is born. There is no mention of rope burns by either medical examiner in both autopsy reports.
Dr. Gary Peterson who performed the second autopsy said that Anna Mae’s severed hands were returned to him. He examined them and rejoined them with the body.
Dr. Peterson also said he examined the genitalia and it appeared normal. He did not mention evidence of trauma or rape.
Many lies and exaggerations have been told by FBI and their spin doctors in this story to manipulate our emotions. One of the worst is the rape of Anna Mae.
Both Arlo and John have been accused of raping Anna Mae by the FBI spinmeisters. Dill and Demain have ranted that six to eight AIM men raped Anna Mae Aquash either while she was interrogated or being held captive. That is a sick male fantasy.
Dr. Gary Peterson did not say there was evidence that Anna Mae had been raped and beaten. How many friends have cried over the years at the thought of their sister being bound and gang raped by her brothers? The thought of her being beaten so badly that ten teeth are knocked out is heartbreaking. Those lies are unconscionable.
This case is classic FBI cointelpro. Anna Mae Aquash was targeted by the FBI for elimination. They think they are wriggling out of their responsibility for her assassination by this sham trial of Arlo Looking Cloud.
The FBI has used Indian journalists to plant their lies and shine the light away from their culpability. They claim to have lost all evidence connected with the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. They continue to release new accusations of a nonexistent beating and rape.
There was no evidence presented at Arlo’s trial linking him to the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. By their own testimony some of those who turned state implicated themselves. They appear guiltier than Arlo.
Angie Janis admits being a part of the Denver AIM meeting that decided that Anna Mae Aquash was an informant. She physically stops Troy Lynn Yellow Wood from calling the police to save Anna Mae.
John Trudell claims to have received a distress signal from Aquash in the form of a ring. A letter supposedly from Anna Mae was recently released on the internet. The letter states the ring was given to AIM attorney Beverly Axelrod to mail. That letter was supposedly written while Anna Mae was in a Vancouver Washington jail after the Brando motor home bust on November 14 of 1975.
There was plenty of time for Trudell to intervene on Anna Mae’s behalf if she had been killed on December 12 1975 as the FBI asserted in Arlo’s trial. There would have been more time if she had been killed in the middle of February as stated by the FBI’s first press release of her death.
Kamook Nichols Banks Ecoffey stated in her CBC interview with Anna Marie Tremonti that she learned one day that Anna Mae was having an affair with her husband Dennis Banks. The next day Anna Mae was interrogated about being an informant.
Dennis Banks stated to Tremonti that if he had a choice of who he would spend the rest of his life with, he would have chosen Anna Mae.
Kamook testified that Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier forced Anna Mae to make bombs. They wanted to frame Aquash with her own fingerprints on the bombs. It would seem that fingerprints would be destroyed when the bomb detonated.
There seems to be descriptions of at least two different bodies in the crime scene reports and the two separate autopsies. Anyone who points this out is ridiculed by the FBI apologists. Yet the strongly differing descriptions are in their own reports in their own words.
No evidence of any kind was presented during the trial to prove that Anna Mae Aquash was kidnapped, held prisoner, beaten and raped. There is no evidence linking Arlo to a kidnapping, rape, or murder. All testimony was hearsay. Most of it was about the American Indian Movement, not Arlo.
Arlo’s new attorney Terry Gilbert filed an appeal on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel; plain error of the court in admitting into evidence non-probative information that was highly prejudicial and not relevant to the case, admission of hearsay evidence and failure to give appropriate jury instructions and insufficiency of the evidence.
The eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Arlo’s appeal. They ruled that Rensch did not provide ineffective assistance by failing to move to suppress the taped police interview because Arlo was intoxicated. The police did not test the level of alcohol and drugs in Arlo’s system. There was no evidence that he was incapacitated.
The most damning testimony was that of Darlene “Kamook” Nichols Banks Eccoffey. They deduced from Kamook’s testimony that several AIM members (including Kamook) took Anna Mae away for weeks to “watch her.” Kamook said that Aquash was constantly watched, was not allowed to go anywhere alone, and was not permitted to go home despite her requests to do so. According to Ken Stern’s book “Loud Hawk” Anna Mae had the power to deny Russ Redner’s request for a weapon on that caravan.
The trial of Arlo Looking Cloud is frightening for several reasons. The American Indian Movement appeared to be on trial not Arlo. The Movement was found guilty of a propensity for violence. That was primarily based on Kamook’s testimony. There was no physical evidence presented against Arlo himself.
Angie Janis testified that Anna Mae was carried from Yellow Wood’s house tied to a board. Yet she did not see Anna Mae’s hands tied. Yellow Wood testified that Anna Mae walked out and left of her own accord, though unwillingly. The court accepted Angie Janis’ version, the kidnapping story. The court deduced that since Aquash was tied to a board, Arlo knew she was going to be killed.
Kamook Nichols Banks Ecoffey claims that Anna Mae was her best friend and she was a prisoner on the Brando motor home caravan. Kamook did not try to help her escape. She was part of that cell. Did she aid and abet in the kidnap and imprisonment of her best friend? She did not use her influence as the wife of AIM’s cofounder and top leader to stop the rumors or to protect Anna Mae.
If a kidnapping did occur in Denver then Angie Janis aided and abetted by stopping Troy Lynn Yellow Wood from calling for help. Angie Janis received the phone call and carried the message to Denver AIM that Anna Mae was to be returned to South Dakota. She admits to sitting in on a meeting that decided that Anna Mae was an informant.
The American Indian Movement dies in a snake pit from its own venomous bites. Members point fingers at each other and hurl accusations.
John Trudell testified that he was told of Anna Mae’s murder by Dennis Banks. Trudell says this was before the FBI announced that the Wanblee body was Aquash.
Dennis Banks stated in his memoir “Ojibwa Warrior” that Trudell told him that the Wanblee body was Anna Mae. This was also before the FBI announced the name.
The trial transcripts read like a bad script for a really bad movie. The federal government may have convicted Arlo Looking Cloud of aiding and abetting a murder. Without concrete evidence against Arlo, the federal government did not acquit themselves of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.
.
(The story of Anna Mae Aquash
and
Arlo Looking Cloud)
I don’t have words to name the anguish I have carried for Anna Mae, Arlo and John. Thirty years ago hope was a luminous butterfly breaking out of her cocoon in my heart. The days of the old movement, the 1970’s brought out the best in us, and the worst.
We flew to the sun and stole light at the occupation of Wounded Knee 1973 as our rag tag band of Indians yanked our history and destiny from the hands of the United States government. Wounded Knee had been synonymous with the death of our way of life. Close your eyes and you can see Big Foot and his people, frozen where they fell, shot by American soldiers.
Open your eyes and there we are, long haired, armed, drawing a line in the snow with our lives. Armed Indian men from across the United States and Canada returned the US Government’s fire. Indian women cooked cleaned and did all the work to keep the camp going. The heart and backbone has always been Woman.
Most of us walked in and out of Wounded Knee through the government forces that surrounded us. We swore an oath to stand for our People. We staked ourselves out for those who were felled by alcohol and drugs. We raised our voices for those who were silenced by corrupt Tribal Councils supported by the federal government.
Pine Ridge chairman Dick Wilson was every corrupt Tribal politician that dragged us into the sludge and left us trapped. The Lakota at Pine Ridge have born the burden of the history of all Indian People. In this the most affluent country that the world has seen, Pine Ridge is the poorest county in the country.
It is impossible for outsiders to understand why we choose to live on our reservations. We could make a better living in the big cities. We would be free from oppression of corrupt Tribal chairmen. It is the land herself that holds us.
It doesn’t matter who has legal title to our land. It is ours. We are responsible for it. We carry it in our hearts. Maybe that’s why Indian hearts are so big.
We feel guilt when we leave it. The borders press against our ribs until we return home. Our land is us and we are our land in a way that the white man will never understand. Reservations were created by Treaties to be our prisons. We were supposed to die there, out of sight, out of mind.
For many years our reservations suffocated us. We grew stagnant. Alcohol and drugs numbed our bodies and minds and spirits. We forgot. We forgot what happened to us and who we are.
Those who should have belonged to the warrior societies turned on each other and forgot to protect The People. The oppressors stole power from our men. In those unspeakable times the men turned and stole power from those in their care, the babies, the old ones, the women. Violence and sexual abuse became authority in our sick defeated state.
Those who should have been our Clan Mothers and Lady Chiefs had their sacredness destroyed. Many forgot it is they that choose the future of our people. They were unable to hold their heads or the men’s above water. Our hearts and backbones collapsed under the burden of poverty and little hope.
It was into this darkness that the Movement reached its hand. It wasn’t Dennis and Russell or Vernon and Clyde. It was the idea of freedom. It was the worm turning into a butterfly. It was the Sasquatch cry in the midnight woods. It was the part of us that never died or surrendered.
The call from the Lakota to come back to Wounded Knee also came from deep within our hearts, the collective soul of our people. It’s time to wake up. The long sleep is over. Your People need you. Hit the ground running.
We came from the four directions. We brought our broken Treaties and our broken hearts to be healed. The gun fire at Wounded Knee in the 1800’s signaled the end of our freedom. The gun fire at Wounded Knee 1973 signaled our awakening.
We made special clothes and Ghost Danced in the open. This time the guns didn’t cut us down. The Creator hadn’t forgotten us. He was just waiting for us to find our way back home.
We also packed in with us the dysfunctional learned behaviors that were destroying us. The cream and the dregs floated to the top.
Men believed the Hollywood version of the Indian warrior. Women were treated badly. They thought we were there to serve them not The People.
There were stars that shown. I don’t mean the media stars. There were those born of earth whose goodness burned from their hearts. Pedro Bissonette and Anna Mae Aquash were such lights. They symbolized the best in us.
Pedro would walk out of Wounded Knee at first light and spend the day negotiating with the government. He fasted in solidarity with us. We were starving at that point. We ate one meal a day. The old lady cooks saved a plate for him when he walked back in at night. He was quiet and humble, a Traditional leader. He was assassinated after the occupation was over.
Anna Mae was a warrior woman. She helped make quilts, packed a gun on patrol and could talk Treaties and strategy. She was assassinated amid jealousy and rumors. She died alone and abandoned. She represented the best of Woman and the worst that could happen to us.
The facts of her murder are cloaked in intrigue and stink of an FBI conspiracy. The description of the body found at Wanblee didn’t fit Anna Mae. She was ten years younger and four inches taller than Anna Mae. The coroner said she had been dead about ten days.
ARLO’S TRIAL
The testimony at Arlo’s trial is filled with confusion. The odyssey that took Anna Mae from Denver to Rapid City began with a call to Angie Begay Janis. She testified that Thelma Rios called her with instructions to bring Anna Mae to Rapid City. Angie then went to Troy Lynn Yellow Wood’s house to deliver the message.
According to Janis’ own testimony she was at the meeting at Yellow Woods house to decide if Anna Mae was an informer. If that meeting actually did happen, was her fate decided there? Incidents appear in this story like magic to support the government’s contentions. Sometimes these incidents make absolutely no sense.
This was a most unfortunate time for Arlo to show up at this house. He was looking for a friend to go have a beer with him. He says Theda Clark asked him to drive them to Rapid City. A request from an older woman would have equated a command.
Angie stated that Arlo was at the meeting. That is doubtful. A meeting of that magnitude would not have included the rank and file. It would have consisted of those considered to be leaders.
Janis stated that Anna Mae was brought from the basement tied to a board. Arlo’s attorney Tim Rensch reminded Janis that she had not mentioned Anna Mae’s hands being tied or being tied to a board in her grand jury testimony. He asked if she had spoken with BIA cop Robert Eccoffey about this.
Simply driving Anna Mae to Rapid City would not be a federal offense. Troy Lynn Yellow Wood testified that Anna Mae did not want to go, but went of her own volition. A charge of kidnapping was needed so the myth of Anna Mae being carried out of the house tied to a board was fashioned.
Yellow Wood stated that she tried to stop them from taking Anna Mae from her house but was ordered by her aunt Theda Clark to mind her own business. Theda was apparently a domineering mean older woman. Few would dare cross her.
When Arlo, John and Theda left with Anna Mae, Yellow Wood called the police. Angie Janis took the phone from her and hung it up. Janis told Yellow Wood to stay out of this.
Although Janis testified under oath that Anna Mae’s hands had been tied and then she was tied to a board that did not alarm Angie enough to call the police herself. She still stated that she didn’t think Anna Mae was in any danger.
If Angie Janis did not tell this story when she testified before the grand jury, then when and why did she invent it? It would seem that this was created to be the lynch pin for the charge of kidnapping.
Janis could not remember the color of the rope or the board. Rensch also asked Amiotte, the rancher that found the Wanblee body, if there was a rope near the body. Amiotte didn’t see a rope. We have another mystery in this story. Where did the rope and board go?
Next we move to the famous alleged interrogation at the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee office. Candy Hamilton testified that she was waiting at WKLDOC for a ride to Sioux Falls to testify at Russell Means trial. Anna Mae was in a room with a group of people.
Anna Mae came out of the room to get a cup of coffee. She talked a while with Candy. There were phones and doors in the office. Anna Mae didn’t try to call for help. Neither did she try to run.
Hamilton states that she told Anna Mae that Oglalla could be a really safe place for her to stay. Candy was offering asylum. She had heard rumors of Aquash being an informer. Candy wanted to let Anna Mae know that she would be protected in Oglalla if she wanted it. She didn’t. The two women spoke for another minute then Anna Mae returned to the room. Aquash had many opportunities to escape if she was being held prisoner.
Hamilton couldn’t remember if it was before or after they heard that Anna Mae had been killed when she spoke to Madonna Gilbert about the incident. She asked Gilbert what became of Anna Mae after they talked with her. Gilbert said, “Oh, we just told her to get out of there.”
The myths that have grown up around this story are volatile. They are fueled by Jordan Dill on his websites and Paul Demain in his newspaper.
Dill and Demain sound like bellowing wrestlers in their proclamations. They have ranted about a ten tooth beating during the alleged interrogation of Aquash. Actually, according to “The life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash by Johanna Brand,” Anna Mae wore partials, which she had lost.
Dill and Demain quote Minnie Two Shoes quoting Iris Thunder Cloud as saying that Anna Mae told her that Leonard Peltier put a gun in her mouth as he questioned her at an AIM conference. There is no eye witness to affirm that this incident actually happened.
During Robert Eccoffey’s testimony he states that Arlo told him that when they crossed the fence, she (Anna Mae) knew what was going to happen. Roger Amiotte had testified that the fence had not been there in 1976, the year he found the body.
Why did Arlo have a detailed memory of crossing a fence that would be built years later? Why did he recall that by crossing that yet-to-be fence Anna Mae knew she was about to be killed?
Eccoffey thinks he sees rope burns on the corpse’s wrists in the crime scene photos. It is here that the kidnapping story is born. There is no mention of rope burns by either medical examiner in both autopsy reports.
Dr. Gary Peterson who performed the second autopsy said that Anna Mae’s severed hands were returned to him. He examined them and rejoined them with the body.
Dr. Peterson also said he examined the genitalia and it appeared normal. He did not mention evidence of trauma or rape.
Many lies and exaggerations have been told by FBI and their spin doctors in this story to manipulate our emotions. One of the worst is the rape of Anna Mae.
Both Arlo and John have been accused of raping Anna Mae by the FBI spinmeisters. Dill and Demain have ranted that six to eight AIM men raped Anna Mae Aquash either while she was interrogated or being held captive. That is a sick male fantasy.
Dr. Gary Peterson did not say there was evidence that Anna Mae had been raped and beaten. How many friends have cried over the years at the thought of their sister being bound and gang raped by her brothers? The thought of her being beaten so badly that ten teeth are knocked out is heartbreaking. Those lies are unconscionable.
This case is classic FBI cointelpro. Anna Mae Aquash was targeted by the FBI for elimination. They think they are wriggling out of their responsibility for her assassination by this sham trial of Arlo Looking Cloud.
The FBI has used Indian journalists to plant their lies and shine the light away from their culpability. They claim to have lost all evidence connected with the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. They continue to release new accusations of a nonexistent beating and rape.
There was no evidence presented at Arlo’s trial linking him to the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. By their own testimony some of those who turned state implicated themselves. They appear guiltier than Arlo.
Angie Janis admits being a part of the Denver AIM meeting that decided that Anna Mae Aquash was an informant. She physically stops Troy Lynn Yellow Wood from calling the police to save Anna Mae.
John Trudell claims to have received a distress signal from Aquash in the form of a ring. A letter supposedly from Anna Mae was recently released on the internet. The letter states the ring was given to AIM attorney Beverly Axelrod to mail. That letter was supposedly written while Anna Mae was in a Vancouver Washington jail after the Brando motor home bust on November 14 of 1975.
There was plenty of time for Trudell to intervene on Anna Mae’s behalf if she had been killed on December 12 1975 as the FBI asserted in Arlo’s trial. There would have been more time if she had been killed in the middle of February as stated by the FBI’s first press release of her death.
Kamook Nichols Banks Ecoffey stated in her CBC interview with Anna Marie Tremonti that she learned one day that Anna Mae was having an affair with her husband Dennis Banks. The next day Anna Mae was interrogated about being an informant.
Dennis Banks stated to Tremonti that if he had a choice of who he would spend the rest of his life with, he would have chosen Anna Mae.
Kamook testified that Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier forced Anna Mae to make bombs. They wanted to frame Aquash with her own fingerprints on the bombs. It would seem that fingerprints would be destroyed when the bomb detonated.
There seems to be descriptions of at least two different bodies in the crime scene reports and the two separate autopsies. Anyone who points this out is ridiculed by the FBI apologists. Yet the strongly differing descriptions are in their own reports in their own words.
No evidence of any kind was presented during the trial to prove that Anna Mae Aquash was kidnapped, held prisoner, beaten and raped. There is no evidence linking Arlo to a kidnapping, rape, or murder. All testimony was hearsay. Most of it was about the American Indian Movement, not Arlo.
Arlo’s new attorney Terry Gilbert filed an appeal on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel; plain error of the court in admitting into evidence non-probative information that was highly prejudicial and not relevant to the case, admission of hearsay evidence and failure to give appropriate jury instructions and insufficiency of the evidence.
The eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Arlo’s appeal. They ruled that Rensch did not provide ineffective assistance by failing to move to suppress the taped police interview because Arlo was intoxicated. The police did not test the level of alcohol and drugs in Arlo’s system. There was no evidence that he was incapacitated.
The most damning testimony was that of Darlene “Kamook” Nichols Banks Eccoffey. They deduced from Kamook’s testimony that several AIM members (including Kamook) took Anna Mae away for weeks to “watch her.” Kamook said that Aquash was constantly watched, was not allowed to go anywhere alone, and was not permitted to go home despite her requests to do so. According to Ken Stern’s book “Loud Hawk” Anna Mae had the power to deny Russ Redner’s request for a weapon on that caravan.
The trial of Arlo Looking Cloud is frightening for several reasons. The American Indian Movement appeared to be on trial not Arlo. The Movement was found guilty of a propensity for violence. That was primarily based on Kamook’s testimony. There was no physical evidence presented against Arlo himself.
Angie Janis testified that Anna Mae was carried from Yellow Wood’s house tied to a board. Yet she did not see Anna Mae’s hands tied. Yellow Wood testified that Anna Mae walked out and left of her own accord, though unwillingly. The court accepted Angie Janis’ version, the kidnapping story. The court deduced that since Aquash was tied to a board, Arlo knew she was going to be killed.
Kamook Nichols Banks Ecoffey claims that Anna Mae was her best friend and she was a prisoner on the Brando motor home caravan. Kamook did not try to help her escape. She was part of that cell. Did she aid and abet in the kidnap and imprisonment of her best friend? She did not use her influence as the wife of AIM’s cofounder and top leader to stop the rumors or to protect Anna Mae.
If a kidnapping did occur in Denver then Angie Janis aided and abetted by stopping Troy Lynn Yellow Wood from calling for help. Angie Janis received the phone call and carried the message to Denver AIM that Anna Mae was to be returned to South Dakota. She admits to sitting in on a meeting that decided that Anna Mae was an informant.
The American Indian Movement dies in a snake pit from its own venomous bites. Members point fingers at each other and hurl accusations.
John Trudell testified that he was told of Anna Mae’s murder by Dennis Banks. Trudell says this was before the FBI announced that the Wanblee body was Aquash.
Dennis Banks stated in his memoir “Ojibwa Warrior” that Trudell told him that the Wanblee body was Anna Mae. This was also before the FBI announced the name.
The trial transcripts read like a bad script for a really bad movie. The federal government may have convicted Arlo Looking Cloud of aiding and abetting a murder. Without concrete evidence against Arlo, the federal government did not acquit themselves of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.
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Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Tax Paying Citizens
Washington State Representative Jim Buck announced that he will look after the rights of the tax paying citizens in the issue of the graving yard, or the ancient village of Tse Whit Zen. I am a tax paying citizen. I assume he meant he will look out for my interests.
I told him that I assume that he did not use the term "tax paying citizens" solely to mean white people. He accused me of trying to turn this into a racial issue and it's not.
It's funny how racists do that. On Dan Spomer's blog a woman asked a Makah if they really believe that anyone who disagrees with them is a racist. He didn't answer her but I did. I said that anyone could disagree with Indians. If you use racist slurs or racist stereotypes, then you are a racist.
Insinuating that Indians don't pay taxes is a racist stereotype. Insinuating that only white people carry the tax burden for this country is racist. Everyone pays taxes. You don't get your paycheck until the IRS gets their cut. That is unless you are extremely wealthy. Then you get all kinds of tax breaks denied to the poor.
Isn't it interesting that those who try to incite the community against Indians over taxes don't say anything about the wealthy not paying taxes. Maybe that's who funded the anti-Makah campaign.
I have decided that I am going to call Jim Buck and Dan Spomer on their racism everytime they use the term "tax paying citizens" to mean white people.
The city and state politicians have taken advantage of the issue of the graving yard. They have used it to turn focus away from the fact that they have done nothing to attract jobs to Port Angeles and Clallam County. It's easier to blame the Indians for stopping jobs.
The simple fact is that Timber and Fishing have crashed. They may not come back in our lifetime. Another economic base must be created.
Politicians should know better than to use polemics. It could become their downfall.
I told him that I assume that he did not use the term "tax paying citizens" solely to mean white people. He accused me of trying to turn this into a racial issue and it's not.
It's funny how racists do that. On Dan Spomer's blog a woman asked a Makah if they really believe that anyone who disagrees with them is a racist. He didn't answer her but I did. I said that anyone could disagree with Indians. If you use racist slurs or racist stereotypes, then you are a racist.
Insinuating that Indians don't pay taxes is a racist stereotype. Insinuating that only white people carry the tax burden for this country is racist. Everyone pays taxes. You don't get your paycheck until the IRS gets their cut. That is unless you are extremely wealthy. Then you get all kinds of tax breaks denied to the poor.
Isn't it interesting that those who try to incite the community against Indians over taxes don't say anything about the wealthy not paying taxes. Maybe that's who funded the anti-Makah campaign.
I have decided that I am going to call Jim Buck and Dan Spomer on their racism everytime they use the term "tax paying citizens" to mean white people.
The city and state politicians have taken advantage of the issue of the graving yard. They have used it to turn focus away from the fact that they have done nothing to attract jobs to Port Angeles and Clallam County. It's easier to blame the Indians for stopping jobs.
The simple fact is that Timber and Fishing have crashed. They may not come back in our lifetime. Another economic base must be created.
Politicians should know better than to use polemics. It could become their downfall.
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