Author: ghostdancers way

In some ways this parody is funny and then the sickening reality that Native Americans have and continue to live in this kind of rights limbo, is outrageous.  I hope that it will help you understand the plight of Native Peoples and help get progressives that are willing to address these inequities in Native American rights.  Progressives that will talk to, not at Tribal elders and leaders, who will hear what Native peoples needs are and how they feel they should be addressed.  I hope no one takes this parody as an attack, it is a realistic depiction of what has happened to Native peoples over the last 350 years.

-author unknown-

United Native Americans (UNA)

Are proud to announce that it has bought the state of California from The Whites and is throwing it open to Indian settlement.

UNA bought California from three winos, found wandering in San Francisco. UNA determined that these three winos were the spokesman for the white people of California. These winos promptly signed the treaty, which was written in Lakota, and sold California for three cases of wine, one bottle of gin, and four cases of beer.

Lehman L. Brightman, Commissioner of White Affairs, has announced the following new policies; The Indians have generously agreed to give all Whites living in California four large reservations on which they are to make their new homes.

Each reservation will consist of 20 acres and will be located in the following places: Death Valley, The Utah Salt Flats, The Badlands of South Dakota, and the Yukon territory in Alaska. These reservations shall belong to the whites, “…for as long as the sun shines or the grass grows.” (or until the Indians want them back.)

All land on the reservations will be held in trust for the Whites by The Bureau of White Affairs, and any White who wants to use his land in any way, must secure permission from Commissioner Brightman.

Forced  marches and evacuations of Whites are to begin immediately so as to open these lands to Indian settlement as quickly as possible.

When Whites arrive at the reservations they will be of course, allowed to sell trades and handicrafts at stands by the roadsides. Each White will be provided annually, with one thin blanket, one pair of tennis shoes, a supply of Spam and a copy of the book, “The Life of Crazy Horse.”

Commissioner Brightman invites all, politically well connected Indian people, to apply for the positions of Reservation agents. If you have less than one year of education, do not speak English, have an authoritarian personality, proof of dishonesty, and a certificate of incompetence, consider yourself well qualified for the position. Paternalistic attitudes and delusions of grandeur a plus. No Whites need apply.

Commissioner Brightman also announced the founding of four boarding schools, to which all White youngsters will be sent at the age of six (6). “We want to take those kids far away from the backward culture of their parents,” he said. The schools will be located on Alcatraz Island, the Florida Everglades, Point Barrow, Alaska, and Hong Kong.

All students arriving at the schools will be stripped of their clothing and forced to wear Indian garb. They will be forced to grow their hair long and in time wear it in braids. Upon arrival, at the schools all White children, will be given IQ tests to determine their understanding of Indian language, culture and survival skills. All those white children that do not measure up to Indian standards will be considered mentally compromised and shunted into courses appropriate to students destined to live lives engaged in menial hard labor. All courses will be taught in Lakota and any child caught speaking English will have their mouth washed out with soap, be whipped, and/or be locked in solitary confinement and denied food for a period of days.

Hospitals will be established for the reservations as follows: Whites at Death Valley Reservation may go to the Bangor, Maine Hospital; those at the Yukon Reservations may go to the Miami Beach Hospital; those at the Utah Salt Flats Reservations may go to the Juneau, Alaska Hospital; and those at the Badlands Reservation may receive medical care at the Honolulu, Hawaii, hospital.

All hospitals will be staffed by one medical student, a chiropractor, and two crabby army nurses. All hospitals will be supplied with one case of aspirin, a box of Epson salts,  and one box of Band-Aids, a pair of pliers, one set of vice grips, and an Exacto knife and a liberal supply of suppositories. Dental care will consist of extraction’s only. All whites in need of vision correction will be given a pamphlet on how to squint.

All former White churches will be converted to amusement parks for the entertainment of Indians. Interesting statuary and religious artifacts will be purloined by Indian people and sold as curios and collectibles for display in Indian museums and in private collections.

To honor the memory of the former White inhabitants, streets, towns, and geographical locations will be given quaint White names. Also at Indian sporting events, mascots depicting white people dressed in period clothing will be trotted out at half-time. These mascots will be made up to resemble cultural icons of the White race as interpreted by Indian experts. A few such examples will be Clem Kadidlehopper, Gomer Pyle, Elmer Fudd, Barney Fife, Yosemite Sam, and the Three Stooges. In this way Indian children will be educated of how White people looked and acted. Any Whites that protest this honor will be regarded as cranks and spoilsports.

Indian academics will immediately begin excavations of  White cemeteries. Bones and artifacts will be removed and studied. Special attention will be paid to the skulls of White people. These skulls will be measured and scrutinized so that Indian people can determine just what is wrong with white people.

After these studies have been completed, the remains will be sent to Pine Ridge, South Dakota. The remains will be stored in cardboard boxes in the basement of The Red Cloud Indian School where they will collect dust and be forgotten. White people whose ancestors wind up in boxes at The Red Cloud School and wish to have the remains sent to them for re-burial will have to fill out 742 different forms, in triplicate, do 28 pushups, and 76 jumping jacks, all the while balancing a bowl of wild rice on their heads. If all these requirements are met successfully, and satisfy the subjective judgments of uninterested Indian bureaucrats, the remains will be promptly returned in 2.4 generations, more-or-less.

This version of a twist on American history, was taken from the Leonard Peltier newsletter, “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.” I first heard a version of this read by Calvin Jumping Bull in 1993 at International Brotherhood Days. I have taken liberties with various passages and have added additional paragraphs to the above text. I extend apologies to the unknown author of this piece.  
Mike kohr

I have tried boys and girls, men and women, oh have I tried to not be punitive or demeaning in my stance toward wingers and crackpot wingers in particular.  But this winger really gets my goat, rubs me the wrong way and generally makes my skin crawl.  I have had to watch in the papers mainly, I don’t do TV, so thank you Great Spirit and the radio as this crackpot winger of the week has demoralized the once proud and wonderfully competent education system in Kansas.

  Yes ladies and gentlemen, I nominate Connie Morris.  The author of “From the Darkness: One Woman’s Rise to Nobility, who states quite clearly that illegal immigrant’s children should never be educated by the people of Kansas, even if those same children are US citizens, you know that pesky clause in our Constitution that says if you are born on US soil you are a US citizen. She further stated today that

State Board of Education member Connie Morris has issued a newsletter that criticizes evolution as an “age-old fairytale” and describes board members who disagree with her as liberal, rude, disruptive and phony.

Now I have refrained from implying that wingers and crackpot wingers should seek some help, you know EST would do nicely for this crackpot winger, say 50,000 volts at about 500 milliamps, should suffice.  Damn, I miss living in a nice blue state with nice liberal issues to work with and a nice liberal thought process that doesn’t make me cringe and my flesh crawl.

I recommend that if you have one of these crackpot wingers in your area, lets get the word out that they exist, that they are detrimental to a civil society and are at the least a threat to common decency, but more importantly they are a threat to our Constitutional rights as a US citizen.

Please follow the yellow brick road, err the links to the many write ups on my nominee for Crackpot Winger of the Week

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/jun/14/stateboardedmorri/?kansas_legislature

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0510kansas.asp

http://pitch.com/issues/2004-10-21/news/janovy.html

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/11860122.htm

http://www.lefthook.org/Politics/Miller060305.html

The Untold Story of the Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists
Sally Roesch Wagner
Sky Carrier Press, 1996

“I had been haunted by a question to the past, a mystery of feminist history: How did the radical suffragists come to their vision, a vision not of a Band-Aid reform but of a reconstituted world completely transformed?” p. 1

“In the United States, until women’s rights advocates began the painstaking task of changing state laws, a husband had the legal right to batter his wife (to interfere would “upset the domestic tranquillity of the home,” one state supreme court held). But suffragists lived as neighbors to men of other nations whose religious, legal, social, and economic concept of women made such behavior unthinkable. Haudenosaunee spiritual practices were spelled out in an oral tradition called the Code of Handsome Lake, which told this cautionary tale (as reported by a white woman who was a contemporary of Stanton and Gage) of what would befall batterers in the afterlife:
[A man] who was in the habit of beating his wife, was led to the red-hot statue of a female, and requested to treat it as he had done his wife. He commenced beating it, and the sparks flew out and were continual burning him. thus would it be done to all who beat their wives.” page 3

Bold added by me.

“. . . . shortly after Matilda Joslyn Gage was arrested in 1893 at her home in New York for the “crime” of trying to vote in a school board election, she was adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk nation and given the name Karonienhawi (Sky Carrier). In the Mohawk nation, women alone had the authority to nominate the chief, after counseling with all the people of the clan. What it must have meant to Gage to know of such real-life political power?” page 5

“A Tuscarora chief, Elias Johnson, writing about the absence of rape among Iroquois men in his popular 1881 book, Legends, Traditions and Laws, of the Iroquois, or Six Nations. . . , commented wryly that European men had held the same respect for women “until they became civilized. A Cayuga chief, Dr. Peter Wilson, addressing the New York Historical Society in 1866, encouraged white men to use the occasion of Southern reconstruction to establish universal suffrage, “even of the women, as in his nation.” ” page 8

“In her important work, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine In American Indian Traditions, Paula Gunn Allen writes:
Beliefs, attitudes, and laws such as these [the Iroquois Confederation] became part of the vision of American feminists and of other human liberation movements around the world. Yet feminists too often believe that no one has ever experienced the kind of society that empowered women and made that empowerment the basis of its rules and civilization. The price the feminist community must pay because it is not aware of the recent presence of gynarchical societies on this continent is necessary confusion, division, and much lost time.” page 12

“It was not simply the absence of rights that was the problem, they came to believe. It was the fact that, as Stanton said:
Society is based on this four-fold bondage of woman- Church, State, Capital, and Society – making liberty and equality for her antagonistic to every organized institution.” page 17

From pages 22-38: Among rights which women held among the Native American tribes:

1. Children belonged to the mother’s tribe, not the father’s tribe.
2. If a marriage proves to be an unhappy one, each is at liberty to marry again. What each person brought into the marriage, each take out of the marriage. Women get custody of children.
3. When a man brought the products of the hunt home and gave it to his wife, it was hers to dispose of as she saw fit. Her decisions were absolute, even to the sale of skins.
4. A woman retains control of her possessions at all time, even after marriage. They are hers to sell, give away, or bequeath as she sees fit.
5. Women ruled the house, stores were held in common.
6. Rape and wife-battering were almost unknown.
7. Women had the right to vote.
8. Treaties had to be ratified by 3/4 of all voters and 3/4 of all mothers.
9. Women had the power to impeach a chief (they “removed his horns,” the deer’s antlers he wore which signified his position.)
10. Women spoke in council meetings.
11. Women could forbid braves from going to war.

Again, the situation was very different for Indian women, as Alice Fletcher explained:
. . . the wife never becomes entirely under the control of her husband. Her kindred have a prior right, and can use that right to separate her from him or to protect her from him, should he maltreat her. The brother who would not rally to the help of his sister would become a by-word among his clan. Not only will he protect her at the risk of his life from insult and injury, but he will seek help for her when she is sick and suffering. . . ” page 30

“Fletcher was concerned about what would happen to the Indian women when they became citizens and lost their rights, and were treated with the same legal disrespect as white women, she told the International Council of Women in 1888:
Not only does the woman under our [US] laws lose her independent hold on her property and herself, but there are offenses and injuries which can befall a woman which would be avenged and punished by the relatives under tribal law, but which have no penalty or recognition under our laws. If the Indian brother should, as of old, defend his sister, he would himself become liable to the law and suffer for his championship.

She was referring, of course, to sexual and physical violence against women. Indian men’s intolerance of rape was commented upon by many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Indian and non-Indian reporters alike, many of whom contended that rape didn’t exist among Indian nations pervious to white contact.” page 31

“Minnie Myrtle wrote in 1855 about the Seneca:
The legislative powers of the nation are vested in a Council of eighteen, chosen by the universal suffrages of the nation; but no treaty is to be binding, until it is ratified by three-fourths of all the voters, and three-fourths of all the mothers of the nation! So there was peace instead of war, as there would often be if the voice could be heard! And though the Senecas, in revising their laws and customs, have in a measure acceded to the civilized barbarism of treating the opinions of women with contempt, where their interest is equal, they still cannot sign a treaty without the consent of two-thirds of the mothers!” pages 33- 34

“The India women with whom [ethnologist Alice] Fletcher had contact were well aware of their superior rights:
As I have tried to explain our statutes to Indian women, I have met with but one response. They have said: “As an Indian woman I was free. I owned my home, my person, the work of my own hands, and my children could never forget me. I was better as an Indian woman than under white law.” pages 37-38

A nineteenth-century contemporary of Stanton and Gage, Arthur Parker, a Seneca, supported women’s rights in part by writing newspaper stories which can be found in the Harriet Maxwell Converse collection, State Museum, Albany, NY.

Haudenosaunee society, on the other hand, was organized to maintain a balance of equality between women and men. Shown here are the contrasting differences between the two worlds of women who lived side-by-side in this region of upstate New York in 1848.
Haudenosaunee
Social
Children are members of the mother’s clan.
Violence against women not part of culture, and dealt with seriously when occurs.
Clothing fosters health, freedom of movement and independence.
Women’s responsibilities have a spiritual basis.
Economic
Work satisfying, done communally
Responsible for agriculture as well as home life
Work done under the direction of the women, working together.
Each woman controls her own personal property.
Spiritual
“Sky Woman” the spiritual being, catalyst for the world we see.
Mother Earth and women spiritually interrelated.
Women have responsibilities in ceremony.
Responsibilities in balance with those of men.
Political
Women choose their chief.
Women hold key political offices (e.g., clan mothers)
Confederacy laws ensures woman’s political authority.
Decision making by consensus, everyone has a voice.

EuroAmerican
Social
Children are the sole property of fathers.
Husbands have legal right and religious responsibility to physically discipline wives.
Clothing is restrictive, unhealthy and dangerous.
Woman’s subordination has a religious foundation.
Economic
Work drudgery, isolated
Responsible for home, but subordinate to husband.
Work done under the authority of the husband.
No rights to her own property, body, or children.
Spiritual
No female in the godhead.
Spirituality not connected to the earth.
Women forbidden to speak in churches.
Responsibilities subordinate to men’s authority.
Political
Illegal for women to vote.
Women excluded from political office
Common law defines married as “dead in the law.”
Decision making by men, majority rules

Some suggested reading

http://www.awakenedwoman.com/iroquois_women.htm

http://www.awakenedwoman.com/native_women.htm

http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/women.html

I opened my local paper today, the Ottawa Herald and lo and behold, this is on the second page.  The cultures that I hold dear, that have embraced me, showed me a pathway to a life worth living and brought my soul to life are slowly and methodically going away. This is why I fight for progressive ideals, ideas and reforms.  If it can happen to my culture, please don’t be too surprised when it begins to happen to yours, because of the incessant and rampant racism and sexism that permeates our society and our world. I cried and prayed to Great Spirit that the injustices I see in life will stop, that those in power will open their hearts and minds to the Ideal, that we all must live on this planet, we must cherish and honor our Mother Earth, for without her, there will be no life worth living.

Tom Beaver
Community viewpoint

Ninety-two year old Robert H. Whitebird died Friday May 6, 2005 at a nursing home in Oklahoma. He was born on January 17, 1913, in Lincolnville Community in Oklahoma.
When I read the news, it came as a blow.  It was like something or someone had taken my breath away.. I didn’t even know the man who died and yet I cried. I cried not only for his death but also for what his death means to Indians everywhere in the world.
Robert H. Whitebird was the last full blood Quapaw man in the universe.
The passing of Robert Whitebird means there will never be a full blood Quapaw man. I hope and I pray that I am wrong in what I say next.  I believe the Quapaw people are on the road to extinction.
    At one time, the Quapaw had an estimated population of several thousands. In the !600s small pox reduced that number down to about 700 people. The `down stream people,’ as they were known, were living in Arkansas at that time.  Bit in the intervening centuries the Quapaw repopulated themselves.
The Census Bureau tells me the 2000 census showed only 914 Quapaw people. The median age is 31.6 years. Of the 914, 106 are under the age of 5 years; 184 Quapaw are in the largest age group, 25 to 34 years. The number of Quapaw older than 55 is 121.  The hope and dreams of the Europeans are seemingly and finally coming true. The near extinction of a people has come during my lifetime and yours.  It just doesn’t fell right. We are losing an entire culture, language, and arts of the Quapaw people.  I never wanted to see this happen. The destruction of a group of people only happens in books and on television. Not in real life and certainly not in the 21st century. But I am sadly wrong.
 

We al remember the German attempt to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe. The Germans failed. But here in the United States we just don’t seem to care if an entire tribe of Indian people are on the road to extinction. We are not the only country where entire populations of being killed. It happens all over the world. Americans are oblivious to the extinction of whole races and tribes of people.
An entire group of people can be wiped out quickly. It only takes government action or inaction along with a lack of concern about anyone except yourself. The questions we have to answer as a civilized society are: How do we prevent this from happening to another group of Indian people? Is it already to late for the Quapaw to be saved? Who is responsible for the extinction of the Quapaw?
In the distant future, this may mean there will be no more Quapaw people. However, the remaining Quapaw people will remain strong and vibrant. The Quapaw government will remain strong and will continue for years.
Ther may well be Quapaw tribal members, but not like Robert Whitebird, a full blood. Indian people, like the recently re-discovered ivory-billed woodpecker, are resilient.  The ivory-billed woodpecker was thought to be extinct, but it was only hiding. It was recently rediscovered in eastern Arkansas. Arkansas was once home for the Quapaw people. I am sure ther are full-blood Quapaw members out and about possibly in Arkansas, but just refusing to let anyone know of their existence. It is far safer that way.

Tom Beaver is a  member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. He writes about issues facing Kansas.
 

A significant majority of spiritually practicing Native Americans do not view their path as a religion, as Christians, Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus, view theirs.  These belief’s provide us with a seamless practice that makes our environment, our culture and our lives an integral part of our very being.

These are some of the guiding principles of the spirituality that I have found.  It has released me from the horrorific life I once had and has brought me through that abyss as a far better human being and man.

For those of you who haven’t read my dairies, I am a recovering Heroin addict, abuser of women and other human beings, a lost soul in the dark abyss of self destruction and committing suicide on the installment plan.  I will be celebrating 18 years in recovery, in a few short months and continue to be a practicing member of a thriving 12 step communtiy.  

I have offered myself in volunteering in hospitals, walking crack, meth and heroin addicted babies, HIV prevention among homosexual adolescent prostitutes and providing a sounding board for women who were unable to confront their abusers.  I did none of these things for any reason other than, they helped me heal and bring about closure for many of my own demons. I am neither noble nor crass, I am a human being, that wanted more from my life than I was experiencing.

I know that sounds selfish and self centered, yet I understand that if I don’t help others, I will never be able to help myself heal from the insanity that I grew up in and the insanity that I inflicted on others.

My spiritual awakening was facilitated by a stroke at the age of 33, caused by a combination of drugs, alcohol, insufficient weight (145 lbs, I am 6 ft tall) and lack of proper diet and liquid intake.  Great Spirit came to me in a vision, as I was lying in that doorway many years ago, in my own bodily fluids, and deemed that enough was enough.  That vision showed me that where I was and what I was doing were the anti-thesis of what my spirit wanted for me in this life.

As I was recovering in the hospital from the stroke, I was introduced to many forms of spiritual pathways and none of them seemed appropriate for me.  I was invited to a sweat lodge 12 step meeting on one of the local reservations and there I found what I have sought all these years.  A path to enlightenment that energized me, that opened my heart, mind and soul to the magnificence of being.  I found a way of life that makes it possible for me to fulfill my essence of life without having to take anything from any one else without their permission.  This path showers me in grace each day, bringing new opportunities for growth in all aspects of my life, but most importantly, my spiritual well being.  

I hope that everyone who reads about this spiritual path finds something to take away, that brings joy, happiness, spiritual grace and a desire to live their lives more fully for themselves and their families.  I can only share with you what I know from living on this planet for 50+ years and for the last 17+ allowing myself to become open to all the wonders that are granted to me each and every day.  

There are many newcomers here, who I believe feel betrayed and minimized by their experience at Dkos. I would offer you an opportunity to grow from that experience, set aside bitterness, open your heart to the path of peace and know the contentment of self discovery.  I have a wonderful teacher, who offered me this simple way to take positive out of a negative.  I married that wonderful teacher.  She said to me, do you still love me, do you still love your children, are you alive to enjoy your family.  I answered yes to each question. Her response was “then all is right with the world”  

There are many difficult and tumultuous roads ahead of us, in this fight to regain our country and bring it back to a path that will show the world that America really does care about the rest of world. Not for what can exploited from them, but what we can offer to the world to make it a better place.  I don’t know what will happen in the future, I only know that I will fight with all that I am to insure that my children have a world to live in that carries these virtues.

1.Respect Mother Earth
2.Respect the Great Spirit
3.Respect our fellow man and woman
4.Respect for individual freedom

THE TEN INDIAN COMMANDMENTS!

Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect!
Remain close to the Great Spirit
Show great respect for your fellow beings
Work together for the benefit of all mankind!
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed
Do what you know to be right
Look after the well-being of mind and body
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good
Be truthful and honest at all times
Take full responsiblity for your actions…..

If I can instill these in my children and they share them with others in a meaningful way, then others will know the value that is placed upon them.  
 “The culture, values and traditions of native people amount to more than crafts and carvings. Their respect for the wisdom of their elders, their concept of family responsibilities extending beyond the nuclear family to embrace a whole village, their respect for the environment, their willingness to share – all of these values persist within their own culture even though they have been under unremitting pressure to abandon them.” Mr. Justice Thomas Berger, Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, (aka the Berger Inquiry).

 “Rather than going to church, I attend a sweat lodge; rather than accepting bread and toast [sic] from the Holy Priest, I smoke a ceremonial pipe to come into Communion with the Great Spirit; and rather than kneeling with my hands placed together in prayer, I let sweetgrass be feathered over my entire being for spiritual cleansing and allow the smoke to carry my prayers into the heavens. I am a Mi’kmaq, and this is how we pray.” Noah Augustine, from his article “Grandfather was a knowing Christian,” Toronto Star, Toronto ON Canada, 2000-AUG-9.

 “If you take [a copy of] the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone.  Our bible IS the wind.” Statement by an anonymous Native woman.  

Here are few links to show you more about Native American spiritualism.

http://members.aol.com/porchfour/religion/nativeam.htm

http://impurplehawk.com/naspirit.html

recommended reading list

http://www.barefootsworld.net/nativespiritualitybooks.html

As with any spiritual enligtenment, there will be frauds and those that will try to benefit from those that are seeking the path of truth, honor and justice.  Here are few suggestions that are offered, please follow the link.

http://www.native-languages.org/religion.htm

I am not a full blood, was not raised within my own culture and have received my spirituality through the openness of other Native Americans who, through their own spiritual desire to bring enlightenment to others, have granted me this great gift.  I am not a teacher, I am a seeker, there are many great teachers in our world, both Native and Non-Native.  I am truly blessed that I have had the benefit of both worlds.

I just had to share this with you, I am just grateful that this person is not my representative.  Now here is the kicker in all of this.  

Our illustrious Mrs. O’Connor has thrown her hat in the ring to become, are you ready, can you hold your excitement any longer.  TA DA, she wants to be the Secretary of State for the State of Kansas.  MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM this is one of those human beings that makes me go hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..

a few links concerning dear ole kay.

http://www.epinions.com/content_3971457156

http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/local.pat,local/3acd030e.927,.html

I will give her credit, she says what she means and means what she says.  

 I consider myself blessed that I did not have to deal with the nightmare many of you did over at Dkos. I find that my spiritual awakening in a culture that is matriarchial and emphasizes the power and beauty of our female counterparts, has made me a better human being.  For those of you who did not read my dairy on violence against women, maybe Booman will resurrect it.  Prior to my enlightenment, I deemed all human beings with disdain and contempt and especially women as they were easier targets of opportunity.

I will always carry with me the shame of my actions toward women and others in my attempt to increase my own value as a human being.

Today, I know that my value comes from nothing more than the fact I am a human being and that all other’s value comes from the same place.

That Great Spirit has opened my eyes to the splendor and greatness of the human spirit, I will forever be thankful.  Am I perfect? By no means.  Am I flawed?  In many ways. Do I strive each day to offer myself to the world in an open and progressive way?

With every breath I take.  I am fortunate that I am married to a woman who is far stronger than myself, one who can see the wonder in others and who sees the beauty within me that I fail to recognize, in myself.

I have been blessed with many great gifts since that fateful day way back on August 30, 1987, when Great Spirit arose within me and deemed that enough is enough. No longer do I live in a doorway, incapable of accepting myself as a human being, no longer do I have to demean others to feel alive, no longer do I have to use violence to make myself feel better than you.  I have a long history of abuse and abuser in the 50+ years I have been alive.

I have a shorter history of working to facilitate change in my own life and those around me.

I know that anytime I use language to demean another human being, then I have something within me that needs to be worked through and I challenge myself to clean up the wreckage of my past.

I strive today to recognize that the sexualization of women to promote products and services is a vestige of contempt for women. I have a daughter and son, it is my fervent hope that my wife and I will be able to instill in them the courage to stand up for what they believe, the desire to do the right thing in any situation and the ability to discern good from evil.

I pray that my daughter will have the ability to choose for herself, whether or not she will use birth control, that she will have the right to decide what is in her best interest when it comes to her body, that she will not have to lurk in dark corridors if she chooses to terminate a pregnancy.  I don’t know what the future holds, I don’t even want to try to look beyond what is in front of me today. I gave up mind reading and fortune telling when I was released from active addiction.

I want my children to have the opportunity to explore all the glory of being a human being and the wonder and joy that has to offer.

My culture has never referred to itself as Indians.

As far as I know all the American Native cultures have described themselves as the “Human Beings”. I hope that this treatise will help any who desire peace and healing an opportunity to gain them.  The culture I have immersed myself within follows the following basic tenets and offers hope and fulfillment within my own life, I hope it offers you many of the same gifts I have recieved in this life so far.

 Mitakuye oyasin!

We are all related!

It isn’t too late. We still have time to recreate and change the value system of the present. We must! Survival will depend on it. Our Earth is our original mother. She is in deep labor now. There will be a new birth soon! The old value system will suffer and die. It cannot survive as our mother earth strains under the pressure put on her. She will not let man kill her.

The First Nation’s Peoples had a value system. There were only four commandments from the Great Spirits:

1.Respect Mother Earth
2.Respect the Great Spirit
3.Respect our fellow man and woman
4.Respect for individual freedom

We must all stand together as a force of love. Be united NOW. There is only one way. Communication. Knowledge. Arm yourself with truth, love and perseverence. Extend your family. Join with others in giving. We are all related. People of the earth take back your heritage. I am not speaking of skin color or religion. Our heritage is this earth… Our heritage is also extended beyond this earth into the heavens where the spirit once lived before our birth into this world. You are bound to both.

THE TEN INDIAN COMMANDMENTS!

Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect!
Remain close to the Great Spirit
Show great respect for your fellow beings
Work together for the benefit of all mankind!
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed
Do what you know to be right
Look after the well-being of mind and body
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good
Be truthful and honest at all times
Take full responsiblity for your actions…..

 

History of the GHOSTDANCE  
The Ghostdance has its origins about 150 years ago, when the Native American peoples were still free. They were nomadic people, moving with the seasons, the buffalo and their guiding spirits. The tribespeople lived in close communion with nature. Tribes varied and celebrated their differences, had their own folklore, beliefs, customs and were free to do so.
America, to the western mind was property to be acquired. Missionaries and others with “compassion” felt that the indigenous peoples – Indians – must be civilized. Many others just wanted them destroyed. The nomadic lifestyle of the Indians clashed with notions of property ownership and governance of the people. And as the White Man moved ever westward, more and more land was “claimed” for ownership, leaving the Indian tribespeople bewildered. The new government “reserved” the poorest acreage for the “Red people” to live upon. No more were they free to follow the buffalo. Diverse tribes were herded into these ‘reservations’ to much anger and discontent. But the White Man was afraid of these gathered peoples whom they viewed as evil savages.

General Sherman lead a campaign to quell those tribes who were not accepting the reservations. “The only good indians I ever saw were dead” Sherman is quoted as having written to his brother. This changed slightly to become the all-too-popular expression of Anti-Indian prejudice:” The only good Indian is a dead Indian”. This campaign was known as ‘The Campaign of Extermination’ and General Sherman pursued his goals with intense hatred for the Red peoples.Many died who tried to fight back. The Indian Nations were effectively cowed – their spirit broken and morale gone – by the late 1880’s.

However, a Sioux shaman would make a journey to the south, and there he would learn the Ghostdance. He visited the Peiote tribe, meeting another shaman who told him to gaze within a hat. He claimed he began walking in another world: The Old World. This was the world before the white man came and took the land and the buffalo away. The great herds roamed free and the tribes after them. The shaman was able to walk with the ghosts of the ancestors and they taught him this chant and the dance that goes with it.

(One of many variations):

I Circle Around, I Circle Around The Boundaries Of the Earth..
I Circle Around, I Circle Around The Boundaries Of the Earth
HEYA HEYA HEYA HEYA
Wearing my long brown feathers as I fly…
Wearing my long brown feathers as I fly…  

The shaman brought this dance back to the Sioux People. Gathering them at one place, he told them that if they purified themselves and then danced this dance, the new (White Man’s ) world, with all its corruption, would just roll up. Underneath would be the Old World as it had always been. He gave the people white shirts, emblazoned with the sun, the stars, and the moon upon them. These were believed to be magical, the white man’s bullets would not be able to pierce them. The Sioux went to the sweat lodges and performed purification rituals. Then they put on their white shirts and danced around a pine tree. They linked hands in a huge circle, dancing around first in one direction, then the other. With the “Heya(s)” they stamped their feet. Spreading their arms like wings, they whirled around as they sang the last two lines. In time to the chanting, they repeated the dance cycle again and again.

News of it spread and across North America, tribes started dancing their own Ghostdances. The Ghostdance grew among the various tribes, with larger and larger numbers, and the tribespeople became more certain that the Old World was coming back. By dancing they would become free again. But the American government got nervous. Hundreds of discontented Indians, gathering in such numbers, and with such strong sense of identity sounded too dangerous.In 1890 more than 250 Sioux men, women and children gathered together and began Ghostdancing . They were at a place called Wounded Knee Creek. General Sherman arrived with his troops, and seeing the dancers, opened fire on them.

… all but a few of the Ghostdancers were massacred…

But now, 150 years later, the Ghostdance again is gathering momentum. It is still is believed that if enough people join, maybe the door can be opened to remake our world and bring back the lands of our ancestors. And again, the American government worries about Ghostdancers.

 

For clarification, there is no word in any native language that I have found for the word shaman. It is a new age indoctrination of this word into Native American spirituality.  There are medicine men and spiritual healers in Native Cultures, I have yet to meet a shaman in any of my visits to any reservations I have been invited to, attend pow wow’s or spiritual healing.
For more information please follow the links provided.

http://www.thebearbyte.com/Stories/GhostDanceMovement1890.htm

http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Bayou/6029/Wolf/gdance.html

http://www.hanksville.org/daniel/lakota/Ghost_Dance.html

http://www.crystalinks.com/paiute.html

http://msnbc.com/onair/msnbc/TimeandAgain/archive/wknee/ghost.asp

http://www.heroesofhistory.com/page88.html

http://webpages.shepherd.edu/ltate/WebQuestWoundedKnee.htm

http://php.indiana.edu/~tkavanag/visual5.html

http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/wounded.htm

There are many great books available to understand the desecration of the Native culture and spiritual beliefs, but I believe Black Elk Speaks is one of the best. I highly recommend reading it.

 Many of todays current beliefs by those in power were held by many fo those in power at the time of the Wounded Knee massacre. The religious zealots at the time were not only trying to eliminate Native culture and spirituality, they were trying to remove them from their ancestoral lands.  Many of the so called Indian agents were christians that made hundreds of thousands of dollars cheating and robbing the natives of their food, clothing and meager stipend from the government.  When the Natives started demanding justice and began practicing their spirituality again, the Agents called in the US army to deal with the subversives on the Reservations.

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 6:17:00 PM EST

PALM BEACH, Fla., Jun 01, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) — Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh wants to limit medical records available to Florida prosecutors investigating him for prescription drug abuse.
Attorney Roy Black argued for the limit in Palm Beach Circuit Court Tuesday, but Circuit Judge Jeffrey Winikoff did not rule immediately on which of the sealed records in his possession prosecutors could see.

Black told the Miami Herald the seized records contain embarrassing details about surgery performed on “intimate parts” of Limbaugh’s anatomy that are unrelated to the case.

The argument followed the Florida Supreme Court’s April rejection of Limbaugh’s appeal to keep the records sealed.

Prosecutors, armed with a search warrant, took the records after learning the conservative talk show host received 2,000 prescription painkillers from four doctors in five months.

While Limbaugh has admitted being addicted to painkillers, he has not been charged with any crime.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International.
I am wondering if Flush Limturd had penile enhancement surgury and it failed to do anything to help him out, after all Limpturd does suffer from penis envy, that is what makes him such a Limpturd. If anyone is offended by this diary, you have my sincerest apologies, but this was just to good to pass on.

This administration and it’s lackey’s, have done more harm to the United States than all of the terrorists in the world could achieve in 100 lifetimes.  My only hope is that in the near future, all of these so called “patriots” are held to a War Crimes Tribunal, leading of with Bushco the talking head and his puppetmaster, Dick I had other priorities Cheney.

 These people are criminals, they have sanctioned the worst forms of atrocities in the name of the people of the United States.  I will never sanction terrorism, nor condone the killing of innocent people to further some political or religious tenet.  I will support the right of any human being to be given due process to disprove or have the state prove they are guilty of a crime.  The Nazification of our leadership has appalled me to no end and I can only hope that this administration and its criminal overtones is given due process and suitably punished for it’s war crimes against humanity.

 I fear deeply for my country, as I have seen here where I live an unfettered devotion to GW and his policies.  So many people here simply state that he is the president, he must know what we need to protect our country.  In my mind, he and his administration and many of those that support his policies are war criminals, little better than Hitler or Stalin, in their desire to capture the world for, as they say democracy.  I have watched and listened as Bushco talks out of both sides of his mouth.  I am a champion of democracy to the world and then we must restrict more of American’s freedoms to protect you.  This fascist regime has but one end that it wants to accomplish, that is the total and complete destruction of the Constitution as a viable and living document that promotes, protects and enhances our freedom.  

I believe that the Corporate Master’s who control Bushco and his administration would like nothing better than to have the name of the USA changed to the Corporate States of America.  The feudal mindset of these corporate master’s is obvious and apparent, yet the peasants continually fail to see the obvious.  I say to all progressives, wake them up, shake them up and make them uncomfortable in their slumber.  

I have no complaint against capitalism, it pays my bills, gives me a comfortable living and makes life better for my children.  I am uncomfortable with the current climate of unadulterated greed and avarice that has seized our country’s movers and shakers and continuing unchecked will destroy our culture and our way of life.  

I am a member of the human race that inhabits the planet earth. That makes me and my country  responsible to the other members of the human race that inhabits our planet.  Our current wannabe King and his crony’s have failed miserably in not only helping to protect those who live outside of the USA, but have repeatedly and without regard to the consequences have increased poverty and despair within our own country.  

I once held a profound proudness that I was blessed to have been born an American Citizen.  That proudness is wearing thin, by the actions of a criminal element that has infected my government and my country.  I wish to live in no other place in the world and I have been to most of the countries in the North and South American hemisphere.  I wish for my country to wake up to the criminal actions of our leadership, its illegal and immoral war for profit, its continued abuse of human and civil rights not only in the world but within the US.  

I pray that soon, those who have made every effort to destroy our nation will be held accountable for their actions.  To my brothers and sisters throughout the world, all I can do is tell you that there are many Americans, who do not contenance the actions of our government and are working diligently to rectify and correct our course and stategy in dealing with the rest of the world.  I will to my last breath fight this fight to change my government from being the bully on the block to being the caring friend who helps those less fortunate than themselves.  This is the America that I grew up with, this is the America that I have loved, this is the America that was founded on ideals that all human beings are valued for simply being human beings.