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Native American Culture.


War Eagle

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As many people here on UM know, I practice Quakerism and Friends (RSOF) and Indians of all tribes have always been considered to be on friendly grounds, and in fact, many Quakers today still sit on several Indian Councils and Bureaus of Indian Affairs. This is a story, from the Quaker perspective of how that in part came about. It's a beautiful story of friendship and peace, and a Christian and Native American acceptance of people of all faiths and practices. (Quakers also never took lands from Indians, they always purchased their lands at fair prices). One God, one spirit. Too bad so few today can remain as openminded.

The Feather of Peace: An Incident in Quaker History

This little story is a favorite of Quaker historians. It narrates an actual happening in the Friends Meeting in Easton Township, Washington County, New York.

It was a summer morning in the year 1775, and the sun shone brightly on the little cabin which served as a Meeting House for the Friends of Easton, in New York.

It was a warm, sunny day, but the hearts of many were troubled. It was a time of strife, and reports came that bands of roving Indians were on the warpath. Even the children knew that something unusual was in the air and sensed that the older and weightier Friends of the Meeting were ill at ease.

Zebulon Hoxsie, the patriarch of the Meeting, sat on the facing bench, and beside him sat Robert Nisbet, a visiting Friend, who had walked through the forests for several days to meet with them. Brother Nisbet had come East to join the Quaker settlement following the terrible battle at Bennington VT. Just 20 miles further East, the turning point of the Revolution, the Battle of Saratoga was gathering. The Easton Quakers, who had come into this peaceful valley to escape the war's ravages, were surrounded with guns and armies.

The children were restless, and the silence of the Meeting weighed heavily upon them, so that it came as a relief when the visiting Friend rose to speak. Robert Nisbet was a kindly man, and he knew well the fear which lay heavily on the hearts of the Easton Friends. They had stayed in their peaceful homes even though their neighbors had all fled to the larger settlements where they hoped for safety from the Indian raids. The visitor spoke:

"The Beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long."

His voice faltered and then went on, calmly and tenderly: "And how shall the Beloved of the Lord be thus safely covered? Even as the psalmist says: 'He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust.'

You have done well, dear Friends, to stay on in your homes, even though all your neighbors have fled, and therefore are these messages sent to you by me. These promises of covering and of shelter are truly meant for you. Make then your own, and remember the words of the Scriptures, 'Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day.'"

Now the children knew why the stranger had come. Now they knew why their parents were troubled. It was the Indians! Would they really come, and, if they did, were they as terrible as people said?

All was quiet in the Meeting House. Here and there, a child managed to steal a look through the windows or through the chinks between the logs. Outside, there seemed to be a faint rustling in the bushes, though there was no breeze.

Suddenly, above the window sill,a ppeared the tips of several moving feathers. Then an Indian chief appeared in the open doorway, looking with piercing eyes at each Friend in turn to see if there was any weapon present; but the Friends were entirely unarmed. Neither gun nor sword was to be found in any of their dwelling houses, so there could not be any in this peaceful Meeting.

A moment later, other Indians stood beside their chief. Yet the Friends sat on, without stirring, in complete silence. At last, Zebulon Hoxsie lifted his head and met the full gaze of the chief. No word was spoken. Steady friendliness to the strange visitors was written in every line of Zebulon Hoxsie's face. Brother Nesbit, who spoke a few words of the Indian's language extended an open palm and said, "Welcome friend!"

Minutes passed, and then the Indian's eyes slowly fell. He signaled to his followers, and each slipped silently into a nearby bench. Then began one of the strangest meetings ever held in the Society of Friends. Not a Quaker stirred, and the silent Indians sat peacefully with them. At last the Friends on the facing bench shook hands solemnly. The meeting was over, and the Friends greeted their visitors.

Then the chief spoke: "We came to kill the Bostonions (white man), but in the Abeneke way, if a man is speaking with the Holy Spirit, he must not be disturbed. We see white men all sitting quiet: no gun, no arrow, no knife; all quiet, all still, worshipping their Great Spirit. Great Spirit is Indian, too. Then Great Spirit say to Indian: 'You must not kill these white men!'"

The Friends through gestures and speaking French, bade the Indians to follow them to the Hoxsie home where they shared the afternoon meal.

Then the chief took an arrow, broke it in two pieces and placed the white feathers from the shaft firmly over the doorway, saying, "Indians will understand that this is a place of peace and will not harm this house when they see this feather."

Then he turned and, with a sign to the others, led the way into the forest while the Friends watched in silence - except for Robert Nisbet's quiet words: "He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust."

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This picture of Quakers and Indians is a sketch by James Doyle Penrose which portrays an event at Easton Township in New York's Washington County. In it an Indian chief arrives at a Quaker Meeting where Friends sit in silence. There are no guns with them, nothing they could use for protection. The Indians have noted the quiet, and a little boy turns to gaze at the proud chief with feathered headgear. The account upon which the sketch was based indicates that the Indians were as taken by surprise as the Quakers. But soon the Indians recognize what is going on: in silence the settlers have approached the Great Spirit. According to the story, afterwards the Indians joined the Friends for a meal and when they departed, they placed a white feather on the meeting house: a symbol that these people were their friends. - David Sox, John Woman: Quintessential Quaker

Edited by MissMelsWell
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A very beautiful story.

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I was asked on another thread to keep a little more of an open mind on certain topics, so....

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"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man, living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of 10 things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these 10 things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send *you* to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever til the end of time...but he loves you." -- George Carlin

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Native American Indian Star Beings.

Native American "folklore" or "myth" as the Christian right refers, details the ancients encounters with "Star Beings", and can be harvested from the American Southwest to Tierra Del Fuego. In story-telling traditions dating back to antiquity, the gods once descended from heaven to impregnate barren females in remote villages. Mothers bearing these strange seeds would then nurture and raise the "Star Children" until the age of six or thereabouts, when the gods would return to reclaim their progeny, leaving villagers staring up into the infinite night.

The United States, as every other major land mass is filled with pyramids, hieroglyphs, petroglyphs, artifacts and sacred grounds to rival the Egyptian, and the Mayan digs...The native peoples that preceded our modern society recorded events and prophecies for the benefit of those who would follow. It was the part of the "job description" of being a tribal Shaman to hand down the sacred knowledge to the next generation of Shaman, and some say it's as accurate as it was thousands of years ago when induced.

What do the references in Hopi mythology to mysterious "flying shields" signify? Stories from most all Native American regions and peoples, including the Southwest and Southeast, the Plains Indians, the Pawnee, the Northwest Coast, and California Indians are particularly suitable for reading aloud, and funny enough, coincide not only with each other, but with every other native continent cultures, tribes and peoples. Stories about the Pleiades, the Big Dipper, and the "Star Beings" that created and boosted man kind is all but common place.

They speak of how the Star Beings could travel about the skies in beams of light like the sun, but in the blackness of night. Stories like these are identical to what I've personally heard an African medicine men (shaman) claim. Same exact scenario, that before the missionaries came onto the scene, it was also common place among all tribes and shaman that our orgins were from "out there".

Any Peruvian South American Shaman will tell you the same exact thing, as well as aboriginal elders from down under. Native American and other world cultures can be interwoven with astronomical activities, providing a sense of careful observation and verbal documentation over time, handed down through the generations, and highlighting how the stars and planets have always been the true source of our exisistance, and inspirations. Yet, these very same "wise" people are branded as "Voo Doo" doctors or primitive sub species story tellers and myth makers.

Keep in mind, this common understanding and knowledge of our "Gods" with stood the test of time all the way until the "Biblical" groove took over. You've heard of the "tales" and "myths" of the mighty "Roman Gods". Even more infomaous are the Greek Gods, that still endure via intimate statues and monuments! Boy, thoese Greeks and Romans must havereally been whacky to have gone to such lengths over a myth, huh? I wonder who actually modeled for all those statues then? They claimed that the Gods were real, living beings, many actually "Demi-Gods" (Half alien half human, as it were).

I contend that if indeed there was a Jesus, which I don't disregard, that's exactly what he was. A Demi god. I'm not so sure. Perhaps if the truth was known, and we all realized where we actually came from, and how...and why... we as a planet might come to terms that we're all the same species, and cease the bloodshed due to differences in ideology, religion, skin color and so forth. (Of course we'd still have that "greed" thing to content with)

I realize that full disclosure is still a long time coming. Why? Because among other things, it would mean having to also disclose "free energy". (Electricity, Gas and Oil, free for all! HooYah!) That would disrupt that tiny little industry know as the "power and energy military industrial complex". You know, the multi-billion dollar - whoops, did I say billion? Um, make that multi-trillion dollar conglomerate that basically runs the "global" show. (We'll have more on that as our site gets updated)

Native American folklore, where legends of "Star Beings" can be harvested from the American Southwest to Tierra Del Fuego. In story-telling traditions dating back to antiquity, the gods once descended from heaven to impregnate barren females in remote villages. Mothers bearing these strange seeds would then nurture and raise the "Star Children" until the age of six or thereabouts, when the gods would return to reclaim their progeny, leaving villagers staring up into the infinite night.

Starting with the Sumerians, the first great culture 6,000 years ago that spawned the Bablylonians, Persians, and Assyrians, through ALL subsequent "Intelligent advanced civilizations" and "non-advanced" indigenous cultures including the American Indians of North America, Mayan and Inca empires of South America, Aborigines of Australia, ancient Chinese and Hindu text scriptures from the Far East, Egyptians, of the Middle East, Dogons of Africa, and the Greek and Roman Gods of "mythology", every culture accepted for a fact that heavenly beings (Or Gods) had created Man kind. (In their own likeness, no less). Some coincidence to be a "myth", huh? To read more about the above mentioned myths, and view petrographs/petroglyphs from around the globe, see our page on Mans Orgins.

http://netscientia.com/north_american_indians.html

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Edited by REBEL
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Here are some pics a dear friend of mine sent me, just thought I would share.

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This painting reminded me of another PNW Indian legend shared by the Samish (sam-ish) tribes of northern Washington and British Columbia:

This tale was told by a Samish tribe and had been passed down to their children for many generations. Along one of the great coasts of the beautiful Northwest, the sea has an ebb and flow to it that looks like the hair of a young girl is floating back and forward gently in the sea. In the mortal life, this young girl had been the tribal Princess Ko. She was very famous for her beauty and wisdom. Her father was the great chief of the Samish tribe.

Ko and the Prince of the Sea Gods

This was the time before the white people came. The Samish people were famous fishermen. The Northwest has many dense forests with pure and clear rivers. This was a paradise given to the Indians to protect and look after. The men were often out in their canoes along the Puget Sound. The women would be gathering clams, oysters and crabs. There were always many of these.

One day, Princess Ko waded into the water looking for clams. A strange arm covered with barnacles and seaweed enveloped her. She struggled to get free. Then a voice said, "Do not worry, I will not hurt you. I have admired you for a long time. I am the prince of the sea. Now that I have you, I will never let you go." The princess was very upset. She told the prince that she enter his world and she must go home to her father. The prince made her promise to visit him in the cove from time to time. She agreed and each time she visited him, he would hold her hand longer and longer.

The sea prince finally asked to marry her, but the princess said only her father could decide that because he would choose who she would marry. The princess asked the sea prince to ask her father. The sea prince rose from the sea and followed the princess to her village to see her father. As he entered the village, people gasped because he looked so bad. He was green and had barnacles all over his body. Seaweed hung all over him. He had eyes like a fish and he did not have eyelids. The village people felt very cold as he walked past them.

The people did not like the idea of their beautiful princess marrying such an ugly monster. When the sea prince came before the princess’s father and asked for her hand in marriage, the chief was very angry. He asked how his daughter would live under water and said she would soon die.

The sea prince said she would not die, he told the chief that the princess would become one of his people and he would look after her very well. The chief did not want to hear this and he got angry and told the sea prince to go away and leave his daughter alone. The sea prince narrowed his eyes in anger and announced in a booming voice that the Samish will have bad luck. There would be no more fish, the streams will become dirty and dry up and the people will die of hunger and thirst.

The curse of the sea prince turned out to be true. Everything started to dry up. The people got ill and they were always hungry and thirsty. They became thin and easily cold. Princess Ko went to the cove and called for the sea prince to come out and speak to her. When he rose up from the sea, she complained of his cruelty towards her people. She asked him not to be so cruel. She told the sea prince that if he would take away his curse, she would ask her father to allow them to marry. The sea prince relented a little and things got a little easier for the Samish. Princess Ko went to her father every day to ask to be allowed to marry the sea prince. At last her father said yes on one condition. He asked that she be allowed to visit once a year. The sea prince relented. The bride was dressed beautifully on the day of the wedding.

The sea prince rose from the sea and took his bride. Together they entered the sea. The sea prince was holding the princess’s hand gently as he led her away to her new home. The villagers watched as they saw their beautiful princess disappear into the waves and all that was left was a gentle ripple of the ocean.

The next year, the princess returned. The people loved to see her and celebrated with good food and drink in her honor. They felt she had changed a little though, they felt a little chilly around her. They also noticed that she had a slight green to her face. The second year she came back, the villagers felt very cold as she passed by. They felt too, that she was missing the sea. She had a few barnacles on her hands and was strangely quiet. The third year, She had grown barnacles all over her body and was green like her husband. She walked through the village with seaweed hanging from her. There was a cold chill as she walked by. The fourth year she came back, the villagers were shocked that their beautiful princess had changed into the same monster as her husband. She had big, round eyes and was without eyelids. She missed the sea and the people could tell that she did not want to be on land. They were shivering in her presence.

Her father decided that it was better that she not visit the village again because she wanted to stay with her husband and the people were now afraid of her.

To this day. The Samish people remember their princess and the sacrifice she made for them when they see the moving of her hair on the waves. They feel too that she is looking after them.

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Although they 'welcome' any outsiders of any faith & or belief system to study/follow & or even participate 'if they choose'...

WITHOUT PRICE, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT, MAKE OF IT WHAT YOU WILL is basically their motto, there is no exploitation by them in anyway...PERIOD.

Rebel.

I'm in.....B

good stuff MMW

Edited by Barek Halfhand
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Half your luck Barek.

If it wasn't for work, farm and family commitments, i'd be over there experiencing all their cultural ways of life before you finish your next beer. lol!

As an outsider(not living in America)look'n in, trust me when i say how lucky you all are to have these great people still practice their ancient & traditional cultural ways, & having the chance to watch and or participate in all their ceremonies.

Later B :tu:

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In this so called Christian society, to see how the indigenous people are treated/cared for is pretty dismal to say the least in ANY country for that matter in our day & age...21st century. -Rebel

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HEALTH AND HOUSING CRISIS STATISTICS (EVEN TODAY) for Native Nth Americans:

THE HEALTH CRISIS

(Tribes of the Great Sioux Nation)

Rates shown are relative to the national average

DEATHS FROM DIABETES.........................360%

SUDDEN INFANT DEATH SYNDROME...304%

POST NEONATAL MORTALITY RATE.....167%

(28 days to under one year)

DEATHS FROM CERVICAL CANCER.......425%

DEATHS FROM ALCOHOLISM..............1,341%

DEATHS FROM SUICIDE............................150%

LIFE EXPECTANCY...................................... 45.8%

AVERAGE EXPENDITURES FOR MEDICAL AND HEALTH CARE

IN THE UNITED STATES:

FOR THE AVERAGE AMERICAN. $3,621 per person

FOR AMERICAN INDIANS........... $1,578 per person

DIFFERENCE.....................56% less for American Indians

(Data based upon 1997 information from Indian Health Services)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH CARE CRISIS ON OUR

NATION'S INDIAN RESERVATIONS

(BASED UPON A TOTAL POPULATION OF 1,430,000 AMERICAN INDIANS ELIGIBLE FOR INDIAN HEALTH CARE SERVICES)

Total expenditures for Indian Health Care................................. $2,256,540,000

Funding required to match national per capita

expenditure for medial and health care...................................... $5,178,030,000

FY-1998 Funding shortfall for medical and health care .................$2,921,400,000

THE HOUSING CRISIS

HOMELESS........................................... 333,500 PERSONS (29%)

LIVING IN SUBSTANDARD HOUSES 678,500 PERSONS (59%)

SEVERE OVERCROWDING................. 793,500 PERSONS (69%)

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linked-imageSADDEST & MOST APPALLING OF ALL...THE CHILDREN.-Rebel

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INDIAN SCHOOLS CRUMBLING, COLD & HAZARDOUS.

By PHILIP BRASHER Associated Press Writer: http://www.russellmeans.com/read.html#Indi...ld,%20Hazardous

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RECOGNITION of 'UNDENIABLE' TRUTH & DOCUMENTED FACTS.- Rebel

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FIRST NATIONS

From the AIEC - American Indian Education Center, of Cleveland, Ohio

While there have been many different terms to try to identify exactly who we are as the original people, the term "First Nations" has come into use recently to identify Native American people.

As near as I can determine, First Nation stems from the current form of identification being used in Canada for the original people. This appears to have come about as a way of establishing the credibility of Natives, relative to Canada's struggles with the province of Quebec and it's bid for Independence.

The term First Nation as applied to Canadian Natives is highly appropriate when you consider the definition and who the term pertains to.

"First" correctly sets Natives to the forefront as the first inhabitants of the land. We were here first, and in spite of land bridge theories and fantasies, all of the original people have creation stories that establish our presence here as our gift from the Creator.

"Nations" establishes our Tribes, Bands, Communities and Confederations as viable political entities in the entity that is now known as Canada.

The term "Nation" is not to be taken nor is it to be applied lightly. A Nation must meet at least three requirements.

First, there must be a land base on which the people live and conduct their national affairs upon.

Second, there must be a form of self-government that sets laws, bylaws, rules and regulations that the people follow in their day to day lives.

Third, there must exist a language that is used by all members of the Nation, used in the day to day matters of business and even in the operations of the self governing system. This language must be the original language of the people, not something borrowed or incorporated from another nation or culture (not French, English or Spanish).

A people who can meet these three requirements can refer to themselves as "First Nations." People who do not have the land base, abide by the governing body of their own tribe, band etc. or have no regular usage of the language of their ancestors should not refer to themselves as First Nations.

Recently there seems to be a push by non-Natives to establish what is "politically correct" in addressing or speaking about us. We must not allow this special way of identifying those among us who are still nationally intact to be diminished by anyone jumping on their bandwagon, especially if your own bandwagon is missing a couple of wheels and lying off in the ditch.

Ask yourself a few questions.

Do I live, reside, hold land or have the right to do so on my own tribal land base?

Do I live and conduct myself according to the laws, bylaws, rules and regulations of the governing entity of my own tribe?

Am I a member in full accordance with my tribal community's standards of membership?

Do I speak or at least try to maintain and learn the language of my tribal ancestors?

If any of the answers to these questions are no, then chances are my friend, you shouldn't be referring to yourself as "First Nation" anything.

This is not a case of politically correct cuteness, this is the sovereignty, not a toy or plaything for you to meddle with.

Just leave it alone.

Our history is too full of the special important things of our Native existence being taken from us.

Just leave it alone.

Most of our land, our languages, our culture and our history, not to mention our elders, our children and our women who have been hurt and disrespected for far too long.

Enough is enough.

Just leave it alone.

http://www.russellmeans.com/read.html#FIRST%20NATIONS

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Edited by REBEL
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Hello Rebel, thanks for your kind reply to my earlier post. This is a great thread and I really like the pictures you've posted and I appreciate what you are doing by contributing this thread. There are good and bad people in all cultures in all parts of the world and the N/A have historically been portrayed negatively for exploitative reasons, it is good to see a thread that highlights the wonderful contributions that their culture has to offer. Their spiritual concepts have greatly enfluenced my own and that of the place of worship that I attend. Whereas mid-eastern religions generally seperate the creator from the creation, N/A and other spiritual belief systems see the creator in the creation and in others, and thereby make the whole earth and others sacred also. Quite a difference in perspective.

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Thanks so much Bearly, it's the least i could do & no problem it was my pleasure, anytime. That was also an excellent & inspiring statement you made. :tu:

I tried hard to just take extracts from this story & post it...i couldn't do it.

If i'm not mistaken, they made a powerful movie based on this story from actual events.

Rebel.

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linked-imageTHE COVERT WAR AGAINST THE NATIVE AMERICANSlinked-image -Ward Churchill

There is a little considered aspect of the covert means through which the United States maintains its perpetual drive to exert control over the territory and resources of others. It concerns, however, matters internal rather than external to the geographical corpus of the U.S. itself. It seems appropriate to quote a man deeply involved in the struggle for African liberation, Kwame Toure' (formerly known as Stokley Carmichael). In a speech delivered at the Yellow Thunder demonstrations in Rapid City, South Dakota, on October 1, 1982, he said:

We are engaged in a struggle for the liberation of ourselves as people. In this, there can be neither success nor even meaning unless the struggle is directed toward the liberation of our land, for a people without land cannot be liberated. We must reclaim the land, and our struggle is for the land-first, foremost, and always. We are people of the land.

So in Africa, when you speak of "freeing the land," you are at the same time speaking about the liberation of the African people. Conversely, when you speak of liberating the people, you are necessarily calling for the freeing of the land.

But, in America, when we speak of liberation, what can it mean? We must ask ourselves, in America, who are the people of the land? And the answer is-and can only be-the first Americans, the Native Americans, the American Indian. In the United States of America, when you speak of liberation, or when you speak of freeing the land, you are automatically speaking of the American Indians, whether you realize it or not. Of this, there can be no doubt.

Those in power in the United States understand these principles very well. They know that even under their own laws aboriginal title precedes and preempts other claims, unless transfer of title to the land was is or agreed to by the original inhabitants. They know that the only such agreements to which they can make even a pretense are those deriving from some 371 treaties entered into by the U.S. with various Indian nations indigenous to North America.

Those in power in America know very well that, in consolidating its own national landbase, the United States has not only violated every single one of those treaties, but that it remains in a state of perpetual violation to this day. Thus, they know they have no legal title-whether legality be taken to imply U.S. law, international law, Indian law, natural law, or all of these combined-to much of what they now wish to view as the territoriality of the United States proper.

Finally, they are aware that to acquire even a semblance of legal title, title which stands a chance of passing the informed scrutiny of both the international community and much of its own citizenry, the U.S. must honor its internal treaty commitments, at the very least. Herein lies the dilemma: In order to do this, the U.S. would have to return much of its present geography to the various indigenous nations holding treaty-defined and reserved title to it (and sovereignty over it). The only alternative is to continue the violation of the most fundamental rights of Native Americans while pretending the issues do not exist. Of course, this is the option selected-both historically and currently-by U.S. policy-makers.

linked-imageTHE NATIVE AMERICAN MOVEMENT:

It is precisely from the dynamics of this situation that overt liberation organizations such as the American Indian Movement (AIM), the International Indian Treaty Council, and Women of All Red Nations were born. Insofar as their struggles are based in the reaffirmation of the treaty rights of North America's indigenous nations, theirs is a struggle for the land. In essence, their positions imply nothing less than the literal dismantlement of the modern American empire from the inside out.

The stakes involved are tremendous. The "Great Sioux" of Lakota Nation alone holds clear treaty rights over some 5% of the area within the present 48 contiguous states. The Anishinabe (Chippewa) are entitled to at least another 4%. The Dine' (Navajo) already hold between 3% and 4%. Most of California has been demonstrated to have been taken illegally from nations such as the Pomo and Luisano. Peoples such as the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Pasamadoquoddi-long believed to have been exterminated-have suddenly rematerialized to press treaty-based and aboriginal claims to much of New England. The list is well over 300 names long. It affects every quarter of the contemporary United States.

linked-imageVAST NATURAL RESOURCES AT STAKE:

Today, more than 60% of all known U.S. uranium reserves are under reservation lands, and another 10-15% lies under contested treaty areas. Similarly, approximately one-third of all minable low-sulphur coal lies under reservations, while the figure easily exceeds 50% when treaty areas are lumped in. With natural gas, the data are about 15% under reservations, 15% under contested lands. The same holds true for oil. Almost all American deposits of minable zeolites are under reservation land. Very significant strategic reserves of bauxite, copper, iron, and other crucial minerals are also at issue.

Giving all this up-or even losing a modicum of control over it-is an obviously unacceptable proposition to U.S. policy makers and corporate leaders. In order to remain a superpower (in both the military and economic senses of the term), the U.S. must tighten rather than relax its grip upon its "assets." Hence, given its priorities, America has had little choice but to conduct what amounts to a clandestine war against American Indians, especially of the AIM variety.

linked-imageTHE PROPAGANDA WAR:

In pursuing such a policy the U.S. power elite has replicated the tactics and conditions more typically imposed on its colonies abroad. First, there is the matter of "grey and black propaganda" through which U.S. covert agencies, working hand in glove with the mainstream media, distort or fabricate information concerning the groups they have targeted. The function of such a campaign is always to deny with plausibility public sympathy or support to the groups in question, to isolate them and render them vulnerable to physical repression or liquidation.

As concerns AIM, grey propaganda efforts have often centered upon contentions (utterly unsubstantiated) that the "Indian agenda" is to dispossess non-Indians of the home-owner, small farmer or rancher type living within the various treaty areas.

[This flies directly in the face of the formal positions advanced by the AIM and associated groups working on treaty land issues. AIM has consistently held that it seeks lands held by the U.S. and various state governments (such as National and State Parks, National Forests and Grasslands, Bureau of Land Management areas, etc.) as well as major corporate holdings within the treaty areas. Small landholders would be allowed to remain and retain their property under "landed immigrant provisions" or, in some cases, naturalization.]

In terms of black propaganda, there have been a number of highly publicized allegations of violence which, once disproven, were allowed to die without further fanfare. This has been coupled to "leaks" from official government sources that AIM is a "terrorist" organization.

[This is based on testimony of a single informer at a hearing at which the AIM leadership was denied the right to cross-examine or to testify.]

The propaganda efforts have, in large part, yielded the desired effect, souring not only the average American citizen's perception of AIM, but-remarkably-that of the broader U.S. internal opposition as well. The latter have been so taken in upon occasion as to parrot the government/corporate line that Indian land claims are "unrealistic," "not feasible," and ultimately a "gross unfairness to everyone else."

Repression and Liquidation

With the isolation of Native American freedom fighters effectively in hand, the government's clandestine organizations have been free to pursue programs of physical repression within America's internal colonies of exactly the same sort practiced abroad. At one level, this has meant the wholesale jailing of the movement's leadership. Virtually every known AIM leader in the United States has been incarcerated in either state or federal prisons since (or even before) the organization's formal emergence in 1968, some repeatedly. This, in combination with accompanying time spent in local jails awaiting trial, the high costs of bail and legal defense, and the time spent undergoing a seemingly endless succession of trials, is calculated both to drain the movement's limited resources and to cripple its cadre strength.

[To cite but one example of this principle at work: Despite a ceasefire agreement assuring non-prosecution of AIM and traditional Indian people relative to the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation, the FBI proceeded to amass more than 300,000 separate file entries for judicial use against the people in question. Russell Means, an occupation leader, was charged with more than 140 separate offenses as a result; his trials encumbered the next three years of his life, before he went to prison for a year. There are many such cases.]

Even more directly parallel to the performance of U.S. covert agencies abroad is physical repression conducted at another level, that of outright cadre liquidation. For example, in the post-Wounded Knee context of South Dakota's Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation, independent researcher Candy Hamilton established that at least 342 AIM members and supporters were killed by roving death squads aligned with and supported by the FBI. (The death squads called themselves GOONs, "Guardians of the Oglala Nation.") This was between 1973 and 1976 alone.

In proportion to the population of the reservation, this is a rate of violent death some 12 or 14 times greater than that prevailing in Detroit, the so-called "murder capital of America." In a more political sense, it is greater than the violent death rate experienced in Uruguay during the anti-Tupamaro repression there, in Argentina under the worst of its succession of juntas, or in El Salvador today. The statistics are entirely comparable to what happened in Chile in the immediate aftermath of Pinochet's coup.

As is currently the case in El Salvador, where the Reagan administration contends that the police are understaffed and underequipped to identify and apprehend death squad members, the FBI-which is charged with major crimes in reservation areas-pleaded "lack of manpower" in solving the long list of murders involving AIM people. (The FBI saturation of the Pine Ridge area was greater on a per capita basis than anywhere else in the country during this period.)

[To date, of the murders documented by Hamilton, *none* has been solved. On the other hand, the FBI experienced no such personnel problems in identifying and ``bringing to justice'' AIM people accused of murder. The most famous example is Leonard Peltier, accused of killing two FBI agents on Pine Ridge in 1975; pursued in what the Bureau itself termed "the biggest manhunt in history," and convicted in what turned out to be a sham trial, Peltier is currently serving a double life sentence. (See, "The Ordeal of Leonard Peltier," by William M. Kunstler]

More to the point than this transparent rationale for inaction is the case of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. A young Micmac woman working with AIM on Pine Ridge, Aquash was told outright during the fall of 1975 by federal agent David Price (who was involved in the assassinations of Mark Clark and Fred Hampton [black Panther leaders] in Chicago in 1969, and who has been involved more recently in paramilitary operations against the Republic of New Afrika) that "You'll be dead within a year." Aquash's body was found less than six months later, dumped in a ravine in the northeast quadrant of the reservation. A pathologist hired by the government determined her death as being due to "exposure." An independent pathologist readily discovered she had died as a result of a .38 calibre slug entering the back of her head at a pointblank range.

Nor is Pine Ridge the only locale in which this clandestine war has been conducted. Richard Oaks, leader of the 1970 occupation of Alcatraz Island by "Indians of All Tribes," was gunned down in California the following year. Shortly thereafter, Hank Adams, a fishing rights leader in Washington state, was shot in the stomach. Larray Cacuse, a Navajo AIM leader, was shot to death in Arizona in 1972. In 1979, AIM leader John Trudell was preparing to make a speech in Washington, DC. He was told by FBI personnel that, if he gave his speech, there would be "consequences." Trudell not only made his speech, calling for the U.S. to get out of North America and detailing the nature of federal repression in Indian country, he burned a U.S. flag as well. That night, his wife, mother-in-law, and three children were "mysteriously" burned to death at their home on the Duck Valley Reservation in Nevada.

linked-imageCONCLUSION:

What has been related here is but a tiny fraction of the full range of events-facts intended only to illustrate the much broader pattern of covert activities directed against the American Indian Movement for well over a decade. It is hoped that the reader will attain a greater appreciation for the similarities between the nature of U.S. clandestine operations abroad and those conducted at home; the parallels are not always as figurative as is commonly supposed.

Further, it is hoped that the reader might become more attuned to the "why" of such seemingly aberrant circumstances: that the liberation of Native Americans fits well within the more global anti-imperialist struggles waged elsewhere, as the quotation from Kwame Toure' indicates. AIM presents the same sort of threat to the U.S. status quo as do land-based movements in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.

This situation, so little known in America, has been recognized in locations as diverse as Nicaragua, Vietnam, Libya, Iran, Cuba, Mozambique, Ireland, Palestine, and Switzerland, through the work of the International Indian Treaty Council. It is high time that it was fully realized by those among the broad progressive [sic] opposition within the United States itself.

by Ward Churchill

http://www.dickshovel.com/covertwar.html

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( I hope this hasn't already been posted)

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A Lakota Prayer

Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds

and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me.

I am small and weak.

I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes

ever behold the red and purple sunset.

Make my hands respect the things you have made

and my ears sharp to hear your voice.

Make me wise so that I may understand

the things you have taught my people.

Let me learn the lessons you have hidden

in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,

but to fight my greatest enemy - myself.

Make me always ready to come to you

with clean hands and straight eyes,

so when life fades, as the fading sunset,

my spirit will come to you

without shame.

American Indian (Lakota) - Chief Yellow Lark

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In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the Roman Catholic Church & Christopher Columbus ...

Rebel.

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Was it actually God who gave

White, Christian, Europeans

the right first to "Discover"

and then to replace

the original inhabitants

of the Americas ?

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Have you ever wondered why, when Attila the Hun and then later Ghenghis Khan "discovered" Europe, their conquests were called "invasions", but when Christopher Columbus led Europeans into an invasion of the Americas, that was called "discovering" the New World? Columbus in an ideal world, history would be written by scholars distinguished by their knowledge of the facts and their unquestioned impartiality in reporting them. But in our unreal world, the history that the masses are taught is what history's victors and their descendants have wanted written. And contrary to what Darwin may have said about the "survival of the fittest", we don't need to be professional scientists to know that, where human beings are concerned, those who survive and prosper, and who get to write history, are not the "fittest", in any truly human sense of the word, but more often than not, the best armed and most vicious, i.e. the most "unfit", morally speaking.

Ever since the invasion and the conquest of the Americas, each subsequent generation of white European Christian children who have inherited the lands which their ancestors stole from their rightful Native American owners have been taught that:

* the "discovery" of the Americas by Christopher Columbus on behalf of Spain and the Roman Catholic Church was a triumphal moment in the history of mankind, with a whole day given over to its celebration as a national holiday every year.

* the American continents were vast wildernesses, a vacuum which nature abhored, just waiting for somebody like the Europeans to discover and fill.

* the rare occupants of these continents were nothing but stone-age uncivilized pagan savages. What they had built up was worthless compared to what Europeans had built back in the "Old World".

* these lands were free for the taking by whichever ship captain happened to be the first to "discover" them and plant a cross on them to claim them on behalf of their Christian European monarch, because such were the rules of international law laid down by Europe's "Supreme Pontiff", the Christian pope. The fact that the occupants of these lands and their ancestors had lived on and developed those lands for thousands of years gave the native inhabitants no claim to them whatsoever, and if they didn't hand them over to their rightful owners, they were criminals and savages that needed to be dealt with accordingly. They themselves were worthless except as slaves to work their own lands and mines for the benefit of their higher class Christian European masters.

* What Europeans would bring these benighted pagans was infinitely better than what they had, the blessings of Christian salvation and higher civilization.

* Given that the Christian Conquerers were blessed with the one true faith, it was their duty to do whatever it took to "save" these pagan savages, even if they had to torture and/or kill many of them to get them or their survivors at least to see the light.

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As best described by its most famous proponent, the eminent Spanish scholar Juan Gines de Sepulveda, the New World's Indians were 'creatures of a subhuman nature who were intended by God to be placed under the authority of civilized and virtuous princes or nations, so that they may learn, from the might, wisdom, and law of their conquerors, to practice better morals, worthier customs and a more civilized way of life.'

Is it too much to ask the millions of people who, like myself, are part of the white, Christian, European majority in America today, to admit that we are "in possession of stolen goods"? And that to steal those goods the former owners were killed?

http://columbusnohero.org/

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Just pics...

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Hey all...

BTW rebel I really would like to participate in a formal ceremony one of these summers...

More on southern wisconson......the BlackHawk tribe was transitory (think) to this area near the koshkonong mounds.....B

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http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary...keyword=Elderly

Term: Black Hawk War (1832)

Definition:

in April of 1832 the Sauk chief Black Hawk led ca. 1,700 followers back to their homeland at the mouth of the Rock River, which had been occupied by white squatters; that summer U.S. troops and local militia pursued them across northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, ignoring or misunderswtanding their offers to surrender, until the massacre at the Battle of Bad Axe, Aug. 2, 1832.

A Timeline of the Black Hawk War

1. Events Leading Up to the War

1804: The Fox (Mesquakie) Indians numbered about 1,600 and the Sauk about 4,800. Both tribes lived mostly along the Mississippi River, from the Des Moines River north to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. The town of Saukenuk, on a point overlooking the mouth of the Rock River (at modern Rock Island, Illinois), was the center of Sauk and Fox life. It was their largest village, with more than 100 multi-family lodges, and could field 1,000 warriors.

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Too wild Barek!

If you do get the chance let me know how it all turns out man...take some pics even lol! :tu:

Just a small part of Catholic/Christian history i think they must have forgotten to teach us as kids in church and school...oh well...

Rebel.

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Catholic/Christian church arrogance.

How the "Civilizers" of Europe treated the "Savages" of America

THE REQUERIMIENTO...a sort of "Miranda Rights Statement" in reverse, made by the criminals(Christian/Catholic controlled armies) to their victims(Native Americans) on invading & take over of their lands.

The Requerimiento:

~~["We certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your country and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of Their Highnesses. We shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as Their Highnesses may command. And we shall take your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him."

[ another version read: "If you do not do this, however, or resort maliciously to delay, we warn you that, with the aid of God, we will enter your land against you with force and will make war in every place and by every means we can and are able, and we will then subject you to the yoke and authority of the Church and Their Highnesses. We will take you and your wives and children and make them slaves, and as such we will sell them, and will dispose of you and them as Their Highnesses order. And we will take your property and will do to you all the harm and evil we can, as is done to vassals who will not obey their lord or who do not wish to accept him, or who resist and defy him. We avow that the deaths and harm which you will receive thereby will be your own blame, and not that of Their Highnesses, nor ours, nor of the gentlemen who come with us . . ."]~~

{"Padre de Las Casas, Defender of the Indians" } As Bartolomé de Las Casas, the most famous of the accompanying Spanish missionaries from that trip recalled:

"Once the Indians were in the woods, the next step was to form squadrons and pursue them, LasCasasand whenever the Spaniards found them, they pitilessly slaughtered everyone like sheep in a corral. It was a general rule among Spaniards to be cruel; not just cruel, but extraordinarily cruel so that harsh and bitter treatment would prevent Indians from daring to think of themselves as human beings or having a minute to think at all. So they would cut an Indian's hands and leave them dangling by a shred of skin and they would send him on saying 'Go now, spread the news to your chiefs.' They would test their swords and their manly strength on captured Indians and place bets on the slicing off of heads or the cutting of bodies in half with one blow. They burned or hanged captured chiefs."

The punishment for not recognizing "ONE TRUE FAITH":

"They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles. When the Indians were thus still alive and hanging, the Spaniards tested their strength and their blades against them, ripping chests open with one blow and exposing entrails, and there were those who did worse. Then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive."

"The Dominican monk Bartolomé de Las Casas reached America in 1502, and was the leading figure in the ecclesiastical opposition to colonial oppression. In his will he wrote 'I believe that due to these godless, evil and ignoble acts perpetrated in such an unjust, barbarous, and tyrannical manner, God will direct his ire and fury upon all Spain, as all Spain has taken its part, large or small, of the bloodly wealth usurped at the price of much ruin and many massacres."

[from The explorers, by Paoalo Novaresio]

http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/amholocaust.html

~extracts only~

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linked-image ''The living''[christ]-''The dead''[humanity]- artist unknown

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In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the Roman Catholic Church & Christopher Columbus ...

Rebel.

linked-imagelinked-image

linked-image

linked-image

Was it actually God who gave

White, Christian, Europeans

the right first to "Discover"

and then to replace

the original inhabitants

of the Americas ?

linked-image

Have you ever wondered why, when Attila the Hun and then later Ghenghis Khan "discovered" Europe, their conquests were called "invasions", but when Christopher Columbus led Europeans into an invasion of the Americas, that was called "discovering" the New World? Columbus in an ideal world, history would be written by scholars distinguished by their knowledge of the facts and their unquestioned impartiality in reporting them. But in our unreal world, the history that the masses are taught is what history's victors and their descendants have wanted written. And contrary to what Darwin may have said about the "survival of the fittest", we don't need to be professional scientists to know that, where human beings are concerned, those who survive and prosper, and who get to write history, are not the "fittest", in any truly human sense of the word, but more often than not, the best armed and most vicious, i.e. the most "unfit", morally speaking.

Ever since the invasion and the conquest of the Americas, each subsequent generation of white European Christian children who have inherited the lands which their ancestors stole from their rightful Native American owners have been taught that:

* the "discovery" of the Americas by Christopher Columbus on behalf of Spain and the Roman Catholic Church was a triumphal moment in the history of mankind, with a whole day given over to its celebration as a national holiday every year.

* the American continents were vast wildernesses, a vacuum which nature abhored, just waiting for somebody like the Europeans to discover and fill.

* the rare occupants of these continents were nothing but stone-age uncivilized pagan savages. What they had built up was worthless compared to what Europeans had built back in the "Old World".

* these lands were free for the taking by whichever ship captain happened to be the first to "discover" them and plant a cross on them to claim them on behalf of their Christian European monarch, because such were the rules of international law laid down by Europe's "Supreme Pontiff", the Christian pope. The fact that the occupants of these lands and their ancestors had lived on and developed those lands for thousands of years gave the native inhabitants no claim to them whatsoever, and if they didn't hand them over to their rightful owners, they were criminals and savages that needed to be dealt with accordingly. They themselves were worthless except as slaves to work their own lands and mines for the benefit of their higher class Christian European masters.

* What Europeans would bring these benighted pagans was infinitely better than what they had, the blessings of Christian salvation and higher civilization.

* Given that the Christian Conquerers were blessed with the one true faith, it was their duty to do whatever it took to "save" these pagan savages, even if they had to torture and/or kill many of them to get them or their survivors at least to see the light.

linked-imageLOOK AT THIS!linked-image

As best described by its most famous proponent, the eminent Spanish scholar Juan Gines de Sepulveda, the New World's Indians were 'creatures of a subhuman nature who were intended by God to be placed under the authority of civilized and virtuous princes or nations, so that they may learn, from the might, wisdom, and law of their conquerors, to practice better morals, worthier customs and a more civilized way of life.'

Is it too much to ask the millions of people who, like myself, are part of the white, Christian, European majority in America today, to admit that we are "in possession of stolen goods"? And that to steal those goods the former owners were killed?

http://columbusnohero.org/

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Exactly! Say no to the joke that is Columbus day....the day where a lost white man stumbled into my ancestors homeland and "claimed" he discovered "a new world"...while my ancestors just stared at him like he had gone mad.

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Native American's archaeological coverups by the ''Church''. These are extracts only of some of what/how so much ancient treasures and artifacts of the Native Americans is/was kept from the public for many years.

Make of it what you will. -Rebel.linked-image

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" NATIVE AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL COVERUPS UNCOVERED"

To those who investigate allegations of archaeological cover-ups, there are disturbing indications that the most important archaeological institute in the United States, the Smithsonian Institute, an independent federal agency, has been actively suppressing some of the most interesting and important archaeological discoveries made in the Americas.

'The Vatican' has been long accused of keeping artifacts and ancient books in their vast cellars, without allowing the outside world access to them. These secret treasures, often of a controversial historical or religious nature, are allegedly suppressed by the 'Catholic Church' because they might damage the church's credibility, or perhaps cast their official texts in doubt. Sadly, there is overwhelming evidence that something very similar is happening with the Smithsonian Institution.

The cover-up and alleged suppression of archaeological evidence began in late 1881 when John Wesley Powell, the geologist famous for exploring the Grand Canyon, appointed Cyrus Thomas as the director of the Eastern Mound Division of the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of Ethnology. When Thomas came to the Bureau of Ethnology he was a "pronounced believer in the existence of a race of Mound Builders, distinct from the American Indians." However, John Wesley Powell, the director of the Bureau of Ethnology, a very sympathetic man toward the American Indians, had lived with the peaceful Winnebago Indians of Wisconsin for many years as a youth and felt that American Indians were unfairly thought of as primitive and savage. The Smithsonian began to promote the idea that Native Americans, at that time being exterminated in the Indian Wars, were descended from

advanced civilizations and were worthy of respect and protection.

They also began a program of suppressing any archaeological evidence that lent credence to the school of thought known as Diffusionism, a school which believes that throughout history there has been widespread dispersion of culture and civilization via contact by ship and major trade routes.

Smithsonian Institution.

In a private conversation with a well-known historical researcher (who shall remain nameless), I was told that a former employee of the Smithsonian, who was dismissed for defending the view of diffusionism in the Americas (i.e. the heresy that other ancient civilizations may have visited the shores of North and South America during the many millennia before Columbus), alleged that the Smithsonian at one time had actually taken a barge full of unusual artifacts out into the Atlantic and dumped them in the ocean.

Though the idea of the Smithsonian' covering up a valuable archaeological find is difficult to accept for some, there is, sadly, a great deal of evidence to suggest that the Smithsonian Institution has knowingly covered up and 'lost' important archaeological relics.

NEXUS New Times -

Mapleton Qld Australia

Full details : http://www.onelight.com/hollow/giant/canyon.html

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to think that all those artifacts were dumped into the ocean to suppress the truth......B :no:

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http://www.regionalresearch.net/Pages/RockArt_Main.html

The period of time from 650 A.D. to about 1,200 A.D., called the Late Woodland time, saw a tremendous increase in mound building, influenced to some extent by more complex societies, the Hopewell and Mississippian cultures, in the south along the Mississippi River who traded with the Woodland people. Mounds were now often raised near village sites where permanent crop fields were established. It was during this era, also, that the Oneota, an agricultural group, flourished after 1,000 A.D. primarily in what is now present-day Wisconsin.

A spectacular outcome of the Late Woodland culture was effigy mound building, using earthen piles to create animal and geometric forms, often in mixed groups, and placed on high levels above water. Several schools of thought exist about the meaning of the mounds, the most common now being the representation of clans tied to elements: Earth, Water, Air. The animal forms especially can be tied to ancient legends of spirit beings, and many of the mound groups are now considered to be celestial markers as well. The effigy mounds do at times contain burials, but not always.

These effigies, generally built in the time between 650 and 1,200 A.D., reflect recurrent themes that can be seen in the many archaeological parks that today shelter the few remaining effigy mounds that escaped destruction by plow or development since European settlement in the Upper Midwest: Panther (Water Spirit), Thunderbird, Turtle (or Lizard), Bear, Deer, Snake, Human, Linear, Oval, and Conical.

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Yea Barek...thats just a tip of the iceberg of what they(RCC)stole from the Native Americans.

Many ''priceless'' ancient artifacts went missing and were never recovered in the Native American wars ...

A sought of walk on through help yourselves-take whatever you can & wipe out as many indigenous men women & children you can on the way out thing.

Just picture thieves stealing thousands of priceless manuscripts & treasures from inside the Vatican, & doing a complete wipe out of all the occupants on the way out.

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-Type of Document: Thesis

-Author: Lee, Kendra Gayle

-Degree: Master of Arts

-Advisory Committee:

-Advisors Names /Titles:

Dennis Moore/Committee Chair

Leigh Edwards/Committee Member

Maxine Montgomery/Committee Member

-Keywords:

*Spirituality

* Native American Literature

*Ecofeminism

*Marxism

-Date of Defense: 2004-02-24

Availability:unrestricted

Title:

VISIONS FOR A NEW WORLD: A JOURNEY THROUGH LESLIE MARMON SILKOS ALMANAC OF THE DEAD AND GARDENS IN THE DUNES AND LINDA HOGANS MEAN SPIRIT AND SOLAR STORMS.

Abstract:

Leslie Marmon Silkos Almanac of the Dead and Gardens in the Dunes and Linda Hogans Mean Spirit and Solar Storms forge a new borderland in literature, a fluid world where Native American traditions and Native American spirituality resonate, dynamically responding to the world in which the characters live. The borderland of these novels calls into question white cultures perception of nature, society, economics and history. Silkos and Hogans works clearly express the necessity to blur boundaries, which are diametrically opposed to the American Indian view of the Earth as a living entity with a spirit, and the necessity to create a pull toward a new society. Yet this society is neither an assimilation to white culture nor a return to traditional tribalism. It is a vision for a new world, undefinable by the structures that bind Anglo-American ideas and philosophy. This vision commands dissolution of the current economic and class system, sensitivity to and responsibility for the environment, and a respect for basic human rights. The vision encompasses an awareness of individual spirituality, a connection to community and an acknowledgement of the divinity of all life. Ecofeminist philosophy, the pull toward a union with the earth and equality for all living beings, unifies these novels and forms a basis for analyzing them in a literary and social context.

http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04132004-093836/

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Quotes on...

SPIRITUAL & CULTURAL GENOCIDE of the NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS.

Genocide by the provisions of the convention of the United Nations in Dec. 1948 is defined as:

"any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, and includes five types of criminal actions: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

Lyman Legters

"The American Genocide"

Policy Studies Journal, vol. 16, no. 4, summer 1988

Reference kindly provided by Loretta K. Carroll - Thank you, Loretta.

"...Let me remind you only of the witch-hunts of the middle ages, the horrors of the French revolution, or the genocide of the American Indians... in such periods there are always only a very few who do not succumb. But when it is all over, everyone, horrified, asks `for heaven's sake, how could I?' "

Albert Speer, Hitler's minister of war production, writing from prison in 1953.

"Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination - by starvation and uneven combat - of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity." P. 202, "Adolph Hitler" by John Toland

Thanks to my Friend Peter for finding and sharing the above two quotes.

Silence, repression, and disinformation are used knowingly - and unknowingly - to conceal truth; by abusers to keep their victims silent; by society so that people do not have to look at unpleasant facts of life.

This is true of every culture and race on our planet. Sexual, physical, emotional - and cultural abuse - thrive in this atmosphere; abuse of all kinds is perpetuated, generation to generation - ending only when society is forced to see the abuse in such a way there can be no denial, no excuses, no rationalization.

Perhaps it is my own experiences of abuse that have made me sensitive to all kinds of abuse; maybe - had things turned out differently - maybe I too would have been one of the willfully ignorant, disdaining my roots and heritage.

I do know that something extremely painful was experienced by my paternal grandparents, something so painful that they knowingly hid their past, their heritage, their American Indian blood from society - and trained their own children to do so also.

I do know that the same methods my abusers used to keep me and my siblings silent has been used on my parents and grandparents to keep them silent about their heritage - and not just them.

In my mind - and the minds and hearts of many of my friends - the enforced silence and stereotyping of American Indians - and any other culture - is abuse; social, cultural, and ethnic abuse, perpetuated and enforced by silence and repression; viciously fed by the disinformation and stereotyping created by the writers of history, fiction, and the media.

Do these terms and phrases sound familiar?

"Manifest Destiny, primitive savages, cowboys and indians, dirty injuns living in the dirt, bloodthirsty savages, can't even hold their liquor, the only good injun is a dead injun, Custer's last stand..."

Our culture, the American culture - and indeed the world culture - constantly propagates and perpetuates the stereotypical - and totally false - image of American Indians as backward, savage, brutal, uncivilized beings to this day. Talk to the people who are not natives, who live near any of the many reservations throughout North America - and you'll hear comments very similar to those heard throughout America prior to Martin Luther King... but directed at the American Indians... the "injuns," "drunken red men," the "uncivilized savages" who brutally murdered settlers...

Many will object, saying "but they were savage and brutal, not only fighting among themselves, warring with each other and more; but they were even more savage and brutal to the settlers!" - and use that as a justification for suppression and brutalization of American Indian culture and people.

Yes; those charges are indeed true -

But don't forget too that the settlers - with very few exceptions - were making a concerted effort, with the help of the American government, to completely wipe out the Native Americans.

Don't forget that the American government - and by extension, the American people - broke every single last one of the over 350 treaties signed with the American Indians; pushing the American Indians off into unwanted and unusable land - barren reservations - out of site and out of mind.

I challenge you to look at every other culture on this planet. Which nation has not been guilty of warring against their neighbors? Which culture has not at one time or another been guilty of horrendous atrocities against their fellow man? Which people have not fought fiercely, desperately against invaders to defend their own way of life?

The Romans against Carthage, the Gauls against Rome, Vikings and Gaels and Scotts and Eires and Mongols and Chinese; the War of the Roses and all the religious jihads of the centuries; the modern gang turf wars and the strife in Ireland; the pro-lifers against the pro-choicers:

No culture is innocent; no people is innocent.

That does not justify the spiritual and cultural genocide of any people anywhere; not the American Indians of both continents, not the Oranges or the Greens, not the Shiites or the Sihks or any other culture of this world.

To this day, nearly every one in the world knows of Custer - to this day, Custer and his men are glorified in print and film as heroic soldiers who were slaughtered by the "savages" - much of the world view of America and the American Indians has been formed by the media.

I've met many from other nations who absolutely believe the stereotype promulgated by the media of all nations - not just the American media; people who visit America and are very surprised to find there are no cowboys walking down the streets of New York, no "Indians" sitting on corners in their blankets, puffing away on a pipe.

It is not surprising, then, how few really know about how Custer treated, resolved the "Indian problem"...

How few people of the world really know that he and his troops mercilessly massacred entire villages, raping and killing the women, brutally executing every one without exception; the grandmothers and grandfathers, the men and women, the teenagers - and the children and babies?

Custer was not the only one who encouraged the atrocities and stood by as they were committed, not by a long shot. The history of the American Indians and the Settlers is rife with brutality and atrocities on both sides - But the bulk of the horror lays in the laps - and hands - of the settlers and the governments which encouraged the oppression and annihilation of the native populations.

True - there have been some articles that have spoken the truth; a few years back National Geographic printed an article that exposed the truth not only about "Custer's Last Stand", but also about Custer's active attempts to completely wipe out American Indians... There have been a few films that have shown - or attempted to show - the Truth as it actually happened - and those were panned by the non-native critics and journalists.

Many books have been written that expose the truth; that tell the story, the true story of how American Indians were ripped from the land, shoved off onto reservations that could not support them, made supplicants to a government that would rather ignore them - but how many really read those books?

Oh no, that is too disturbing, too upsetting to the noble sensitivities of most... "it's a dying and lost culture, if it really was worth something, it wouldn't die out" seems to be the justification.

Those books, articles and films are largely ignored by the masses of North America; at most, those who heard of or read of the attrocities only nod their heads sagely, commenting only "too bad that happened; yes, it was wrong - but it is in the past and there is nothing that can be done now."

And; nothing has been done, nothing is being done...

The languages, myths, art, spirituality, practices, and beauty of the Native American culture is fading into history to be lost forever; to be mused over in later years by the historically curious as a novelty...

Spiritual and cultural genocide... as the Native Americans are faced with either being totally assimilated by the Western Culture - or dying out on the many reservations... kept there, out of the way and out of mind, by supposedly beneficent governments; ignored and forgotten by the citizens of those nations...

Spiritual and cultural genocide, as the elders and parents helplessly watch their children leave to make a living in the "civilized" world, as those children and young adults willfully turn their backs on their heritage, language, and culture and willfully accept the stereotypical views of "civilization."

Spiritual and cultural genocide, as the great civilized masses of North America - and indeed the world - scurry pell-mell into the next century, focusing on technology and consumer goods... as "save the whales" and "save the children" and "save the earth" become the battle-cries of the various subcultures... not that those are bad things; they aren't, and they are needed.

But - the American Indian Cultures from southern-most tip of South America to the northenmost tip of Canada and Alaska are left behind, an afterthought, a mote of dust caught up in the tornado of "progress"...

Relegated to symbolic and denegrating mascots for sports teams, insulting icons for various holidays, and stereotypical villains for the movie industry; shoved off - out of site and out of mind - to die out on reservations.

Spiritual and cultural genocide by default and by intent, by marketing and media pressures, by willful and knowing ignorance... It is so easy to turn aside while saying "not my problem"...

True, in recent years there has been a very mild awakening in some; many non-native Americans - not just caucasians - are realizing the American Indian culture is rich, complex, full of beauty and spirituality, possessing and practicing ways of life that did not harm the earth and environment; and now some seek to learn. Unfortunately, many who profess to want to learn are only "in it" to make a dollar; preserving and indeed teaching and sharing the many cultures is the last thing on their minds...

Yet, there are some to whom preserving the culture; preserving the stories, art, ways of life, and spirituality of American Indian is indeed very important - and those few are doing what they can...

But; it is so little, and so late... it is my hope that as I - and others - speak out and share what we can that the loss can be averted, that the people of North America and indeed the world can be awakened.

In the years since 1950, many minorities in North America have had their causes heard, have had their injustices heard by the word; and have had some, if not all of their inequities addressed...

But not the American Indians of both continents...

Even my own Grandmother and Grandfather - he, a Cherokee; her, a Choctaw - turned their backs on their heritage because of the social, cultural, and economic pressures - as did their children, as did their son - my father.

One of my earliest memories was the "session" with my Father and his parents that occurred after I had shared with my classmates that I was part Indian, after I had shared with them how to tell what animals made what tracks... the teacher had called my Father and said that I had been telling "fairy tales" about being part Indian... my Father asked me if I had, and I told him "yes"; I told the truth.

He then told me to get in the car, and he drove to my Grandparent's house, where he told my Grandmother and Grandfather - his parents - what had happened.

My Grandparents became very silent at first - and then stood up and came over to me - Grandfather then kneeled and held me by the shoulders, and told me:

"NEVER let it be known you are Indian; you can pass for white, so BE white - forget everything you know about being Indian, forget all of it - because if you do not, you'll be treated worse than [blacks]."

My Grandfather did not say "blacks", but instead used a well-known epithet... He told my Father never to let me forget that, NEVER to let anyone know -

And my Grandmother, my father's mother, stood over me, shaking with anger, and told me "If you tell anyone you are Indian, I'll whup you so raw you can't sit down for a month"... I was six years old... only six years old...

I never forgot that afternoon - the incredible fear, anger, and confusion expressed in his eyes and face, her eyes and face; I never forgot the way his hands grabbed and hurt my shoulders - never forgot the incredible and devastating contradiction of his words compared to the oh-so-many wonderful and magical times he took me out in the desert to teach me Indian ways and skills...

He, who with my father gave me the birth name, the soul name that is so similar to my Tribal name of GhostWolf - caught in the paradox of wanting to maintain his heritage and pass it on; yet needing to make a living to support his family, his children - without being discriminated against...

He, who for the first six years of my life took great joy in taking me out into the Mojave, showing me how to read the sky for weather, read the phases of the moon for crops and hunting, showed me how to not only read and identify the tracks of so many different animals, but also how to tell how long ago they had been there...

Shaking, trembling, voice full of fear and anger - and yes, hate and shame - hurting me, telling me "NEVER let it be known you are Indian"... He, who had taught me so many truly wonderful things...

Never taught me anything about my heritage, OUR heritage ever again...

Thus this, my American Indian page...

it is my hope to learn what I can of my heritage; learn who my People the Cherokee and Choctaw are and were... learn my People's ways and beliefs and culture... that I may treasure The Ways, that I may honor my People even though I start on the Path so late in life.

That I may share with my son our roots, our Heritage - Our People...

May the contents of these pages; what I discover and the People to whom I link, show you the Truth - not only about the People, but also about the injustice, discrimination, and genocidal treatment of the People that continues to this day.

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http://www.nemasys.com/ghostwolf/Native/genocide.shtml

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Edited by REBEL
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More on southern Wisconson......B

THE BLACKHAWKS

THE BATTLE OF BAD AX

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the battle of Bad Axe, the final clash between United States and American Indian forces during the Black Hawk War of 1832. It's located on the Wisconsin bank of the Mississippi River, about equidistant between the cities of LaCrosse and Prairie du Chien. I arrived at dusk, so I got only a perfunctory glimpse of the area before it disappeared in the darkness. Despite that, or maybe because of it, something about the place pulled me into the events that occurred there. I haven't really been able to let go of it since.

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THE BLACKHAWK WAR OF 1832

By James Lewis, Ph.D.

In May of 1832 Sac and Fox Indians under the leadership of Black Hawk left the Iowa territory and returned to their homes across the Mississippi River in northern Illinois. These Native Americans had lost their Illinois lands in a disputed treaty signed in St. Louis in 1804. Their return to northern Illinois sparked widespread panic among white settlers, and Illinois Governor Reynolds quickly called up the militia, which included a young Abraham Lincoln.

Both the militia and regular army troops proved unable to locate the elusive Indians at first, but by July they had begun to pursue Black Hawk's band across northern Illinois and southwestern Wisconsin, engaging them in a major conflict at Wisconsin Heights before finally routing the Indians at Bad Axe on the Mississippi River.

This project presents searchable primary source materials describing the Black Hawk War of 1832. It includes the Autobiography of Black Hawk, American soldiers' first-hand accounts and reminiscences, maps and other images, and treaties and other government documents. It is a part of the larger Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project and its attempts to use the events of Lincoln's life as a lens through which to interpret and understand broader themes of antebellum American history.

Black Hawk

Permission: Chicago Historical Society.

The Illinois Humanities Council has supported this project with a generous grant.

© 2000 Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project

Edited by Barek Halfhand
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The unrepenting shame of the Uniting, Catholic & Anglican Churches of Canada.

*Church sanctioned genocide.

*Sexually assulted native children.

*Residential school death camps.

*50,000 deaths

*Censorship-Complicity-Denial-Cover ups.

Residential school survivors and other witnesses to crimes of Genocide by the Anglican, Catholic and United Church will be speaking, and demanding:

1. Where are 50,000 residential school children buried?

2. How did they die?

3. When will these churches return their remains?

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HIDDEN FROM HISTORY: THE CANADIAN HOLOCAUST.

The Untold Story Of The Genocide Of The Aboriginal People.

Why We Are Not Sorry for Our Crimes:

The Residential Schools Settlement Farce

by Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div.

The perpetrators of the worst crime in Canadian history are absolving themselves of that crime and feeling quite good about it. That's essentially what's going on these days in courtrooms across Canada, in what is developing to be the greatest travesty of justice in our sordid history.

In the spring of 1996, when I was asked to be an advisor to the first group of men and women who were suing the government and the United Church of Canada for their torture at the so-called Alberni Indian Residential School, I assumed, like most Canadians, that electrically shocking six year old children and driving nails through their tongues was a crime. I also assumed that when half of the children in a school consistently die every year, and their bodies disappear, those responsible would have to answer for such barbarities, like any serial killer. But what I didn't realize was that when the victims are aboriginal, and the perpetrators are Christians and their clergy, a completely different standard applies, and the murderers, quite literally, are above the law.

I have had to come to this conclusion after hard and bitter experience, after twelve years of recording hundreds of survivors' stories, publishing corroborating proof of crimes against humanity in Indian residential schools, and trying, and failing, to win justice for these survivors in the Canadian courts. I have had to conclude that the deliberate genocide that killed more than 50,000 children in these "schools" is not considered a crime by Canada and its churches, either legally or morally.

Since the commencement of the residential schools lawsuits a decade ago, not a single fiduciary officer of either the government or the Anglican, Catholic and United Churches which ran these schools has ever been charged or brought to trial, and not one person has been charged with genocide, murder or any other crime more serious than "physical and sexual abuses". This is, frankly, astounding, considering that deliberate acts of murder, involuntary sterilization, torture, slave labour, medical experimentation and germ warfare went on in these schools as a matter of state and church policy, and not as the result of supposed random acts of individuals, acting alone.

The evidence of this deliberate genocidal policy is considerable, beginning with statements of senior civil servants like Indian Affairs Superintendent Duncan Campbell Scott, who said on record in the spring of 1909,

"It is true that Indian children die at a much higher rate in our Indian boarding schools from communicable diseases ... But such is in keeping with policy of this Department, which is geared towards the Final Solution of the Indian Problem."

One of his employees, department medical officer Dr. Peter Bryce, commented after his tour of western residential schools,

"I believe the conditions are being deliberately created in the Indian schools to spread infectious diseases. The death rate often exceeds fifty percent. This is a national crime." (Oct. 9, 1907)

All of this evidence, including the exhaustive first-hand, eyewitness testimonies of survivors of these crimes, has been completely ignored by the fraudulent court process that has pretended to bring acknowledgement and "healing" to the thousands of survivors of the residential school nightmare. With the help of compliant state-funded native "leaders" of the Assembly of First Nations, the government and churches have absolved themselves of their criminal acts by shifting the legal issue away from one of criminal liability to financial "compensation" to their victims. This travesty has killed any hope of justice for aboriginal people.

For example, in the latest "settlement" offered by Ottawa, the churches are completely freed of any liability for the harm done to children under their legal guardianship in the residential schools, including the deaths of thousands of them; the original "apology" for the residential schools is abolished; and survivors must legally gag themselves and refrain from any future legal action, as must their descendents, in order to receive the whopping sum of $10,000 for a lifetime of torture and ruination.

Would any "white" person, be they politician or church official, accept such a deal if he or she was sterilized, tortured, or endured the trauma of seeing friends and relatives murdered in front of them? I wonder how much Prime Minister Harper would demand if such crimes had happened to him?

Of course, we're dealing with Indians, who have always been an expendable class of people on this continent. A ninety five percent extermination rate doesn't lie, after all.

As a member of the culture that committed the worst genocide in human history, and continues to ravage this land and its indigenous people for its own profit, I find it quite crazy that my people, Christian or otherwise, can do such things and yet drape themselves in a self-righteous sense that we somehow regret or are sorry for what we did, and are doing. Why don't we put that myth to rest, once and for all.

As a minister, I have had the chance to see close-up how people behave when they are truly ashamed or sorry for the harm and murder they have committed on others. They mourn, and tear at themselves, and are irreconcilably despairing. They don't talk about throwing a bit of money at their victims, or mouthing meaningless verbal "apologies" to those who will never recover. And they don't get fancy lawyers and PR guys to cover for them.

I have yet to see a single official of the churches or government publicly mourn, or cry, for what they did to thousands of innocent native children. None of them have come on their knees and begged forgiveness to the residential school survivors. Despite all the churches' Sunday morning rhetoric, none of their clergy have closed their churches as a sign of true repentence, and mortgaged their billions of dollars in property in order to "give away all that they have to the poor" - to those they have wronged - as Jesus prescribed. On the contrary; the response of these "Christians" has been utterly inhuman.

All of that tells me that my culture and former religion is a dead shell with no moral or spiritual substance left in it. We cannot heal anyone, let alone ourselves. And so, ironically, the final victory belongs to those aboriginal people who we tried to destroy: the ones who have kept their soul, and not bartered it away for the riches and power of this world, as we have done.

So let's stop pretending that we sympathize for our residential school victims. Let us mourn, instead, for ourselves: for all that we have lost, and can never recover. Let us close the doors of our churches and Parliament, those dead and blood-soaked institutions, and try to find whatever is left of ourselves, shorn of our false gods and riches. Let us look for that tortured and forgotten Christ who was the first innocent we murdered in the service of Empire.

................................

Kevin Annett

260 Kennedy St.

Nanaimo, BC V9R 2H8

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

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What happened to the Native Americans and many other peoples at the hands of White and Spanish explorers and settlers always makes me sad :(

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Can anybody help me find information on the Moneton tribe? I've only been able to find one webpage with information on them. My great-grandmother was supposedly a decendent from them.

Also, I thought I'd share this video. I love pow wow's :P.

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