Bringing together the Indigenous Voices of Turtle Island
I initially wanted to make a movie when a Relative hanged himself in Faith S.D. This was at the same time they were hanging themselves up in Standing Rock. Now, this recently was reported, at at the same time, the BIA began a “surge” (same term as their invading, raping, and warring on civilians in Iraq) on the Youth of Standing Rock…about 10 years after the suicide epidemic they militarily surged on the survivors.
WHY IS NOT IT OBVIOUS, that we were and are, caused to be in the shit we are in?
We were the healthiest People on Earth. We had the largest Men in the world at one time, strapping and tall, especially who we come from here in this Tiospaye. We had no disease. We were deep. We were WHOLE. Now, less than 200 years hence, what happened? What is the catalyst? The utter attack and rape by 9 denominations of christians after the initial saber thrust of Genocide.
I always like it to this:
” a guy and a friend were walking down a sunny street one day, and they turn the corner to see a whole street full of dirty, unkempt, beaten up Women laying about, with their panties down around ankles, the one guy turns to the other and says ‘damn these people, why don’t they clean themselves up, pick themselves up by the bootstraps…’” It is because they were not witness to the wholesale rape that occurred on that block but minutes before. We have not been able to even recover from the shock of it yet.
So, they get us perpetuating through the system, always bailing water and stepping and fetching. They want to teach us to be subservient cause they have NEVER been able to enslave the Lakota Oyate. Look at the History of our People. Chief White Swan is one who stopped them from moving us all down to Oklahoma. We are World Class, but we are relegated to 4th class. We are expected to surrender and be absorbed by Eya, but instead we dance backwards off the cliff.
Sovereignty is a Powerful (Wakan) Thing.
Hecetuwelo.
First Nations Network
Our creator has given to us our mother, the earth, from our mother, the earth, comes everything that people need to sustain their life here on earth.
We have our grandfathers, the thundering voices, who carry the waters to the land that our food will grow – what we depend on for life – our sustenance will grow and be plentiful again. And on moving about in the sky world, we have our brother, the sun, who brings heat and light to the earth, so that we do not walk around and move about in darkness, and so the plant life will grow and life will flourish here on earth.
Within our prophesies, we are told that all of these things, all of these gifts for which we give thanks to our creator, are the ones who will tell us when the changing of the earth is coming about. For they will be, having been abused, they will be withdrawn from us, and we can no longer depend upon them.
Our brother, the sun, who gives us heat and light, will also become something that will begin to take life. From the pollution, in our language of today, the sun will become affected. And human people here on this earth will suffer from the heat of the sun.
And the people, the leadership, the governments, I will say, of this whole earth will no longer be able to sit together and talk in peace. And this will begin, we are told, in the land far across the big ocean in the land of the white sand.
The strawberry, the principal of all the fruit, the fruit life on this land, will become scarce. And then one time will come and we’ll not be able to see the strawberry.
Then we may use the red leaves, if there are only leaves, and give our thanksgiving still that the strawberry plant is still there, although the berry has not appeared. And this will be acceptable as a thanksgiving to our creator.
Our mother earth is crying from abuse and disrespect, and the mothers of the nations of this earth are also crying. I’m speaking about the mothers and the women who still are connected to the things of earth, to the life giving mother earth.
That these true ways that were given to our people will live on; that our children seven generations into the future will have clean water, will have clean food to take into their bodies, so that there will be life.
We are in very, very difficult times. And it becomes an individual kind of thing for people to change their lifestyle.
And in our nation, the women have a very noble, respectful place in our societies. And the women are in the forefront of keeping our traditions, of keeping our ways of life that were given to us in the beginning of our time. And this is the way we are told that it should be.
Our leadership do not make decisions without input, without the advise, without consulting with the women within our nations, because the mothers, the women are life givers themselves.
-Audrey & Leon Shenandoah
Living life following the seasons is one of the first steps to creating good health, to creating well- being, not only for yourself, but for your family and your entire community.
Spring comes. We
This documentary reveals Canada’s darkest secret – the deliberate extermination of indigenous (Native American) peoples and the theft of their land under the guise of religion. This never before told history as seen through the eyes of this former minister (Kevin Annett) who blew the whistle on his own church, after he learned of thousands of murders in its Indian Residential Schools…”
R.W. Large Memorial Hospital, site of sterilizations and medical experiments on native children between at least 1923 and 1969
Every so often you find yourself in a situation where suddenly the weight of it, or the historical significance of it hits you like three tons of bricks. If you are fortunate enough to make this realization as its happening consider yourself blessed.
I am typing this from a motel 8 lobby in Onawa, Nebraska. I have traveled up to this state with some fellow tribal members and a Ponca elder to visit the last remaining speakers of the UnMOnHA (Omaha) language. For those that do not know, Omaha, Osage and Ponca are all related languages, also including Kansa, Quapaw and Baxoje. For the last two days I listened and watched Omahas, Osages and a Ponca talk fluidly back and forth and joke on and on… without english.
Everyone in the room is died in the wool proponent of the language revitilization in Indian country. The Osage had made their way to Macy, Nebraska in the hopes of filling in linguistical blanks in their knowledge base, and this was accomplished…and then some.
As the day wound to a close several things were rushing through my mind. One was a silent film I saw a little over a month ago that was the recording of a summit of Northern Plains Native sign talkers of a dozen tribes who had come together to exhibit how prevalent the use of this language was and across how many cultures it existed. I wondered if I would ever get a chance to witness something like that in my lifetime. (And believed I actually was witnessing such an event)
The other thing running thru my mind was an exchange I had with my grandfather about a year before he passed away. One spring day I drove down from Kansas to my grandparents house in the Wa.xo.k’o.lin district outside of Pawhuska with the soul intention of purchasing more language materials. When I arrived at my grandparents house my grandpa asked me what i was doing down here. I told him I was going to buy another language tape. He pulled out his billfold and withdrew about 80 dollars. I tried to refuse it but he persisted and I asked what it was for. I will never forget his response. He raised his arm and pointed towards our In.lon.shka dance arbor and said “I want Red Corn’s to talk Osage under that arbor again one day, go purchase everything they have available.”
So with the spiritual endorsement and paternal sponsorship of my grandfather I pursue my quest to learn Wa.zha.zhi i.e. It was was the weight of this exchange that pushed saline out of my eyes as I tried to explain succinctly how much i valued the investment the elders in my community have made in me. Because there are too many my age, in college and/or in the native community that never come to that conclusion.
Armed with that knowledge I wondered when the last time Osages, Omahas and Poncas were in one place at one time and were not speaking English. I don’t know that answer. At one time we were all one people, and we were welcomed like relatives when we arrived. This trip has only strengthened my resolve. I don’t want my grandchildren to be deprived of the sound of our language hitting their ears from the lips of our own people. If we lose that battle, we have truly lost, and my generation will be considered the last blessed generation who knew those old ones.
There is massive hope. At no other time in nearly 200 years has the number of Osage speakers been increasing till now. That is something to be truly proud of, and I am hoping I can join those ranks, because I honestly feel as if its within my reach.
“The massive amount of useless knowledge produced by anthropologists attempting to capture real Indians in a network of theories has contributed substantially to the invisibility of Indian people today.” – Vine Deloria Jr.
There is an ancient Indian saying that something lives only as long
as the last person who remembers it. My people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant and immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth. Beware these men for they are 
dangerous themselves and unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember and of those who seek the truth.
~Floyd ‘Red Crow’ Westerman