Roland John Morris, Sr.  Fall, 1998

What made this Tribal Elder want to work against Tribal government and federal Indian Policy?   Roland John Morris, Sr., tried of watching his family die, asked Senators in Washington DC to step away from current Federal Indian policy and begin to treat all men equally.  Read his story below.

My name is Roland Morris Sr. I am a full-blooded Anishinabe American citizen from the Leech Lake Band of Minnesota Chippewa. It is my hope you will discern the truthfulness of my message by examining both my heart, as well as my words.

When my brothers and sisters and I were growing up in the 50’s, the hateful overt racism did hurt. However, the reverse was also hurtful. When patronizing people essentially pat us on the head and said; "you poor dear, you are a victim and can’t possibly take care of yourself." and "you can’t be to blame for your actions", that was just as hurtful, if not more so.

On top of that, Federal Indian Policy itself views Native Americans as

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Tiffany Eggenberg offers sensitive pastel portraits of contemporary individuals whom she evidently encountered on an annual march commemorating the Dakota’s 1862-63 incarceration near Fort Snelling.

One of the more troubling incidents in Minnesota history occurred in Mankato 146 years ago today when 38 Dakota Sioux Indians were hanged in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Their deaths were the culmination of four months of warfare between the Dakota and white settlers in the Minnesota River Valley. Sparked by white incursion into Indian lands, the battles were fueled by the federal government’s violation of its own treaties, exploitation by traders who impounded payments due the Indians, retaliatory theft and slaughter by the Indians and subsequent atrocities on both sides.

Starvation, cultural differences, bounties, race hatred, disease and injustice contributed to

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PLEASE FORWARD TO NEW NATIVE WRITERS

TRIBAL WRITERS CHAPBOOK SERIES

The Sequoyah Research Center announces its second series of Tribal
Writers Chapbooks.  The first series published chapbooks (small,
limited editions of poetry, prose, or drama) by such noted Indian
writers as Maurice Kenny, Lance Henson, Glen McGuire, Ron Wellborn,
and Doris Seale.  We hope to continue to bring out writing of the same
high quality with this second series.  Stuart Hoahwah (Comanche) leads
off with a collection of poems, Black Knife, followed by Elgin
Jumper's (Florida Seminole) work Nightfall, Doyle Turner's (White
Earth Ojibwe) Time is a Parlor Trick and Other Poems, and
The.Indian.In.Indian.School by Linda Grover (Ojibwe).

The focus of the second series is on new Native writers, those who
have not published a significant body of work, either as individual
pieces or in book or anthology formats.  We are attempting to give
exposure to new (not necessarily young) writers.

The major dif
ference between the first and second series is that in
addition to publishing in hard-copy the new works will appear in
digital format in the Tribal Writers Digital Library.  We hope in this
way to reach a wider readership for what we think are some exciting
new Indian poets, storytellers, and dramatists.  You may view the
first volumes at http://anpa.ualr.edu in the Digital Library.

Payment to authors will be in the form of copies of their chapbook.
The SRC will print 250 copies that will be furnished to the author
upon completion of the press run.  No funds are required from the
author; no funds will be disbursed to the author.  Copyright will
remain with the author.

We envision that two chapbooks will be published each year under a
grant from the Bay and Paul Foundations.  An editorial board of
prominent Native writers review all submissions and make
recommendations to the editors.  The target date for chapbook
publication each year will be the annual Sequoyah Research Center
Symposium, held in the third week of October.  Submissions are
accepted at any time during the year.

Native writers should submit manuscripts that are no longer than 36
pages to fit the print format.  Further information should be
requested from or submissions sent to James W. Parins, Sequoyah
Research Center, Suite 500 University Plaza, University of Arkansas at
Little Rock, Little Rock, AR 72204, or e-mailed to <  a href="mailto:jwparins@ualr.edu" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer; ">jwparins@ualr.edu.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

•   Use Microsoft Word only.
•   Use Times New Roman font.  If you have a preference for another
font, please let me know separately.
•   Turn OFF all "AutoCorrect functions" under "Tools."  These features
make encoding more difficult.
•   When typing poetry, indent where appropriate according to your text.
•   Double space between paragraphs.
•   Provide a hard copy of your manuscript.
•   Provide a digital copy of your manuscript via email to jwparins@ualr.edu
•   Submit questions to the same email address.

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Patzin:  Wombs and Land
By Patrisia Gonzales
Column of the Americas (c) July 16, 2008;
Patzin, “respect-worthy medicine” in Nahuatl,  is a monthly feature on Indigenous medicineMiriam Aviles-Reyes was pulled over by Tucson police while driving
brown, pregnant and without papers in December 2007.  In this era
where the border has been extended into city streets,  the uterus of
Indigenous women cannot escape militarization. Tucson police quickly
called in the border patrol; Miriam went into labor. Instead of her
husband by her side at the hospital, an immigration office kept watch,
insisting that she hurry up and push.  As her baby descended through
the birth canal, she recalled, the officer persisted in his threats to
deport her.

Nez Perce-Chicana scholar Ines Hernandez-Avila has addressed how the
reproducing bodies of Indigenous women are subject to state control
because they threaten many nation states and occupying forces with
their ability to reproduce and sustain distinct peoples.  With a 4 to
1 birth rate among young Latinas, Indigenous-rooted women pose various
threats to those who fear the browning of this country. Their bodies
and the acts of their bodies are challenges to notions of homeland.

What threat could Miriam have posed for the immigration official to
violate the most sacred moments of life?  It is doubtful she would
have attempted escape with a baby crowning.  The officer potentially
risked that child’s life from the duress that Miriam experienced.
Indigenous midwives say that when a pregnant woman experiences fright,
or trauma, what is referred to as susto, it causes susto in both
mother and child. Luckily, her son was born without major
complications, but only with time will the family know what birth
trauma was inflicted upon this small one’s life.  For many

Indigenous
peoples, the body is a land base and a sacred site and how we come
into this world is certainly a right to life and intricately linked to
self determination.Miriam, the mother of three U.S. citizens , originates from an old
Nahua village on the road to Xochicalco, a Mesoamerican university in
900 A.D.  To be Mexican, even if her Indigeneity was not recognized,
is still to be treated like an Indian during various attempts at
Indian removal in this country. For many like Miriam, their brown skin
and Indian faces do not allow for their Indianess to be physically
invisible. Instead, official  narratives surrounding labels such as
“Mexican” and  ”immigrant” deny their aboriginal histories and claims
and silence their original relationships to this continent. While in
labor, Miriam did sign papers agreeing to leave this country.

Around the same time, a grandmother in South Texas took on

Michael
Chertoff and the Department of Homeland Security in yet another
defense by Apache peoples to protect their land base and traditional
territories. Dr. Eloise Tamez and her daughter Margo are engaged in a
historic struggle for refusing to allow the border wall to traverse
the Tamez private property (part of a 1786 Spanish land grant)  and
impede their ancestral Native trails. Professor Tamez has been
described as a Mexican American grandmother, and yet she and her
family assert their Indigeneity as Nde’ (Lipan and Jumano Apache) and
Basque descendants.  El Calaboz Rancheria in the Lower Rio Grande
Valley, wrote Margo in a report to the United Nations, is located in
traditional homelands which were recognized by other Indigenous
peoples as “the place where the Lipan pray.”  The government has  sued
Tamez and she has countersued, while numerous elders have been
harassed by “armed personnel of the government,” according to Margo.
Calaboz, she writes, refers to an earthen dug-out prison: “… the
psychological warfare that the Spanish used against our ancestors to
contain them in little prison holes within the ground when they
resisted oppression and stood firm on dissidence against all power to
destroy a people.”The Tamez women are related to Esequiel Hernandez, the student who was
shot by U.S. Marines while herding his goats along the border in
Redford, Texas , in 1997. He was the first civilian killed by U.S.
military or National Guard since Kent State. A recent documentary
portrays how the marines, though charged with murder by the Texas
Rangers, were never prosecuted after a grand jury declined to indict
them. According to the Tucson-based Coalicion de Derechos Humanos, the
four- man unit, part of Joint Task Force Six, was the first known
joint domestic operation between the Departments of Justice and
Defense, and a precursor to the Department of Homeland Security.
Esequiel was Jumano Apache and doing what his ancestors have always
done, walk their traditional lands. As a local historian noted in The
Ballad of Esequiel Hernandez, they have walked those lands for 12,000
years. But Esequiel wasn’t “crossing the border.”  Its militarization
has extended from the womb of one Indigenous mother to another.   A
2008 report by that human rights coalition documented 128 bodies
recovered in the Arizona-Sonora border, including a miscarried fetus.
That which was life in a woman’s womb, child, tissue, blood, has
become these militarized lands.
(c) 2008 Column of the Americas

Gonzales can be reached at:
Column of the Americas – PO BOX 85476 – Tucson, AZ 85754
or Patzin@gmail.com

http://web.mac.com/columnoftheamericas/iWeb/
Site/Welcome.html

http://web.mac.com/columnoftheamericas/iWeb/
Site/Welcome.html

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At the Prairie Island Community Center at 6:00 on July 2, 2008. Please bring a dish to pass.

See you there.

Sharon

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Hello,

I just wanted to take a minute of your time to introduce one my favorite new artist. Her name is Crystal Shawanda and she is truly an amazing talent! 

Crystal pours her heart & soul into her music, because it is her lifeline.  A Native American, Crystal grew up on the Wikwemikong Indian Reserve in Ontario , Canada .  Her last name, “Shawanda” literally translates to the album title, “Dawn of a New Day” – and a new day is what music has given Crystal .   CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE

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> Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:56:21 -0500
> Subject: Honoring Sacred Sites
> From: paula@wolakota.org
> To: paula@wolakota.org
>
> At this time I would like to remind the People of significant days of prayer
> in Honor of Sacred Sites; June 20th ­ National Native American Sacred Sites
> Day and June 21st ­ International Day to Honor Sacred Sites world wide, also
> known as World Peace and Prayer Day.
>
> Time has come when all of our Nation¹s Prophecies upon Grandmother Earth are
> weaving together with strength in messages to take notice of our
> responsibility. In this momentous time in history, we once again humbly
> request on behalf of Grandmother Earth, to gather ³all nations, all faiths,
> one prayer² to create an energy shift of healing for all the spiritual
> beings of the two legged, those that swim, those that crawl, the winged
> ones, the plant nations and four legged.
>
> As we are taking this time to journey to our Sacred Sites, whether it be;
> churches, mosques, temples, pyramids, significant natural places of prayer,
> where the spirits live from our ancestors beliefs in the creator, may you
> have a safe journeys.
>
> Our significant sacred animals belonging to the different Nations upon this
> Grandmother Earth have now all shown their sacred color – which is white,
> the only way for the two-legged to listen and take notice. They are warning
> us of these times prophesied when many things are now out of balance that
> will affect us forever if we do not take this time to change our paths that
> we are on. These signs of changes prophesied are now evident in the global
> climate changes, the daily extinction of the plant and animal Nations and
> our human relationships with one another causing pain and to destroy one
> another, whether it be major war or within relatives. We must unite this
> global community to pray for a healing for Grandmother Earth, for all her
> living beings, for our future generation¹s well being.
>
> In a Sacred Hoop of Life, where there is no ending and no beginning!
>
> Ho ana-h¹opta po
> Hear my words!
>
> Chief Arvol Looking Horse
> 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe
>
>

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From: “Black Mesa Indigenous Support” <blackmesais@riseup.net >

Please Forward Widely to Everyone You Know!

URGENT! PLEASE ACT NOW!  Big Mountain, Black Mesa Elder Faces Threat
of her Ceremonial Lodge/Home being dismantled while Peabody Coal
Company is pushing their massive coal-mining expansion plans on the
sacred ancestral homelands of the Dine’ (Navajo) & Hopi peoples of
Black Mesa, AZ.  Your voices are urgently needed before these two
very important deadlines close!

PEABODY COAL COMPANY ‘S PLANS UNDERMINES PLANETARY LIFE SUPPORT
SYSTEMS BY ACCELERATING ECOLOGICAL & CULTURAL COLLAPSE! We cannot
allow a small cartel of energy corporations and their financial
backers to knowingly de-stabilize our planet’s climate and devastate
whole communities & ecosystems for their own personal gain. This may
turn out to be the most devastating crime ever perpetrated against
humanity, the planet and future generations. We are at a critical
juncture. Indigenous and land-based people globally have maintained
the understanding that our collective survival is deeply dependent on
our relationship to the Earth.

Please, act now in support of the communities on the front lines of resistance!

Big Mountain, Black Mesa Elder Faces Threat of her Ceremonial
Lodge/Home being dismantled on her ancestral homeland. Elder Served
Notice That Rebuilding Ceremonial Lodge is Illegal.

On Wednesday, May 20th,Traditional elder and resister to relocation
laws, Pauline Whitesinger was served notice that her recently rebuilt
ceremonial lodge was illegal and under threat to be dismantled. She
was ordered to halt all construction of her earthen lodge, called a
hogon, as it is being prepared for an upcoming ceremony. She is
refusing to cooperate and is requesting assistance to finish her
ceremonial hogon.
Whitesinger, in her mid-eighties and living alone, has been an active
resitor to the U.S. Government’s laws and efforts to relocate her
off of her traditional homeland. She has also been an outspoken
opponent to the existing coal mine on her homeland of Black Mesa,
owned by Peabody Coal, as well as current plans for expansion of the
strip mine, construction of pipelines and the mining of the area’s
aquifers, stating that “Our very mother is being carved up there (at
the coal mine)…if the mine is further permitted or expaanded, the coal
company will eventually kill her.† This recent BIA funded action is
an affront not only to this elder and her people but to all advocates
of the indigenous lifeways that maintain the health of the planet.

Read the report in full:
http://sheepdognationrocks.blogspot.com/

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

*  Volunteers are needed right now to stay with Pauline to assist her
with herding sheep,  to monitor for more threats,  and to complete the
hogon.
*  Demand that Pauline be left alone on her ancestral homeland. Send a
letter on her behalf TODAY! For more information and where to send
comments and/or demands:
http://sheepdognationrocks.blogspot.com/

———————————————————-
URGENT ACTION ALERT! On May 23, 2008 the Office Of Surface Mining
(OSM) opened a 45 day public comment period concerning the proposed
Black Mesa Project: Peabody Coal Company’s massive coal-mining
expansion plans on the sacred ancestral homelands of the Dine’
(Navajo) & Hopi peoples of Black Mesa, AZ.  Peabody Coal’s plans
would devastate whole communities & ecosystems and de-stabilize our
planet’s climate for their own personal gain. Your voices are
urgently needed before the comment period closes July 7, 2008!

Please send a letter to OSM to Protect the Indigenous ancestral
homelands of Black Mesa!
Stop Predatory Development and Catastrophic Climate Change!
Support a Community-Led Just Transition to a Green Economy!
No to mining fossil fuels!
No to Peabody’s Preferred Alternative B.
Yes to The People’s Preferred Alternative C which is a ‘No
Action’. (No dirty coal mining expansion!)

STAY POSTED UNTIL FURTHER DIRECTION COMES FROM THE COMMUNITIES WHO ARE
ON THE FRONT LINES OF RESISTANCE!  A SAMPLE LETTER WILL BE POSTED OUT
IN THE NEXT COUPLE DAYS. (Visit http://www.blackmesais.org and other
websites listed below for a sample letter &/or for additional info.)

The Black Mesa Project Environmental Impact Statement (BMP-EIS)
outlines harmful impacts to every level of the ecological and cultural
systems on Black Mesa and has global repercussions. If we don’t stop
these plans, Peabody will have the green light to:

* Lock in mining rights until the coal runs out or until 2025!

* Substantially accelerate global warming and cause an ecological  meltdown.

* Destroy thousands of acres of canyon lands, vanishing indigenous
vegetation and shrines or burials.

* Blast the land for coal & deplete air quality, increasing the health
risk of the local residents and their livestock.

* Deplete an underground source of water that residents depend on to
survive by pumping massive amounts of water.

* Uproot & relocate families from their ancestral homelands where the
coal mining expansion are.

* Sacrifice human dignity and planetary health for elite profit!
Peabody would cause many more problems than what is reflected here.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN SEND YOUR COMMENTS: (STAY POSTED FOR A SAMPLE
LETTER SOON!) You can send as many
comments as you want on different issues, as long is it’s before the
deadline on July 7, 2008. Your comments must directly address
components of the EIS. Alternative C, (No Action), is our preferred
alternative. Alternative B is Peabody Coal’s preferred alternative.
Stay posted for a sample letter or write your own. At the top of your
letter or in the subject line of your e-mail message, indicate: “BMP
Draft EIS Comments.” Include your name and return address in your
letter or e-mail message.

The Draft Black Mesa Project Environmental Impact Statement for
Peabody Coal’s preferred Alternative B is available for review on
OSM’s Internet Web site at:
http://www.wrcc.osmre.gov/WR/BlackMesaEIS.htm

*EMAIL: BMKEIS@osmre.gov. You should receive a confirmation that OSM
has received your e-mail comment, or contact (303) 293-5048.

*WRITTEN COMMENTS sent by first-class or priority U.S. Postal Service:
Dennis Winterringer, Leader, Black Mesa Project EIS,
OSM Western Region, P.O. Box 46667,
Denver, Colorado 80201-6667.

*COMMENTS DELIVERED by U.S. Postal Service Express Mail or by
courier service:
Dennis Winterringer, Leader,
Black Mesa Project EIS, OSM Western Region,
1999 Broadway, Suite 3320,
Denver, Colorado 80202-5733.

FURTHER INFO:
The Black Mesa Water Coalition has additional information about
protecting Black Mesa and is spearheading the Just Transition
Campaign, “an innovative plan to transition tribal economy,
employment, and energy off fossil fuel extraction and onto a
sustainable renewable energy path”.
Visit http://www.blackmesawatercoalition.org to learn more and to show
your support.

Black Mesa Indigenous Support will have updated to share as community
organizers issue new info. BMIS is requesting funds for Dine’
community organizers to visit their relatives and organize meetings to
protect Black Mesa.  http://www.blackmesais.org

Sierra Club Environmental Partnerships Program:
http://www.sierraclub.org/partnerships/tribal

Peabody coal company, like most corporations mining the Earth for
profit, is rooted in sacrificing human dignity and planetary health
for elite profit and is out of alignment with common sense values. Its
roots remain sunk deeply in the history of colonial genocide,
corporate power grabs, and ecological devastation.

http://www.blackmesais.org
.
.
.
.
.
.
Tom B.K. Goldtooth
Executive Director
Indigenous Environmental Network
PO Box 485
Bemidji, MN 56619 USA
Email: ien@igc.org
Web: www.ienearth.org

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On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 7:16 AM, brenda norrell <brendanorrell@gmail.com> wrote:

Sunday

Hi friends,

Really upset to get back here and find the northern route walkers with no gas money, and

no money for food. There’s no gas money for the runners to get out, or buy their lunch,

or the media bus to get to the powwow to broadcast today. They need money sent directly to the walkers, by

Western Union or WalMart money gram. It seems people are raising money all over

and none of it is reaching the walkers.

Thanks, Brenda

on the Longest Walk Northern Route in Cambridge, Ohio

–

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