A Slur for Sacred Ground

Yosemite National ParkPhoto credit:  National Park Service

It's summer, which means it's hiking and campaign season. It's also national parks season.

Did you know that one of the nation's most beloved is named with a slur? It is, of course, manifestly stolen ground. That goes almost without saying. But few know how it came to be: to be stolen; to be claimed as community property in the name of the U.S. Government to be given a "new" name, with a complete absence of irony, that was nothing more than old epithet given new voice. 

My friend rb137 has been to this place, up close and personal. She knows it well. And she knows its history equally well. She's written about it here, and I'd like you to go and take a look.

There'll be a lot in her piece that you didn't know. There's a lot I didn't know. But I know now, and as I read her piece, I felt yet another little crack erupt across my heart, a new abrasion form in my soul. Because while she confines her words to what is well-established, she summons the spirit of what lies beneath. 

I know what lies beneath; our peoples have lived it — and died for it — for half a millennium now.

So go. Read. And then carry the story with you, when you visit, when you talk with others about this bit of national "hallowed ground." Because it's "hallowed" in ways that almost no one remembers, and that no one should ever be allowed to forget.

Watery Trading Posts, Where the "Trade" Is in Indian Women

Photo copyright Wings, 2013. 2014;
all rights reserved.

Author's Note: This piece first appeared as the second of a two-part series at Daily Kos on September 8, 2013, as part of the RaceGender DiscrimiNATION diary series there. Since this is Women's History Month, and since indigenous women remain invisible to the dominant culture except as cartoon characters and subjects for appropriation, it seemed an apt time to run them again. What follows is Part II; Part I appeared here yesterday.

In Part I, I wrote about the escalating rates of rape and other violence inflicted on Native women in and around the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota — a deadly byproduct of the new colonial invasion of Indian land courtesy of the fracking companies drilling in the Bakken oil shale reserve. Last Monday, I posted a companion piece in last week's edition of "New Day: This Week In American Indian News.", noting that it would be expanded into a full-length diary today, covering the story of the colonialist trafficking in the bodies and spirits of indigenous women in the shipping lanes separating the U.S. and Canada.  

As I said last time:

This series is, among other things, about the intersectionality of race and gender in this country's culture, both historical and contemporary.

Intersectionality is simply a fact of being, of existence, for women of color. Every moment of our lives is lived at a crossroads.

Sometimes, the four roads don't lead outward, but rather, inward — toward a vortex of interrelated and competing risks, benefits, calculations, interests, slings and arrows and aggressions micro and macro and everything in between.

Today, I'm going to talk about four very specific roads:

Objectifying. Commodifying. Targeting. Trafficking.

It's spectrum and linear progression, crossroads and vortex.

It's destroying indigenous women's lives.

And today, these watery crossroads meet at a very specific vortex: a whirlpool of colonialist sexual violence in the boundary waters of the Great Lakes.

Author's Note: At the outset, readers need to be aware of the content of this piece. Much of what follows deals with stories of extreme physical, psychological, and sexual violence and human trafficking. If any of these issues presents a trigger for you, you may not wish to read further.

Of course, this one is also an old, old story, and even in its latest incarnation, it's been around for several years now. Unfortunately, it's been mostly women who have done the reporting of it so far, particularly Native women. Which means, of course, that it's gotten virtually no attention in the mainstream.

Much as I loathe Bill Maher's casual racism and sexism, his new multimedia project, VICE, has the capacity to change that: A white man is reporting this story now, for an "edgy" media outlet founded and run by another, much more famous white man. The CBC has also now picked up the story. So I'm grabbing this opportunity.

For what?

To bring attention to the fact that our women, our girls — our sisters, our mothers, our daughters, our very selves — are being sold into the sexual slavery of human trafficking. Right here. In the U.S. and Canada. In the boundary waters separating the two countries, just as they are in the filthy, gritty oilfield towns of the Northern Plains.

Indian women are being raped, beaten, forced into prostitution, and worse — on a daily basis, and in an organized way.

And it has to stop.

Indigenous Women at the Crossroads of a "Male-Dominated Dystopia"

Photo copyright Wings, 2013. 2014;
all rights reserved.

Author's Note: This piece first appeared as the first of a two-part series at Daily Kos on September 1, 2013, as part of the RaceGender DiscrimiNATION diary series there. Since this is Women's History Month, and since indigenous women remain invisible to the dominant culture except as cartoon characters and subjects for appropriation, it seemed an apt time to run them again. What follows is Part I; Part II will appear here tomorrow.



This series is, among other things, about the intersectionality of race and gender in this country's culture, both historical and contemporary. 

Intersectionality is simply a fact of being, of existence, for women of color. Every moment of our lives is lived at a crossroads.

Sometimes, the four roads don't lead outward, but rather, inward — toward a vortex of interrelated and competing risks, benefits, calculations, interests, slings and arrows and aggressions micro and macro and everything in between.  

Today, that vortex is a place called North Dakota. It's a place that at least one writer has labeled, with frightening accuracy, a "male-dominated dystopia." For several years now, conditions have become increasingly dire for women generally. but for women of color — and particularly for indigenous women — they are downright hellish.

The further hell of it is, they've been that way for some time. And once or so a year, a few reports trickle out. They're confined mostly to blogs and Web sites of specific scope and limited circulation, and the corporate media mostly stand by and let the stories go unreported in the wider culture. Politicians and policymakers are nowhere to be found.

In other words, where the lives of indigenous women are concerned, it's business as usual.

Author's Note: At the outset, readers need to be aware of the content of this piece. much of what follows deals with stories of extreme physical, psychological, and sexual violence and human trafficking. If any of these issues presents a trigger for you, you may not wish to read further.

The Indians and the Irish

Image copyright Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma; all rights reserved.

About an eighth of the blood running through my veins comes from the Emerald Isle. Not much, true, but enough for me to feel some connection to that land, as well.

Sometimes, there are connections between our various peoples that are more ephemeral, yet more tangible — certainly more accessible — than the mixed blood that gives life to some of us.

This is one such connection.

The Choctaw, of course, are not my own particular blood. They come from a different part of this land — a land where they no longer live, thanks to the genocidal removal policy of the occupiers of that land (and all the rest of it).

But despite "removal" — such a polite, sanitized, antiseptic term! — the Choctaw not only survived, but thrived, and maintain a large and vibrant culture: With nearly 200,000 members, they are now the third-largest tribal nation in terms of membership. But what most people don't know is that, fewer than 20 years after losing huge numbers of their own during the forced march of their "removal," they heard the story of another people, half a world away, facing extermination from a different source.

And they decided to do something about it.

Scars Upon Sacred Land VI: 2013 Snapshot of Indigenous Action

Indigenous protestors in Ecuador, November, 2013.
Photo credit Chevron's Dirty Hand Campaign; all rights reserved.

Author's Note:  This piece first appeared at Daily Kos as part of my series "This Week In American Indian News" on September 30, 2013, hence the references in the introductory section. It is posted here with minor edits as a component of my regular Scars Upon Sacred Land series. My original intent was to post a brand-new entry in the series today, as well — an entry planned for yesterday as part of the Daily Kos blogathon to promote the final days of the public comment period prior to the Obama Administration's decision regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline. Life intervened and while there will be no post related to the blogathon, but there will be many more entries upcoming in this series. 
Today, we have a special environmental edition. 

On several occasions over the last few weeks, I've had to make last-minute revisions to accommodate developing stories. The result is that stories sometimes get bumped for a week or more. Last week, I realized that we were reaching a critical mass of stories addressing environmental issues affecting American Indians, and so I elected to hold some of them for this week for an edition dedicated exclusively to such topics.

Yes, there's a great deal of new and important Indian news out there, not least of which are last week's [as of this posting, last September's] developments in the Baby Veronica story. But with our news, each story deserves to be covered in a manner that addresses the issues properly within their cultural and historical contexts — accuracy is often better served by a short delay that permits proper coverage than by trying to be first out of the gate with a given story. We'll get to them, never fear. But this week, the stories that are ripe for covering are environmental ones. And while this week's edition is, as a result, unusually lengthy, it is by no means comprehensive. There are many more environmental issues in Indian Country that have yet to be covered, and they will be.

Over the last few years, I've written an intermittent series of diaries under the title Scars Upon Sacred Land. They're diaries that focus on environmental issues in Indian Country. Some focus on infliction of new scars on the body of Mother Earth; others, upon attempts to prevent them; and still others, upon rehabilitation and reclamation afterward.

This week's edition explores the latest in scars upon sacred land.

Scars Upon Sacred Land (and Air and Water and Sky) V: Climate Change SOS for Indian Country

Photo copyright Wings, 2003, 2014; all rights reserved.

Author's Note: This piece first appeared at Daily Kos on August 24, 2012, as an entry in the site's "Climate Change SOS" Blogathon. It is reposted here with very minor edits as part of my Scars Upon Sacred Land series. Sadly, in the nearly two years since, conditions have only worsened.

Just over a year ago, in July, 2011, the National Wildlife Federation issued a report, largely ignored by most of the rest of the country. Even I didn't know about it at the time of release; like many other people, I was consumed with the immediate danger posed by the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and my focus was directed toward fighting that threat.

That was a mistake on my part - and on the part of every other environmental activist who didn't pay attention, but especially for those of us who belong to indigenous cultures.

Called FACING THE STORM: Indian Tribes, Climate-Induced Weather Extremes, and the Future for Indian Country, the report is actually fairly brief: a mere 28 pages, including covers and graphics. But it packs a hell of a punch, and it complements a whole body of work being done by tribes and allied partners in recent years that goes too often unknown, unremarked, and unheeded.

One thing FACING THE STORM does really well — exceptionally so, considering that it's published by a non-Indian organization — is to refrain from telling Indians what they "must do," instead urging the rest of our society to listen to and heed the millennia worth of wisdom of our ancestors and elders. It also places the deadly threats posed by climate change to the continent's indigenous peoples and lifeways squarely within the context of our nation's tortured and torturous treatment of tribal sovereignty issues. And that's a topic that needs to be pursued, but it's far too complex for this diary. Also, please note that while I'm painfully aware of this year's terrible heatwaves, drought, and storms that have affected much of the country as a whole, that is also beyond the scope of this diary. Many other diaries in this week's series have addressed those issues, and addressed them well. My focus today - in now way comprehensive; merely the briefest of snapshots - is on the myriad threats, direct and indirect, that climate change poses to Indian Country specifically, and to our peoples' cultural and physical survival.

Scars Upon Sacred Land IV: "A Slow Industrial Genocide"

Author's Note: This piece first appeared at Daily Kos on August 19, 2011, as an entry in the site's "Stop Tar Sands" Blogathon. It is reposted here with minor edits as part of my Scars Upon Sacred Land series. Data and dates refer, of course, to the situation as it stood in 2011, but not much has changed, and indeed, the final public comment period is about to close this Friday night.

I opened the first in my series, Scars Upon Sacred Land, this way:

There is a reason why we refer to the earth as our mother.
The land lives;  it is animated by Spirit.  It sustains us:  physically, spiritually. We are the land, and it is us - and any injury to it injures us all.

Many — perhaps most — of our traditional stories and lessons are tied inextricably to the land. Historical, humorous, educational, cautionary; stories of earth and air, fire and water, plants and animals and every living thing; our history, our languages, our cultural and political and spiritual traditions all are bound up with Akii, our Mother Earth, and her children.

And so is our future.

If, that is, we actually have a future.

If the North American tar sands projects are allowed to go forward, the possibility of any future - for the entire planet - is gravely in doubt.

But for the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, it is genocide.  

Coming Up:

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

Later today, I'll have another entry — this one a local-ish one — in my Strong Women series.

This week, watch for more on Indian issues; more New Mexico topics; more on the environment; and another post for someone (known to many of you) who needs our help. Lots to cover this week, in a very small amount of spare time.

And as always, much as I hate it, if you'd like to support coverage of these topics, you know what to do.

41 Years Ago Today: Wounded Knee, '73

Photo Copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

Note: A version of this was first posted at Daily Kos on March 4, 2014, as part of my weekly series, This Week In American Indian News; it appears here with minor edits for currency.


Wounded Knee '73:  41st Anniversary of Occupation's Start

Today, February 27, marks the 41st anniversary of the beginning of the American Indian Movement's occupation of Wounded Knee, on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Its conception and launch were led primarily by two of AIM's founders: Carter Camp (Ponca) and Dennis Banks (Ojibwa). [Note: This is not to say that others did not play major roles, both during the planning and execution; it simply credits the two most significant driving forces appropriately, as most media never do. Please also note that the link above implies no endorsement on my part of the article's content — on many grounds. Finally, I include here a link to the wiki on both the 1890 massacre and the 1973 occupation — and again, inclusion does not imply endorsement of all content.] 

New Native Art: Vintage-Style Sculpture and Pipes

All of these are by Ponca sculptor Randy Roughface, who carves his animals in the traditional "vintage" style. He uses mostly local rock: slates, sandstones, alabasters, and occasionally pipestone. His specialty is running horses — classic Indian ponies — but he's been known to do an occasional buffalo or bird. This is the first time he's done a deer for us — powerful medicine around here. This beautiful spirit animal is carved from a solid block of brown slate, changeable in the light from golden bronze to deep ombre, with an almost ore-like texture and finish. About 4" long by about 4.5" high. $125 + $15 s/h/i.

And a back view of Deer:

These two little guys could be own horses:  Ice and Miskwaki. Here, they look a little like Ice and Fire, captured in miniature.






These two carvings are really the size of large fetishes: roughly 3" X 2" and 3.25" X 1.75", respectively. The white one is carved of alabaster, with a delicate gray matrix, and so smooth it feels like soapstone. The red one is another departure for Randy, this time, the material: It's Mexican onyx, which is cool and smooth to the touch, but with brilliant fiery reds shot through the stone.  Each is $45 + $10 s/h/i.

Lastly, another new item from him: Pipes! Now, these are not ceremonial or sacred pipes; those are not something that should ever be sold, and indeed, we would never buy or sell one. These are simply art pieces, carved vintage-style. They're nearly-identical styles, but differing sizes; both pipes are made of local red cedar, and the bowls with horse effigies are all one piece, carved from pipestone.

The smaller pipe is roughly 8.5" inches long, with a bowl some 2" X 1.75".

$110 + $15 s/h/i.

The larger pipe is about 13" long, with a bowl that measures roughly 3" X 2.5".

$125 + $15 s/h/i.

We also have some of Randy's small sandstone horse sculptures in stock, but these are all brand-new items.  For more information, leave me a comment, e-mail me, message me through Facebook, or contact me through our Web site.


Note:  The items with the higher shipping costs require special packing.


All photos copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

Indian Child Removal: New Developments in South Dakota

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

Yesterday, I cross-posted my piece from a year ago on South Dakota's practice of stealing Indian children and placing them in white foster "care" situations" in the service of racism and financial profit.  Despite being more than a year old, the piece tragically is not outdated in the least.  That said, there are new developments, so I reposted it primarily to provide the backstory for anyone not yet familiar with it.

On Monday, February 3, four separate American Indian groups formally asked the Justice Department to investigate the public scandal that is the so-called "child welfare" (i.e., removal, foster care placement, and adoption) in Indian Country.  The four groups are the National Congress of American Indians [NCAI], the Native American Rights Fund [NARF], the National Indian Child Welfare Association [NICWA], and the Association on American Indian AffairS [AAIA]. 

The request, delivered via letter, was typically polite but also pointed:

[T]he groups wrote that a lack of federal oversight had led to Indian children being improperly placed with non-Indian families by child welfare workers and that tribal representatives were too often left out of custody proceedings. They also accused adoption agencies of sometimes ignoring the tribal membership of children in their care. 

“Although these civil rights violations are well-known and commonplace, they continue to go unchecked and unexamined[.]”

Indian Child Removal: Racism, "Perverse Financial Incentives," and Willful Violation of the ICWA

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

Author's Note:  This post first appeared at Daily Kos on February 2, 2013.  It is cross-posted here with very minor edits.

On January 31, 2013, the Lakota People's Law Project submitted a report to Congress documenting allegations first reported via an NPR investigation in 2011: that South Dakota's state child welfare officials were stealing Indian children from their homes and families and placing them in white foster care - in part for "perverse financial incentives," and all in direct and repeated violation of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act [ICWA].

At the time the NPR story was released (October, 2011), Meteor Blades wrote a brutal, soul-searing report here at Daily Kos, documenting both the current outrages and this country's long and terrible history of stealing Indian children. In it, he made the point that what people regard as "history" isn't even past, telling the story of Kossack Carter Camp. In the diary and comments are other stories from other Indian families: those of Meteor Blades, of navajo, of myself, of Wings. Carter and Wings are both survivors of such programs themselves.

But in 2011, we could hope that the worst abuses were at least now only in our pasts.

In 2011, we had no idea how bad it still is.

A Note On What's to Come: More on Our Stolen Children

Photo copyright Ajijaakwe, 2014; all rights reserved.

Just a quick heads-up about some of the content that will be appearing here in the days and weeks to come.

One set of topics I plan to cover in depth involves the myriad forms of cultural genocide still being practiced against our peoples.  That includes everything from environmental dangers like the Keystone XL pipeline to the theft and misuse of our cultural ways to the literal stealing of our futures by way of our children.

I've written on most of these (and many other related) topics over the years at Daily Kos. I'll be cross-posting those pieces here, often — as will happen today — by way of providing context for what's to come.

Just over a year ago, I posted a diary there about the state of South Dakota's insidious practice of stealing Lakota children from the families and cultures, in the service of both racism and profit.  This story is in the news again, as the tribes in that state continue to fight for their children — and thus their very future existence.  I'll be cross-posting that piece here today as a launching point; I'll follow up with new information in the coming days, weeks, and months.

So if it looks familiar to you, it probably is, but don't be put off by last year's date.  These evils are ongoing, and they need our continued pressure to bring them to a halt.  and I'll be coming to you for help with that.

Chi miigwech.

* And of course, if you think these topics are important and you like the work you see here, please consider dropping a few pennies in the kitty via the PayPal link above to keep the work going.

ACTION: Help Save the Legacy of New Mexico's Buffalo Soldiers. Save Fort Bayard.

Photo copyright Fort Bayard Historic Preservation Society; all rights reserved.

America does not do history well. Even at its best, it's inevitably a whitewash in service to the dominant culture's mythological retelling of events that were, to put it mildly, colonialist brutality. The histories and perspectives (and even the bare facts) surrounding people of color involved in any given historical episode are always and by definition elided, distorted, or simply missing completely. Nowhere, of course, is this more true than when dealing with our peoples, the original inhabitants of this land.

Even so, the history must be preserved. Without it, there's no chance of ever getting it right. That denies our children (and their children, and on and on) the possibility of ever knowing the real facts, the real richness of this land, its peoples, its histories. It denies our ancestors their memory and legacy, threatening to erase them and their footprints completely. And it denies us our identities, our very existences as who we are.

So today, I'm going to ask you to take a moment to try to help preserve and important piece of history. It's something that, in its former and current incarnations, has always been very flawed (and that's the polite way of putting it). Currently, much historical inaccuracy is involved. A great deal of anti-Indian racism is present. And all of that needs to be fixed.

It will never be fixed if this public landmark, the historical piece of the commons for so many populations in New Mexico and across the country, is privatized or razed to the ground.

So I'm going to ask you to read the details over the jump, and then help save Fort Bayard.

Black Indians: Tomorrow In Portsmouth, N.H.

Video credits Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail and the Seacoast African American Cultural Center, 2014.

Speaking of Black Indians, the Discover Portsmouth Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is hosting an event tomorrow, from 2:00 pM to 4:00 PM local time, dedicated to exactly this topic.

This program, presented by the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail and the Seacoast African American Cultural Center entitled Black Indians: An American Story will feature segments of the award winning film followed by a discussion with Everett “Tall Oak” Weeden, a Mashantucket Pequot/Wampanoag Native American from Rhode Island.

The video above is narrated by the always-eloquent James Earl Jones, who is one of us. Just over 2.5 minutes in length, but it's moving all the same. If you're in the area and can go, it looks like a worthwhile investment of a Sunday afternoon.

One day, I'll write about a couple of more controversial topics related to Black Indians: Cherokee Freedmen, and "Mardi Gras Indians." But those are issues for another day.