Native Homage

For a nation that claims to honor ancestors, forbearers, history, principle and values, America is and has been at a loss with regards to Native Americans. We have killed them, enslaved them, relegated them to islands of poverty and solitude, and stolen their birthright, land and dignity.

Even today the lands which we say they own by treaty are dishonored and trammeled by economic interests and bullies in search of oil, natural gas and pipeline rights of way for the aforementioned. The issues are many but the primary one is right of ownership and self determination related to that land.

American power interests have stripped Native Americans of the very birthright we claim for ourselves and always have. Manifest Destiny, remember? What is in our way of becoming bigger and better is not an obstacle but a blemish to be removed. That is the essence of that policy. And evidently it has been at work over and over again to denude Native Americans.

We are a land that needs to bow our heads in shame over this. Some of us get this. Most do not. I have no idea why this is. Basic decency and respect for others is the key issue we need to recall. We learned it as a child. We relearned it in kindergarten. And our families enforced this lesson on us at every turn. Yet we forget.

Native Americans were here on this land long before us. At least 9000 years; most likely 11,000 years. Maybe longer. But who’s counting when younger upstarts arrive on the scene and want what others have? On that first Thanksgiving Day, who fed whom? The Indians or the settlers? My hunch was it was the Indians feeding the starving settlers. Now that’s hospitality!

Their reward was not very nice. In fact they lost their culture, home, land and birthright to invaders – yes a bunch of illegal immigrants. They came; they saw; they wanted; they took. And yes they killed and plundered. We have placed a pretty face on this history but the underlying reality is stark and ugly.

Remember this going forward. It is our story and history of America. Not a nice chapter for us. We have dressed it up as valor, courage and perseverance to settle a new land, the New World! How wonderful of us! And yet, who lost? Someone always loses in the name of land and destiny.

Have we ever gathered the personal strength to admit our failing in this? Are we big enough yet to apologize to the American Indian and thank them for all they represent in human culture? Do we accept them fully as our brothers and sisters and are we willing yet to restore them to a place of honor and wealth their past demands of us? And will they forgive us?

I don’t think we are yet at that point lo these hundreds of years later. Perhaps the shame is too great.

The least we can do today in 2017 is renounce all land rights to cross their treaty granted lands with pipelines of oil, sludge, ignominy and defeat all in the name of someone else’s right to wealth at their expense. Only now we must also admit that such pipelines prolong the laying to waste of the planet for an energy technology long overdue for replacement with something cleaner and renewable.

Perhaps the nobleness of the Native American spirit culture will save us yet again from our own despoliation of our environment?

That would be a hearty lesson of irony!

This victory, however, would be for all of us and our progeny for the very long term future. It is high time we paused and listened to the wind whispering the age old wisdom of our native hosts – the land and the air and the moon and the sun are here for you as long as you respect them; they will return the favor many times over.

To that I say Amen!

January 16, 2017