Letter to The Editor About Mascots

(Archive~April 2010)

In the Dec. 1, 2009 Cherokee One Feather, there was an article by Charles Trimble about the "Redskins" debate. This "debate" has been going on for a long time. And I think maybe it will be still going on long after I am gone. But I would like to add something that is not so intellectual. But is more on the gut level of my thought processes.

Let me begin this by saying to any sports team, Indigenous or otherwise, that is respectful, understand that the following is not about you.

When I was a young man some Lakotas came to Atlanta. They wanted us to join them at the Atlanta Braves stadium because the Braves were playing the Cleveland Indians. Well, we decided to go see what it was all about. We got to the protest and they had us all roped off to "protect" the baseball fans from the dangerous Native American protesters and their supporters.

Atlanta had called out the Red Dog Police Unit to surround us and keep us separate.

Outside of the rope were drunken Cleveland Indians fans. Some were wearing animal skins and pretending to do war dances like "savages". One had a mock "peace pipe" and he threw and hit me in the chest with it, as I stood their quietly watching the ordeal. I guess he picked the second biggest guy there to pick on, because the Lakota guy in charge was just a little bigger than me. The "Red Dog" just looked amazed that I just stood there.

They shouted nasty things about Indigenous People and generally made a mockery of the culture. Basically they reduced Indigenous people to caricatures that were subhuman savages. But the protesters just stood there quietly, except for the drum that was playing the real Indigenous heart beat (not the one made up in Hollywood that they play at these games) and singing real songs (not the phony chants at the games).

When we left, the "Red Dog Unit" stood in a line at attention and saluted us for our calm demeanor under fire, and I do mean "under fire."  Except that the darn fake "peace pipe" just somehow flew right back at that weird Caucasian guy with the "war paint" on and hit him in the back of the head. The weird guy yelled, "He hit me!" to a "Red Dog" officer. The officer, who had his back to us also, said, "Who hit you?" The weird guy stared for a minute, shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Then the Drum played and sang an honor song for the "Red Dog" unit. We left quietly. On the way home I asked my wife, who had been real quiet during the whole thing, "Who are the real 'savages’?" She just said, "The ones who acted like savages." 

You know I remember that they used to hunt Indigenous People for the bounty on them. Then they would skin them and take that back to collect the bounty instead of taking the whole body. That is where the term "Redskins" came from, making reference to the color of the Skins they were bringing in for bounty. What a wonderful way to honor Indigenous People by reminding them that their ancestors were hunted and skinned.

I tried an experiment last month. I put the words to the "Jubilation T. Cornpone" song from the musical "Little Abner" which made a caricature and a mockery of southern heritage. I got outraged people telling me off and cussing at me. I could do the same stereotype mockery of any group, north, south, east or west, and I bet I'd get the same outrage and cussing.

So let me ask you this. If it's not okay for me to do a characterization of other groups of people, why is it okay to do this to Indigenous People?

Is it because Indigenous People are really less than other people?

I don't think so. But the centuries of conditioning could certainly make some play into that mindset. Just remember this. Just before Adolph Hitler began his campaign to exterminate the Jews, he began a publicity campaign with caricatures of Jews in cartoons with big noses. He hoped the public would see them as less than human and not deserving of anything, much less life. Ask any Jewish person who escaped that holocaust what it means when they caricaturize you and make you less than human.

So go ahead and let them mock Indigenous People. But the next time that Indigenous issues don't get the serious recognition that they deserve, don't ask why. Just look at the big nosed cartoon of the "savage." And then you'll know why you didn't get taken seriously.

But what do I know? I'm just an old guy who has maybe seen more than he should.

S'gi,

Dave KitchenTownsend, Ga.

Raven

The sky is where I fly, 
and Raven is my name. 

Watch out for me 
when I come into your realms 
oh Creator, 
for I am a child 
who has seen the darkness 
where nobody should be.

Have pity on me, 
for I have broken my wings 
to see the beauty of life.

Help me get them back, 
so I can again see myself fly, 
where all who see me 
will be helped by my visions.

Creator, help me fly to my destiny, 
so i can see beyond the darkness 
and become proud again to be me.

Where the light will help my spirit, 
and my wellness 
will become my strength....

 ~ Chris Herodier Snowboy

Zitkala Sa

(Archive~April 2010)

…fought for voting rights, human rights,
sacred rights, and walked ferociously
through all obstacles and became a
beacon for Indian rights and an
important role of  women yesterday,
today and tomorrow…
              ~ Rebecca Balog, Pennsylvania

Gertrude Simmons Bonnin
(Zitkala Sa), 1876-1938 Yankton Sioux

Gertrude Simmons Bonnin was born in South Dakota around 1876.  She was born into a traditional family as the third born child of Ellen Tate 'I Yohiwin Simmons, a full-blood Yankton Sioux.   Gertrude later named herself Zitkala Sa, Red Bird, in Lakota.  By oral narratives it is said she left her home around the age of 12 to enroll in a Quaker missionary school for Indians in Indiana, White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute in Wabash, Indiana. As with most children in the trade school (boarding school) experience, the uprooted children returned home to conflicted identities, broken parental bonds, and emotional disconnect from traditional ways. 

Zitkala Sa then attended the currently operating Earlham College. The mission of Earlham College includes the long-standing tradition of distinctive perspectives of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).  This is the same religious motto she would have experienced in the late 1800’s.  She won a scholarship at the Boston Conservatory of Music for violin music which then led to an invitation in the world-renowned Paris Exposition of the Arts.
 Shortly after, she dedicated her time and experience as an educator to the children of the Carlisle Indian School of Carlisle, Pennsylvania where she became editor of The American Indian Magazine, one of many publications printed on site by the students. As a trained and exceptional violin player, she joined the Carlisle Indian Band of Carlisle. In the Indian Helper (periodical published at the Carlisle Indian School by students) a reference includes:
 

“On Tuesday, Miss Simmons talked upon The Achievements of the White and Red Races Compared. This from a young Indian maiden was a most thrilling and earnest appeal to the youth of her race to show to the world by their earnestness of purpose that the history of the Indian has been wrongly written, and that their motives as a people have been misunderstood. From this on, the Indian will be judged by the growing generation, who should be industrious and worthy. Every student who heard her remarks should be quickened into a deeper intensity.” (September, 1897) [3].

Even on payroll of a School based upon the motto ‘Kill the Indian and Save the Man’, Zitkala Sa faced the children and spoke of remembering the truth among the lies placed before them of racial inferiority.  Consequently, as a published author, she continued to write.  She wrote Soft Hearted Siouxwhile at Carlisle, which very well may have led to her termination as a teacher at Carlisle.  A local Carlisle newspaper printed a critic’s piece regarding the “ungrateful and rebellious Indian woman.”  The critic wrote,  
 "All she has in the way of literary ability and culture she owes to the good people who, from time to time, have taken her into their homes and hearts...Yet not a word of gratitude...has ever escaped her in any line of anything she has ever written for the public. By this course, she injures herself and harms the educational work in progress for the race from which she sprang....[Among other Indians better educated and more famous than her] we know of no other case of such pronounced morbidness" [2].
 Zitkala Sa had been educated since the age of twelve. After university, and while teaching at Carlisle, she evaluated the objectives of the schools she had attended in various capacities.  For the remainder of her life she dedicated her time to the improving American Indian issues—trailblazing for the many indigenous women to follow for years to come.  She discussed her personal experiences in her manuscript, The School Days of An Indian Girl, published in 1900.  She described herself as "neither a wild Indian, nor a tame one,” which speaks volumes of the residual mixed identity of the boarding school experience.  With many books written, she is well known as the first American Indian Woman to work without an editor, translator, or team of sociologists to convey or contribute to her work.  This woman was not afraid of her place as a woman, as a Lakota woman, in the early 1900’s in America [2].
 Zitkala Sa ignored the United States threats with their forceful indignities promoting fear and neglect, torture, and assimilation. She persuaded nations of American Indians to exercise their right in the suffrage movement to vote in the Presidency.  She advocated for religious use of traditional herbs such as peyote.  She rallied for the educational success of children.  She initiated the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Indian Rights Association, Indian Welfare Committee, investigated the governmental treatment of Indians and served as president of the National Council of American Indians until her death in 1938. 
 “She faced, to the extent it was humanly possible, to overcome or sidestep almost all the same problems, although more severe in nature at that time in America, the challenges of educated, intelligent Indian women today. Her life, efforts, and achievements are a fitting role model of intellectual and charismatic political leadership -- at a time when women (much less Indian women) were supposed to have no brains, and be happy, quiet mothers.” [2]  
 Instead, she advocated for change, taught the children in government-run boarding schools while at the same time instilling pride for their place in the world as Indians, fought for voting rights, human rights, sacred rights, and walked ferociously through all obstacles and became a beacon for Indian rights and an important role of women yesterday, today and tomorrow.  Gertrude Simmons Bonnin is celebrated nationally during Women’s History Month.
 A list of her works includes:

An Indian Teacher Among Indians Atlantic Monthly (1900) Volume 85Impressions of an Indian Childhood Atlantic Monthly 85 (1900): 37-47.
Old Indian Legends (1901)
Old Indian Legends at Project Gutenberg
School Days of an Indian Girl  Atlantic Monthly 85 (1900): 185-94.
Soft Hearted Sioux  Harper's Monthly , New York (1901 )
The Trial Path Harper's Monthly, Volume 103, October 1901 .
"A Warrior's Daughter" (1902)
"Why I Am a Pagan" by Zitkala Sa Atlantic Monthly 90 (1902): 801-803.

 
[1] Hoefel
[2] Strohm
[3] Landis
 A note from the author:
 My name is Rebecca Balog and I have spent 8 years in human services in various capacities serving domestic violence survivors, homeless victims, MH/MR, drug and alcohol, and Veterans communities.  In most recent developments I have committed to racial and human injustice, finding myself and my family history entwined in racial adversity, extreme poverty, and the fear resulting in the abandonment of language, traditions, and nation.  For this reason, Zitkala Sa was a choice resonating on all the areas of my personal and professional life.
 There are women who have woven my blanket so that I have the protection and endurance to continue forward among the sexual assault, violence, racism and various other abuses forced upon indigenous women and global women alike.  It is for my Granny that I stand tall today.  I say “I’m proud of it Granny” and yes, this may break protocol- shudder traditionalist but her community forced the Indian out of her. And I‘m not complying.  I can’t imagine how hard it was for Zitkala Sa, an Indian woman descending upon Washington with all her European educated poise and naturally Lakota women’s might, to pave the road for all women to make change.  
 As our other youth, other people of color often forget the ones past who made it all possible for those who forget the changes in the civil rights movements that gave them certain freedoms today, for all the female Americans who do not vote and forget the impenetrable force and inexhaustible endurance women of the women’s suffrage movement gave us the right to vote, for all NATIVE women who have lived in a code of silence among violence, racism, sex tourism, drug and alcoholism…I pledge to the women of our world… follow the road that has been paved before you by women from a different time- a time with lawlessness, murder, cultural genocide, and zero feminine rights.  How brave were these women before us?  I won’t forget.  Zitkala Sa is a HERO! 

BFC ALERTS Halt Wild Buffalo Abuse in the Hebgen Basin Tell Montana Governor Schweitzer: STOP THE DEPARTMENT OF LIVESTOCK'S PLANS TO CHASE WILD BUFFALO OUT OF MONTANA Hundreds of wild buffalo are currently enjoying peaceful times on Horse Butte, important habitat where there are never any cattle. Very soon, wild buffalo will begin to give birth to the next generation. This is a very sensitive time for the buffalo, and especially the little buffalo calves who need lots of quiet time with mom and the family in order to grow strong. Horse Butte and the surrounding riparian and forested landscape are favored by the central wild buffalo herds, who migrate west from Yellowstone into Montana every spring. Most of these lands are cattle-free public lands, as well as buffalo-friendly private lands, where buffalo should be allowed to roam year round. Yet, on or possibly before May 15th, the Montana Department of Livestock (DOL) and other state and federal government agencies will descend upon this wildlife-rich ecosystem to terrorize the animals and harm the habitat, using horsemen, helicopters, and a variety of law enforcement to forcibly move (haze) native wild buffalo - including newborn calves and pregnant cows - out of Montana. TAKE ACTION! Montana is the lead entity in decisions made about wild buffalo in the Hebgen Basin. Please contact Montana Governor Schweitzer and urge him to call off the Department of Livestock, halt the hazing, and let wild buffalo follow their own instincts to return to their summer ranges! Contact Governor Schweitzer directly at: Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer Office of the Governor Montana State Capitol Building P.O. Box 200801 Helena, MT 59620-0801 Phone: 1-406-444-3111 Fax: 1-406-444 5529 governor@mt.gov For More Information from the Buffalo Field Campaign: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2426/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=10095

Wisdom From Granddad

~ Fox Northstar

Granddad would have gotten a big kick from all this hubbub about the Mayan calendar. It would never cease to amaze him the things some people would believe. I think much of that has rubbed off on me.

As we all know, the end of the world, according to the Mayans will be this year’s winter solstice. But that has happened before (ask the dinosaurs) and was predicted to happen a few times last year, as I recall. What gets failed to be noticed is that is the world as we know it.

That having been said, let's explore some of the more common beliefs and scenarios. I have discussed this at great length with both elders and my teachers, so here goes…

There is a rare occurrence of planetary alignment, and the gravitation forces will pull the planet apart. Oh really? Doubtful as the only body that has any affect on earth directly is the moon. The other planets might have the mass to affect things here, but the distance from both here and each other make the chances of any happenings appear quite remote.

The earth’s axis is going to shift suddenly…NOT. That is happening, true; but it is an ongoing process that has been happening since day one. The amount of energy needed to make it happen suddenly is unfathomable...unless we should get hit by an asteroid that has already been spotted. And that would be a hard secret to keep if one IS on its way.

Another theory (and most likely in my opinion) is a solar related electro-magnetic pulse. An increase in solar flares has been noted, as has an increase in their size. This could take out ALL electronics on the planet, although a couple of my teachers have pointed out it will only affect devices which are running at the time. (MEMO TO SELF: Keep anything that uses electricity shut down during the week before and after solstice.)

Now the calendar is in the shape of a circle; no beginning, no end. What most fail to mention is it is the end of a cycle, and the beginning of the next. This is still something we humans have survived time and again. Ever heard of the Ice Age? Well, the last one wasn’t the first. There has been a somewhat regular cycle of them coming and going for eons. I just got to love theses scientists who can figure that out, validating our oral histories.

And while I’m at it, global warming is another doomsday prediction. Who is to say this isn’t a natural part of the Earth Mother’s cycles? Oh, I agree our carbon emissions are having an effect, but are they the sole cause or just quickening the natural processes? After all, even an Ice Age must have an opposite for balance.

Then, of course, there is all this tension in the Middle East. If there’s a wild card in the possibilities, then the goings on over there would have to be it. The greed for oil and big bucks coupled by intolerance for others is the best/worst breeding ground for disaster. For our ancestors, it was the natural resources (first furs, later gold) but we didn’t have the atomic toys they do these days. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I have forgiven all misdeeds of the past, after all its too late to do much about them. But I refuse to let anyone FORGET what happened. I don’t need the baggage and negative energy one carries if one does not forgive. Also, who makes US the world’s police anyway? We cannot even take care of our own….and we aren’t always right…unless might makes right, and we know how well that (doesn’t) work.

I don’t think it’s a co-incidence that 2012 is an election year, and the public seems fed up with the status-quo in Washington. I hear a lot of people griping, but wonder how many will vote and try to make a change? What my hopes are is to see a big turnover in Congress that sends those idiots a message that we are mad as hell, and aren’t going to take it any more. (More on politics next time, no endorsements.)

Then the possibility of the return of the Starborn looms. First contact or Close Encounters of the Third Kind...I'm hoping so, because we cannot be alone in the vast universe. To think so is rather presumptuous.

And then there is my favorite theory…they just ran out of space on the rock they were carving. Wouldn't that be a hoot...     

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Conversation with a Cherokee Elder

Conversation with A Cherokee Elder Speaks of the Past ~ Chris Boles Authors Note: This is a nonfictional conversation on various topics of the time. The interviewer is not named; but it is as if you were sitting beside this man as he speaks on things of the past, after the Native Wars, after the 'walks'; at the closing of one century in and out of the way, a tiny place. His name was Sam Sloan and he was born in 1898. He lived all his life near Big Cabin, Oklahoma. He saw many changes, bad people, smart Indians, outlaws, and the hanging Judge Parker of Fort Smith Arkansas. He gave an interview (1968) and spoke. He used terms that were common at the time but now we judge as prejudiced. He spoke of many things and here are a few of his stories. Cherokee Sam Sloan noted: “I think people were better back then (40 years earlier). They loved one another better when they didn’t have so damn many plentiful people. They watched out for each other and they were better neighbors. They depended on each other.” “I am on a pension now. I have a bad finger that needs treatment but the doctors today want $40-50 a day and to put me in a hospital for two weeks. Wouldn’t cost me back then. Now they fix it so that people can graft on the thing. It’s the awfulest thing you ever saw. Well, I’ve taken them (doctors) through this country when there wasn’t no fences on horseback. I led them to places that they couldn’t make it. They (doctors) done just as well and they saved many lives.” “I seen corn stacked along the railroad track on the ground for a half a mile long. Yes Sir, just on the ground. I have seen old John Curry haul many a load in there and just dump it onto the ground. The land produced stuff in them days. I could tell you where all that corn came from and oats back then raised from 75-80 bushels to the acre. And today, these people just sit around here and draw (government checks) on the land and crops. It seems everyone just draws a check today.” “They tell me they are building a railroad and road up to White Oak to the coal mine. It is a strip mine. They are strip mining all over the place now. It changes things.” “Big Cabin is an old town, Yeah, 70 years ago there was no railroad. It was just one old store down here…didn’t have a Post Office. Post Office was down in Pensacola. There was stagecoaches that went out of Pryor (Oklahoma) to Siloam, Arkansas, and I think maybe Claremore, Oklahoma too. I got an old newspaper from Vinita (Oklahoma), can’t recall the name of it. It was an old paper when I got it. You know Oklahoma wasn’t a state until 1907?” “I got my mail once a week, never got much mail. They had what we called mail hack. They delivered the mail to places that did not have a Post Office. Big Cabin didn’t have one yet. When the mail came it was a community thing.” “Big Cabin grew after the railroad came. We had a hardware store, drugstore, two drugstores, two or three grocery stores, scales and offices. When they built that railroad here, I thought that was the damndest thing, they had too good a business with the train. The trains would bring in those big ties, that they set about three feet apart, but they never had too good time as the track would break down, the ties on it would roll over; but they kept on running this train until they got it right. You know they did not pack things like today?” “OH, we had some bad fellows here then. Used to be some places got little old petty thieves, stealing you know. Things like that, these fellows would fight you but just didn’t know anything about taking things over, you couldn’t put it over nobody! If you did you’re liable to get the tar shot out of you—old six-shooter days back then. Yeah, it was.” “They would take them (law breakers) to Fort Smith, Arkansas. That is where they took them to trial. Some got out before Judge Parker. Judge Parker… he would hurt them. You probably see them in television now, they’re asking for a day and the one that got the quickest (shooter) was the one to win the battle. And old Judge Parker, you’d shoot anybody in the back, and he’d hang him.” “But if you were gonna walk out-- it was fair deal, that was over with. Shooters never picked anybody up for that but now you’ve got to have guts and gail to walk out before a fellow and count the count and take a draw with him and grab your pistol and shoot him.” “Yes sir, you’ve got to be sure of what you’re doing then. That’s the way they lived then, Yeah, that’s the way you to had to do it.” “Yeah, in those days I see them out there—walk out there and they never touch that guy…just unbuckle that belt, and that belt falls. So they just won it that way. They were good. “ “When the white people came here – he went to get a permit from the Indian Agent to come down in here and pick him out a location. That’s the way they done it. Pick them out a location. Pick them out a location. You (Indians) could not move nothing off. Didn’t have nothing here. Didn’t have nothing you could sell and you couldn’t buy nothing either!” “That Indian Agent would talk to them, that’s the reason why they (whites) didn’t have no problems. They done it back here like in the South—there was some outlaws (Indian outlaws) in here.” (Authors note: not noted but suspect he meant like the KKK of the south, where the Indians burned houses and worse to these land grabbing whites.) “The government sent in a militia down here to hunt them outlaws (Indians) out. Them Indians know what they was doing, so they set up their camp over there. Well they set the old camp over there in sort of a meadow. Well, long about ten o’clock that night the Indians set the prairie on fire. They put the militia out of here!” “Yeah, that’s what happened. Things like that – so white people were taught to let them Indians alone for whatever they carry on – you couldn’t tell what an Indian was doing. Indians ways are different.” ‘’The whites might see five, six, seven comin’ through here on horses, scattered out. You wouldn’t know what they were doing’ maybe hunting for a deer or something. And white people would –lots of them get ‘fraid of them’.” “Indians back then moved around in Oklahoma. They had tipis and this was in 1899 or 1900-1907 and the Indians just moved around where there was more game or fishing. Hunting and fishing was good then. In winter they moved to another place in the hills for protection from the weather. Life was good. It was all Indian land back then (in Oklahoma).” ~ Chris Boles ** Please visit us http://www.whispernthunder.org/

It's here!! Our latest WnT video is now LIVE!! ~on Facebook, Youtube & here on our new blog site Read Mary Burrows' article 'Close Encounter of the Bison Kind' in this season's Whisper n Thunder magazine http://www.whispernthunder.org/Bison_Encounter.html

Letter from the EditorWords from WnT Founding Editor Billie K. Fidlin

Springtime comes to us all as we launch our April issue of Whisper n Thunder. We await Winds Scholarship applications as I write this, overjoyed that we again this year can award 2 scholarships to Native students. Our cookbook has been a success, and if you don't have one, you need to order - they're wonderful!www.createspace.com/3716198 
Our first Winds Scholar, Jaclyn Roessel, will receive her Masters Degree later this month. Congrats to Jaclyn, who is now a member of the Board of Directors for Whisper n Thunder. Our EREZ Fund allocations for propane this year topped the $10,000.00 mark. That is ALL thanks to you our readers - and an amazing feat for a 2+ year old organization.

We know that you will enjoy this issue and please - do sign our Guest Book at
http://whispernthunder.org/Guestbook.php

Join our Facebook or MySpace sites. We love hearing from you. And if you are interested in writing or submitting photography or graphics for ezine inclusion - please email Billie at bkfidlin@hotmail.com . Would be great to hear from you!
Empowerment. Impact. Collaboration. We continue to work together with you and WnT partners to make a difference. Thank you for your help!

Whisper n Thunder: Empowering Native Americans

through Education, Awareness & Opportunity

Whisper n Thunder

Board of Directors

Billie K. Fidlin

Founding Editor, President


Peoria, AZ

bkfidlin@hotmail.com 602.705.5797

Rebecca Balog
 

Vice President
EREZ Chair
Marysville, PA

Natalie S. Brown
 

Secretary
Tucson, AZ



Jaclyn M. Roessel 

Treasurer
Phoenix, AZ
  

Millie Chalk

YouTube Channel Co-Director
Canyon Country, CA
     

Sadie King 

Youth Board Member
Litchfield Park, AZ

Russ Letica  

Fundraising Director
Las Vegas, NV

 Lisa Sahani
 

Promotions Director
Eureka, MO


Phil Clarke
YouTube Channel Co-Director
United Kingdom

Assimilation Near Completion

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