American Indian Reflections: August 2008 Archives

Unitarian Universalists love to claim that they emerged from the Puritan tradition, and have a long history as liberal Christians.  Understanding Christianity then would seem to me to be a necessary part of understanding Unitarianism and Universalism.  Our religious forebears were participated in the conquest of North America, and sent missionaries among Native American Indians.  We should know something of this history lest we become participants in the denial that characterizes dominant culture response to the American genocide.

George Tinker is an ordained Lutheran minister and on the faculty at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, but he no considers himself a Christian.  He found that he could no longer associate himself with a Church that was so involved in the colonial enterprise of conquest of the Native American Indian peoplles.  Tinker states that 'perhaps the most fearful aspect of the church's complicity in the conquest of the native peoples in the latter sense is that it always happened with the best of intentions.'

Missionary Conquest; the Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide is Tinker's full length treatment of the role of Christian missionaries in the destruction of America's indigenous peoples.  He studeies  four missionaries;  John Eliot, Junipero Serra, Pierre-Jean De Smet, and Henry Benjamin Whipple.  These men are held up to this day as cultural heros for white America.  But the results speak for a different interpretation, what they did was destructive for communities they impacted, what ever the sentiments they proclaimed. 

Tinker examines the policies and the results of those policies and shows how the Christian Church contributed to genocide.

John Eliot, a prominent Puritan, was a full of colonial arrogance, viewing the indigenous culture as inferior to his own, and seeing the Natives as under the influence of the Devil. Junipero Serra's California missions were in an integral part with the oppressive Spanish colonial efforts to enrich Spain.  The French man Pierre-Jean De Smet, a Jesuit, who was so self involved in his rational, Catholic theology that he thought nothing of mocking the rituals and practices of the indigenous people who he encountered. . Henry Benjamin Whipple, the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, worked to take the land from the Indians in the northern plains so that they would be forced to adopt the European way of life. 

Many of the world's people have stories about a great flood that destroyed the worlds people save for one family.  Here is one told among the Cherokee.  This story does not have any overt theological message or moral lesson.  It seems to be a night time ghost story.

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A long time ago a man had a dog, which began to go down to the river every day and look at the water and howl. At last the man was angry and scolded the dog, which then spoke to him and said: "Very soon there is going to be a great freshet and the water will come so high that everybody will be drowned; but if you will make a raft to get upon when the rain comes you can be saved, but you must first throw me into the water." The man did not believe it, and the dog said, "If you want a sign that I speak the truth, look at the back of my neck." He looked and saw that the dog's neck had the skin worn off so that the bones stuck out.

Then he believed the dog, and began to build a raft. Soon the rain came and he took his family, with plenty of provisions and they all got upon it. It rained for a long time, and the water rose until the mountains were covered and all the people in the world were drowned. Then the rain stopped and the waters went down again, until at last it was safe to come off the raft. Now there was no one alive but the man and his family, but one day they heard a sound of dancing and shouting on the other side of the ridge. The man climbed to the top and looked over; everything was still, but all along the valley he saw great piles of bones of the people who had been drowned, and then he knew that the ghosts had been dancing.

James Moody,  Myths and Legends of the Cherokee

A friend saw me one day when my hair was not tied up, it was free and flowing. Most days I wear it put up in a tail.  Someday, soon, I intend to braid it.  Braiding ones hair has spiritual significance, braiding shows one is tied to the earth and to all of ones relatives (all creatures of the earth and sky.)  Braiding is not done simply for a fashion statement.  It is as the catholics would say "a sign of inner and outer spiritual reality."

The way it was told to me hair is sacred.  Hair represents our thoughts and how we wear it is an expression of our souls.  When we wear hair free and flowing, we are flowing with the wind and with the spirit.  

Before they were conquered, Cherokee men shaved their heads as young men, and did not grow it long again until they became elders.    Only God makes one an an elder.  Becoming an elder was a spiritual transformation, not chronological progression.  Sometimes, the elders would have to tell a man that he was ready, if he was one of those that did not hear God.  Women did not cut their hair except on special occasions.  Women are holy.  Elders are holy.  Hair is holy.  

But today many have adopted the practice of other American Indians of only cutting their hair at the time of a significant life transition.  After the death of a love one, the hair is cut, and then it is allowed to grow free.  Many consider cutting the hair an act of submission, thus wearing the hair long is saying "No" to colonialism.

Sweet grass is considered to be the hair of our Mother the earth.  Sweet grass dried and burned as incense permits us to inhale the holiness of earth.  Sweet grass can be braided, and tied with ribbons to symbolize a persons intentions and goals.

Last year the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, both the U.S. and Canada voted against it.  While it is significant that the international community (supported by the majority of the worlds peoples)  have come to understand indigenous peoples' right to protect their lands and preserve their traditional lifestyles, most of the world's 370 million indigenous peoples continue to face destructive policies at the hands of corporations and the governments that they own

Ben Powless, a Mohawk Indian from the United States who works with the Indigenous Environment Network thinks U.S. and Canadian governments will continue to be hostile to indigenous rights unless a majority of their citizens are informed enough to hold those accountable who play a powerful role in shaping public policy.

"The wider public must understand indigenous peoples' rights and concerns," he said. "They must act to protect them because as the most marginalised group in this world, it spells out how the rest of us will be treated, and is also the surest way to protect our last remaining ecosystems." 

Halder Rizvi agrees with Powless and she points out:

"Many climate change scientists share this view. They think the indigenous peoples can play a vital role in preserving biodiversity and the planet's resources because they live in close proximity with nature."

Cherokee freedman won a partial victory in their struggle against the officials of the Cherokee Nation who seek to disenfranchise them. 

he District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals on July 29 by its decision that the

1866 treaty between the Cherokee and the United States,promised ''all the rights of native Cherokees'' to the former slaves - and their descendants, ''who came to be known as freedmen.'' 

And it held that individual officers of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma ''cannot seek shelter'' from freedmen legal action within the tribe's sovereign immunity.   Thus the leadership can be held liable for their actions against the Freedman.  This ruling also opens the door to efforts by the Congressional Black Caucus to apply economic pressure against the leadership of the Cherokee Nation by denying federal benefits until they recognize the rights of the Cherokee Freedman.

So what are the stars?  The Cherokee had more than one story about the stars but this is the one that Moody wrote down. 

"One night a hunting party camping in the mountains noticed two lights like large stars moving along the top of a distant ridge. They wondered and watched until the light disappeared on the other side. The next night, and the next, they saw the lights again moving along the ridge, and after talking over the matter decided to go on the morrow and try to learn the cause. In the morning they started out and went until they came to the ridge, where, after searching some time, they found two strange creatures about so large (making a circle with outstretched arms), with round bodies covered with fine fur or downy feathers, from which small heads stuck out like the heads of terrapins. As the breeze played upon these feathers showers of sparks flew out.

The hunters carried the strange creatures back to the camp, intending to take them home to the settlements on their return. They kept them several days and noticed that every night they would grow bright and shine like great stars, although by day they were only balls of gray fur, except when the wind stirred and made the sparks fly out. They kept very quiet, and no one thought of their trying to escape, when, on the seventh night, they suddenly rose from the ground like balls of fire and were soon above the tops of the trees. Higher and higher they went, while the wondering hunters watched, until at last they were only two bright points of light in the dark sky, and then the hunters knew that they were stars."

From Cherokee Myths and Legends by James Moody

Indigenous peoples are constantly struggling in the United States to preserve their cultures and their languages in the face of outright hostility from the dominant culture authorities.   When I am asked why the mission of People So Bold! is "overcoming colonialism through faith and action" I point to many examples of the colonial stance of the United States, especially policies and practices that oppress America's Native American Indians.   Attempts to americanize America's first peoples by denying recognition of their language rights.  So this victory in the US District Court of the Yupik people (with the support of the Native American Rights Fund and the American Civil Liberty Union) is a victory for all people who seek a county based on justice and inclusion.

This is the press release of the Native American Rights Fund.

ANCHORAGE -- Late yesterday, a federal court ordered Alaska's state and local elections officials to provide effective language assistance to citizens who speak Yup'ik, the primary language of a majority of voters in the Bethel region of Alaska. The victory came in a legal challenge brought by Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four Alaska Natives and four tribal governments.

"This is a huge victory, not only for Yup'ik voters, but for all Alaska Natives who want to participate in the democratic process," said NARF attorney Natalie Landreth, who is lead co-counsel in the case. "The state of Alaska has recently taken the first step towards complying with its obligations under the law. But as the court recognized, the state's recent efforts to provide Yup'ik language assistance are 'relatively new and untested' over 30 years after Alaska was first required to provide that assistance. Yup'ik voters will remain vigilant to work with the court to make sure the state's first steps are not its last. Voting is too precious a right to be denied by bureaucratic neglect."

The landmark ruling protects Yup'ik-speaking voters in the Bethel region of Alaska by requiring that the state provide language assistance, including trained poll workers who are bilingual in English and Yup'ik; sample ballots in written Yup'ik; a written Yup'ik glossary of election terms; consultation with local tribes to ensure the accuracy of Yup'ik translations; a Yup'ik language coordinator; and pre-election and post-election reports to the court tracking the state's efforts. Alaska is required to comply with the order under the penalty of contempt.

In issuing his ruling, U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess concluded that the Yup'ik voters and tribes clearly established that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their language and voter assistance claims under the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA). Judge Burgess cited evidence of "strikingly similar experiences" of "multiple voters, in different districts and with different poll workers" being denied the opportunity to receive voting assistance. He also found that while the state recently took some steps to address the longstanding lack of language assistance, its "efforts to overhaul the language assistance program did not begin in earnest until after this litigation began."

"We applaud the court for this important ruling," said Jason Brandeis, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Alaska. "It is time to turn the page on the discriminatory practices of the past and fully allow Yup'ik voters and other Alaskan Natives the right to be included in the political process. Remedies including outreach, qualified translators, sample ballots and allowing voters to get assistance when they need it will provide these voters with some of the mandated tools they need to participate in the most fundamental act of citizenship."

Alaska is one of just five states covered in its entirety by the language assistance provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Those provisions, sections 4(f)(4) and 203, apply to areas that meet certain threshold requirements for numbers of citizens with limited English proficiency. Section 208 has nationwide applicability and gives "any voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write" a right to receive "assistance by a person of the voter's choice." The temporary provisions of the Voting Rights Act, including sections 4(f)(4) and 203, were reauthorized by Congress in 2006 for an additional 25 years.

"Since Alaska became covered by the Voting Rights Act over 30 years ago, it has viewed its obligations as optional and nothing more than an administrative inconvenience to be set aside for higher priorities," said James Tucker, an attorney with the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office. "This order tells the state, 'enough is enough.' Yup'ik voters are entitled to language assistance for every election, not merely when it is convenient for election officials."

Defendants in the lawsuit include Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai, Regional Elections Supervisors Becka Baker and Michelle Speegle and Bethel Municipal Clerk Lori Strickler.

Attorneys for the Alaska Natives are Landreth of NARF, Brandeis of the ACLU of Alaska, Neil Bradley of the national ACLU Voting Rights Project and Tucker of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office.

The order granting NARF and ACLU's motion for a preliminary injunction is online at: www.aclu.org/votingrights/gen/36220lgl20080730.html