Glory of the Morning: My son Sam earned his Eagle Scout rank last wee...

Glory of the Morning:


My son Sam earned his Eagle Scout rank last wee...: My son Sam earned his Eagle Scout rank last week.  For his Eagle Scout Service Project, Sam collected and delivered 1046 pairs of shoes fo...

My son Sam earned his Eagle Scout rank last week.  For his Eagle Scout Service Project, Sam collected and delivered 1046 pairs of shoes for the good people of Crow Creek Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  I posted his picture with his sash of over 24 merit badges on FB.

Just yesterday a friend of mine posted a picture of a poor white boy wearing sad looking outfit with a fake feather bustle and the punchline was:  I made it in boy scouts.

This just hurt.

Several months ago, while searching for help with Sam's endless Eagle Scout application, I came across some disturbing images of little scrawny white boys wearing sad outfits, head dresses, war paint and the like.  These disturbing images were from some sub organization of the BSA; the order of the arrow.

This just hurt and made me mad.

After I witnessed these disturbing images, I sent a little to the BSA headquarters and also to my church, who STRONGLY supports the BSA.  I urged both entities to reconsider the shameless practices of mocking our sacred traditions, attire and the like, and reach out to Native American tribes for assistance and much needed EDUCATION.  I urged them to seek help from Indian leaders if they wanted to continue to use our heritage as a means to strengthen the organization.  No word from the BSA, but I have been chided by my church, sigh.

After my friend posted his picture of the sad little boys in sad little Native attire, I posted a comment, and again, no word, and it was removed, hence my blog today.

I am very proud of my sons for completing and earning their Eagle Scout rank.  I am very proud that both of my sons chose to honor and help the people of the Crow Creek Indian Reservation.  I am very pleased that they as native sons, looked beyond themselves and saw the needs of others and carried out a plan to help our people.

Crow Creek is part of our history.  My grandmother's people, their great-grandmother was a full-blood Dakota.  My grandfather's people, their great-grandfather was a full-blood Ho-Chunk.  Both of these great Nations were exiled from Minnesota in 1862, to the Crow Creek Indian Reservation.  Many people lost their lives in this forced removal for the want of food and for the treaties to be honored.

To my people I saw, if you don't like the way the BSA portrays us, speak up, stand up and reach out.  Speak up and write a little to your local council and to the head quarters of the BSA.  We cannot tolerate ignorance or cultural incompetency. 

Stand up and be counted.  Do you know about the Scouting Program?  If not, learn about it.  There are some excellent values that are being taught by very culturally competent leaders.  The scouting programs helps boys become well rounded men.  If you are Native, the BSA can compliment your teachings and our ways.

Reach out and volunteer to help the BSA learn to how respectfully treat our ways.  Help them to know that it is terribly offensive to see scrawny little white boys in head dresses and war paint.  Teach them that only true warriors or a a true Chief can wear head dresses.  Each of those feathers were earned in courageous ways. I would NOT let my sons participate in Scouts unless I taught the Indian Lore Badge.  They were taught well and true.

To the BSA and to my Church, if you want to continue to use our ways to convey a message of brotherhood and bonding within the BSA, this can be done without making a mockery and stereotyping out traditions and sacred ceremonies.  Please, please reach out to those who know and learn how we can work together for the good of young men and boys.

I am glad that my sons chose the best of both of their worlds and participated in BSA, and earned their Eagle Scout rank by helping our people in a good way.  Many thanks to their good Scout Master Brent Spencer.  You, and with the help of their father,  learned leadership skills and learned how to make and follow through with their goals.  In all this, my sons chose to honor their heritage and our people.  Waste!  Pinagigi!

Glory of the Morning: Glory of the Morning: Our ways are protected: A DM...

Glory of the Morning: Glory of the Morning: Our ways are protected: A DM...: Glory of the Morning: Our ways are protected: A DMC tale : Here is a marker tree located in the Indian Heights Park area.  I love this tree,...

Glory of the Morning: Our ways are protected: A DMC tale

Glory of the Morning: Our ways are protected: A DMC tale: Here is a marker tree located in the Indian Heights Park area.  I love this tree, because as much as Rochester tries to hide its Dakota ro...

Our ways are protected: A DMC tale

Here is a marker tree located in the Indian Heights Park area.  I love this tree, because as much as Rochester tries to hide its Dakota roots, every now and then, the roots shine through.  Actually marker trees are everywhere in SE MN, and when I see them I thank my ancestors for their foresight to leave the signs where they once walked and lived.

My heart is very  heavy with sadness today.  

Rochester has a paucity of American Indians, but that is slowly changing.  There is a trickle of Indians who come here in search of jobs or health care.  Yet, with so few neej's, our history, culture and traditions get lost in the stereotypical views of yesteryear and are readily replaced by wannabees, thereby it is they who determine an ignorant population's view of "Indians".  Rochester has an abundance of wannabees.  

Growing up, I was cautioned by my grandparents to stay away from wannabees because they will try to fool you. To the wannabees who showed up at powwows: "treat them nice because they don't know any better".  The wannabees who took Indian Studies classes and then projected that knowledge on as if they knew first hand: "just ignore them".  To the wannabees who portray themselves as Indian: "don't worry, they are cooking their own goose".

When I first arrived in Rochester, nine years ago, I sought out my church and fellow Indians ASAP.  NAC was still around so I went to a meeting.  There were all of these white people at the meeting.  It was not the same NAC that I remembered from the 80s'.  I called up several people that once belonged to NAC and they said it had changed.  There were no more Indians in the organization.  The Indians that once belonged to the group formed their own group because there was a man who wanted to control everyone in the group, and he was white.  Disbelieving this, I finally called the founder of NAC and asked him what happened.  He was very reluctant to speak about NAC, which surprised me greatly.  He said he was burned out, no longer active in NAC and encouraged me to attend the meetings.  I told him what others had said to me and he didn't comment other than to say that Jim Wilson was an Indian as far as he knew.

Fast forward to 2011-13, Indian Heights Park, a sacred Dakota site.  The park department asked Jim Wilson, the chair of NAC to be on a task force that would study IHP.  The night that the committee was going to discuss the important of the site to the Dakota, Whitney White could not attend the meeting and asked me to go in her stead.  When I attended the meeting, I was not allowed to speak and only Jim Wilson spoke on behalf of all Indians.  Disturbed at this, I wrote an op-ed piece, which stated that while the committee was well intentioned, they were missing Dakota or Native American input.  This wrangled everyone!!  Yet, from that time forward, the public (Dakota) were allowed 5 minutes at the start of each meeting to address the committee.  Many thanks to Leonard Wabasha who helped me convince the part board to preserve the park as a sacred Dakota site.  

In time, NAC imploded on itself and one or more disgruntled past members or so it seemed given the knowledge they had from the letters Jim Wilson showed us at a Park Department meeting, Jim Wilson admitted that he was white.  I must confess, I was shocked!!!  I even ran over to Nakoma's store by IHP and told him about my astonishment.  Nakoma said that he told Jim not to bring up the letter or letters and just let it go. Jim came out swinging even though he and his organization had duped all of us.  He threated GRADS and said it was a GRADS person or persons that wrote the letter.  Honestly!  He was also forced to admit that he was white in an interview with Jay Furst (July 2013).

GRADS, on the other hand was elated with our progress!  We held two sacred ceremonies at IHP, that Leonard said was restoring the park to the Dakota people.  We even got a grant from the Minnesota Historical Society to bring back Elders from each of the last known bands of the Dakota back to IHP.  GRADS felt good about this achievement and so very grateful to all those who helped; Peter Lengkeek, Dave Larson, Syd Bird, and especially Leonard Wabasha, and the Elders: Danny Seaboy, Clifford Canku, Betty Greencrow, Dave Larson.

Now fast forward to July 2015.  Nakoma Volkman invited GRADS to attend an event sponsored by several organizations, including NAC.  I was reluctant to attend, but felt torn because Nakoma said the event was going to be about the history of the park and we could talk about our activities.  I asked Leonard about the struggle I had about this event and he said I should just tell them the truth.  So I did.  Betty, Shirley and I met with Nakoma and told him that we were concerned about partnering with NAC because they were not native and a bunch of wannabees.  It felt liberating!  In fact, we shared all of our concerns.  Nakoma said that he too was concerned about NAC, but there was nothing he could do about it now, but he did say that he couldn't stand to see NAC fold up.  He acknowledged that there weren't any natives in the organization and they were going to use the event at IHP to recruit new members, hopefully Indian members.

Last Wednesday evening Betty and Shirley attended a planning meeting about the event at the History Center of Olmsted County. I refused to go.  I felt it was best to keep my distance from this man as Leonard suggested.  At this meeting, Betty said Jim said that he had the right to do whatever he wanted at IHP because he was taught by Amos Owen, and Chris Leith.  Of course Betty and Shirley didn't know these men, but I did.  Jim said he was going to have a talking circle using his eagle feathers, he was going to use his pipe, and bring his drum.  I knew these men would NEVER teach the ways to a white man, but perhaps to a man who was pretending to be native.

Though Betty and Shirley felt torn about going to the event, I knew that I would not attend, and I was disturbed at Jim's name dropping, and contacted Art Owen.  Art said while he remembered Jim Wilson, he knew that his father would have never taught Jim the ways.  He said that his family would be at this event on Saturday August 1st.

I contacted Jim Wilson by phone to appeal to his better nature and he was majorly upset!  He cursed at me.  He threatened me.  Naturally, I swung back.  We agreed to disagree.  He wanted to be stop calling him a wannabee.  Nope, because that is what he and his organization was according to Nakoma.  Sorry, DNA  has to be involved.  This just infuriated him. He said that the Dakota were trying to control what happened at IHP. Nope, just trying to keep NAC from misrepresenting the Dakota.  He said that had a right to do these things.  I said yes I had heard this from Betty.  I told him that I knew Amos Owen and Chris Leith when they were alive, and sadly they were gone.  Thankfully his son Art Owen was still around and I talked with him about you, and he said his father never taught you anything.  He back pedaled quite a bit and said it was actually Porky White and Cody Enoch, two Lakota men, they gave him the pipe.  Really!  I knew these men too!  Sadly they are gone, but their families are still around.  Oh, and Porky was Anishinabeg, did you know that?  Obviously not.  Such anger!  Such vile language!

Jim in his desperation said that GRADS was trying to interfere with his religious freedoms.  What?  I asked him if he knew about the Religious Freedom Act of 1978?  Nope sure didn't.  It protects us Indians from exploitation.  He was not a wannabee, he was an Osage.  Oh, are you enrolled?  No, it doesn't matter.  Wow, really!?  I asked him if he knew about sovereignty?  Nope, what the #$@* was that?  Naturally a white man would not understand these matters.  He could do whatever he wanted at IHP because Mike Nigbur said so.  What???

Everything has been taken from us and you do not have the right to exploit our heritage.  You are using white privilege and choosing to be native or Osage, and our heritage, our ways, especially our spiritual ways are protected from exploitation.

I am Osage!  Delusional at best.  He is such a fraud and a con that he is believing his own lies, but also, he has convinced the Park Department of Rochester, Friends of Indian Heights, the Federal Medical Center, the Mayo Clinic, the school district of Rochester and Plainview, and many other organizations that he is native and so too is his organization of about 30 strong.  How utterly sad for DMC.

When I called the Park Department to say that GRADS was not trying to interfere with the event on Saturday as Jim stated because Mike Nigbur issued an email aimed at GRADS to say that the event on Saturday was okey dokey with him.  I said we had the right to raise our concerns and Paul Widman agreed with me, but said that he did not have the resources to check out Jim and his organization and their intentions, but he encourage me to do whatever I needed to do about the authenticity of the event.  I told him that I could not, but the Owen Family possibly could, particularly Art.  He wished me well.

Mike Nigbur, of the Park Department disagreed.  He said that the Park Department could not prevent anyone from using the park.  I said that was not my point.  In fact, I said that he and Jim could dance naked for all I care, but if they were to perform any sacred ceremony up there, he needed to understand that our ceremonies were protected under federal law.  Mike balked at this.  He said that if I planned to attend the event and caused a disturbance, I would be escorted off the premises.  Really?  Try it little man!!!  Such a JERK!  Of course I would never cause a disturbance at a public event, but I will be damned if anyone could tell me that I didn't have the right to speak my mind.  Naturally a white man could never truly understand the importance of having your religious freedoms taken away and then restored again.

The people of DMC don't seem to what to understand what it is like to go with your grandparents to the first Sundance in SD in over 100 years because now they were legal.  The people of DMC don't want to understand what it is like to attend the first powwow in Mankato in the 1970s' since before 1862, and dance, only to have the powwow interrupted because there were 38 eagles flying overhead.  I heard the MC start to count the eagles, 1, 2...10, 11...30... and suddenly he couldn't talk anymore.  I didn't understand why the Elders, and my grandparents were crying, but I do now.  I felt happy at the time, but as I looked around all of the old people had tears in their eyes.  I went up to my gram to ask what was wrong, but she was so overcome she couldn't speak.  

Now today, the people of Rochester don't understand why it hurts to see non natives pretending to be native, pretending to know the ways, pretending to have the authority to conduct ceremonies at IHP willfully using the names of departed Dakota Elders (and others) as their credentials , all this at a sacred Dakota site.  No, I don't want to stop it or interfere, I just want to raise awareness and appeal to their better natures, but sadly they have none.

Glory of the Morning: Cultural Theft in DMC

Glory of the Morning: Cultural Theft in DMC: See this photo.  This is a picture of our GRADS group ringing in Celebrate Dakota and American Indian Week, 2014, with the Mayor at City H...

Cultural Theft in DMC

See this photo.  This is a picture of our GRADS group ringing in Celebrate Dakota and American Indian Week, 2014, with the Mayor at City Hall.  My brother is in this photo.  He is holding a hand drum.  He sang a nice song for our upcoming weeks' events at City Hall, Rochester, MN.  My brother learned to sing from his father, McKinley Kingbird and Mack, as he was called, learned from his father, and so on.  These are our ways and this is how they are taught. Passed down from one generation to another, and DNA is involved.

Caution: Rant ahead. 


I live in Rochester, MN (DMC), perhaps one of the most historically racist towns, particularly toward American Indians, but it is slowly changing. Yet, I have to wonder. 

The other day someone asked me about the Native American Center of SE MN. I am tired of people asking me about this non-native organization. Because of my work with GRADS and networking with Indian Reservations, and promoting education of Dakota and Ho-Chunk culture within the Rochester Public Schools, it is just assumed that all Indian organizations must know each other or work together. Or worse yet, you are so small in number, why don't you all just get along? Ay, and do all of you white people get along?  Do you have just one organization?

For the record: I am not associated with NAC of SE MN at all! 

FYI, just because someone sings (badly), dances, uses a pipe, holds sweats with men and women, goes to the Federal Medical Center dressed as an "Indian" to pray with the inmates (Is this even legal?), holds an art expo (flea market), and wears borrowed regalia doesn't mean they are native. Hello! 

Please look at the Post Bulletin from July 3, 2013. In this article, the chair person of this tiny local group admitted he is white, but he has adopted the Osage culture. Whatever! It is Cultural Theft at best and you can't "gift" our birthright! Yet Friends Of Indian Heights, The City of Rochester Park Board and Park Department, the Federal Medical Center, Department, Mayo Clinic Chaplaincy services, Tom Hozier's Roundtable, Rochester Public Schools, Plainview Public Schools, and others, recognize NAC of SE MN, particularly its chair as being "Indian" and extends them privileges as such. 

I have to interject my favorite story about this right here.  During a steering committee meeting about Indian Heights Park,wherein Jim Wilson (white man) said that if any Indian had something to say about Indian Heights Park, they better talk to him and I responded with something like, "take a hike", Nora Dooley, chair of the human rights commission actually thought this self proclaimed chair of the NAC was "over all the Indians of SE MN" and felt I should pay him some type of homage.  LOL!  I am not making this up!  Who could, right?

Moving on, today someone called me with concerns about NAC (Non-native American Center) holding an event at Indian Heights Park (IHP), and the Mayor would be there, yadda, yadda. yadda. IHP is a sacred Dakota site. It was preserved as such, yet this non-native group will be sponsoring a native event at our sacred site. Wow! 

Indian Heights Park is a public park and it can be used by anyone, although it was preserved by the Park Board of Rochester as a sacred DAKOTA site.  

Yet I wonder if someone who was playing "Black" or "Mexican"  or "Jewish" and announced to the community that they were playing "Black" or "Mexican" or "Jewish" and invited the Mayor to the event, could actually hold the event at a sacred Dakota site?   

Yes, I have to wonder...

Glory of the Morning: Our Selma is yet to come: Rise up from the dust an...

Glory of the Morning: Our Selma is yet to come: Rise up from the dust an...: A part of Obama's speech on Selma and our country: "Of course, a more common mistake is to suggest that Ferguson is an isolated inc...

Our Selma is yet to come: Rise up from the dust and be who God intended us to be

A part of Obama's speech on Selma and our country: "Of course, a more common mistake is to suggest that Ferguson is an isolated incident; that racism is banished; that the work that drew men and women to Selma is now complete, and that whatever racial tensions remain are a consequence of those seeking to play the “race card” for their own purposes.  We don’t need the Ferguson report to know that’s not true.  We just need to open our eyes, and our ears, and our hearts to know that this nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us." 

This touched me because when I attended a church meeting, I brought up that some people of color, like my sons, don't quite feel welcomed in our church.  Before the discussion could ensue someone, a youth leader, said I was playing the "race card."  Boy I dislike that phrase and now I know why. 

Some people think racism is a thing of the past because we a more diverse country or live in a diverse community, because we have a partially black president, and so on.  Yet for those of us who are people of color the struggle goes on because the doctrine of discovery is rooted deeply in our schools, justice system, churches, work places, and so forth, particularly for American Indians.  Why?  Quite simply, we were here first.  This is why we have treaties. (I want to add a 'duh' right here, but I won't).

Some people think that because we have had the right to vote, that our religious freedoms were restored; because the treaties were honored, in part; because we have been given food; health care; education; and self-determination,  that we, American Indians, should be able to care for ourselves.  All should be well now or by now.  Not to mention all those casinos "you" have. 

When I spoke about the devastating news in Pine Ridge, about the 5 suicides in less than a month, a woman, from my church said, "We used to live 20 minutes from Pine Ridge."  She added that it was a rough place then with all the alcoholism and homicides, and now, "you think they would want to help themselves."  What?

When you have been treated as though you are invisible; when you have been discriminated against because you are in a town that is surrounded by THREE reservations; when you people are covered under the Department of Interior and the BIA; when all of your freedoms were restored in the 70s'; when it took an act of Congress to restore the bodies of your people tucked away in museums and the Mayo Medical Center;  there is still a very long shadow of racial inequality cast upon the American Indian people across the United States. 

Many Americans, even black people think the sun is high and clouds cover the sun sporadically here and there in places like Ferguson, New York and now Madison.  Yet for many American Indians the sun rarely shines in places like Red Lake, Pine Ridge, Crow Creek and in Rapid City.  We are kept from the sun unless we challenge the laws of the land and break free.  I think I know of what I speak having filed the first complaint of human rights violation in northwester MN and won.  It was a victory though I had to leave my job and eventually move.  See, American Indians need the sun to thrive.

We have sun rays though.  People like Billy Mills, David Baines, Vine Deloria, Wilma Mankiller, Ada Deer, and a host of others manage to shed light on us while we bask in their presence and think, "I can do this, in spite of ________." Please fill in the blank and choose from the following: Alcoholism; Domestic Violence; Lost traditional ways; Sexual abuse; My grandparents were forced to attend boarding school and now I don't know the ways; I live in the cities and I am not a real Indian; I don't have any religion or spiritual beliefs because until 1978, and I couldn't pray the way my grandparents taught me; I was raised in a foster home because my parents were unable to care for me; or write in a reason of your own choice.

For me, our Selma has yet to come.  We need to return to being the People of the Sacred Voice,  Stewards of the Land, the First Nation, the Spontaneous Ones, the Spirits of the Water,  the Born of the Waters, the Sacred Fire Keepers, the People of the Seven Council Fires, or the Sacred Ones.  Ours was a people given the law from God Himself and it is time for us to rise up from the dust and become who God intended us to be.  We have not been forsaken. 

Glory of the Morning: Racial tensions are high. What would GOM do?

Glory of the Morning: Racial tensions are high. What would GOM do?: Today I listened to CNN talk about race relations in the US.  Apparently since Obama took office, racial tensions are higher than before he ...

Racial tensions are high. What would GOM do?

Today I listened to CNN talk about race relations in the US.  Apparently since Obama took office, racial tensions are higher than before he took office.  This on the anniversary of the March to Selma, 50 years.

My brother called me today.  He had pregame jitters and wanted to talk to me.  Red Lake was to play Win-E-Mac tonight for the chance to go to state, section finals, 8A.  He asked me if I remembered the last time they played Win-E-Mac, and I said yes, very well.

I went into memory mode.  I was the Chair of the Bemidji Area Race Relations Council at the time.  Win-E had a pep rally the afternoon before they would play Red Lake, it was a Friday.  The teachers and players (all white) came our dressed as Indians.  There were Indian kids at Win-E and they video recorded the whole rally.  The whole demeanor of the pep rally was deliberately racist, derogatory, and utterly deplorable.  At the end of the pep rally a teacher asked one of the players where he got his Air Jordan's and yes, he said it, "he got them off a dead _ _ _ _ _ _ ."

I remember the mother of the student who video taped the rally, calling me and asking for help.  She was getting death threats and her children were being harassed at school.  The teachers and students knew the student taped the event.  Vince Beyl and I went to work and filed a complaint of discrimination.  Too soft a word for me now, looking back.

We were meeting in Paul Welle's bank conference room when I broke the news to the Bemidji Area Race Relations Council (BARRC).  Paul wanted to know if there was a way to resolve it without filing a formal complaint.  The then President of BSU said he wanted to keep it quiet too.  He said that the towns, Winger, Erskine and MacIntosh, were divided over where to build the school, Win-E-Mac  Apparently there was a lot of angst over the construction of this school and the President of BSU hated to see the communities suffer, again.

What? 

I said no (while biting my tongue), the case was bigger than all of us.  Trying to add some humor, I added that the incident was bigger than the room we were meeting in.  The case went forward.  I spoke to the mother a few more times.  She was forced out of her home and her children had to change schools.  People actually tried to steal the tape from her, but she let it be known that it was under lock and key.  It was.

A few days after the complaint was made public I got a call from MPR, who wanted to know my opinion about the matter as the Chair of the BARRC.  My oldest son was just a toddler then.  I was fairly soft spoken as he toddled around me as I talked on the phone.  I said that I urged the mother to file a formal complaint.  BARRC assisted her.  The reporter pressed me something fierce and asked what I thought about the complaint.  I said that if the allegations were true, which I believed had merit, otherwise we wouldn't have filed the complaint, the teachers at Win-E were in violation of the Indian children's human rights.  In sum, they discriminated against the Indian children at Win-E-Mac.  The OCR's investigation would certainly bear this out given the video of the pep rally.  Then she asked me a tough question.  Would I be marching at the rally at Win-E?  My heart sank.  No, I would not.  It ripped my heart out to say that.  I wanted to, but as the Chair of the BARRC (and as the Stake RS President of the Fargo Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), I decided that it would be best not to attend the rally.

This event was many years ago.  I agree with CNN that racial tensions are heightened at this time.

They are here in Rochester, at Century High School, when certain schools play one another in sports, even at simple board meetings, and they were high when my son shut down Lake City soccer team's offense.

Another report came out today as well.  It seems the Ferguson Police Department was guilty of racial profiling and discriminatory practices.  The police were biased in who the stopped for jay walking, traffic violations, and so forth.  They ticketed primarily black people and it was through this means that the police department made much of its money.  Sic.  Yet, Office Wilson was not guilty of a crime.  The young man he chose to stop for jay walking,  that ended up in the young man's death, was within the law.  I don't see how these two situations, the report and the stop for jay walking, are not related.  Clearly if Office Wilson had not targeted the young man, the young man would be alive today.  It seems that the people of Ferguson had enough and knew that they were being targeted.  So sad for all involved.

This kind of news is not pleasant to people. My post on the tensions in Rapid City, SD (our Ferguson) received no likes.  The incident also received no national attention and barely got local attention.  57 Dakota kids were harassed by several white people in a VIP suite at a Rush Hockey Game.  They had beer thrown at them.  Racial slurs were thrown at them too.  The chaperones removed the kids from the game, while white men chased the kids out of the arena.  These kids were rewarded for their academic progress and were invited to attend the game.  What did these kids learn?  There was one lone white man charged with disorderly conduct after the investigation was completed.  There was a march in Rapid City to demand justice for the children.  I so wanted to be there.

An answer to my earlier question, I think the kids learned that racial tensions are high in Rapid City, SD. 

I recently posted about the serious events in Pine Ridge too, and it received only 2 likes.  The events in Rapid City resonated throughout the reservation.  This too received no national attention and very little local attention, while it reverberated throughout Indian Country.  I think people do not like unpleasant news about racial tensions and their effect on people of color.  Last week someone at church actually said, "You know I saw your post and I...you know, Pine Ridge was a bad place years ago.  We just lived twenty minutes away from there.  There were homicides, alcoholism, and all that.  I just think they would want to help themselves."  I bit my tongue, hard, because I was in church.

I am going to title this blog: Racial tensions are high.  What would GOM do?  This way only those who care about racial matters will read it and those who don't won't. 

My brother texted me a few minutes ago, Red Lake beat Win-E-Mac, 81-75.  Red Lake is Section 8A Chanps!  Feels good.

Glory of the Morning: Song of my heart!

Glory of the Morning: Song of my heart!: Today I heard Benjamin Naetanyahu address both houses of Congress.  Remarkable speech, remarkable man.  I was most touched by his comment ...

Song of my heart!

Today I heard Benjamin Naetanyahu address both houses of Congress.  Remarkable speech, remarkable man.  I was most touched by his comment toward Elie Wiesel.  He recognized him as not only a holocaust survivor, but also as a man who has devoted his life to letting us not forget the horrors of the holocaust, all while living his life in spite of his tragic past.  A standing ovation, rightly so.

My thoughts immediately turned to my people, and not just to the Ho-Chunks, though they are very resilient, but also to the Dakota, and all other tribes that have suffered genocide and assimilation.  I thought of the youth on the Pine Ridge Reservation.  We all are survivors!  We would not be here if it were not for the courage of Sitting Bull, Little Crow, Red Cloud, Tecumseh, Black Hawk, all of our veterans and so many others!  We are survivors because our holocaust continues here in the United States.  Just a month ago, white men from Rapid City threw beer and racial epitaphs at 57 of our young people.  They are now survivors, and they will live to tell their story of courage in the face of hatred to their children, further strengthening our resolve to survive and ultimately, live as Mauna intended.  He has not forsake us.   We can return to our ways, with full purpose of heart, in gratitude to our Creator for our life, our past, and with a commitment to live with hope until the He comes again!  Oh this is the prayer of my heart!

This is so needed now as the youth of so many tribes, especially at Pine Ridge, the last stand of the Oglala Sioux and Sitting Bull, home of the Wounded Knee Massacre.  How they need the courage of our ancestors! Yes, we suffered at the hands of greedy white men and still do, but we are strong, and we will not give up! We will tell the stories of our survival amidst such hate and evil, to our children, so that they will tell their children, even until the Creator comes again!  This is the song of my heart and I share it with you and my children, just as my Gram and Choka shared it with me, whose grandparents shared it with them, and so on, even as GOM's grandparents shared it with her.

We are survivors, not just of the early white man's greed and the deliberate and covert racism of today, but we are survivors, destined to live in this Earth, created just for us, to achieve our full potential just as the Creator intended.  Oh that we can see this is my prayer today.

Pinagigi and Mitakuye oyasin!

Another source for Glory of the Morning as a Chieftess

I found my copy of Indian History of Winneshiek County by Charles P. Hexom.  He used Angel DeCora,  Oliver Lamere, Little Winneshiek and Antoine Grignon as resources to learn about the Winnebagoes or Ho-Chunk people.  He wrote that "when Carver, an early traveler, first came in contact with the Winnebagoes, their chief was a woman" (Hexom, 1913).  This is an interesting account of the history of the Ho-Chunks from Wisconsin to Iowa.  I had read this account years ago, forgot about it, and found it again just the other day.  I am not sure that it would have changed my findings, however, it was important to note that there were excellent Ho-Chunk resources in Angel DeCora, Oliver Lamere, Little Winneshiek and Antoine Grignon.  There was no doubt after I conducted my studies of Glory of the Morning and our oral tradition, using the Vansina Method, that she was indeed a Chieftess, yet it was nice to see this in print from another reliable source.

Hexom, C. (1913).  Indian History of Winneshiek County.  A. K. Bailey and Son, Inc., Decorah, Iowa.