Oh Great Spirit,
Whose voice I hear in the wind,
Whose breath gives life to the world,
Hear me! I come to you as one of your many children.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.
May I walk in beauty.
Make my eyes behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things that you have made,
And my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may know the things
That you have taught your children--
The lessons that you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
Make me strong, not to be superior to my brothers,
but to be able to fight my greatest enemy: myself.
Make me ever ready to come to you with straight eyes,
so that When life fades as the faded sunset
My spirit will come to you without shame.
-John Yellow Lark
Friday, August 08, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Canadian Prime Minister Apologizes to Indians
Prime Minister Harper offers full apology on behalf of Canadians for the Indian Residential Schools system.
11 June 2008
Ottawa, Ontario
The treatment of children in Indian Residential Schools is a sad chapter in our history. For more than a century, Indian Residential Schools separated over 150,000 Aboriginal children from their families and communities.
In the 1870’s, the federal government, partly in order to meet its obligation to educate Aboriginal children, began to play a role in the development and administration of these schools.
Two primary objectives of the Residential Schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture.
These objectives were based on the assumption Aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, "to kill the Indian in the child". Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country.
One hundred and thirty-two federally-supported schools were located in every province and territory, except Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Most schools were operated as "joint ventures" with Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian or United Churches. The Government of Canada built an educational system in which very young children were often forcibly removed from their homes, often taken far from their communities.
Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed. All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities. First Nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools. Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools and others never returned home.
The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian Residential Schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on Aboriginal culture, heritage and language. While some former students have spoken positively about their experiences at residential schools, these stories are far overshadowed by tragic accounts of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect of helpless children, and their separation from powerless families and communities.
The legacy of Indian Residential Schools has contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many communities today. It has taken extraordinary courage for the thousands of survivors that have come forward to speak publicly about the abuse they suffered.
It is a testament to their resilience as individuals and to the strength of their cultures. Regrettably, many former students are not with us today and died never having received a full apology from the Government of Canada.
The government recognizes that the absence of an apology has been an impediment to healing and reconciliation. Therefore, on behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you, in this Chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to Aboriginal peoples for Canada’s role in the Indian Residential Schools system.
To the approximately 80,000 living former students, and all family members and communities, the Government of Canada now recognizes that it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes and we apologize for having done this.
We now recognize that it was wrong to separate children from rich and vibrant cultures and traditions that it created a void in many lives and communities, and we apologize for having done this.
We now recognize that, in separating children from their families, we undermined the ability of many to adequately parent their own children and sowed the seeds for generations to follow, and we apologize for having done this.
We now recognize that, far too often, these institutions gave rise to abuse or neglect and were inadequately controlled, and we apologize for failing to protect you. Not only did you suffer these abuses as children, but as you became parents, you were powerless to protect your own children from suffering the same experience, and for this we are sorry.
The burden of this experience has been on your shoulders for far too long. The burden is properly ours as a Government, and as a country. There is no place in Canada for the attitudes that inspired the Indian Residential Schools system to ever prevail again. You have been working on recovering from this experience for a long time and in a very real sense, we are now joining you on this journey.
The Government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly.
We are sorry.
In moving towards healing, reconciliation and resolution of the sad legacy of Indian Residential Schools, implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement began on September 19, 2007. Years of work by survivors, communities, and Aboriginal organizations culminated in an agreement that gives us a new beginning and an opportunity to move forward together in partnership. A cornerstone of the Settlement Agreement is the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
This Commission presents a unique opportunity to educate all Canadians on the Indian Residential Schools system. It will be a positive step in forging a new relationship between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians, a relationship based on the knowledge of our shared history, a respect for each other and a desire to move forward together with a renewed understanding that strong families, strong communities and vibrant cultures and traditions will contribute to a stronger Canada for all of us.
11 June 2008
Ottawa, Ontario
The treatment of children in Indian Residential Schools is a sad chapter in our history. For more than a century, Indian Residential Schools separated over 150,000 Aboriginal children from their families and communities.
In the 1870’s, the federal government, partly in order to meet its obligation to educate Aboriginal children, began to play a role in the development and administration of these schools.
Two primary objectives of the Residential Schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture.
These objectives were based on the assumption Aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, "to kill the Indian in the child". Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country.
One hundred and thirty-two federally-supported schools were located in every province and territory, except Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Most schools were operated as "joint ventures" with Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian or United Churches. The Government of Canada built an educational system in which very young children were often forcibly removed from their homes, often taken far from their communities.
Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed. All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities. First Nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools. Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools and others never returned home.
The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian Residential Schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on Aboriginal culture, heritage and language. While some former students have spoken positively about their experiences at residential schools, these stories are far overshadowed by tragic accounts of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect of helpless children, and their separation from powerless families and communities.
The legacy of Indian Residential Schools has contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many communities today. It has taken extraordinary courage for the thousands of survivors that have come forward to speak publicly about the abuse they suffered.
It is a testament to their resilience as individuals and to the strength of their cultures. Regrettably, many former students are not with us today and died never having received a full apology from the Government of Canada.
The government recognizes that the absence of an apology has been an impediment to healing and reconciliation. Therefore, on behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you, in this Chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to Aboriginal peoples for Canada’s role in the Indian Residential Schools system.
To the approximately 80,000 living former students, and all family members and communities, the Government of Canada now recognizes that it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes and we apologize for having done this.
We now recognize that it was wrong to separate children from rich and vibrant cultures and traditions that it created a void in many lives and communities, and we apologize for having done this.
We now recognize that, in separating children from their families, we undermined the ability of many to adequately parent their own children and sowed the seeds for generations to follow, and we apologize for having done this.
We now recognize that, far too often, these institutions gave rise to abuse or neglect and were inadequately controlled, and we apologize for failing to protect you. Not only did you suffer these abuses as children, but as you became parents, you were powerless to protect your own children from suffering the same experience, and for this we are sorry.
The burden of this experience has been on your shoulders for far too long. The burden is properly ours as a Government, and as a country. There is no place in Canada for the attitudes that inspired the Indian Residential Schools system to ever prevail again. You have been working on recovering from this experience for a long time and in a very real sense, we are now joining you on this journey.
The Government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly.
We are sorry.
In moving towards healing, reconciliation and resolution of the sad legacy of Indian Residential Schools, implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement began on September 19, 2007. Years of work by survivors, communities, and Aboriginal organizations culminated in an agreement that gives us a new beginning and an opportunity to move forward together in partnership. A cornerstone of the Settlement Agreement is the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
This Commission presents a unique opportunity to educate all Canadians on the Indian Residential Schools system. It will be a positive step in forging a new relationship between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians, a relationship based on the knowledge of our shared history, a respect for each other and a desire to move forward together with a renewed understanding that strong families, strong communities and vibrant cultures and traditions will contribute to a stronger Canada for all of us.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Sunday, January 07, 2007
300 reasons not to forget lessons of Wounded Knee
By TIM GIAGO (NANWICA KCIJI)
While Americans agonize over the contents of the Iraq Study Group report and weigh the options of extricating U.S. soldiers from the middle of a civil war, the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota will gather on a lonely hill overlooking the demolished village of Wounded Knee -- destroyed during the occupation of the American Indian Movement in 1973 and never rebuilt -- to commemorate and grieve the massacre of their ancestors.
It was after a night so cold that the Lakota called it "The Moon of the Popping Trees," because as the winter winds whistled through the hills and gullies at Wounded Knee Creek on the morning of Dec. 29, 1890, one could hear the twigs snapping in the frigid air.
When a soldier of George Armstrong Custer's former troop, the 7th Cavalry, tried to wrest a hidden rifle from a deaf Lakota warrior after all of the other weapons had already been confiscated from Sitanka's (Big Foot) band of Lakota people, the deafening report of that single shot caused pandemonium among the soldiers and they opened up with their Hotchkiss machine guns upon the unarmed men, women and children.
Thus began an action the government called a "battle" and the Lakota people called a "massacre." The Lakota people say that only 50 people of the original 350 followers of Sitanka survived that morning of slaughter.
One of the survivors, a Lakota woman, was treated by the Indian physician Dr. Charles Eastman at a makeshift hospital in a church in the village of Pine Ridge. Before she died of her wounds, she told about how she had concealed herself in a clump of bushes. As she hid there she saw two terrified little girls running past. She grabbed them and pulled them into the bushes.
She put her hands over their mouths to keep them quiet, but a mounted soldier spotted them. He fired a bullet into the head of one girl, then calmly reloaded his rifle and fired into the head of the other girl. He then fired into the body of the Lakota woman. She feigned death and, although badly wounded, lived long enough to relate her terrible ordeal to Dr. Eastman. She said that as she lay there pretending to be dead, the soldier leaned down from his horse, used his rifle to lift up her dress in order to see her private parts, then snickered and rode off.
As the shooting subsided, units of the 7th Cavalry rode off toward White Clay Creek near Pine Ridge Village on a search-and-destroy mission. When they rode onto the grounds of Holy Rosary Indian Mission, my grandmother Sophie, a student at the mission school, and the other Lakota children, were forced by the Jesuit priests to feed and water their horses.
My grandmother never forgot that terrible day, and she often talked about how the soldiers were laughing and bragging about their great victory. She recalled one soldier saying, "Remember the Little Big Horn."
The Massacre at Wounded Knee was called the last great battle between the United States and the Indians. The true version of the events of that day were polished and sanitized for the consumption of most Americans. Twenty-three soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were awarded this nation's highest honor, the Medal of Honor, for the murder of nearly 300 innocent and unarmed men, women and children.
Although 25 soldiers died that day, historians believe that most of them died of friendly fire when they were caught in the crossfire of the machine guns. Many Lakota have tried in vain to have those medals revoked.
Before they died, the Lakota warriors fought the soldiers with their bare hands as they shouted to the women and children, "Inyanka po, inyanka po! (Run, run)." The elderly men, unable to fight back, fell on their knees and sang their death songs. The screams and the cries of the women and children hung in the air like a heavy fog.
When I was a young boy I lived at Wounded Knee. By then the name of the village had been changed to Brennan to honor a Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent, but all of the Lakota knew why the name was changed. Because although the government tried various ways to conceal the truth, the Lakota people never forgot; they always referred to the hallowed grounds as Wounded Knee, and they continued to come to the mass grave to pray, even though it was roundly discouraged by the government.
As a child I walked along the banks of Wounded Knee Creek and I often had an uneasy feeling, it was as if I could hear the cries of little children. Whenever I visited the trading post where my father worked I would listen to the elders as they sat on the benches in front of the store and spoke in whispered voices as they pointed at the hills and gullies. Never did I read about that horrible day in the history books used at the mission school I attended.
Two ironies still haunt me. Six days after the bloody massacre the editor of the Aberdeen (S.D.) Saturday Pioneer wrote in his editorial, "The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilizations, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth."
The author of that editorial was L. Frank Baum, who later went on to write that famous children's book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In calling for genocide against my grandmother and the rest of the Lakota people, he placed the final punctuation upon a day that will forever live in infamy amongst the Lakota.
And finally, as the dead and dying lay in the makeshift hospital in the Episcopal Church in Pine Ridge Village, Dr. Eastman paused to read the sign above the entrance that read, "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men."
----------------------------------------------------------
Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association
While Americans agonize over the contents of the Iraq Study Group report and weigh the options of extricating U.S. soldiers from the middle of a civil war, the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota will gather on a lonely hill overlooking the demolished village of Wounded Knee -- destroyed during the occupation of the American Indian Movement in 1973 and never rebuilt -- to commemorate and grieve the massacre of their ancestors.
It was after a night so cold that the Lakota called it "The Moon of the Popping Trees," because as the winter winds whistled through the hills and gullies at Wounded Knee Creek on the morning of Dec. 29, 1890, one could hear the twigs snapping in the frigid air.
When a soldier of George Armstrong Custer's former troop, the 7th Cavalry, tried to wrest a hidden rifle from a deaf Lakota warrior after all of the other weapons had already been confiscated from Sitanka's (Big Foot) band of Lakota people, the deafening report of that single shot caused pandemonium among the soldiers and they opened up with their Hotchkiss machine guns upon the unarmed men, women and children.
Thus began an action the government called a "battle" and the Lakota people called a "massacre." The Lakota people say that only 50 people of the original 350 followers of Sitanka survived that morning of slaughter.
One of the survivors, a Lakota woman, was treated by the Indian physician Dr. Charles Eastman at a makeshift hospital in a church in the village of Pine Ridge. Before she died of her wounds, she told about how she had concealed herself in a clump of bushes. As she hid there she saw two terrified little girls running past. She grabbed them and pulled them into the bushes.
She put her hands over their mouths to keep them quiet, but a mounted soldier spotted them. He fired a bullet into the head of one girl, then calmly reloaded his rifle and fired into the head of the other girl. He then fired into the body of the Lakota woman. She feigned death and, although badly wounded, lived long enough to relate her terrible ordeal to Dr. Eastman. She said that as she lay there pretending to be dead, the soldier leaned down from his horse, used his rifle to lift up her dress in order to see her private parts, then snickered and rode off.
As the shooting subsided, units of the 7th Cavalry rode off toward White Clay Creek near Pine Ridge Village on a search-and-destroy mission. When they rode onto the grounds of Holy Rosary Indian Mission, my grandmother Sophie, a student at the mission school, and the other Lakota children, were forced by the Jesuit priests to feed and water their horses.
My grandmother never forgot that terrible day, and she often talked about how the soldiers were laughing and bragging about their great victory. She recalled one soldier saying, "Remember the Little Big Horn."
The Massacre at Wounded Knee was called the last great battle between the United States and the Indians. The true version of the events of that day were polished and sanitized for the consumption of most Americans. Twenty-three soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were awarded this nation's highest honor, the Medal of Honor, for the murder of nearly 300 innocent and unarmed men, women and children.
Although 25 soldiers died that day, historians believe that most of them died of friendly fire when they were caught in the crossfire of the machine guns. Many Lakota have tried in vain to have those medals revoked.
Before they died, the Lakota warriors fought the soldiers with their bare hands as they shouted to the women and children, "Inyanka po, inyanka po! (Run, run)." The elderly men, unable to fight back, fell on their knees and sang their death songs. The screams and the cries of the women and children hung in the air like a heavy fog.
When I was a young boy I lived at Wounded Knee. By then the name of the village had been changed to Brennan to honor a Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent, but all of the Lakota knew why the name was changed. Because although the government tried various ways to conceal the truth, the Lakota people never forgot; they always referred to the hallowed grounds as Wounded Knee, and they continued to come to the mass grave to pray, even though it was roundly discouraged by the government.
As a child I walked along the banks of Wounded Knee Creek and I often had an uneasy feeling, it was as if I could hear the cries of little children. Whenever I visited the trading post where my father worked I would listen to the elders as they sat on the benches in front of the store and spoke in whispered voices as they pointed at the hills and gullies. Never did I read about that horrible day in the history books used at the mission school I attended.
Two ironies still haunt me. Six days after the bloody massacre the editor of the Aberdeen (S.D.) Saturday Pioneer wrote in his editorial, "The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilizations, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth."
The author of that editorial was L. Frank Baum, who later went on to write that famous children's book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In calling for genocide against my grandmother and the rest of the Lakota people, he placed the final punctuation upon a day that will forever live in infamy amongst the Lakota.
And finally, as the dead and dying lay in the makeshift hospital in the Episcopal Church in Pine Ridge Village, Dr. Eastman paused to read the sign above the entrance that read, "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men."
----------------------------------------------------------
Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association
Monday, November 27, 2006
Human Rights...... are they actually a privilage?
I have just returned from a four day National Human Rights Convention. It was good, I learned a lot. One of the things I think I learned, is that in truth, Human Rights, aren't Rights, at least not how I understood them. Human Rights, are Rights reserved for a privileged people that believe they own this world. For the rest of us, Human Rights are something we have to fight for, which, then makes it not a Right. Isn't a Right something that just is, something we don't have to fight for and defend with our blood, with our generations?
Is Gitmo, the US's definition of Human Rights in Action? Are fights, and bloodshed on unceded lands of the Six Nations, Oka, Bear Mountain, Pine Ridge, a fight to defend family and land, that doesn't sound like a Right.
The fact that Canada voted AGAINST the UN Declaration of Indigenous Peoples' Rights, I think it says a lot about who Harper believes deserves this "Human Rights"
Is Gitmo, the US's definition of Human Rights in Action? Are fights, and bloodshed on unceded lands of the Six Nations, Oka, Bear Mountain, Pine Ridge, a fight to defend family and land, that doesn't sound like a Right.
The fact that Canada voted AGAINST the UN Declaration of Indigenous Peoples' Rights, I think it says a lot about who Harper believes deserves this "Human Rights"
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
A picture is worth a thousand words
I know I haven't been much with the posts of late. I have put of photo's instead, and I find they still reflect what I am up to, what I'm thinking of lately. I will write more, once I return from the Human Rights Convention.
Monday, November 20, 2006
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