Holiday Desecration and Destruction. Updated.

Credit: Natalie Hand.

Credit: Natalie Hand.

I wanted this to be a day of no tears. Just one day. Didn’t happen.

Sacred places containing ancient burial sites, places of prayer and other significant cultural artifacts of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe were destroyed on Saturday September 3 by Energy Transfer Partners, Tribal Chairman David Archambault II said.

On Friday, the Tribe filed court documents identifying the area as home to significant Native artifacts and sacred sites.

“This demolition is devastating,” Archambault said. “These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors. The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings there cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground.”

Construction crews removed topsoil across an area about 150 feet wide stretching for two miles, northwest of the confluence of the Cannon Ball and Missouri Rivers.

“I surveyed this land, and we confirmed multiple graves and specific prayer sites,” said Tim Mentz, the Standing Rock Sioux’s former tribal historic preservation officer. “Portions, and possibly complete sites, have been taken out entirely.”

[…]

“We’re days away from getting a resolution on the legal issues, and they came in on a holiday weekend and destroyed the site,” said Jan Hasselman, attorney for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. “What they have done is absolutely outrageous.”

Full story here.

Just in, from ICTMN: What Dakota Access Destroyed: Standing Rock Former Historic Preservation Officer Explains What Was Lost [Video].

This interview was recorded on September 3, 2016. Former Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Tim Mentz explains the destruction of burial grounds and sacred sites by Dakota Access Pipeline LLC. This sacred site is what people were trying to protect when Energy Transfer Partners brought in aggressive dogs to attack unarmed people.

“This demolition is devastating,” said Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman David Archambault II. “These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors. The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground.”

https://youtu.be/9EAWpI5L_Bc

And Then the Dogs Came: Dakota Access Gets Violent.

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https://nodaplsolidarity.org/

We still need help, we need voices, we need people, we need all those willing to boost the signal in every way possible.

Red Warrior put out an all-call for “ALL water warriors around the world to come stand with us, inviting supporters to join us in prayer” during two Weeks of Global Solidarity Actions between September 3 and 17.

Why? Because this is what is happening in response to peaceful protesting:

Opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline, or "water protectors," were attacked with dogs, pepper spray on Saturday near the site of the pipeline route.

Opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline, or “water protectors,” were attacked with dogs, pepper spray on Saturday near the site of the pipeline route.

 

Video streamed live over Facebook showed Dakota Access LLC–employed security guards handling lunging dogs.

Video streamed live over Facebook showed Dakota Access LLC–employed security guards handling lunging dogs.

Courtesy Red Warrior Camp Water protectors reported a violent encounter between Dakota Access LLC security guards, who allegedly used attack dogs and pepper spray against them.

Courtesy Red Warrior Camp
Water protectors reported a violent encounter between Dakota Access LLC security guards, who allegedly used attack dogs and pepper spray against them.

 

Dakota Access pipeline security personnel used dogs to try and stop the water protectors in an action that was streamed live on Facebook. (Photo: Courtesy Red Warrior Camp).

Dakota Access pipeline security personnel used dogs to try and stop the water protectors in an action that was streamed live on Facebook. (Photo: Courtesy Red Warrior Camp).

In a statement released in a live-stream on Facebook, Red Warrior Camp leaders said that at about 3pm on Saturday September 3, “water protectors successfully stopped pipeline construction as it reached Hwy. 1806 through nonviolent direct action and mass assembly.”

As they did so, private security guards working for Dakota Access LLC “deployed vicious attack dogs, pepper spray and physical assault against the water protectors,” Red Warrior said. “According to the most recent update, six water protectors were bitten by dogs, a dozen or more pepper sprayed, while others were physically assaulted, including women. A helicopter was photographed flying over the area.

Full story here. Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

Sarah Sunshine Manning has an updated story about what is happening at the camps.

Harold Frazier, Cheyenne River Sioux Chair demands answers:

According to many witnesses at the scene, neither state nor county law enforcement officials were at the construction site during the incident. It is extremely suspicious to me that law enforcement became scarce at the exact time when DAPL’s hired guns were planning to attack the water defenders. A press release recently issued by the Morton County Sheriff’s Department insinuates that the peaceful protesters were the provokers of the incident because several individuals allegedly cut a fence and entered the work site. State and local law enforcement officials keep telling the media, without proof, that the protesters are committing unlawful acts. In my opinion unleashing vicious attack dogs on women and children, and spraying dozens of unarmed people simply because they are exercising their constitutional right to assemble, is unlawful.

I am calling on all members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe to avoid traveling to or doing business in the Mandan-Bismarck area until this crisis is resolved. I fear for my people’s safety. Today’s act of terrorism shows us how desperate DAPL and the State of North Dakota government are to keep things at a status quo. I am concerned about the escalating violence against Natives in that area.

When will Governor Dalrymple step up and meet with Tribal leadership in an open, good faith effort to resolve this conflict? The key to settling this situation is in the hands of North Dakota leadership. I requested a meeting with Governor Dalrymple last week, but as of today has received no response.

Matika Wilbur caught much of this on video (complete story here):

Sunday Camp Story.

Photo: Sara Lafleur-Vetter.

Photo: Sara Lafleur-Vetter.

Mark Sundeen at Outside Online has a long, in-depth, excellent story about the camps and the Standing Rock protest. I’m only going to include a small amount here, you should really click over and read, it’s great!

…I parked alongside a towering teepee on the riverbank, slept in the car, and in the morning met my neighbors, a delegation of Pawnee elders who had driven 18 hours from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The degree to which I didn’t know what I was getting myself into was made clear when Chief Morgan LittleSun, 58, a warm and affable welder and teepee builder, told me that his biggest concern coming up here wasn’t cops—it was the Sioux tribes.

“Pawnee and Sioux hated each other forever,” he said. Even though the tribes had signed a peace treaty, LittleSun had seen hostility at powwows, and even fights.

I asked when the Pawnee and Sioux tribes had made this uneasy peace.

“150 years ago.”

As far as LittleSun knew, this was the first time since then that Pawnee chiefs had traveled this far into Sioux territory. While dates of Indian wars and treaties are history-test minutiae that most white people (like me) tend to forget, LittleSun was one of many Native Americans I met for whom the past was not really dead, as the saying goes, not even past. They rattled off these 19th-century events like they happened yesterday, and this gathering at Standing Rock was occasion for a new round of history making. The site was called Seven Councils Camp, indicating the first time all bands of Lakota had gathered in one place in more than a century. That afternoon, the Crow Nation marched into camp in war bonnets, waving flags, singing and whooping, bearing a peace pipe and a load of buffalo meat, offering the first real reconciliation since 1876, when Crows were scouts for Custer at Little Bighorn, where the U.S Cavalry got its ever-loving ass kicked by the Lakota. At last count, representatives from more than 120 tribal nations had arrived from as far as Hawaii, Maine, California, and Mississippi.

But when I asked LittleSun, whose tribe historically had a proud tradition of stealing horses, if he’d felt uneasy here, he shook his head emphatically, and a smile spread over his face. “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. All day long, strangers walked into his camp and offered food and firewood and asked which tribe he belonged to, and when he told them, they didn’t flinch but embraced him as a brother, an uncle, an elder. “But when I raised the Pawnee flag on a pole,” LittleSun added with a laugh, “everyone moved their horses to the other side of camp!”

This is something most people don’t understand. For many Indigenous peoples, history is not old, dusty past, something to be discarded, forgotten with maybe a trip or two back for reference. History is living, it’s a thread of continuity, of stories, of life, of connectedness. Time is all one flow, and if you drop a big ol’ dam down, you lose so much, you cut yourself off, isolating yourself. And yes, of course, in these current times, there’s a need to chop time up into tiny compartments now and then, but if you’re not careful, you do that with all time, and it’s a painful loss, even if you aren’t terribly aware of that right now.

[Read more…]

Invisible 1 & 2.

In1Not too long ago, Jim C. Hines edited personal essays on representation in SF/F, and it was excellent and eye-opening. It was certainly uncomfortable at times, but that discomfort is just panicked relics of oblivious privilege trying to assert itself. I had more than a few stabs of serious guilt in reading this anthology, particularly the one about Albinism. (Having enjoyed that “evil Albino trope” more than a few times in the past, without ever thinking about actual people.) The essays in the first Invisible are:

Introduction by Alex Dally MacFarlane.

Parched, by Mark Oshiro.

Boys’s Books by Katharine Kerr.

Clicking by Susan Jane Bigelow.

The Princess Problem by Charlotte Ashley.

Autism, Representation, Success by Ada Hoffmann.

Gender in Genre by Kathryn Ryan.

‘Crazy’ About Fiction by Gabriel Cuellar.

Evil Albino Trope is Evil by Nalini Haynes.

Options by Joie Young.

Non-binary and Not Represented by Morgan Dambergs.

Representation Without Understanding by Derek Handley.

Shards of Memory by Ithiliana.

I Don’t See Color by Michi Trota.

SFF Saved My Life by Nonny Blackthorne.

In2If you missed Invisible the first time around, I could not possibly recommend it enough. While happily slumbering away under my rock, I was unaware that Invisible 2 had been put together and published. That’s been remedied, and like the 1st, this is excellent reading. As Jim C. Hines notes in the afterword, “They help us to become better readers, better writers, and better human beings.”

So many of these essays resonated, and others were serious wake up calls to stop being so bloody blinkered. Like the first anthology, this one is littered with highlights, bookmarks, and notes. Too Niche, by Lauren Jankowski about the complete invisibility of asexual people in SF/F was one of those that was a good smack on the head. In her essay, she mentions that Stephen Moffat declared Sherlock Holmes can’t be asexual because he’s too interesting. That left me spluttering and outraged. That’s an incredibly wrong, stupid, thoughtless, and insulting thing to say. Other essays which really hit home were Breaking Mirrors, Fat Chicks in SFF, Not Your Mystical Indian, Exponentially Hoping, and Colonialism, Land, and Speculative Fiction: An Indigenous Perspective. 

The Essays in Invisible 2 are:

Introduction by Aliette de Bodard.

Breaking Mirrors by Diana M. Pho

I’m Not Broken by Annalee Flower Horne.

Next Year in Jerusalem by Gabrielle Harbowy.

I am Not Hispanic, I am Puerto Rican, by Isabel Schechter.

No More Dried Up Spinsters by Nancy Jane Moore.

False Expectations by Matthew Thyer.

Text, Subtext, and Pieced-Together Lives by Angelia Sparrow.

Parenting as a Fan of Color by Kat Tanaka Okopnik.

Alien of Extraordinary Ability? by Bogi Takács.

Accidental Representation by Chrysoula Tzavelas.

Discovering the Other by John Hartness.

Lost in the Margins by Sarah Chorn.

Too Niche by Lauen Jankowski.

Fat Chicks in SFF by Alis Franklin.

Not Your Mystical Indian by Jessica McDonald.

Exponentially Hoping by Merc Rustad.

Colonialism, Land, and Speculative Fiction: An Indigenous Perspective by Ambelin Kwaymullina.

Nobody’s Sidekick: Intersectionality in Protagonists by SL Huang.

The Danger of the False Narrative by LaShawn Wanak.

Both these anthologies are excellent, if often uncomfortable, reading. Seriously recommended if you haven’t read them.

Tribal Photography.

© Jimmy Nelson.

© Jimmy Nelson.

How often do you learn a valuable lesson from pissing yourself drunk, besides, “never drink that much again?” While traveling with a Central Mongolian tribe, photographer Jimmy Nelson learned lessons both in reindeer psychology and humor after downing too much vodka and wetting his tent. As the story goes, he woke up to reindeer charging into his bed (apparently they love human urine). Nelson tells this and more stories, accompanied by his majestic portraits of the customs and trappings of indigenous peoples from accross the world, in a new video from the Cooperative of Photography. Like Aesop’s fables, Nelson’s anecdotes have lessons touching on knowledge, vulnerability, and pride. Young photographers can also learn a lot about how to interact with subjects respectfully and purposefully.

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© Jimmy Nelson.

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© Jimmy Nelson.

 

Jimmy Nelson currently has a show at Gallery KNOKKE through September 18. See more of his work on his website. Visit the Cooperative of Photography for more tips, tricks, and interviews with photographers.

Via The Creators Project, where there are more photos.

Ancestors and Descendants.

Robert Geronimo, a descendant of Geronimo, works at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, the tribe’s resort and casino in Mescalero, New Mexico. He became aware of his famous ancestor when he was in kindergarten. Photo by Kerri Cottle.

Robert Geronimo, a descendant of Geronimo, works at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, the tribe’s resort and casino in Mescalero, New Mexico. He became aware of his famous ancestor when he was in kindergarten. Photo by Kerri Cottle.

Meet the family of Geronimo:

Their Apache ancestors were chased, hunted and herded into history. Shaped by decades of war, Geronimo, Cochise, Victorio, Lozen and Mangas Coloradas (and those they ran with) cultivated a genius for survival so their descendants could live on.

But live on, how? By letting the ancestral legacy of greatness and distinction define them, or by wearing the identity lightly? For the living descendants of the Geronimo family of Mescalero, New Mexico, the answer is both.

The first time Robert Geronimo became aware of his famous ancestor was in kindergarten.

“A kid comes up to me and says ‘I want to beat up a Geronimo.’ I said ‘I haven’t done anything to you, you haven’t done anything to me.’ The kid threw a punch and I returned it,” he explained, “and we both ended up in the principal’s office.”

From then on his grandparents taught him to read between the lines of accounts of his great-grandfather as a blood-thirsty killing machine, or even as a “chief” leading his people.

You can read more about the Geronimo family here.

Hazel Spottedbird, seen here with her husband Tommy, is a descendant of Cochise. (Photo by Kerri Cottle).

Hazel Spottedbird, seen here with her husband Tommy, is a descendant of Cochise. (Photo by Kerri Cottle).

Meet the descendants of Cochise:

Their Apache ancestors were chased, hunted and herded into history. Shaped by decades of war, Geronimo, Cochise, Victorio, Lozen and Mangas Coloradas (and those they ran with) cultivated a genius for survival so their descendants could live on.

Cochise (c. 1805 – June 8, 1874) was a reluctant Apache warrior, but a persistent one who survived the Battle of Apache Pass to fight on another decade. His descendants, who live on reservation lands granted after the Indian Wars in Mescalero, New Mexico, are inheritors of that doggedness. By vocation and avocation they continue their ancestor’s fight for Apache survival.

[…]

Hazel Spottedbird’s grandfather Christian Naiche Jr., grandson to Cochise, was born a prisoner of war and lived the first 13 years of his life in the Apache prison camps of the Southeast.

“Grandpa didn’t say a whole lot to us about his early life as a child prisoner, because we were still young ourselves,” Hazel explained. But he was among those Apache elders who provided oral histories to Eve Ball, whose papers are archived in the C.L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department at the University of Texas in El Paso.

“I am a very proud Chiricahua Apache because of those names Naiche and Cochise,” she declared. “My grandpa lived without fear, my mother also; she would not be told what to do, she had her own mind. I feel like I’m like that now, out of my three sisters I’m the one who’s out there: I dance, participate, I’m not afraid.”

You can read more about the family of Cochise here.

A lot of people make jokes about famous, well known Indians. Pretty much everyone has heard Geronimo’s name used as an adjective and an exclamation. What people don’t realize, or think about, is that these family lines are alive and well, and their ancestors are much loved, in the same way of people everywhere, who love grandparents and great grandparents. So, the next time you might think about joking in that manner, or hear someone else doing it, give a gentle reminder to yourself or another, that these were people, and they still have family who don’t think they are jokes. Why hurt people when you don’t need to, yeah?

Sunday Dance.

No facepalm today. No eyerolls. No head shaking, no crying, no despair, no sense of hopelessness. I need healing, and it’s days away until the camps and wacipi. So, just for today, I’m going to pretend that all people are good, and all people are as connected to all as they should be. Way back when these photos were just taken, I uploaded some to a photo forum I used to frequent. I had a person take me to task over the 7th photo, because the dancer “ruined the moment and atmosphere completely” by wearing NBA socks. I never noticed until that moment, being captivated by the young man’s dancing, which was beautiful. Public perception, it really, really has to change. Clickety for full size.

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© C. Ford, all rights reserved.

Books.

IMG_1101

Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor is one of the best things I have read in quite a while, and I’ve read a number of very good books. Ms. Okorafor’s books resonate with me in a way that many other wonderful books don’t. That’s because these works have an Indigenous mindset and outlook. They are woven. And connected. Binti not only concerns itself with the main character’s decision to leave a finely woven net of family, tradition, and the earth, there’s the contentiousness of making that decision. It not only concerns itself with aliens who aren’t very happy with humans. It concerns the thoughtlessness which drives colonial actions, even academic actions, and the consequences of such thoughtlessness. Through all of this, there are wonders, questions, and harmony. At the end, I found myself wanting more of Binti’s story, and it was with absolute joy I found out there will be another novella, early in ‘017.

Binti_final

In this, Binti and Okwu travel to Earth. I can’t even say how very much I look forward to more of Binti’s story, and Okwu’s too. You can explore more at nnedi.com.

Dakota Access: Stand Up!

(Photo: Melinda Lee)

(Photo: Melinda Lee)

Where Movements Meet: Black Lives Matter Organizers Visit #NoDAPL.

 

UN body says Sioux must have say in pipeline project.

 
Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

Books.

Ethno

A while back, I posted about this book. At that time, I didn’t have the book yet. I have it now, and it is a wonderful read, filled with great information. Some of it made me very homesick, like the entry for Hairy Manzanita (Arctostaphylos columbiana). The manzanita that grew in Idyllwild, Ca., is a different Arctostaphylos, but those differences are minor, and manzanita has always been used by Indigenous peoples in various ways. I love every single thing about manzanitas, and it makes me ache a little, just thinking about them. Patricia’s book includes a whole lot of plants I was not familiar with, and was not at all familiar with Indigenous uses of them. I learned a lot, and was delighted over and over again, like when I was viewing a photo of an older Indian woman wearing a pine nut apron.

The writing flows like water, and this isn’t just a story told, this is a text which provides learning, and a reference to all the wonders around us. You can order the book here, and I highly recommend it.

Labor Day Pow Wow Schedule.

Louis Campbell (Lumbee) - Photo: Vincent Schilling.

Louis Campbell (Lumbee) – Photo: Vincent Schilling.

Check out our Pow Wow listings here.

Twitter: #ICTMNWeeklyPowWowPlanner

Leech Lake Labor Day Pow Wow, September 2–4

Leech Lake Veterans Grounds next to the Palace Casino on Palace Drive

Cass Lake, MN  56633

For more information: go to http://www.llojibwe.com/ or

https://www.facebook.com/Leech-Lake-Powwow-Committee-270735403027667/

 

Ashland Labor Day Pow Wow, September 2–5

Northern Cheyenne Reservation

Between Ashland & St. Labre  off U.S. 212

Ashland, MT  59003

For more information: go to http://cheyennenation.com/Public%20Information.html

 

Totah Festival Pow Wow, September 3

Farmington Civic Center

200 West Arrington

Farmington, NM  87402

For more information: go to https://farmingtonnm.org/events/totah-festival-indian-market-pow-wow/ or

https://www.facebook.com/Totahfestival/

[Read more…]

Washington State Natives: No DAPL.

Indian Nations from the Pacific Northwest came to support the Standing Rock Sioux. Courtesy Gyasi Ross.

Indian Nations from the Pacific Northwest came to support the Standing Rock Sioux. Courtesy Gyasi Ross.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II welcomed a delegation of eight Indian nations from Washington State on Tuesday August 30 who joined the growing opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline that threatens the tribe’s water supply and sacred places on Oceti Sakowin Treaty lands.

The Yakama Nation, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Lummi Nation, Puyallup Tribe, Nisqually Indian Tribe, Suquamish Tribe, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and Hoh Tribe traveled with a large delegation from the Pacific Northwest with a sacred totem pole to demonstrate spiritual support. After a blessing at the Standing Rock camp near the river, the totem pole will be permanently raised at the Turtle Lodge on the Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba next week.

“Yakama is humbled and honored to stand beside our brothers and sisters of the Standing Rock Sioux. We’re observing a peaceful and prayerful gathering to move an entire country. We stand united in solidarity with the natural laws of this land, advocating for responsible decision making and honorable communications,” said Yakama Chairman JoDe Goudy.

“Together, we express to the U.S. government that now, more than ever, is the time to fulfill the trust obligations laid out within the treaties and historical interactions with the Native peoples of this land. Until such things come to pass, the spirit and voice of all peoples shall unite with Standing Rock. One voice, one heart, and one spirit to speak for those things that cannot speak for themselves.”

[…]

Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby, who also serves as NCAI president, said, “We are a placed-based society. We live where our ancestors are buried. Our culture, laws, and values are tied to all that surrounds us, the place where our children’s future will be for years to come. We cannot ruin where our ancestors are buried and where our children will call home, uproot ourselves and move to another place. We cannot keep taking for granted the clean water, the salmon and buffalo, the roots and berries, and all that makes up the places that our First People have inhabited since time immemorial. Our futures are bound together.”

More than 150 tribes so far have sent resolutions and letters of support to show solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux and the Seven Council Fires of the Lakota’s efforts to stop the pipeline.

“Words can’t express how thankful we are for all of the prayers, support, letters and donations we have received,” said Archambault. “It inspires us every day on our mission to protect this area for future generations and all who use it.

[…]

“I am here to stand with the Standing Rock people because my people are facing the same threats to bear the risk of development for the Puyallup Tribe,” said Councilman David Bean. “It’s an LNG terminal that will be built in the middle of our reservation and threaten our treaty protected resources.”

[…]

“Everyone has heard that this pipeline would be more than 1,100 miles long and would transport more than half a million barrels of crude oil every day across our lands,” said Cedric Good House, a traditional leader for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

“What they don’t know are the irreplaceable sacred places across the landscape and the deep cultural and spiritual knowledge that is tied to them,” he said. “These are the places and the knowledge that make us who we are today as a tribe. I plan on telling my grandchildren about the time when tribes across the country stood up and fought for treaty, culture, and the future. And we fought for the future of safe drinking water for all Americans. No longer is the world watching us, the world is with us.”

Water protectors at Standing Rock. (Photo: Courtesy Steven Sitting Bear/Standing Rock Sioux Tribe).

Water protectors at Standing Rock. (Photo: Courtesy Steven Sitting Bear/Standing Rock Sioux Tribe).

Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

Dave Archambault Sr. has an excellent column up at ICTMN: Anti-DAPL: Are You a TRAITOR or PATRIOT? – Also, Navajo Nation Lends Support to Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Against Dakota Access.

Via ICTMN.