Dancer at Rest -
by Don Crowley

Thought this would be a good opportunity to educate us all on some of the powerful First Nation men who fought for the Land and the People in years gone by:

Let's start by honoring Makhpiya-Luta (Red Cloud) - 1822-1909
As a warrior and a statesman, Red Cloud's success in confrontations with the United States government marked him as one of the most important Lakota leaders of the nineteenth century.

Although the details of his early life are unclear, Red Cloud was born near the forks of the Platte River, near what is now North Platte, Nebraska. His mother was an Oglala and his father, who died in Red Cloud's youth, was a Brulé Red Cloud was raised in the household of his maternal uncle, Chief Smoke.

Much of Red Cloud's early life was spent at war, first and most often against the neighboring Pawnee and Crow, at times against other Oglala. In 1841 he killed one of his uncle's primary rivals, an event which divided the Oglala for the next fifty years. He gained enormous prominence within the Lakota nation for his leadership in territorial wars against the Pawnees, Crows, Utes and Shoshones.

Beginning in 1866, Red Cloud orchestrated the most successful war against the United States ever fought by an Indian nation. The army had begun to construct forts along the Bozeman Trail, which ran through the heart of Lakota territory in present-day Wyoming to the Montana gold fields from Colorado's South Platte River. As caravans of miners and settlers began to cross the Lakota's land, Red Cloud was haunted by the vision of Minnesota's expulsion of the Eastern Lakota in 1862 and 1863. So he launched a series of assaults on the forts, most notably the crushing defeat of Lieutenant Colonel William Fetterman's column of eighty men just outside Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming, in December of 1866. The garrisons were kept in a state of exhausting fear of further attacks through the rest of the winter.

Red Cloud's strategies were so successful that by 1868 the United States government had agreed to the Fort Laramie Treaty. The treaty's remarkable provisions mandated that the United States abandon its forts along the Bozeman Trail and guarantee the Lakota their possession of what is now the Western half of South Dakota, including the Black Hills, along with much of Montana and Wyoming.

The peace, of course, did not last. Custer's 1874 Black Hills expedition again brought war to the northern Plains, a war that would mean the end of independent Indian nations. For reasons which are not entirely clear, Red Cloud did not join Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and other war leaders in the Lakota War of 1876-77. However, after the military defeat of the Lakota nation, Red Cloud continued to fight for the needs and autonomy of his people, even if in less obvious or dramatic ways than waging war.

Throughout the 1880's Red Cloud struggled with Pine Ridge Indian Agent Valentine McGillycuddy over the distribution of government food and supplies and the control of the Indian police force. He was eventually successful in securing McGillycuddy's dismissal. Red Cloud cultivated contacts with sympathetic Eastern reformers, especially Thomas A. Bland, and was not above pretending for political effect to be more acculturated to white ways than he actually was.

Fearing the Army's presence on his reservation, Red Cloud refrained from endorsing the Ghost Dance movement, and unlike Sitting Bull and Big Foot, he escaped the Army's occupation unscathed. Thereafter he continued to fight to preserve the authority of chiefs such as himself, opposed leasing Lakota lands to whites, and vainly fought allotment of Indian reservations into individual tracts under the 1887 Dawes Act. He died in 1909, but his long and complex life endures as testimony to the variety of ways in which Indians resisted their conquest.

METACOMET
King Phillip was the name the English settlers gave to Metacomet, of the Wampanoag Indians and sachem (chief) of a confederation of Algonkin tribes who lived in what is now southern Rhode Island. Metacomet was the second son of Massasoit, the peaceful Wampanoag chief who maintained friendly relations with both Massachusetts and Rhode Island settlers for decades. Metacomet was a dignified man of remarkable ability, and he was friendly to the settlers, but he believed from an early age that their living on his land would only end in the destruction of his people.

Metacomet (1683-1676)

When Metacomet became chief, it became increasingly difficult to keep peace due to the growing demand for more Indian land in exchange for blankets, guns and liquor. The final humiliation came when he was summoned to Taunton in 1671 by the English and required to sign a peace agreement that included surrender all of his people's guns, leaving them with just blankets and whiskey in place of their land.

Embittered, Metacomet launched a 13-year uprising which came to be called "King Philip's War." There were many raids and killings on both sides (many native peoples slaughtered in their sleep), and many towns were burned. When defeat seemed imminent, he retreated to his ancestral home at Mount Hope, where he was betrayed by an informer, shot in ambush, beheaded, and quartered. His head was displayed on a pole at Plymouth for 25 years.

Gives another view of those "timid" pligrims portrayed by our elementary age school children during Thanksgiving plays, doesn't it?

Ancient Native Americans believed that all animals had lessons to teach and had healing or inspirational power. When they held or carried a certain fetish, or meditated on it's meaning, they believed they drew the special energy of the animal into themselves. Today, in a search for a closer walk with the earth, many are relearning the old ways of these ancient people, using the animal energy as the Native Americans did. To choose which animal energies are right for you, simply take a deep breath, still yourself and ask your inner being. You will have a knowing, as the ancient people did long ago.

Power, Life Force, Sexual Potency

Service, Gathering, Community

Integrating the Theory of Process with Native American Mythology
- by Little Bear and Hummux

In the beginning of time, Creator sat the children around in a circle on Mother Earth and told each race about its individual responsibilities and its roles in the great sacred hoop of life. The sacred teachings were divided into four equal parts and one given to each tribe. The four root races were then sent to the four directions, each given a special knowledge of creation. The Yellow People were entrusted with Spirit and the element of fire. The Black People were given Soul corresponding to the element of water. The White People learned about the Mind and the element of air. And the Red People had Body and the element of earth.

Each race was therefore given a quarter of the whole truth of creation... but as time passed, they forgot that their knowledge was incomplete. Each thinking their knowledge was the whole truth, they began to quarrel with each other.

The White People were told that they had a special mission to counsel the other races and bring them all together. In three previous periods, a different race had been given this task, but they each abused their privilege and so the creator destroyed all the people with their own powers. Volcanos destroyed the world during the period of fire. An ice age came and destroyed the world during the period of earth. The deluge came and destroyed the world during the period of water; and now this is the period of air.

The White People were told that knowledge of the Mind was very powerful and to be careful or this world would be destroyed by damage to the air.

Unfortunately the White People forgot the Creator's warning and as they traveled the earth, instead of counseling with the other races and incorporating their quarter of the knowledge into the whole truth, they used the power of the mind to dominate the other races.

The went to the Yellow People and brought opium addiction to enslave them instead of learning about Spirit. They went to the Black People and put them in chains and made slaves of them instead of learning about Soul. When they came to America, they brought with them the Yellow People and the Black People as slaves as they began their conquest of the Red People. They did not attempt to learn about the Body and caretakership of the earth from the Red People, but rather attempted to destroy them. And sure enough, in our time, the destruction of forests which produce oxygen and balance our habitat. The pollution from fossil fuels, and the chemical destruction of the oceans and the ozone layer all lead to destruction of this world by the contamination of the air - the White People's own special expertise, represented by the Mind.

There are many native mandalas with varying degrees of correspondence with Arthur Young's Theory of Process. The one we will discuss is this:

The people of the Mind believe their knowledge is all that is needed - so they destroy the Body of Mother Earth, and ignore the Spirit altogether

We can still mend the Sacred Hoop, however, and restore the world to balance. In our Mandala, the People teache balance of the four elements. Each direction is associated with a special guardian, laws and teachings.

CHIEF JOSEPH - Nez Pierce (1840-1904)
Chief Joseph, known by his people as In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat (Thunder coming up over the land from the water), was best known for his resistance to the U.S. Government's attempts to force his tribe onto reservations. The Nez Perce were a peaceful nation spread from Idaho to Northern Washington. The tribe had maintained good relations with the whites after the Lewis and Clark expedition. Joseph spent much of his early childhood at a mission maintained by Christian missionaries.

In 1855 Chief Joseph's father, Old Joseph, signed a treaty with the U.S. that allowed his people to retain much of their traditional lands. In 1863 another treaty was created that severely reduced the amount of land, but Old Joseph maintained that this second treaty was never agreed to by his people. A showdown over the second "non-treaty" came after Chief Joseph assumed his role as Chief in 1877. After months of fighting and forced marches, many of the Nez Perce were sent to a reservation in what is now Oklahoma, where many died from malaria and starvation.

Chief Joseph tried every possible appeal to the federal authorities to return the Nez Perce to the land of their ancestors. In 1885, he was sent along with many of his band to a reservation in Washington where, according to the reservation doctor, he later died of a broken heart.

Quotes from Chief Joseph
I have carried a heavy load on my back ever since I was a boy. I realized then that we could not hold our own with the white men. We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears. We had small country. Their country was large. We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them. They were not, and would change the rivers and mountains if they did not suit them.

I am tired of fighting.... from where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.

Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. These laws were good. They told us to treat all people as they treated us; that we should never be the first to break a bargain; that is was a disgrace to tell a lie; that we should speak only the truth; that it was a shame for one man to take another his wife or his property without paying for it.

We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit made them.