Over 16,531,698 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?
You have stories to tell and that is what will keep the memory of a great people alive. Pass the stories to your children. Teach them who, where and what their people were. Take time to search your ancestry. Remember the past they took and have patience. Stay in tune with your feelings and be strong in your search.
Trace your walk, feel satisfaction in knowing the end of the rainbow you have looked for can be found at the toe of your moccacin after realizing who we are and what we have.
Chief John "Eagle Spirit" Campbell
Cherokee Elders Council, Houston, TX
Learn how to withhold judgment
Learn to listen
Get in touch with your own inner self
Look at life with joy
Don't ever cry over something that cannot cry over you.
did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, —you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.
Hehaka Sapa (Black Elk)
Medicine Man of the Oglala Sioux, 1931
You have noticed that everything an Indian does in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.
In the old days all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished. The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop, and the circle of the four quarters nourished it. The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth, the west gave rain and the north with its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance. This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion.
Everything the power of the world does is done in a circle. The sky is round and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing and always come back again to where they were.
The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children.
Black Elk
Oglala Sioux 1863-1950
It’s A Good Day To Die
I lift my hands unto the Great Spirit and worship him who has by himself created all things visible and invisible, who has blessed me with long life, who has set me upon my Mother among the Human Beings that respect his name and worship him with an unsoiled spirit and heart.
Many moons have passed and my memory flickers as a candle on a windy day that is ready to die out forever more. I have seen unspeakable things that have been committed against the Human Beings, hard to be spoken, the cry of the young for their mothers, and mothers for their children that will never return unto to them ever again.
The wisdom of our Elders died with our old a helpless people that embraced those who traveled across the deep waters, they came with a split tongue killed our people and fed them to their dogs, covering our Mother with a heavy blanket, killing our buffalo for sport, our land is sacred! Our Mother has nourished our fathers and our children and the creatures have given their life for meat and their coat to keep us warm.
They didn’t understand nor do they still understand the way of life, they despise the day of small things and raped our mother for gain and pleasure we must keep the decree of life and respect the land. Our Mother has been provoked and she will shake the heaviness that has been placed on her.
The blood of our children cries unto the Great Spirit. They cannot feel the fire of the heavens that nourished their existence that gave them their beauty. Oh Great Spirit this is a good day to die, I’m weak but ye are strong keep me in the right path which my fathers have taken back to you, I humble myself to be accepted in your most sacred presences.
Shanawanikki Nations (Nippowa Tribe)
Medicine Shield
The medicine shield is an expression of the unique gifts that it's maker wishes to impart about his or her current life journey. This can be a new level of personal growth, or illustrate the next mountain a person wishes to climb.
Every shield carries medicine through it's art and self-expression. Each shield is the essence of a time and space that carries certain aspects of knowledge. All persons carry shields of the lessons they learned from the four directions on the medicine wheel.
They are the healing tools we give ourselves to sooth the spirit and empower the will. The truth needs no explanation,, just reflection. This allows intuition to guide the heart so that humankind may celebrate more than it mourns.
Sun who looks to four winds on
Mother Earth: North, South, East,West.
Enriching one's health,
Bring good luck, fortune,
Healing the sick.
Buffalo horns for strength, protection
Eagle feathers for wisdom, honesty, happiness.
Ernest Hunt - Navaho
Medicine Wheel - Circle of Life
The medicine wheel is sacred, the native people believe, because the Great Spirit caused everything in nature to be round. The Sun, Sky, Earth and Moon are round. Thus, man should look upon the Medicine Wheel (circle of life) as sacred. It is the symbol of the circle that marks the edge of the world and therefore, the Four Winds that travel there. It is also the symbol of the year. The Sky, the Night, and the Moon go in a circle above the Sky, therefore, the Circle is a symbol of these divisions of time. It is the symbol of all times throughout creation
Man is only just beginning to reach a simple knowledge of the wolf. The secrets remain hidden beneath a veil of misunderstanding. Man does not see the world of the wolf in it's proper perspective and does not know how to come to terms with it. Instead, he believes that we are the masters of creation and he refuses to accept that the animals are the ones who are constantly in touch with the realities by which we live and die. But, the wolf can teach us. With it's uncanny perceptions, and a social structure that closely resembles our own, wolves challenge us to be wise.
We need a wiser and perhaps more mystical concept of wolves. Man surveys the wolf through the glass of his knowledge, and sees a feather magnified, and the whole image is distorted. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therin we err. For no animal shall be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
Henry Beston, The Outermost House
On Knowing The Wolf
There are still too many people in this world who hate wolves. Most would change their minds, if they could share my experience. One must understand the wolf in the wild to truly appreciate the animal. We humans judge wolves by our own standards. However, in their own world, up there in the high arctic where human standards are sparse, this wolf pack can maybe teach us think about their species in a different way. By sharing the life of this pack that I have had the extreme privilege of knowing, I hope I can help other people to see the wolf for what it is: One more magnificent species, superbly adapted to contend with it's harsh environment, and highly deserving of our understanding and acceptance.
L. David Mech
The Cherokee Woman at the time of the discovery of the Americas had more rights and privileges than the married woman of today. Women not only owned the property, participated in both the fighting of Wars and the Councils of War, but also sat with the Civil Councils of Peace.
Lineage was traced through her Clan. Upon marriage, the new husband was expected to live with the Clan of his wife. To get a divorce, the wife simply put the husband’s personal belongings outside the door of the lodge. There were no legal entanglements over the division of property or the custody of children, for all the property of any value already belonged to her, and the children belonged to her Clan.
Women of today have come a long way toward their rightful place in the sun, but have not yet reached the position of the Cherokee Woman at The Time of Discovery.
Raven Hail (AWO, GO-LA-NV)
Woman, Marriage and the Family
It has been said that the position of woman is the test of civilization, and that of our women was secure. In them was vested our standard of morals and the purity of our blood. The wife did not take the name of her husband nor enter his clan, and the children belonged to the clan of the mother. All of the family property was held by her, descent was traced in the maternal line, and the honor of the house was in her hands. Modesty was her chief adornment; hence the younger women were usually silent and retiring: but a woman who had attained to ripeness of years and wisdom, or who had displayed notable courage in some emergency, was sometimes invited to a seat in the council.
Thus she ruled undisputed within her own domain, and was to us a tower of moral and spiritual strength, until the coming of the border white man, the soldier and trader, who with strong drink overthrew the honor of the man, and through his power over a worthless husband purchased the virtue of his wife or his daughter. When she fell, the whole race fell with her.
Before this calamity came upon us, you could not find anywhere a happier home than that created by the Indian woman. There was nothing of the artificial about her person, and very little disingenuousness in her character. Her early and consistent training, the definiteness of her vocation, and, above all, her profoundly religious attitude gave her a strength and poise that could not be overcome by any ordinary misfortune.
The Soul of the Indian
Dr Charles Alexander Eastman, 1911
born Ohiyesa of the Santee Sioux, in 1858
Women and Wolves
A healthy woman is much like a wolf, strong life force, life-giving, territorily aware, intuitive and loyal. Yet seperation from her wildish nature causes a woman to become meager, anxious, and fearful.
The wild nature carries the medicine for all things. She carries stories, dreams, words and songs. She carries everything a woman needs to be and know. She is the essence of the female soul...
With the wild nature as ally and teacher, we see not through two eyes only, but through the many eyes of intuition. With intuition we are like the starry night, we gaze at the world through a thousand eyes.
It does not mean to lose one's primary socializations. It means quite the opposite. The wild nature has a vast integrity to it. It means to establish territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's body with certainty and pride, to speak and act in one's behalf, to be aware, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition, to find what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, to proceed as a powerful being who is friendly but never tame.
The Wild Woman is the one who thunders in the face of injustice. She is the one we leave home to look for and the one we come home to. She is the one who keeps a woman going when she thinks she's done for. She is intuition, far-seer, deep listener, and she is loyal heart. She thrives on fresh site and self-integrity.
She must strut the old pathways, assert her instinctual knowledge, proudly bear the battle scars of her time, write her secrets on walls, refused to be ashamed, lead the way through and out, be cunning and use her feminine wits.
Where can you find her? She walks in the deserts, cities, woods, oceans, and in the mountain of solitude. She lives in women everywhere; in castles with queens, in the boardrooms, in the penthouse, and on the night bus to Brownsville.
She lives in a faraway place that breaks through to our world. She lives in the past and is summoned by us. She is in the present. She is in the future and walks backward in time to find us now.
Wild woman whispers the words and the ways to us, and we follow. She has been running and stopping and waiting to see if we are catching up. She has many things to show us.
Whether you are possessed of a simple heart or the ambitious, whether you are trying to make it to the top or just make it through tomorrow, the wild nature belongs to you.
Don't be a fool. Go back and stand under that one red flower and walk straight ahead for that last hard mile. Go up and knock on the old weathered door. Climb up to the cave. Crawl through the window of a dream. Sift the desert and see what you find. It is the only work we have to do.
Without us, Wild Woman dies. Without Wild Woman, we die. Para Vida, for true life, both must live.
