Buddhism, Hindus, God, Fate and Khukuris

When the Israeli's talk about "The Holocaust" I always want to ask "which one?".

I believe what the Nazi's did to the Jews was every bit as bad as they claim it was.

I also believe the Israeli's are pushing the envelope in their overeaction to the intifada. Think what it must take to bring someone to the point he'll blow himself up to take half a dozen of the enemy with him.

Think also of what the Russians did to the Polish Officer corps at the Katyn forest. What the Turks did to the Armenians. Why one priest proclaimed "There are no devils left in hell, they are all in Rwanda!". The piles of skulls left by the Khans. It's more often than not been the usual experience to know an older relative who's barely escaped the most recent slaughter if not having experienced it yourself. The Sikh's killed by Muslims with the partition of India and Pakistan. Pol Pot for another.

...............................................

What saddens me is I have a cousin ten years older than me who became a teacher and out of a desire to help, taught at Stewart Indian School until it was closed down. I imagine she did some good, and treated her pupils well. But she participated in the end of the "Generation of Lost Children".

Children taken from their homes and shipped hundreds of miles to be brought up in a white environment. Not allowed to grow up being taught by the elders ( grandparents ) and parents the traditional ways. The teachers on the reservations now who are retireing are those who were brought up in the Indian Boarding Schools like Stewart and were deprived of their heritage. The new teachers coming up for the last several years are the children of the lost generations. And the elders they were separated from died off without having the chance to pass along their wisdom. And even more, their traditions, religion, and IDENTITY.

You want to know why there's so many drunken indians? The Mandan substance abuse counselor I shared an office with on the res said it's because selling booze to indians was illegal for so many years that when they did get booze, they passed it around and got crocked real quickly before anyone could take it away. And that got to be the way indians drank - get it drunk down fast, before it was taken away. And by the time selling to indians was legal, that type of drinking was habitual among the people and continued.

I worked on the res for 5 years. I don't claim to begin to know half of what I could have learned from the experience. But I can tell you that they got and still get the short end of the stick. That's why so much emphasis on "Pride", cause they ain't got much else to get them through.

Sorry for spouting off, Yvsa. What I see as problems out here may not be the same as exist back there where you live.
 
Little Bro I thank you for spouting off as you call it.
The ndn condition is pretty much the same where ever you go except I think it is worse in the North and the West although we have our share of problems here as well.
None of us Oklahoma ndns will forget Johnny Beartrack a young ndn warrior that was killed by cowardly ignorant subhumans.
There was three of them that picked Johnny up and gave him a ride, but not to where he was going. The first atrocity was stopping in a secluded area and beating Johnny really bad. Then they put him back in the car and drove him to another remote area where there was a bridge over a creek.
They pulled Johnny from the car, dragged him under the bridge where they beat him again and then shot and killed Johnny.
But not before Johnny had written their tag number on his palm with his own blood so the police would have at least one clue as to what happened to him.
Needless to say they got off pretty light considering what they had done. Had Johnny of been any other minority the cowardly killers would have all gotten the death penalty, but the attitude here in Oklahoma, Land of the Redman, is way still too often, "It was just another ndn so who really cares? Everyone knows they're not really human anyway."
Thankfully the situation here isn't nearly as bad as it is in other states where deeds like what happened to Johnny are a more common occurance.
I know how myself and a young nephew have been treated in parts of the North and how I was treated in the West several years ago.
The ndn problem is still the same as it always was. The US Gubbiment wants to assimilate us so we will eventually go away.
Even the BIA's stance on blood quantum is designed to eliminate the ndn.
Their stance is that if say a Cherokee and Osage fullbloods marry their children can only be enrolled in one tribe or the other, not both.
This means that a full blood ndn child is considered only half and eventually through the loss of blood quantum we will disappear in theory anyway, but we know who our family is and ever so we shall remain.
This last US Census has proven that there are more ndns now than there was even 20 years ago!!!!
Our blood runs deep within this great country and we will always inhabit the place that was given to us to live by the Great Mystery.
There are those like myself who keep the old ways alive for the seventh generation yet to come. Our ways will never be lost nor will we ever disappear from the face of Turtle Island, what the non-ndn calls North America.
I truly believe that if the US Gubbiment stopped the ndn wars that we would eventually be able to "Get over it and move on." but not until that happens which I doubt.
Greed runs too deep in the hearts and minds of men that have no faith in anything but themselves.
They are godless and in the end shall die the death of the godless.

Even Thomas Jefferson once pretended to be the ndns friend and after he was elected president his words were, "Drive the ndns to the Rockies and beyond!"
He is not one of our heroes although we recognise him as a man that done great deeds for his own people.
Things are often not what they seem to be..........
 
I'm glad Rusty brought up the education and wiping out of indian culture. This was for the best reasons; that is, the people who thought this up and the public which went along with it were not doing it out of spite but out of sympathy. This is what happens too often when we try to be kind and don't know what the damn hell we are doing. Reading the political history of an older america shows the public sympathetic to the native plight. It was a constant theme of reform. Every politician paid lip service to it, or had to address the issue one way or another. I am guessing much of the public didn't understand what was actually happening. Naturally, we were part of a society where it 'was just another indian' so I wonder if anyone looked very hard to see if the US kept its obligation. This brings me to a question, how much of the travesty was the US gov, how much the public? Remember; this is the same government that sent tens of thousands of settlers to the arid west with 40 acres and a mule, knowing full well by their own internal documents that there was no way the climate could sustain most of them. They sent them to death and ruin.

If you think about an older america, all minorities wanted to blend into the mainstream, but wanted and did retain their heritage. All except the Black and ndns. Displaced people.

Yvsa, I don't get the hate or indifference about indians you refer to in OK. I haven't seen much of it. just telling you. People have been telling me recently there is a world of difference between the reservation ghetto and those individuals lucky or plucky enough to get out. Reservation murder, drunkeness, drugs, molestation, rape..etc..give the haters their excuse to stereotype ndns.

One thing I don't think is helpful is white guilt. This establishes the never ending cycle of condescension and enablement. I am wary of indian haters or ---- fill in the blank, any haters, but also frightened of indian lovers....They don't get it. We are just human beings, nothng more and certainly nothing less. White guilt has a sister issue; the perception indn's are better than the Europeans. We know the tribes were as different as leaves on a tree. The US destroyed friend and foe alike. ( i like to think of that as true democracy. The Feds will crush anyone.) Tribes did horrible things to one another... this is not a surprise: is not the history of man the same for all of us?

My Assinboine friend C B was in an auto accident in Billings. He had a head injury and was cut. The medical staff checked his blood for drugs or alcohol. ( my friend is an addiction counselor) He wasn't talking right, his words were slurred. He pointed out to them that his vision was very bad and they did rush him for a brain scan. EVerything was OK, so they let him go. Now it is three oclock in the morning in winter in Billings MT, and he is wearing a bloody sheet with no car as it had been totaled, and they've cut his street clothes off of him.

My father is an old redneck from Kansas. KNow what that wise and bitterly humorous man had to say upon hearing this? He thought CB should return for his followup appt at the hospital in two weeks wearing the same bloody sheet, look them in the eye and hold their gaze.

munk
 
There was something else I wanted to say. Hatred works both ways, and many on the Res hate Whitey. Contrast this to the American flags I saw waving all over the Res after 9-11, as many or more than in nearby non-res towns. Most people have no idea how many indns are vets. I don't know what is happening today, but I'm 46, and I can tell you from observation most able bodied men my age and older are almost always vets on the Reservation.

munk
 
BTW Yvsa - and you'll LYRRAO - my cousin, being full blooded Hungarian, married a man named Jefferson ( forget what tribe he was from ). They raised 3 or 4 indian children adopted thru his tribe.
 
Originally posted by Rusty
BTW Yvsa - and you'll LYRRAO - my cousin, being full blooded Hungarian, married a man named Jefferson ( forget what tribe he was from ). They raised 3 or 4 indian children adopted thru his tribe.
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:D :D :D :D
Bro one of my best bud's is a rather large Mvskokee Creek named Brutus Washington.
When us ndns were forced to pick last names to get along in the yonegi's world we were much like the Black People who chose famous names.
My ndn name Yvsa-gigagei is really only one name although it's two seperate words.;)
My Christian name is one I have had to live down instead of a name I had to live up to like my ndn name.
The Gerhardt's were as infamous locally as Bonnie and Clyde were nationally.:(
Being an ndn hasn't helped matters a whole lot in the name issue either.
 
Many Thanks to Yvsa and Rusty for sharing their experiences and knowledge of a part of society that is mostly overlooked and grossly undervalued (and mistreated) to their detriment and ours as well.


Please keep on teaching us, we ARE listening... That may sound patronizing or hoakey, but I assure you it is meant with the utmost sincerity.


I think when I first became interested in Indian issues and history it was out of a sense of deep shame and guilt. Now that feeling is still there but now I really want to know because I feel that the more people who know the real story, the closer we can come to setting things right---or at least doing things right by the Indians from here on out. Like the say if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. That's no more true than here I think.
 
Sad stuff. Man's inhumanity to man has been with us since the beginning and will be here until man decides to expand his spirituality.
 
There's a project to ship millions of tons of spent Uranium and Plutonium from its locales on the east coast to Yucca mountain, which is on ndn res land too.
My wife was part of the Citizens Action Colaition here in Indy, and they tried to stop this stuff from passing. Seems that the rich corporate east could pay off many state govs to accomodate the next land rape. This stuff will come from the east across I-70, (like 10 miles from my house), all the way out west. Now, the geologic surevey of the Yucca mtn site has shown it to be unstable, but they don't realy care, they jsut need to make rooom for the next batch of 'dirty bomb fuel' (I mean, tyou're gonna have trucks filled with this stuff leaving sites in N.Y. every 20 minutes, and you've got 'sleeper cells' of terrorists looking for this stuff, trying to make some nasty weapon. I'll sh!t myself if some terrorists steal one or more of those trucks, and we're practically handing them the stuff!

To top it all off, few states between here and there are hazmat trained, and non are ready to deal with a radiological spill. Takes 30,000 years for the stuff to reach half life, and I hope we don't permanently screw up our DNA or something.

On the ndn topic, check out Incident at oglala, a show about AIM in Canada. Yvsa, I'm sure you've seen it. How about Leonard Peltier still held in fed warehousing? These are hi visibility cases of the continuing "domination" of the native by the invader--Can't we all just get along?

I have a feeling that the common man of any race, religion, nationality, etc has much more in common that we are led to believe (so my world travels and meetings have proven to me). I think that societies, led by govt and media agenda-setters, called "Gate Keepers" attempt to demonize and agel-cise folk all the time, hoping the blind masses wil pick up on their ecomomics-base 'love' or 'hate' for an entire race, religion, or continent. Govts and socities have found that contented people suck as workers. If you add a little fear, race tension, or give a broad 'enemy' category, you've got the makings of productivity (i.e. stress)

Example -- Cold war. In the 60s, 70s and 80s, the "Russians" were demonized in the US. by 1990, millions of Russians move to the US, much like any other oppressed groups. Now, anyone who saw Iron Eagle, Top Gun, Firefox, even that one Rocky movie, was basically taught to generally fear (or hate) Russians BY THEIR OWN FREAKING "ENTERTAINMENT" INDUSTRY.
Why? Fear breeds productivity, Stress breeds productivity, sugar, caffeine, metamphetamines, cocaine, etc, feed the stress levels that burn people, out, make 'em useful cogs in the machines.

I have many friends from the Ukraine, Belarus, and other less desirable areas of the defunct USSR, and as always they have proven to be what we are all 'taught' to be so damned afraid of ---Decent Human Beings.

Keith
En Ferro Veritas
 
Originally posted by Rusty

You want to know why there's so many drunken indians? The Mandan substance abuse counselor I shared an office with on the res said it's because selling booze to indians was illegal for so many years that when they did get booze, they passed it around and got crocked real quickly before anyone could take it away. And that got to be the way indians drank - get it drunk down fast, before it was taken away. And by the time selling to indians was legal, that type of drinking was habitual among the people and continued.
Click to expand...

Forgive me for saying something about something I don't know anything about: drinking.

That counselor's words sound to me as if stating the following: Since they are "just" Indians they become whatever we introduce them to, because they don't have the same capabilities as human beings to control themselves.

I know that wasn't what he really wished to say, because he meant well. But I have talked to some International Red Cross workers working with improving the living conditions in Africa. And when I ask them why all their earlier projects have failed they say that Black people just do their things (as in saying that it is not the Black people's fault that they are Black...). To me it sounds as if they consider Black people less than themselves, even though they have dedicated their lives to help them. What I mean is that this is an attitude that may rest deep within many people who are not aware of it themselves. I am not saying that these people have the concious intention of putting down people of other races, I am saying that one person can be innocently infected with such subconcious ideas.

So I was just thinking. Maybe that councelor in the Indian res was innocently and unknowingly was infected with some bad residues of bad old cultural attitudes.

If this is correct then another explanation must be found for why the Indians tend to drink much. And since I have been drunk only 3 times in my life and I have no friends who drink either, this is where I will not speculate any further.

Cheers!
 
Originally posted by Eikerværing

Forgive me for saying something about something I don't know anything about: drinking...
>
And since I have been drunk only 3 times in my life and I have no friends who drink either, this is where I will not speculate any further.
Click to expand...


I on the other hand got my paycheck during most of the last twenty years from either the State Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse as a counselor for early intervention ( in the schools ) or from the State Welfare Division as a Social Woker. I did a thousand hour internship with Adult Parole and Probation, and a shorter stint in Suicide Prevention. Oh, plus the five years working on the res.

Bottom line is if you want to lead someone up and out of any hell, you have to go to where they are and start talking to them and leading them out from those depths. Wanna hear bout the time I grabbed a cop and took him with me to do a strip search for marks of child abuse on a six week old baby in the embalming room of the mortuary? Been there, done that.
 
I can speak with a little authority on this matter of drunkeness.

I suspect I've been drunk more times than anybody on this forum. It's something I'm ashamed of today but that's the truth. I drank to escape a reality I could not face. I've spent a fair amount of time on the Rosebud, less time with Navajos and Hopis but some and I've seen the Indians get as drunk or drunker than me and it's my best guess they drank for the same reason I did -- to escape a reality they could not face.

The observation that people are people no matter what you might call them or where you might find them is a cogent one. Governments, religions, and other organizations with more might than brains will try to make us believe otherwise when it suits their purpose. Again, until man somehow manages to upgrade his basic spirituality things will not change for the better. A greater sense of spirituality leads one to the real truth and the truth will set us all free.

End of sermon.
 
I'll buy what Uncle said. It ain't the whole thing but it'll get you to where you can make a start at the changes needed.
 
Only healthy individuals and societies can move on. The one we have picks at the wounds and can neither embrace nor run from the past.

Rusty, in my years as a psychiatric nurse I saw no opportunity to lead anyone. Just be on hand when they decide it's time to move.

I keep in mind all those American flags flying on the Res immediately after 9-11. That's the bottom line.

Pretty interesting when Bill comes alive, aint it?





munk
 
As has been spoken we're basically all alike in some ways. Us ndns aren't any different than any other folk with a couple of exceptions.

While the Blacks wanted in we wanted out, still do.
The sterotypeing about drinking is just that, sterotypeing.

Some of us can drink responsibly and some of us can't.
What really started the drinking problems among us ndns so long ago was that us ndn men had our livelyhood taken from us.
You also have to bear in mind the differences in history before the advent of Columbus when we were not known except by the Norsemen and they accepted us as we did them and got along with us from the old stories.
They at least got as far as Oklahoma from the Runestone National Park down near Heavener!!!!
Also explains the old Cherokee and other peoples who once in a while had blond haired and blue eyed babies suddenly appear.
Before the advent and influx of the Eurpoean we were mostly people who pretty much minded our own business and any "wars" that were "fought" were mostly a big show.
The old "Stick Ball Games" were called "The Little War" and many contentions was settled by a game of Stick Ball instead of going off on the warpath.
Only when we started to be displaced by the European did the big wars start that were so devastating to all the ndns.
There's a lot of Sioux that still don't like the Cherokee because we ran them outta their country before they became the great warriors of the p[lains.
Anyway to the drinking issue......

When we, and I say that in a very broad sense because not all of us were affected the same way, were mostly defeated and became "Hang around the Fort Indins" we had nothiing to do.
We were no longer allowed to raom as we once had. We weren't allowed to hunt off the rez.
Everything we did as men was taken from us.
Bill is partly right in that many did drink to escape, still do to this day in many parts of the country.
The Cherokee weren't affected as badly because we had many, many years of peace with the Yonegi.
We were already mostly farmers with most of our sustenance coming from agriculture.
The Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw and to some extent the Seminole were very similar in our cultures.
Trying to lump all the ndns together is much the same as comparing Swedes, Irish, Polish, German and other peoples as having the same bad traits.
Most people don't realize that there were over 500 different nations on this land before the Europeans. There's 80 some tribes now represented in Oklahoma. The Land of the Redmen.
When we as Cherokee recovered from the Trail Where We Cried as well as many from the Creek and other Nations we took up as much as possible where we left off.
Many of our medicines were no longer available because of the differences in terrain between here and our homelands but we knew how to farm and farm we did and some still do.
There's many names still powerful such as the Perrymans and the Bushyheads just to name a couple.
No one nation had it any tougher than any other nation, just different.
In later years did the incidences of the boarding schools became the status quo.
Many children destined for the medicine path were well hidden from those that would send them to school.
There's more than one kind of knowledge and it's damn near impossible for anyone who has went to the schools forcedly to become a medicine person.
I know of amy Elders that were sent away to Chillocwa(sp?) and some not so elder and around my age.
They still talk about those days. We have long, very long memories, perhaps that's part of our problem, but I don't think anyone can do anything to make us forget our past.
That's a great part of who we are and we can be proud of our heritage!!!!

Ever notice when us ndns won a battle it was a massacre and when the whites won a battle it was a victory, even though all the ndns were killed?:confused: :rolleyes: :(

There's much in history that needs to be rewritten.:barf:
 
Originally posted by munk
I keep in mind all those American flags flying on the Res immediately after 9-11. That's the bottom line.

munk
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Just wanted to add that of all the people that enlisted to fight in the foriegn wars of the US the ndns had more enlisted per capita than any other race.
The flag that was once hated by us as well as the God of War belonging to the white man Jesus Christ had finally became our own.
The Native American or Peyote Church started out as a parody of the Christians and was a mockery of the Christian Churches.
Originally it was w way to meet and eat peyote sort of legally and to make fun of the Christians who preched one thing and then did the other.
Due to the influx of Christian ndns it has became what it is today, another Christian Organization, albeit one that has done a lot of good among the ndn people..

I along with many other ndns of many bands, tribes and nations choose to worship our Old Ones in our own ways.
There has been great healing among all that have came back to the old ways, even the curing of alcoholism!!!!
Life is good for many of us once again!!!!
Not so good for even more and many others!!!!:(
 
Originally posted by munk
Rusty, in my years as a psychiatric nurse I saw no opportunity to lead anyone. Just be on hand when they decide it's time to move.
Click to expand...

I never see the opportunity either. I just say "thank you" to them when someone comes up and tells me how much something I said meant to them, ( a month or two before ) and then try to remember to close my mouth instead of standing there incredulously.
 
I tell ya Yvsa, I gotta make the drive down to see that Park! Maybe we could meet there and pour a beer on the ground, scatter some tobacco to the wind, and yell at old gods, eh? Thor, Tyr and Wakan Tankas (spelling???).

sounds like fun to me!

Keith
En Ferro Veritas
 
Yvsa you obviesly know a lot here. So I ask you about this link:
http://www.timesoft.com/hopi/
When one reads their prophecies one finds that it resembles things of modern science to a striking degree. So my question to you is if these prophecies displayed on the internet really are authentic? If they are, then I am going to do a lot more reading about it soon!

Blue eyed Indians you say? Interesting! My father was a sailor in his younger days. And one time his ship was loading cargo in the river called Orinoco in Brazil they suddenly were inspected by a group of Amazonian Indians in canoes. And several of them had dark blonde hair... These were true Indians, sitting half naked in their wooden canoes, their faces did not look mix breeded. The blond hair must have been very old in their tribe. The Vikings may have traveled quite far!

The reason explained by several people above for drinking seem plausible. People drink to forget and feel better.
 
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