I STAND FOR SALMON (PART 2)

SALMON

Salmon were made versatile but delicate. They could survive any act of nature, but they could not survive evil acts of neglectful abusive strangers set to damage nature and earth. Chemicals and toxic wastes in the water effects salmon like Small Pox blankets affected the indigenous at first contact not long ago. The salmon can flee, but to where? And, what is it spreading?

Salmon is endangered because of many forces beyond any control, but mostly because nature has been interrupted by foreigners and they refuse to correct their errors because they changed nature “For the best.”

The low population of salmon is another warning (like the canary in the mine), that ocean and earth’s spirits are beyond the breaking point.

The big river in my homeland, It Ajuma, ran sweet to the ocean and brought us Salmon every season. This was the case ever since earth began turning around sun. One day in the early 1900’s PGE, with carelessness and some deliberate ignorance laced with greed, put a dam across the river. Salmon and other migratory fish could not complete their spawning cycle. I suspect it was whispered in the corporate office, “For the best.”

My people and much life along the river were attuned to the return of the salmon, waiting in a calm yet dignified and excited expectation. The first loud splash on the river, made by a salmon clearing the surface to slap back in, caused much happiness. Bears gathered at the river. Osprey and eagles gathered along the river. My people gathered at the river. Salmon, our main diet, a diet that kept the people and landscape healthy forever, returned once again as they have since the beginning.

That cycle stopped one day. Our diets changed and not for the better. Life along the river changed, looking over its shoulder while walking away to hunt for food. The landscape faced a sudden famine. The natives faced famine, too. We are yet in the recovery mode.

The ocean is very sick because of toxic waste and poisons being dumped in it. The ocean is nearly empty because of fishing practices, and the use of 40-foot nets that strain fish of all sizes and takes from the ocean, much of which is not used but dumped back as a carcass. Some sinking to the bottom to rot.

Many from Europe in their arrogant posture refuse to acknowledge that earth and nature are alive with feelings and deep emotions, know pain, abuse and neglect. They giggle and point fingers at the humble natives singing to the dawn and to all of the powers of the universe. Many natives were instructed to sing love songs to Mother Earth, and we must.

One day the fish will respond to the poisons created “For the better,” then life will follow. Too late we will find “For the better” is our final song.

The warnings are ignored. Poisons flow into the sea. We cannot breathe. We cannot swim in the ocean. Where do we go? What do we do?

As I was instructed by the Elders of my childhood, I will go to the mountain top at dawn and sing a love song to Earth. I will sing a song for salmon, too.

That is all,
Sul’ma’ejote

I STAND FOR SALMON (PART 1)

The ecology upon this hemisphere trembled, like a frightened horse, when European man first touched it. After a month of leaving a trail of pollution in the ocean as they traveled here from Europe seeking gold, the strangers touched land. After thousands of years of of conflict and crusades, plunder and pollution were in their spirits and diseases were upon their breaths. Whatever they touched soured and began to decay. Their assault upon the ecology began in their unclean thoughts devoid of respect and their imbalanced ideas of life. Immediately they began a program of destruction to the indigenous beings and to the indigenous landscape. Their presence was toxic to earth and it damaged the water and the air.

They assembled upon the eastern homelands then scattered in many directions, inviting more of their kind to assault this land, the ecology, the indigenous. When they looked back upon their pollution and destruction, they called it "glory." Their plan was to destroy indigenous people and indigenous landscape, to erase the natives and to destroy the ecology. They have, to date, almost accomplished both endeavors. The diseases they carried, like a black cloud, covered the land and the water. The natives not knowing that they were carriers fled from village to village infecting all they touched and destroying millions of indigenous in their desperate flight.

Soon pollution creating diseases were in the ocean and in the great rivers of my homeland and among the leaves of the forest.

Lessons and Legends

Anthropology has labeled the oral narratives, the spoken history, the knowledge that has traveled trough eons and ages, of the indigenous upon this hemisphere to arrive here now as myth. That is a gross error that will be corrected one day. Often I wonder if those ideals anthropology and academics stand for are not myth.
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From our lessons and legends we learn that our wa'tu (spiritual umbilical cord ) reaches beyond the stars into a land, our origin. Some legends state that we came here from the land beyond the stars and our wa'tu is connected there, all of us. Some of us don't know our legends, some legends were castrated during the conflicts of the crusade, and some were deliberately ignored out of existence.

I was terribly lucky to be informed by the older generations. According to legend, our spirits traveled through the stars to get here. Silver Fox, in spirit form, acquired the power to dream and created the dream. He came here first but there was no here, here, then Coyote spirit came. Silver left the land beyond the stars because he was a great creator, but everything he created Coyote changed "For the better", Coyote said. However, the change was always not good and always destructive.

When Silver Fox arrived Annikadel was here already. Annikadel was a great dreamer. He dreamed and threw the dreams to others and gave them the power to create whatever was in the dream. Annikadel also gave a song with the dream. It took a very long time to create this world and prepare it for children. Nowadays they say, "A million years or more." After many songs and many dreams here we are.

Earth was beautiful, and there were many homelands and many customs, languages, and songs. The homeland of my birth was beautiful with deer, birds, bears, eagles, hawks, squirrels and forests, and the big river brought us the salmon from the big water, every season. There was abundance of life in a great variety, all created to function with all others, balanced, complete.

Many events in history are distorted and confused and confusing in their deliberate distortion. "The discovery" is one. To Europeans it was new life, hope. To the natives it was a trespassing, an uninvited intrusion, an unwanted penetration, an entrance not announced, an offense. The trespassers were two-legged, but but the important part of their being, their life's spirit, wandered without focus or feeling. Often they were cruel. They were also stubborn and refused to depart our homeland. They lingered, and they invited more of their kind to come here and claim all that they wanted, to not share, and to destroy that which they didn't want. We heard them say, "For the better." They came without rules and laws. Like Coyote they damaged or change all that they touch saying, "It is for the better."

Today the ecology and life-cycles of nature upon this hemisphere has been altered, abused and damaged beyond repair and we hear "For the best because now we have paved the way for God or Science will fix it."