500 Years Dwelling Among Savages, THE ONLY TREATY NEVER BROKEN

August 20, 1997, home

THE ONLY TREATY NEVER BROKEN

There is a homeland in NE California just south of the Modoc, west of the Paiute, north of Yosemite and east of Wintu, Yana and Yahi. This part of earth will always belong to my people, the Is/Aw’te (currently misidentified as Pit River). The land area covers 3,386,000 acres of mountains, valleys, rivers, streams, lava beds and high deserts.

Ako Yet (Mt Shasta) and Yetta’jenna (Mt Lassen) are our western “corner stones.” Sa’tit (Glass Mountain) and Ahji tinihowi (Medicine Lake) are our northern boundary. Many people come to Glass Mountain to gather obsidian, for arrowheads, spear points, scrapers for hides, slabbed glass for cutting hair, and medicine doctors use sharp glass for operating on the body. Wadak’joshi (Warner Range) is the mountain range that creates our eastern “wall.” Ah’sit (Eagle Lake) is on the southeastern edge of the homeland.

In 1853, after _ of the native population of California was erased by disease and invasion, the U. S. Congress ordered that treaties be negotiated between the tribes of California and the United States. The U. S. Constitution supports that indigenous surrender of aboriginal title is the lawful means whereby the American government may legally acquire indigenous land. There were 18 treaties negotiated with the indigenous of California but none of them became instruments of law because they were not ratified by the U. S. Senate. The argument against ratification was and remains that by “giving” 108,000 acres to the natives while retaining 8.5 million acres, the agreement would give far too much land to indigenous while denying too much “good” land to settlers and immigrants.

Without the natives surrendering aboriginal title to America, aboriginal title cannot pass from the spirit of the indigenous people to the U. S. Government. The Indian Claims Commission found that aboriginal title is a fact of law, and must be quieted legally. In California aboriginal title is not legally quieted, but remains illegally abrogated and politically smothered.

The eleven tribes that comprise the Is /Aw’te (Pit River) nation have been, since the first opportunity, struggling for justice through racist American courts while using colored, slanted American laws.

We have never understood how it is that we can be denied access to our ancestral domain since the laws of the U. S. Constitution are not satisfied. How can American corporations, American citizens and State Government fan out upon our homeland claiming every inch of it without our consent or without due process of law?

We argue that indeed there are trespassers but none of them are of indigenous origin. We reason that those in trespass should be arrested by U. S. Marshals for their crimes and sentenced by both American and indigenous law.

A young native person speaks from the local jail. It is cold in the cell. Indigenous are in jail because the Sheriff and District Attorney of Shasta County,upon a request from Pacific Gas and Electric Company of San Francisco, arrested 50 indigenous. The indigenous are charged with entering buildings belonging to PG&E without consent of the corporation. We argue that it is the corporate structures that are in trespass as well as the notion of absentee ownership.

Great Power hear the cry of the native heart
In this stone house dark and cold
We want the land and to be left alone
They took it, they wanted the gold

Gold was stolen by the angry whites
From the streams feeding the big river
Now they offer paper promises for all our land
Then call us the “Indian Giver.”

I am peering through a window of this cement house
crossed with hard, cold steel
It is dark outside and the coyote’s whine,
Knowing how the lonely hearted feel

My mind looks down on native land,
And two small weed-grown graves
Upon mom and dad who tried to raise
Strong-hearted native braves

****************
And I remember the words of my daddy long ago:

“My son, remember always that the Americans
for as long as the seasons change
will not honor a paper with our people
Honor may not be in their hearts

“Treaties have been made then broken before the ink was dry

“Their speaking-page has never been honest with our people

“There is only one treaty that they have not broken,
our own treaty

“It was not written by the Americans

“IT IS WRITTEN IN THE WIND
and upon the hearts of our people
and within the changing seasons
and upon all rainbows

“This is the only reason why
there is no broken treaty with our people
“You must not forget it is written in the wind.”

Mr. Turn key

Now I’ve got to get back to the land I love
The mountain the river the plain
To live with the spirits in harmony
To defend the land again

The old ones thought there were papers sealed
And signed with dignity’s hand
But there is no treaty and by native right
It is still our very own land

For a warrior does not sell the mother he loves
The mother who gave him life
Any more than he sells his only son
Or the spirit of his tender wife

In the schools I have read many history books
Speaking only confusion and more lies
This earth will always belong to my people
For as long as the sparrow flies

The whites have written many thousand books
To prove this land their own
But for time immemorial my people were here
It is proven by our writing on the stones

Mr. Jailor bring the key to this coyote den
That is cold, unfriendly and dark
Let me go to the place where the sun shines warm
To the singing of the meadow lark

I’ve got to get back to the land I love
To the banks of the big, big river
To the beating of drums and the spearing of fish
And the frying of mule deer liver

And there I’ll live while all around
There is blue and open sky
The fresh air weaving through my thick black hair
And that’s where I’ve decided I will die

With my rifle in my hand and my face to the sky
And the sun all around me thick and thin
The only treaty never broken by the cruel white hand
Is the treaty that is written in the wind.

Sul’ma’ejote