July 26. 1991, U. C. Davis
ORO! PLATA! ORO! AZTECA ORO!
Simulations with the European invasion of the western hemisphere, was the discovery that there was much gold and silver here. Columbus stumbled upon a land that was totally unknown to Europeans or the Bible, and remains, after 500-years, unfamiliar to those Europeans who have failed to cultivate a natural, spiritual sense with it.
While October 12,1492, is not the beginning of native history on this hemisphere,
It is the beginning of something: Assault, by strange beings with intentions of committing grievous harm to the people, the landscape and the earth. It must not be, in the clear thinking of indigenous, a moment of Discovery. It must be viewed as heinous invasion. It must be viewed as an instance of unwanted penetration, and the beginning of a planned and tragic rape that may have no ending.
Arrogant land-famished Americans and Europeans, coupled with foreign greed and basic stupidity maintain the position that our homeland was empty, just begging for someone to “discover” it, and for a strange God to place a heavenly population here. Those thoughts are imbalanced and dated. Now natives struggled to put forth an ancient paradigm presenting the “real” purpose for the earth and earth’s populations. This knowledge is in our legends.
One truth is that this hemisphere was not waiting for anybody to come from anywhere to “discover” it. All of the necessary elements of this hemisphere were established at the origin of earth, feathered into the purpose of the universe. Earth was then populated with the correct types, balanced and intentionally placed numbers of humans and wildlife. That balanced dream is disrupted, seeking desperately to correct it self. Greed, coupled with the “American Dream,” are the root cause of the imbalance this hemispheric homeland is experiencing.
The Intense and unnecessary confrontation that occurred in the Bahama Islands between the invading Europeans and the native people in 1492 was and remains today, one of value. That is the single most abrasive element in the thought pattern of the invading Europeans, their gnarled interpretation of value. The invading population placed no value upon wisdom and knowledge. They severed the heads of the knowledge and shoved swords through the hearts of wisdom, while destroying the wonders of the landscape. Value to the native people was and remains in thought, dream, purpose, responsibility and integrity.
As Cortes marched into Mexico attacking the diseased-weakened people (diseases that spread quickly from the first voyage of Columbus and his unclean pirates) dwelling there with the intention of destroying them to the last child , and taking Aztec gold to the King and Queen of Castile/Aragon while claming all of the earth for the crown, as did all of the early search-and-destroy elements (under the disguise of adventure), he was directly in confrontation with the values native people placed upon everything. His was a singular, money-oriented value system where everything was measured in money equivalency. Native’s valued gold and silver for there beauty. Natives valued life and earth’s life with an intense awareness of its creation, its spiritual power and its personal needs.
When Pizarro entered Panama and the areas of south America that he Violated. He managed to learn that the natives worshipped earth for its beauty of purpose, and not for the nuggets in the streams.
Then Pizarro invaded Peru. He found a divided feuding people in civil unrest. In the north Atahulapa was established. Huscar, his brother , established rule in the south. They were not of balanced minds. Each brother wanted the Peruvian kingdom for himself. They fought. Pizarro sided with one then the other. When the war had depleted the supplies of each brother and diseases from Europe had weakened the population long before his arrival, and there was a wounded, desperate society, Pizarro stepped in with a few men and guns and took Atahualapa prisoner.
In exchange for his freedom, Atahulapa provided Pizarro with $8,000,000.00 in gold of dazzling jewelry design. Pizarro accepted the jewelry, Atahualapa remained in chains( The Americana ,1911, PAZ-PUB, Pizarro)
The Value system of the European (Americans) is yet in direct conflict with that of Native People of this hemisphere. It seems that EuroAmericans have a great emptiness within their spiritual power since they have continually demonstrated an inability to understand the beauty, and purpose for life and earth. The strangers exchange earth for money, rendering it real estate and property, similar to that mentally hovering over slaves. It is a constant wonder to traditional indigenous people how or why this thinking is allowed to exist in the universe. That thought patters in far out of balance and has no healing purpose.
The life-spirit of earth, universe and native people cannot be separated. When native people are denied access to the earth and the earth’s spirit’s for vary long, earth begins to wither inside like a walnut that appears healthy, but when broken into one finds it has been rotting to black powder all along.
“The problem of the Indians is rooted in the land tenure system of our economy. Any attempt solve it with administration or police measures, thought education or by a road building program is superficial and secondary as long as the feudalism of gamonales continues to exist. Gomonalismo necessarily invalidates any law or regulation for the protection of the Indian. (Mariatiqui,1974, “seven Interpretive essays on Peruvian reality.” AustinU.,pp 23).
Gun-controlled Democracy is as much in confrontation with the native people in America as is the disturbed gamonales thought elsewhere upon this continent. Like beheading flowers in the meadow with a double-edge sword, Democracy has invaded the native nest and now demands that the original people participate in democratic enlightenment, or perish. It is not spiritually healthy for native people to either believe in or participate in that foreign rule. We are in balance when we adhere to our own systems and when we exercise our own “way.” More and more natives must compare our history with that of the foreigners, turn away from imbalance, and employ our “way” for the benefit of our existence, and deny all else.
From the end of the barrel of the democratic gun comes the command ordering natives to obey foreign rule and participate in a “Democratic” native election. In the original native way, the true power to disagree with any subject was to stay away and not be “counted.” Calculated, deliberate absence remains the most powerful “no” vote upon this continent, a thousand forms of “Democracy” and an array of military cannons notwithstanding!
With the “new” Democratic way in native country, a “no” vote is not counted in an absence but their absence conveniently turns into an act of agreement. “It takes a pretty smart native to understand the ways of the white man.” Grampa Ramsey Bone Blake, Elder, said long ago:
“The white man don’t sleep. They stay awake and think and plan all day and night. They are awake always and they have made machines that stay awake longer than they can. They are against us. Those machines take very good care of white people, but they are against us!”
This clash of cultures and of value systems must be examined, dissected and corrected within the native numina. For government to attempt to be of any assistance to the “problem” by creating new layers of bureaucracy or pretended self-determination programs (programs that emit from the established, moldy bureaucracy), is futile. Upon this hemisphere the original native system of values and original world-view must be understood and accepted by all people, free from any influence from outside interests. Somehow soon the concerned natives must gather and seek solutions for the many problems. The “invasion mentality” in America and in European societies, have no desire to accomplish this for natives, anywhere. Mother Earth and native people cannot wait another 500-years for the invading population to awaken while bureaucratic rules of little meaning pile like dead limbs on the forest floor. We must free ourselves from participation in democracies and bureaucracies and re-establish the natural rules that govern this hemisphere. All else will continue as chaos.
The last wave of Elders departed, including Grampa Ramsey. Their “power” rests within the universe, their hearts are held by Mother Earth. I search the horizon for knowledge-bearers. The vast horizon is vacant. Feeling abandoned, my spirit trembles. But I take refuge in Grampa’s dream:
“There was a gathering. One Chiefs from many tribes, from circle [North Pole] to Patagonia. They talk and sing in spiritual way – in prayings, in thoughts, in many language. No need know many language, but understand. Each thought *it’spo’e’otise, each prayer real with meanings to earth, to stars.
End of meeting ripple cross earth. Cleansing. Water good once more. Air good to breathe. Te’ca’te (Mother Earth) sickness, heal. Native real, again. Real language. Real “way.”
Foreign people look to himself, examine. Correct, stay in land. If no correct, must go, take pain, too.”
*it’spo’e’otise: When the eyes of your heart look into the eyes of my heart seeing only good, and the eyes of my heart look into the eyes of your heart seeing only good, then the words between us can only be genuine.
Although some of us labored to bring Grampa’s beautiful dream to life, it did not happen. That great gathering and thinking did not materialize. The “real” law is yet to be presented to clear-minded indigenous. Those indigenous upon a honeymoon with Americana may never make the necessary adjustments. There are many accomplishments still in the future of native people from this hemisphere which will cause a struggle and confrontation with those powers that long to keep the indigenous in a subservient position. Quetzalcoatl is to return on Reed-1 and assume his position in the governing of the native people. His re-entry into the homeland is yet in the future. Reed-1 occurs every 52 years. Potentially he can return at any time.
Perhaps Grampa’s dream will soon present itself. We must be prepared for this and many other events. We must seek our native values and sharpen them to a shiny edge. We must re-claim our many languages and employ our native spirituality in its pure form, as it was just 500 years ago. Yes, the native nations can and will become whole again. Any delay in accomplishing this task must be accepted as neglect by the indigenous ourselves. Nobody can do it for us. Nobody but ourselves can keep us from accomplishing it.
Gold and silver cannot purchase a value that is the completion of a blessing, a touching, a healing. They cannot purchase life. They cannot buy happiness. They cannot displace sorrow and sadness. They cannot become a measurement of all that is good and may continue to be a gauge for all that is evil. Here in part is a presumptive letter from Columbus to the King and Queen of Castile/Aragon. It is 1492, October 13. It is penned at an island of the Bahamas, the homeland of the Lucayo indigenous. Columbus has been upon the western continent for only moments and he has no idea where he is, except west of Europe.
“Most precious King and Queen,
“As I promised in our encounters upon the European continent, I have touched the earth of a western land. The people are friendly and they will give me whatever I desire. Should I ask for the land and the mountains and the trees and the rivers, they would obey my wish. For the promotion of your greatness this land is discovered. It is yours your most precious majesties.
“I have claimed all that is known in this most beautiful land and all that is unknown for the crown of Castile/Aragon. There is no opposition to your claim! Indeed the native people are happy to be part of this gift to my King and Queen. The natives seem to know your happiness is of the utmost importance.
“All that I have touched today belongs now to the crown that put me upon this happy journey. All that I touch tomorrow and the many tomorrows shall be your possession also. It is your possession my King and Queen. It shall forever be part of your gracious kingdom, even as I shall remain, your most humble servant. When I encounter the Great Khan, I shall inform him of your just claim to this land.
Cristobol Colon, October 13, 1492, Cathay.”
(Parker, John, Discovery, Charles Scribner and Sons, New York, 1972)
This was not a happy encounter for the indigenous. Diseases and the assault-to-commit-great-harm Columbus and Cortes dropped, like a bomb upon the indigenous, instantly mushroomed in intensity and the variety of diseases that they and their pirates escorted, spread like fire among the natives and across the golden plains from the Atlantic to the Pacific, south to Panama and into South America from the Aztec to the Inca and Patagonia, north to the Inupiak and Eskimo and Aleut. The diseases and the attack-mentality mass-murdered natives between these poles, and the many diseases have now mutated to thousands more through the centuries. That vicious mentality and the life-rupturing diseases are alive and intend to invade all that they touch as they multiply and divide then multiply again and again. The indigenous must deny “civilization” and re-establish our original purpose and intended destiny. We must, as one body, shed Democracy as if it were the dead skin of a rattle snake, and return to our systems of real and true values. The sweet spirits in approaching generations deserve nothing else. We took the brunt of “civilization’s” viciousness. Let us relieve approaching generations from it all. Their futures will be needed to somehow nullify the ever scattering-outward effects of the mutating diseases.
The oro and plata wrestled from this hemisphere must be returned to the rightful owners and placed tenderly in their hands because upheaval will continue to plague “civilization” until this event happens.
No, there is not an indigenous curse put upon the oro and plata stolen from this hemisphere after a continuous attack of genocide aforethought. The curse came with the vicious and deranged manners of the invading Europeans whose descendants are yet too callous to ask ingress and egress from the hemispherical people and pardon for their clumsy activities. Activities that may not find pardon in Hades. Sul’ma’ejote
