Indigenous people
They Did Not Return to Thank Us for the Original Gifts
By Darryl Wilson
The following letter was addressed to the Dali Lama, on occasion of his visit to Siberia, in the former USSR, to commemorate 250 years of Buddhism there. The letter was hand-delivered to him at Lake Baikal in the summer of 1992 by Frank Lake of the Native American Student Union at the University of California at Davis.
Your Eminence:
We understand you will be celebrating the 250th year of Buddhism being practiced within the boundaries of the Soviet Union.
As professors and students of history, we are well aware of the parallels between your people and our Original Native Nations. Tibet is currently smothered under an ocean of Chinese military might, even as the native nations of the Americas are smothered under a blanket of arrogance calling itself Democracy.
The Americans came to our homeland with the same purpose the Chinese Imperial powers came to your door. They came to kill, to conquer, to colonize, to capture, to torture, to take and to destroy that which they could not take. They created laws which claim that they, the intruders, are the rightful owners of our sweet and precious motherland. And they manufactured the name for themselves: Americans.
They demanded gold and other precious gifts. And when we gave them the amount deemed sufficient by our Council of Elders and our Chiefs, they decided it was not enough and cut off the hands of the gift bearers. They razed our homes, decimated our tribes and nations, and decided that our homeland was too good for us – a homeland given to us to care for by the awesome powers that scattered the stars in the vastness and gave us songs to sing to them. The Americans came with an invisible God, a God who told them to take our homeland for their own. This God-who-cannot-smile issued many commandments to them – one commandment was to destroy us to the last child.
The Europeans penetrated our domain without welcome. They kidnapped our people and spirited away our food staples, so they could pump fresh life back into a Western Europe that was facing its own created demise.
The Europeans came in wave after diseased wave. Today that tide refuses to ebb. In the holds of their ships were strange animals from the European continent. And in their holds also, another possession: black people from the African continent, chained one to another and to the planks of the vessels.
They did not return to thank us for the original gifts. And today and tomorrow they feverishly prepare for what they see as their 500th “birthday.”
Since 1492 the Original Natives of this hemisphere have received only criminal treatment from “Americans” and their government. The strangers came and with barbed wire, fenced us out of our most sacred places of worship. They built roads upon the graves of our ancestors. They constructed Universities (including the University of California at Davis) upon our sacred burial grounds.
They have not yet asked pardon from our Chiefs for their original trespass. They may not even possess the ability to realize they are out of balance with the powers of the universe.
On October 12, 1992, some “Americans” and many Europeans will be celebrating the Europeans’ destruction of our peoples. They will cheer and they will commit further crimes against our people to prove their original trespass was just. All people who care for justice know that the Euro/Americans are trespassing upon this land even as the Chinese Imperialists are trespassing in Tibet.
Let us unite our songs to float across the vastness of time, and mark the beginning of the ending of atrocities that are visited upon us daily. Our languages, our traditions and our dances are our foundation. Knowing this, the Americans are constantly stripping these precious elements from us.
In which season will the earth people unite in the struggle for that which belongs to us, not by the “political power that comes from the barrel of the gun (Mao),” but by the power that turns the earth around the sun and the sun around a greater wonder?
Until that time we ask you to join us in protesting any “celebration” that might be devised by those who identify 1992 as 500 years of freedom – for it has not been freedom for the Original Native Nations any more than it has been freedom for Tibetans, your precious people, since the invasion by the Chinese Imperialists.
The Americans would rather destroy us than give us the recognition Great Wonder gives us every moment of every day.
This letter to be delivered to your hands by Frank Lake, President of the Native American Student Union, University of California at Davis.
Thank you and we are sincerely,
Dr Steve Crum, for the Native American faculty,
Denni Shultheis for the Native American Society of Medical Students,
Darryl Wilson and Frank Lake for the Native American Student Union, University of California at Davis
Darryl Wilson is a Pit River Indian from the Northeastern corner of California. He recently graduated from the University of California at Davis and is about to enter a Master’s program in Native American Studies at the University of Arizona.
Turning Wheel Summer 1992
19
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
POLLEN and MIGRATION
11-17-07
POLLEN and MIGRATION
At dawn as I pondered the meaning (not the application) of pollen, the possible explanation to my pondering may have arrived during my thoughts about migration. This is the result of my dinner visit with Summer Shapero and her mother, Sandy, last evening at CISA dinner in San Lorenzo. Summer is yet a girl baby four-years-old so we had to use a different style of communication because language and words were not at all appropriate.
Instead we used a slightly amended hay’dutsi’la, that power yet being fresh and full force within her, and me relearning its possibilities and limitlessness. (hay’dutsi’la is: thinking, refining and polishing the thought then using it for its intended purpose, which is communication and revelation, sometimes inventing, but certainly calculating).
Grace, wisdom, knowledge, and dreams can be thrown from thought to thought (if the receiving thought is “on”).
Slipping into my morning pondering was a thought from *Apnui that was also a revelation. In little girl language she thought, “Blossoms are not the only thing that need pollen,” then “threw” the thought to me. Maybe she thought it and sent it at the same moment. An instant later I received it, and marveled at her depth of analysis. Just a baby, she understood that I should search a larger area than blossoms for the activity of pollination. I did. But it remains a mystery. What power initiates her to “throw” thoughts? That she does is not the mystery, why everyone doesn’t communicate in this manner is. We would have no phone bills plus we would be in touch all of the time. Why aren’t we in touch?
I call Summer “Apnui.” Not that I dislike “Summer,” the name her mommie and daddy gave to her. It is precious. In my language, Apnui, means summer, but also a long spring that lingers over into early summer when flowers are still in the meadow). She and her Sister, Sky, remind me of sweet, delicate flowers flourishing boldly upon earth. I call Sky, “Assela.” In my language Assela means sky, but also many skies: blue-blue, soft blue, powdered blue, turquoise blue, cloudy sky, winter sky, autumn sky, sunset red sky, gold and silver sunrise sky. The indigenous names are an understanding just between the girls, their family and me. When my journey on earth ends and I go on ahead, so will the memory and the names.
POLLINATION
Migrations may be a world event in pollination that we are conditioned to believe happens only with blossoms and bees. In civilization, many migrations often are termed an obstacle to “progress” and must be crushed from existence. This crushing is a direct result of Europeans being given (through the Bible they wrote for themselves), “dominion over,” instead of (in the native way) “responsibility for” natural life. That “dominion over” mentality now permeates civilization and natural life is being destroyed the world over. The Bible, written by humans but called “The word of God,” I am sure, contains many similar defects.
Please, let’s look to the migrations that we see in a yearly cycle, some of which we rely upon, whether we are aware of it or not.
First, let’s investigate what “pollen” is. Dictionary, Webster’s (’73) pp 1015: “Botany: The fine powder-like material produced by the anthers of flowering plants (anthers grow at the end of the stamen), and functioning as the male element in fertilization. [New Latin, from Latin: flour, dust].” Pursuing farther in the index we discover: “fine powder, dust.”
This tells us where pollen-wisdom is found (in Botany), and where in flowers, the anthers, but not what it is because it surely must be more than “dust” or “powder.” What are its magic ingredients to accomplish the task of causing a blossom to turn into a wild plum, a peach, a Bell flower apple, a mountain strawberry or a black walnut? If the blossom is the designing agent then why the need for pollen? Does pollen come only from the anthers of flowers? Is our understanding of pollen satisfactory? Has enough investigation and discovery been accomplished on what pollen is and its relationship to migration? Do we dare look upon the great natural migrations of animals, birds and fish of the world as carrying their own type of “pollen” to other parts of the land and sea, completing a necessary movement across earth keeping earth functioning? Can there be such a thing as “earth-pollination” and can it be partially accomplished with every migration created by nature?
SALMON
Great migrations of salmon are yet witnessed during the proper seasons by natives, bears, eagles, osprey, insects and many things living near the rivers and in the oceans, and they do other functions that we yet know nothing about. Besides feeding many life forms along the rivers, what is the original purpose of the migration? Is it a mysterious way for earth to somehow become “pollinated” in another necessary manner in order for it to carry on life in balance with the universal mysteries?
HOOF
Let us exclude scientific paradigms – which are no more valuable than our guesses. Now let us consider the great migrating herds of hoofed animals moving across earth at their appointed time Might they be carrying a type of “pollen” from point A to point B (for a reason civilization might never ponder), which could be as important and necessary to apples as the bee taking pollen to the apple blossom?
WHALES
The movement of the great whale pods around the vast oceans may be a necessary act of pollination in the world’s cycles on its journey to rendezvous with forever. The songs they sing to the ocean may have earth value equal to the songs a native grandmother sings to the dawn, in a mysterious act of pollination that science will never be prepared to investigate. Grandmother’s songs pollinate the universe with dreams, whale songs surely must accomplish the same act in the vast oceans.
BIRDS
Before civilization intruded upon this continent with no intention of leaving, flocks of geese were so numerous in the mountain valley of my birth that while lifting off to continue their migration either north or south, they blocked out the sun. They are few now. Some places have a flock of a hundred. But what did they bring from the north to the south and to the mountain valleys in that amazing cycle? In another manner, was earth “pollinated” with thought and dreams? A few of us will always wonder if the current rigid definitions of life are capable of satisfying the needs of next century.
All over earth there are migrations, ants, bees, hummingbirds and eagles, gnu, reindeer, swallows and butterflies. They all have a purpose other than seeking food and water. They obey great universal laws and fulfill obligations that humans will never know because the search for animal wisdom does not exist and too many learned people are convinced that knowledge comes from books and education, thereby limiting their search area for the rhythms of earth, universe, seasons, and for a multiple understanding of the meaning “pollination.”
But the search for a clear definition for what pollen is and its effects upon earth, other than pollen from flower anther to blossom, began because I must give Psukitok (Spring Maiden) and Amal (Flower Maiden) some points of pollination to discuss in the film and I know so very little concerning the function of pollen or even what it is and its parameters. There is no longer an Elder whom I can ask for knowledge, guidance, or direction, which makes many tasks difficult. Because of this I often feel I have been abandoned upon the ocean of inquiry and adrift upon the choppy sea of education.
Then I worry about hay’dutsi’la and the future of the delicate and boundless thought power that is reviving across the world. Technology is faltering. One day, if science and education just stay out of the trail, people will be communicating via hay’dutsi’la instead of a telephone or another technological device. If the U, S. mail service abandons civilization, we will still communicate. All of the necessary equipment is born with every child, complete. The education system cannot promote or stunt this natural ability because the natural senses refuses to acknowledge that “education” exists. I am not in love with the telephone company or technology (or the U.S. mail) because hay’dutsi’la does not recognize that technology is a greater work than the natural mind. Watching technology rust in a polluting pile might be a great exercise, but it surely would damage earth the more, too.
I must stop writing. Assela is sending me a thought. She is on an airplane returning from Iowa, thinking about a book she may write: “A Horse Called Man.” The message may take some powerful focus.
Excuse me. Ina’lum’qotmi (I must go but I leave my heart with you).
Sul’m’ejote
POLLEN and MIGRATION
At dawn as I pondered the meaning (not the application) of pollen, the possible explanation to my pondering may have arrived during my thoughts about migration. This is the result of my dinner visit with Summer Shapero and her mother, Sandy, last evening at CISA dinner in San Lorenzo. Summer is yet a girl baby four-years-old so we had to use a different style of communication because language and words were not at all appropriate.
Instead we used a slightly amended hay’dutsi’la, that power yet being fresh and full force within her, and me relearning its possibilities and limitlessness. (hay’dutsi’la is: thinking, refining and polishing the thought then using it for its intended purpose, which is communication and revelation, sometimes inventing, but certainly calculating).
Grace, wisdom, knowledge, and dreams can be thrown from thought to thought (if the receiving thought is “on”).
Slipping into my morning pondering was a thought from *Apnui that was also a revelation. In little girl language she thought, “Blossoms are not the only thing that need pollen,” then “threw” the thought to me. Maybe she thought it and sent it at the same moment. An instant later I received it, and marveled at her depth of analysis. Just a baby, she understood that I should search a larger area than blossoms for the activity of pollination. I did. But it remains a mystery. What power initiates her to “throw” thoughts? That she does is not the mystery, why everyone doesn’t communicate in this manner is. We would have no phone bills plus we would be in touch all of the time. Why aren’t we in touch?
I call Summer “Apnui.” Not that I dislike “Summer,” the name her mommie and daddy gave to her. It is precious. In my language, Apnui, means summer, but also a long spring that lingers over into early summer when flowers are still in the meadow). She and her Sister, Sky, remind me of sweet, delicate flowers flourishing boldly upon earth. I call Sky, “Assela.” In my language Assela means sky, but also many skies: blue-blue, soft blue, powdered blue, turquoise blue, cloudy sky, winter sky, autumn sky, sunset red sky, gold and silver sunrise sky. The indigenous names are an understanding just between the girls, their family and me. When my journey on earth ends and I go on ahead, so will the memory and the names.
POLLINATION
Migrations may be a world event in pollination that we are conditioned to believe happens only with blossoms and bees. In civilization, many migrations often are termed an obstacle to “progress” and must be crushed from existence. This crushing is a direct result of Europeans being given (through the Bible they wrote for themselves), “dominion over,” instead of (in the native way) “responsibility for” natural life. That “dominion over” mentality now permeates civilization and natural life is being destroyed the world over. The Bible, written by humans but called “The word of God,” I am sure, contains many similar defects.
Please, let’s look to the migrations that we see in a yearly cycle, some of which we rely upon, whether we are aware of it or not.
First, let’s investigate what “pollen” is. Dictionary, Webster’s (’73) pp 1015: “Botany: The fine powder-like material produced by the anthers of flowering plants (anthers grow at the end of the stamen), and functioning as the male element in fertilization. [New Latin, from Latin: flour, dust].” Pursuing farther in the index we discover: “fine powder, dust.”
This tells us where pollen-wisdom is found (in Botany), and where in flowers, the anthers, but not what it is because it surely must be more than “dust” or “powder.” What are its magic ingredients to accomplish the task of causing a blossom to turn into a wild plum, a peach, a Bell flower apple, a mountain strawberry or a black walnut? If the blossom is the designing agent then why the need for pollen? Does pollen come only from the anthers of flowers? Is our understanding of pollen satisfactory? Has enough investigation and discovery been accomplished on what pollen is and its relationship to migration? Do we dare look upon the great natural migrations of animals, birds and fish of the world as carrying their own type of “pollen” to other parts of the land and sea, completing a necessary movement across earth keeping earth functioning? Can there be such a thing as “earth-pollination” and can it be partially accomplished with every migration created by nature?
SALMON
Great migrations of salmon are yet witnessed during the proper seasons by natives, bears, eagles, osprey, insects and many things living near the rivers and in the oceans, and they do other functions that we yet know nothing about. Besides feeding many life forms along the rivers, what is the original purpose of the migration? Is it a mysterious way for earth to somehow become “pollinated” in another necessary manner in order for it to carry on life in balance with the universal mysteries?
HOOF
Let us exclude scientific paradigms – which are no more valuable than our guesses. Now let us consider the great migrating herds of hoofed animals moving across earth at their appointed time Might they be carrying a type of “pollen” from point A to point B (for a reason civilization might never ponder), which could be as important and necessary to apples as the bee taking pollen to the apple blossom?
WHALES
The movement of the great whale pods around the vast oceans may be a necessary act of pollination in the world’s cycles on its journey to rendezvous with forever. The songs they sing to the ocean may have earth value equal to the songs a native grandmother sings to the dawn, in a mysterious act of pollination that science will never be prepared to investigate. Grandmother’s songs pollinate the universe with dreams, whale songs surely must accomplish the same act in the vast oceans.
BIRDS
Before civilization intruded upon this continent with no intention of leaving, flocks of geese were so numerous in the mountain valley of my birth that while lifting off to continue their migration either north or south, they blocked out the sun. They are few now. Some places have a flock of a hundred. But what did they bring from the north to the south and to the mountain valleys in that amazing cycle? In another manner, was earth “pollinated” with thought and dreams? A few of us will always wonder if the current rigid definitions of life are capable of satisfying the needs of next century.
All over earth there are migrations, ants, bees, hummingbirds and eagles, gnu, reindeer, swallows and butterflies. They all have a purpose other than seeking food and water. They obey great universal laws and fulfill obligations that humans will never know because the search for animal wisdom does not exist and too many learned people are convinced that knowledge comes from books and education, thereby limiting their search area for the rhythms of earth, universe, seasons, and for a multiple understanding of the meaning “pollination.”
But the search for a clear definition for what pollen is and its effects upon earth, other than pollen from flower anther to blossom, began because I must give Psukitok (Spring Maiden) and Amal (Flower Maiden) some points of pollination to discuss in the film and I know so very little concerning the function of pollen or even what it is and its parameters. There is no longer an Elder whom I can ask for knowledge, guidance, or direction, which makes many tasks difficult. Because of this I often feel I have been abandoned upon the ocean of inquiry and adrift upon the choppy sea of education.
Then I worry about hay’dutsi’la and the future of the delicate and boundless thought power that is reviving across the world. Technology is faltering. One day, if science and education just stay out of the trail, people will be communicating via hay’dutsi’la instead of a telephone or another technological device. If the U, S. mail service abandons civilization, we will still communicate. All of the necessary equipment is born with every child, complete. The education system cannot promote or stunt this natural ability because the natural senses refuses to acknowledge that “education” exists. I am not in love with the telephone company or technology (or the U.S. mail) because hay’dutsi’la does not recognize that technology is a greater work than the natural mind. Watching technology rust in a polluting pile might be a great exercise, but it surely would damage earth the more, too.
I must stop writing. Assela is sending me a thought. She is on an airplane returning from Iowa, thinking about a book she may write: “A Horse Called Man.” The message may take some powerful focus.
Excuse me. Ina’lum’qotmi (I must go but I leave my heart with you).
Sul’m’ejote
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