courtneyj:

fuckinnerd:

claytoncubitt:

Edward S Curtis, ‘The Whaler-Makah’, 1915

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ambo:

[ambo’s] great aunt, Hazel Pete.

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http://www.reznetnews.org/article/early-navajo-use-smoke-signals-studied-34000

Archaeologists and volunteers armed with special flares were to fan out over part of the Four Corners region Saturday to study how early Navajos could have used smoke signals to warn against invaders.

There are more than 200 pueblitos — usually high on rock outcroppings overlooking the San Juan Basin — that archaeologists believe were built by Navajos three centuries ago to protect against Spanish explorers and neighboring tribes.

“If you hear an enemy approaching, you climb into these things and pull up the ladder, and you can seal yourself in for a while,” said Ron Maldonado, program manager of the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department.

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deltafoxtrot:

by David Swallow
Indian Country Today - 2 January 2009

Young American Indians today suffer from many problems of the modern world. Alcohol and drug abuse, early pregnancies, gangs and psychological disorders are everywhere on the reservations. However, a lot of the development of these issues can be historically traced back to World War II or shortly before.

The 1924 Indian Citizenship Act created a special kind of dual citizenship which made American Indians into citizens of the United States (for the first time) as well as citizens of their own sovereign nations. Finally, Indians could vote. But also, for the first time, they could be drafted into the military.

The young Lakota Warriors looked at the military as a way to prove themselves as warriors. They believed it was an honorable extension of the traditional warrior ways.

So, young American Indians went off to WWII. After 100 years of forced boarding schools which resulted in generations of young Indians losing their sense of identity, family and traditions, the military became like the family they had never been allowed to have. They were grouped into companies which lived together and fought together and bonded with each other as a unit, as a family.

When the young warriors came home, they often became lost. With their military family no longer existing, gangs began to form to take their place. An example is the Hell’s Angels, the famous motorcycle gang, which was started in the late 1940s. It is commonly believed to have been founded by ex-members of famous military fighting units of the same name.
The young warrior knew his real purpose was to protect his people and their lives.

Then, in 1953, long after Prohibition had ended, President Eisenhower made it legal to sell alcohol to American Indians for the first time. This changed the lives of all Indian people.

In his grandfathers’ day, the Lakota warrior came from a good family where he had been taught good behavior, good manners, respect for all life and good relationship with all living things. His parents never lied to him and he never lied to anyone. He was reliable and practiced honor and respect with a clean mind.

Even with all those qualities, he still had to qualify to be a member of a warrior society. He had to prove himself. It wasn’t just about fighting. But when he did fight, even then he practiced respect. He never mutilated another warrior.

The young warrior also never stole from his own people. He never beat up or took advantage of his people. He never practiced sexual assaults on anyone.

The young warrior knew his real purpose was to protect his people and their lives. He knew his purpose was to protect the c’anunpa carriers, the sacred pipe carriers, and the holy men and spiritual leaders. He also listened to and learned from the holy men and spiritual leaders. He not only respected and protected life but he also learned to practice compassion. He acted with honor.

The young warrior knew that if he did all this, life would be beautiful and all would live in harmony.

But with the effects of alcohol, drugs, and the continuing policies of the federal government towards the Plains Tribes, most of this has become lost and forgotten.

These policies aren’t so different from those practiced against other ethnic groups throughout history. The Irish, the Italians, the Jewish, the Gypsies, and many others all experienced what was called ethnic cleansing. But, for the American Indian, the policies still continue today.

These policies try to force us to live in ghetto housing called cluster housing. These policies have taken away our traditional foods that kept us healthy. These policies have created a private state prison system that makes money on incarcerating our young people rather than rehabilitating them. These policies have kept my children, my grandchildren and nephews and nieces, from learning how to survive and live from the land.

These policies and politics have created the “haves” and the “have-nots,” a two-level society of extremes on the reservation favoring corruption and nepotism in BIA and reservation government relationships.

We have no YMCA. Many have no job or any possibility of a job. We have no vocational training centers. We have no residential treatment centers for children and teens as an alternative to jail like they have in the cities.

Hope is hard to find. So belonging to a gang has become the only way for many of our young people to feel good, to feel needed and wanted.

Now, they say the Lakota are “Third World welfare recipients.” But worse is the fact that our young people steal from each other. Our people shoot and hurt each other. They practice deceit and abuse our girls. Elders now live in fear. The traditional values of the Lakota warrior no longer exist. They have become lost to alcohol and drugs and gangs.

So today, I am calling on all young Lakota warriors and young Lakota people. We need you to help save the future generations to come. Not me, not Grandpa, I don’t need saving. But your children and your grandchildren do.

Get back into your own traditional spirituality and traditional ways and values. Those hold the answers for you. Those will guide you and help you to know who you are more than any gang ever could. And it will be you who will bring the harmony back to our lives.

It will be you who will bring back hope to our People.

Ho he’cetu yelo. I have spoken these words.

(David Swallow, Wowitan Yuha Mani, is a Lakota spiritual leader and a Headman of the Lakota Nation. He resides on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Porcupine, S.D.)

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pic via farm1.static.flickr.com

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Stand Watie (December 12, 1806 – September 9, 1871) (also known as Standhope Oowatie, Degataga “stand firm” and Isaac S. Watie) was a leader of the Cherokee Nation and a brigadier general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He commanded the Confederate Indian cavalry of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi made up mostly of Cherokee, Muskogee and Seminole. He also served as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation 1862-1866.

Watie was one of only two Native Americans on either side of the Civil War to rise to a brigadier general’s rank. The other was Ely S. Parker, an Seneca who fought on the Union side.^[1]

After Chief John Ross and the Cherokee Council decided to support the Confederacy, Watie organized a regiment of cavalry. In October 1861, he was commissioned as colonel in the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles. Although he fought Federal troops, he also led his men in fighting between factions of the Cherokee, as well as against the Creek and Seminole and others who chose to support the Union. Watie is noted for his role in the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, a Union victory, on March 6–8, 1862. Watie’s troops captured Union artillery positions and covered the retreat of Confederate forces from the battlefield.

After Cherokee support for the Confederacy fractured, Watie continued to lead the remnant of his cavalry. He was promoted to brigadier general by General Samuel Bell Maxey, and was given the command of the First Indian Brigade, composed of two regiments of Mounted Rifles and three battalions of Cherokee, Seminole and Osage infantry. These troops were based south of the Canadian River, and periodically crossed the river into Union territory. They fought in a number of battles and skirmishes in the western Confederate states, including the Indian Territory, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Texas. Watie’s force reportedly fought in more battles west of the Mississippi River than any other unit. Watie was also a participant in what is considered to be the greatest Confederate victory in Indian Territory, which took place at Cabin Creek during mid-September, 1864, where he and General Richard Montgomery Gano led a raid that captured a Federal wagon train and netted approximately one million dollars worth of wagons, mules, commisary supplies, and other needed items.^[2]

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Ely Samuel Parker (1828 – August 31, 1895), (born Hasanoanda, later known as Donehogawa) was an Iroquois of the Seneca tribe born at Indian Falls, New York (then part of the Tonawanda Reservation). During the American Civil War, he wrote the final draft of the Confederate surrender terms at Appomattox. Later in his career Parker rose to the rank of Brigadier General, a promotion which was backdated to the surrender.^[1]

Near the start of the Civil War, Parker tried to raise a regiment of Iroquois volunteers to fight for the Union, but was turned down by New York Governor Edwin D. Morgan. He then sought to join the Union Army as an engineer, but was told by Secretary of War Simon Cameron that he could not since he was Indian.^[5] Parker’s lifelong friend Ulysses S. Grant, whose forces suffered from a shortage of engineers, intervened; Parker joined Grant at Vicksburg. He was commissioned a captain in 1863 and rose to the rank of Brigadier General. Parker became the adjutant to Ulysses S. Grant and was present when Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse in April 1865. The surrender documents are in his handwriting. During this surrender, Lee mistook Parker for a black man, but apologized saying “I am glad to see one real American here.” Parker purportedly responded, “We are all Americans, sir.”

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