Post by Okwes on Feb 6, 2008 11:04:54 GMT -5
Activist urges Indians to keep culture
American Indian Movement founder visits reservation
By BECKY SHAY
Of The Gazette Staff
LAME DEER - American Indian activist Russell Means brought his message of freedom to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation this week.
Means started his talk Wednesday with a story about visiting Mohawk country in the northeast United States. A group of blonde-haired, blue-eyed children ran up to him and started talking in Mohawk, which Means doesn't speak.
One of the children looked up at the brown-skinned man with his long black braids and said, "Aren't you Indian?" Means said "yes," and the child asked him, "Why don't you talk Indian?"
The story makes Means chuckle and is a good anecdote of how Indian people and their lifestyles have morphed and sometimes faded. The children were light-skinned but spoke their ancestors' language. "I've seen where intermarriage has not dampened the DNA of our culture," Means said.
Some "brown Indians," Means said, are losing their culture and languages. They rely on tribal councils rather than clan systems to guide their ways.
Means, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, his wife, Pearl, and a delegation from the Republic of Lakotah arrived Tuesday evening and joined a memorial observance Wednesday before giving speeches.
The Republic of Lakotah is an activist group that includes Sioux and other Indians that claims its territory as land bounded by the Missouri, Yellowstone and North Platte rivers - the western half of the Dakotas, southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming and most of Nebraska.
The republic has a provisional government that last year started withdrawing from treaties. At its core, the group eschews tribal governments that function within the Indian Reorganization Act and have ties to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Because treaties have not been honored by the U.S. government, the belief is that the documents are no good and that Indian people have a right to return to their traditional ways of life and governance, said Tim Lame Woman, general council chairman of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and organizer of Means' visit.
Before Means and other spoke at the Charging Horse Casino bingo hall, Lame Woman stressed that the tribe did not pay Means for coming to Lame Deer.
As Means travels throughout Indian Country, he said, he sees "varying degrees of eradication. That scares me."
The counter to that eradication is education, Means said, not the white man's education of boarding schools or even modern-day Western-style education, but traditional education, Means said.
"What we've got to do is give our children hope and give our children a purpose, and that, of course, is freedom," he said.
The Palestinians in Israel are a perfect example of the struggle for freedom, Means said. The people live in "little reservations" and can't travel to visit loved ones in nearby villages. They are bombed, but they don't give up, he said.
"Everything we've experienced, they've experienced in spades," he said. "How do they maintain? Why don't they give up? Because they maintain the education of their children, and they grow up proud to be Palestinian."
Means has recently started a total-immersion school in which only Lakotah will be spoken and traditional methods and lessons will be taught.
"We have to be free," he said. "We have to have our own schools. We have to have our own way of life."
American Indian Movement founder visits reservation
By BECKY SHAY
Of The Gazette Staff
LAME DEER - American Indian activist Russell Means brought his message of freedom to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation this week.
Means started his talk Wednesday with a story about visiting Mohawk country in the northeast United States. A group of blonde-haired, blue-eyed children ran up to him and started talking in Mohawk, which Means doesn't speak.
One of the children looked up at the brown-skinned man with his long black braids and said, "Aren't you Indian?" Means said "yes," and the child asked him, "Why don't you talk Indian?"
The story makes Means chuckle and is a good anecdote of how Indian people and their lifestyles have morphed and sometimes faded. The children were light-skinned but spoke their ancestors' language. "I've seen where intermarriage has not dampened the DNA of our culture," Means said.
Some "brown Indians," Means said, are losing their culture and languages. They rely on tribal councils rather than clan systems to guide their ways.
Means, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, his wife, Pearl, and a delegation from the Republic of Lakotah arrived Tuesday evening and joined a memorial observance Wednesday before giving speeches.
The Republic of Lakotah is an activist group that includes Sioux and other Indians that claims its territory as land bounded by the Missouri, Yellowstone and North Platte rivers - the western half of the Dakotas, southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming and most of Nebraska.
The republic has a provisional government that last year started withdrawing from treaties. At its core, the group eschews tribal governments that function within the Indian Reorganization Act and have ties to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Because treaties have not been honored by the U.S. government, the belief is that the documents are no good and that Indian people have a right to return to their traditional ways of life and governance, said Tim Lame Woman, general council chairman of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and organizer of Means' visit.
Before Means and other spoke at the Charging Horse Casino bingo hall, Lame Woman stressed that the tribe did not pay Means for coming to Lame Deer.
As Means travels throughout Indian Country, he said, he sees "varying degrees of eradication. That scares me."
The counter to that eradication is education, Means said, not the white man's education of boarding schools or even modern-day Western-style education, but traditional education, Means said.
"What we've got to do is give our children hope and give our children a purpose, and that, of course, is freedom," he said.
The Palestinians in Israel are a perfect example of the struggle for freedom, Means said. The people live in "little reservations" and can't travel to visit loved ones in nearby villages. They are bombed, but they don't give up, he said.
"Everything we've experienced, they've experienced in spades," he said. "How do they maintain? Why don't they give up? Because they maintain the education of their children, and they grow up proud to be Palestinian."
Means has recently started a total-immersion school in which only Lakotah will be spoken and traditional methods and lessons will be taught.
"We have to be free," he said. "We have to have our own schools. We have to have our own way of life."