The annual U.S. celebration and federal holiday called Columbus Day is this Monday. The day is welcomed by many Americans who are glad for the day off and appreciate the many retail sales events over the long weekend. Columbus Day is also celebrated throughout Central and South America and in Spain. Heroic tales of Columbus having a "great vision and courage" to travel in so-called "uncharted" seas are told to school children and promulgated in mainstream media. Some Italian-American communities today continue the traditions of the generations preceding them who originally lobbied to have this day recognized by the U.S. government in order to develop ethnic pride. This history all sounds reasonable--if you don't know your history, that is!
Pictured above is Jacqueline Pata, a member of the Raven/Sockeye Clan of the Tlingit Nation of Alaska, who is Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians. Ms. Pata is wearing a Tlingit cedar bark woven hat with a Tlingit robe made of ermine and abalone. Photo courtesy of the NCAI.org.
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Native American jewelry is one of the most highly visible expressions of Indigenous culture and art that is familiar to many people around the world. Silver-work, beading, weaving and use of turquoise are widespread components of Indigenous jewelry making, though the nations all have their unique cultural style and materials. Pictured is an example of some gorgeous Eastern Woodlands beadwork.
Traditionally, all objects Indigenous peoples created were done so with a high aesthetic value. In other words, utilitarian items (like a hairbrush or a basket strap) were also made to be beautiful. What this means today is that the handles of our can openers would be beautifully beaded or have silver and stone inlays! Even the most "mundane" items were, and still are, elevated to objects of artful beauty by Indigenous peoples. 
This should tell you a lot about their outlooks on life (life is understood as reflecting beauty), their sense of time in creating these objects (careful patience and timeless perspectives), and the reality that everyone had beautiful items (no class/caste system).
Despite the international outcry and daily presence in media outlets across the United States this past fall and winter concerning the Dakota Access Pipeline construction, you may not be hearing much in the news these days. However, the absence of news headlines might suggest that nothing is happening and the Water Protectors and their allies and advocates have given up. This month's blog is to assure everyone that this is far from the truth, despite our current U.S President's statement that after he approved the continued construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines his first week in office "nothing happened--no one protested." This is a completely false claim!
If a peaceful summer afternoon spent reading a book is your idea of relaxation or perhaps having some time before bed to unwind with some nourishing words would be welcome to you, I have some suggestions!
The Gathering of Nations is an annual mega-pow-wow in Albuquerque, New Mexico that brings in thousands of Indigenous dancers, drummers, and singers for a high-profile, high-flyin' time in Indian Country that boosts pride and re-affirms the vibrancy and resiliency of Indigenous cultures. But to some Native Americans, the annual Gathering of Nations event has been missing something, something the Two-Spirits especially noticed....them! The photograph above is of the Bay Area American Indian Two Spirit Society from 2016.
Like General Braddock and his colonial-era armies that slaughtered Eastern Woodlands Indigenous peoples in Pennsylvania and Colonel Chivington (a Methodist minister) who lead his army against the Cheyenne ending in the massacre of Natives at Sand Creek in the 1800s, the 45th President of the United States and his supporters are leading a 21st century war under the same old banner of "social progress." However, this 21st century colonial war is for the same reason and intention of all previous colonial wars in America and around the world: confiscation of land, natural resources, and the willful harm of Indigenous people's cultural expression, personhood, and sovereignty. In this 21st century war it is ever clearer how those who benefit and support the old Dominator power structures continue to exploit and desecrate the land and Mother Earth's resources. 
The photograph above is a scene from Oceti Sakowin Camp that housed the protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline who left the camp this past week. Protestors numbered up to 10,000 at times over the course of the movement. Indigenous people from all over Turtle Island came to the aid of the Standing Rock Sioux nation, and advocates of all races and identities, especially American Veterans, came to show their support of tribal sovereignty and protection of the Earth. On February 22 Water Protectors left the camp ceremonially (and somberly) singing and drumming to honor the work behind them and all that is still left to do. Some of the few protestors remaining were arrested by police. The photo just above shows police in riot gear and thus the level of tension and threat the Water Protectors bravely faced.
A fundamental ethic of Eastern Woodlands Indigenous nations since their origins in the time before time unto today is to establish, practice, and maintain Communal Ethics. The intent of an ethic that centralizes the community is to bring the whole of life into the kinship networks of this world. These kinship networks include human beings, animals, Mother Earth, the plants, waters, stars, mosses...every one. We do not say every "thing" because the members of the biosphere are not "things". The entire biosphere contains a multiplicity of beings, not objects. These beings are sacred. They have purpose, destiny, intelligence, consciousness, and are spirit-filled, just like the human beings.
