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sonagolese
Junior Member
since 2001-02-26
Posts 18
Virginia

0 posted 2001-02-26 02:37 AM


An open letter to Native American people...

The Call

For what, my people, do we hunger? When the stranger offers us bread, why do we turn on him in bitter pride and cry, "It is a stone. Away with it!"

When one comes fawning and says insidiously, "Oh, I know the Indian and his glory--how he could ride and fight and hunt; how cunning on the trail of his enemy; how canny his nature lore; how true and enduring his friendship," what is this reticence that lifts our heads and whispers in our hearts, "You never knew us"?

And those who come wringing their hands, crying aloud the guilt of their ancestors for taking the lands of the "first and true Americans." Why do we stiffen and draw back from their vain apologies? What is this faint stirring of grief--this half-forgotten memory of something infinitely more precious than the land? Think, my brothers, and remember. Open your eyes, Old Ones, and wake from your dreaming. Wake and remember your fathers and the true glory of your past. Do not stop with the history books where one man's opinion caught your people in a small moment and left you there impaled upon a fragment of time. Back--back beyond the wars and the hatred and the hunger. Back-beyond the days of your wanderings when your instinct for survival made of you the greatest naturalists of all the world. Back-into the farthest reach of legend. Pause, and listen with your heart.

For I say to you, my brothers--the greatness of the Indian was not that he held the land and roamed free. Today other men hold that land and freedom--yet they often envy and seek that peculiar "something" that has kept your spirits free and proud.

Neither was the glory of the Indian his wild racing of ponies across the plains nor the deftness of canoe paddles on the white water. Come, my brothers, let us open the door to memory; but carefully, for beyond is a glory blinding in its truth.

I call to you, Lakota, whom men call by another name. Whence came you when you drove your laden canoes up the Mississippi and its tributaries? From the south you came, you people of the Serpent, and to the south returned and came again.

I call to you, Shawnee--ask of your old men. Were their fathers not in Florida when the white men first entered the land? And were they not then resting from their migrations from farther south and west?

I call to you, Oneida--you people of the Standing Stone--search your legends and traditions. Trace your generations backward from New York through the rich Ohio country and its mounds, down the Mississippi and its valleys to the great Gulf. Follow its curve and find the land of the Standing Stone and your glory.

Chickasaw--well you know of your beginnings and the dream that brought you safely from the land of sunset.

All you nations, search your legends. For they hold the key that can give you back what no man can promise you, no matter how great his sincerity or how rich his purse. Open the door and find your identity as a nation of people. Come to the remembrance of your fathers. Look upon Tula the golden and the days of your innocence.

For in those days, the Great Chief of Heaven spoke to us--to us, the gay and beautiful, the laughing, industrious, rejoicing, adventuring sons of the land-and called us His children. He sent His beloved, the Morning Star, the Healer, to teach us to live in love together.

Where are the Old Ones who could tell of our downfall in those ancient days? In the fair land where the bounties of the Supreme Being were spread for all men. Jealousy, greed, and suspicion possessed the people until each man's hand was lifted against his neighbor and the land became one vast battlefield. And the Great Father-of-all looked upon His children with sadness and the prophecy was given:

"This is my fair land. With my hands and my heart have I made it and it is dearer to me than all the lands of earth. If you cannot live by my laws, sharing in the gifts that I have given, then I will cause such enemies as you have never seen to come upon you, and they will put their feet upon your necks and grind your faces in the dust."

But there was a promise, too. Remember?

"Some far day you will begin to lift your heads, and you will climb to the mountain and lift your arms saying as one voice, 'Father, we are here!' And I will remember."

Now, as a people we are called to awaken. But one man says come this way and another, that way. "Come into the light of Civilization," says one. "Learn to fight for your 'rights' and take as other men do."

"No," says another, "you are prettier if you stay in the tepee, tan your own leather and make fire with sticks." Which shall we choose, my brothers, as we come into the promise?

Let us first strip away the clutter that the storybooks have included about our past. For this is wisdom: If a man lose all he has--his wealth, his country, his hopes--and still may keep his secure knowledge of himself and his worth as a link in the chain of life, he has a rock to build upon.
If all things be added unto him--wealth, position, fame, and power--and he have not the anchor of his heritage, he is an empty canoe upon the waters of life.

So let us with our memories first seek our heritage-our lovely past. I have a little knowledge; you, my brothers, have more. Let us lift our heads and our voices, for it is time.



© Copyright 2001 Sonagolese - All Rights Reserved
Dawn Eclipse
Senior Member
since 2000-01-31
Posts 637
The Horsehead Nebula
1 posted 2001-02-27 09:27 PM


Very good tale. I've often thought about that subject.. it can be rather depressing... even more so when i think about how many different people have been oppressed, all over the world. Thanks for the read, I enjoyed it!

"Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other course, no other way... No day but today"
~Broadway Musical RENT~

*Cassandra Roseen*


Wesley the Blue
Member
since 1999-09-02
Posts 426
Forest Lake, MN, USA
2 posted 2001-03-18 12:09 PM


A good calling. I think that all people, not just the Native Americans could benefit from listening to the stories and legends of their peoples pasts. Thank you for sharing your words with us.
Keith

every day is a new day with which we can change the world

coyote
Senior Member
since 2001-03-17
Posts 1077

3 posted 2001-03-20 08:40 PM


I am a white man.
Yet, I hear your voice.
Your spirit is strong.
Your message is true.
Smoke with me.
Let the past be healed,
although it will leave scars.
The future, however,
is of our own making.

"The poet is the priest of the invisible."
Wallace Stevens

LoveBug
Deputy Moderator 5 Tours
Moderator
Member Elite
since 2000-01-08
Posts 4697

4 posted 2001-03-22 08:32 PM


This piece really touched me. I have Native American ancestery, and this really makes me think about what that means. Thanks for sharing..

"Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel."-Machiavelli

Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354
Listening to every heart
5 posted 2001-05-31 10:35 PM


I have been told...I am part of the Native American...

I know not if this is true...

too many want the claim....now....

my only wish is someday to know from where I speak...

as the language of this world calls to me....

thank you Songalese....it's been a long while since we've touched....

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