An Open Letter to Native Americans

Dear Native Americans,

Jesus-worship is not greater than your spiritual knowledge of Creator. I feel badly that I was born 100 years after the elimination of the buffalo and right at the beginning of the "Oil Crisis". I've been sick of this world since the first day of my life but I just want to say that your spirituality and culture are valued highly by at least one white American.

I was raised by a 'priest' or 'medicine man' in a different type of church. I was trained to be a proseletyzing missionary. None of this moved me. Then as an adult, having left that church, I went into the sweat lodge and I prayed to Wakan-tanka, Creator, to guide my eye and my heart in the name of Earth and the people on it. Now I see wind of change blowing where the Native people's of the US will again become a pivot and a hand-hold which all nations around the world will try to grasp onto in order to have leverage in the US. I do not know if the US will continue its cold-war against you, and if so, I am sorry for that, but I think there will also be wars within the information power and alphabet soup agencies that arrogate exclusive protection of America unto themselves. Perhaps the ones in these agencies who have spiritual light and wisdom will see that you are not the enemies of America.

But what will happen next perhaps, is that foreign governments might step up their efforts to have agents infiltrate your tribes and lodges and long houses. It is to this idea that I speak. Getting sold-out by your chiefs was something that happened in the past so I probably don't need to say much more about this.

Please, I ask you to side with the people of the US in their time of spiritual darkness. You can do this quietly and personally with each encounter. It is because of your spiritual heritage that I ask you to do this.

One thing I learned from studying the great chiefs of America, was that they believed 100% in the afterlife. This is your strength and I think it will provide an obvious counterbalance against any atheistic (be they asian or white or even Indian) or nihilistic mindset. I pray that you will not sell out the US power structure if given the chance. My plea is that you will stand as patriots and friends alongside the millions of people of all races (whites too) who now live on this continent even as some try to make even bigger camps and reservation to put us all on.

Also I know that east coast and plains tribes have their legend of "The Peacemaker" who came to unite tribes and encourage them to walk the path of non-violence. Things like this do not happen by accident, and this story was passed down by your ancestors because it was so dear to them that at least one great man in the past was promoting the non-aggression principle which is the way of civilization. Please know that there is a growing sympathy and looking-back for your tribes, beliefs and people.

Please reject and try to heal the racial-superiority which will surely make some Indians drunk on their own racism as with the ATS member Jeff Weise who killed 10 people including his family and his reservation classmates and was reading Nazi racist-inflaming material. This kid of yours, Weise, was ignored like so many Natives and in fact poverty-level kids of all colors inside the US. That hurt hasn't yet been addressed because there is just so much painful emotion behind it. Please guard your children from taking refuge in the supposed superiority of one race over another. Your enemies have faced you with this thinking, but it is for you to transcend it. I have grown in respect for this land called America due to my learning from native ways. These ways were shown to me by native peoples who are at risk and who are harrassed by other indians for "giving medicine to whites". Please, I beg you, soften your hearts and share your medicine, even as we all face the spectre of hunger in the future.

Finally I want to offer my own short analysis of what happened to your land and your country due to immigration and hopefully it will give you comfort and understanding:

I believe that this land, America, is actually a temple, and perhaps some of you may agree with me? The situation is this: America at the time of your great-great-great-great-great grandmothers and grandfathers, was like a giant feast for a starving world. The good people of the world outside America were starving for religious freedom to worship while the evil people were starving for converts and gold. You encountered both types of these, on either coast of this country, and you tried to reason with them to no avail. Brutality was experienced and doled out on both sides with both sides claiming to be the responding party to oppression.

So why did it go this way? Why was your country and people devastated so? It is my feeling that it was because only within this great temple called America, could slavery be removed from the world. The civil war, which ended slavery in a short few years, could only have been fought in a temple, because so great was the hold which the slavers had on their captives' ankles. To destroy slavery required a grand battlefield concieved by the Creator of Earth alone. The American continent, was that temple.

Once that battle against slavery was over and the slavers had to go underground, the victorious authority turned their attention to you, and they outlawed the dances and they put you on the rez. But now here you are, the seventh generation removed from the great chiefs, and their words and their ways speak to you across time. I would like to add my voice to theirs and you can see in your hearts if my voice says the same thing as they do:

Knowing now that your great country was the pivot and the stage for the removal of slavery from Earth, and that no one single ghost dancer or grandmother died in vain, and knowing that all those great old ones have moved onto the happy hunting ground, I ask you to take the highest road possible at this time, 2009. See yourselves as the stewards of the temple which is America, because I believe that is how the Creator sees you. You will see many people attach themselves and their families to native ways in the time coming, and I hope you will have the open-handed friendliness, faith and love which your ancestors showed, even though you are angry.

Thank you.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by smallpeeps]

As a Native American, born in Louisiana, I have the strange feeling that this open letter to Native Americans didn't really apply to me.

Could it be that you were directing this open letter to Indians?

reply to post by RRconservative


Lol. Ya just had to eh? I'm no indian but i thought it was pretty moving. Nice gestures are what we need in this world. Thanks also for not demonizing your people too.

Originally posted by RRconservative
As a Native American, born in Louisiana, I have the strange feeling that this open letter to Native Americans didn't really apply to me.

Could it be that you were directing this open letter to Indians?

Well, I used the term Native American because it gives some dignity to a people who have been utterly stripped of that dignity, frankly. It costs nothing so why not honor them?

I like the ideas and songs they preserve. I like the dances and I like their philosophies in general. In my opinion, those various cultures they preserved to this day, is THE Native essence of this land, America. When I first sat down in a Native American home and saw the American flag as the main item on the wall, I was impressed. Okay sure it had a giant indian on it, holding a pipe, but it was a PEACE pipe, and that is superior to all other pipes.

But then even as I was typing the original letter I thought about indian people like Bombay India and such, and surely since they now have a space race and some billions of wonderful people, then I hav also slighted them with my open letter. In fact, there is no way to not look silly on the Internet so I rarely worry about it.

I think that our race is not as important as the higher concept which is that our blood in our veins contains the memories of our ancestors. This is key because our ancestors blood runs with whatever they used to stir their blood, during their lifetime. The blood pumps through your veins when you are excited or are about to engage in combat. The blood itself is a vehicle for the essences of our ancestors. We are vessels for their passions.

Our race is of far less important than our understanding of blood and the value of life. It is possible to honor all the dead, including Custer's men and all the dead at Wounded Knee and Gettysburg and so on. All we need to do is to see through each other's eyes. It is possible in our time.

And also I think most indians would agree with you about claiming Native status down there in Louisiana because they love the bayou and they love rivers.