A Powerful Message From The Native Americans

reply to post by Dianec


Well I believe the answer is that the Native Americans were actually no more stronger or have a more powerful message than any other group in the world.

Singling them out as if they have some insight that nobody else does is disingenuous. This is why many of us bring up all of these counter-points.

reply to post by Darkblade71


That's exactly right as well.

If we continue on expanding and looking at both sides of it though, you will see that historians do not agree on this point.

There is current scholarly dissent to the theory that the outbreaks of smallpox may have been aided by the intentional spreading of disease. The outbreaks that occurred specifically in this region may have resulted from sporadic cases already occurring amongst Indians rather than from this scenario. Historians also say that though blankets containing smallpox may have been distributed to Native Americans by the Europeans, they may have been given with good will and intentions, instead of for the purpose of disseminating disease. Additionally, scholars such as Gregory Dowd, are of the opinion that disease was spread by Native Americans returning from battling infected Europeans. Therefore it may have been carried by Native Americans to their own people and spread.

From here.

Let's do this.

I am going to delete almost all of the post context to the video and see how people respond.

People are arguing over historical facts instead of understanding the meaning, which seems to be our problem as a society.

Looks like Ego's rule again.

reply to post by Realtruth


I apologize for getting way off topic.

All of the history does not change that the message behind the videos are one that, in an ideal world, we should all follow.

Edit: Had to edit it to add that last jab hey? respect lost for you.

reply to post by Realtruth


Certainly not intended to derail your thread. Those are great videos and a great message about responsibility we have to the planet and why things are going so out of whack.

I loved the explanation of the tree, and how the cycle of the tree, and life within and around it is changed after it is cut and replanted. A very valuable observation from Native cultures about cause and effect, and how once it is gone, it can never be replaced correctly.

I just loved that part!

Yes, apologies for getting off topic.

The videos themselves are quite powerful and there is certainly something to be gained from them.

Definitely worth the watch.

superman2012

Rosinitiate
reply to post by Spookybelle

 

I think we should always take into consideration that the victors write history....

edit on 9-11-2013 by Rosinitiate because: (no reason given)

We should also take into account that people will choose whatever facts help them with their argument. There are facts and stories for both sides.
The 50 million or so Native Americans includes ALL the Americas...not just the US.
Smallpox blankets could be a myth.
Native Americans were more "in tune" with the land because the weren't as technologically advanced as the Europeans that came over.
The Native Americans overhunted, killed eachother, cut down swaths of forest for living space/hunting areas, basically everything the Europeans did, just not as efficiently. That is where technology comes in again.
As in all history, when a technologically inferior group of people meet a group of people that are technologically advanced...guess who loses? It happens/happened time and time again throughout history.
They were treated horribly! But they also treated eachother horribly. Does it make what happened to them right? No, but it happened and we have shown that we haven't learned from it even one bit. Oh sure, the POTUS, the PM of Canada and the Church have all apologized...but we just do it to different people now for different reasons.

Shhhh .....

reply to post by Realtruth


When you listen to Red Crow and then realize the Aborigine's in Australia plus many more native people's in the world all believe in being one with the earth you can't help but wonder what happen to the rest of us.

If we are the product of progress, we are doomed.

Spookybelle
reply to post by Dianec

 

Well I believe the answer is that the Native Americans were actually no more stronger or have a more powerful message than any other group in the world.

Singling them out as if they have some insight that nobody else does is disingenuous. This is why many of us bring up all of these counter-points.

To me, their message differs quite a bit from other groups - their persoectives. If everyone had this insight why is it that they don't talk about it? Some religions do, but it is not common knowlege that everyone shares equally - being exploited by NA. What other groups preach this same message in America? Whether each of us find value and want to identify with the message will differ. It is the way the stories are told that help it to resonate with me.

I also find value in stories told by other groups - along the same lines. What may intrigue me is that I see them returning to their roots and the reestablishment of their collective identity. If a group of Tibetans were oppressed for years, and came back to share their wisdom about the world It would captivate me just as much. It's a way to not only share their beliefs but also serves to bring validity back to the culture, which is still hugely oppressed. The message is powerful for more reasons than all on earth being connected. It is them reconnecting - attempting to assert their own beliefs about the world, and how peace can prevail.

reply to post by Realtruth


Great thread. s&f

More prophecy:

Judi Pope Koteen transmitted the following prophecy as it was told to Ghost Wolf, a Lakota pipe carrier and ceremonial leader:

"I will tell you a prophecy given to me by a Grandmother of the Seneca people. She told me we must work with the women to help heal their pain. In these times that are coming, she told me, we must learn to help women regain their power. If the women do not reclaim their power, it is told, the world will be lost. Because the men no longer act like men. They are not noble or proud, and they do not hold the words of the Creator close to their hearts.

"Men have become sick with ego, sick with greed, lost in confusion. They are no longer leaders, so their children do not learn, and the children wander aimlessly through life, without spirit. A human without spirit is like a ship without a sail. All you can do is float around, hoping to find a harbor.

"The Grandmother told me that in these times it will be the women who come to listen to these ways. It is the women who will remember who they are. Because women have lived for many thousands of years now, knowing who they were but never being able to speak the truth through their mouths. When the people left the Good Red Road and began to walk the black ribbon of road, the women were suppressed because the women kept warning the men that they were wandering from the ways...

"Heal the women. Then the women can heal the men, and together they can heal the earth.

"I will speak to you now of another prophecy. In the next decade, the Star People that you call meteorites will come to this earth in answer to the Mother’s call for help. You see, we are all relations. So the Star People are beings, and they are the planets, and the other bodies in the heavens as well.

"The Sacred Mother is screaming for life and the meteorites will hear her cries and answer her call for help. They will hit the earth from the heavens with such force that many internal things will happen as well as external. The earth will move as a result of the impact. This will cause the sacred fire that is the source of all life to the Mother to move through her body. She is like a Great Bird within the egg, trying to crack out...

"The rains will change their fall and the winds will alter their course and what has existed for 300 years will no longer exist. And where there is summer, there will be fall. And where there is fall, there will be winter. And where there is winter, there will be spring.

"The animals and plants will become confused. The animals will think it is spring in the winter, and the cherries will come to blossom, and die in the frost. And in the summer, the winds will come from the North and the blanket of purity will fall and the fruit will die. And the animals that you raise will not be able to graze... These are the changes the Mother will warn us with.

"There will be great plagues that you do not understand. Many of these plagues are born from your scientists whose intentions have gone awry. Your scientists have let these monsters loose upon the land. These plagues will spread through your waters and through your blood and through your food because you have disrupted the natural chain through which your Mother cleanses herself.

"Only those who have learned to live on the land where the waters run pure... will find sanctuary. Go to where the eagles fly, to where the wolf roams, to where the bear lives. Here you will find life because they will always go to where the water is pure and the air can be breathed. Live where the trees, the lungs of this earth, purify the air. Go to where the trees give, from their breath to you, the cleansing and the purity, to where they protect you from the plagues... Snow is the great purifier. Go to where the blanket heals. Learn to live in these places. You will live through the changes... There is a time coming, beyond the weather. The veil between the physical and the spiritual world is thinning; it is coming back to life..." (15)

www.bibliotecapleyades.net... Deganawida~

Excellent videos OP. I have watched them many times over the years just to remind me what is REALLY important.
Rainbows
Jane

The second video features Oren Lyon of the Onandaga Iroquois btw). Their messages are very similar as one would expect of Native Americans. At it's most basic level it is living with recognition of the spirit of all things. To know there is more to each thing than just what we see. That all things are connected and that there is a sacred bond to be honored. To them it is a crime to waste food or water, because it is sacred. Taking a life whether in hunting or in war is also a sacred act and certain ceremonies are employed to secure success and to give thanks and blessings.

Native Americans are the same as any of us. They don't have a monopoly on spirituality or connecting with nature. These are things we can all do. In modern society I suppose it's the job of artists and preachers to look at the spiritual side of things. They were different in that they always considered the spiritual aspect of any endeavor they undertook.

Modern man has set his own course for ruin. I think many of us will agree that it is not only inevitable but quite possibly close at hand. This coincides with what Floyd Crow Westerman has said. The only way to prevent this from happening is to change our course, change our ways of living. We must re-establish ways that live in harmony with nature, ways that give back while we take. Of course we won't care enough to change anything unless we receive a view of the world that is spiritual and actively care to attend that spirit.

I don't think this will happen through mass evangelization or mass anything. Something this special only comes to the individual heart when it is ready to receive the message. To reconnect with God is to connect with the Earth whether you are a Christian or agnostic matters not. If God made the world then surely we can know God through his/her/it's works. We are a part of that same creation, this is what the Native Americans did not forget. Modern man needs to remember their roots, reclaim their role as a part of nature and begin living with the land instead of living off the land.

Spookybelle
Its a myth that the Native Americans lived in harmony with nature and they were as destructive as any Europeans were. They simply did not have the technological capacity to conduct their pilfering on as large a scale.

Many tribes had no problem burning down entire regions of forests to make their hunts easier. They also conducted mass kills of buffalo by the "buffalo jump", an unsettling practice of driving entire herds off of cliffs. Contrary to their lore, they did not peacefully hunt only what was needed, they hunted the way they found easiest.

When discussing Native Americans you sort of have to read between the lines between what history books tell you and what has been found out to be more truthful accounts of their practices.

At least the didn't hunt entire species to virtual extinction!
They did not pollute the land they inhabited!
They had respect for the earth and each other!
They had respect for their elders!
What do we have today that is so much better then these
wise people we stole from?

I have the utmost respect for the way Native Americans revered Mother Earth in the past; today- not so much.
If you travel through ANY reservation settlement, you will be overwhelmed at the amount of garbage.
Cities have laws against such unhealthy conditions, but reservations don't.
Their disrespect for Mother Earth speaks for itself. The Natives of today, like all people, have lost their way.
There are exceptions to every rule, but on a whole, humanity needs a serious 'wake up' call.
Nugget

Shees people! You're arguing about what 2groups of people were like 100s of years ago and ignoring the fact that all groups involved have learnt a bit since then.

Listen to the videos, they're a call to personal responsibility to help stop this runaway freight train we're on that is destroying the life and biodiversity that our survival is dependant on. That is pretty self serving, but in a nice way that I fully support

He identifies some key actions on how to address our shared planetary issue:

Limited personal responsibility: If you act on someone else's instruction to do something that is destructive to the pattern of life you yourself are as responsible as the person giving instructions.

The shareholder profit myth: fallacy one is that the optimisation should only be done for the contributors of capital, it should be a lot wider than that. Fallacy 2 is that measuring in terms of a currency base that is rigged in favour of a select few is a useful practice. Measuring in terms of a currency base is ok, the basis of that should be carefully re-evaluated. We can start by addressing fallacy one, supporting cooperatives is a good way of approaching this. Fallacy 2 will have to be addressed and may take a bit more work.

Independence from life and nature: If we poison and destroy our environment, profit has no meaning. The easy way to practice this is with a healthy dose of anthropomorphication towards animals, plants and ecosystems. That may not be the most scientifically accurate, but definitely the easier education approach

There are so many more good memes in those videos, you should preferably ignore his ethnicity and listen to the simple practicality he stands for.

I can only think that if the Native Americans had the power of seeing the future, then things would have worked out more like this:



"The Gods of my people have spoken. They have said 'Do not trust the pilgrims - especially Sara Miller.' And for all these reasons, I have decided to scalp you, and burn your village to the ground"

reply to post by superman2012


Well put. Evidently I'm 1/8 Cherokee and 1/8 Choctaw.

And I've lived around the Dineh much of my life.

People are people the world over . . . and in any era. Some are mostly horribly bad. Some are miraculously mostly wonderful. Most are in the middle.

Intrinsic Christians have been sacrificially servant-hearted and loving for centuries.

Extrinsic pseudo-"Christians" have been as ruthless and hypocritical as devil worshipers too often.

There are themes in the stories of any people that are honorable and morally uplifting, morally exhortive and good models.

There are themes in the stories of any people that are horrible and describe the worst of mankind, animals and spiritual forces.


ETERNITY IN THEIR HEARTS: Startling Evidence of Belief in the One True God in Hundreds of Cultures Throughout the World Revised Ed by Don Richardson

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1384052649&sr=8-3&keywords=ETERNITY+IN+THEIR+HE ARTS

Has many true stories of tribal people's encounters with Almighty God in miraculous ways.

There is and has long been a DIFFERENCE--a general, bottom line difference between cultures with a significant percentage of intrinsic, authentic Judeo/Christian cultural members vs those with philosophies/religions where

1. Gods were construed as many, a mixture of good and bad and/or capricious

2. Where one's salvation depended on earning it.

3. The State and/or ruler was God . . . e.g. Rome, Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, . . .

The latter 3 have typically been much more blood-thirsty, dog-eat-dog and outright cruel, selfish, tyrannical over longer periods of time.

In the latter 3, KINDNESS has typically been less available, on average.

Ruthlessness, selfishness, tyranny, exploitiveness have been maximized or at least rampant.

Similarly, horrific abuse of women and children have been greater--worse and more common--in the latter cultures.

Stewardship of the land has been maximized wherein individual and group morality were maximized. The opposite has been the case where the opposite values and themes were more true.

No culture has a lily white record. A minority of cultures have been OVERWHELMINGLY mostly evil in their treatment of the land. However, most cultures have not been good models of stewardship. They have most all been plenty evil wherein it suited them; was handy; gave some advantage; etc.

One can watch the same phenomena on the Washington Mall.

Conservative & Christian groups vs liberals and liberal groups.

One tends to clean up after themselves rather thoroughly.

The others tend to leave the place like a wholesale terrible trash heap.

That's a FUNCTION of individual morality in a group setting. The record of the liberal side is horrible time after time, event after event. And those are typically the individuals and groups screaming the loudest about "poor mother earth." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhht.

The above, BTW, is a matter of public record per the National Park Service's own records.

INDIVIDUAL CHOICES make, cumulatively, A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

And when individual choices become selfish, aggressive, destructive as a majority group meme, custom, habit--the culture is on a slippery slide to hell . . . in more ways than one.

Next time you notice someone throwing trash out the car window . . . notice the bumper stickers . . .

Some value systems; Emphasis of some themes . . . correlate with selfishness and destructiveness. Some with the opposite.

Which reminds me . . .

Where do you think the dark, foreboding, snuff film, death and destruction, skulls, monsters, etc. memes, themes, glorifications originate from? What do you think are the fruit of such themes in a culture? Where do the seeds of such originate from?

Do you really think that such themes, values, habits, media brainwashing will result in BETTER CARE OF "mother earth" or one another?

reply to post by nugget1


As you likely well know . . .

The WAKE-UP CALL has been scheduled and is on the near horizon.

Spookybelle
Its a myth that the Native Americans lived in harmony with nature and they were as destructive as any Europeans were. They simply did not have the technological capacity to conduct their pilfering on as large a scale.

Many tribes had no problem burning down entire regions of forests to make their hunts easier. They also conducted mass kills of buffalo by the "buffalo jump", an unsettling practice of driving entire herds off of cliffs. Contrary to their lore, they did not peacefully hunt only what was needed, they hunted the way they found easiest.

When discussing Native Americans you sort of have to read between the lines between what history books tell you and what has been found out to be more truthful accounts of their practices.

You do know not all NA lived from hunting buffalo right? Sounds like you have heard nothing but myth about NA.

Parts of Western Hemispheric culture prior to the European Invasion did not have Prisons. If a child was born to the Cherokee Nation (as an example) that was too aggressive for that culture, he or she would be transferred to a more aggressive culture

Those indigenous people related to, South and Central America,as well as in the Caribbean, this is where things were different.



Any thoughts?