Cretinous Columbus Nothin' to Celebrate

Hanh mitakuyapi / Hello my relatives.
Today is October 12 & there's nothing to celebrate or commemorate about it in this Turtle Island insofar as Cretinous Columbus goes - yet on Prairie Public radio & in the Morton-Mandan Public Library, there are references to this as a day to commemorate this slime.
Let's get this straight - this cretinous creep lopped off Indn men's hands for not bringing him "enough" gold - just what is "enough" gold, anyway? - and he made sex slaves of Indn men, women, & children. Certainly there is nothing to celebrate or commemorate in either instance. We don't commemorate Hitler or Mengele.. and Indns' holocaust is still going on!
As for "discovering" this land - he didn't do that,either. We Indns were here for something like 60,000 years before any Europeans made landfall here, claims by "scientists" (who can definitely be bigoted, as we all know from reading history) to the contrary. Trust me - we were well aware of where we were - and where our neighbors were, too, along with whether or not they were friendly or enemy.
Dakota Territory is some of the most racist part of "America" yet South Dakota was the first of the 50 states to make a Native American Day, sometime in the 1990s. And in 2001 or so, North Dakota followed suit, with First Nations Day - to be celebrated the second weekend in October.
For those of you who might want to correct me with the term "Native Americans" - I'm not one of those, either, & neither are the rest of us, because this is not "America". That's a term tagged on this land by a self-promoting Italian mapmaker, Amerigo Vespucci, who wanted to immortalize himself.
This is Turtle Island, & we are properly (as a group, anyway) Indigenous Turtle Islanders or ITI for short.
We're supposed to be in the Age of Enlightenment, yet these stupid backward "commemorations" continue, & when someone (usually me) raises a stink about it, the yeowls of denial are nearlydeafening. Pitiful! As if denial made any difference. HAH!
It's long past Time to get rid of "commemorations" of monsters - other than Halloween. But then, that - in part - is what Halloween is for. The rest of the year isn't. Mitakuyapi oiasin / All, my relatives.

ND Higher Ed Board Lies Again

In this morning's headlines is a story that the ND Higher Ed Board has again extended their "deadline" for getting rid of the "Fighting Sioux" logo. These people have given so many excuses as to their reasons for repeatedly extending the "deadline", we can no longer count them.
Recently someone asked me why I am so adamantly against this logo. (1) We are not the "Sioux"; we are the D/L/Nakota. Not the "treacherous, untrustworthy people" - that's the ND Board of Higher Education. We are "the Allies". (2) The Oxford Standard Dictionary of the English Language - the dictionary used everywhere in the English-speaking world to define words at the highest level - gives "pet" & "caricature" as the 2 lead definitions of "mascot". Living people are neither. The Vikings are dead; we are not. Neither are our cultures. Make pets & caricatures of dead cultures if you will, but not of ours, which are still living. (3) We Indns get no benefits from this mascot. We get no payments. We get no classes or anything having the logo on it free of charge. Nothing. But the U of ND gets millions of dollars. While we Indns are forced onto welfare or ultra-low-wage jobs. (4) Many of us are against this entire situation. We never gave our permission to be logo-ed. And just because someone else did it 40-50 years ago, when the vast majority of Indns lived in fear of their lives, let alone jobs or such, if they did not accept the proposal to become 'mascots', especially means it is unacceptable now.
So - get rid of the logo now, & stop meddling in our cultures again! Hechetu chto!

January 20 2009 - End of an "Error" in US History

Hanh mitakutyapi. Hello my relatives.
I don't know if I'll be able to get to a computer w Internet to post tomorrow or not, so this goes in the site today.
On January 20, 2009, we will see the end of an "era" - spell that "error", in U.S. history. We will no longer be living under a bush (Bush) in "America". For which I fervently Thank Tunkashila.
The first black person or known mixed blood person in U.S. history will be sworn into the office of the Presidency of this nation. 233 years after the 'nation' was formed, if I calculate right.. I can only say, "better late than never".
Like ITI everywhere, I am cautiously hopeful that Mr. Obama will continue to prove out - that the hope & optimism he has engendered throughout his campaign will be fulfilled. That under his leadership & driving ethics, much of the corruption & ethical laziness we have seen as "business as usual" while we were all forced to "live under a Bush" will be driven out of the offices of the 'leaders' of business & government - or at least, whipped into submission & corralled in a corner.
In our Traditional Ways, we women rattle our tongues to en-courage & to show support & to promote good hearts. So in this vein, I will rattle my tongue for this incoming Administration & these concepts, & urge all of you who read this to join in. Mitakuye oiasin - All, my relations.

Civil Rights Workers Day

Hanh mitakuyapil Hello my realtives. Today should properly be called "Civil Rights Workers Day", for all of the civil rights workers who died to get to the Civil Rights Act, not just one man.
You should know that after the Civil Rights Act was passed, representatives of our Indigenous Nations went to the leaders of the black people & said, "We helped you get this Act. Now it's time for you to help ensure that our Rights are covered, too." They refused us - on the same grounds that whites have since Europeans first came here. The black "leaders" said, "You have no money, so you have no power. Get your Rights insured to you, yourselves."
That's strike 2 as far as we're concerned.. Strike one in black - ITI relations was after the War Between the States. Before that war, we ITI helped blacks escape slavery via the underground railroad. We took blacks into our homes, married & had children with them, taught them our ways & our secret places, gave them pride, respect & dignity. How did they thank us?
After the war, the U.S. government bullied them, saying, "If you don't help us find & exterminate Indians, we'll take your citizenship & freedom away & make you slaves again." So the blacks turned us over. Those were mainly the Buffalo Soldiers - we named them that because they curly hair reminded us of the buffalo's hair, & they were in the bluecoat army.
Martin Luther King Jr. was by no means the only person who "made a difference" in the battle for civil rights for everyone who lives under the U.S. Constitution. And I believe he would not have been at all comfortable with having a federal holiday in his name, for the same reason I believe it's wrong to call this holiday after him.
So while there's tons of fuss & furor being made over "Martin Luther King Jr" day, we should all be focussing instead on the many others who died to get the Civil Rights Act passed, and enforced. That battle continues for us Indns. Hechetu ye.

On Average Intelligence

Hanh mitakuyapi. Hello my relatives.
The scary thing about being of average intelligence is, it's so low. Neither you nor I is likely to be of average intelligence. We fly somewhat higher than that. Unfortunately, people of average intelligence are in the majority if you believe in bell curves. And we are coming up on a Presidential election in less than 2 weeks. That's where the 'really scary' part comes in.
This morning, I was eating in a local cafe' & there was a group of a dozen or so elderly people sitting not too far from me - discussing, of course, politics. The remarks I heard were enough to make my Indn hair stand. on. end.
Predictably, there were many remarks about Sarah the Bimbo & whether she could 'take over & run the country if McCain dropped dead'. As if the President runs the country. Last I heard, this is still a Constitutional democratic republic, ongoing efforts to gut the Constitution to the contrary. The reality is, a variety of governmental entities run the country, from village boards to county boards to city councils to Congress. But in no way does the President run this country, and (s)he never has.
When FDRoosevelt was felled by a stroke, his wife Eleanor did much of his decision-making, not the then Vice-President.. but Congress & the various municipal entities ran the country. And that has not changed.
But the best/worst of the incredibly stupid remarks I heard this morning from that group of retirees was, "Obama isn't ready to run the Presidency because he's black & you know they can't run things.. They all live in ghettos & wear funny clothes & talk funny." And the rest of this group nodded & said, "yep. yep."
I nearly threw up. Instead, I fixed one of them with my best beady-eyed stare until she blushed & looked away. Whereupon, she whispered to the rest of the group that "there's an Indian sitting over there, listening in & staring at us in an unfriendly way". (Yep.yep.) And like a school of fish, they changed the subject of their talk as if they were one entity, & got off on.... the weather. I just thought you might like to know about these things. Let's pray there's some sanity after this election, & we aren't subjected to another 4 years of Bush-n-Karl-Rove-ism. I don't think we can take it. Hm.. Maybe they're black after all. Sure as hell they can't run things worth spit, unless you count "into the ground".

Re the grizzly bear the killed his handler that is in the headlines today -

"Bambi" is NOT reality. The reality is, people call such bears 'tame', but the bears have neither read the book, nor agreed with its premise, that persuades supposedly superior and supposedly more intelligent humans that bears can be 'tamed'. In short, they are not 'tame', and they never will be. The bear should be left to live and handled in some other way, since it can't be returned to the wild. Walt Disney & his dream-films are the worst thing to happen to wild animals since DDT and dioxin.

As for the story about grizzlies in Yellowstone - "Are there too many bears in Yellowstone?" No, there are too many HUMANS, the same as every other place on earth. Just because some Bambi-ite with more money than brains wants to build a house in or on the edge of a National Forest or other National Wilderness Preserve, DOES NOT mean they should be allowed to. Yellowstone National Park is not a zoo. The animals and flora that live there year round have precedence over the humans who come there to visit. The humans are said to be smarter - the humans need to be educated so they treat Yellowstone's inhabitants with respect instead of Pollyanna attitudes.

I hunt, with bow, guns, and cameras, and I admire the wild animals tremendously, but I don't think in terms of cuddling up to something with 4"-long claws and 3"-long fangs, such as a grizzly, or hand-feeding it. My Ina (ee-nah) / Momma didn't raise no dumb Indns.

I'm a horse-Indn, and we have Traditionally saluted any of our hunters who fought with a bear and survived, let alone won, but we also gave such people a wide berth, on the premise that they were spiritually different and not to be trifled with, due to the nature of "bear". That's an excellent perspective to maintain today.

A white man brought a bear cub up to the state Legislative Session one year, asking for some help with a bill regarding wild animals. I held this 4-month-old bear in my arms. He gave me a hug that took my breath away, and I've swung a hammer for over 30 years. I am no soft female. That should tell anyone all they ever need to know about the strength of bears.

That the bear bit the handler and killed him is not the bear's fault. Killing the bear won't teach it anything. Killing the bear won't bring back the dummy who hugged the bear. Killing the bear won't do one damned good thing. The bears - including this one - need our protection, our admiration, and our help - not to be treated like pets when there is nothing pet-ish about them.

Insight vs Elephant in Living Room

We all know about the elephant in the living room.. I realized a couple of days ago that I've been tripping over one for nearly 2 years now. This is more than a tad embarrassing, mitakuyapi..
I design things all the time. Beadwork patterns, powwow outfits, solar heaters, ways to improve the mileage of vehicles while cutting emissions without computers, bale buildings, and on & on. More than one person has asked if my mind ever shuts down.. The answer is, probably not. I know I'm a restless sleeper.. High energy people are like that, I guess. Regardless, I am.
About 2 years ago, I doodled a design for a passive solar heater that would hang on the outside of a wall. I built some for myself, then filed it under "the 2-year plan", which means I might get to "doing something positive" with it in 2 years or so, or I might never, or somewhere in between. This was before $2 and $3 / gallon fuel, obviously.
Then about a year ago, I read an article on someone else's design for a passive solar heater that hangs on the outside of a wall, and while it felt awfully familiar, it didn't ring any loud bells for me. Until a couple of days ago, when I was looking for something else, and came across my old design doodles in my files.
Em-barr-ass-ing! No wonder the article and the design of the units seemed awfully familiar.
Not to mention - I've been racking my brain for ways to get the tiny company I founded in 2000 back in the market we had to withdraw from due to inability to meet demand for our product with the equipment we had, and insufficient money to build or buy the equipment we need to meet demand.
It has never been a matter of "need to make market" with us; it has always been a matter of "how to meet demand". Yes, lucky us on one hand, and pity us on the t'other. Funding Indn projects is not popular in the U.S, no matter what the hype says.
Please, don't say "write a grant" - I'm a good grant writer, but we've struck out repeatedly with that approach of late because we insist we plan to hire non-drinking, non-doping people with a strong bent towards other ITI (Indigenous Turtle Islanders. You call us Indns or "Natives"). Indn Preference is federally mandated and there are gobs of incentives for it, not to mention, if we don't preferentially hire our own the way majority-culture types preferentially hire whites, I believe we're kicking ourselves in the shins. That's stupid, so we try hard not to do that.
I've been out of work since early November 2007, and out of 'spare' cash since about mid-January, 2008. I've heard more ridiculous excuses for not hiring me than I can shake a stick at. My current favorite is, "we don't want to hire you because you have a college education, and our process is patented. Our belief is we must do everything we can to protect our patented process from thieves." Takoszja, I don't want to work for any company that believes 'everyone else is a thief', and that includes me..
Personally, I - like nearly everyone else - find the making of windows to be supremely boring work. I want a job, not a career, so I can pay my bills & build the equipment I need to get 'my' company - with one food product and two non-food products - back in the marketplace. Period. I could give a flying damn about stealing anything; especially something as expensive as a patent. They have an offensive - and stupid - attitude. There's a lot of that around of recent times, as we all know.
I was searching through my notebooks for an old design the other day and found my design for passive solar heaters. Bells rang, things banged, and I saw the elephant! Right there where it had always been, smack in the middle of my living room! Or in this case, my office.
I had recently figured my personal carbon footprint at an online site, and found it to be between 6,000 and 7,000 lbs. of carbon per year (compared to an average of 20,500 lbs/ year for most people in the U.S.).
The passive solar heater would not only cut that for me, but it would cut the carbon footprint of everyone who heats. Lessee, now, that's most of the country, sooner or later, isn't it? I believe it is. Up here in the northern tier states, it's 5-6 months of every year.
Now this is exciting, takoszja! For about $500, I can put together a web site, information brochure (preferably email, not paper), and manufacture and sell enough units to get my tiny little company back in the market(s)! We can support the 501c3 I also head at a level it has only dreamed about for the 35 years of its existence. We can make a Difference!
I am a Sun Dancer, therefore, a Pipe Carrier. The prayer that orients my Channunpa, and therefore, my entire life, is called the Prayer of The Four Winds. I am the woman who Dances The Four Winds. This prayer is a prayer to heal the Sacred Hoop of the world. If anything would help heal the Sacred Hoop of the world, it would be something like these passive solar heaters, which cut the carbon footprint of everyone who uses them because they cut the amount of fuel needed to heat a building - be it a house, a shop, a chicken coop, a trailer / mobile home, or an apartment.
Now all I have to do is get a job so I can put the $500 or so together & get this out there. I find this so exciting I don't feel embarrassed any more for having not seen the elephant in my living room (OK, office) for so doggoned long. All of this will happen because I doodle and I save the doodles. Pilamiyaye! Wopila tanka!, Takuskanskan.

Beadwork as Love

People have been making and attaching beads to anything and everything since the first of us figured out how to do it "lila ota ehanni" - a really long time ago. (For those who want pronunciation guide: 'i' = 'ee', 'a' is 'ah', 'o' = 'oh', 'e' is 'eh'; the 't' is tongued lightly in this case, & the 'h' is hissed slightly as if you were trying to clear your throat softly while speaking. Lakota is a nasal, glottal language.)
Regardless, it is human nature to decorate, embellish, combine whatever catches our fancy so as to make the nifty, niftier. Somewhere far back along the run of time, back in the days when time more likely sauntered, someone decided to put a hole in something, and made the first bead. Or maybe s/he noticed that some woods, such as chokecherry (champa), have a soft center that can be pushed out, then they cut off a small piece, carved away some or all of the bark, and strung it on a thong. Who did it or where they lived is immaterial, however and wherever it happened, beadwork was born, and we Two-Leggeds got a new spiritual-therapy tool to boot.
Beadwork is relaxing, whether you do it or handle it. It is not something you can just whip through from start to finish. It requires focus, and some small amount of finger coordination. Anyone can learn to bead if they have passable eyesight and finger dexterity. I have taught beadwork to children as young as four, and to old men with work-enlarged, work-hardened hands and fingers like cigars, and everyone in between.
If your eyesight isn't terribly sharp at short distances, there are lighted magnifiers in a variety of shapes, sizes, and prices to help you enjoy this ancient, but timeless, fine-artwork medium.
You have no patience, you say? I'll tell you a secret, takoszja - patience is at least as much learned as it is inborn. Patience is a virtue in everyone's culture.
Beads can be made from almost any material, and have been. Materials include paper, both from sheets and mache', salt and bread dough clay, earth clays, metal, glass, pottery, porcelain, wood, and plastic. Did I miss any? Hope not!.. Probably did, though..
There are 'tons' of really nice books on beads out there.. on bead collecting, bead making, and what to do with beads and how to do it, to name a few. Take a look..
I have been with various men over the years, most of whom loved beadwork. Some of them did it, some just wore it.. All of them said that when they looked at beadwork, they felt calmer inside. I was with a wonderful Lakota man for about 15 months when he was murdered. I remained 'alone' for 9 years before I met another man I had any interest in taking up with. We were together about 3 days shy of a year when he was killed by someone trying to mug him for $300, in 2006. My inspiration left me when he went, but the relaxation I still get from creating beautiful things in beadwork, even though the patterns are someone else's right now.
Like "everyone, everywhere", I've always gotten a sense of relaxation and spiritual calming from looking at and handling beadwork, especially when it is either very well done, or the work of someone whose talent may not be the greatest, but who really loves what they do.
That last reminds me of a remark by a little boy from some time in my past.. His mother was very busy with something, so instead of making cookies to put in his lunch, she bought some "name brand" kind and put them in instead. He bit into one at lunch, made a wry face and looked at it and put it back in his lunch box with a sigh. Another little boy asked if there was something wrong with the cookie. The first boy shrugged and said, "needs love".
Truly, when something is made with love, it shows. Beadwork makes love tangible as much as it does anything else.

A Response to Another Article about Where we ITI "Reeally" Came From

I am an ITI - an Indigenous Turtle Islander. A First 'American', although in reality, 'America' is a construct made by a self-agrandizing Italian mapmaker, Amerigo Vespucci, who wanted to immortalize himself, not the proper name of this land.
Contrary to popular myth-conceptions developed and promoted by people of European descent, we have been here for far more than the 15,000 years generally quoted - not that it matters. We were here first, by far first and before Europeans made landfall on this side of the Mni Tanka - the Big Water - therefore we are the ones to have properly named it, and we did.
The arrogance that ignorance engenders never fails to amaze me - along with the many forms it takes - about us ITI Peoples. First is the insistence that it 'must' be 'proven' that we 'came here from somewhere else'. Why? Why 'must' this be 'proven'? What prompts this lemming-like rush to make a sea of claims about our 'true' origins? My guess is, cultural guilt. Well-deserved, from where we ITI sit....
After "Why?", we can then ask, "What - if anything - would it 'prove' about our claim to this land if it could be proven that we actually migrated here from somewhere else?" IF we did - and we Elders who are Traditionals, who carry the Creation Stories of our Peoples, KNOW WE DIDN't come from somewhere else - would it prove anything? No.
Would it lessen our claim to this land? No. IF it could be proven beyond any reasonable doubt that we ITI had come here from somewhere else, it wouldn't make a clamshell's worth of difference, because (a) we were here first; (b) we were here first by thousands of years and as a result, the exact number doesn't matter; (c) there is ample evidence that we were here for at least 65,000 years before Europeans came her, should anyone be so backward as to insist on counting the number of years.
And believe me - THAT IS the real reason for the lemming-like rush to 'prove' we ITI "actually came here from somewhere else". It is a sophomoric attempt to try to decrease our claim to this land, so that a rationale can be made for the atrocities committed on our Peoples over the past 516 years or so: The land grabs, the anti-Indn legislation, the outlawing of our Traditional spiritualities and worship forms (with only partial return of our theoretical First-Amendment Rights), the continuing assaults on our cultures and attempts to force us to assimilate, the seemingly-never-ending efforts to terminate our Treaties, our Treaty RIGHTS (not "priviledges") and the US government's / majority culture's concomitant Treaty Obligations, and dispose of our Reservations, and so on to terminal nausea.
Historians try to speak about "The period of The Indian Wars". Listen up, takoszja - The Indian Wars never ended. They are still going on today. Right now. Only the overtness and the form appeared to change. But then, our word for Europeans is "washichu" (wah-SHEE-choo). It can be broken into its root words in two ways; neither of them is a compliment. We give people and things their true names according to their spiritual essence, not some physical characteristic. True names are earned, therefore.
Washichu can be broken into 'washi' and 'ichu' - 'washi' is fat on a body and 'ichu' means 'to take'; thus this means 'to take the fat'. In hunter-gather cultures, fat is a precious commodity, because it is such a concentrated energy source. Fat has twice the calories per unit of mass that protein or carbohydrates do. If you eat a very high-protein diet, as wild meat is, you will starve to death in cold or famine times because you will not put on much, if any, fat. Thus, someone who takes the fat is a greedy, ungenerous person; someone who behaves as if they do not have any relatives. In the ITI Way, this is a huge flaw. Of the few universal threads among our many cultures, to be called greedy or ungenerous is a huge insult.
Washichu can also be broken into 'wa' - snow, and 'shichu' - the conscious fourth of the soul. In my People's Way, the soul has four parts; this is not so for all ITI cultures, of course. Nonetheless, we see it that way, and the word is ours.
Thus you see that we have said this person's sould is that of snow. In every culture in the world, the snow spirits do snow jobs, kill the warmth of the heart, kill kindness, make the path appear to be one way or place when it is another.. It speaks of ungenerousness, deviousness and untrustworthiness.
Over the past 516 years, there haven't been enough members of the majority culture who are no washichu for us to find a new name for them. We make an exception for those who prove they are not entirely washichu, but those are far and few between in our experience.
Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of the invading culture over the past 516 years haven't said a whole lot of good about the invading culture or the people who live by it.
Tch, tch, tch!

In my People's Way, when someone does something wrong, the rest of us ask that person, "Where is your respect? WHERE IS your RESPECT?!?" People who are asked this are shamed; and ashamed, if they are not washichu in their heart of hearts..
So on behalf of us ITI People, who have been here since time immemorial, I ask you who continue to insist on trying to 'prove we ITI came here from somewhere else' and therefore have less original right to this Turtle Island than you, so that your culture can somehow try to find an acceptable rationale for the ongoing assaults on our cultures and for your culture's not-so-far-past atrocities committed on us -
Where is your respect? WHERE IS your RESPECT?!? You can quit this nonsense now. That would 'show' respect. Along with fulfilling your Treaty Obligations with no further stupid lawsuits trying to duck your 'word of honor' given when your agents signed the Treaties and stopping your ongoing attempts to destroy our Traditional Ways and our spiritual ways in particular, to mine our Sacred Sites or dump nuclear waste in them, to either force us to take a giant step down and back and assimilate into your culture, or die.. To do anything else is to continue to earn the name we gave you 'way back when - washichu. Tch, tch, tch!

On Us Horse-Indns as Mascots

There has been a lot of uproar about Us horse-Indns being used a mascots by majority-culture schools and sports teams in recent years.

People ask me for my opinion of the matter, and are often surprised when I tell them, "It's wrong to use us as mascots. It's rude and it's demeaning because mascotting makes us into cartoons. We are not public figures or public property for any bonehead to use that way. We are living, breathing People - Nations! - and our Traditional cultures are very much alive, however tattered by the ongoing assaults of the majority culture over the last 516 years. It shouldn't even be a subject for discussion. It should be intuitively obvious how wrong it is, and it should stop automatically as a result."

Those who have asked are invariably dismayed as well when I tell them these things, for they had not thought of them before. It seems the majority of people think of themselves as respectful, so it grabs them when they find out that they have wrongly colored themselves.

Here in Dakota Territory, we have two divisions of the area - North and South. In North Dakota, the state's largest university uses my people as its mascot. Without our permission, of course. There has been quite a bit of media coverage of the controversy as my People get active n objecting to being used this way. There has been quite a bit of rancor from the spoiled brats faction of the majority culture, too. They've made tons of money from us over the years, & we haven't gotten one red cent. We mean to kill off their cash cow and they like that as little as they like being forcefully reminded that they have behaved like a bunch of bigots and clods.

We were never asked if we wanted to be used as the mascot for the state's main university.. A university whose slogan includes such drivel as claiming that it exists to educate and to teach people to sift for truth and honor.. We were never offered gifts or any other kind of 'pay' before this practice was begun..
Indns in Dakota Territory exist at the bottom of the economic totem pole, and thanks to "The Custer Effect", the majority seem to think we belong there. Wrong. Just the same, there are a lot of excuses given for not hiring us, as employees or as contractors or otherwise patronizing our businesses.

Excuses given for not hiring us, or for not paying us equally with whites include such gems of stupidity as:
(1) Indns drink; meaning, "always to excess". This is blatant garbage. The majority of Indns do not drink alcohol at all, let alone 'to excess'. So - who are those people in beer commercials, anyway? Not Indns! We're a minority in our own country. We didn't create the problem when it does exist, either.
Alcohol was not made by any of us here before Europeans brought alcohol here when they 'discovered' us. (We'll discuss 'discovered' later.)
(2) Indns are unreliable. They don't show up & they don't call to say they aren't coming. This is not a uniquely Indn problem, either. I've been in business most of my life; if you read business magazine for the past 25 years - maybe more - you will find that The Top Problem discussed in them is "employee absenteeism" and how to stop it.
I'll tell you what employee absenteeism really is... First, it's not an Indn problem. We're a minority in our own land, remember? What employee absenteeism really is is the employees saying in actions, rather than just in words, that they are grossly unhappy with their working conditions. They are saying it with actions rather than words because they've tried words & have been ignored by their bosses every time. Actions speak louder than words..
In the case of Indns, though, there are other reasons for not calling when they aren't coming in. Since we live at the bottom of the economic totem pole, a telephone is a luxury we can't always afford. So there's seldom a neighbor to go to to make a call. Businesses have been UNfriendly about letting us use their phones.. If you can't come in, you aren't going to go to the job site to tell them, are you?
"Emergency" is a regular part of our language for a long time now. Out here, it's mainly because of what I call "The Custer Effect" or "Custerism". We beat the snot out of Custer et al at the Greasy Grass in 1876 and the whites are still trying to beat us up and "get even" for that. Basically, it's a 132-year-old temper tantrum, & its' still going on. People like me, who refuse to knuckle under, and who raise stink about it to 'the outside world' are not the most popular people here. I've been told "how dare you tell them about it?" "Them" is you out there.
Anyway, if you're up to your eyeballs in an emergency, you aren't likely to go looking for a phone to call work to tell them you aren't coming in on time. Besides, we know we'll tell them when we get there.. We are adults, after all.. In the Indn Way, adults don't say 'captain may I', we take care of our problems & then go on. The whites haven't learned that yet.
(3) Indns steal. / Indns are all thieves. I reply, "So who was it whose culture stole an entire continent from US, anyway?" There's always big silence after that one....
While we're at it, guess what is the second-most-discussed problem in American business the past 25 or so years? Em-ploy-ee theft. It's not an Indn problem. Your lot is no more virgin in this than we are, and there are more of you...

While we're discussing theft - let's consider the theft of dignity and self-esteem caused by mascotting. If you've been beaten on all of your life, you are likely to have low self-esteem to begin with. Being seen as a cartoon character isn't going to improve that, is it?

For my own self, I think I'd like to see the UND mascot changed to the Battling Bigots or some such. As for sports teams, there are plenty of possibilities for them that don't include making fun of us Indns.

So - now you know. Hechetu ye.

O Hanh! Welcome!

I send a warm handshake and good greetings to you. You will find many things here - satire, sarcasm, humor, puns, outrage, and even sometimes sorrow. I have a very wide range. In the majority culture's bigoted way, if I were male, I would be called a Renaissance man. Since I'm female - & horse-Indn to boot - I'm just called odd, different, or sometimes (rudest) 'weird'.
You will find my perspective, and you will find that I am not your average 'anything'. No one thinks for me and no one ever doubts where I stand on anything; not for more than a few minutes, anyway. I am said to be 'outspoken', by my detractors. Yep, I am. I haven't asked "captain may I?" since I was about 10 in very many instances. You can take it or leave it.. my heart won't cry.
If you've read About Me in here, you know I'm a horse-Indn, not an elephant-Indian, and not a "Native American". I'm anything but politically correct. No one ever thinks or speaks for me. Technically, I'm an ITI - an Indigenous Turtle Islander, me...
I am one of those who has always walked in two cultures - my Indn one (D/Lakota) and the majority culture. While we're here, touching on Indn cultures, let's get something straight. There is not, and there never was, "an" Indn culture. So unless you want me to poke you with the sharp end of my tongue, or maybe even slice you, if you write to me, don't speak about "the" Indn culture.
(My first ex would be the first to tell you that my tongue was made by Wilkinson Sword. Like any other tool, a knife, or a sharp tongue, can be used to do many things - cut away dross, skin a beast, slice n dice to ribbons...)
In the majority culture way, my essence is 70% air, & in 2 dual signs; 20% fire, in their own rulers; and 10% earth, so fire in earth. Sharp wit, lots of range, born an unusual being, moves fast most of the time, tons of tough and endurance, not afraid to tackle practically anything. Yes, we're talking about horoscopes. Another handy tool. One that touches the right side of the brain & speaks with your intuition. (In-tuit-ion - one's inner teacher).
While we're at this part about horoscopes, I'll tell you a true story. For all of my life, the simplest things I've done have ended up in amazing uproar oftener than not. It about drove me crazy, and like so many, I didn't used to put much stock in horoscopes. On t'other hand, I couldn't find any answers via either my culture or the majority culture as to why this is so.
I have a friend who did horoscopes for a living at that time, & finally, I went to her and asked if a natal horoscope could give me any insight. She said, "Sure!" Such a positive response was comforting, so I asked her if she would cast mine & give me a quick-&-dirty assessment. She would.
After she put the needed information into her computer, it kicked out my natal chart. These are uniquely one person's, because they are defined by latitude, longitude, time of day/night, month, day, and year of a person's birth. While it is within the realm of possibility that 2 people 'might' be born in the same city at the exact same time/day/month/year, the odds are pretty small.
Anyway, she looked at my chart for about 60 seconds, then jabbed a finger at it and said, "There! You have your asteroids in your "Nth" house, in Libra. You attract controversy like a lightning rod." I'm not telling you which house because I can't remember if it is the 5th or 6th.
Given that I am an heyoka, & we play with the lightnings on occasion, this was not comforting news. I said, "Loren! Couldn't you come up with a better analogy? I have enough trouble with the lightnings as it is!" and I laughed nervously. She smiled and said, "Ok. You attract controversy like honey attracts bears." I moaned. Then I said, "Big improvement. We've gone from lightning to large powerful things with long claws & huge fangs & vile tempers, that occasionally eat us." We both laughed & she said, "It's how you are, lady. Rosin your seat, sit deep, and get used to it. Your life will always be a wild ride." I've been working on that ever since.
She was absolutely right. It has always been a wild ride. I do the simplest things & chaos comes to visit. I'm not complaining, mind you. More like, I'm giving you notice. If you want a fresh perspective, no punches pulled, and controversy, this is probably the place to find it.
I don't have to try to be different - I was born different. Mitakuye oiasin.