Alternatives
We can bring together the best in Western and Native culture by ____________________________________ [fill this in yourself].
George Gottschalk, Jr
In an interview with George Gottschalk, Jr., life-long Alaskan and Native activist from Naknek, three vital areas were identified as critical to cultural revival and the vitalization of rural Alaskan and Native communities:
1.) Repeal and vacate all laws and regulations at State and Federal levels that impede and subvert independent Native governance.
2.) Return to the old traditional Village Counsel model of local governance, which was both matriarchal and patriarchal and governed by consensus, rather than by the democratic model of majority rule.
3.) All education at elementary, middle and high school levels must be in full control of village and regional governing counsels.
See the Alaska Humanity News website, humanitynews.net, for portions of the interview by Harry Davidson, Alaska Humanity News.
There are over 1.5 million indigenous people in the U.S....
There are at least 3,000 native nations in the world that continue to function within the boundaries of the 200-odd countries that assert sovereignty over them.
Understanding Native Spirituality
Education causes the loss of identity
Education causes the loss of identity. How venomous are the words of a book when read by an indigenous person. He becomes a despot instead of a healer. Education and migration are the greatest threat to our culture. They are opposed to our communal way of living.
We need to rescue the indigenous values that have been erased. There are four indigenous principles: Reciprocity, solidarity, redistribution, and hard work. This has allowed us to survive during the last five hundred years.
When we achieved a level of government participation we thought this was a very special time, but found out that is was NOT. Once we were part of the government, we had to support policies that previously we opposed.
Yachay, Quechua Indian, Quito, Ecuador, Summer, 2004
Black Elk
“Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation....Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood and so it is in everything where power moves.”
Black Elk
U’wa
“All of us U’wa, equally, are very poor. There’s nobody who has more money than anybody else. There’s not this inequality. We U’wa believe that if one person has more money or more land or food than someone else, they need to help them. That’s part of our culture. The poor help those who are even more poor.”
“It would be good if people understood the organizational structures of the indigenous people of the world. The organizations of the indigenous world are the most ancient structures of the world, and they have a kind of intelligence that is very concrete and complete. They don’t sell themselves for anything. Talking with other indigenous organizations from around the world, we know that we are on an equal footing with them because it is our hearts that lead us. The heart is what gives us the intelligence that we shouldn’t rule the world. The ceremony encapsulates it all. All the world has ceremonies, and it is these ceremonies that protect Mother Earth.”
Berito Kuwar U’wa, leader of the U’wa people of Columbia, Saying Yes
What is true wealth?
“Invest not your interest (and self-interest) - invest your principal and your principles.”
Aqeela Sherrills: The Reverence Movement
“Why should all virtue work in one and the same way? Why should all give dollars? It is very inconvenient to us country folk....Farmers will give corn; poets will sing; women will sew; laborers will lend a hand; the children will bring flowers.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Spiritual Laws
“Money is not wealth: it is only a measure of wealth; the real wealth is people, communities, cultures, land, forests and rivers. Accountants therefore need to take all these elements into account. The bottom line has to include social and natural as well as financial loss and gain.”
Satish Kumar, Resurgence, Nov 2005
Eskimo alternative to violence
“When quarrels are not settled [through public opinion or by an elder], then some form of contest is held, preferably a game, that takes the place of an outright battle. Wrestling or head-butting contests are typical forms of quasi-dueling in Eskimo society. It is done in public and the winner is considered by the public to have won his case. Particularly interesting is the famous Eskimo song duel: the weapons used are words, ‘little, sharp words, like the wooden splinters which I hack off with my axe.’….Singing skill among [the East Greenlander Eskimos] equals or outranks gross physical prowess.”
Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness