Live from Phillip Deere Roundhouse in Okemah, Oklahoma: Third Convening of the Four Winds
Article by Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Sept. 7, 2024
Live radio broadcast by Govinda Dalton
OKEMAH, Oklahoma -- The gathering at the Phillip Deere Round House began this morning with good words from Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca, and traditional Traditional Mvskoke and Chahta (Choctaw) from Oklahoma and Mississippi.
Suzaatah Horinek, Ponca, spoke on white privilege throughout history, pointing out that when they took the women and children, and killed the men, "They thought they were doing us a service."
Dr. Crystal Cavalier-Keck, Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, dedicated years to defending her homelands against the Mountain Valley Pipeline/Southgate Extension.
Casey Camp-Horinek Jokay Dowell Talia Landry Heather Milton Lightening Shannon Biggs Isabella Zizi Nina Berglund
Read more:
ATLANTA (AP) — The Muscogee (Creek) Nation has asked a federal appellate court to reinstate its lawsuit against the Poarch Creek Band of Indians and Auburn University for improperly removing graves from a sacred site in Alabama to build a casino. The Oklahoma-based tribal nation alleges that Wind Creek Casino and Resort in Wetumpka, Alabama, was built at Hickory Ground, a sacred site and capital when federal troops forced the Muscogee out of Alabama nearly 200 years ago. Workers removed 57 sets of human remains and the artifacts buried with them, storing some of them in containers without proper ventilation or temperature control, according to the lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2012.
Phillip Deere Akwesasne Notes
Akwesasne Notes, Summer 1978 (pp. 4-5)
We are part of nature. Our pipes are red. Our faces, many times, we paint red. But we represent the Creation. We hear about Red Power. There are many definitions to Red Power.
Sometimes we refer to Red as the blood. But all colors of Man have the same color of blood. The fish life, they have blood also. The animals, too, have red blood. Everyone has red blood. But everyone was not made out of the red clay of America.
Only the Indian people are the original people of America. Our roots are buried deep in the soils of America. We are the only people who have continued with the oldest religion in this country. We are the people who still yet speak the languages given to us by the Creator. Our religion has survived, our languages have survived.
Long before this building (the Capital) was built, my ancestors talked the language that I talk today. And I hope to see my Indian people continue to live long after this building crumbles! (applause).
Mvskoke Samuel 'Bonnie' Deere, son of Phillip Deere, spoke on the creation of the Phillip Deere Round House, and the devastation of 57 Mvskoke ancestors being dug up in Alabama for a casino.
During the opening session of the Third Convening of the Four Winds, the struggles to protect the water and the fishes, and the role of Rights of Nature, were shared from across the nation.
Hickory Ground Burials Dug Up for Casino in Alabama
"Our people were moved here on the Trail of Tears," Bonnie Deere told the gathering during the afternoon session today in Okemah, Oklahoma.
"Our people that passed away, we had to leave them behind," Deere said, of those who ran into the hills and hid in the mountains.
In 1983, the Poarch Band Creek were recognized.
"They started building casinos," Deere said. For twenty years the Poarch Band had been taking care of the old ceremonial grounds, Hickory Ground, before the decision to build the casino on the burial grounds.
Deere said there were 57 of the ancestors who were dug up. They "wrapped them up in newspapers, and put them in buckets, and put them in storage containers."
"They have bought off a lot of people, senators, congressmen, because money talks."
"It is a human being issue."
Muscogee Creek Principal Chief David Hill said what is happening at Hickory Ground is affecting other tribes, because others are claiming to be Muskogee Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokees, and Seminoles, in many states in the southeast, in an attempt to claim homelands and traditional items.
"They were never meant to be dug up," Chief Hill said of the ancestors being dug up and used for research.
Chief Hill said they lost trust in the National Congress of American Indians who is failing to support them. NCAI responded to them by saying, "It is tribe against tribe."
The BIA and U.S. government failed to do their job and protect these sites, Chief Hill said in response to NCAI.
"You're not helping," Chief Hill told NCAI.
"It's going to affect everyone in Oklahoma, we have to stand together," Chief Hill said. "My fight is for all of the five tribes in Oklahoma."
The case is scheduled for oral arguments at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 25, 2024.
Justice for Hickory Ground shares the history.
"Water is the first medicine," William Dan Issac, Mississippi Chahta, told the gathering during the opening session today.
Inspiring youths at the gathering, Talia Landry, Mashpee Wampanoag Native Environmental Ambassador, spoke on the youth movement to protect their herring and the inspiration of the Rights of Nature movement.
Since 2006, Conoco Phillips has paid Aboriginals around $1 million per year to offset greenhouse gas emissions from its LNG plant in Darwin, Australia.
Casey Camp-Horinek said, "Water has memory," sharing that water has life, and carries your prayers. Casey, Ponca councilwoman and hereditary drumkeeper of the Women's Scalp Dance Society of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma, is a longtime activist, environmentalist, actress, and published author.
The water ceremony was at 11 a.m. (The ceremony was not broadcast.)
Casey, speaking on the Rights of Nature and Rights of Rivers at noon today, said her people knew that they did not own the land, but that they had an inherent relationship with nature, and a role in protecting it for the future generations.
The rights of nature always existed, Casey said, "We were just recognizing it in a formal way."
Water is the bottom line in survival and extinction.
 |
| Convening of Four Winds Speakers |
"This is a natural extinction event," said Charlotte Robbins Leonard, speaking on the struggle to gain tribal backing in the fight to rescue Choctaw's Kiamichi River in Oklahoma.
During the afternoon session today, Casey Camp-Horinek spoke on the struggle to protect the water at Standing Rock in North Dakota. Casey described how people rose up and were arrested to protect the Missouri River from the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Casey's daughter Julia Horinek added that her mom was among those arrested, "zip-tied." She was referring to Casey's arrest with a number written on her arm with a magic marker during the brutal arrest of Native elders in ceremony at Standing Rock in 2016.
False Solutions and Greenwashing: Manipulation of the Sacred
"There was a bull's eye on us," Casey said, describing how Ponca were targeted for a nuclear dump in the 1980s. "They wanted to finish us off."
Casey said they brought in Dine' and other Native people who told the Ponca Nation of the horrors of uranium mining and the nuclear industry.
"A similar thing happened with carbon trading," Casey said. "I was sitting at the United Nations Permanent Forum," Casey said, describing how an Australian Aboriginal told her that ConocoPhillips gave Aboriginals a million dollars to plant trees. But trees don't grow there.
ConocoPhillips was also the company that devastated Ponca land with oil and gas wells.
"They just gave you a bullet to kill my people with," Casey said, explaining that this carbon credit scheme is a way to keep killing people by polluting.
Casey said whenever Australian Aboriginals planted "theoretical trees," ConocoPhillips received credits to continue polluting.
Since 2006, Conoco Phillips has paid Aboriginals around $1 million per year to offset greenhouse gas emissions from its LNG plant in Darwin, Australia.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples, and the Link to Environmental Justice, with Megan McBride, Chahta, and Suzaatah Horinek, Ponca Nation.
Suzaatah Horinek, Ponca, spoke on white privilege throughout history, pointing out that when they took the women and children, and killed the men, "They thought they were doing us a service."
"They come in with that superior attitude," Suzaatah said of the oil and gas workers in the man camps today, it is a continuation of 1492.
Native women describe how painful it is for victims to face their abusers in court, and become traumatized again, knowing they will simply be released to abuse again.
On tribal lands, in most cases, non-Indians cannot be prosecuted by the tribes, so non-Indians can abuse, and commit crimes, without prosecution.
Community Organizing: The Role of Civil Society and Non Violent Direct Action
Dr. Crystal Cavalier, fighting a pipeline in North Carolina, is speaking during the final session on Saturday afternoon. She describes basing the struggle on ceremonies and prayer and bringing back the culture, which was largely taken away, by shucking corn and snapping peas with grandma.
Dr. Crystal Cavalier-Keck, Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, dedicated years to defending her homelands against the Mountain Valley Pipeline/Southgate Extension.
Heather Milton Lightening, Anishinaabe, Nêhiyaw, Blackfoot, Dakota, is speaking now. Those gathered are describing the most meaningful action that they have been a part of. Those include kayaking in protest of California refineries, to saving the beavers in another location, and planting Jemez Pueblo chile seeds in his Oklahoma homeland.
Heather said when the court and other measures don't produce results, it is time to take action.
"We come to gatherings to feed our spirits," she said, quoting elders.
The Indigenous Peoples Power Project was organized to provide support for action, action can be a garden, it can be art, songs, sounds, images, she said.
"We win," she said, because Indigenous People assert their sovereignty and hold the power on their land.
"I really want to see our people free."
"We have to have that vision of freedom," she said, pointing out that community organizing is the way to freedom.
Amazing food was in the smoker for dinner.
Tonight, on Saturday night, there will be a cultural presentation. There is also a special screening of the film, "Drowned Land," tonight.
At this weekend's two-day conference at the Phillip Deere Round House, the rights of rivers, false solutions to climate crisis, missing and murdered Indigenous Peoples, protecting Native waterways in Oklahoma, treaties, Indigenous youths movements, and the free, prior and informed consent within the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, are among the discussions today, Saturday, and tomorrow, Sunday.
Movement Rights said, "We have a powerful line-up of women speakers at the Convening of the Four Winds, September 7-8!"
Casey Camp-Horinek Jokay Dowell Talia Landry Heather Milton Lightening Shannon Biggs Isabella Zizi Nina BerglundCensored News series:
Seminole Evan Haney: Fighting the Right War, Bringing the Resistance Home
'Bringing the Ancestors Home,' Les Willison, Choctaw
Convening of the Four Winds, Day 2
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/listen-live-convening-of-four-winds-at.html
Defending the Ancestors: Voices from the Phillip Deere Round House
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/defending-ancestors-voices-from-phillip.html
Live from the Phillip Deere Roundhouse: Day 1: Convening of the Four Winds
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/live-now-from-phillip-deere-roundhouse.html
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/listen-live-convening-of-four-winds-at.html
Defending the Ancestors: Voices from the Phillip Deere Round House
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/defending-ancestors-voices-from-phillip.html
Live from the Phillip Deere Roundhouse: Day 1: Convening of the Four Winds
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/live-now-from-phillip-deere-roundhouse.html
Muscogee Creek Nation renews lawsuit against Alabama casino that desecrated sacred site
ATLANTA (AP) — The Muscogee (Creek) Nation has asked a federal appellate court to reinstate its lawsuit against the Poarch Creek Band of Indians and Auburn University for improperly removing graves from a sacred site in Alabama to build a casino. The Oklahoma-based tribal nation alleges that Wind Creek Casino and Resort in Wetumpka, Alabama, was built at Hickory Ground, a sacred site and capital when federal troops forced the Muscogee out of Alabama nearly 200 years ago. Workers removed 57 sets of human remains and the artifacts buried with them, storing some of them in containers without proper ventilation or temperature control, according to the lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2012.
Mashpee Wampanoag Youth Ambassadors Protecting Their Herring
The Mashpee Wampanoag Native Environmental Ambassadors are a group of tribal youth who use their voice to advocate for and protect all natural beings.
Cape and Islands reports:
Herring have been a dietary mainstay for Wampanoag people in spring since time immemorial, and Peters decided he wanted to try to do something for these fish that are so clearly struggling. Around the same time, Wampanoag educator Talia Landry learned about a legal movement known as Rights of Nature.
"Rights of Nature is giving natural beings the same rights as individual beings," Talia said.
 |
| Akwesasne Notes Photo: Claus Biegert Native Delegates approaching UN Headquarters, Geneva 1977 Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in the Americas |
Phillip Deere Akwesasne Notes
Akwesasne Notes, Summer 1978 (pp. 4-5)
We are part of nature. Our pipes are red. Our faces, many times, we paint red. But we represent the Creation. We hear about Red Power. There are many definitions to Red Power.
Sometimes we refer to Red as the blood. But all colors of Man have the same color of blood. The fish life, they have blood also. The animals, too, have red blood. Everyone has red blood. But everyone was not made out of the red clay of America.
Only the Indian people are the original people of America. Our roots are buried deep in the soils of America. We are the only people who have continued with the oldest religion in this country. We are the people who still yet speak the languages given to us by the Creator. Our religion has survived, our languages have survived.
Long before this building (the Capital) was built, my ancestors talked the language that I talk today. And I hope to see my Indian people continue to live long after this building crumbles! (applause).
Hopi David Monongye on U.S. Greed: U.N. in Geneva, Sept. 1977
Casey was in a Native women's delegation of Dine', Ponca, and Tohono O'odham, that provided testimony on the militarization of law enforcement at Standing Rock and on the border, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Jamaica in 2019. -- Censored News
Choctaw and Oklahoma Residents Oppose Hydroelectric Plant Along Kiamchi River
SOUTHEASTERN, Okla. (KXII) - The Choctaw Nation and southeastern Oklahoma residents have joined in opposition to a proposed hydroelectric plant that would be built along the Kiamchi River.
The Southeast Oklahoma Power Corporation, or SEOPC, wants to build a closed-loop pumped storage plant with a transmission line running from Pushmatha County to Lamar County.
Choctaw Nation Chief, Gary Batton, said the lack of transparency is one of the several reasons he opposes the project.
“When you have transparency as an open government, I’m required to tell our people what’s going on and let them know what’s going on,” Chief Batton said, “I can’t do that behind closed doors, that’s what they’re doing here.”
Residents believe more than 500 families would lose their land. “We as a tribe, we know what it’s like to lose our land and to give up our homeland,” Chief Batton said, “We stand united.”
Seth Willyard, a concerned resident and board member of the Kiamchi River Legacy Alliance, said his family is among those whose properties are at risk. “It’s my family’s place and we built the cabin there by hand,” Willyard said, “Me, my grandfather, my uncles, my mom, and my dad built it by hand, and that’s what I’m fighting for here today.”
No comments:
Post a Comment