October 9, 2013
Photos Longest Walk 4 Dodge City, Kansas
Apaches pay tribute to memorial gathering on Dzil Nchaa Si An
Apaches pay tribute to memorial gathering on Dzil Nchaa Si An
Article and Photos by Sandra Rambler
Censored News
Dzil Nchaa Si An, AZ – While the pine and ponderosa trees stood tall and firm with a cool breeze in the air, on Saturday, Sept. 28, tribal elders were joined by Peridot District Councilman, Wendsler Nosie, Sr., and prestigious leaders from various organizations as they gathered to pay tribute on top of Dzil Nchaa Si An, also known as Mount Graham, to honor San Carlos Apache tribal member, the late Phillip Cassadore and his sister and tribal member, Ola Cassadore Davis, the late Michael Davis, the late Keith Basso and the late Peter Warshall, all whom actively fought to prevent destruction and desecration of sacred sites on Dzil Nchaa Si An.
The memorial tribute began with an opening prayer by spiritual leader, Gladys Hinton accompanied by Audrey Johnson and immediately following the luncheon, all those present gathered in a large circle. The tribal elders stood in the center of the circle. Songs were sung by spiritual leaders and tribal elders, Arthur Longstreet, Wheeler Grimes, Sr., Adam Rope and Belmont Jordan. Guests and friends from Europe, Germany, England and Italy and from the United States were present.
“We are gathered here today to pay our respects to those who stood before us and helped paved the way to protect our sacred sites and for restoring our spirituality to what it is today,” pointed out Councilman Nosie.
“A lot of time, dedication, commitment and prayers were extended by our late spiritual leaders, the late Phillip Cassadore and Ola Cassadore Davis and her husband, Mike Davis and those that helped along the way, the late Keith Basso and the late Peter Warshall.”
“Ola had talked to us many times and stressed the importance of preserving our Apache culture and to always extend our prayers here on Dzil Nchaa Si An. Recently, this year, we had a sunrise ceremony for our granddaughter and it was so special because we can exercise our right to freely practice our Apache religion here. We have our annual sacred runs each year which ends here on top of our mountain and we are teaching our Apache youth about what we were taught.”
“The fight to save our sacred sites doesn’t end here, it continues and now we are fighting to save Chi’Chil’Bagoteel which is also known as Oak Flat. We are fighting H.R. 687 in Washington, D.C. because Resolution Copper is trying to build a mine there which would destroy a sacred site, destroy the acorn that our people gather and may infringe upon our water which belongs to our Apache people.”
“On behalf of the San Carlos Apache Tribal Council, I would like to present a plaque to the families of the late Ola Cassadore Davis and her husband, Michael Davis, Phillip Cassadore and Keith Basso which reads, ‘Ahi’yihe for your courageous and unselfish contribution for decades in the fight for preservation of sacred sites at Dzil Nchaa Si An (Mount Graham), presented September 28, 2013, from Terry Rambler, Tribal Chairman, Dr. John Bush, Vice-Chairman, Wendsler Nosie, Sr., Peridot District Councilman, Fred Ferriera, Peridot District Councilman, Tao Etpison, Gilson Wash District Councilman, Simon Hooke, Gilson Wash District Councilman, Bernadette Goode, Seven Mile Wash District Councilwoman, Mitchell Hoffman, Seven Mile Wash District Councilman, Alicia Cadmus, Bylas District Councilwoman, Hugh Moses, Jr., Bylas District Councilman, Jonathan Kitcheyan, Bylas District Councilman.’
“It’s indeed an honor to be here today to be part of this and say thank you for all the hard work that was done on behalf of Dzil Nchaa Si An,” concluded Councilman Nosie.
Dwight Metzger, an activist from Tucson, Arizona and active participant with the Apache Survival Coalition and close friend to the late Ola Cassadore Davis, read a letter sent from the Italian supporters, “Dear Friends—How hard it is not to be there with you today on our dear mountain to remember very dear people. Even harder it was not to see our friends for one last time before they left us. Hardest not to be at their funerals to pay our respects.
We wish to send Edison Cassadore our love and wish to see him again. Peter Warshall was our biological point of reference, the squirrel man and not least, for us Italians, he was part of the first Apache delegation to our country in 1991. Ola and Mike Davis and Franklin Stanley wee on that first of so many Apache delegations to Italy.
Ola and Mike Davis continued to come, even twice a year, very often accompanied by Dwight Metzger, just as Wendsler Nosie, Sr., Raleigh Thompson and Edison Cassadore and others from White River while meeting with so many Presidents of the Republic or of the Parliament of the Regions and countless other politicians and public officials.
Every time they spoke in public they filled any place they were given. When they marched in Florence, Italy, they had thousands behind them. When they came to the Alps, to Valcamonica, they said that Giovanni was an idiot for having left such beautiful mountains from Arizona. They also addressed a full church and had a huge lunch with the old anti-fascist partisan of World War II.
Today, the group Amici della Natura, who hosed many Apache delegations in the mountain village of Saviore dell’Adamello, are still holding the Italian Sacred Run on the same weekend it is held on Mount Graham. They are now at their 14th Sacred Run.
Ola and Mike Davis addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg and went to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland and to Germany and to other parts of Europe. These Apache raids went on unabated for a good ten years and the media always reported these incursions. The Apache myth had become flesh and these two fearless oldies were held back by no one and struck the attention of everyone. The powers that be whom Ola and Mike Davis, along with us all, took on, were too great to beat. History repeated itself as with what happened in the 1800’s. Like Geronimo, Ola and Mike Davis, put up a hard fight until the end and history will show no sympathy for the white eyes.
The astronomers will be remembered for the virulence with which they forced their self-interest on others. Ola and Mike Davis will go down for having stood up for a sacred mountain and a people’s culture. There is no doubt who retained their dignity in this struggle.
We, Italians, failed to stop our government and our Church from this desecration and we learned how racist our scientists and Pope really are. However, as the Apaches jumped the pond and made us their brothers in arms, they lent us Apache eyes and changed our way of looking at nature and the spirit world.
We can still hear the voices of Ola and Mike Davis. We can still see their trailer in Peridot, Arizona. We can still feel all the Apache ceremonies held with them on the mountain, on the reservation and in Italy. We can still laugh at their Apache jokes and teasing.
Ola and Mike Davis, we thank you. Peter Warshall, we thank you. Phillip Cassadore, we thank you.
Your Italian friends forever, Giovanni Panza and Patrizia Codenotti, Emilio and Tina Molinari, for Coordinamento per Mount Graham, Corrado Baccolini, for Amici della Natura Saviore dell’Adamello, Italo Bigioli, for Cerchio, Theresa Bortone, Vittorio delle Fratte, Massimiliano Galanti, for Kiwani, Toni Ventre, Luisa Costalbano for Nativi Americani, Allessando Profeti and Bianca Frassi.”
In August of 1985, at 53 years old, the late Phillip Cassadore passed away. He announced his run for the U.S. President in 1972 and campaigned on the Geronimo Ticket calling attention to the economic problems faced by American Indians. He later withdrew. His fight to protect sacred sites began early in his life.
Ola Cassadore Davis passed away at 89 years old in November, 2012. Just several months later, her husband, Michael Davis passed away in early 2013. They fought endlessly to save Dzil Nchaa Si An from destruction. They formed the Apache Survival Coalition.
In April, 2013, Peter Warshall passed away. He was an ecologist, activist and essayist and conducted numerous studies regarding Mount Graham and devoted his life to saving the world. He worked with the San Carlos Apaches and the Tohono O’odham Nation.
In August, 2013, Keith Basso passed away. He was described as a major figure in American Anthropology and American Indian Studies and at one time lived in Cibecue on the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation. He worked with the NAGPRA groups from the San Carlos Apache Tribe, White Mountain Apache Tribe, Tonto Apache Tribe and the Yavapai Apache Nation. He wrote numerous books and was an Apache linguist as he spoke Apache fluently.
Audrey Johnson, tribal elder, tearfully said, “Ola was a dear friend to us and spoke up for us to help protect our sacred sites. That is what we are taught, as Apaches, is to always stand up for what our Creator gave to us. I will always thank her and her family for their dedication.”
Tribal Chairman, Terry Rambler, added, “The wise words of our elders should always be respected. We will remember those who fought to protect the beliefs of the San Carlos Apaches and thank you to the families of the late Ola and Mike Davis, Phillip Cassadore, Keith Basso, Peter Warshall and Ernest Victor, Jr. for their staunch efforts in protecting Dzila Nchaa Si An.”
At the close of the memorial tribute, the tribal elders whispered among themselves in their native San Carlos Apache language, “Did you hear the drum? Did you hear the bells of the Apache Mountain Spirit Dancers?”
And there was complete silence.
October 8, 2013
Longest Walk 4 in Greensburg, Kansas
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| Truck photo Joni Taylor Tucker |
Updated Long Walk 4 schedule: Oct. 8 to 10: 16 miles east of Greensburg to Dodge City
Oct. 11 and 12: Dodge City to Garden City
Oct. 13 and 14: Garden City to Syracuse
Oct. 15 to 18: Syracuse to 50 miles east of Pueblo
We will stay in Pueblo from the night of Oct. 18 to the night of Oct. 21, with one day for a gathering and three walking days.www.returntoalcatraz.com
Mohawk Nation News 'World Wide Revolution'
WORLD WIDE REVOLUTION
MNN. Oct. 7, 2013. President Obama wants war to preserve his and US credibility, which is based on keeping the US dollar as the world currency.
In 1944 during WW2 the Bretton-Woods agreement made all global trade and banking base its value on the US dollar. It was backed by our Indigenous resources and funds, which was used to rebuild war-torn Europe, the Marshall Plan. The US was paid in US-backed dollars. None came to us.
Under the privately owned Federal Reserve System, money is a loan at interest. The owners get a “piece of the action”, the accruing interest, of every transaction worldwide that uses the US dollar as the base currency. All buying power is based on its value.
International bankers own and control all corporations worldwide. Americans don’t really have to work as long as they can collect their “cut of the action”.
The private central banking scam is designed to create more debt than money. The debt can never be paid off. Some nations are not paying the interest to the US. They’re always finding ways to keep collecting money from us. At least we are the only people who can truthfully say we own the land.
US: “Hurry bankers! Take the money & run!”
All borrowed money gives the bankers a “piece of every action”, like the Mafia gets from every business operating inside their territories, or else their business or country will be demolished.
War is made against those nations who refuse to use the US dollar or the US based global banking system. The Mafia [Federal Reserve] collects their “piece of the action” by sending out their enforcers, the US military.
The US dollar is losing its real value due to banker created inflation. Prices rise but wages don’t! The US is trying to borrow from other nations to run their country. Syria does not owe any money to the IMF or the World Bank, which circulates the US dollar and coerces all countries to use it.
In Iraq in 2002 Saddam Hussein got UN permission to sell Iraq’s oil for Euros. One year later the US invaded, lynched Saddam, and put Iraq’s oil back on the world market, for US dollars. Gaddafi set up a new state central bank in Libya with a local value-based currency using the Gold Dinar. Oil was sold only for the Gold Dinar. The US invaded, killed Gaddafi, destroyed the state central bank and the Gold Dinar and imposed their private central bank.
China deals with 8 nations that do not go through the US dollar. Many South American nations fund their own BRICS controlled central bank for trade and investment, without using the US dollar.
If President Obama can’t get his war with Syria or Iran, many nations will drop the US dollar. The party will be over for Wall Street and the Federal Reserve. Many countries know that the debt is really owed to the Indigenous people here.
We Indigenous can break the will of those Americans and others who are eyeing our ever-growing $405 trillion Indian Trust Fund, the biggest in the world. We will stop these warlike people by questioning their right to live on our land while violating the Great Law of Peace of Great Turtle Island.
Indians: “Go back to the Fatherland with what you came with, nothing!”
During the war Roy Rogers sang that many would rather go “Along the Navajo Trail” than go to war: “When it’s night and crickets are callin’/And coyotes are makin’ a wail/I dream by a smoldering fire/Along the Navajo Trail”. Roy Rogers. “Along the Navajo Trail”.
For more information on this topic, go to whatreallyhappened.com
MNN Mohawk Nation Newskahentinetha2@yahoo.com For more news, books, workshops, to donate and sign up for MNN newsletters, go towww.mohawknationnews.com More stories at MNN Archives. Address: Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L
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