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Apr
11

Tatanka Hoksila April 2013 Newsletter Excerpt

By | Activism & Human Rights, Featured Posts, Native American Rights

17

 

Dear Relatives (mitakuye pi):

 

I am a White man — born and raised in America.  With ancestors from Italy and Germany. I grew up within a half a day’s drive of the Pine Ridge Indian reservation and was drawn to their warriors, traditions and culture from my earliest memories, though I didn’t understand why and didn’t come to visit until I was a young adult. 

 

And then I came to see for myself.  On my first drive through, I remember feeling what I still feel today:  Profound respect for the traditions and wisdom that are carried by the Elders.  Seemingly infinite interest in the history of the two races that met, fought and failed to understand each other.  And a deep sadness for the lies, betrayal and violence that continue to haunt the land and People today.  Wounded Knee.  White Clay.  The Stronghold. 

 

It’s a land that has given birth, nurtured and seen the rise of great heroes also:  Crazy Horse. Sitting Bull. Red Cloud.  All of whom were in turn nurtured and strengthened by their matriarchal communities.  It is — to this day — a land and People that is deeply proud, powerful and resilient.  The lies, betrayal and violence have had devastating effects but have left untouched what was born and nurtured for thousands of years. 

 

When I was young, I was fortunate that only six hours from my middle class home was a land and a People that still remembered how to live with Mother Earth in a respectful and sustainable way; where wealth and Spirit had nothing to do with money and religion; and whose families (tiospayes) bound the larger society together through the deepest of struggles.

 

I am honored and grateful to continue to learn from — and walk with — my Lakota friends and family 40 years after my earliest curiosities of our Nation’s original inhabitants.

 

Mitakuye oasin

 

Dave Ventimiglia

Executive Director – Tatanka Hoksila

Apr
10

Buffalo Boy Foundation

By | Activism & Human Rights, Featured Content, Featured Posts, Native American Rights

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Sep
18

Sacred Water Protection

By | Native American Rights, Politics & Government

Sacred Water Protection Teach Ins, Sept. 26 & 27, Pine Ridge Reservation By Debra White Plume 

Informational Meetings to take place on Sept. 26 & 27 in Pine Ridge and Kyle (South Dakota)The precious drinking water supply of the Oglala Lakota people will be overlapped more than a few times if TransCanada gets its way and the US State Department approves its second attempt to get a permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline will enter this big land in Montana, come south and skirt the Cheyenne River, Pine Ridge, Lower Brule, and Rosebud Reservations before it enters Nebraska.

Recently, TransCanada revealed its “new” route through the sandhills of Nebraska, keeping their budget in mind, they diverted a total of 20 miles. There is sandhills land on the Pine Ridge in the LaCreek District. The KXL pipeline will be buried into the Ogllala Aquifer, in numerous places when one digs a few feet down, water rises.

Our Lakota people, and people all over South Dakota, depend on the Rural Water Pipeline, or Lyman Jones as it is called off-reservation. It crosses the Lyman Jones in 43 places. It crosses our water pipeline to the Pine Ridge at least twice.

The KXL will carry dirty crude tarsands oil from the mines near the Ft McMurray area of Alberta, Canada. Much of the pristine Boreal Forest has been totally decimated, strip mined to bare dirt, to get at the tarsands oil deep in Mother Earth. The oil miners use 3 to 4 barrels of drinking water to produce one barrel of oil, and stores billions of gallons of waste water in huge waste water ponds. It is a secret what chemicals they use to dilute the heavy crude! However, a VietNam Veteran knew that some of the chemicals are the same as what was used in Agent Orange, revealed in a meeting with the US State Dept I attended last spring in Washington, DC. That VietNam Veteran is from here on the Pine Ridge. Maybe he will come and speak out!

Owe Aku is hosting a series of “Sacred Water Protection Teach Ins” across Lakota Territory, the first will be held at our own famous Billy Mills Hall in Pine Ridge Village on September 26, 2012 and at Kyle on September 27, 2012 at the Church Hall, both begin at 1pm. On both dates, there will be guest speakers and a lot of handouts to share FACTS on the tarsands oil mine, the KXL oil pipeline, and the historical and cultural Lakota land sites that TransCanada plans to cross. Tribal officials will be speak on these significant landsites, allied organizations who also work to protect drinking water and Mother Earth will be speaking, and we will have slideshows to share images from the tarsands oil mine and other water destruction mining and mining-related activities.

We will have handouts that describe how each Tribal Government plans to protect their Homelands, and we want to generate a discussion on how we can all work together to protect our sacred water, Mother Earth, and coming generations. We will share images of how people in Texas are protecting their ranches, farms and neighborhoods from TransCanada’s KXL oil pipeline, and from heavy haul trucks carrying equipment across our Homelands, as well the river hauls in BC Canada.

Info will be available regarding the impacts of oil mining using the hydrofracturing (fracking) method, a technique that is being banned around the world, yet is being practiced all over this big land. There is recent discussion on the Pine Ridge regarding fracking near our northern border and on the Reservation as well. Several tribal candidates are already discussing how the Oglala Sioux Tribe must prepare for oil ‘fracking’. We want to give folks an opportunity to voice their opinion on this crucial topic.

An update on the uranium case against Cameco, Inc. In Situ Leach uranium mine in Crawford Nebraska, as well Cameco’s plans for three new uranium mines will be discussed.

There will be time for Traditional Headsmen to speak regarding these mining issues and to lead the discussion on a statement from all those in attendance regarding the protection of our sacred water, Mother Earth and coming generations, after all, we protect this sacred water for them, it is their water. Mni wicozani, through water there is life.

Oglala musicians Scatter Their Own will share their awesome indigenous music, and a drum group will share their songs. A feed will follow, and there will be beverages and snacks all afternoon. The “Sacred Water Protection Teach In” is open to all people, everyone is encouraged to attend, learn what you can, share what you know, be part of the statement made on these dates! Bring your friends, relatives and neighbors.

For more info call Vic Camp at 605-407-7808 and Alex White Plume at 605-455-2155, or look up the “Sacred Water Protection Teach In” event page on Facebook.

Sep
18

By the People For the People With the People

By | Activism & Human Rights, Featured Posts, Native American Rights, Politics & Government

From Jim Cortez, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

Living in the poorest place in America, Prisoner of War Camp #322, or better known as the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, we have been made many promises by the US Government. None were kept. In the last 100 years only TWO U.S. Presidents have visited the reservation; Teddy Roosevelt and Bill Clinton. Barack Obama befriended many Tribes when he was running for office the first time, he made many promises, and has not kept many of those promises. None of them have.

We are not looking for hand-outs. We are not looking for band-aids. We are looking for self-sufficiency. We need jobs, economy, education and cultural preservation. We need someone who can speak not only FOR the people, but WITH the people. We need someone who understands who we are, who we were, and where we need to go. We need a Grandmother with wisdom, integrity, and ears to hear. We need a Grandmother who will keep her promises and walk her talk, with, by, and for the People.

That Grandmother is Roseanne Barr. Ms. Barr has helped many on this reservation. She does it all quietly and humbly. No “Hollywood Ego”, no ulterior motive, never asks for anything in return. She helps, she listens, and she understands. Her actions speak louder than her words. Her money does not talk, it walks.

Ms. Barr’s platform includes renegotiating all First Nations’s Treaties. It also discusses creating economies based on sustainable premises. She is a supporter of the Lakota Log Cabin Project, a project designed to bring jobs, homes, and heat to the reservations, by using the beetle kill trees up in the Black Hills of South Dakota, by logging, milling, and transporting them to the Reservation where they will be made into homes, heat, lumber, and more.

We need a President who thinks and acts for the People.
We need Roseanne Barr for President of the United States of America.