--------- "RE: Being Indian" ---------

Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 23:36:04 -0600
From: "WhiteHawk" <ayastigi@email.msn.com>
Subj: Being Indian

BEING INDIAN IS... By J.C. High Eagle

BEING INDIAN IS...having a large family of over a million brothers and
sisters!
BEING INDIAN IS...feeling that Little Bear, Prays-for-All, Big Heart are
more beautiful names than Jones, Smith or Brown.
BEING INDIAN IS...watching cowboys shoot to kill 40 of your kind with a
six-shot revolver on the TV late show without getting a scratch.
BEING INDIAN IS...observing your children watching a cowboy and Indian TV
western movie and cheer for the cowboys.
BEING INDIAN IS...joining the U.S. Army to save your country from the perils
of aggression, and against the U.S. Army on your reservation to keep the
Army Corps of Engineers from stealing your sacred land.
BEING INDIAN IS...graduating from a government Bureau of Indian Affairs
school and not being able to read a 6th grade English book from your white
friend's urban school.
BEING INDIAN IS...having your child come home from school and ask you about
the "strange beliefs" of the Indians that his/her teacher mentioned in
school today.
BEING INDIAN IS...never making quick evaluations of people, but reserving
judgment until their actions show what kind of people they really are.
BEING INDIAN IS...feeding anyone and everyone who comes to your door with
whatever you have.
BEING INDIAN IS...knowing the Great Spirit.
BEING INDIAN IS...having a Christian missionary tell you it is wrong to
believe in more than one Divine Being, then listening to him tell you about
God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. Patrick,
St. Christopher, St. Francis, your spirit, your soul, etc.
BEING INDIAN IS...never giving up the struggle for survival.
BEING INDIAN IS...standing up for life principles and truths unashamed
without having compromise your values.
BEING INDIAN IS...not only being proud of who you were born from, but
mindful of how you conduct yourself in the world.
BEING INDIAN IS...to have your liberal white friends urge you to follow the
same path as your Black brothers to gain some advantage.
BEING INDIAN IS...having your friends and relatives accuse you of being a
traitor if you seek an education, earn more than $7,000 a year, wear a white
shirt and tie, drive a car less than three years old, and live in a three
bedroom home.
BEING INDIAN IS...having heard your grandparents and yourself say, "When
they honor the treaties and we get our land claim payments"...then suddenly
realize your children are saying the same words also.
BEING INDIAN IS...having your non-Indian friends go on a Vision Quest led by
a white man to the mountains, but leaving you home because you can't make
the $300 registration fee to attend.
BEING INDIAN IS...listening to your well-intentioned white brother try to
tell you about your native spirituality.
BEING INDIAN IS...hearing from non-Indians how rotten the government has
treated Indians, but still voting them back into office.
BEING INDIAN IS...listening to people tell you about their grandmother or
great grandmother that was a Cherokee Indian Princess.
BEING INDIAN IS...seeing other Indians in search for an Indian identity.
BEING INDIAN IS...being greeted by non-Indians with pseudo names from real
ancestors of your tribe.
BEING INDIAN IS...having to prove with documentation that you are one, when
other races and people in the country don't have to.
BEING INDIAN IS...knowing that your ancestors were slaughtered like animals
in the name of Christianity, and then being told that Christianity is out to
save us.
BEING INDIAN IS...buying "authentic" Indian jewelry made in Taiwan or Japan
BEING INDIAN IS...learning of people becoming Indian without having an
Indian mother or father.
BEING INDIAN IS...finding out that people think all Indians lived in tipis.
BEING INDIAN IS...being told that Columbus discovered America from his ship,
when we were watching him from the shore.
BEING INDIAN IS...trying to relate to people who say they are mathematically
1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc. degree of blood.
BEING INDIAN IS...wearing braids and being called a "hippie" by those who
object to long hair.
BEING INDIAN IS...being whipped for speaking your own tribal language when
on the school ground premises.
BEING INDIAN IS...watching your elders boast of Indian pride and leadership,
between swigs of liquor from a half-empty bottle.
BEING INDIAN IS...having your brothers and sisters that are enrolled in the
tribe treat you as second class citizen because you and/or your family chose
not to walk the government's path.
BEING INDIAN IS...trying to search for tradition and truths of life when
alcoholism and drugs poison the path to the answers.
BEING INDIAN IS...trying to talk to elders about the "old ways" and having
them want to talk more about the rising price of cigarettes.
BEING INDIAN IS...going to school when you're young and having the teacher
skip over the Indian chapter in the history book.
BEING INDIAN IS...seeing others forget the true meaning of Thanksgiving.
BEING INDIAN IS...having others make jokes about your heritage and culture.
BEING INDIAN IS...living in two worlds.
BEING INDIAN IS...knowing the word, "Indian", is not your true name.
BEING INDIAN IS...being called "Chief" or "Tonto" by patronizing
non-Indians.
BEING INDIAN IS...being human, with human thoughts and feelings like your
non-Indian brothers and sisters.
BEING INDIAN IS...being constantly on the alert for the government's tactics
that will annihilate you and your tribe.
BEING INDIAN IS...holding onto a piece of paper treaty that was signed, but
never honored.
BEING INDIAN IS...being told of the ten commandments, but see the white man
subscribe to them only when convenient and in his favor.
BEING INDIAN IS...having non-Indians look at a barefoot Indian child that
laughs, thinking he or she is poor.
BEING INDIAN IS...knowing alcohol doesn't make you Indian, just drunk.
BEING INDIAN IS...seeing elders die and the language & customs with them.
BEING INDIAN IS...seeing Mother Earth destroyed by those who don't know Her.
BEING INDIAN IS...seeing history books tell you Columbus discovered America.
BEING INDIAN IS...hearing others think all Indians wear war bonnets.
BEING INDIAN IS...having the government treat you like a prisoner of war.
BEING INDIAN IS...seeing the government spend billions of dollars abroad,
but fail to honor the Indian treaties.
BEING INDIAN IS...sad,
BEING INDIAN IS...hard,
BEING INDIAN IS...crying,
BEING INDIAN IS...laughing,
BEING INDIAN IS...forever!