521 Years of Indigenous Resistance (and counting…)

October 12, 2013

            After the solemn prayer and opening ceremony about a half hour earlier, we boldly marched down the old pueblo street and into the famous Santa Fe Plaza, drums roaring, singers chanting. The energy was tense. The crowd that had gathered there an hour or so earlier to celebrate this day looked on in shock. Fake conquistadores and fake Indians awkwardly forced to stop their absurd re-enactment charades. I remember one of the organizers frantically running to the front of our columns screaming at us to stop and turn around. “You can’t do this!” she croaked. We ignored her and quickly took over the Plaza, going around it in a circle several times, the fierce pow-wow tune echoing off the old adobe buildings. It was October 12^th, 1992. Columbus Day in Santa Fe, New Mexico was emphatically shut down.

            I was quite young at the time, and didn’t understand half of what was going on, nor its true significance. I know had some naïve and romantic notions about Native history and what this all meant. It would take years to undo much of that and start to see that “the past” is not past tense. But something stirred inside me that day. I knew that this overwhelming thought echoing (along with the drums) through my mind was right: so much of what we’ve been here taught is so wrong. And so dangerous. That night we went to the honor pow-wow at Nambe Pueblo, north of town. I remember a lot of smiles and laughter and Indian Tacos. At one point, the elders of the village had us all file by one by one and thanked us for being there. Sometime during the day, the organizers gave us all T-shirts that read, “1492-1992: 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance.” I still have it somewhere.

            These days, I try not to naively romanticize the past nor people from the past. Instead I study a lot of history, and take great inspiration from it, present tense. Unlike far too many of my compatriots, I do not stay in one place assuming things are as I wish they would conveniently be. Instead I have been blessed to travel far and wide hoping to see things as they actually are. In my wanderings I have met a lot of different people from a lot of different places. I listen to their stories. Doing this cross-cultural dance, I try to step outside of my own comfort and not only hear, but feel these testimonies. For the great privilege of being trusted to even sit “in the circle”, as it were, I am grateful. But I also feel a responsibility. A duty. So every year on this day of this month, I have an obligation to speak up. To testify!
            Since 1992, I have made a few observations. Many of them have led me to ask myself this question repeatedly: given the clear “before” and “after” dividing line between pre-1492, and post-1492, is the Earth (and therefore, are we) in better condition now than She was then? This question should provoke quite a different analysis of this “special” holiday.

            My observations… 522 years ago there were, of course, a great many similar problems facing humanity and the Earth – testing our courage, strength and beliefs; and more profoundly, our kindness, wisdom and humility. Humans being the awkward creatures that we are, I know that we often failed those tests, on every continent. Nothing too romantic about it, as it turns out. However…

            521 years ago, half the world’s population was not literally starving to death, suffering the humiliation of living in absolute miséria for their entire journey upon this good Earth.

            521 years ago, species after species of brother animal were not going extinct in the face of the violence, arrogance, selfishness, and greed of brother human.

            521 years ago, huge masses of the soil were not so degraded and wasted by chemical pollution and abuse that they would not even grow a crop, let alone sustain the community that lives upon it.

            521 years ago, much of the pure fresh water on planet Earth was not so utterly filthy that one would dare not use it, let alone drink it.

            521 years ago, huge swaths of the great oceans were not clogged with islands of garbage and plastic. We did not witness mass die-offs of aquatic life on a regular basis.

            521 years ago, smog and industrial waste did not sicken the air beyond human’s (and other’s) ability to breathe it in without risking chronic lung disease and sickness of all kinds.

            521 years ago, enormous old growth forests covered most of the “Americas”, making them perhaps the most pristine, healthy (and beautiful) continents on Earth.

            521 years ago, so many glorious mountain and canyon temples were not ripped open and defiled in search of minerals and resources that perhaps Mother Earth never intended her children to remove from her belly.

            521 years ago, a twisted greed and glorification of material wealth; a selfish desire for more and more and more did not rule much of humanity, sold to us as some sort of cultural virtue. A “way of life”, if you will.

            521 years ago, rampant crime, violence and a culture of profound distrust and fear of our neighbors were not epidemics in many of the areas where people lived. Door locks did not exist.

            521 years ago the concept of “race” did not exist as a way to degrade and dominate other people.

            521 years ago, a global slave trade enforced by mass violence did not exist.

            521 years ago, mankind did not have the ability to literally destroy the planet with his twisted war games and perverted war technologies. This reckless ability was not worshipped as some sort of cultural virtue, or worse perhaps, made into video games for our children.

            521 years, the mystery and magic of that great spirit of Mother Earth still guided the philosophies, stories, and actions of perhaps a majority of the people living with Earth. Humility was often considered the highest virtue.

            521 years ago, the First Nations, guardians of this Turtle Island and of the aforementioned Earth wisdom had not faced a genocidal invasion that left their very existence as a people in doubt.

            521 years ago, the people who supposedly had benefited from this imperial invasion of the “Americas” were not in large part addicted to or consuming daily doses of illegal or legal (does it really make a difference?) chemicals, material excess, and cheap shallow entertainment. (Some old prophecies speak of the “living dead” starting to appear everywhere upon the Earth… I see them all the time.)

            521 years ago, on October 12^th, a process was set in motion that in many ways led to much of this modern sickness. The story is, of course, much deeper and more complicated than this single event, and has roots that go back centuries. It is not so simple as one sick man. But symbols are very important. Moreover, historical reality and truth telling are critically important. A tone was set for most European-Indian relations to follow, and by extension most American-global relations of the past century. For those of us who study history these sad stories all start to look very, very familiar. May I humbly suggest that this is not how it was or is supposed to be? What happened? (Some old prophecies say that humans were put here to laugh, to sing, to play!)

            So 521 years later are we still foolish enough to continue to label this process as progress? Let us call things what they have shown themselves to be. What Cristobal Colón unleashed was not progress for the vast majority of humanity. Nor a destiny manifested. Nor the settling of a virgin wilderness. Nor development. Nor mandated by God. Given the results of this 521-year long invasion of the Americas (and all the other invasions that followed) this process might perhaps better be labeled… self-destruction. How could they/we do this to our brothers and sisters? To ourselves? To the Earth? How did we arrive at the point where humans and animals sit at the brink of the utter inability to even exist on this planet? This is the epitome of self-hatred and Earth-hatred, is it not? So what or who started this process (in the Americas, at least), both symbolically and actually?

He sailed the ocean blue, in 14-92.

            Let me offer an alternative story, one that I’ve heard during my wanderings. It’s about a different choice that could have been made then, and more importantly, could still be made now. Present tense.

            Over five centuries ago, there was a glorious opportunity for the peaceful bringing back together of the four “races”, the four colors of humanity after their long, long pilgrimages around Mother Earth. Many creation stories speak of these wanderings and of the ‘original instructions’ given to all of us. If you really dig into the hundreds of variations of The Creation found spread across every continent and region of this good Earth, you will find remarkable similarities – great floods, the destruction of numerous worlds, evolution, journeying across great waters, speaking animals, people and prophets leaving and then later returning, prophecies that speak about today. Some American Indian creation stories describe how the Red brothers and sisters stayed here as guardians of the Earth; the Black brothers and sisters went south; the Yellow brothers and sisters went west, and the White brothers and sisters went east. But it was said that someday we would all meet and mix again. Note the four colors present in the sacred medicine wheels of many First Nations here.

            In many of these creation stories, it was long prophesized that White brother from the east would return someday and that his return would usher in a new era of peace and reunion. Note Moctezuma’s stunning speech to Cortez when they met at the gates of Tenochtitlán in what is now Mexico City. But when White brother did find his way back here, the First Nations of these “Americas” were shocked to see his actions: mostly filled with violence, hatred, greed and fear. The sword and the cross. Lust for gold, lust for silver. The almighty dollar. Somewhere along the way he had become very, very lost. So it’s not surprising that those three little ships sailing from Spain were indeed very, very lost when they stumbled upon the Taino brothers and sisters in the Caribbean. What followed was a tragedy un-paralleled in human history. From Canada to Chile, some estimate that 80-90% of an original population of perhaps 100,000,000 people have been killed (yes, present perfect tense - it’s still happening today, folks) over the course of a few short centuries.

            Repeat that a couple of times.

            Seems to me this is called genocide. A holocaust that makes the Nazis look like amateurs (the idea for concentration camps came from the Nazis observing American Indian reservations and the decimation of the Native population here.)

            So with all of this in mind on this ‘special’ day set aside to honor a mass murderer, might I humbly suggest that who a nation, a community, a people honor says much about them and their hearts. It says much about the essence of who they are. It demonstrates much more than hollow words their true intentions. It suggests as much about the future as the past. Because there is nothing ‘past tense’ about this war against the Earth and the First Nations who defend her. All of this is still going on, right now, all over the Americas (and the world). 521 years later. The Myth tells us otherwise, and far too many of us continue to drink that kool-aid. But the dirty little secret no history class tells us is that nothing within that past had to happen. It was never inevitable. Choices were made. Justifications were invented. The Myth was born.

            So might I humbly suggest that the celebration of Columbus Day isn’t even about Columbus. It’s about us. It’s about making us feel ok about the greatest tragedy in the history of humanity because it started with a great explorer, and he was just a man of his time, and that’s how things were then, and it brought our worlds together, and there’s been so many good things since then, and here we all are because of him, etc etc ad nauseum.

            My point? What this boils down to, perhaps, are a few questions we had better start collectively asking ourselves in this here America: What will our choices be TODAY? Present tense. What are our true intentions? How will we treat each other each and every day? How will we treat the nations of the Earth each and every day? How will we treat Mother Earth each and every day? Who will we look to for guidance to do this properly? Whose actions will we honor as we try to truly learn from the past rather than always repeating the same sorts of horrors, over and over and over again?

            Will we remember how to laugh, to sing, to play?!

            With all of this in mind on this ‘special’ holiday set aside to honor a mass murderer, methinks that we should choose our heroes a little more carefully, que no?