Above photo: Leola One Feather, right, of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, talks with Jeffrey Not Help Him, left, also an Oglala Sioux tribe member, while Native American artifacts are photographed on July 19, 2022, at the Founders Museum in Barre, Mass. Philip Marcelo/The Associated Press.
The word “colonizing” means it comes from someplace else and takes over an area. For example, there are such things as “colonizing plants.” These are plants that were not originally from an area, but their seeds blow in and start growing, cutting off the food and water that was for the original plants. The one that usually comes to mind for me is the Russian Thistle that grows so big with its purple flowers and thorns and can take over an area in a couple of years, killing off all the original plants.
It always makes me sad when American white people still try to tell us what to do because that is “colonization.” For human beings it means imposing a way of life, including values from another culture, onto those that have their own culture and ways of being.
This is really coming to the forefront with museums and universities trying to return our relatives things that were gathered at massacres (mass murders) sometimes by the murderers themselves. The sadder part is there were many more massacres than just Wounded Knee. The name the white people give to our relatives things is “artifacts.” Even though we have a culture that is more than tens-of-thousands of years old, the white Americans with their two-hundred year old culture still think they know what is best for us.
Despite their own Constitution, white Americans still try to “christianize” us to follow their beliefs which is a violation of religious freedom. We even had to get a law passed called the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978 to protect our religious freedom to pray our way, and to perform our own ceremonies that are thousands of years old. Always remember, the United States (US) is only a little over two-hundred (200) years old, and it is a colonizing government. The US is like that Russian Thistle and has tried to kill us off, and is still trying.
We don’t have the word “religion” in our language because it was spirituality, meaning a relationship with the Creator and the Spirits and the Angels. The only concept the US government knew was organized religion. Therefore, they called it the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. They don’t seem to know the more ancient concept of “spirituality”. Religions cause wars. Spirituality causes peace.
Our people knew spirituality because they had relationships with all of the Creation: Makoce Ina Unci first. Our Mother and Grandmother the Earth gives us all we need to live. We have ceremonies where we thank Her every year for what we receive. We form relationships with our ancestors, angels, and other Spirits by asking for their help, direction and guidance. We also know the Spirits that are in the water, the Thunder, the Winter and seasons, and the fire whose name is Peta.
We know that Peta immediately takes our prayers and thoughts to the other side. We know, not just believe, that Peta can take our offerings immediately to the other side. So why would we not want our relatives on the other side to immediately have their things?
Yet, that is what the white people, who do not know our understanding of spirituality, want us to do. They want us to put our relatives’ things on display as if that will keep our culture here. Our relatives can help us so much more if we give their things back to them on the other side as soon as we are able. Our culture is not based on physical things, but on the spiritual.
One of the main differences between the white culture and our culture is the difference between the physical and the spiritual. The white people are so caught up in the physical that they don’t know the spiritual. Think about it. They say “God is in everything” but they don’t know it. “To believe” and “to know” are two entirely different things. A person can “believe” that there is a hole in the road, but if they don’t “know” it, they are going to fall into it. Again, something to think about.
If our relatives’ things are returned to them with the help of Peta, that is our business, not the business of the US or some white person. No one should interfere with our own way of “knowing” the spiritual and the Spirits. That is what “religious freedom” means. We are not stuck on the physical aspect of something but rather, we recognize the spiritual connection of all things. We “know” that God is truly in all things. We know that our relatives’ things should be returned to them…out of respect for our relatives.
Hopefully, this continuation of colonization by wanting to put our relatives’ things on display and in another museum will stop. Hopefully, the ones involved with the return of our relatives’ things are only doing it out of their better selves, not to gain some kind of recognition. That recognition will soon be gone. It is time for our relatives’ things to be returned properly to our relatives. It is no one else’s business.
Ktso.
Charmaine White Face (77) is Oglala Tituwan Oceti Sakowin. She can be reached at cwhiteface@gmail.com.