I think it was from one of the Star Wars movies that I heard the quote. And even though I had already settled on the path I was called to walk, it stuck with me, as a sign that I was on the right path and as a reminder of what it was I was fighting for. The quote was about the cycle of fear and how fear is the gateway to most of the miseries that we as People are prone to. "Fear leads to Anger, Anger leads to Hate, Hate leads to Suffering."

There are few peoples on this Earth that have as much reason to be inclined to hatred and anger than the Indigenous tribes of the America's. We have lsot much, have been forced to move over and over again. We have watched our children die of starvation, our women be gunned down or raped. Before the African slaves were free'd, many tribes owned black slaves, and after they were free'd our own peoples were hunted and driven and hated.

Yes. The indigenous people of the America's have lost much, and it is tempting to succumb to wrath, to rage, to ruin and to ultimately consign our people to death.

But this is not my path.

Many of the children today will tell you about the awful plight of the American Indian, the First Nations of this country. Most of those children who will tell you these things are white. Those making demands of the government are white. Let me be clear, the Native Population of this country does not need the white man to speak for it. Nor the white woman. Nor white children. We have our own voices. We use them. These white children talk about the tragedy of the American Indian and in the same breath demand that all people rely on the government to provide everything to them. Look at the reservation again children and see the truth of what reliance on government looks like. The fate of the Indian on the reservations is almost a nightmare, a nightmare that few will ever experience. You cannot ever know the degradation of the spirit, of the soul that lives in such places.

Nor will you.

The white man has his ways, but despite what many of the children say today, those ways are no better and no worse than any others. The peoples of this continent were no more natives here than the ones that found Europe in the distant ages of the past. It is ‘ancestral’ land for every person born on these shores. We all come from somewhere else. We are all descended from the same Being that wrought all things. We are all brothers, but not all brothers get along very well. These children, who think to speak on our behalf do us more injury: they silence us.

They make presumptions, as did their white ancestors who called us ‘noble savages’ because we did not farm, or till, or live as they do. They presume that all was peaceful here in the America’s before Columbus arrived.

Indians, native americans, indigenous people are human beings. Our ancient ancestors waged war on one another with the same savagery displayed when our ancestors waged war on the white man and his ‘manifest destiny’. Some tribes fought for the British Crown even as a nascent America struggled to be born, some fought for the French Crown to drive out the British. To believe that every American Indian has some profound link to nature is to be guilty of the same arrogance that drove us from the lands our fathers called home. Some tribes had a greater appreciation of nature than others. Why? Nomads must live closer in tune with the cycles of our great Mother, since nomads rely on those cycles for the essentials of life. The American Indian is often portrayed as a proud figure, half-naked, riding a saddle-less horse. We did not even see horses until Europeans came to our shores! And when Europeans came with horses and guns, we used these new weapons as tools against our enemies, just the same as every other human being does when given a new way to destroy their enemies.

I am an American. I have Kin that were Code Talkers in World War II. I have Kin that helped the whites settle the plains. I have Kin that fought the whites as they expanded. We can no longer look backwards and cast anger in front of us. Anger will devour us from the inside out, and will blind us to the future. I am here, now, to try and bind together the first nations of this country into a single whole. Progress has already been made, but it is time to do more.

We cannot save the past. But, if we work hard, we may yet preserve the future for our own children, for their children, and for the generations that follow us.