By Bernie Bates

The bread lines during the great depression of the 1930’s, saved many from their hunger pangs, but, what they really thirsted for was change. They too, needed a great leader to fix the wheels on the economic wagon. And here we are, damned near a hundred years later, faced with the possibility of losing all of our hard earned bread once again.

There’s an old Native joke that goes something like this: An army general asked an old Chief, “what has improved for your people since the Whitman came to your land?” The old Chief said, “before you came here we hunted and fished as we pleased, there was no such thing as taxes and the women did all the work. Only a Whitman would think that they could improve upon that.” You may laugh at a lifestyle such as that, but, it worked for many moons.

If the price of a loaf of bread becomes worth it’s weight in twenty dollar bills and it becomes more economical to use cash to wipe your ass than it is to buy toilet paper – the old Indian way of life could be the wave of the future. If the cost of an average house hits the billion dollar mark, a teepee and a warm blanket starts to look pretty damned attractive. The day may come then gasoline becomes so expensive that you may just as well hitch up a horse to your Mustang and pull it. And think of the practicality of horse power; they run on water, eat grass, poop fertilizer and if they break down you can eat them.

There was a lot of common sense thinking behind the Native way of life. Natives took from nature what they needed, no more, no less and there was always enough to go around. What does it really take to sustain a human life? Water, salt, meat, vegetables, fruit and a warm wigwam – that’s it. And if you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat damned near anything. How about a rat, would you eat a rat? In some countries the fury little rodents are a tasty treat. Bugs, snakes and pigeons could all be on the menu if it comes down to you or them.

Again, think of the practical part of munching on these pesky critters. Deep fried cockroaches means there’s no need for an exterminator. Snake soup will put an end to getting bitten on the rear end. And pigeon potpie means our statues will never need cleaning again. Another annoyance that pops to mind, is stepping in goose poop, every time I go to the beach. I say, we turn the kitchen tables on them and turn them into poop. And all of the aforementioned is not only environmentally friendly, it’s also one hundred percent renewable and free.

Another annoyance these days is everyone has a telephone attached to their ear. People take and make calls in their cars, while in bars and in the one place that I thought was both ridiculous and hilarious. While in the men’s room, I heard a phone ring in the cubicle next to me: “Hello? Yeah, I’m running late, see you in an hour. Bye.” It tickled me to think that this guy was doing business while doing his business. Just think of all of the wampum we’d save if we used smoke signals to communicate. We’d never again get a call at the supper table, never get a call from your boss or get a telephone bill.

Now, the only thing we’d need is a great Chief to lead us into the land of milk and honey. He or she would have to be intelligent, fair and honest. Is there an individual out there that has what it takes to lead millions of minds. There’s another old Native joke: “Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians.”

I think that it’s not a question of finding a great leader, but, are we willing to be great followers? Does humanity have what it takes to become great? Take my household, for instance; I’m the almighty Chief, the ruler of the roost, the head honcho, the top man on the totem pole! You can even ask my wife; who handles the money, who makes all the important decision, who buys the milk and honey …. hum, maybe I’m not Chief after all?

THE END

Dear reader: Please feel free to contact, B. H. Bates at: beeinthebonnet@shaw.ca

Posted by Douglas Glynn Midland Free Press

A Mohawk environmentalist is planning to walk from Tiny Township to Queen’s Park to deliver a message to Premier Dalton McGuinty about Site 41.

What McGuinty is doing, says Danny Beaton, a Mohawk with roots in the Six Nations, is “allowing the potential destruction of one of most pristine water supplies in Ontario” -the Alliston aquifer, which runs beneath the proposed Site 41 landfill in Tiny Township.

In a bid to draw attention to the issue, Beaton plans to start a seven-day “walk for the water” from Tiny Township to Queen’s Park on Nov. 14. He will be accompanied by Steve Ogden, a member of the Site 41 monitoring committee.

He also expects to be joined for part of the walk by local politicians, MPP Garfield Dunlop and members of the Metis Women’s Council.

In June, Beaton completed a similar 100-mile walk through Georgia, beginning at the source of the Chattahoochee River and ending in front of the Georgia Capitol building in Atlanta. That walk was led by Robertjohn Knapp to raise awareness of the need to care for the environment.

A writer and filmmaker, Beaton has been active in the Native cultural and arts scene for many years. He was the a principal organizer of Project Indigenous Restoration in 1992, which featured elders, artists and healers from across Canada, the United States and South America.

He has produced and directed four nationally-broadcast films that feature indigenous spiritual elders voicing their concerns for the need of society to return to spiritual values and the protection of “Mother Earth.”

Beaton describes the walk “as a prayer and song to our Mother the Earth, whose blood is the water.” He said the walk will pass by Site 41 and stop the first day to conduct a ceremony at the Simcoe County offices in Midhurst.

He plans to arrive at the Legislature at Noon on Friday, Nov. 21, where he will conduct a “ceremony honouring Mother Earth” and appeal to the Premier to “put our minds to rest and defend the future of the water supply for children.” Beaton says he is inviting David Suzuki, Green Party leader Elizabeth May and Maude Barlow, chairperson of the Council of Canadians, to join him at Queen’s Park

(In August, Barlow reminded people attending the Elmvale water festival that United Nations’ statistics indicate about 3,900 children die every day from the lack of clean water and said the province needs to recognizes water is a public trust.)

Beaton said he is surprised there has not been a public outcry about plans to create a landfill over the aquifer.

“People should be speaking out! This water is the life force; it gives us life. How soon will it be before the groundwater and Georgian Bay are polluted?” he asks. “This will affect the fish; why are the fishermen not upset, not speaking out?

“If anyone proposed building a garbage dump in Lafontaine, Midland or Penetanguishene, there would be a public outcry.

“Are people just going to close their eyes; their ears, their mouths? Are we all going to say nothing? We should be crying! We shouldn’t be walking around like everything is normal. It’s not going to be normal. It’s not going to be normal when all those trucks start rolling in every day to start dumping garbage that will eventually leak into the groundwater.

Beaton, who in 1992 received a Governor-General’s medal for contributions to his fellow Canadians, said he is acting “to protect our Mother Earth from harm and protect the water that belongs to our children.”

By Malcolm McColl

Two separate conferences dedicated to residential school healing were held October 21-24 at the Prince George Civic Centre. The Indian Residential School Survivor Society (www.irsss.ca) hosted sessions on the 21st and 22nd entitled “A Regional Gathering on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Looking Into Canada’s IRS System.” The Carrier Sekani Health Services organized the second two-day conference entitled “We Lez Du Neeh (Letting Go)” in the same venue, and their agenda included a large feast on Friday. Jane Morley, Q.C., one of the commissioners on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, gave a keynote address during the first conference and sat in on the open mike sessions.

The urgency of people to testify overshadowed any controversy about a corresponding resignation of Judge Harry LaForme as Chief Commissioner of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He quit in the middle of the week, but everything proceeded according to agenda. During the open mike sessions, there were many outstanding testimonies and serious discussion about the process of healing at the IRSSS gathering. One man at the microphone said, “They didn’t give us the opportunity to go to the mainstream schools.” Trade schools were also unavailable. He continued, “At that time it was called Prince George College, and they didn’t give us that opportunity to go there either. They didn’t even let us vote until 1960.”

Another strong speaker then took the microphone, a lady who began, “How we treat ourselves as First Nations people leaves a lot to be desired.” She spoke of being uncomfortable even in many First Nations organizations, acknowledging her own issues with trusting people in authority. “There is no trust there,” she said, “How could I relate to these people and how could they relate to me?” She finds it difficult to trust a commission where “the federal government is holding the purse strings” and denounced a lack of function among institutions within the human resources sector. She spoke about struggling with poverty, “I live on six hundred and ten bucks a month. I pay $400 for rent, sometimes $70 for hydro. The rest is my food, my transportation, and the odd pack of cigarettes. And for entertainment? I am lucky if I get a 99 cent cone at McDonalds.” Despite her struggles and concerns she says, “I am on the healing path. I know that I am dysfunctional. I admit it. I owned up to it, and knowing that, I can begin to heal.”

As the woman continued her speech, she pointed out the slogan on the University of Northern BC crest which says, “En Cha S’ay Nuh: He too has life.” On her reserve, there is no water, no well, no electricity, not even a road, so she raises questions, “Don’t they realize that we are human beings just like they are? My blood is just as red as theirs. And whose land are they sitting on anyway?” How can she trust, she wonders, when there is nothing left to call a home. Her parents are gone. Her mother, who passed away a year ago, was in the Lejac Residential School from 1922 to 1930, but never spoke of her experiences there. Still, her daughter says, “Some of the things that she experienced, I can recognize now because they are in me, too.”

She spoke boldly about a government that seems to shrug off the true needs of a people, first going through the Aboriginal Truth and Reconciliation process, and then they “throw a few bones to these Indians.” This speaker wanted to know, “Where in the hell is the healing? I want to be healed first before I get any money so I’ll know what to do with it.” She doubts there are any healing services in Prince George.

Still, she does support the idea of a commission, saying, “It’s an opportunity for us to tell our stories our way, each and every one of us; and when I’m ready, I’ll be there, and I hope you will be too because this is our opportunity to take the reins, to rewrite that history about First Nations people.” She says, “We’re not dumb. We’re not stupid. We’re not lazy. We’re not drunks. We’re not dirty. We’re not savages. We’re human beings. We have heart that we used to have for each other, for the animals, for the land, the respect that we showed to every living creature. We treated everything with respect and that, we lost.”

By Lloyd Dolha

Opposition to a proposed heap leach mine that could pollute Yukon River is growing among Yukon First Nations, as the territorial government has approved the mine’s next phase of development within their traditional lands. Western Copper Corporation, a junior mining company headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., plans to build a large open pit copper mine entirely within the traditional territory of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation (LSCFN). In the last week of October at a meeting of Yukon First Nations in Whitehorse, the chiefs demanded that the Yukon government not issue any licenses or permits to the proposed heap leach mine. While the First Nation is supportive of mining, it is not in support the Western Copper mine because it says there are serious environmental shortcomings in its current design state.

The proposed open pit mine will use a massive heap of ore mixed with concentrated sulphuric acid and leached with dilute sulphuric acid to recover copper metal. The heap leach pile would be as high as a thirty-story building and covering 38.5 hectares on the side of a mountain. During the environmental review process, specialists (including university professors, engineers, and PhD geochemists) warned the First Nation and the Yukon government about the project. There are serious concerns related to the potential for run off of heavy metals into the Yukon River. Copper in particular is highly poisonous to the already threatened salmon. Outstanding concerns about pollution raised during the environmental screening by the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board have yet to be addressed. The chiefs are demanding that the Yukon government provide a detailed response to these serious environmental issues raised by the LSCFN experts.

Western Copper Corp. claims that they will achieve a world first and detoxify this heap, thereby avoiding the expense of dealing with any pollutants. The Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board has recommended that the project proceed, but in recognition of the detoxification issue, they have stipulated that the full-scale mine proceed on the basis of it being a “field scale trial” (i.e. an experiment). The Yukon Conservation Society, however, opposes the mine on the grounds that no one has never successfully detoxified one of these heaps. Extremely small concentrations of copper (measured in parts per million) are highly toxic to fish. Salmon in particular lose their sense of smell at very low levels, seriously impairing migration, mating, and predator avoidance. “This is really an issue of concern to all Yukoners,” Chief Eddie Skookum says, “In fact, it could affect the people downstream in Alaska as well as all the people on the Yukon River watershed.”

Until now, opposition to this mine was mostly limited to the local First Nation, the Yukon Conservation Society, and the Village of Carmacks who initially objected to all the truck traffic passing down their main street. With the new resolution of all Yukon First Nations, the other Yukon First Nations are uniting both to preserve the Yukon River and to fight for a fair environmental screening process. The creek below the heap drains straight into the Yukon River, just nine kilometers away. Traffic to and from the mine will pass through LSCFN Traditional Territory, including settlement land, fish camps, heritage sites, trap lines, LSCFN cemeteries and burial sites, special habitat protection areas, and the largely First Nation community of Carmacks.

The community of Carmacks has long opposed the current plan to have all the mine traffic, including the heavy truck traffic, run through town on the main street. Over 80% of the residents of Carmacks have signed a petition against allowing the traffic to go through town. Additionally, a healthy salmon population is critical to the culture and community of the Yukon and Alaska First Nations, as well as tour operators and all Yukoners who rely on the Yukon River watershed for their livelihood.

Recent legal decisions have stipulated that governments have a strong duty to consult and accommodate First Nations’ legitimate concerns where possible. “It is insulting that the government rushes to give away resources and huge profits to a mining company based in Vancouver without accommodating the legitimate concerns of the people who live near the mine,” says Chief Skookum. “We have been here for generation upon generation. Even when we hire the most distinguished experts in the field, we are not respected. It’s like shouting in the wind. This has to change.”

The company plans on starting construction in the spring of 2009. The Yukon government has decided to allow the mine to proceed, and the company is anticipating the issue of a quartz-mining license shortly. The mine should generate approximately $123 million after taxes for its owners during its 17-year start to finish life, based on current copper values. Grand Chief Andy Carvill of the Council of Yukon Indian Nations has vowed to take the issue to the federal government if Yukon government fails to act on the matter.

The Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation is located 180kms north of Whitehorse.

By Lloyd Dolha

The province of British Columbia announced that it has authorized its provincial negotiators to include revenue sharing with First Nations on new mining projects, making British Columbia the first province in Canada to share direct revenue from the mining industry. “Government is prepared to share the direct benefits of mining with First Nations,” said Gordon Hoag, Minister of State for Mining. The process for the development of revenue sharing will be decided on a project-by-project basis with a strong focus on First Nations’ community development. The announcement means that First Nations will receive direct revenue throughout the life of new mine projects.

The Mining Association of British Columbia (MABC) lauded the province’s commitment to sharing revenue with First Nations. “The MABC and our counterparts in industry have been calling for resource revenue sharing with First Nations for some time,” said MABC president Pierre Gratton. “We are pleased to see the government moving in this direction.” MABC said resource revenue sharing would help increase certainty for access to land and resource development and may also provide an important basis for the accommodation of First Nations’ interests. Leaders of the province’s mineral exploration sector, the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia (AMEBC), applauded the provincial move, noting that revenue sharing will play an important role in building a new relationship with First Nations. “AMEBC has been a strong advocate for revenue sharing,” said Laureen Whyte, AMEBC vice-president. “We anticipate that revenue sharing will increase First Nation participation in the mineral exploration and mining industry and will facilitate new opportunities for cooperation and partnership.” The association noted that tax revenue sharing is only possible after a mine is developed, as no revenues are generated during mineral exploration. Robert Stevens, chairman of AMEBC says, “The government’s new policy assures First Nations that they will benefit once a mine is in production and paying taxes.”

Aboriginal leaders have long asked government to include revenue sharing on new mine developments, and there will be further discussions with the First Nations Leadership Council about how revenue sharing will occur. “The industry recognizes it is important that communities share in the benefits that mining brings,” said Gratton. “Resource revenue sharing ensures that more wealth stays in the regions where it originated.”

By Clint Buehler

EDMONTON – The Alberta government has committed more than $4 million over the next three years to assist Aboriginal communities and Metis settlements facing economic challenges as a result of the downturn in the province’s forest industry.

“Volatile market prices and the negative effect of such things as the mountain pine beetle have had a significant effect on the traditional economic pursuits of Aboriginal people,” says Alberta Aboriginal Relations Minister Gene Zwozdesky. “This new funding will help develop and diversify v the economies of those communities to help them adapt to these economic, environmental and social challenges.

The approximately $4.3 million commitment will help:

The Aboriginal Communities in Transition initiative has been allocated $2.7 million to assist remote and non-Status Aboriginal communities in transition including Aseniwuche Winewak Nation (near Grande Cache), Calling Lake, Chipewyan Lake, Nakcowinewak Nation (near Hinton), Peerless Lake, Trout Lake and Wabasca Metis Local #90. This initiative will support development of community transition plans and implementation strategies.

The Western Metis Settlements Economic Diversification program has been allocated $1.4 million to assist the western Metis settlements of Paddle Prairie, East Prairie, Gift Lake and Peavine, communities whose local economies have suffered as a result of the downturn in the forestry industry. This initiative will support development of community transition plans and implementation strategies, facilitate partnerships and support pilot projects.

The Metis Settlements Land Registry Connectivity project has been allocated to support information and communications technology initiatives, specifically the registry’s new web-based land management system.

The first year of the program will focus on determining how each community has been affected by the slump in the forestry industry and on identifying their priorities. Each program will hire one or more community development specialists who will work directly with communities to develop community transition plans.

Those plans will serve as a guide for community development activities in years two and three and will focus on pilot projects that implement the development strategies.

The funding comes from the federal government’s $1 billion Community Development Trust Fund, created to help provinces and territories assist communities, organizations and workers move toward greater economic self-reliance, especially in communities facing declining employment or layoffs in the forestry sector.

The trust fund supports two priorities of the Alberta government:

By Lloyd Dolha

A former Saskatchewan Member of Parliament who sent constituents controversial pamphlets suggesting aboriginal people shouldn’t get special treatment says he isn’t racist and that he believes in the equality of all Canadians. Jim Pankiw told the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on Oct 21, that the pamphlets his office mailed to voters between 2002 and 2004 were actually meant to point out racist government policies. Three different pamphlets calling for the end of hiring quotas, court sentencing provisions, hunting and fishing rights, and tax exemptions were mailed out to Saskatoon residents within and outside Panikw’s Saskatoon-Humboldt riding between December 2002 and June 2004.

The pamphlets bore slogans such as “Stop Indian Crime” and “It’s Clear Who the Terrorists Are.” They called affirmative action programs “race-based hiring quotas for Indians” and said that treaties should not be valid in modern times. The pamphlet titled “Stop Indian Crime” showed a photograph of the 1990 Oka protest in Quebec. The caption under the photo described an aboriginal protester as a terrorist. Still, Pankiw argued that he simply believes aboriginals should not get special treatment by the system. He told the tribunal, “You can’t discriminate in favour of someone without discriminating against someone else. Discrimination is wrong.” The former MP gave an example of the case of a woman he knows who didn’t get into law school because a certain number of seats were set aside for aboriginal students. “In my opinion,” he said, “she was discriminated against.”

Pankiw served two terms as a Reform MP and then as a Canadian Alliance MP in the Saskatoon-Humboldt riding before he left to sit as an independent. He lost the 2004 election and was defeated again as a candidate in the Battlefords-Lloydminster riding in 2006. Pankiw also lost a 2003 bid to become mayor of Saskatoon. Nine people have filed official complaints about the pamphlets, saying they were discriminatory. The human rights complaints allege that Pankiw engaged in a discriminatory practice on the basis of race or ethnic origin in a matter related to the denial of goods or services: the publication of discriminatory notices and harassment. The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) then referred the matter to the tribunal. Pankiw fought against the hearing, but lost appeals before the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the case.

Pankiw called the complaints “crank, vexatious, mean-spirited personal attacks,” but Roch Levac (the lawyer representing the CHRC) said Pankiw purposely targeted a visible minority with the pamphlets and used language to demean them. The tribunal also heard that the pamphlets were racist and stirred up negative feelings toward aboriginal people. “They were half-truths and half-lies, out of context,” said Richard Ross, a First Nations man and one of nine complainants offended by the pamphlets. Complainant Aisla Watkinson said Pankiw used his privileged position to promote a “discriminatory and destructive agenda.” She said the House of Commons should have oversight over an MP’s mailouts. John Melenchuk, a Métis construction worker in Saskatoon, filed one of the complaints after his eight-year-old son showed him the Oka pamphlet and asked him if he was a terrorist. “I’m just disgusted by these pamphlets,” he told the tribunal. “He was using taxpayers’ money to print out this type of literature.”

The three-member panel will issue a decision in the case at a later date. An RCMP investigation has already concluded that the pamphlets did not constitute hate literature under Canadian law.

By Morgan O’Neal

He was different from most cigar-store Indians of the early 1900s with their distinctly carved high cheekbones and brightly painted feather headdresses. He was short and curious-looking, with wide, thick eyebrows, a pillbox hat, and a bemused expression. His red cedar right arm had been severed and replaced with a crude limb proffering a fistful of cigars. He dutifully hawked tobacco, earned his keep, and kept his mouth shut. But in fact, he was no ordinary cigar-store Indian. The little wooden man was a potlatch figure of untold cultural and artistic value, belonging to the people of Canada’s Kwakwaka’wakw Nation. He was misplaced, forgotten, lost, but he had survived the rain and snow and the blistering sun and obnoxious Yankee children forever poking fun. He made it through the Great Depression when many cigar-store Indians were stolen and sold or broken and burned for firewood. He survived until the city grew prosperous again, and sidewalk obstruction laws put an end to the likes of him altogether. His origins are uncertain, and the name of the native carver unknown, so his safe return seems like an event of karmic justice and the triumph of the good, the true, and the beautiful.

It was an emotional homecoming when the figure was unveiled and presented to the community at the U’Mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay. Elders wept and stroked the figure’s arms, embraced it. Michael Audain whose Foundation facilitated the return of the figure was surprised and moved by the reception. “It was very touching,” he said. For Audain, this was not just a matter of historical significance to Canada and First Nations people; it was something deeply personal. His great-great-grandfather Robert Dunsmuir had lived and worked among the people of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation in the mid-1800s when he first arrived from Scotland as an indentured coal miner. Andrea Sanborn, executive director of the Centre said, “We are proud of the fact that our culture is so strong that a carving like this can come back after everything it’s been through. It has come back to us, much like one of our warriors coming back to us after completing a mission. He was wounded, but he has been restored to a place of honour,” said Sanborn. “This figure is part of us telling our story again.”

The priceless potlatch figure has a culturally unique significance: the figure was most certainly used by the Kwakwaka’wakw people during potlatch ceremonies as a “speaker figure” to greet honored guests attending the feast. In a sense, the figure played a public relations role akin to the advertising and sales function of the appropriated life-size carvings that stood outside tobacco stores many North American cities. By the time this specific figure was returned to the people of Alert Bay by the current Michael Audain Foundation, it had most surely been around the proverbial block more than a few times, doing his storefront duty for many a small businessman hustling everything from snuff and plug to loose cigarettes and fancy highfalutin’ cigars.

Sanborn is fairly certain this figure was created originally for Charlie Nowell (hereditary chief of the Kwakwaka’wakw born in Fort Rupert in 1870). Specifically, the figure may have been created for the Nowell’s 1895 marriage potlatch. Charlie Nowell was being groomed for the office of Chief, but he was also afflicted with an adventurous spirit. Had the figure been created for anyone else, it may never have left its home in the first place. As it turned out, events would take both Nowell and the figure far from home.

After working for a while in the sawmills of Alert Bay, Nowell embarked on a great adventure as part of a popular traveling Indian act that entertained as far afield as Missouri during the1904 St. Louis Exposition (much like Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show with which the great Métis freedom fighter Gabriel Dumont traveled for a time). In St. Louis, Nowell and other tribe members dressed in full regalia and performed Bella Bella dances to delight crowds of up to 20,000. In his remarkable autobiography, Smoke From Their Fires: The Life of a Kwakiutl Chief, Nowell recounts that his show was very popular. “All the people that owned the fair came in and sat in the front end of the house,” he wrote. “All the ladies and gentlemen were sitting right on the ground with their silk dresses on—right in the dirt— because they were told by the guards that is the way Indians sit.” Andrea Sanborn theorizes that the potlatch figure left Canada with Nowell. “He was hired to become a specimen, an Indian on display, telling some of his stories. He may have taken the figure as part of his presentation,” says Sanborn, ignoring none of the tragic irony of this stage of Native oppression. “This is where the rhetorical function of the figure in its original context again becomes significant, for it illustrates that during that period of time it continued to do the same work it was originally created for: rhetorical introduction to ceremony of some type, even the base ritual of market buying and selling, including the kind of demeaning entertainment that was popular at the time.”

That the figure did not return for so many years may also be seen as an expression of the conventional aboriginal transformation myth, suggests Sanborn. Removed from its rightful place, it transformed from potlatch figure to cigar-store Indian in order to survive. In some magical but ordered way, it survived many challenges the Kwakwaka’wakw people themselves endured. One of the greatest tests of that culture was the potlatch ban imposed by John A. MacDonald’s Government in 1884. According to the law, “every Indian or other person who engage in or assist in celebrating the Indian festival known as ‘Potlatch’ or the Indian dance known as ‘Tamanawas’ is guilty of misdemeanor, and shall be liable to imprisonment.” The banning of the potlatch brought a period of darkness upon the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation during which the federal government confiscated many significant pieces of First Nations artwork and ceremonial objects. Still, the potlatch continued underground as a clandestine operation. According to hereditary chief Bill Cranmer, “the law made it illegal for first nations people to gather and practice their ceremonies, making speeches, dancing, distributing gifts. But many bands still held potlatches far away from the Indian agents that would report them to the RCMP.”

The word potlatch means “to give,” and festivities often lasted for several days, with much ceremonial feasting, dancing, and singing which, according to Sanborn, “is profoundly significant in our culture. [The potlatch] was where we conducted ceremonies of significant parts of our lives, the naming of our children, marriages, passing on of chiefdom.” Because the history of the Kwakwaka’wakw people was passed down orally, those who attended potlatches and bore witness to these ceremonies were “instilled with the responsibility of telling the story, of knowing what was true and passing that on.” In return, they received gifts from their hosts. Wealth in Kwakwaka’wakw culture was determined not by what you had amassed, but by what you gave away. To welcome guests, a potlatch figure (like the man in the pillbox hat) might be perched on the beach to greet guests who arrived in canoes. Every potlatch figure had a unique personality, whether aggressive or serene, friendly or mischievous, and they served numerous purposes at ceremonies. They might be placed inside the Big House to serve as a “speaker figure” with someone hiding behind it, speaking to guests or announcing their arrival.

In 1951, the potlatch ban was lifted in Canada. In 1953, both Sanborn and Cranmer attended a large potlatch celebration in Thunderbird Park for which Mungo Martin had created the totem poles. It would be another 50 years before the strange magic of the prodigal potlatch figure would finally come back home. Purchased by renowned first nations art dealer Donald Ellis and lovingly restored by Steve Brown, former curator of native art at the Seattle Art Museum, the figure was acquired by the Michael Audain Foundation in 2006. On Sept. 2, 2008, Audain entrusted the carefully wrapped figure to an associate who drove it to Port McNeill, where it was then transferred to the care of the U’Mista Cultural Society in Alert Bay. On Saturday, Nov. 1, the figure was finally unveiled to members of the community.

The return of the potlatch speaker figure was an emotional moment for many Kwakwaka’wakw elders. “He was like one of our own, back in the old days, that had been taken captive in a raid,” said hereditary chief Bill Cranmer, who attended the ceremony at the U’Mista Cultural Centre. “And like so many of them that were strong and made their way back to their villages and surprised everyone, he has made it home.”

Story and photos by Danny Beaton Turtle Clan, Mohawk Nation, Ontario, Canada www.dannybeaton.ca

The definition of a warrior . . . there are two of them that I know of. One I heard in the longhouse when Leon was alive. It’s the one about a man who carries the bag of bones on his back and the bag of bones is actually his ancestors. He’s the one who’s carrying on the traditions. It’s got nothing to do with fighting anymore. The other definition of a warrior is the one who knows himself. It’s not about guns, bows, or arrows. When the Peacemaker came, he came without the warriors’ society because he formed the Clan system. The Peacemaker did away with the warriors in our way of life. All this was said in our longhouse.

There is so much to say. Everything is made in two forces. The forces are male and female, and the water is the female. For many, many years . . . maybe 2,000 years, we have become anti-feminine.

If you follow the light, everything is to the fire. When you make a prayer to the Spirit world, we are told to burn the tobacco. But, when you make a prayer to the physical world, that’s how you use the water. You pray with the water. I don’t know what that word [pray] means except “to talk.” If you want to talk to the natural world, you use water, Mother Earth’s Blood. If you want to talk to the spirit world, you use fire, and that’s how they work together. If you look at a tree you see the feminine part of the tree is that which is in the earth, in Mother Earth. The upper part of the tree is that which is in the sun which is the fire. A tree can’t grow without both. And so, there is a balance. There can’t be one without the other.

So why do we dump everything into the water? Why do we dirty our water? It’s almost like we are anti-feminine, anti-Mother Earth, anti-woman. We all know we can get away with hurting each other. If you look at women and mothers, we abuse the heck out of them as men. To me, [we are] one in the same. You can’t have one without the other. Like water is not more important than fire, and fire is not more important than water. There has to be balance.

Women are coming into their own, and we have to honour them instead of hurting them. Especially true with the water. If you look up in the sky, you see the fire with all the stars. What’s holding the fire up is the darkness; that’s the feminine. Water, we now know, is throughout the universe. We are born in the darkness; we are born in the womb. Even the genitalia on male and female: one is in the dark, one is in the light. We can see how things work. It’s not to say one is one way or another; there is balance: male and female. And when we have balance, then we promote life. In that way there is balance.

I just built a sweat lodge in Salt Lake City in Utah at the veteran’s hospital, and the day before I went, I took my little girl and we went to listen to one of the top oceanographers in the world. Basically he is saying the ocean is dead; it might have 10% life left in it. Canada has already put out a bill to change their fisheries and canneries because there is not going to be any fish left. The USA has only got one fishery left up in Alaska, and it is going to collapse. All fish that we get in restaurants are coming from Africa. The pH level of the ocean is way off. There will be no more life in the ocean soon. Only green and yellowy slime is what we will eat.

Lots of people know what’s going on, but they are not doing anything about it. People are just accepting the facts. The scientist said the only way to stop it is to stop fishing and protect our waters at all costs. Stop abusing the waters; give them a chance to come back. All nations. He said scientists cannot even leave their instruments for research on the ocean floor because all these trawlers are scraping the ocean floor so bad every two days. He showed many photographs. The fishing industry is levelling the ocean floor. There’s only one island in the Pacific that has any healthy coral left because there are no people around. This is out by Easter Island someplace. People are the ones who are killing the ocean’s coral reefs. We are the only ones who can save them.

There is a great lake in the Soviet Union called the Ura Lake. It’s as big as our Great Lakes, but the Russians have killed it because they have put so many chemicals in it to make plastic, etc. Commercial products killed the world’s biggest lake. You have these catastrophes going on all over. China has destroyed their biggest river; the Yangtze is black. Look at the great places where fresh water is coming out like the Amazon River. We are polluting our own life force. We are doing it.

Less than one half of one per cent of all water is drinkable. Think about that. And we are coming up with a couple more billion people. Our ice caps are melting; so, when our land mass gets flooded and our oceans are dead, we have broken the food chain. We are in a super crisis. Those people who survive off the ocean are going to come inland to survive. It don’t look good. When my daughter and I left Harvey MIT and University—my daughter is only 11 years old—she said to me, “Daddy, I’m scared.” I said, “Every student in that school should be scared,” and I said, “I’m sorry for your future.”

Here’s the thing. I spoke to the scientist after, and he said there’s not a damn thing we can do. There are too many people, and we’re eating too much. That was his response. We are just gorging ourselves.

With the water, it carries your message. What is your message? If you want the Earth to know you care, then you have to start disciplining yourself to do that. But we are caught up in hurting one another. We are all hurting, so we hurt each other. We are going to suffer the consequences. We are going to suffer, not the water. It’s called H2O: two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Hydrogen and oxygen [by themselves] are explosive materials. Here we have this balance in this liquid: explosive material that promotes life. Maybe water was before the stars. Maybe before the “big bang.”

They say there was a mist throughout the universes, and that mist coagulated. It gathered itself, and this was the Creator. I think the mist was water: hydrogen and oxygen. The sun (the fire) came from the water. That’s what I see. We should be in awe at the universe, how it shows itself. Nothing can live without it. Minerals come from exploding star material—where’s that come from?

Let’s get back to water. This is life force we are talking about. Here we are, messing with it. We think we can quit smoking just before we get cancer; we deceive ourselves. That’s what we are doing with water. We will stop polluting it just before our destruction. The worst thing we can do is lie to ourselves, deceive ourselves. Everything needs water. If the Creator made it, it’s alive. Everything alive needs water.

I think in some way, the water is the Creator. It’s a consciousness that’s in absolutely everything. We call it humidity, steam, ice, shower, snow, rain. If you look at it, it’s healing stuff and of water. We should have a special reference to it, not [just] call it water, because it’s too good. It’s too sacred. We just look at it, and we don’t give it its proper respect and care. We humans don’t give the water its proper value. Balance is the thing that is critical. When water and fire come together, there is life and balance.

Water plus fire equals life. When you cook your food, water and fire come together, and then you have life. When man and woman come together, then you have life. One without the other: no life. They say all the planets had water at one time.

So, the water carries our message, and our message is what’s in our heart and mind. Water leaves our heart and mind via our breath, our exhaling, and that goes into our air. We need clean air for the water to travel on. The air carries the water to the trees; the trees carry that message to the Earth. That which we walk on, the Earth, knows us. Our Mother. If we don’t talk to these forces, they won’t know us. If we don’t know the life forces, then we will be afraid of each other—and that which you are afraid of, you will destroy.

Just think of what we have done and are doing.