Standing Up for Standing Rock and Understanding the Shadow of Our History

Artist Mary-Ann Myers and Lawrence Laughing

Last night, people gathered in Grass Valley to raise awareness and supplies for the water protectors at Standing Rock. It was a time to share stories, song, support, prayer and food. 

I was drawn to the breath-taking Standing Rock poster (shown at left and described below) and had a delightful conversation with the artist and flute-player Mary-Ann Myers. There were also first-hand stories from people who recently returned from Standing Rock.

I had few expectations, but definitely did not expect a mental seismic event.

The first tremor came when Lawrence Laughing, a tall, gentle man with a soft, resonant voice said that we were standing on our own Standing Rock, right here in these beautiful foothills. 

He reminded us that the Maidu tribe had been decimated during the gold rush when almost 150,000 people were killed by gold and greed (according to Gold, Greed and Genocide by Pratap Chatterjee, now Executive Director at CorpWatch.)

With a mixture of delightful storytelling and a shocking reminder of our past, Johnny Moses, told us a mystical story about caribou and related a bit of his experience at an Indian residential school. For some reason I don't quite understand, the novel I've been working on this year has led me deeper and deeper into our dark past, especially as it relates to our dealings with the people who lived here when we arrived.

Perhaps the image that most brought home the horrors of the residential Indian schools was this picture of tiny handcuffs ... handcuffs for a child ... handcuffs made by someone, probably in large quantities ... handcuffs used by adults to control children. It's an artifact that carries a thousand stories, each of them horrific.

Lawrence Laughing added to my mental tumult later when he talked about technology as something other than a sign of progress. 

That thought connected with an ongoing conversation with another friend who had recently returned from Europe where time took on a different perspective when she toured a cathedral with a glass floor that revealed older structures. It struck her that the European mindset judged progress on structures … roads, cathedrals, waterworks, bridges and so on.

Therefore, when they (we) came to the Americas, all we saw was empty space, a void to be filled, a people without civilization, since civilization was judged by things made by man.

I don’t know where this thinking is going, but my mind feels like a river that has been knocked out of its channel. 

In the meantime, here is a beautiful piece of music by Lawrence Laughing

Click here to listen to Lawrence Laughing "I Wish You Peace"

 And a full view of Mary-Ann Myers' Standing Rock poster as described by the artist:

• Background represents water...or even water with oil in it...which is exactly what we don't want to happen.
• The background is a college Lakota student embracing his ancestors.
• The woman bending down as if crying is a photo of a Lakota pow wow dancer and she was involved in the 1975 Longest walk that Dennis Banks and others organized after the second seige of Wounded Knee.
• Then there is Sitting Bull, who once said we are poor but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps.  If we must die...we die defending our right.
• Sitting Bull was the last of the "wild" chiefs but in reality, he is the first American Indian protester.  
• So, this college student embraces his past but is sad because his people were oppressed for 500 years and it is still happening.  
•  We must stop this...it will take prayer.

Why Has Standing Rock Captured Our Attention and Imagination?

Story: OutsideOnline.com; Photo: Sara Lafleur-Vetter

“The earth is a spirit, the water is a spirit, and if you have no spirit, and you have no connection to those things, it will be easy to destroy them and not even care.”

-- Quese IMC 

(born Marcus Frejo Little Eagle) 

 

Why is Standing Rock such a phenomena when other, similar actions didn’t catch the public attention?

 

Last night I talked to a woman in her 60s who drove 1500 miles to Standing Rock, who got arrested (with about 30 other people) for obstruction of a government activity, who spent time in a dog cage (a large chain link structure within the jail). She was one of several “returnees” who spoke at a meeting at the Unitarian-Universalist church in Grass Valley, CA.

Photo: Daniella Zalcman

Her story wasn't awful. She wasn’t  shot, maced or pepper-sprayed. She was strip searched and held for almost fourteen hours, but she did not feel like she had been mistreated. She did wonder why she was arrested for obstructing a government activity when she was actually obstructing a corporate activity. Interesting question.

Her story and the story of the other returnees made me wonder why. Why they went. Why they were willing to be arrested. Why they spent their time, money and energy to stand up for this particular issue. 

It could be the issue … water is life. The $3.7 BILLION pipeline crosses a river that impacts the lives of 17 million people and was declared potentially hazardous by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers when it was originally proposed near Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota.

It could be the people … Lakota tribespeople putting their lives on the line for their land and for our future rather than for money or power or fame.

It could be the time … perhaps people are waking up to the fact that we need to wake up, speak up, stand up ... that waiting for "them" to fix "our" problems is magical thinking.

It could be the place … a place that calls to some sleeping part of us that remembers an earlier time, a simpler time, a time when we understood and respected the fundamentals of life ... but also calls to the greed of developers and corporations who see it as a nowhere place, an empty-space-on-the-map place.

It could be the anger and fear … clearly highlighted by the recent election, anger and fear are major forces in the world right now.

It could also be the words: Standing Rock … Words that go beyond words into metaphors that carry the power to energize and engage.

Standing Rock. Standing up for what’s important. Standing firm for what we believe in. Standing tall, willing to take risks for the seven generations of the future. Standing out, resisting the forces of power and money and greed.

Standing Rock. Strong, still standing, visible, solid, earth, the planet we live on.

It makes me ask:

When the world is sitting,

What am I standing up for?

What are WE standing up for?

What are YOU standing up for?

Article:

50 Museum Directors Sign Letter Supporting Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

Notes: From Mark Sundeen's article for OutsideOnline.com: (entire article highly recommended.)

"Two of our country's biggest issues, racism and climate change, have collided on a North Dakota reservation. This week, I loaded up my station wagon with water and supplies and drove down for a look at a historic demonstration that could shape the national dialogue going forward."

"In 2014, the proposed route of DAPL went through Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, with roughly 61,000 residents, 92 percent of them white. After the Corps determined that the pipeline could contaminate drinking water, it was rerouted to pass by Standing Rock. “That’s environmental racism,” said Kandi Mossett, of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation in North Dakota and an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network." 


"The Standing Rock lawsuit may hinge on the definition of sovereignty. The law required the Army Corps of Engineers to consult with the tribe before it permitted the pipeline, but it didn’t require that the tribe approve. So Standing Rock contends that its wishes were overruled.
 
“When we need help, they say we are sovereign,” said Mossett. “But when it comes to development of our resources—oil, gas, coal, uranium, water—then they step in see how much money the state can get.”

"The United Nations appears to agree. On Wednesday, its Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues released a statement that the failure to consult with the Sioux on DAPL violated the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a resolution President Obama signed in 2010."


The Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program authorized nine dams—five on Indian land, displacing those who lived along the banks. Standing Rock lost 55,000 acres, while adjacent Cheyenne River Reservation lost 150,000 acres. According to historian Michael Lawson, author of Dammed Indians, “The Oahe Dam destroyed more Indian land than any other public works project in America.” Estes said his elders “died of heartache.”

Speaking of historic conflicts between tribal nations: "They (Native Americans at Standing Rock) rattled off these 19th-century events like they happened yesterday, and this gathering at Standing Rock was occasion for a new round of history making. The site was called Seven Councils Camp, indicating the first time all bands of Lakota had gathered in one place in more than a century. 

"While I saw passion and anger and solemnity, the main thing I saw was joy. Travelers were reuniting with long-lost relatives. Parents brought small children, and an impromptu homeschool taught them to ride horses and make fry bread."

"The Yakima Nation in Washington chartered a tractor trailer filled with pallets of fresh fruit and bottled water. Small donations were also received: somebody mailed four packets of Lipton noodles. When I asked how long they planned to the stay, most said, 'Till the end.'”

"I met Nick Estes, a Lower Brule Sioux from South Dakota who remembered that when he was a child, his grandparents told stories about the wonderful Missouri River. “But after the 1940s, the stories stopped.” The Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program authorized nine dams—five on Indian land, displacing those who lived along the banks. Standing Rock lost 55,000 acres, while adjacent Cheyenne River Reservation lost 150,000 acres."