Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
|
The
Northern Minnesota town of Squaw Lake is in the
news. The June 10 issue of Bill
Lawrence’s Native American Press reported that Angeline Losh
and Dawn
Litzau are working to remove the name “squaw” from place names in
Northern
Minnesota. According to newspaper
reports, these young women have learned that the word “squaw” is a
racist
stereotype of presumably vulgar origin.
I don’t know of anybody who likes to be called “squaw,” or to
have any
other racist, stereotypical labels used on them, such as “N*gger Buck,”
“Inj*n
Buck,” “Drunken Indian,” “Lazy Indian,” “Dirty Indian,” ad nauseam. In spite of the human misery that it causes,
race-baiting has been a sporting event in Euro-American culture for a
long
time. The capitol city of the United
States of America is Number One in promoting fictional racist
stereotypes under
the guise of having a good time (and making big bucks in the process),
with the
Washington Redskins and the Tomahawk Chop.
In
Ahnishinahbæótjibway culture,
there are no stereotypes or name-calling.
Because of the Ahnishinahbæótjibway language,
our people have manners and respect, we are polite, and we have lived
in
harmony with the environment here for the past million years or so,
which is
why our ecosystem was intact and our land was a paradise.
The Western European immigrant peoples
apparently have no manners at all, nor any respect for anybody, even
themselves—as they have demonstrated by going into other Peoples’
lands,
destroying and polluting Grandmother Earth, and promoting their
abstract
dichotomy of the Devil and God.
Western
European racism is so entrenched in Euro-American
culture and values that I don’t know if Ms. Losh and Ms. Litzau’s
efforts at
eliminating the word “squaw” from local place names will be successful. Instead of fighting an uphill battle against
vested interests who profit from the use of racist and sexist epithets
to make
themselves feel superior (and ease their consciences while they steal Ahnishinahbæótjibway property and resources),
these dedicated and socially
aware students could flow with the Judeo-Christian values that they’re
being
asked to assimilate into, although rather than assimilating they can
help the
Western European immigrants integrate.
Instead of changing the name of Squaw Lake, they could
acknowledge that
racism is endemic in Euro-America, and organize a fund-raising effort
to erect
a huge Monument to racist stereotypes in downtown Squaw Lake. Instead of fighting the Chamber of Commerce,
they could get the Big Buck City Fathers go along with their cause, and
promote
politically incorrect tourism. As the
most racist city in the U.S.A., they could have travel posters and
brochures,
T-shirts and bumper stickers; and put up a huge statute of a Squaw Man,
with his
squaws and papooses, by Squaw Lake.
They could take the concept of Squaw Lake and really get into
it, and
rename the streets. Can you imagine the
publicity, and consequent tourist dollars, that N*gger Avenue, H*nky
Drive,
K*yke Way, W*p Street, and a dead-end street named “A Chinaman’s
Chance” in
downtown Squaw Lake, would generate?
The Good Ol’ Boys who run the town could encourage everybody in
town to
get involved, having the Hospitality Industry change the names of the
bars in
Squaw Lake to “The Red-Neck Ranch,” “The Praise-The-Lord Saloon,” and
“The
Gringo Greenback.” The Pillars of Squaw
Lake could also change the names of the other public establishments to
match
the image automatically conveyed by the name of their town, such as
changing
the name of the police station to “The Gestapo Headquarters” of the
S.S.,
because they are using imported Western European (Roman) Laws to
maintain an
hierarchical social structure. These are the same laws as were used by
the
Democratically elected Chancellor of Nazi Germany, and the same laws
which were
used by the immigrant Europeans to name the town Squaw Lake in the
first place.
ENGLISH
SECOND:
When
I was forced into Boarding School, I was not allowed to
speak my egalitarian Aboriginal Indigenous language of Ahnishinahbæótjibway. I
was beaten
for speaking my own language, and for many years, I had use of very
little
language at all. The immigrant
Euro-Americans are still using the compulsory education system to
destroy the Ahnishinahbæótjibway language, this time by
teaching Chippewa as a fake
substitute. Chippewa is a Creole trade
language with an Indo-European hierarchical structure.
Like
most other Ahnishinahbæótjibway who spent our formative
years speaking our own
language, I had a very difficult time learning how to read, write, and
speak
the imported Western European English language. I
asked a number of well-educated native speakers of American
English what the key to understanding their language was, and although
it was
right in front of them, none of them realized that the hierarchical
structure
of the English language was a critical barrier to an Aboriginal
Indigenous
person learning that language. I am
also amazed by the ways in which Western $ivilization uses language to
manipulate, mentally imprison, and psychologically enslave their own
citizens. Included in these vicious
linguistic structures is linear thinking, which creates a misleading
and narrow
world-view, and generates a perspective which distorts reality into
lies. The abstractions which are the
foundation of
the imported Western European languages are also very alien to an
Aboriginal
Indigenous way of thinking, misleading and nonsensical, and I have
heard many
old Ahnishinahbæótjibway laughing
about how strangely abstract thinking makes the immigrant Europeans
talk and
behave. Abstractions may be OK in math,
but they are very foolish when the Euro-Americans try to apply them to
reality.
Language
patterns how a person looks at the world, and by
defining their interaction with the world, regulates their behavior. An example is the Ahnishinahbæótjibway language, which is both
male and female, and
synergizes the harmony which kept this Continent beautiful. On the other hand, Western European
languages are based on an unbalanced caricature of maleness, and define
the
world in terms of power and greed.
Imported Euro-American English relates to Grandmother Earth in
obscenities which the English-speaking Leaders describe as “He-Man”
terms of
domination, prostitution and beating; as “virgin wilderness” to be
penetrated;
as a frontier for pioneers to outflank; and as “resources” to be raped
and
plundered, bought and sold, and otherwise exploited.
An example is the “Mille Lacs Treaty” which is presently in the
news, often in the sports section. The
so-called Indian Treaties were recorded only in English.
Even if the Chippewa language into which the
treaties were mis-translated had been recorded, it would still have the
same
consequences as the English-language document—the Chippewa language
also has an
abstract, Indo-European structure. The
Chippewa Indians have the same values, and are a part of the same
system, as
the other Indo-Europeans. Chippewa
Indians are defined by Congressional con artists and other
Constitutional
front-men as Sovereign wards of the Government under Trusteeship, and
under
Roman Law, no matter who wins the Mille Lacs “treaty-rights” case, the
“resources” will end up under the control of the White man. Notwithstanding the fact that most of the
Indian Treaties were signed by professional Indian Treaty-Signers, the
whole
Chippewa Indian Treaty scam is in the abstract of Western European
$ivilization, has nothing to do with Ahnishinahbæótjibway reality, and has neither
roots nor validity on this
Continent.
The
English language is designed to disconnect and alienate
its speakers from nature, and it is difficult for most native speakers
of
English to understand what is wrong with “exploiting resources,” for
example. My Ahnishinahbæótjibway language is connected,
alive, and in harmony with
Grandmother Earth. In translating the
meaning of “exploiting resources” into Ahnishinahbæótjibway, it becomes very clear
what is wrong with such
exploitation.
The
imported language, American English, is a patriarchal
male-parody language, which was profoundly influenced by the Catholic
Priests,
who were almost the only people who could read and write for several
centuries
in Europe. The Holy Roman Monastery
establishments, which were the centers of European academic learning at
that
time, had their world-view set by men who had no intimate relationship
at all
with women—even their relationship with their own mothers was in the
abstract,
mythologized by their language and perverted by their dogma. Western European and Euro-American White
women do not have an identity. They are
defined and crippled by the patriarchal European languages, in terms
set by a
homosexual and/or celibate, misogynistic priesthood, which at times had
such
ritual practices as burning women at the stake. Euro-American
women could not vote until the 1920’s, and are
still defined in the English language as chattel, which means “property
without
what is required to be a human being.”
The English language also defines those people who choose to
allow
themselves be called “Indian” in very derogatory terms.
Indians do have an identity of their own,
but not as Indians, which is a racist and artificial definition by
immigrant
Europeans. The so-called “Indians” could take responsibility for their
own
identity—they know who they are.
Even
when they are not being called “squaws,” English (or
Chippewa) speaking Indian women are caught under the double, demeaning,
Indo-European language definitions of “Indian” and “woman.” These languages have been developed over the
centuries to conceptually chain women to a patriarchal world-view, and
simultaneously to separate them from Aboriginal Indigenous
understandings. Some anthropologists have
described this
separation as a “glass wall,” although they do not understand that this
prison
wall is an illusion in their own minds, generated by their language. Aboriginal Indigenous women define
themselves, in harmony with men, Grandmother Earth, and the Universe,
through
our egalitarian Aboriginal Indigenous languages which are a balance of
male and
female, harmonious and with no linguistic structure for holding power
over
another. White women, and other female
speakers of Indo-European languages, do not have the vocabulary or the
grammar
to describe who they really are, nor to talk about what they feel
inside of
themselves nor how their inner nature leads them to see the real world,
because
they are blinded, crippled, and made fundamentally mute by their
male-centered
languages. There is no communication, and
the White man does not know anything about women, even though he
defines
them. When White and other hierarchical
women rediscover the balanced male and female harmony of the Aboriginal
Indigenous languages, and re-create their own vocabulary and grammar,
then they
can take back their world.
BACK TO THE
ABSTRACT WORLD:
The
off-again, on-again news media has changed their focus
away from the Arkansas S & L and Whitewater. The
Evangelical Right has set a precedent on the President, and
is skirting the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution very
narrowly by
promoting a sexual-harassment suit against the President.
I have always wondered about Fundamentalist,
Right-Wing politics. I finally realized
that why they act so weird is that they have a Methodist God and a
Presbyterian
Devil, and their Catholic Archangels compound the confusion. The High Priests of Judeo-Christianity have
always abused women to advance their own vested interests.
Their latest version of a very old scam, is
promising Paula Jones fame and fortune, including television
appearances, a
book, and lots of money, which she pledges she will “donate to Charity.” This is the New Right-Wing Evangelical
version of “The Devil in Miss Jones.”
My
telephone number is (218) 679-2382 and my mailing address
is P.O. Box 484, Bemidji, MN 56601.
Wub-e-ke-niew
|
|
|