quicksilverwade

With our generation running out of time it's refreshing to see someone as young as Chirapachegurl with a lot of brains.

chirapachegurl

It's not only brains, but it's a lot of common sense and I do not understand as to why not too many people see, they are so blind. The only culture that white people have is just to be greedy and bring others down. It is sad that I have seen this pass on to our people. They care about wearing name brand stuff, enjoy listening to white peoples music than our own, and have adjusted to living the white way. We all in a way have to in order to suvive in today's society, but in our homes it shouldn't have to be this way. The language that we speak, the music that we hear, the conversations that we have. I have learned the history about what the whites did to my people, and also mexicans, and it put a lot of passion into my heart about my people and in respect of their memory and their fight to try to be free I do what I can to learn everything I can to keep our traditions continuing for our generations to come. I do not like this english language, I do not like the fact that it is my first language. But because it was enforced on my people it has become my first language. I am doing what I can to learn the language, but there is only so much that is available to me that I make every effort I can to learn it. There are so many posts that I have read that people are sounding like they are black. I have nothing against black people, but we are not black. Even those that I have met that are both native and black do not speak this way. But maybe there are others that do, I do not know I have not met every single native who is also black. Even at that, we SHOULD be speaking our native languages. There goes my other two beads into this thread. :)

One Hot Mama

I know this sounds odd, but then again maybe not. All of us regardless of tribe and traditions, come from people who were highly disciplined. Our men were raised to be warriors from infancy, and over the course of boyhood would engage in various exercises for strentgh, endurance, and fighting skills, like being brought up in bootcamp. Is there a Native bootcamp for these young men out there somewhere? I mean, a program that takes them out in the toolies somewhere, and puts them through exercises and training for their minds, hearts, spirits, and bodies? Long ago, all earth's peoples had tribal cultures, and the men were raised in warrior societies, and this is still in the human spirit. Our boys and young men need discipline and purpose to their lives, they need to learn and exercise the skills of being men and warriors.

Same thing for the girls-they need to learn discipline and the skills of being women. We too are warriors in our own way, as givers of life and keepers of the hearth, and as partners to the men in seeing to the affairs of daily life among our people and caring for the children and the elders. Cherokee women were in charge of the food-growing it, harvesting it, putting away enough to feed everyone, and rationing it out. We were in charge of the home, seeing to it that the house was clean, properly blessed each day, and that everyone behaved properly. We had a voice in the Council, and the Clan Mothers were the ones whose approval was need to pass any resolution of the Council, including going to war. We behaved respectably so that we brought honor to our families and people. And when it cam to physical fitness, we were as fit as the men in running, canoeing, using weapons and fighting skills, stickball(lacrosse), wrestling, etc. Strong women bear healthy children.

Heck, maybe the adults should be put through bootcamp. We could all learn something. Said bootcamps would see to proper education for our minds and knowledge, for our spirits and wisdom, for our hearts and emotional health, and for our physical condition. Traditional diets with lean meats, whole grains, fruits, nuts, veggies, etc. combined with lots of exercise would trim them frybread thighs right up, and change those spare tires into six-packs. I might even lose that portable plush cushion I sit on.

Learning the traditional culture gives us a clear identity and purpose, and pride in it. Learning how to walk the Red Road shows us the Creator's immense love and longing for us, and in seeking Him out, our shame is taken away, our spirits and hearts healed and restored, our loneliness and disconnection forgotten.

God did not intend for us to be thugs and wusses- He made us to be warriors for Him.

RezGma

Gangs just dont happen on poor reservations or in the inner cities. There are gangs where people do have very good incomes and still have gang problems. Gangs has affected much of the reservations in one state and in the bigger cities. The ones I know of I don't know why they chose to get involved with the gangs. But they have paid for it dearly with prison terms and death. Some youth are beyond having parents help them, the tribe as a whole needs to do something to stop this from going any further. We are all affected by this violence we all need to take steps to put a stop to it.

LadyRedtailedHawk

[quote=Tsanuwa Usgolv] All of us regardless of tribe and traditions, come from people who were highly disciplined.
Traditional diets with lean meats, whole grains, fruits, nuts, veggies, etc. combined with lots of exercise would trim them frybread thighs right up, and change those spare tires into six-packs. I might even lose that portable plush cushion I sit on.

Learning the traditional culture gives us a clear identity and purpose, and pride in it. Learning how to walk the Red Road shows us the Creator's immense love and longing for us, and in seeking Him out, our shame is taken away, our spirits and hearts healed and restored, our loneliness and disconnection forgotten. [quote]

You said it!! :clapping: Another important thing that I try to always remember is something I learned from my grandparents...it is the job of parents, elders and olders to TEACH these things, strengthen spirituality as well as faith in tradition. Many do not take the time to do this anymore or they stray from their own path and do not live what they preach and this sets poor examples for our youth...our future. While being human does afford us those moments of making mistakes we must all still strive to walk the Red Road and maintain the connection and balance of our ancestors.

I pray each day for the strength to continue doing just that with my own children and other children who cross my path. It is the way of things.

__________________
Measure a woman or man's worth not on what they have but on what they give and how they live their life. Speak the truth for a lie will bite you in the end!

Azhe'ni

Yeah there are gangs everywhere. But I really hate to see our people like that. They may act like that cuz they might have been brought up like that.

La + * Mom

...I have never been to Pine Ridge but I too pray for all the families there...but, reading this thread brings to my own mind a personal reflection that hurts my heart and is soon to be a reality. Back in '97 I attended a conference in Green Bay and sat in shock watching as a tribal police officer gave a lecture on Indian Gangs and was showing some pretty graphic film slides as he spoke. As the lights came back on and he finished his presentation, I noted he had tears in his eyes when he said "we never had these gangs before the casinos and money came to the reservations." Our tribe recently opened its first casino but it was opened off the reservation, this Spring we are opening a second one on the rez....I cringe to think what will come to our rez now. There are no easy answers in a society where you cannot discipline your own children in fear of the white CPS workers being called in...but each and every one of us must take a harsh stand in rearing our children and not letting them fall into gangs or related behavior. When my son was younger, he wanted to wear those large pants with the azz down to the back of the knees....talk about mimic!... I made him wear MY pants to school one day..... that cured his gang dress style. (!!!)

Taushina

Last summer I traveled with a group of Natives called "On Eagles' Wings" the first reservation we went to was Pine Ridge. Here is the report that our leader wrote about our experience on Pine Ridge.....

Summer of Hope 2003: Reservation #1 Report
July 9, 2003
"The choppers go over every day here, evacuating people who've been shot or stabbed. It's really easy to get killed living here."

Joey's* a gang member on what is possibly the toughest reservation on the continent. He knows the violence firsthand -- he's been stabbed six times and shot four times. At 22, he shouldn't even be alive now.

There's a generation like him on the reservation where On Eagles' Wings just finished three days of rescue. He is part of a tribe with a proud history but with a present full of violence, death, and hopelessness. Joey and I talked when he came looking for me at Night 2 of our three nights in his town. Eight years ago, we met him and helped point him in Jesus' direction -- he even traveled with the team in 1997. But as he said, "Trying to be a Christian in a place like this is hard. So hard." Even with his succumbing to the pressures of the gangs, he was still talking about the Lord he tried to follow as a young teenager.

With the worst poverty of any reservation in America ... with the pervasive power of hard-core gangs ... with so many children having children ... and with a sense of dying all over, it is little wonder that the suicide rate here is five times the national average! Our team members came back each night with awful stories they heard from the young people and children they had talked with -- stories of unspeakable violence against children, of abandonment for alcohol, of seven-year olds doing drugs and pre-teens dealing them. I literally watched some of our big, tough guys break down in tears as they told about the kids they were meeting. And these are guys who live on reservations themselves! We're talking major broken hearts among our team.

Into the midst of what may be the hardest reservation in the country, God sent our largest On Eagles' Wings team ever -- and our "rookiest," with half the team doing this for the first time in their lives! If there were going to be victories here, they would have to be totally GOD'S victories!

The first thing that has amazed me about this "Team Jesus" we call On Eagles' Wings is that they are prayer warriors! I arrived at the main reservation town a few minutes behind our OEW bus -- to find a number of our warriors, standing in an impromptu huddle behind the local store, "praying up a storm"! Our outreaches didn't start until the next night, but this team was already crying out to God together. A beautiful sight!

We gathered our team for intense training in how to present a relationship with Jesus Christ, allowing them to practice with each other what would soon be needed as a life-saving skill. The praying was heartfelt as On Eagles' Wings 2003 went into their first rescue event of the summer. Within minutes after the local young people started arriving for our basketball events and rap music, some of the newest members of the team were already getting into conversations with them.

Before the night was over, I had the joy of watching "blue shirts" (the team t-shirt this year is blue) scattered all across the court and the park, many attempting to share their Savior for the first time. What often takes some days to develop with our team was happening the FIRST NIGHT!

The very first report given of a person led to Christ in this Summer of Hope came in our team meeting that night. Sherry, one of our "First Nations" team members from Canada, began to tell about the lady she had talked to that night -- and then she melted down before she could finish. Tearfully, she said, "The lady I talked to ... had never heard of Jesus!" Sherry went on to report that, "She said she wanted the relationship we talked about tonight -- and she gave her heart to Jesus!" Imagine -- the first night she had ever heard about Him! What a "firstfruits" of the harvest of this Summer of Hope!

And it was only the beginning. In this community of hurting hearts turned hard as stone, it took all three nights of showing up with Jesus' love to really break through. The last night, many came for the Challenge Game between the best of the local players (organized by one of the town's gang leaders) and our OEW team. And they also came for the pizza that keeps them there until the end so we can get to as many as possible. It was the night the peace of Christ and the power of God settled on a place where there has been so much death and dying.

Our top basketball player told his Hope Story of the dead-end streets of his life -- alcohol and drugs -- and of the peace and identity he has finally found in the Creator's Son, Jesus Christ. Annie's story of abuse, abandonment, alcohol, and suicide attempts told the story of so many around that basketball court. And when the Gospel was presented and the invitation extended to begin a new life in Christ "at center court," one-third of the young people in that park that night stepped out to give their life to the Man who gave His life for them. Those who came were gang members, ball players, teenage mothers, and a lot of hurting people. For the hour that followed, team members, exploding with excitement, kept running up to me holding up fingers to count the number of young people God had used them to birth into God's family.

It was an amazing response in a place that is hard as rock. The rock was broken by the power of God, shining through the brokenness of these precious young warriors. It was great to see some of those who gave their hearts to Christ last night at our new believers' Great Start Party this afternoon -- where more came to Christ. That get together helps new believers get a great start in the new relationship they now have with Jesus Christ! The Native pastor and his wife who invited us to this reservation are poised now to pick up the incredible spiritual energy these breakthroughs demonstrated and build them into an ongoing youth ministry that may one day launch an OEW team across their state!

As I listened to our excited warriors telling of breakthrough after breakthrough last night, I asked how many had led their first person ever to Christ at that court -- many raised their hands. They have tasted the incomparable thrill of joining Jesus in a spiritual rescue. They're ready for more.

And God still had one more miracle to show us, just before we left for the next reservation this afternoon. Joey, the gang member who has almost died several times in this tough reservation town, came to me and said, "I want to join the team. I'm ready to leave the gang and turn my life around. I once was found and I got lost. I want to come back to Jesus." Tonight -- on another reservation, desperately in need of Jesus -- Joey was standing with On Eagles' Wings, wearing the blue team shirt that says, "I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself" (Exodus 19:4). God clearly directed us, after checking with believers who know him, to make an exception and add him to the team. After hearing his teammates tell their powerful Hope Stories, he said, "I'm going to get my life straightened out with Jesus, and then I'm going to get up there and tell them what the last years have been like without Jesus."

Here's some pictures of our time spent in Pine Ridge...
http://www.gospelcom.net/rhm/summerofhope2003/rez1.php

__________________

ironrose

I was in Pine Ridge last August for its annual powwow and I would have to have been blind not to notice the groups of teenagers that looked(or wanted to look)like they were in a gang. I have to admit I was intimidated;mainly because I had no inclination that this was happening on reservations-Suffice to say, economically depressed areas are always thought of as breeding grounds for desperation;therefore drastic solutions. It is no wonder that under such drastic conditions the effects will continue to be pernicious as long as we don'ttake immediate action. Though I have never been involved in any gang activity I grew up around the projects(to quote the local newspaper-"an urban wasteland") I have first-hand knowledge of what its like to grow up around a "tumultuous" environment and the outcome is never positive. Unfortunately, it almost always comes down to circumstances that stem from the home. Of course there are exceptions but a cohesive family-unit has always been the most influential of them all-If this cannot be the solution then a cohesive unit of any knind will do-A close-knit community for instance... One that will show up to a meeting given by the police dept concerning gang activity. People have to start believing that they can make a difference again. I think hope has been given up;perhaps because they have become disillusioned after so many years of irreparable damage. But things can and will get worse if it doesn't stop here.

WocusWoman

What a crying shame...

lakotawambliwin

Coming from Pine Ridge, my life was turned around for the better only AFTER I moved off the rez. I didn't move far, only 30 miles, but it has mad all the difference. I was never part of any gang, but I sure felt the affects of them. There really is nothing to do but drink and drug and get more stupid.
It is hard to put your trust in elders and leaders who only put on their good face when a camera and a reporter are around. I have an uncle who was recently on TV talking about how the men of our tribe need to take care of the women, and help prevent sexual assault, and heal the women who are victims. BS, he has two nieces who were sexually assaulted on the reservation and he didn't give a crap. Why feel good about yourself when your own people don't care about you?
Our traditions allow for "gangs", in the sense that there is a feeling of belonging, and having a purpose in life. They were the different societies that our men earned admittance into. Nowadays, some people try to revive those societies (ie, same uncle), but make it very exclusive, and then they tire of it and just let it go. They don't share their knowledge with the tribe, so its kind of like, every soul for themselves. For being such a poor tribe, we can be very selfish! A lot of people are more interested in their own welfare than that of the people. It's human nature, but combine that with decades of self-deprecation and you have a bad situation all around. We need to stop blaming the white man, and start taking responsibility for our own futures. Sure, we have and are being treated real bad, but now it's time to pick up, dust off and move forward.
We do have people on our rez who have good ways to mve us out of this crisis, but they need more support from more people. That is what we need to be concerning ourselves with. We need to heal ourselves before we can start worrying about every other thing.