Today is Thursday the 4th of February 2021 and it’s cold but still warm enough for a walk. I’m walking my way back to health from co-vid. It gives me time to think of the goings on in this country and the marching on of time.
I’ve marked November 14th my 65th birthday and other days as well. The election and rancor have passed along with a new resident in The Yonag House. Well, not all the rancor as words and voices try to traverse the divide.
With calls for the losers to be silenced for good and re-educated.
Glory be maybe off to boarding school?
These are the examples we as natives, original inhabitants of this land are supposed to emulate. Well, we have had the silencing of voices and re-educating of our people. Quite a bit of silencing as we lost the wars to keep the land. We were given a small portion to live on. In between times we’ve had no say in where and how we lived.
Thanks to a people willing to listen to an Indian. Who possessed the courage to speak out, was heard so that now we too can speak!
In 1879 of April a case was filed by Chief Standing Bear, who sued for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court in Omaha, Nebraska. Near the end of the trial, he was allowed to speak.
Raising his right hand, Standing Bear proceeded to speak. Among his words were, “That hand is not the color of yours, but if I prick it, the blood will flow, and I shall feel pain,” said Standing Bear. “The blood is of the same color as yours. God made me, and I am a Man.”
On May 12, 1879, Judge Elmer S. Dundy ruled that “an Indian is a person within the meaning of habeas corpus.
January 6th 2021 will always show a sad time in American history but be mindful of how say something for your words will be recorded.
Lawbreakers need to be punished but we truly need to be careful of twisting another person’s words to suit our own purposes.
We give thanks to Chief Standing Bear’s interpreter Susette LaFlesche an educated bilingual Omaha of mixed race. One who faithfully interpreted his words.
Today we see too much reinterpretation and twisting of speeches. Are we really going to take away something as precious as speech? Silencing voices?
In 1966 while attending grade school I was told to quit speaking Cherokee since, the white kids didn’t understand it. I spoke both English and Cherokee then and still do, to this day.
My tribe we’ve had its own troubles in Quah-town. People pushing, shoving, wrestling in the street, a broken window and damaged medals.
Honor shoved aside but peace restored and some elevated but it left a bad taste to all. God gave me a voice and the right to speak. Not in anger or hatefully but hopefully with grace.
You may disagree with me but it gives you no right to silence my voice.
For as God asked Moses “who has made man’s mouth”? I ask who made speech or language?