Sunday we attended Lilac Sunday at the Shelburne Museum. The day was cool, with passing raindrops and fragrant air. The museum as many lilacs and most were in bloom! Lilac Sunday is the museum’s yearly celebration of mothers.

Two of the featured shows this year are rugs by the late Vermonter, Patty Yoder, and circus elephants by the young and talented Kat Clear:

N is for Nichols

Both shows are excellent, and the herd circus elephants will continue to grow throughout the summer. Walking the museum is good exercise and the lilacs and art were pure pleasure. What a marvelous weekend!

This being an election year, we humans are engaged in some enigmatic behaviors of our own.  Down in Massachusetts the  election contest for the Senate, apparently lacking any real issues to address, appears focused on whether Elizabeth Warren meets criteria as a Native American. Nationally, Indian identity is a hot topic in Native and Neocolonial circles alike. Short Stories For Children entered the fray by writing sensibly about her experience as a Mixed Blood:

I can break treaties with myself all the time.

You see, I’m one of many Oklahomans — probably like Elizabeth Warren — who grew up hearing stories of my family’s mixed heritage. my grandfather talked about his Native American roots, and my mother’s lineage stretches back to Francis Scott Key. yes, that Francis Scott Key.

This is playful, direct, subversive writing at it’s best. Of course the truth is that the vast majority of folks who identify as Indians are of mixed blood. People of different ethnicities come into contact and some of them fall in love and create children. There are also, seemly inevitably, contact and greed driven experiences of rape and prostitution. Oh, and let’s not forget women, whose preferred partner pool has been greatly reduced due to war, look elsewhere for mates. Colonialism, in all of it’s forms including slavery, breeds the Mixed Blood experience.

Unfortunately, the complexities of history are usually completely outside the parameters of any discussion of First Nations identity in North America. In order for these confounding facts to be incorporated into our understanding of Native experience they must be allowed into the mainstream historical record. (The Canadians have begun this process by openly discussing the Residential Schools.) Then we must speak together about them.

Bringing First Nations experience and history into the larger societal conversation about priorities and meanings would surely complicate matters enormously.   The City explored this theme in a discussion of the First Nations response to the despoiling of yet another sacred site, in this case a known Indian burial ground in the Vancouver, B.C. area:

The Musqueam band marched and rallied on Thursday, May 3rd to protest the continued development on ancient burial grounds in Marpole (1338 SW Marine Drive), where Musqueam ancestors are buried. Recently, intact 4,000-year old infant remains were discovered on the site, which prompted the band to renew efforts to stop development on the site and further desecration. The developer has indicated that construction on the site will continue, despite the Musqueam’s call for work to cease.

The work may well not cease, as that would presumably mean a loss of potential income. One wonders whether the project would have gone forward at all had the cemetery been occupied by Europeans. Of course, there is really no platform on which we might have that discussion. It is as though Indians, whether full or mixed blood, still lack standing as human beings.

Intercontinental Cry noted, a few weeks ago, that Chevron had stated this clearly in court:

On February 15th of this year, Doak Bishop, a lawyer representing the American oil giant Chevron, claimed that all 30,000 people affected by Chevron’s 16 billion gallons of oil pollution in Ecuador are and have always been “irrelevant”.

Now that the United States has agreed, at least administratively, to abide by the United Nations Charter on Indigenous People, all this harmful behavior has fallen under international scrutiny. NPR interviewed S. James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on indigenous peoples, who is currently investigating the plight of Native peoples in the U.S.:

ANAYA: The basic finding is that there needs to still be some reconciliation between indigenous peoples and the United States government. Indigenous peoples suffer a range of social ills, high rates of poverty, alcoholism, domestic violence, low educational attainment. And these are a product of what’s been referred to as intergenerational trauma spanning decades, really centuries, since the founding of the country and before.

So the historical oppression that indigenous peoples have suffered, the taking of their lands, the undermining of their cultures, the taking of their children to boarding schools in order to wean them away from indigenous culture, these have had profound effects on indigenous peoples. There’s yet to be a real reckoning of that history and reconciliation.

Of course, as the Colorado Legislature recently discovered, there is enormous pressure to avoid just such a coming to terms with history. Yet we know healing requires us to confront and set right histories of abuse and oppression. Without a thorough review of the historical record, and a full coming to terms on all sides, the wounds of history fester. This is true for families, communities, and entire nations.Those of us who work in Human Services are reminded of this truth daily.

Let us remember that Spring always returns, and reminds us that healing is there for the choosing. The Creator invites us to remember and repair. Let it be so.

Native News Network Staff in Native Briefs. Discussion »

Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe

“This is an exciting time.”

States Loris Taylor, President and CEO of Native Public Media.

“We had an overwhelming response from our Native radio stations to enroll their staff. This speaks to the incredible need and desire of our terrestrial radio personnel to branch out their service to Native American audiences using new media platforms.”

The digital curriculum is the first of its kind to be written by Natives for Natives and was formally adopted by the Institute of American Indian Arts, an accredited tribal college. Over a two week period, students will learn to use digital platforms to tell stories from tribal communities earning 3 hours of college credit. Rhonda LeValdo, Native American Journalists Association President, is one of the instructors.

Read more: http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/first-class-for-native-digital-journalism-course-announced.html

One of the truly fun moments was conveying a “HI” to Paul, from a couple of wonderful, Florida Based puppeteers. It turned out Lynn Jeffries, Paul’s long time puppetry colleague, designer, and dramaturg, knew them as well! (I was early to the workshop, imagining I would encounter a monumental traffic jam – which fortunately occurred elsewhere – and had the great good fortune to talk puppetry for a few minutes with her.)

Last night, I went back to the Flynn Space, the Flynn Theater’s black box performance space where Paul held the workshop, to see the world premiere of his new puppet theater piece, White like Me: A Honky Dory Puppet Show. I’ve posted a review and discussion of the performance on my Dreaming the World Blog.

The day was rich in humor and playfulness. Paul’s work, as seemingly always, was also the source of animated discussion, during which we were reminded that somethings are not as they appear. I hope you will treat yourself, and go see the show when it comes to a venue near you.

I was also aware, at some point in the dream, that some of my ancestors were colonists and settlers. I was not thinking about the intermarriages between the two groups, just the irony of holding the blood and the desperation of both sides. Coming from the genocide and Ireland and Scotland, and facing repeated economic upheaval, my European ancestors were surely desperate to secure some safety, even if that meant stealing the homes and lands of the original inhabitants. To make matters even more complex, Native tribes were not without border and resource conflicts, and occasional wars. Sometimes, entire tribes were displaced, and their lands and homes seized by other tribes. Of course, warring tribe were seldom, if ever, interested in genocide.

I’ve been up a couple of hours and the dream lingers in my awareness. Something to think about, a complexity to be honored.

See more photos at Sky Watch Friday!