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***************N.A.I.D.A./Human Rights***************
National American Indian Defense Association
Purposes.
1. Providing educational, economic, social and cultural opportunities for all Indigenous People.
2. Preserving and promoting First Nations history, culture, language, sacred and historical lands and sites, including tribal objects and ceremonies.
3. Representing the interest of American Indian and Indigenous People everywhere.
4. Providing a forum for the exchange of information, ideas, and resources for First Nations and Indigenous People on a worldwide level.
5. Providing support for First Nations and Indigenous Peoples in their struggle for recognition and repatriations as well as support for our political prisoners.
N.A.I.D.A., Inc. is a worldwide organization that does not recognize the borders that try to separate our Indigenous Peoples. We have many representatives throughout the world. We have ongoing food and clothing drives, education and cultural programs and are always ready to defend our Brothers and Sisters in need.
We urge you to join with us so that we may be strong and all our voices may be heard. We are the people of the four directions, the four colors and are all equal. No longer should we allow the oppressors to separate us, for in unity we gain our greatest strength.
As Chief Sitting Bull said many years ago, "As individual fingers we are easily broken, but all together we make a mighty fist:
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PLEASE PRAY FOR:
Chief Strong Horse....health issues
Grandfather Cricket....health issues
Spirit.....health
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Hear me, Grandfather.
Hear my words.
Here is one of your people who is sick and
in need of Your great power.
Oh Grandfather, look down. Breathe on this
one of Yours, Breathe Your healing breath on this one.
Bless this one with Your breath
so he/she will be strong again.
Let Your people walk in the warming sun..
Let Your people hear their own laughter,
Let Your people love and sing again.
Oh Grandfather, heal Your people
Heal them with Your light.
Aho
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Heating costs leave people in the cold
By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer
"They have to choose between paying for electricity or propane," Wilcox said.
Robert Running Bear, Oglala Sioux Tribe acting energy director, said that an average of 2,400 families signed up for the $600,000 worth of energy assistance provided by the tribe. This would provide about $250 of energy assistance per family per year.
"With a mild winter, we're running at about 1,500 applications," Running Bear said.
Applicants must live within the boundaries of Jackson, Bennett and Shannon counties, he said. Families must submit applications to the OST Energy Assistance Office.
Upon certification of eligibility, the office will contact vendors to deliver wood or propane, he said.
Applications are at each of the government centers in the nine districts of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he said. The energy office also had a $200,000 budget for assistance in furnace replacement and furnace malfunctions, he said.
Running Bear expects that as the winter deepens, 900 more families will sign up for assistance. "We're running right on schedule," he said.
For many families, it will take too long, Wilcox said.
"We need heat now," she said.
Wilcox said that in Wanblee there are 75 families on general assistance. During the winter, they survive from week to week, and a cold front spells trouble.
"It affects almost everybody here," Wilcox said of her small community.
Because of the need, the Winter Heating Project for the Elderly has been established. The heating project has established an account for a community heating fund. Wilcox said checks or money orders can be sent to Bob's Gas Service, P.O. Box S, Martin, SD 57551.
Community members will contact Wilcox, and she will submit orders for propane to be delivered to those in need.
"A hundred dollars will buy 71 gallons of propane," she said.
Last Horse owns her own home, so the Housing Authority on the Pine Ridge reservation doesn't provide parts or maintenance for her house.
"I tried to get in touch with housing, but they don't work on trailer houses," Last Horse said.
She lives six miles outside of Wanblee. Her search for someone to fix her furnace has proved fruitless. She doesn't despair, but she does worry that the constant use of her stove might result in her children being burned or an accidental fire.
"I tried to work on the furnace myself. I can take it apart, but putting it back would be kind of hard," Last Horse said.
PLEASE HELP.
Checks or money orders can be sent to:
Bob's Gas Service
P.O. Box S
Martin, SD 57551.
Or contact:
Lakota Aid
Registered Charity No: 1097444
http://www.lakota-aid.co.uk
Fuel Voucher Program for the Elders
http://www.friendsofthelakotapeople.com
Please check out the Council Of Indian Nations. They have other programs you may be interested in. http://www.nrcprograms.org/site/PageServer?pagename=cin_index
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Freedom of Information & Transparent Government
Responding to a disturbing new trend toward government secrecy, new legislation has been introduced to ensure government transparency, and needs your support.
Recent scandals around torture and prison abuse have demonstrated that government employees and officials must be accountable to the public. As members of the public, we have the right and responsibility to know what is happening in our government, and to know what the government is doing about
any problems.
Yet the current Administration has blocked reasonable requests for information relevant to a wide range of issues. Without timely and appropriate access to information about the government activity, we cannot stay properly informed and involved in our nation's governance.
Real reforms are necessary to ensure that, as members of the public, we have access to the information we need to ensure the government stays honest and democratic.
Take action! Urge your Senators to stand up for the openness in the federal government.
Click here for more information and take action!
http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=17722&c=24
<http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=17722&c=24>
Contributed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
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You have driven me from the east to this place, and I have been here two thousand years or more.... My friends, if you took me away from this land it would be very hard for me. I wish to die in this land. I wish to be an old man here.... I have not wished to give even a part of it to the Great Father. Though he were to give me a million dollars I would not give him this land.... When people want to slaughter cattle they drive along until they get them to a corral, and then they slaughter them. So it was with us.... My children have been exterminated; my brother has been killed...Standing Bear ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Prejudice is born out of fear of the unknown. When the settlers came the Natives saw a new people standing on the shore cold, scared and hungry. We welcomed them. We taught them how to fish, farm and survive the brutal, cold winters. What came next was an action brought on by fear and mis-understanding. The very people we helped to survive declared us their enemy and thus began the genocide of a nation. If they had treated the natives as friends, there would have been understanding and compassion and possibly a strong nation today working together toward one goal.....a better world for the next seven generations.
(this is the opinion of Wolf Moon)
Picture title: A gift to my brothers
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This is what happens when "Non Indians want to PLAY Indian"
"2 seeking spiritual enlightenment die in new-age sweat lodge
Before embarking on an intense spiritual retreat last week, Kirsten "Kris" Babcock gave each of her closest friends a handwritten note describing her impending death.
She was talking in symbolic terms -- or so she thought.
In an eerily tragic turn of events, Babcock did not survive the "death sweat" she wrote about -- a ceremony intended to be the first step toward spiritual enlightenment as part of a new-age program called vision quest.
Babcock, 34, of Redding and fellow seeker David Thomas Hawker, 36, of Union City died early Friday after spending more than an hour in a sweat lodge constructed of branches, plastic sheathing and blankets on a remote ranch in El Dorado County. Two others, a man and a woman, survived.
Police are trying to determine whether the deaths were caused by poor ventilation or a toxic substance poured on hot rocks.
Autopsies have been completed, but toxicology results could take eight weeks, said Lt. Kevin House of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.
The weeklong retreat was timed to honor the summer solstice and was sponsored by Kokopelli Ranch, comprising 40 verdant acres nestled in the vineyards of the Shenandoah Valley and run by the Shamanic Fellowship.
The fellowship was formed in 1994 "to develop a sacred and safe place for people to experience and practice shamanic principles in their day-to-day lives," according to the ranch's Web site.
No one at the ranch returned phone calls or e-mail messages this week.
Babcock had invited 10 friends and family members to join her at the ranch for the final weekend, which for her was to include four hours in the sweat lodge and 48 hours alone in the woods.
In her five-page note, she requested that her supporters camp far away from the "death lodge" because of the disturbing noises they might hear.
Babcock expected to emerge from the lodge around dawn, at which time she would paint her face black and participate in an "owl dance."
"The owls cut our ties to this world and send us to the other side," she wrote. "The rock pile is our symbolic grave. . . . When I cross the rock pile, people will grieve my going over. Don't be surprised if/when people call out for me not to go and if it feels real."
Dale McDonald, his fiancee, Tonya, and his 14-year-old daughter were among Babcock's supporters.
"We had been warned that there would be bizarre sounds, wailing," he said in a telephone interview. "We were camped less than a quarter of a mile away. .
. . We couldn't sleep."
Shortly after 4 a.m., Cina Hines, Babcock's domestic partner, came to them, he said.
"She called out our names and said, 'Wake up. Kris is dead,' " McDonald said. "We thought it was part of the script. And she said, 'No, she's really dead.' . . . We had to go see the body to make sure."
Witnesses told police that Aimee Phelps, one of the participants, had crawled out of the lodge shortly before 4 a.m., dizzy and vomiting.
Soon, the chanting from inside ceased, and someone went in to find Babcock and Hawker dead and another man unconscious. By the time emergency personnel arrived, the surviving man had come to on his own.
Police are looking into witness reports that Hawker sprinkled something on the hot rocks that gave a strong metallic odor. The two survivors could not be reached for comment.
The other participants didn't know much about Hawker, McDonald said. While they had invited friends and family to join them at the ranch, Hawker was alone.
Hawker's friends described him as a spiritual person who had been looking forward to the vision quest.
"He was happier than anyone I've ever known," longtime friend Ken Mitchell said of the recently unemployed electrical engineer.
Mitchell said Hawker was not new to the sweat lodge ritual.
"He's done it before, and it was very intense, and he enjoyed it," he said. "It was a cleansing thing."
Last Thursday, before the sweat lodge session, the questers sponsored a "giveaway dinner," in which they honored their supporters with small gifts. Babcock gave each of her friends a cake of soap she had made by hand.
McDonald said Hawker gave the organizers crystals that struck sparks when he banged them together. He promised his fellow questers that he had a gift for them, too.
"He said, 'I can't give it to you now, but I'll give it to you on the other side when we know ourselves and each other better,' " McDonald said.
Then, McDonald said, Hawker raised his fist to his chest and said, "It's a good day to die."
It struck many as bizarre, McDonald said, but many similar things were being said that night, including McDonald's words to Babcock, just before she entered the lodge.
"I said, 'Die well, Kris.' And she said, 'That seems very apropos.' " McDonald said. "It was a beautiful moment."
Suzanne Herel, Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writers
Thursday, June 27, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. URL: http://www.sfgate.com/
PLEASE BE CAREFUL....IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, PLEASE DON'T DO IT....NOT KNOWING CAN BE FATAL. Shi
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If you would like to help and are not sure what you can do, please check out the Council of Indian Nations website at:
http://www.nrcprograms.org/site/PageServer?pagename=cin_index
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