Lost Oral Traditions

http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/faculty/stampe/Oral-Lit/Hawaiian/Kumulipo/kumulipo-comb.html

The link above is to the translation of the Kumulipo (literally meaning 'teacher of the night') is the oral tradition the Native Hawaiian people used to recite and pass down from generation to generation. It is over 2,000 lines long and is the story of creation. Kumulipo is usually sung by a priest to royalty of dignitaries. The last time it was formally performed was for Captain James Cook, who inevitably brought the downfall of the traditional Native Hawaiian culture.

Hawaii (Part 2)

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hawaii-petition/images/hawaii-petition-01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hawaii-petition/&usg=__MdfCd7cmETsDQDTX5VYVRoTYUJ4=&h=998&w=600&sz=481&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=Ok6hTtu1G_RaQM:&tbnh=149&tbnw=90&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcolonialism%2B%252B%2Bhawaii%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4ADBF_enUS237US240%26sa%3DN

After the last reigning monarch, Queen Lili'uokalani, was over thrown and Hawaii was in the process oftrying to be annexed the Hawaiian people created a group in order to stop the annexation of their homeland. The group of Hawaiians called themselves the Hawaiian Patriotic League. This League tried to oppose the invading nations attempt to take their lands by using their laws against them, they created a petition in which many Native Hawaiian people signed. The interests of the hauole businessmen took precedence over the needs of the indigenous community and to this day atonement for the Native Hawaiian people and their losses has not occurred.

Culture Ablaze

Swidden agriculture is more often called slash-and-burn farming. Although this farming practice has been a part of rich cultures and livelihoods for thousands of years, mainstream environmental organizations criticize and question the knowledge of indigenous peoples, attributing environmental degradation to their poverty and "lack of scientific understanding." Environmental anthropology proves, however, that this is simply an untrue stereotype, used to exploit native peoples.

I found an article in the ScienceDirect database that attempts to investigate to what extent "slash-and-burn" agriculture in Madagascar is used as a tool of protest and resistance. It is very interesting that swidden agriculture, which has been keeping Madagascar natives alive for almost 2000 years, is now being used by farmers to "rebel" against the government, since the Malagasi government has ruled swidden practices illegal. Some other scholars contest that how can the continuation of cultural practices be considered a violent rebellion. Most environmental NGOs deem the last of traditional swidden farmers to be criminals.

Whether or whether not farmers are intentionally rebelling against the government with fire-driven agriculture or simply continuing to keep their culture alive, seems small in the face of the greater problem: most environmental degradation in Madagascar has derived from imperialistic exploitations such as monoculture and mass logging, which has left the natives with very little land for swidden practices.

I would consider Madagascar natives practicing swidden agriculture (and hence ignoring the government, often driven by corruption and post-colonial greed) to be a peaceful form of resistance.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VG2-46WWB9D-2&_user=582538&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000029718&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=582538&md5=cd63c5a44c048206f21bbc57bcbbd6cc

Coffee and an Doughnut, please.

Twelve million black Africans were shipped to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Of these, an estimated 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States. The slave population in the United States had grown to four million by the 1860 Census.

Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1, 1863, freeing all slaves.

In a bid to stop black Americans from being equal, the southern states passed a series of laws known as Jim Crow laws which discriminated against blacks and made sure that they were segregated from whites.

David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, and Joseph McNeil inspired student sit-ins and protests that spread across the South. Within days, sit-ins were occurring at Woolworth and Kress stores from New York to San Francisco.

February 1st, 1960, these four students from North Carolina sit down at a "whites-only" Woolworth's lunch counter and ask to be served. They are refused. They are ready to be arrested, but are not. They stay until the store closes. The next day they return, now joined by others. They sit from 11am to 3pm but again are not served. Instead they sit and study. The local media cover this second sit-in. The students form the Student Executive Committee for Justice and they receive NAACP endorsement.

The sit-ins, picket lines, and boycotts continue off and on as negotiations get under way, the lunch counters are closed and reopened. Woolworth and Kress stores in the North and West are boycotted and picketed in support of the sit-in movements that are now spreading across the upper and mid South. Dudley High students carry on the movement as the college students leave for the summer. In July, the national drugstore chains agree to serve all "properly dressed and well behaved people," regardless of race.

http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960greensboro

Nobel Peace Prize for Nasa People

The 110,000 Nasa people of Colombia, live in the north of Cauca. It is estimated that over 50 percent of children from Nasa families in northern Cauca suffer from malnutrition, and 24 percent of the population does not have land with which to sustain their families.

Landowners of the region have been involved in planning massacres of indigenous farmers, displacing the residents and opening up territory for resource extraction. The Nasa resistance to hold land to sustain their communities is as old as the Spanish conquest. European settlers have pushed the Nasa peoples from the fertile lowlands into the highlands. It’s estimated that two million people were displaced throughout the country, abandoning 350,000 small farms. The massive displacements in the mid-twentieth century served the large landowners in the area around Cauca with large sugar cane plantations taking up huge tracts of land. FARC is an ever present para-military group that continues to surround Cauca.

Despite the massive killings and terrorization of the communities, San José de Apartadó declared itself a peace community in 1997. The 1,300 Residents of the rural community pledged not to engage in war, either directly or indirectly, and to negotiate peaceful solutions to end the conflict. This declaration caused the armed groups to declare San José de Apartadó as aiding the “enemy.” Many sectors within Colombia have joined together in support of the Nasa people, contributing what they can to their peaceful struggle for justice, land and autonomy.

 AFSC, a Quaker humanitarian organization, nominated two Colombian groups for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their commitment to nonviolence during conflict. The Nasa have won Colombia's national peace prize twice for their commitment to non-violent social organizing and struggle.

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1452/61/

http://www.ww4report.com/node/3203

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/23/indigenous_colombians_begin_10_000_strong

Like a rock....

In a publication entitled Alcatraz Is Not An Island (1972), Native American anthropologist/historian Dr. Jack Forbes from UC Davis penned the following: "In the 1870's Natchez Winnemucca, respected chief of the Pyramid Lake Paiutes, was arrested and sent as a prisoner to Alcatraz. His crime: Attempting to resist and expose the corruption of the government's agents on his reservation. Natchez did not stay on "The Rock" very long, but other Indians, guilty of the "crime" of resisting white conquest, were frequent visitors to the prison. Now in 1969 modern-day Native Americans are attempting to claim Alcatraz Island in order to both obtain facilities for educational programs and to publicize the desperate circumstances under which Indian people live..... There is little question but that the Muwekma Indian people of San Francisco and the Hulueko [Coast Miwok people] of Marin County were, in the old days, frequent visitors to all of the islands in the San Francisco Bay. …"

It is said that the Native American oral history of Alcatraz Island has been largely lost because of colonization and deculturalization of the Native American populations of the area. However, from what I could gather the island was used for several purposes. Originally Indians believed the chunk of land in the middle of the San Francisco Bay fostered evil spirits. The over 10,000 indigenous people who, later to be called the Ohlone (a Miwok Indian word meaning "western people"), living in the coastal area between Point Sur and the San Francisco Bay, used the island as a place of isolation for tribal members who broke a tribal law, as a camping spot, an area for gathering foods, especially bird eggs and sea-life, and that Alcatraz was utilized also as a hiding place for many Indians attempting to escape from the California Mission system.

After colonization of the region, Alcatraz began a long history of imprisonment. Among the prisoners were many Native Americans, including the largest single group of Indian prisoners sentenced to confinement on Alcatraz, which occurred in January 1895 when the U.S. government arrested, tried and shipped nineteen Moqui Hopi to the island. Native Americans continued to be confined as prisoners in the barracks on the island through the 1800s and the early 1900s.

            In 1964, a year after the penitentiary closed, and again in 1969, Alcatraz was occupied by Indians of All Tribes. The occupation of 1969, headed by Richard Oakes, lasted 19 months. The occupation of Alcatraz was one of the most successful American Indian protest actions of the 20th century. The occupation also brought Indian rights issues to the attention of the federal government. 

The occupation succeeded in getting the federal government to adopt an official policy of Indian self-determination. From 1970 to 1971, Congress passed 52 legislative proposals on behalf of American Indians to support tribal self-rule. President Nixon increased the BIA budget by 225 percent, doubled funds for Indian health care and established the Office of Indian Water Rights. Also during Nixon's presidency, scholarship funds were increased by $848,000 for college students. The Office of Equal Opportunity provided more funds for economic development and drug and alcohol recovery programs and expanded housing, health care and other programs.

Every November since 1975, Native Americans have gathered on Alcatraz for what is called "Un-Thanksgiving Day" to honor the occupation and those who continue to fight for Native American rights today.

http://www.nps.gov/alca/historyculture/we-hold-the-rock.htm

http://www.nps.gov/archive/alcatraz/indian.html

http://www.nps.gov/alcatraz/

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/alcatrazisnotanisland/activism.html

This Land Is Your Land

When I was in elementary school, we learned about Washington State history. We learned the lyrics to Woody Guthrie's songs that protested class inequality in the United States. He wrote "This Land Is Your Land." Guthrie was also commissioned by the Bonneville Power Administration to write a song about the Grand Coulee Dam. "Roll along Columbia. You can ramble to the sea, But river while you're ramblin' you can do some work for me."

What Guthrie failed to represent in his powerhouse sponsored "protest" lyrics, was the voices of those being drowned by the dam. The Colville Nation lived off the lands of Central Washington before President Roosevelt ordered to cement their sacred place and flood and destroy fishing grounds. Perhaps while teaching local history, we can leave the "protest" lyrics to those who are still suffering the effects a Manifest Destiny motivated muscle flex by a narrow minded President. The Grand Coulee dam represents the irrational desire of white settlers to massively irrigate the plains. The Grand Coulee dam represents historical trauma for the Colville Nation.

Displacing native peoples in order to exploit the land for environmentally destructive energy is still happening all over the world. Rather than become violent or give up, many indigenous peoples are using ritual to communicate to the government and the media that the land is sacred and is home. The Winnemem Wintu natives from California have protested the proposed expansion of the Shasta Dam with traditional war dances. Over 1000 Indigenous Brazilians from the Xingu river also carried out pre-war ritual to challenge the government's desire to displace over 15,000 natives in order to construct a dam. Although these communities have not physically pursued warfare, these war rituals represents the determination to peacefully fight against state-sponsored efforts to dam sacred land.


Picture at top features the Colville chief with government engineers in 1941 during opening of the dam (credit: http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1504/Harden/Harden.html)

See also... http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930829&slug=1718180

Tibet and Toughened Tact

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5idv3ycvYhOo46VYuaI8kGAZYGyrA

Above, I have attached a hyperlink to a news article covering the ongoing struggle between Tibet and China for "autonomy" or full-independence. I will continue to edit this post later.

Midnite Mine

The Spokane Native Americans were forcibly moved off of their land in the 1880s to a small chunk of land that the United States government thought was arid. 70 years later the US government discovered uranium in the Spokane Indian Reservation (this uranium mine has been named Midnite Mine). During the 60s and 70s, the community's economy boomed with the increase in jobs. This short-lived success crashed after the demand for uranium decreased; the government and the mining corporations abandoned the reservation, leaving people jobless and the community spattered with radiative wreckage.

Beginning the 1980s, community members began connecting the dots; there were clearly higher instances of cancer closer to deserted mining roads and exposed ore. These observations sparked a reservation-wide activism, seeking reparations from the federal government. It took until 2006 to pressure the EPA into declaring the mine a Superfund site (which has yet to be cleaned by the government, let alone "surveyed"). Spokane activists are still pressuring the federal government to come out and educate individuals who may qualify for a congressional enactment that gives uranium workers (who mined before 1972) $100,000.

Deb Abrahamson, a tribal activist leader, states that it is near impossible to get in contact with federal officials. If a complaint is filed against the Health Dept. or the EPA, often the official argue against any claims made by a tribe representative, rendering the effort futile and lost. Little by little, however, attention is being drawn to the Midnite Mine case and the government moves closer and closer to full reparations and full cleanup.

The Spokane Indian Reservation's Midnite Mine case is an example of how peaceful grassroots efforts can seem futile in the face of mammoth government and corporations; but little by little resistance to the government's neglect can result in small victories.

In the meantime, the EPA advises the Spokane people to reduce the use of hunting, berry-picking, small-scale farming, fishing and use of spring water for sweat lodges due to the carcinogens that linger in these cultural pillars.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw/2004191779_pacificpuranium24.html
http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/cleanup.nsf/9f3c21896330b4898825687b007a0f33/25f296f579940d8b88256744000327a5!OpenDocument

Colonialism and Hawaii (part 1)

The very definition of the word colonialism is sketchy: "the control or governing influence of a nation over a dependent country, territory, or people (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/colonialism)," "the extension of a nation's over territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either or exploitation colonies in which indigenous populations are directly ruled, displaced, or exterminated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism)," or "the practice of domination (http://www.science.uva.nl/~seop/entries/colonialism/)." No matter what definition you choose to adopt when writing about colonialism (anywhere), the very topic brings up negative feelings for all.Colonialism has become a "Western" tradition starting as far back as the Crusades and continuing to present day America. A tradition of inhabiting/exploring new lands and staying to "make them better" or to "help civilize the people." I am not a Native Hawaiian by lineage. I am a haole (foreigner) , raised in Hawaii by a community of hanai (adopted) ohana (family). I am not adopted (in the Western sense of the word), I do have a family in which I am genetically related to but my extended family are the people that molded me into the person that I am today. My "aunties" and "uncles" encompassed a vast assembly of wisdom that was always readily available despite the fact that I was a constant reminder to them that their homelands may never be the same. To me, the native Hawaiian population exemplifies the ideal of peaceful resistance. I stand with them in spirit through their struggles. Ua mau ke ea o ka `aina i ka pono. (The life of the land is preserved in righteousness. State Motto).