Friday, September 23, 2011

ᏄᎬᏫᏳᏒᏕᎦ

Ꭷ I have always heard you can’t serve two masters.  I think that is true unless one of your masters serves the other.  I have also heard that Sovereignty is not given by another State or Nation but that it is inherent.  I believe that is true but I am also troubled.

As ᏥᏣᎳᎩ I believe that I carry a piece of ᎤᏁᎳᏅᎯ, that piece makes me inherently sovereign as an ᏏᏴᏫ.   I also see this sovereignty expressed as we vote.  When we come together as individuals in our communities that makes our ᏕᎦᏚᎯ sovereign, we vote at our polls in the communities.  Those votes our gathered into our districts and each ᏍᎦᏚᎩ has a tally that displays that counts from the smaller ᏕᎦᏚᎯ. This sovereign expression is finally manifest at the center of the Nation, its ᎠᏰᎵ.  I believe that ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ is sovereign but more so I believe the ᏍᎦᏚᎩ are sovereign, because the ᏕᎦᏚᎯ are sovereign.  This comes directly from the sovereign ᏏᏴᏫ, a manifestation of ᎤᏁᎳᏅᎯ.

But, who do we pay our taxes too? and who’s jail do we sit in when we don’t pay those taxes?  Money is liquid power.  Oddly enough that sort of idea doesn’t exist in our ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ.  Oh, we have ᎠᏕᎳ but is different - inherently different.  The model I presented above is not from the feudal old world’s substantiations of Sovereignty, in that old system the King, the Conqueror and the Church came before the sovereignty of the individual.  Despite that, I believe our model more closely reflects modern thinking and really out dates the feudal model.  That said, power still muddles the truth in this causal chain of sovereign rights.

ᎣᏥᏣᎳᎩ are colonized.  We have a foreign power that has left a big footprint on our ᎠᏰᎵ and an ever growing reach on the rest of ᎡᎶᎯ.  Often, the grip on us seems relaxed and potentially supportive, but that is illusory. The support we receive is a constraint, green masked bounds of power; as long as we are drinking from their cup and eating from their table, in our hearts and minds, we are bound by them.  If you don’t think so, just bite that hand and see.

I think we have a moral obligation to our treaties, they were not just between two Nations, they were also covenants with ᎤᏁᎳᏅᎯ.  We also have a moral obligation to the descendants of Cherokee Slaves, as well as those freed descendants that took refuge under our Nation and those that are of Cherokee ancestry that were placed upon the role where others of African decent were placed.  The Dawes role was never intended to be the basis of a citizenship role 100 years later.  Not all of our ᎠᏂᎬᎿᎨ ᏣᎳᎩ are of Indian Decent but some are.  Not all of the Lenni Lenape and Shawnee are of Cherokee decent but some of them are, and still yet they are often held to us against their will.  A Nation is not about disproven ᎠᏂᎦᏍᎵᏏ definitions "race".  If we are a Nation with citizens, not a Tribe with members then our citizens can be ᎠᏂᏌᏩᏄᎩ ᎠᏂᏌᏩᏃ ᎠᏂᏆᏅᎩ ᎠᎴ ᎠᏂᎬᎿᎨ.

It is wrong of us to make immoral decisions and use our constitution for injustice, but it is against our inherent sovereignty to go against that constitution and the supreme court that serves it. I don’t have the answers, but I know we cant serve two masters.  Does this system work? Is there anyone out there? osiyo’o?.....  ᎠᏂᎦᏚᏩᎩ ᏗᎦᏓᎴᏅᎲ ᏫᏓᏗᎷᏥ


ᎢᏯᏛᏁᎵᏓᏍᏗ ᎠᏂᎦᏚᏩᎩ ᎤᎾᏤᎵᎦ ᏚᏳᎪᏛ ᎤᏁᎦ ᎦᏅᏅ ᏗᏕᏲᎯᏍᏙᏗ ᏂᎬᏗ ᏓᏛᏛᏁᎵ ᎢᎦᏁᎳᏅᎯ ᎢᏗᏍᏕᎵᎠ
ᎣᏏᏳ
ᎠᏯ ᏩᏕ ᏥᎪᏪᎸᎬ

2 comments:

Hutke Fields said...

Siyo, bubbah. I'm here. I agree. Now, if we could just hold on to those traditions we could hold on to our sovereignty. Tonvtvkohai
Hutke

Wayward Son said...

Osiyo,
The problem is always the same; one cannot have a sovereign nation and yet answer to another nation. The Dawes Commission was just another approach to land graft that is still separating our people from one another. You are correct, we should hold to our treaties, because they were made not between just two sovereign nations, but between those present, their descendants and the creator above. An elder once said “Today we talk of the past and the present, but to the old ones the present was an extension of the past with our ancestors here to guide us. The present crosses over to tomorrow that is a part of today, as we are the ancestors.” So what answers do we wish to give our children when they look back on our actions? Is it ok to break our word, or split legal hairs like the ‘yo-ne-ga’ in their court room? Are our laws written on paper, or on our hearts? When the old ones wanted to send a message of great importance to one another they would use ceremony to pass on the message to the messenger who used a wampum belt to bring the message which was used not only to help him relay the message but to carry the very message itself. What message is there in words written on paper in comparison to words written on the heart? You were right to be troubled, and we are listening, I am just sorry it took so long for me to get the message. You know what I do that helps? I go to water, and pray.

Wado brother,

ᎣᏍᏛ