An American Indian whose remains date back 1, 000 years is given a dignified burial on museum grounds.
By KAMEEL STANLEY
SAFETY HARBOR - As about 20 women in tunics and moccasins formed the funeral procession, the crowd grew silent.
About 200 people gathered at the Safety Harbor Museum of Regional History on Saturday morning for an event a millennium in the making.
Parents brought families, and virtually everyone had a camera. As the private ceremony involving a few people took place inside, the crowd hummed with anticipation.
Then, spectators watched, transfixed, as the remains of a Tocobaga Indian were carried out on a shroud-covered cedar board.
They surged forward when prayers spoken in Cherokee were offered up, and members of the Spirit People Intertribal Family used shells to scoop up dirt and pour it on the fresh grave.
And when the tribal leader raised his hand to signal the conclusion of the funeral, many murmured "Amen."
"He has gone home, " said tribal leader Robert Chastain.
Saturday's public burial of ancient American Indian remains was a rare and solemn event.
"The quietness, the stillness, was impressive, " said Eva Christu of Tarpon Springs, who took her family to the event. "It was a cultural experience."
The burial was the end of a nearly four-year journey for the museum, which received the bones in 2003 after someone left an unwanted box on the doorstep.
After going through a federally proscribed process, the museum's curators learned that the remains were that of a Tocobaga Indian who lived in the area more than 1, 000 years ago. Because they only had some fragments to study, researchers at the University of Florida couldn't determine the gender of the Indian or the cause of death.
Click here to read more: http://www.sptimes.com/2007/07/01/Northpinellas/Ancient_ancestor_is_l.shtml
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Quotes
"When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food, and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself." -
Tecumseh - Shawnee
Tecumseh - Shawnee
'Day of Action' begins; Mohawk militants block Highway 2
Ontario, Canada
Mohawk protesters, who say they are armed and won't back down, have begun threatened blockades in eastern Ontario.
About 40 Mohawks parked an old school bus across secondary Highway 2 west of Deseronto just before 9 p.m., forcing a steady stream of traffic and heavy trucks to turn around.
The protesters planned to expand their blockade to the nearby CN Rail main line and to heavily travelled Highway 401, ignoring widespread calls that an aboriginal day of action be peaceful.
One angry motorist yelled at some of the younger protesters and a brief exchange of swearing ensued. Others were more understanding.
A truck driver named Mike was trying to get home to Belleville. "I don't mind," he said of the blockade. "I just have to get turned around."
A few of the protesters helped guide the big rigs on to a driveway to make the awkward manoeuvre.
Mohawks wearing bandanas over their faces sparked up a bonfire, formed a drumming circle and sang. Protest leader Shawn Brant described the Highway 2 blockade as a "soft target" before the Mohawks move on to either the CN rail line, or Highway 401 - or both.
Want to know more? Click here: http://www.thewhig.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=591756&catname=Local+News&classif
Mohawk protesters, who say they are armed and won't back down, have begun threatened blockades in eastern Ontario.
About 40 Mohawks parked an old school bus across secondary Highway 2 west of Deseronto just before 9 p.m., forcing a steady stream of traffic and heavy trucks to turn around.
The protesters planned to expand their blockade to the nearby CN Rail main line and to heavily travelled Highway 401, ignoring widespread calls that an aboriginal day of action be peaceful.
One angry motorist yelled at some of the younger protesters and a brief exchange of swearing ensued. Others were more understanding.
A truck driver named Mike was trying to get home to Belleville. "I don't mind," he said of the blockade. "I just have to get turned around."
A few of the protesters helped guide the big rigs on to a driveway to make the awkward manoeuvre.
Mohawks wearing bandanas over their faces sparked up a bonfire, formed a drumming circle and sang. Protest leader Shawn Brant described the Highway 2 blockade as a "soft target" before the Mohawks move on to either the CN rail line, or Highway 401 - or both.
Want to know more? Click here: http://www.thewhig.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=591756&catname=Local+News&classif
Rebuilding the Cherokee Nation
Excerpt from a speech April 2, 1993 - Sweet Briar College
by Wilma Mankiller - Former Chief of the Cherokee Nation
Tonight I wanted to talk to you about rebuilding the Cherokee Nation community by community and person by person, or specifically rebuilding the Cherokee Nation, but I've also been asked by a number of people to talk about myself and my own sort of growth into a leadership position, essentially from first being a rural Cherokee person, one of eleven children and then being relocated to an urban ghetto and spending time in an urban ghetto, and how I evolved as a woman into a leadership position, so I'll try to weave some of that into my story of rebuilding the Cherokee Nation and the process we've been undergoing for the last two decades.
I think first it's important before I start talking about what we're doing today in the 1990's and what we did throughout the eighties or even the seventies in rebuilding our tribe; I think it's really, really important to put our current work and our current issues in a historical context. I can't tell you how many everyday Americans that I've talked with who've visited a tribal community in Oklahoma or in other places, and they've looked around and they saw all the social indicators of decline: high infant mortality, high unemployment, many, many other very serious problems among our people, and they always ask, " What happened to these people? Why do native people have all these problems?", and I think that in order to understand the contemporary issues we're dealing with today and how we plan to dig our way out and how indeed we are digging our way out, you have to understand a little bit about history. Because there are a whole lot of historical factors that have played a part in our being where we are today, and I think that to even to begin to understand our contemporary issues and contemporary problems, you have to understand a little bit about that history.
Click here to read entire piece: http://gos.sbc.edu/m/mankiller.html
by Wilma Mankiller - Former Chief of the Cherokee Nation
Tonight I wanted to talk to you about rebuilding the Cherokee Nation community by community and person by person, or specifically rebuilding the Cherokee Nation, but I've also been asked by a number of people to talk about myself and my own sort of growth into a leadership position, essentially from first being a rural Cherokee person, one of eleven children and then being relocated to an urban ghetto and spending time in an urban ghetto, and how I evolved as a woman into a leadership position, so I'll try to weave some of that into my story of rebuilding the Cherokee Nation and the process we've been undergoing for the last two decades.
I think first it's important before I start talking about what we're doing today in the 1990's and what we did throughout the eighties or even the seventies in rebuilding our tribe; I think it's really, really important to put our current work and our current issues in a historical context. I can't tell you how many everyday Americans that I've talked with who've visited a tribal community in Oklahoma or in other places, and they've looked around and they saw all the social indicators of decline: high infant mortality, high unemployment, many, many other very serious problems among our people, and they always ask, " What happened to these people? Why do native people have all these problems?", and I think that in order to understand the contemporary issues we're dealing with today and how we plan to dig our way out and how indeed we are digging our way out, you have to understand a little bit about history. Because there are a whole lot of historical factors that have played a part in our being where we are today, and I think that to even to begin to understand our contemporary issues and contemporary problems, you have to understand a little bit about that history.
Click here to read entire piece: http://gos.sbc.edu/m/mankiller.html
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