Manataka American Indian Council
ESSAYS BY FRANK J. KING III
Like
a strong refreshing wind that blows across the landscape bringing messages of
our ancestors, the great words of Frank J. King III, executive editor and
publisher of the The Native Voice newspaper and web-magazine, stirs the
passions of our minds and lifts our spirits with wise and enduring
messages. We at Manataka have come to admire his words and his work
in creating a truly outstanding publication by and for all American Indians.
As winner of two Native American Journalist Association awards in 2002, The Native Voice has become a strong, independent, and beautiful voice across the landscape of Indian Country.
"The Native Voice Magazine is an evolution of communication - infusing a uniquely native look into the status quo newspaper format. The Native Voice utilizes history and culture, art and technology, people and pictures to tell the stories we want and need to know. The content reflects our philosophy, including: that this newspaper be rooted in the traditional laws and culture of our people; that the foundation be made of solid, ethical journalism; and that we set a positive example of progress, responsibility, hope, unity, and reconciliation among our nations." - The Native Voice Website
Selections:
The Slow Progress of Understanding
The Slow Progress of Understanding
The times, they are a changing, evolving slowly like the ocean pounding the shores of our inner islands. It has always been difficult for human beings to comprehend the illusion of time. Like the little animals we are, we seldom realize that our existence is but the second hand clicking past the notches of the clock of universal nirvana.
Hate, anger, jealousy, drama—all these things exist as human-made psychological pollution filling the subconscious air with the emotional soot of our own personal ignorance. And so we exist today trying to grasp the meaning of life out of the everyday rubble of politics, racism and stress. These factors forbid our emotional spirituality to grow from our evolved seeds that were planted for us by our ancestors long ago. We destroy ourselves unknowingly by misleading our own inner child into believing that adulthood is nothing more but a responsibility best left unprovoked. In this way the ignorant adults remain childish and the angry remain violent. Hate, as it seems, is easier to express then compassion. Through this we sever the spiritual plant at the root and allow the weed of Indian reservation to pollinate the seeds of our next generations.
I have often said that alcoholism is a factor in the destruction of our people but these words, spoken or written, fall on deaf ears and unconcerned personalities. Alcoholism is the destroyer of our children, it is the emotional torturer of our children, and it is the bruise on the face of our grandchildren, yet many still evoke this demon every day to possess our sacred beings.
Such is also true with racism. We cannot justify our racism toward another race because we aren’t strong enough to confront the discriminator with pride and compassion. We cannot look at the issues if we are racists ourselves. Hate breeds hate; it’s an evil that contaminates the walls of your soul. It seems that many have become the image of that which they have been advocating against, no matter what color they are.
Isn't it ironic that we are all supposed to be civilized and yet we act out uncivilized behavior? Even the word civilized is looked upon as a racial slur just as the word god is. The obvious reasons we learn to hate other people is because of a total lack of the spiritual understanding our parents had of their religious teachings; many children today aren’t taught that racism is against all religions, even native. All religions teach humanity.
The key to solving the issues of humanity doesn’t lie in a leader, or a government, but sit silently within us all. When we discover this sacred part in ourselves then we can see the truth in it all. We become confident in ourselves and so we find that we have been wasting a lot of time, energy, stress, and life fighting ourselves and our own insecurities when we could have been finding the answers in the teachings of the Great Spirit. When we awaken within ourselves and keep it to ourselves and discover that spirituality isn’t something that we sell, or use against others or gain an ego from, then we can confront our addictions to the drugs of drama, stress, racism, and low self esteem. Only after this can we begin to heal the physical health of our nations. Spirituality is the all-curing medicine for all humanity.
Yes, the times are changing, we are changing, but in order for us to have a small piece of nirvana we must use our spiritual teachings to look beyond the color of skin. We are all born with a gift to see beyond the issues; it is important that we seek truth in the lessons of everyday life. Take a good look around you and ask yourself ‘what do I see?’ Look at the reservation, the community, the land that is our life giver; look at the leader and the children and you will see that we have been overlooking the reality that plagues us all.
Humans today live in a reflection of themselves, and if it is an unhealthy environment then their health is physically effected; if the land is littered then they are internally littered with sickness; if the communities are violent then they are accepting violence as a normal behavior; if the people are consumed by alcohol then the minds of the people are hidden from all this reality.
But also this applies to other races. If the parents are bigoted toward other races then the children become unknowingly taught and comfortable in their racist behavior, and how many times have the words ‘I am not racist’ drifted from the lips of the ignorant like leaves in the fall?
Human beings cannot unite; it’s an impossibility, because the ego eats at the confidence of the soul replacing it with the root of racism and hate. When people hate themselves they develop an ego for a mask to hide their insecurities, they become the abusers of other human beings and are their own worst enemy because eventually they destroy themselves.
Reconciliation isn’t a useable term; it’s a solvent to clean the dirty issues of racism. We must rely on the common ground in which we all live and together change the issues that divide us as a community. It is only through open dialog that we can mend the issues that affect our lives.
The
Importance of Teaching
By Frank J King III
Words are artists that paint inner thoughts across the minds of others. One of our greatest gifts has always been the ability to communicate with one another, and so, like all animals, through communication we help one another to grow on this world together and or we use it to destroy one another.
I listen to people speak and I follow their emotions in their tones carried on the breathe of their realizations. I watch for signs in them so that I can understand their life behind their social mask that many wear today to hide from who they really are or from the reality of the reservation environment.
Words, and the stories and emotions they weave, are rooted in the soil of personality. Because of this fact, we have a variety of interpretations, like paintings of words to imprint our consciousness, to effect us in positive or negative ways depending on their message.
To see in the heart of people through the window of their soul is a gift but it also can become a burden. I find myself burdened by the truth in the language that is spoken without the use of words but painted on the canvas of emotion. I find lost people trying to grasp at identity in every little bit of culture that they can scrape off of the hide of tradition.
Old stories, songs, and lessons are like spirits that want to live in the minds of our people but if we refuse to listen to them or are to drunk too care then these traditions vanish and when we finally want to learn these things it is to late and so we are left standing with nothing. Nothing is a powerful word. It means emptiness and desolation, and so when we have nothing with which to nourish our thirsty souls then we fall back into that depression and drunkenness trying to find our security in the fix that alcoholism provides our insecure personalities.
I have also discovered in my life time that we as native people today need to use our words as medicine to heal our young people, they need our teachings about life so that they can live in the knowledge of who they are as natives themselves and be proud of it. We need to join our voices together to breathe in the air of our cultural heritage so that we can gain knowledge in the survival of our race and our future.
I believe that today many native people simply do not care about the future of our race but use their naiveness to harm our culture and our image, they have ego and they worship greed, using our cultural teachings and icons as marketing tools rather than lessons. I see this as a virus that is killing our life giving culture. We today are dying from the influences of drugs and alcoholism, we are losing the battle upon this earth that our ancestors fought for long ago.
A time must come when we need to begin the healing and it must start soon.
The
Hate That Hate Produced
By Frank John King III
It seems today that humanity hasn’t been able to evolve past using violence against each other. We can say that we want the world to become a peaceful place but to attain this peace through the use of violence will only give future humanity an excuse to cause war.
We cannot influence another nation’s beliefs with the destruction of their leadership or god. Eventually, that race will want it’s illusion back. It has been my observation that human nature, under harsh living conditions, always accepts the tyranny of another man’s leadership. I have found this to be true in many of the tribes here in American who have accepted their tyrant and all his corruption he represents.
We can only hope for others to seek peace for themselves and quest for their own liberation by their own terms. Through their own choices and spirituality they can find truth for truth is the liberator of all humanity. It is through the mind of the oppressed that the key to those shackles that imprison their families can be found…and in order to physically free their souls from the tyrannical evil that stole their human rights they must be allowed do this on their own.
The gun became the extension of human hate and with it millions have died by its barrel. We watch wars unfold and listen to the death numbers rise and yet the national consciousness on both opposing sides finds it to be a sacred cause to destroy another human family, while these nations willingly sacrifice their children for the motives of their leadership. This has always been the nature of our species, since the birth of Christ and even before.
Whatever your feelings about war might be, they lay upon your brow and upon your soul. Suffering does not lead to peace or tranquility; money does not buy utopia. Remember, we as human beings were given the gift of consciousness and through this we have the ability to make choices that could create a world understanding of peace. If we choose suffering and violence, it will only lead to more politics and add to the violent rushing river of war that exists in human nature.
My support goes to those scared young men and women warriors who are surviving this war. Today, right at this very moment, those men and women are thinking of two things, survival and the survival of their fellow brothers and sisters who fight beside them. Many of them may have an opinion on the reasons for this particular war or war in general, but in reality they don't have a choice to fight or not – because it’s either fight for your life or protest the reasons and go to prison at the hands of the US Military Court.
I know these soldiers are worried about the war’s outcome and they worry about how long this war may take as they listen to the gun fire and bombs echoing off the sky in the distance. They are loyal to one another and their country and pray for the safety of the others as well as for themselves. They do not make policy nor do they decide to fight for their lives, they just do their job to the best of their ability, and if they do survive they are all heroes for making it through to it’s end.
The earth is silently floating across the ocean of space. Within is a sickness that will not change the course of the universe but will eliminate the life of it’s evolving children within. We have turned this sacred womb into an isolated prison cell driving the human race mad. Greed will destroy the environment and it’s occupants. When this happens everyone will wake up and want to stop this destruction, but by then it will be too late; the damage will have been done.
Mankind has developed weapons to destroy one another, to end all life. Humanity today has failed to look beyond the survival of all future generations and through our hatred, ignorance and racism for each other.
Every act of violence breeds more violence, every ignorant thought breeds more racism, every murder breeds revenge, every war breeds insurmountable hate and every disregard for the earth breeds more pollution. Is this the final stage in the development of human nature? We need to breed peace and compassion rather than hate and violence. It is never too late to evolve our ways.
In order for our world to live we must become non-violent, we must choose to put down the gun – and the judgment. In order for the world to heal we must find God in the eyes of our children, whatever God that may be for each of us. For the secret to life is to preserve the world for the next generation, to always make that our measuring stick against which we judge our actions. If we teach our children to honor each other first they won’t have to watch their children die in war.
Our
First Treaty
Retold by Frank J. King, III
One day Tunkansila Wankan Tankan (Grandfather Great Spirit) returned to his home after a long time exploring the Earth. Tired, he sat to rest. He felt a pain in his left foot and as he looked closely he found a splinter in his big toe. Taking out the splinter he tossed it up, out of the smoke hole of his tipi.
He heard it role down the side of his lodge and when it landed on the the ground the cry of a new born child could be heard.
Tunkansila came out of the lodge and picked up the child, who came to be the father of our race, and he called him the Boy-man and adopted him as his little brother.
The child grew and was perfectly content under the guidance of his older brother, even though he had no father or mother and only animals as friends. No child since has led a happy a life as he did.
The animals challenged him to friendly games but Tunkansila ( Great Spirit) taught him to out smart the animals with cleverness and intelligence and because of this he always won.
After some time the animals became jealous of the intelligence of the Boy-man, and they feared that he would gain mastery over their tribes, so they began to secretly plot against him.
Boy-man asked Tunkansila “Why do all the animal nations have spears on their heads and knives in their mouths and why I am unarmed?”
Then Tunkansila said “Little Brother, the time is now to give you weapons and I am sorry for it because now there is hatred and war in the hearts of the animal nations. They are many and you are only one, I will help you.”
Then he gave Boy-man bow and arrows, a spear and he showed him how to use them.
Tunkasila then tossed a small stone into the air and it came down as a wall of rock enclosing their area, he tossed more stones until they were surrounded by high cliffs in all directions.
On the top of these cliffs he placed war clubs for him.
The first battle was announced by the Buffalo Chief running at top speed over the open prairie. This Chief directed each animal nation, their place in the attack.
The Beavers were ordered to damn the rivers, the Badgers were ordered to dig trenches under the defenses of the Boy-man so they could flood his fortress.
The Rabbits and Squirrels, and other small animals, were ordered to gather food for the the Bear, Wolf, Wildcat, Buffalo warriors. The Swallow served as messenger to the bird nations, and the Trout carried orders to the underwater tribes.
With the new dawn came the Wolfs’ long howl, the first war cry, breaking the silence and peace of the world. At this signal, all of the animals joined in the war cry.
The Boy-man stood on top of the wall watching the animal warriors coming from all directions, as far as the eye could see. He could hear the thunder of hoofs and over head the great war Chief of the air, the Spotted Eagle, commanded the winged warriors.
There he stood, alone. The father of our Teton nations, letting arrows fly, war club at his side and as the animals began to overtake him Tunkansila told his brother to strike two flints together to catch a spark in the dry leaves. Soon a great cloud of smoke and flames arouse into the sky driving off the winged warriors and the whole body of the enemy to retreat in surprise for they have never seen fire before and to this day it is still feared by all animals and used by only man.
The Animal nations called a council of chiefs and began to make peace with the Boy-man. They signed a treaty with him saying that they would provide him with food and clothing, but only as he needed them and he, in turn, would not kill them for sport. This treaty, as we call it today, was carved into the stone cliffs. This “First Treaty” can still be seen today on those cliffs, we call them petroglyphs.
We must always respect and keep safe our environment and those nations that share it with us. We, as human beings, own nothing of the earth, even our own bodies are borrowed from the earth and when we take our final spirit walk, our bodies are returned back to the soil and the cycle continues.
We often forget that the animal nations were here before us and in the traditional ways we must keep our promises made in our first treaty.”
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