Co-written by Bayard Johnson (author of “Damned Right”), “Clouds” takes the reader on a journey into the intriguing and little-understood belief system and world view shared by many American Indians and other indigenous people around the world.

The American Indian way of living has almost nothing in common with the patriarchal philosophies and religions of Europe and Asia, and this book helps explain the violent clash of cultures that continues to erupt between indigenous and industrial societies whenever they come into contact anywhere in the world.

Few Lakota are still living who heard the true account of their people’s beliefs directly from Elders who were born free, whose earliest memories pre-dated the fencing of the Plains and the imprisonment of the Lakota people and culture. Russell Means is one of these.

As a young leader of the American Indian Movement, which helped resuscitate Indian nations throughout the hemisphere, Russell had the privilege of learning traditional Lakota ways and knowledge from Elders who were steeped in these ancient teachings. It is now Russell’s turn to pass on this timeless and timely wisdom to a world starved for balance and truth.

Look for “If You’ve Forgotten The Names Of The Clouds, You’ve Lost Your Way: An Introduction to American Indian Thought and Philosophy” on Amazon, Barnes&Noble.com, and wherever ebooks are sold.

For your Kindle edition go to this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Youve-Forgotten-Names-Clouds-ebook/dp/B007V91ENK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1337714994&sr=1-1

For your Nook edition go to this link:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/if-youve-forgotten-the-names-of-the-clouds-youve-lost-your-way-russell-means/1110184604?ean=9781620952979

IN ANSWER to today’s United States Government and its Colonial Corporation, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Govenment’s press conference, we stated: “We the Lakotah People, do not want our massacred dead bodies of men, women and children at the mass grave at Wounded Knee used for publicity by the United States Government nor their colonial corporation, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Government.”

On May 1, 2010, two young men, the Camp brothers, counted coup on the first 7th Cavalry helicopter; and Debbie White Plume, an elder and grandmother who charged the second helicopter preventing it from landing. By running under the blades and touching them without harming the enemy and getting away is how the Lakotah counted coup on this eventful day.

May 2, 2010 at 9:35am
Dakota. To the Original Peoples of the Fourth World and all International Press Services:

AT HIGH NOON today US Army helicopters of the US Seventh Cavalry air division attempted to land their Blackhawk aircraft upon Lakota Sacred Burial grounds in South Dakota. The presence of military aircraft from this unit is a sad and insulting reminder of the slaughter of more than 300 American Aboriginals on December 29, 1890 when soldiers of the US 7th Cavalry gunned down more than 300 Aboriginal Minneconjou Lakota refugee children, women, infants and the elderly at what is now called Wounded Knee in South Dakota Indian Country. The military then left the bodies of their victims to decay unburied in the driving snow.

According to reports from Indigenous Rights Movement Radio host Wanblee this afternoon, Lakota resident Theresa TwoBulls was given less than 24 hours notice that three US Army 7th Cavalry helicopters would make a landing on the sacred burial grounds at Wounded Knee. As of this writing, the US military was confronted by angry but peaceful and steadfast community resistance. The Aboriginal people of the area have so far, according to reports from Lakota people on the ground, managed to prevent the aircraft from touching Indigenous ground.

For all American Aboriginals of the Americas, this is a sacred area. This is the place where the promise of a people died while fleeing from a genocidal US military unit hell-bent on liquidating the continent of its Indigenous population. There has never been any official apology offered for this massacre and the military awards bestowed upon the genocidal aggressors involved in this conflict still stand, as does a physical monument in honor of the US Army soldiers killed during Custer’s “last stand” against a defiant and united Indigenous resistance to their own demise.

The history of the US Army 7th Cavalry is important to understanding the level of violence used against Indigenous peoples. It is important to remember that after the US Seventh Cavalry officially ended the “Indian Wars” at home, they were then dispatched to do battle against Indigenous Filipinos struggling to maintain their hard-won national independence from the colonialist Spanish. In other words, the US War Department sent this very same unit to do overseas what was done here to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. In this historical light, it is only logical for Indigenous peoples to assume that the Obama administration is attempting to make a political point out of this spectacle. We ask: What sort of message are you sending by insulting and humiliating a people already suffering from five centuries of continuous pro-Europocentric, anti-Indigenous genocide?

This domestic military action is a deliberate insult and an obvious message of ongoing colonialism, state-sponsored racism and apathetic Indigenous genocide to all Indigenous peoples across the Fourth World; to the whole of the Lakota/Dakota Nation; and to the Indigenous residents of Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee. The symbolism of dispatching the Seventh Cavalry to Wounded Knee in an attempt to land weapons of mass destruction on Aboriginal sacred ground tells us how little this government, and this particular administration, respects the people of Indian Country and our significant historical perspective as survivors of the racist Euro-settler xenophobic purges waged against the Indian in the Americas.

To make matters worse, this action comes on the heels of newly-passed legislation in Arizona state that requires law officers to racially-profile anyone they believe “looks”, “sounds” or “dresses” like an illegal immigrant, a thinly veiled “race law” that directly effects both our Indigenous sisters and brothers native to Occupied Mexico as well as the Native American population of Arizona in the United States. Given that most Indigenous peoples of the Americas share the same general physiotype and more often than not, similar Spanish last names, the passage of this guideline will without a doubt lead to widespread abuses against that state’s brown-skinned population. The legal door now opened, Texas and other states led by neo-confederate constituencies are moving to pass their own anti-immigrant/anti-Indigenous directives that will broadly effect anyone and everyone who could be perceived by the colonial European majority as a “foreign invader”.

The Obama administration has shown America and the world that they are no different than any other previous US government in their view that the American Indian on both sides of the US border is nothing more than a prop or a tool to be displayed only when it is useful to promote the “contemporary” 21st century neo-colonialist capitalist agenda. The Obama administration, an office headed by a man of African descent, has shamed itself and all those who have supported his candidacy in arrogantly dismissing the memory of our people interred at Wounded Knee by rubbing the military might of the historically anti-Indigenous 7th Cavalry in our faces by forcibly entering Indian Country in an attempt to land their machines of war on top of the bodies of our ancestral dead.

Clearly, the culture war against the American Indian is not over. Welcome to the new American century.

James ( Magaska) Swan AIM Black Hills South Dakota

Read the full report at Russell Means Freedom

EDITOR’S NOTE: We are happy that the Lakotah people stood up to the regime in Washington. But we don’t believe, as the author of the press release from AIM does, that the Washington regime is Euro-centric. Euro-Americans are being dispossessed by an open borders / cheap labor policy, just as Native peoples were and are dispossessed by having their borders and sovereignty wiped out. Indigenous and Mestizo and White populations alike are pawns in this strategy of the globalists to destroy all national identity. In the struggle for self-determination and freedom, we should be allies against the billionaire elite that wants to rule us under a false “democracy” and “multiculturalism.”

Reprinted from Indigenous Affairs. Published by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs.

NATIVE COMMUNITIES, primarily in the western US, have been chronically exposed to low doses of radiation for over forty years. This exposure derives from the many nuclear activities on indigenous lands such as uranium mining and milling, uranium conversion and enrichment, and testing of nuclear weapons. More than one half of all US uranium deposits lie under reservation land. In the past, the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to lease tribal mineral resources for national defense purposes. In return for mining rights, the large energy consortiums have historically paid royalty fees and employed Indians in substandard working conditions.

Although native communities bear a disproportionate burden of risk from those activities compared to the general public, they are in many ways the least equipped communities to respond appropriately. Information on exposures and their health effects is often inadequate, incomplete, inaccessible and incomprehensible. The environmental consequences of uranium mining, atomic bomb testing and production, and radioactive waste disposal on or near reservation lands have often been disastrous. Estimates conclude that over 22,000,000 tons of mine tailings or waste by-products have been left at 24 locations in nine western states since the 1950s and that 220 acres of tailings have contaminated the Four Corners region alone. This article looks at the cases of two nations—the Western Shoshone and the Pauite-Shoshone of Ft. McDermitt.

The Western Shoshone Nation

Because of the long-term use of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), which is located on traditional Shoshone land, the Western Shoshone nation has become known as the most bombed nation on earth. The 928 American and 19 British nuclear explosions in Newe Sogobia have been classified by the Western Shoshone National Council (WSNC) as bombs rather than “tests.” The purpose of a bomb is to destroy while the idea of a test is to introduce something new. About 1,350 square miles of their total territory of about 43,000 square miles has been destroyed by hundreds of craters and tunnels, which are uncontrolled underground nuclear waste dumps, by nuclear bombs since 1951 when the bombing began. But no treaty, agreement, vote or sale exists that give the US permission to explode nuclear bombs on or under the Western Shoshone Nation. The Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863, signed by representatives of the US and the Western Shoshone and ratified by the US Senate in 1866 and confirmed by President Grant in 1869, recognized Shoshone territorial sovereignty. The treaty did not transfer ownership rights and is till in effect. But through a variety of ethically and legally dubious methods, land was taken from the reservation. US authorities in the form of the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, Park Service, Fish and Wildlife, Atomic Energy Commission, Department of Defense, Department of Transportation, etc., control now approximately 90 per cent of the Shoshone land.

Environmental monitoring reports for the NTS from the 1950s until 1991 document substantial low level releases of radioactive iodine, strontium, cesium, plutonium and noble gases that have contaminated lands in Nevada and Utah. The Western Shoshone reservations, Duckwater and Ely are within a fifty-mile radius of the NTS and were more heavily contaminated. Residents reported unusual animal deaths, hair loss and gardens turning black. The health of the population still remains at high risk from cancers and birth defects. Despite these facts, the US government has now designated an area of the Western Shoshone Nation, known as Yucca Mountain, to become the final repository for the high level nuclear waste from the US nuclear industry. The Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that its scientific investigation of the site will be concluded by 2001, at a cost of $6.3 billion (year-of-expenditure dollars) and a repository could be opened by 2010. The DOE is no longer looking for another site. Although the tribe is very concerned about observed health and environmental effects, there are no official health studies under way, no offers to remedy environmental pollution, no programs for early detection of disease or disease surveillance in place.

In order to collect data on the effects of nuclear fallout from the NTS, WSNC started its own project in 1994. The main goal of the Western Shoshone Health Project is to provide data on the state of the land, soil, water, plants as well as the health of the people. This project is part of the Native American Health Network. Various organizations such as the Childhood Cancer Research Institute (CCRI) and Native Americans for a Clean Environment (NACE) work together in that network. They targeted the Western Shoshone and Paiute communities in the Great Basin among their highest priorities.

The overarching goal of the project is to begin proactive steps to correct the imbalance of risk by fostering a better understanding of radiation health issues among members of Native American communities to meet growing concerns about past and ongoing exposures. The communities will be empowered to obtain appropriate health protection and community controls for the future. A part of the project is the Training of Trainers program. This is a comprehensive, integrated program of training and technical assistance for the purpose of empowering native people to protect their communities and nations by arming them with an understanding of critical social and technical radiation issues directly affecting their health and environment. The program will create a unique partnership between researchers, health care providers and native communities by promoting a combination of indigenous thinking coupled with technical skills. The community trainers will take technical information, processes and techniques and translate them into a cost effective approach for the communities by developing education modules. The modules will be utilized by the community trainers for educating community members on the issues. Beyond this, the general research goal will be to use existing data resources to compile important information on off-site exposures for the communities, including those exposures to and from specific environmental or food chain pathways. Health scientists from the Center for Technology, Environment and Development (CENTED) at Clark University, Worcester, MA, are maintaining a dialogue with the community as their research is carried out so that they may benefit from local knowledge and experiences. For example, the Western Shoshones have indicated that mule deer, sheep, rabbits and pine nuts are main sources of subsistence for their people. As such, research on the up-take of radionuclides to these animals and roots are of much interest to them. They also mentioned several nuclear tests that they were particularly concerned about. Such community input will guide the scientists’ research, help to prioritize data collection and lead them to investigate other related issues of concern.

The Issue of the Ft. McDermitt Pauite-Shoshone–Background

The Quinn River Band of the northern Pauite originally inhabited the lands of the current Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation. As a result of the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934, the members of the tribe adopted a Constitution and Federal Corporate Charter, and became the federally recognized Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe. As for many other tribes, the adopting of an IRA Constitution and Corporate Charter was to terminate the Tribe’s traditional form of government and dispute resolution. It also established a republican form of government and court system. The IRA also imposed tribal laws codified in the Tribe’s constitution and federal Corporate Charter which tribal and federal officials neither take into consideration in their deliberations nor abide by. Furthermore, the IRA allowed the federal government more authority in intra- and intertribal affairs.

The tribe originally comprised a much larger land base, but a large part was taken away by dubious methods. Eventually, a Land Claims Commission was established to dictate monetary settlements, which many tribal members accepted. However, as many as two or three dozen of the more traditional families would not accept any monetary compensation, believing that by doing so they would be relinquishing their inherent rights as indigenous peoples. But because they did not accept the money, they did not become enrolled tribal members. At the reservation there are now approximately 400 enrolled members and about 300 unenrolled. The MRS Localization Process

Because of the desperate economic situation at Ft. McDermitt reservation, the Tribal Council was willing to participate. Participation in that process means access to $100,000 in the first phase and $200,000 in the Phase II-A for feasibility studies and education.

Research for a Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) for nuclear fuel has a very high priority for the DOE. The 23,681 MT (metric tons) of nuclear fuel in 1992 and its growth is a pressing problem. The Nuclear Waste Negotiator (NWN), a federal agency working closely with the DOE, but accountable only to the President and Congress, has to find one or even more sites where the radioactive material can be deposited for the next 30 or 40 years before final storage, possibly at Yucca Mountain Repository.

NWN’s first attempt to establish an MRS in Tennessee failed because of the opposition of the State, the Governor and inhabitants. That is why NWN is now looking for sovereign volunteers. In May of 1991, the NWN sent a letter of introduction to all state and territorial governors, Tribal and Business Council governors, Tribal and Business Council chairpersons, and presidents of Pueblos and Native American Nations (both federally recognized and unrecognized). In June, feasibility assessment grants from the NWN Fund were authorized through the DOE. The size of the grants are determined by tribal conditions. Phase II-A offers an additional $200,000 for continued education and feasibility studies. All nine of the Phase II-A applications were held by Native American Nations, therefore, if a MRS is to be sited, it will be on an Indian reservation. Phase II-B offers up to $2.8 million to continue feasibility studies and education outreach, to enter into formal negotiations, identify potential sites and commence an environmental assessment. One has to remember that a volunteer participant can drop out of the MRS process at any time and without any explanation. At the time of writing, the Mescalero Apache and the Tonkawa Tribe of Oklahoma have voted down the plans of their Tribe Councils. But with the carrot or the stick tactics, the Apache’s Tribe Council persuaded the tribe to a new and, for the Council successful vote. In this way, the pressure on the Ft. McDermitt Pauite-Shoshone will increase too. The tribal supporters of MRS expect $60,000-$70,000 per capita payments per year. But in spite of their poverty, most tribal members are unwilling to trade their land for money under the MRS arrangement. Tribal member Dennis Smartt said: “If I sell my land, I break my connection with my heritage and I can never get that back.” Many tribal members have complained about a lack of credible information concerning the MRS project, including outright fabrications put forth by DOE promoters. The result of a mail-in-survey which was organized by Citizen Alert shows that 77 per cent of tribal members are opposed to the project. Tribal members ousted four pro-MRS incumbents in the November 1993 election but the Tribal Council is still in favour of the MRS.

Grace Thorpe, who is the Sac and Fox Tribal Health Commissioner and daughter of the legendary athlete Jim Thorpe, stated to the National Congress of American Indians, “The nuclear waste issue is causing mental and possibly genocidal decisions regarding the future of our people. It is wrong to say that it is natural that we, as Native Americans, should accept radioactive waste on our lands, as the US Department of Energy has said. It is a perversion of our beliefs and an insult to our intelligence to say that we are natural stewards of these wastes.”

For further information, please contact:

Western Shoshone National Council (WSNC) P.O. Box 210 Indian Springs, NV 89018-0210 Phone/fax: 702-879-5203

Western Shoshone Health Project Citizen Alert Native American Program (CANAP) Attn. Virginia Sanchez P.O. Box 5339 Reno, NV 89513 Phone: 702-827-5511 Fax: 702-827-4299

Andreas Knudsen is a member of the IWGIA Danish National Group.

“The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) is an independent, international organization which supports indigenous peoples in their struggle against oppression.” IWGIA publishes Indigenous Affairs four times a year. Subscriptions in 1996 are US $30 for individuals and US $50 for institutions. Contact: International Secretariat, IWGIA, Fiolstraede 10, DK-1171, Copenhagen K, Denmark. E-mail IWGIA@login.dkuug.dk.

Read more at the Republic of Lakotah

And we should look at their wise words in a new light — perhaps a light that the World Council itself has not considered: all peoples — including Palestinians, Europeans, Africans, Indians, and all others — are indigenous peoples, and preserving each unique genetic and cultural heritage must be a sacred duty to all who care about the Earth.

We should consider adding to the Declaration the goal that nation-states must exist only to serve the self-determination of each people — with the goal of abolishing multinational empires. Globalization must not be allowed to reduce us all to the “equal” status of homogenized “workers,” slaves and peons on a global plantation. We are more than that, and our children deserve better.

World Council of Indigenous Peoples
Declaration of Principles

1. All human rights of indigenous people must be respected. No form of discrimination against indigenous people shall be allowed.

2. All indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of this right they can freely determine their political, economic, social, religious and cultural development, in agreement with the principles stated in this declaration.

3. Every nation-state within which indigenous peoples live shall recognize the population, territory and institutions belonging to said peoples.

4. The culture of indigenous peoples are part of mankind’s cultural patrimony.

5. The customs and usages of the indigenous peoples must be respected by the nation-states and recognized as a legitimate source of rights.

6. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine which person(s) or group(s) is (are) included in its population.

7. All indigenous peoples have the right to determine the form, structure and jurisdiction of their own institutions.

8. The institutions of indigenous peoples, like those of a nation-state, must conform to internationally recognized human rights, both individual and collective.

9. Indigenous peoples, and their individual members, have the right to participate in the political life of the nation-state in which they are located.

10. Indigenous peoples have inalienable rights over their traditional lands and resources. All lands and resources which have been usurped, or taken away without the free and knowledgeable consent of Indian peoples, shall be restored to them.

11. The rights of the indigenous peoples to their lands includes the soil, the subsoil, coastal economic zones all within the limits specified by international legislation.

12. All indigenous peoples have the right to freely use their natural wealth and resources in order to satisfy their needs, and, in agreement with principles 10 and 11 above.

13. No action or process shall be implemented which directly and/or indirectly would result in the destruction of land, air, water, glaciers, animal life, environment or natural resources, without the free and well informed consent of the affected indigenous peoples.

14. indigenous peoples will re-assume original rights over their material culture, including archeological zones, artifacts, designs and other artistic expressions.

15. All indigenous peoples have the right to be educated in their own language and to establish their own education institutions. Indian people’s languages shall be respected by nation-states in all dealings between them on the basis of equality and non-discrimination.

16. All treaties reached through agreement between indigenous peoples and representatives of the nation-states will have total validity before national and international law.

17. Indigenous peoples have the right, by virtue of their traditions, to freely travel across international boundaries, to conduct traditional activities and maintain family links.

18. Indigenous peoples and their designated authorities have the right to be consulted and to authorize the implementation of technological and scientific research conducted within their territories and the right to be informed about the results of such activities.

19. The aforementioned principles constitute the minimal rights to which indigenous peoples are entitled and must be complemented by all nation-states.

Read more at NativeVillage.com

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has several times discussed the long history of Afghanistan, referring to the many failed efforts by imperial powers to conquer it. The “tribal” organization of Afghanistan is the bane of empires; they can invade, but they cannot rule. They can disrupt and destroy, but they cannot build anything workable.

Most recently, Gates spoke to Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist. She asked what the U.S. should do to avoid the traps and pitfalls of past imperial projects in Afghanistan. Gates’ reply is fascinating. He said, “If we can re-empower the traditional local centers of authority, the tribal shuras and elders and things like that and put an overlay of human rights on that, isn’t that a step in the right direction?”

Amazing. In the 1980s, the U.S. funded jihadist resistance against the Soviet Union; now the U.S. is fighting jihadist resistance against the United States. As Dowd pointed out, the U.S. is caught in a historical contradiction — having created the very mess it is now trying to clean up.

The really fascinating thing about Gates’ comments, however, is how they shed light on another area of U.S. relations with “tribal” societies: The indigenous peoples of the Americas. The parallels are pretty clear, if we want to admit it. First, there is intervention based on using some elements of tribal societies against other elements and against the enemies of the United States. Then, there is the collapse of traditional governing structures. After that, there is the belated awareness that the traditional structures are needed to maintain social coherence and stability.

An article in the Times, just two days before Dowd’s column, reported the growing problem of gang violence on Pine Ridge. The article said, “5,000 young men from the Oglala Sioux tribe [are] involved with at least 39 gangs on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The gangs are being blamed for an increase in vandalism, theft, violence and fear that is altering the texture of life here and in other parts of American Indian territory.” It’s not only Pine Ridge: “The Navajo Nation in Arizona, for example, has identified 225 gang units, up from 75 in 1997.”

One response, not surprisingly, is a call for more police. That’s like the call for more troops to Afghanistan. But the article noted there are other voices at Pine Ridge: “Even as they seek to bolster policing, Pine Ridge leaders see their best long-term hope for fighting gangs in cultural revival.” The article quotes Melvyn Young Bear, an Oglala cultural liaison: “We’re trying to give an identity back to our youth. They are Lakota, and they have a lot to be proud of.”

One gang member at Pine Ridge told the reporter he “regretted not learning the Sioux language when he was young” and now wondered about his own future. He is “emerging as a tribal spiritual leader, working with youth groups to promote Native traditions.” He said he is participating in Oglala rituals and purifying sweat lodges.

How nice it would be if the United States had not first attacked traditional societies. But that is what happened, in the invasions, allotments, terminations, relocations, and other harmful actions to extend American empire across the lands of indigenous peoples. It is the history of America on this continent and in Afghanistan. The really fascinating thing about Gates’ comments is how they shed light on another area of U.S. relations with ‘tribal’ societies….

That’s the lesson for all indigenous peoples, on whatever continent, invaded by whatever power: spiritual restoration and self-determination.

Peter d’Errico is a consulting attorney on indigenous issues. D’Errico was a staff attorney in Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe Navajo Legal Services from 1968 to 1970. He taught legal studies at University of Massachusetts, Amherst until 2002.

Read the full article at the Colorado AIM Web site

WITH ALL DUE respect to Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff in a recently settled lawsuit over American Indian trust funds (“U.S. to pay Indians $3.4B,” Dec. 9), I think the United States is continuing a policy of “Indians are not humans.”

During the course of this long-running, class-action litigation, it has been documented that the United States owes Indian people more than $137 billion for mismanagement of trust accounts. That was established just by the documents that were presented.

The original federal judge on this case was Royce Lamberth, who held at least three secretaries of the Interior in contempt for not producing thousands of additional documents. Also, during the course of this case, hundreds of relevant documents were found in the trash by Interior Department employees, who reported this to the court and to Interior Department officials.

To add insult to injury, the government is clearing its conscience by paying back 2.48 percent of the so-far known value of what the United States stole in the first place. Paying $3.4 billion on a known debt of $137 billion is a national disgrace; this needs to be known by all Americans. Cobell should have at least held out until all the documents were presented or a final calculation of the debt was determined.

In the words of a great Oglala Lakota statesman Chief Red Cloud: “The United States made us many promises, but they kept only one. They promised to take our land, and they took it.”

Bill Means is a board member of the International Indian Treaty Council.

Read the entire settlement offer here

American Indian movement article