LaDuke: Buffy Sainte-Marie shows that it’s possible to carry on
Heritage Month- Library Back by Winona LaDuke
It’s just been the month when Native people are remembered. That’s nice. Now we want more, like we want to protect that Native heritage life-way and tell our stories to all. We also want to create a new history, one which is healing, restorative, and makes a better society and better world.
Native people are not in the past, we are in the present and we are in the future. Here’s a story we are making, it’s in Park Rapids, Minnesota and we can make this story together.
Giiwedinong, the new Treaty and Culture Museum will open this upcoming spring in downtown Park Rapids in the former Carnegie Library. In late October, we purchased the building, and hosted ceremonies at the former library, as our Native community organization, Akiing took possession of the building. Land Back that’s called, or Library Back in this case.
The Seventh Generation Amendment by Winona LaDuke
Indigenous peoples have a long history of representational democracy, consensus building, and sustainability- that is until the military, church and germ warfare leveled most of our villages and attempted to erase our history. Those teachings and some of those institutions, however remain. The Six Nations Confederacy, or Haudenosaunee have the longest standing representational democracy in the western hemisphere, a thousand or so years of working together.
LaDuke: Indigenous Peoples’ Day: It’s time to end the Indian Wars
On Indigenous Peoples Day–a day that is still used to celebrate one of the first colonizers who opened the door to genocide on our people–we are resolute against attempts to erase this ugly history, our heritage and our way of life by reclaiming the spaces where we will tell our stories. - Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth
LaDuke: The Ojibwe new year
"The Ojibwe near year has arrived. That’s what I know. Gregorian calendars are based on commemorative times, while the Anishinaabe view the new year to begin as the world awakens after winter. Indigenous spiritual and religious practices are often said to be reaffirmation religions, reaffirming the relationship with Mother Earth.”
