On August 14, 2010, the Mille Lacs Messenger, a MN county newspaper,
published the following letter of mine.
Apology Resolution
Hereditary chief Leonard Wabasha and I have made some
good progress toward reaching the goal of our campaign
to change the faulty-translation and profane name of
the "Rum River" back to its sacred Dakota name (Wakan),
or to at least its correct translation (Spirit).
Evidence of this "good progress" can be seen by
looking at the number of new sites and groups
named Spirit or Wakan River, such as eight businesses,
a city street, a three mile long nature area, a
Christian community, a community health clinic,
a substance abuse treatment center, a youth club, etc.
Rep. Dean Urdahl recently introduced a Minnesota Indian
reconciliation resolution to the Minnesota House of
Representatives. Most of the material in the resolution
is from my draft MN Indian reconciliation resolution,
including material about the Doctrine of Discovery,
which Wabasha agreed with and Steven Newcomb gave
his support and assistance with. Newcomb is an
internationally renowned Indigenous activist who
is on the forefront of the movement to influence
Pope Benedict IV to publicly repudiate the
Doctrine of Discovery.
Urdahl used my proposed bill to drafted a
bill to change at least some of our state's 13
derogatory geographic place names. Rep. Anzel
will introduce it during the next legislative session.
Indigenous Peoples Literature posted an article of
mine about the reconciliation resolution, the future
name-changing bill and an open (on-line) letter to
Governor Pawlenty that request that he establish a
Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Paul Gorski, an internationally renowned multicultural
educator who I correspond with, posted my article
"Independent Indigenous Sovereign Nations". And Amy Kasi,
the Program Manager for the National Multicultural
Institute (NMCI) displayed a quote from the article
and a link to it on NMCI's monthly newsletter. It
reads: ..."However, the indigenous peoples
living in this land are still being denied
three of their--endowed by the Creator--inalienable
equality rights, or fundamental human rights.
The right to absolute root ownership of their
scared traditional/ancestral homelands, the
right to be recognized and treated as full
independent sovereign nations and the--freedom
of religion--right to fully re-establish their
traditional religions within their sacred
ancestral homelands,..."
The U. S. National Episcopal Church repudiated the
Doctrine of Discovery. Steven Newcomb, myself and
others are part of a movement to reveal to the general
public how evil this doctrine really was and how (in 1823)
it was incorporated into U.S. Federal Indian Law and
still remains the bases of Federal Indian Law today.
We are working to repeal this law and establish a
new paradigm based on the belief that the indigenous
peoples of the New World owned the land they
discovered and lived on.
After adopting this new paradigm I came to believe
that the U.S. is an illegitimate nation state and that
the tribal councils of Minnesota's tribes are U.S.
puppet governments that are desensitized (sacred sites
are being desecrated, disrespectful names can be changed,
but who cares) and assimilated (most MN tribes have
abandoned their traditional culture to make money
by taking advantage of people's addiction weaknesses).
Minnesota’s tribes are caught up in American hedonism,
rampant drug and alcohol abuse, violent behavior,
gangs, etc. Therefore I am requesting that the
Mdewakanton people break away from this
horrible way of life and get back to their
good traditional value system - by returning
to their Mille Lacs ancestral homeland and
reclaiming it. I have been preparing the way
for this to occur and it is now time for this
peaceful revolutionary change to take place.
A commission has been formed, which is now making
plans to invite the Dakota/Lakota/Nakota people to
return, for a day or two, to their Mille Lacs
ancestral homeland - to honor their Mille Lacs
area ancestors and reconnect with their heritage
in this sacred place where there they have a
creation story.
