MOVEMENT TO PROTECT A SACRED NATIVE AMERICAN SITE

NATIVE AMERICAN ARTS NEWS

Subject: Movement to protect a sacred Native American site
Greetings from Wahkon, Minnesota USA.

I am spearheading an international movement to protect a sacred Native American site. This sacred site is a river in Minnesota, the Rum River. This river is considered sacred to the Dakota Indians. But white men in the late 1700s desecrated this scared river by taking its ancient and sacred Dakota name Wakan, translated Sacred or Spirit, and then, by way of a "punning translation", mis-translated the sacred Dakota name (Wakan) to mean an alcohol spirit, the alcohol spirit rum. They then, unfortunately, named this river Rum. By doing so, both the Dakotas name for their sacred river as well as the river itself were desecrated. And what makes the white men's naming of this river Rum even worse is the fact that...at the time when this river was named Rum, Rum was "bringing misery and ruin to many of the Indians".

According to the book Minnesota Geographic Names, written by Upham and published by the Minnesota Historical Society, the Rum River received its current name by way of a "punning translation" that "perverted the ancient Sioux name Wakan." Therefore, because the white man's name for this river desecrates this sacred Dakota site (or sacred body of water) I established a movement to revert this river's profane name back to its sacred Dakota name Wakan. And did so in order to both show due respect for the Dakota Indians as well as to deliver their sacred river from its current sacrilegious name. And this movement of mine quickly developed into an international movement. More information about the Rum River name-change movement can be found at: http://www.towahkon.org.

A number of American Indian organization's have an article about this issue published on their web pages. This article can be found at: http://www.nativenationsnet.net/ It's titled River Name Change Movement. I would be grateful if IPL would both publish my River Name Change Movement article as well as include my web site on your list of sites you support.

Thank you for your time.

Thomas Dahlheimer

Director of Rum River Name Change Organization, Inc.
Mailing address: P.O. Box 24 - Wahkon, Minnesota 56386
E-mail: Wahkon@scicable.com
Website: http://www.towahkon.org
Phone number: 320-279-3010