M1 Blog Displacement of a Native Culture wk. 4

     Since starting this class of The First Peoples of North America I have learned much detail in the themes of prophecies and their commonality that forewarned the Native American Indian's of the White man coming also known as "Grandfather" by the Hopi's.  The common theme that I gather is that of a forewarning of "they will come to our land which is sacred and they will entice us with their alcohol and persuasions to get what they want for their selfish purposes and they will do so at all costs". The earth is referred to as "Mother Earth" by the Hopi's and many Native tribes. It is a place in which all resources are available and respected. When the Euro-Americans arrived in North America they invaded Indians lands and displacement of Native American families were a result. The quench for wealth associated with land ownership and the quest for Gold played a large part in forming American colonies in which societal wealth was associated with land ownership within the economy. The tens of thousands of Indians that were killed by Euro-American White men is mind boggling to me. "Genocide" a word meaning the systematic killing of all the people from a national, ethnic, or religious group, or an attempt to do this." The legal definition of genocide developed by the United Nations in 1948 is "Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." The reason that some people use the word genocide when talking about the treatment of Indians is that every single part of the dictionary and legal definitions of the word can be used to describe the historical treatment of Indians.(Treuer, "Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask). Although this term is full of depressive meaning and the ending result being death it is important for me to discuss because this is what happened. A people from a culture who lived off a land and existed within their own means of what was provided to them from "Mother Earth" was ripped off their lands in which were sacred and displaced. One result was the loss of culture and one's identity. Today many still struggle with the displacement and self identity is clearly undefined for many Indians who as they have developed many characteristics of the White man through it being the majority of our society within the United States. Part of  The Hopi's Philosophy is one of respecting the land and natural resources that were provided from the Mother Earth so we may live as one in peace. Similar values are seen with the Seventh Nation as "A tree is a community, if we destroy tree we destroy a whole community". The Seventh Nation tribes man who spoke in the Module 1 video Voices; Nabakov speaks about the current challenge of values that is necessary in America's consumer driven economy and that it is all of our responsibilities as Humans to evaluate what needs to be changed for the Earth and it's peoples to move on without destroying more of our natural resources.(Onondaga Nation:Faithkeeper Oren Lyons). (Post: Amy Meegan)

References: Treuer, "Everything You Wanted to Know About Indian's But Were Afraid to Ask"P.36-37
                                 Voices; Videos Module 1 "Water" Hopi; Radford Quamnonghewa
                                  Dakota: Floyd Red Crow Westerman; How does Colonization Work?
                                 Onondaga Nation: Faithkeeper Oren Lyons with Clan Mother Audrey Shenandoah: Indigenous Knowledge, leadership & Responsibility and History of the Peacemaker."