Indigenous Peoples Day Matters
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
In recognition of the historic, cultural and contemporary significance of the indigenous peoples of the lands that later became known as the Americas, including Maine, and the many contributions of these peoples, the State designates the 2nd Monday in October of each year as Indigenous Peoples Day. The Governor shall annually issue a proclamation urging the people of the State to observe the day with appropriate celebration and activity.
READING “Break My Heart” – by Joy Harjo. An American Sunrise: Poems (p. 3-4). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
There are always flowers,
Love cries, or blood.
Someone is always leaving
By exile, death, or heartbreak.
The heart is a fist.
It pockets prayer or holds rage.
It’s a timekeeper.
Music maker, or backstreet truth teller.
Baby, baby, baby
You can’t say what’s been said
Before, though even words
Are creatures of habit.
You cannot force poetry
With a ruler, or jail it at a desk.
Mystery is blind, but wills you
To untie the cloth, in eternity.
Police with their guns
Cannot enter here to move us off our lands.
History will always find you, and wrap you
In its thousand arms.
. . .
Someone will lift from the earth
Without wings.
Another will fall from the sky
Through the knots of a tree.
Chaos is primordial.
All words have roots here.
You will never sleep again
Though you will never stop dreaming.
The end can only follow the beginning.
And it will zigzag through time, governments, and lovers.
Be who you are, even if it kills you.
It will. Over and over again.
Even as you live.
Break my heart, why don’t you?
READING “Let There Be No Regrets” Harjo, Joy. An American Sunrise: Poems (p. 77-78). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
“Let There Be No Regrets” for Bears Ears National Monument.
“We’re not losing the birch trees, the birch trees are losing us.” ~Wayne “Minogizhig” Valliere
The songs and stories that formed us are restless
and need a place to live in the world of grandchildren.
They are weary with waiting.
Earth continues to dream her earth dreams
Though desperate thoughts fed by money hunger roam our minds.
To the destroyers, Earth is not a person.
They will want more until there is no more to steal.
Earth who does not know time is patient.
The destroyers will destroy themselves.
So many earth spirits take care of this place. They emerge from the cliff walls.
They emerge from the waves of waters.
Our ancestors are not only human ancestors.
What do you see when you fly to the top of the ancestor tree?
Let there be no regrets, no sadness, no anger, no acts of disturbance to these lands.
SERMON
I visited the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor earlier this month with Christy and my sister, Sarah, and her husband, Jim. The current exhibit is “Take Care of Everything” and is about our environment and the impact of climate change. It is well worth a trip to Bar Harbor.
These words are part of the greeting of the Abbe Museum:
The Abbe Museum acknowledges Indigenous land.
We are in the homeland of the Wabanaki, the People of the Dawn. We extend our respect and gratitude to the many Indigenous people and their ancestors whose rich histories and vibrant communities include the Abenaki, Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot Nations and all of the Native communities who have lived here for thousands of generations in what is known today as Maine, New England, and the Canadian Maritimes. We make this acknowledgement aware of continual violations of water, territorial rights, and sacred sites in the Wabanaki homeland. The Abbe is honored to collaborate with the Wabanaki as they share their stories.
We too are in the homeland of the Wabanaki. More specifically, we are on the land of the Tarrantines –of the Mi’kmaq people of the Abenaki tribe – of the Wabanaki Confederacy.
The Wabanaki Confederacy (Wabenaki, Wobanaki, translated to "People of the Dawn" or "Easterner") are a First Nations and Native American confederation of five principal nations: the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, and Penobscot.
Members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Wabanaki people’s, are in and named for the area which they call Wabanahkik ("Dawnland"), roughly the area that became the French colony of Acadia. It is made up of most of present-day Maine in the United States, and New Brunswick, mainland Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, Prince Edward Island and some of Quebec south of the St. Lawrence River in Canada. The Western Abenaki live on lands in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts of the United States.[1]
(Information from the Wikipedia entry for Wabanaki)
We honor the Wabanaki people and are mindful of our continuing presence on their ancestral lands.
This year, for the first time, tomorrow’s holiday will be known as Indigenous Peoples Day. Why does this matter? There are many, many ways to answer this question. You will have your answers continuing to form in your minds as I offer my response.
Let me begin with the words of our Governor, Janet Mills, and Penobscot Nation Ambassador, Maulian Dana, as the Governor signed into law the legislation naming the second Monday in October Indigenous Peoples Day.[1]
"Our history is by no means perfect. But, for too long, it has been written and presented in a way that fails to acknowledge our shortcomings," Mills said in a statement.
"There is power in a name and in who we choose to honor," Mills said. "Today, we take another step in healing the divisions of the past, in fostering inclusiveness, in telling a fuller, deeper history, and in bringing the State and Maine's tribal communities together to build a future shaped by mutual trust and respect."
“On behalf of the Penobscot Nation and with all the Wabanaki and Indigenous People of Maine in our hearts we thank the Maine State Legislature, especially Representative Benjamin Collings and the bill’s cosponsors and supporters, and Governor Mills for this significant act,” said Ambassador Maulian Dana of the Penobscot Nation. “It shows a true intent to honor the Indigenous Nations of our State and brings all citizens to an elevated understanding and reconciliation of our shared history. I also want to thank all those involved in the efforts over the past few years to make these changes in towns and municipalities, they brought these important discussions to light and the conversations had a ripple effect all the way to the honorable law makers of Maine. We are graciously appreciative of this measure that reflects a state that feels more welcoming and inclusive. As the original stewards of these lands and waters we are happy that our ancestral ties and contributions are validated and celebrated instead of silenced and ignored by the previous holiday that glorified the attempted genocide of our Nations. Our past can be painful but our present and future can be brighter with acts of unity and honesty.”
As a child, I learned about Christopher Columbus. I learned that in 1942 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. I learned of his three ships. I learned that he discovered America. Fifty plus years later, I still hear the words of the poem and I’m still trying to sort out all the fantasy from the reality of what Columbus did or didn’t do and how much death and suffering the people already living in these lands for nearly 13,000 endured beginning with Columbus and his exploration and exploitation of land we learned to call “The New World.”
This nation, the United States of America, is the result of hundreds of years of military invasion and war followed by two hundred years of systematic and sustained efforts to defeat the nations and exterminate the people already occupying this land. It is a bloody and brutal history of the colonization of this continent by Europeans and then settlers and then, including now, Americans.
Part of the systematic extermination of Native People was the outlawing of any practice or language of Native People. Anything that was a reflection or manifestation of Indian culture, religion, lifestyle, language or heritage was strictly forbidden. Punishment was swift and terrible.
Recently – very recently, we changed that and began the long hard work of restoration and reconciliation. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act (commonly abbreviated to AIRFA) - a US federal law and a joint resolution of Congress - was passed in 1978. It was created to protect and preserve the traditional religious rights and cultural practices of American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts and Native Hawaiians.
Native people now are continuing to restore or recover their languages, culture and customs as well as their religious practices and beliefs. We who are not native cannot begin to understand the pain and suffering endured by native people during the centuries when they were prohibited from living as their ancestors has lived for thousands of years.
The history of invasion and colonization is the subject of the book, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Read it. Please. Then you will know with certainty why it matters that we honor Indigenous Peoples on the 2nd Monday of October. If we are ever to live in harmony and balance with the earth and all our relations, we must acknowledge our history – all of it, make amends where we can, begin again in greater understanding when we can, and give proper place and agency to all our relations.
It matters that we see Indigenous People. It matters that we call them by their own names. It matters that we validate their experience of colonization and that we work to make amends. We are not responsible for colonization, but we are beneficiaries of that process. We are responsible for what we do now - now that we begin to comprehend and understand the devastating long-term consequences of that process.
It matters that we honor Indigenous People and their place in both the history and future of this land. May we do this joyfully and respectfully.
When we trust the wisdom in each of us,
Ev’ry color ev’ry creed and kind,
And we see our faces in each other’s eyes
Then our heart is in a holy place.
And then, the healing may continue
And then, wholeness may be restored
May it be so.
Amen. Blessed Be. I Love You.
CLOSING WORDS “Bless This Land” Harjo, Joy. An American Sunrise: Poems (p. 106-107). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
Bless this land from the top of its head to the bottom of its feet
From the arctic old white head to the brown feet of tropical rain
Bless the eyes of this land, for they witness cruelty and kindness in
this land
From sunrise light upright to falling down on your knees night
Bless the ears of this land, for they hear cries of heartbreak
and shouts of celebration in this land
Once we heard no gunshot on these lands; the trees and stones can be heard singing
Bless the mouth, lips and speech of this land, for the land is a
speaker, a singer, a keeper of all that happens here, on this land
Luminous forests, oceans, and rock cliff sold for the trash glut
of gold, uranium, or oil bust rush yet there are new stories to be
made, little ones coming up over the horizon
Bless the arms and hands of this land, for they remake and restore beauty in this land
We were held in the circle around these lands by song, and reminded by the knowers that not one is over the other, no human above the bird, no bird above the insect, no wind above the grass
Bless the heart of this land on its knees planting food beneath the
eternal circle of breathing, swimming and walking this land
The heart is a poetry maker. There is one heart, said the poetry
maker, one body and all poems make one poem and we do not
use words to make war on this land
Bless the gut labyrinth of this land, for it is the center of unknowing in this land
Bless the femaleness and maleness of this land, for each holds the
fluent power of becoming in this land
When it was decided to be in this manner here in this place, this
land, all the birds made a birdly racket from indigo sky holds
Bless the two legs and two feet of this land, for the sacred always
walks beside the profane in this land
These words walk the backbone of this land, massaging the tissue
around the cord of life, which is the tree of life, upon which this
land stands
Bless the destruction of this land, for new shoots will rise up from
fire, floods, earthquakes and fierce winds to make new this land
We are land on turtle’s back—when the weight of greed overturns
us, who will recall the upright song of this land
Bless the creation of new land, for out of chaos we will be
compelled to remember to bless this land
The smallest one remembered, the most humble one, the one
whose voice you’d have to lean in a thousand years to hear—we
will begin there
Bless us, these lands, said the rememberer. These lands aren’t our
lands. These lands aren’t your lands. We are this land.
And the blessing began a graceful moving through the grasses
of time, from the beginning, to the circling around place of time,
always moving, always
[1] From the statement on the webpage State of Maine Office of Governor Janet T. Mills on April 26, 2019.
