A Message for the Future: Indigenous Teachings from Boston, 1974

These words are a transcript of a Peace Circle Ceremony which took place in Boston,

April 13, 1974. Participants, all now dead, were Lakota Medicine Man (Wikasa Wakan) John

Fire Lame Deer from the Rosebud Reservation, Chief Beaman Logan of the Tonawanda

Seneca People, Tall Oak Weeden of Narragansett and Wampanoag Peoples, Rod Skenendore of the Blackfoot and Mayor Kevin White of Boston. I was present and transcribed the words. These indigenous teachings from Boston in 1974 have stayed with me and inspired me to tell the story of King Philip's War in "Conflicting Roots."

Tall Oak Weeden:

Our Narragansett People were among the first to lose the spiritual leadership. We were

the first to lose our traditions. So, when I say I am honored to be among spiritual leaders, you know that I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

We have lost the ability to follow the spiritual patterns of our Indian tradition. But we

have not lost our Indian ties. We still have these things from deep down inside. We still have the basic concepts and the basic Indian sense of values. We realize that we are all brothers because we are all children of the Great Creator who made us all. We are all children of the Great Mother who nourishes all.

That is the way we here in New England have welcomed people from all the lands all the

time back since 1620. We tried to share what we have with everyone who came here. So much so that this land has become known as the Land of Opportunity.

Today we come here with the one gift that is needed now more than ever before. That is

the Indian Philosophy and Way of Life.

Rod Skenendore:

What we are trying to do is bring some sort of awareness to the people who have been

waiting a long time. We have come spiritually. We have come in a peaceful manner. We have come with our understanding to offer. We have not asked anything except that you understand. That you listen and that you feel and know there is a Creator.

The message is to thank the Creator every day. Pray for the Earth and your children will

be strong. It will be a good day every day that you live. Abide by the Way of the Creator and you will survive.

It is time to be strong. When you hear the people talk about violence and death, you know

that there need be no leaders to cause violence and death. That will come on its own. The only thing you need to know is how to be strong. That comes from the peace inside you. Rest assured that violence will come.

You now see and hear people who have been ready to talk to you for five hundred years.

Take these things which you have heard home with you. Put you heart into the Earth and you will find an amazing truth there.

Beaman Logan:

Brother,

You do this.

Brother,

You do this same.

If you do this,

Wherever you are,

Thy will be done.

Look at the situation today when the Earth is being destroyed. And it doesn’t hurt only

the Indian people, it also hurts the people who are doing it. When this happens, the Creator

comes down and lets Mother Nature run her course. We know this in the prophecy which is

coming about. You and I, no matter what amount of money we have in our pockets, we are not going to be able to stop the destruction. The Creator has more power than we do.

We should all unite because of the situation and understand each other. It is time you start

to understand the Indian people. We have a way of life which is easy to learn. We enjoy

ourselves for the simple reason that we respect our Mother Nature, the Earth as it is. Everything the Creator has put on the Earth means a lot to us. We try not to destroy it.

Here on Earth the Indian Way shows respect toward the Creation. And that is why our

younger kids, the younger generation, are turning back toward this way.

It is a hard road back to the right way because we have been educated. And that education

makes it hard for us to understand our own way of life. We know that you have the same

situation.

We are not up here to tell you that we want you to join our religion. We are saying that

you have the opportunity to exercise that which is within yourself. Respect what we are doing. We can have peace on Earth. The Creator put us here to live in peace. And the day is coming when we are going to have to live that way or else suffer the destruction which will come upon us.

Use your eyes. Your eyes need to adjust to what you see. Try and adjust yourself. You

know what the rights and wrongs are. It is there inside you. Try and correct these things.

Whatever must be done, go right ahead and do it with your hands and with your eyes.

Let’s work together and respect the things which are here on Earth. That is the way to

survival from here on in.

John Fire Lame Deer:

I’m in Him.

He’s in me.

I’m in you.

You’re in me.

The NATURE --- You come from there. You can’t get away from Nature. But we are all

trying to get away, so we are all dead people now. If you’re not going to live on the Nature side, then you don’t have a soul. That’s why people are lacking in the knowledge. We are living in a man-made world.

You are passing up the spiritual world, passing up what He wants: spiritual practice. You

are building up a new direction, but the more you go in that direction the more you are lost and not coming back to the Spiritual side. Because, what we do, that’s the way you believe. And that’s the way you are going to follow. That’s the way you are going to end up.

Christianity is going to die. You’re doing away with the Great Spirit, now. You are

making a man-made world. When you do that, you are just flesh. God? Who cares? Your

spiritual knowledge is getting away from you, so you are not one hundred percent in your

knowledge. You are half-way, maybe less. Sixty years from now you won’t have a soul at all.

You must learn the bad things to be somebody. You must learn the good things in order

to be somebody. I have to experience both ways in order to understand what human life is. The darkness has more power than the light. If the light goes away right now, everything is gone. You want to walk home, but you can’t see anything.

So, what I am telling you for sixty years in the future is that you’ve got to find a balance.

You could find what the spiritual is. Then He will be in you, if you really give yourself into it.

Say you are going to make a beautiful prayer, but you are mistaken. The minute you are

praying, you pray to yourself only. The spirit, He already knows what you are going to pray for. You could pray for the rest of your life. That’s yours to do. I make it short. It is better to go there with a prayer for the whole wide world. Every morning I have been doing this for the last thirty-five years.

Let’s get moving, keep going into what you want to do. Do what you have to do. You

may be like in a jail. But, go, walk, go to the vision of the Great Spirit. Way up. Up to the

wilderness away from this racket. You will come into the land of the Great Spirit where you hear the birds and the sound of the grass. And you hear the water sound and the wind. Then you are closer to the spiritual plan.

If you have the spirit, you could see the vision of God right through that wall there, see

that birds and hear the grass and all. And I could be out on the prairie far away from here. No cars, no streetlights or anything. And I could cut right back here and be sitting in this chair.

While you are here, enjoy what little time you have. Make yourself feel happy.

Kevin White: Mayor of Boston

I am a chief in the sense that I am a chief magistrate. I guess, in talking about the past and

the present in a physical sense, I am a whiteman.

All I want to say is that Boston is a city of many different types of people, and that I am

very pleased that there is in Boston today a spiritual meeting (and that is what we are having) on behalf of an Indian nation that still lives, that was here long before our forebears arrived.

Tall Oak told me that he is a Narragansett Indian and that he represents the Wampanoag

Peoples. That is the tribe that lived precisely where I do.

All of us here represent human beings, really. We are one people: black, white, or red.

And I hope the message of peace that John Fire mentioned is something we will live and teach long after these men have left our city.