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rtrait of a Wasco youth of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon in 1903.I wish I knew to what special occasio...
08/15/2024

rtrait of a Wasco youth of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon in 1903.
I wish I knew to what special occasion his face was painted. This young man would belong to the same tribe as Hash-Nash-Shut.
Wasco comes from the word Wacq!ó, meaning "cup" or "small bowl," the name of a distinctive bowl-shaped rock near the tribe's primary historic village. They traditionally lived on the south bank of the Columbia River. This tribe, with the Wishram (also known as Tlakluit and Echeloot), on the north side of the river, were the easternmost branches of the Chinookan family.
In 1822, their population was estimated to be 900. They joined in the treaty of 1855, and removed to the Warm Springs Reservation, Oregon, where about only 200 now reside. The Wasco occupied a number of villages, some of these being used only for wintering during the salmon runs. (via Access Genealogy: Indian Tribal Records)
📸 by D. D. Wilder in The Dalles, Oregon

August 5, 1877.  Two members of the Jesse Evans Gang decide to have some fun.  Frank Freeman and Charlie Bowdre (photo) ...
08/15/2024

August 5, 1877. Two members of the Jesse Evans Gang decide to have some fun. Frank Freeman and Charlie Bowdre (photo) hoorah the town of Lincoln, New Mexico Territory--riding hell-for-leather down the streets, hooting and hollering, and shooting at just about anything and everything. They focus much of their mayhem at the house of Alexander McSween, whose guest is prominent cattleman John Chisum.
Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady (photo) corrals the boys. Bowdre bails out. Freeman escapes. Both men head for the ranch owned by Charlie and Doc Scurlock. A Brady posse tracks them there on August 15. Freeman--who has a really bad reputation--is gunned down, trying to escape.
This apparently is the impetus for Bowdre to leave the Evans Gang. Soon enough, he allies (ironically) with Alexander McSween as a member of the Regulators with Billy the Kid.

KIOWA CHIEF AHPEAHTONE (Wooden -Lance), 1856-1931.Ahpeahtone (Wooden-Lance) (1856-1931) was the last traditional chief o...
08/05/2024

KIOWA CHIEF AHPEAHTONE (Wooden -Lance), 1856-1931.
Ahpeahtone (Wooden-Lance) (1856-1931) was the last traditional chief of the Kiowa. Ahpeahtone was born near Medicine Lodge, KS and was related by blood to Red Cloud, the Oglala Lakota chief; Lone Wolf, the Kiowa chief; and was the son of Red Otter.
The Ghost Dance religion was popular during his time as chief.
The religion foretold a prophecy of the return of old ways within Native American cultures and the removal of Americans of European descent.
Ahpeahtone went to the Arapahos and Paiutes to investigate, but thought the religion to be a fraud and didn't want anything to do with it.
He was a member of the Native American Church, known for incorporating Native culture into Christianity, such as the use of pe**te cactus.
The chief enjoyed composing dance songs and dancing to them at the Gourd Dance. In his later years he converted to Methodism and established the Kiowa Indian Hospital in Lawton, OK.
The chief introduced democracy to the tribe and promoted business and education, all the while not accepting pay for his work, believing that he earned enough.
Apart from leading the tribe, his family were also farmers. Ahpeahtone died in 1931.
A town in Cotton County Oklahoma bears his name and he was inducted into the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians in 1996

She is Half Navajo from the Navajo Nation of the Hon´agha´ahnii Clan and half Sans Arch Lakota Sioux of the Cheyenne Riv...
08/04/2024

She is Half Navajo from the Navajo Nation of the Hon´agha´ahnii Clan and half Sans Arch Lakota Sioux of the Cheyenne River Tribe….made history as The First fulltime college student (Male or Female) to ever come out of the state of Kansas and win a National Intercollegiate Championship title and Belt!..Not Kansas University, not Kansas state university, or Wichita state university but from lil ol’ Haskell Indian Nations University!!!!!!…She fight out of the Haskell Boxing Club in Lawrence, KS…
For those who don't know, her name is Shiloh LeBeau

Cherokee women were famous for their strength and leadership. They managed family, land, and crops, and had a say in tri...
08/02/2024

Cherokee women were famous for their strength and leadership. They managed family, land, and crops, and had a say in tribal decisions. They could be warriors in times of war and had the power to declare peace. Their roles as nurturers, leaders, and warriors made them vital to Cherokee society.

Cherokee Women and Their Important Roles:Women in the Cherokee society were equal to men. They could earn the title of W...
08/02/2024

Cherokee Women and Their Important Roles:
Women in the Cherokee society were equal to men. They could earn the title of War Women and sit in councils as equals. This privilege led an Irishman named Adair who traded with the Cherokee from 1736-1743 to accuse the Cherokee of having a "petticoat government".
Clan kinship followed the mother's side of the family. The children grew up in the mother's house, and it was the duty of an uncle on the mother's side to teach the boys how to hunt, fish, and perform certain tribal duties. The women owned the houses and their furnishings. Marriages were carefully negotiated, but if a woman decided to divorce her spouse, she simply placed his belongings outside the house. Cherokee women also worked hard. They cared for the children, cooked, tended the house, tanned skins, wove baskets, and cultivated the fields. Men helped with some household chores like sewing, but they spent most of their time hunting.
Cherokee girls learned by example how to be warriors and healers. They learned to weave baskets, tell stories, trade, and dance. They became mothers and wives, and learned their heritage. The Cherokee learned to adapt, and the women were the core of the Cherokee

"Crowfoot stood and watched as the white man spread many one dollar bills on the ground.“This is what the white man trad...
07/31/2024

"Crowfoot stood and watched as the white man spread many one dollar bills on the ground.
“This is what the white man trades with; this is his buffalo robe. Just as you trade skins, we trade with these pieces of paper.”
When the white chief had laid all his money on the ground and shown how much he would give if the Indians would sign a treaty, Crowfoot took a handful of clay, made a ball out of it and put it on the fire.
It did not crack.
Then he said to the white man, Now put your money on the fire and see if it will last as long as the clay.
The white man said, No….my money will burn because it is made of paper.
With an amused gleam in his eyes the old chief said, Oh, your money is not as good as our land, is it?
The wind will blow it away; the fire will burn it; water will rot it. But nothing will destroy our land.
You don’t make a very good trade.
Then with a smile, Crowfoot picked up a handful of sand from the river bank, handed it to the white man and said, You count the grains of sand in that while I count the money you give for the land.
The white man said, I would not live long enough to count this, but you can count the money in a few minutes.
Very well, said the wise Crowfoot, our land is more valuable than your money. It will last forever.
It will not perish as long as the sun shines and the water flows, and through all the years it will give life to men and animals, and therefore we cannot sell the land.
It was put there by the Great Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not really belong to us.
You can count your money and burn it with a nod of a buffalo’s head, but only the Great Spirit can count the grains of sand and the blades of grass on these plains.
As a present we will give you anything you can take with you, but we cannot give you the land.”
Chief Crowfoot : Blackfoot Confederacy

GERONIMO.......On this day, February 17th, 1909 Geronimo dies of pneumonia at age 80, while still a captive of war at Fo...
07/29/2024

GERONIMO.......On this day, February 17th, 1909 Geronimo dies of pneumonia at age 80, while still a captive of war at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.~ This rare cabinet card Image shows the great Apache Resistance leader . photographed by William E. Irwin, Chickasha, Indian Territory with inscription in period script on the cards reverse, "Jeronamo (sic), from the Apache tribe, now in captivity at Ft. Sill.”~ "We are vanishing from the earth, yet I cannot think we are useless or Usen would not have created us. He created all tribes of men and certainly had a righteous purpose in creating each. For each tribe of men Usen created He also made a home. In the land created for any particular tribe He placed whatever would be best for the welfare of that tribe. When Usen created the Apaches He also created their homes in the West. He gave to them such grain, fruits, and game as they needed to eat. To restore their health when disease attacked them He made many different herbs to grow. He taught them where to find these herbs, and how to prepare them for medicine. He gave them a pleasant climate and all they needed for clothing and shelter was at hand. Thus it was in the beginning: the Apaches and their homes each created for the other by Usen himself. When they are taken from these homes they sicken and die.How long will it be until it is said, there are no Apaches?" ~ Geronimo, 1906.Geronimo often spoke of his desire for his people's eventual return to their ancestral homelands in Arizona. Tragically, his life ended at Fort Sill, Oklahoma far away from the beloved lands he had been forcefully taken from and imprisoned by the United States Government for defending. ~ Bedonkohe Apache leader Geronimo [Goyaałé], Mescalero-Chiricahua

Chiipkalishtahchiash (aka Small White Buffalo Bull, aka Barney Old Coyote Jr.) and his brother, Hank Old Coyote - Crow -...
07/29/2024

Chiipkalishtahchiash (aka Small White Buffalo Bull, aka Barney Old Coyote Jr.) and his brother, Hank Old Coyote - Crow - circa 1945
{Note: Barney Old Coyote Jr. and Hank Old Coyote were the sons of Barney Old Coyote Sr. & Mae Takes The Gun-Old Coyote.}

Mary Jane Patterson made history when she became the first black woman to receive a college degree when she graduated fr...
07/27/2024

Mary Jane Patterson made history when she became the first black woman to receive a college degree when she graduated from Oberlin College in 1862.
She was also the first black principal at America's first public high school for black students. (Preparatory High School for Colored Youth known today as Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C.)
—Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, she was the oldest of seven children.
In 1856, she and her family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, where they joined a growing community of free Black families who worked to send their children to the college. Her father worked as a master mason.
For many years, the family boarded large numbers of Black students in their home.
In 1862, Patterson graduated from Oberlin College, earning her historic degree.
On September 21, 1864, she applied for a position in Norfolk, Virginia, at a school for Black children.
On October 7, 1864, E. H. Fairchild, principal of Oberlin College's preparatory department from 1853 to 1869, wrote a recommendation for an "appointment from the American missionary Association as a ... teacher among freedmen."
In this letter, Fairchild described Patterson as "a light quadroon, a graduate of this college, a superior scholar, a good singer, a faithful Christian, and a genteel lady. She had success is teaching and is worthy of the highest ... you pay to ladies."
The following year, she became an assistant to Black educator F***y Jackson in the Female Department of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia.
In 1869, Patterson accepted a teaching position in Washington, D.C., at the newly organized Preparatory High School for Colored Youth -- later known as Dunbar High School.
She served as Dunbar's first Black principal from 1871 to 1874.
During Patterson's administration, the name "Preparatory High School" was dropped, high school commencements were initiated, and a teacher-training department was added.
Her commitment to thoroughness as well as her personality helped her establish the school's strong intellectual standards.
Patterson also devoted time and money to other Black institutions in Washington, especially to industrial schools for young African-American women, as well as to the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored People.
Her achievements as a leading Black educator influenced generations of African-American students and paved the way for other Black female educators.
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Dull Knife – Northern Cheyenne ChiefThe life of Dull Knife, the Cheyenne Chief, is a true hero tale. He is a pattern for...
07/26/2024

Dull Knife – Northern Cheyenne Chief
The life of Dull Knife, the Cheyenne Chief, is a true hero tale. He is a pattern for heroes of any race, simple, child-like yet manful, and devoid of selfish aims or love of gain.
Dull Knife was a chief of the old school. Among all the Indians of the plains, nothing counts save proven worth. His courage, unselfishness, and intelligence measure a man’s caliber. Many writers confuse history with fiction, but in Indian history, their women and old men, and even children witness the main events. Not being absorbed in daily papers and magazines, these events are rehearsed repeatedly with few variations. Though orally preserved, their accounts are therefore accurate. But they have seldom been willing to give reliable information to strangers, especially when asked and paid for.
Racial prejudice naturally enters into the account of a man’s life by enemy writers, while one is likely to favor his race. I am conscious that many readers may think I have idealized the Indian.
Therefore I will confess now that we have too many weak and unprincipled men among us. When I speak of the Indian hero, I do not forget the mongrel in spirit, false to the ideals of his people. Our trustfulness has been our weakness, and when the vices of civilization were added to our own, we fell heavily.
It is said that Dull Knife was resourceful and self-reliant as a boy. He was only nine years old when his family was separated from the rest of the tribe while on a buffalo hunt. His father was away and his mother busy, and he was playing with his little sister on the banks of a stream when a large herd of buffalo swept down upon them on a stampede for water. His mother climbed a tree, but the little boy led his sister into an old beaver house whose entrance was above water, and here they remained in the shelter until the buffalo passed and their distracted parents found them.
Dull Knife was a youth when his tribe was caught in a region devoid of game and threatened with starvation one winter. Heavy storms worsened the situation, but he secured help and led a relief party a hundred and fifty miles, carrying bales of dried buffalo meat on pack horses.
Another exploit that made him dear to his people occurred in battle when his brother-in-law was severely wounded and left lying where no one on either side dared to approach him. As soon as Dull Knife heard of it, he got on a fresh horse and made so daring a charge that others joined him; thus, under cover of their fire, he rescued his brother-in-law and in so doing, was wounded twice.

Billy the Kid Friday Night History Note: On Monday, March 28, 1881, U. S. Deputy Marshal Tony Neis and Santa Fe Chief of...
07/25/2024

Billy the Kid Friday Night History Note: On Monday, March 28, 1881, U. S. Deputy Marshal Tony Neis and Santa Fe Chief of Police Frank Chavez escorted prisoners Billy Bonney and Billy Wilson from the Santa Fe jail to the Santa Fe railroad depot. The two lawmen were taking the prisoners to La Mesilla for trial.
Bonney and Wilson were removed from the Santa Fe jail without fanfare. The Santa Fe Daily New Mexican reported, "There was some fear...that if it was known in the south that the two men were coming an effort would be made to lynch them, and to avoid this, their removal from the Santa Fe jail was kept as quiet as possible."
Nevertheless, at Rincon, the end of the rail line, about 40 miles north of La Mesilla, "an ugly crowd" had gathered, and as Neis and Chavez disembarked with Bonney and Wilson from the rail car someone remarked, "Let's take them fellows." Neis firmly replied, "You don't get them without somebody being killed."
Neis had a shotgun and a revolver, Chavez a rifle. Convinced Neis meant what he said, the mob slowly melted away.
The photo below is of Tony Neis, standing, and Bob Olinger, who was also a deputy marshal. The often-repeated tale that Olinger escorted Bonney to La Mesilla is incorrect. Olinger was one of the men that escorted Bonney from La Mesilla to Lincoln after Bonney's trial.

Ella Cara Deloria (January 31, 1889 – February 12, 1971), also called Aŋpétu Wašté Wiŋ (Beautiful Day Woman), was an edu...
07/23/2024

Ella Cara Deloria (January 31, 1889 – February 12, 1971), also called Aŋpétu Wašté Wiŋ (Beautiful Day Woman), was an educator, anthropologist, ethnographer, linguist, and novelist of Yankton Sioux background. She recorded Sioux oral history and legends, and in the 1940s wrote a novel, Waterlily, finally published in 1988.Deloria was born in the White Swan district of the Yankton Indian Reservation, South Dakota.

This statue once stood at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. Today, it stands at the entrance to the University of Central...
07/22/2024

This statue once stood at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. Today, it stands at the entrance to the University of Central Oklahoma on E. 2nd Street in Edmond.
The statue of Lakota Chief Touch the Clouds is 18’ tall and made of 10 tons of bronze. The chief was 6’9” tall. He fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn. Later, he was present at the killing of Crazy Horse. After surrendering to the US Army, the chief became a representative of the Lakota tribe until he passed in 1905. Happy Trails.
Mike Musgrove | Texas Native American History

Long before the arrival of the white man, women enjoyed a major role in the family life, economy, and government of the ...
07/20/2024

Long before the arrival of the white man, women enjoyed a major role in the family life, economy, and government of the Cherokee Indians. The Cherokees originally lived in villages built along the rivers of western North Carolina, northwestern South Carolina, northern Georgia, and eastern Tennessee. When white men visited these villages in the early 1700s, they were surprised by the rights and privileges of Indian women.
Perhaps most surprising to Europeans was the Cherokees’ matrilineal kinship system. In a matrilineal kinship system, a person is related only to people on his mother’s side. His relatives are those who can be traced through a woman. In this way a child is related to his mother, and through her to his brothers and sisters. He also is related to his mother’s mother (grandmother), his mother’s brothers (uncles), and his mother’s sisters (aunts). The child is not related to the father, however. The most important male relative in a child’s life is his mother’s brother. Many Europeans never figured out how this kinship system worked. Those white men who married Indian women were shocked to discover that the Cherokees did not consider them to be related to their own children, and that mothers, not fathers, had control over the children.
Europeans also were astonished that women were the heads of Cherokee households. The Cherokees lived in extended families. This means that several generations (grandmother, mother, grandchildren) lived together as one family. Such a large family needed a number of different buildings. The roomy summer house was built of bark. The tiny winter house had thick clay walls and a roof, which kept in the heat from a fire smoldering on a central hearth. The household also had corn cribs and storage sheds. All these buildings belonged to the women in the family, and daughters inherited them from their mothers. A husband lived in the household of his wife (and her mother and sisters). If a husband and wife did not get along and decided to separate, the husband went home to his mother while any children remained with the wife in her home.
The family had a small garden near their houses and cultivated a particular section of the large fields which lay outside the village. Although men helped clear the fields and plant the crops, women did most of the farming because men were usually at war during the summer. The women used stone hoes or pointed sticks to cultivate corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, and sunflowers. Old women sat on platforms in the fields and chased away any crows or raccoons that tried to raid the fields.
In the winter when men traveled hundreds of miles to hunt bears, deer, turkeys, and other game, women stayed at home. They kept the fires burning in the winter houses, made baskets, pottery, clothing, and other things the family needed, cared for the children, and performed the chores for the household.
Perhaps because women were so important in the family and in the economy, they also had a voice in government. The Cherokees made decisions only after they discussed an issue for a long time and agreed on what they should do. The council meetings at which decisions were made were open to everyone including women. Women participated actively. Sometimes they urged the men to go to war to avenge an earlier enemy attack. At other times they advised peace. Women occasionally even fought in battles beside the men. The Cherokees called these women “War Women,” and all the people respected and honored them for their bravery.
By the 1800s the Cherokees had lost their independence and had become dominated by white Americans. At this time white Americans did not believe that it was proper for women to fight wars, vote, speak in public, work outside the home, or even control their own children. The Cherokees began to imitate whites, and Cherokee women lost much of their power and prestige. In the twentieth century, all women have had to struggle to acquire many of those rights which Cherokee women once freely enjoyed.
Color Quatie's family
The black disc in the diagram is Quatie, a Cherokee girl. Can you figure out which of the people in the diagram belong to her family and color them in? Remember, in early Cherokee culture the family unit was traced through the wives and not the husbands. The major members in each family were the mothers, aunts, grandmothers, brothers, and uncles, not fathers. After you color your choices, draw a big circle around all the people who would live together in the same household. (CLUE: This answer would include fathers.)

Chief Earth Woman was a nineteenth-century Ojibwa woman and a significant figure in Ojibwa history. She claimed that she...
07/19/2024

Chief Earth Woman was a nineteenth-century Ojibwa woman and a significant figure in Ojibwa history. She claimed that she had gained supernatural powers from a dream, and for this reason, accompanied the men on the warpath. While some Ojibwa warrior women responded to necessity, Chief Earth Woman chose to become a warrior, entering battle with the Sioux. Her dreams provided her fellow Ojibwa warriors with protection, and guided them through the battle. She confided with the leader that her dreams predicted the movements of the Sioux, aiding the Ojibwa in battle. In the battle, she succeeded in scalping an enemy, earning her traditional honors. Ruth Landes' research in the 1930s described Chief Earth Woman as one of few women to command a war party and receive the honors of a man, and later research by Colleen Sheryl McIvor places Chief Earth Woman within the tradition of the Anishinaabe Ogichidaakwe, or woman warrior.
She was born around 1878 near Waterloo, Ohio as Birtha Snyder, Snider or Snidow. She married a man named "White Owl" in 1893, and she frequently traveled from Ohio to Michigan. She lived in a place called "Old Man's Cave" while in Ohio.
Chief Earth Woman's story is often associated as a parallel to those stories of Lozen and Running Eagle

eorge Whitwell Parsons, in his diary, suggested it was "either robbery or thirst for gore against the Tombstone Mining C...
07/18/2024

eorge Whitwell Parsons, in his diary, suggested it was "either robbery or thirst for gore against the Tombstone Mining Company's attitude towards the cowboys." Parsons kept a detailed daily diary of his life in the west, especially while he lived in Tombstone, Arizona Territory from 1879 to 1887

You see the Indians do everything in a circle, because they believe that the power of the world is always circulating. E...
07/16/2024

You see the Indians do everything in a circle, because they believe that the power of the world is always circulating. Everything tries to become round: the sky, the earth and all the stars. “ The strongest wind is when a tornado rolls in. Birds also make circular nests because they are just like us... The seasons of the year change in a great cycle, and each person's life is a cycle of childhood Wherever there is movement of energy, there is a circle

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐟 𝐃𝐚𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞. 🔥🔥In the course of my lifetime I have lived in two distinct cultures. I was born in...
07/14/2024

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐟 𝐃𝐚𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞. 🔥🔥
In the course of my lifetime I have lived in two distinct cultures. I was born into a culture that lived in communal houses. My grandfather’s house was eighty feet long. It was called a smoke house, and it stood down by the beach along the inlet. All my grandfather’s sons and their families lived in this dwelling. Their sleeping apartments were separated by blankets made of bull rush weeds, but one open fire in the middle served the cooking needs of all. In houses like these, throughout the tribe, people learned to live with one another; learned to respect the rights of one another. And children shared the thoughts of the adult world and found themselves surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins who loved them and did not threaten them. My father was born in such a house and learned from infancy how to love people and be at home with them.
And beyond this acceptance of one another there was a deep respect for everything in nature that surrounded them. My father loved the earth and all its creatures. The earth was his second mother. The earth and everything it contained was a gift from See-see-am…and the way to thank this great spirit was to use his gifts with respect.
I remember, as a little boy, fishing with him up Indian River and I can still see him as the sun rose above the mountain top in the early morning…I can see him standing by the water’s edge with his arms raised above his head while he softly moaned…”Thank you, thank you.” It left a deep impression on my young mind.
And I shall never forget his disappointment when once he caught me gaffing for fish “just for the fun of it.” “My son” he said, “The Great Spirit gave you those fish to be your brothers, to feed you when you are hungry. You must respect them. You must not kill them just for the fun of it.”
This then was the culture I was born into and for some years the only one I really knew or tasted. This is why I find it hard to accept many of the things I see around me.
I see people living in smoke houses hundreds of times bigger than the one I knew. But the people in one apartment do not even know the people in the next and care less about them.
It is also difficult for me to understand the deep hate that exists among people. It is hard to understand a culture that justifies the killing of millions in past wars, and it at this very moment preparing bombs to kill even greater numbers. It is hard for me to understand a culture that spends more on wars and weapons to kill, than it does on education and welfare to help and develop.
It is hard for me to understand a culture that not only hates and fights his brothers but even attacks nature and abuses her.
I see my white brothers going about blotting out nature from his cities. I see him strip the hills bare, leaving ugly wounds on the face of mountains. I see him tearing things from the bosom of mother earth as though she were a monster, who refused to share her treasures with him. I see him throw poison in the waters, indifferent to the life he kills there; and he chokes the air with deadly fumes.
My white brother does many things well for he is more clever than my people but I wonder if he has ever really learned to love at all. Perhaps he only loves the things that are outside and beyond him. And this is, of course, not love at all, for man must love all creation or he will love none of it. Man must love fully or he will become the lowest of the animals. It is the power to love that makes him the greatest of them all…for he alone of all animals is capable of love.
Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. We must have it because without it we become weak and faint. Without love our self esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world. Instead we turn inwardly and begin to feed upon our own personalities and little by little we destroy ourselves.
You and I need the strength and joy that comes from knowing that we are loved. With it we are creative. With it we march tirelessly. With it, and with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others.
There have been times when we all wanted so desperately to feel a reassuring hand upon us…there have been lonely times when we so wanted a strong arm around us…I cannot tell you how deeply I miss my wife’s presence when I return from a trip. Her love was my greatest joy, my strength, my greatest blessing.
I am afraid my culture has little to offer yours. But my culture did prize friendship and companionship. It did not look on privacy as a thing to be clung to, for privacy builds walls and walls promote distrust. My culture lived in a big family community, and from infancy people learned to live with others.
My culture did not prize the hoarding of private possessions, in fact, to hoard was a shameful thing to do among my people. The Indian looked on all things in nature as belonging to him and he expected to share them with others and to take only what he needed.
Everyone likes to give as well as receive. No one wishes only to receive all the time. We have taken something from your culture…I wish you had taken something from our culture…for there were some beautiful and good things in it.
Soon it will be too late to know my culture, for integration is upon us and soon we will have no values but yours. Already many of our young people have forgotten the old ways. And many have been shamed of their Indian ways by scorn and ridicule. My culture is like a wounded deer that has crawled away into the forest to bleed and die alone.
The only thing that can truly help us is genuine love. You must truly love, be patient with us and share with us. And we must love you—with a genuine love that forgives and forgets…a love that gives the terrible sufferings your culture brought ours when it swept over us like a wave crashing along a beach…with a love that forgets and lifts up its head and sees in your eyes an answering love of trust and acceptance.
This is brotherhood…anything less is not worthy of the name.
I have spoken

Comanche portraitsNorth America was a place of great turbulence and many conflicts when the newcomers decided to inhabit...
07/13/2024

Comanche portraits
North America was a place of great turbulence and many conflicts when the newcomers decided to inhabit the land and take parts of it for themselves.
In the 18th and 19th century, many tribes, such as Iroquois, Cherokee and Shawnee were overwhelmed by the number of settlers moving westward across America.
When the settlers started moving to the southern edges of the continent their movement was put to a halt for some time. A fierce tribe of Comanche were the reason for it.Even though many tribes have adapted to the introduction of the horse, the Comanche were the group who took most advantage out of it.Previously being an obscure mountain tribe, the Comanche became the fiercest and most famous riders that caused many troubles to the settlers.
In contrast to, for example, Sioux and Cheyenne that would dismount their horses before battle, Comanche continued riding in a fight, which gave them a significant advantage

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