Green racism

Above photos:

Left - Anti-Makah whale hunt protester being arrested by Makah police for attempting to exercise his green racism within the Makah nation.

Right - Makah youth expressing his indigneous nation's right to exercise the annual whale hunt.

Needless-to-say, most of humanity has always been predatory towards certain species of birds and animals, and there are certain species of animals that are predatory towards humans.

Indigenous American traditionalists kill certain birds and animals for sustinance, and those that are not killed just for sustinance are sacrified for spiritual purposes.

Indigenous American traditionalists have never hunted for sport. That is what nearly wiped out the North American Bison (buffalo), or as their Indigenous American bretheren the Lakota call them, tatanka.

Modern cases of Indigenous American people hunting certain birds and animals for purposes aside from sustinance are the eagle hunt and the whale hunt.

Not all contemporary Indigenous American traditionalists are in favor of such hunts. Even a minority of the Makah oppose the whale hunt. However, those are Indian issues that only Indian tribal governments should have the right to decide.

As pointed out in this commentary, non-Indian governments and non-profit organizations in the Americas that attempt to impede traditional Indigenous American hunting and fishing practices have no moral right to do so, particularly when such hunting and fishing are conducted within primary traditional Indigneous lands and waters.

Most non-Indian environmental and animal rights activists in the Americas who oppose such hunting and fishing are left-of-center white people and colonized Latino mestizos.

Most anti-Indigenous American fishing rights opponents are white and mestizo rednecks who fish for sporting and commercial purposes.

Left-wing or right-wing, most of those special interests obviously have no regard for Indian autonomy, just like the political parties who rule their nations have a racist Indian policy in the way of being opposed to Indian reservations having the option of full sovereign nation status. Their attempts to impede traditional Indigenous American hunting and fishing practices smacks of what has become to be termed as green racism, which has included acts of violence against Indian hunters and fishers.

Related article:

Why Greenpeace supports the Makah hunt.

What you might not have known about Thanksgiving

The first commentary was written by the former editor of Indian Country Today, and was published on indianz.com.

The second commentary was also published on indianz.com.

The third commentary was written by a Libertarian.

Tim Giago: Thanksgiving -- A holiday of the imagination

There is a saying amongst the Lakota that when the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock they fell on their knees and prayed and then they fell on the Indians and preyed.

So much fabrication has been woven into the landing of the Pilgrims and their dealings with the indigenous people they met that first year it is hard to separate fact from fiction.

The Mayflower actually landed on Cape Cod on November 11, 1620 at a place that would become Provincetown. The landing site proved to be unsuitable. Robert Coppin, the Mayflower’s pilot, remembered another site more suitable to permanent settlement.

On December 16, 1620 the settlers sailed into the harbor the Indians called Patuxet. There are no 17th Century sources that mention landing on a rock, but the Pilgrims called the landing site Plymouth Rock nonetheless.

We were all taught about the first winter in which many settlers died until only 52 of the original 102 remained alive. The history books also teach us that the Indians helped the settlers survive by teaching them how to plant corn, squash and other vegetables.

The Wampanoag were the first Indians to actually meet and speak with the Pilgrims. An Abenaki named Samoset who spoke English he learned from fisherman who visited the coast introduced them to a man named Tisquantum or Squanto. Squanto had been taken to England as a prisoner and spoke fairly fluent English.

Strangely enough, most early works of art depicting the first harvest feast of the Pilgrims shows the settlers fleeing from a hail of arrows.

The first modern image showing the Indians and settlers enjoying a feast in harmony did not occur until after the so-called Indian wars were settled. It was only after the Indians became the Vanishing Americans that they became an integral part of the Pilgrim story.

A stanza from the poem by Felicia Hemans (1793 – 1835) about the landing of the Pilgrims goes:

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod!

They have left unstain’d what where they found –Freedom to worship God.

Perhaps, a century later, an Indian poet would have written;

Hau, call it stolen ground,

The soil where first they trod!

They have left a stain over all they found,

And took our freedom to worship God.

The indigenous people of what was to become New England had little to be thankful for in the ensuing years. Many died of small pox, measles and other diseases to which they had no immunity or they died at the hands of the settlers. Their villages were burned to the ground and their women and children sold into slavery or murdered. Bounties were placed on those who survived and soon hunters and trappers showed up at the trading posts collecting money for their “redskins.”

George Washington chose a day to give thanks for the establishment of a “new nation” in 1789.

After the War of 1812 James Madison called for a day of thanks in 1815. History does not expound upon the fact that it was the combined Indian forces of Creek and other Southeastern tribes that helped turn the tide in favor of the Americans at the Battle of New Orleans, a battle that was essential in turning the war against the British.

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, at the urging of Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, set aside the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. In 1941 Congress passed a joint resolution making the fourth Thursday of November the official holiday of Thanksgiving.

During the 1960s Indian activists began to gather at Plymouth Rock on Thanksgiving Day to protest the treatment of the indigenous people and to rail against a holiday based on fiction.
It is a general belief that the United States government began to visualize Indians as part of the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock in order to demonstrate a move toward diversity. Immigrants from many nations, some not so fair and blonde, landed at Ellis Island in search of freedom and a new life.

By this time the Massacre at Wounded Knee had happened and some historians recorded it as the last great battle between the Indians and the government. Wounded Knee was listed as a battle between troops of the Seventh Cavalry and the Sioux. Keep in mind that it was just a short 13 years from the day Lincoln set a date for Thanksgiving to the Battle at the Little Big Horn in 1876. The troops of the Seventh Cavalry had celebrated Thanksgiving just five weeks before they slaughtered innocent men, women and children at Wounded Knee.

With the Indian wars far behind, and the Indian, now listed as “The Vanishing American,” it was now almost romantic to create a time of peace and tranquility when the Pilgrims brought the Indians to their table at Thanksgiving to share a sumptuous meal centered around the turkey.
And so it seems the American Indian had to be placed on the “Most Endangered Species” list before he could be seated at the table with the Pilgrims. And of course, the Indian by then had progressed from prey to pray.

http://www.indianz.com/News/2006/017037.asp

Thanksgiving is a lie

by Tommi Avicolli Mecca

Thanksgiving is a lie. Just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.There's no more truth to the Hallmark moment of Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing a feast of squash, corn and turkey than there is to Betsy Ross sewing the first American flag. No definitive historical evidence exists to prove either patriotic legend. According to my favorite history text, "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James W. Loewen, it was all manufactured to create a feel-good beginning for this country.

Thanksgiving wasn't invented by the Pilgrims. By the time the Mayflower pulled up at Plymouth Rock in 1620, Native Americans in that part of the country already had a rich tradition of marking the fall harvest with a major fiesta.

The day wasn't recognized nationally until 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln declared it a holiday. He had an entirely different motive than honoring the Pilgrims: Morale during the bloody Civil War. America needed a warm fuzzy holiday to make it feel good about itself again.

The Pilgrims were latecomers to the legend, not getting added to the mix until the 1890s. Of course, some major revisions had to be done to make heroes of those guys. The truth is: When the Pilgrims arrived on the coast of Massachusetts, they found a deserted Native American settlement. Unburied human bodies were scattered everywhere. The survivors had vanished. The villagers had been wiped out by a plague, brought to the "new world" years before by the Europeans. The immune system of the native peoples had no defense against those diseases.

Many in Europe couldn't be happier. Good Christian that he was, King James of England called the death of millions of Native Americans "this wonderful plague." He thanked God for sending it. Other preachers of the day echoed this same sentiment. They believed that God had aided the conquest of the new land by sending disease to ravage the native populations, so that the English could have it. How convenient for them that God was on their side.

The Pilgrims, who were ill-equipped to survive in the harsh environment they found themselves in, immediately took advantage of the situation. They proceeded to rob food (including corn and squash) and pottery from the deserted Native village. They also stole from Indian graves. Within about 50 years of arriving, they had slaughtered most of the native population in the area that wasn't already killed by the plague.Not the touchy-feelie story you'll see on TV this week.

http://indianz.com/News/2006/017014.asp

The Great Thanksgiving Hoax

By Richard J. Maybury

Each year at this time school children all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all very colorful and fascinating.

It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths which divert attention away from Thanksgiving's real meaning.

The official story has the pilgrims boarding the Mayflower, coming to America and establishing the Plymouth colony in the winter of 1620-21. This first winter is hard, and half the colonists die. But the survivors are hard working and tenacious, and they learn new farming techniques from the Indians. The harvest of 1621 is bountiful. The Pilgrims hold a celebration, and give thanks to God. They are grateful for the wonderful new abundant land He has given them.

The official story then has the Pilgrims living more or less happily ever after, each year repeating the first Thanksgiving. Other early colonies also have hard times at first, but they soon prosper and adopt the annual tradition of giving thanks for this prosperous new land called America.

The problem with this official story is that the harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hardworking or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy thieves.

In his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,'the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."

In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, "all had their hungry bellies filled," but only briefly. The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims, it was famine and death. The first "Thanksgiving" was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men.

But in subsequent years something changes. The harvest of 1623 was different. Suddenly, "instead of famine now God gave them plenty," Bradford wrote, "and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God." Thereafter, he wrote, "any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day." In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced that the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.

What happened?

After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford, "they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop." They began to question their form of economic organization.

This had required that "all profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means" were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock." A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take out only what he needed.

This "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that "young men that are most able and fit for labor and service" complained about being forced to "spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children." Also, "the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and strong refused to work and the total amount of food produced was never adequate.

To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.
Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states, all with the same terrible results. At Jamestown, established in 1607, out of every shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would survive their first twelve months in America. Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites. In the winter of 1609-10, called "The Starving Time," the population fell from five-hundred to sixty.

Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth. In 1614, Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote that after the switch there was "plenty of food, which every man by his own industry may easily and doth procure." He said that when the socialist system had prevailed, "we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty men as three men have done for themselves now."

Before these free markets were established, the colonists had nothing for which to be thankful. They were in the same situation as Ethiopians are today, and for the same reasons. But after free markets were established, the resulting abundance was so dramatic that the annual Thanksgiving celebrations became common throughout the colonies, and in 1863, Thanksgiving became a national holiday.

Thus the real reason for Thanksgiving, deleted from the official story, is: Socialism does not work; the one and only source of abundance is free markets, and we thank God we live in a country where we can have them.

Mr. Maybury writes on investments.

This article originally appeared in The Free Market, November 1985.

http://www.mises.org/story/336

Discovery redraws map of ancient Earth

Outcropping in Mexico linked to Appalachians in eastern U.S.


By Ker Than

Nov 17, 2006

A section of the Appalachian Mountains discovered in Mexico is forcing scientists to redraw their maps of ancient Earth.

The Appalachians are a series of mountain ranges in eastern North America that extend from Southern Quebec in Canada to northern Alabama. A piece of the chain was recently uncovered in a large Mexican outcropping of rock, known as the Acatlan Complex.

Analyses of the rocks revealed they were formed on the ocean floor, and dating showed they were much younger than previously thought.

"This will change the way geologists look at Mexico," said study leader Damian Nance of Ohio University.

It also challenges current theories about the creation of the Appalachians, mountain ranges that have revealed valuable clues about the planet's early geography.

Previously, scientists thought that 420 million years ago Earth contained two main land masses that were separated by a large expanse of sea, called the Rheic Ocean. In the south was Gondwana, a supercontinent consisting of South America, Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica. And to the north was Laurussia, made up of North America, Greenland, Europe and parts of Asia.

According to the standard scenario, the Acatlan Complex was once part of Gondwana, but it broke off the supercontinent about 500 million years ago. The complex, along with a few other chunks of land, drifted northward, and in the process blocked a stretch of sea known as the Iapetus Ocean. The Acatlan Complex eventually collided with North America, and with the force of a colossal bulldozer sent the once-flat land into mountain-size ripples — forming the Appalachian Mountains.

But the recent analysis of the Acatlan Complex rocks revealed they once existed on the Rheic ocean floor, not the Iapetus, suggesting that the Appalachian-forming collision occurred about 120 million years later.

According to this scenario, the Acatlan Complex remained a part of Gondwana, and the entire supercontinent slammed into North America. The collision closed the Rheic Ocean, created the Appalachian Mountains and formed the goliath land mass known as Pangea.
The study is detailed in the October issue of the journal Geology.

Link to this article with map illustration:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15774076/

The Holy Father and our European problem

Indioheathen notes: I cut and pasted this from Indian Country Today, being that I think it is informative and well-written. However, the editor/writer suggests that some sort of re-validation of Indigenous Americans ought to be issued by former Hitler Youth goose-stepper Josef "Paparatzi" Ratzinger, a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI. In this context, I will apply a simple saying of Russell Means as a response: "I don't care what non-Indians think!"

The Holy Father and our European problem

Posted: September 29, 2006

by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today

Pope Benedict XVI has joined the ranks of mild-mannered scholars who find themselves in the middle of ferocious controversy for what they thought was an academic remark. Evidently shocked by the reaction to a lecture he gave in September, he met on Sept. 25 with ambassadors from Islamic countries to smooth things over. We sympathize with the Holy Father, but some unexplored aspects of the controversy hold great interest for indigenous people. Perhaps in his willingness to apologize, he might turn his attention to the American Indian.

The invective against the pope keyed on a somewhat tangential passage in a speech he delivered to scientists Sept. 12 during a homecoming to the University of Regensburg. The lecture is steeped in nostalgia for the pope's teaching days in German universities. It is highly interesting, philosophical and even blunt, but very few of the commentators appear to have read it. If they had, we think the pope might be hearing protests, or at least questions, from a much broader range of humanity, including many indigenous followers of ''the Jesus way.'' His remarks on Islam were only part of what could be read, or misconstrued, as a re-emergence of European cultural arrogance.

The passage on Islam, to be sure, was a massively imprudent display of scholarship. (Part of the problem, Vatican sources apparently told The New York Times, was that the pope wrote it himself and didn't consult his in-house Middle East experts. The provisional text posted on the wonderful Web site for the Holy See, www.vatican.va, states: ''The Holy Father intends to supply a subsequent version [...], complete with footnotes.'') Drawing on a 1966 collection of Byzantine documents published in French by the Lebanese Catholic theologian Adel-Theodore Khoury, the pope quoted a religious polemic between the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (1350 - 1425) and a Persian. The setting itself was highly confrontational; the pope noted it was probably written during the siege of Constantinople by the Turkish Islamic army between 1394 and 1402. Just 50 years later, the forces of Islam completely overran the remains of the Byzantine Empire.

In these circumstances, Manuel II was understandably bitter about Islamic military power.Pope Benedict XVI himself noted his ''startling brusqueness, a brusqueness which leaves us astounded.'' The emperor complained that spreading faith by the sword was ''evil and inhuman.'' This is the passage that is raising the hackles of Islamic radicals, and to tell the truth, it raises our eyebrows. Not that we sympathize with the Islamist street protests. They come across as a cynically manipulated political campaign by a movement intent on perverting the true greatness of the Islamic religion. Some scholars maintain that the current terrorism in the name of Islam really has its roots in European fascism. There is a ludicrous tenor to the threats against the pope now attributed to al-Qaida, along the lines of: ''Apologize for calling us violent and irrational, or we'll blow you up.''

But an indigenous audience has to find great irony in Christian complaints about spreading faith through violence, after the history of the Spanish conquests in America and the more insidious compulsions of the Indian agents in the United States. To be fair, the Dominicans of the 16th century were deeply troubled by the Spanish conquistadors' strong-arm exploitation and conversion of the Native population. Although they were also committed to destroying Native religion, they argued that it should be done by example and peaceful persuasion.

This was precisely the issue of the famous disputation summoned by the Spanish King Charles V at Valladolid in 1550. Was it just to conquer the Indians before preaching the Christian faith to them, since they would be much more amenable to conversion after they were defeated? The Dominican Bartolome de las Casas argued vehemently against using force but he was fighting against the practice of the day, and the outcome of Valladolid was ambiguous at best.

But Pope Benedict XVI raised this whole issue only as an introduction to his main theme, and here is where the truly basic argument begins. The decisive objection against violent conversion, he said at Regensburg, ''is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.'' He went on to say that Muslim teaching denied that God was limited by rationality. ''Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us.'' This is surely a more profound, if less seized upon, criticism of Islam than the remarks for which the pope is apologizing.

By contrast, the pope affirmed the Greek roots of Christianity. He described his religion as the encounter between the biblical message and Greek rational philosophy. He obviously didn't mean it was simply a historical synthesis. That would be a shocking position for the head of the Catholic Church. He called both traditions the expression of the truth of God's nature. Both describe a rational universe reflected in the rationality of the human soul.

But the pope revived an old problem when he added a geographic slant. His Christianity is not only Hellenistic, it is Eurocentric. ''Given this convergence,'' he said, ''it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.''

Some Islamic bloggers are rightly objecting that Hellenistic philosophy had a profound influence on their own religion. Christianity has no monopoly on the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle. In fact, Europe owes a profound debt to Islam for preserving many of its works in Arabic when they were lost in the West. The pope has acknowledged this common ground in some of his other speeches to Muslim audiences. But indigenous Christians might be concerned to learn whether the pope will find common ground with them.

The pope devoted the last half of his lecture to a critique of the modern ''call for a dehellenization of Chrisitanity.'' Taking the long view, he said this program began with the 16th century attack on scholastic theology, the medieval structure based on Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Indians actually fared relatively better with the neo-scholastic theologians like Francisco de Vitorio than with modern rationalists like John Locke. At least the scholastics recognized the Native right to property and political sovereignty. So far we can side with the pope.

But we have to ask for clarification when he criticizes what he calls the ''third stage of dehellenization, which is now in progress.'' He attacked a thesis from cultural pluralism: the synthesis with Hellenism ''ought not to be binding on other cultures.'' ''The latter,'' he wrote, ''are said to have the right to return to the simple message of the New Testament prior to that inculturation, in order to inculturate it anew in their own particular milieus. This thesis is not only false; it is coarse and lacking in precision.''

This passage is brief and the vaguest in the lecture, and perhaps the pope would shy away from some of its implications. But in the wrong hands it could be turned into a revival of the European imperial missionary spirit. It seems to deny the validity of non-European religious expression. In its most extreme form, it harks back to the wrong side of the Valladolid debate, the argument of Juan Gines de Sepulveda that Indians did not have a rational soul and were subject by nature to their European masters.

That is not necessarily the position of the pope. We would argue that the Native approach to religion and nature is fully as rational as the European version, and much more respectful.
The long history between Indians and the Catholic Church has many lows, but also some high points in which the papacy has defended Indian rights. Pope John Paul II, a strong influence on his successor, had especially warm relations with the Natives of the Americas. We hope that Pope Benedict would continue this tradition.

He has several current opportunities to repudiate European arrogance. He could acknowledge the campaign for a rescission of the papal bulls justifying the doctrine of discovery. He could repeat the language of Pope Paul III in the 1537 papal bull Sublimis Deus ''that the Indians are truly men.'' He could clarify that the inherent rationality to which he referred under the heading of Hellenism is a property of all humanity, not solely of Europeans.

We have no doubt that this was the true intent of his remarkable Regensburg lecture. But if he is through apologizing to Muslims, perhaps he could now explain himself to the indigenous peoples of the world.

http://indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096413746

Indigenous American counter-protester

The Not White Land video was presumably recorded by someone from the neo-Cavalry civilian militia known as the Minutemen, whose self-appointed mission is to help keep us Mesoamerican injuns from exercising our ancient continental migratory practices across their artificial nation-state border to perform menial labor in their Demosocialist and Theopublican Police States of America that most U.S.-born citizens don't want to engage in for comparable worth.


NOT WHITE LAND

Bonus video:
An outstanding Minuteman

The Wizard of Ixtlán

A Mexican Indian perspective on the writings of Carlos Castaneda and the teachings of Don Juan Matus.


In case you are not familiar with the works of Carlos Castaneda and the teachings of Don Juan, here is a good summary I found on a Google search written by Joe Kissell.

Over the years my indigenous colleagues and I have gotten asked by many people about our opinions regarding the writings of Castaneda. Did he make it all up either rationally, under the influence, or not under the influence but insanely, or is there any truth in any of the books? The following is my usual reply: "All of the above with an explanation." And here is the explanation:

Most everyone is familiar with the story of The Wizard of Oz, and have seen the original classic 1939 screen version starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. Now imagine for a moment that Dorothy had been a real person who had gotten knocked out as a result of the tornado, and later regained conciousness to give an account of what seemed to her a very real adventure she had to a land in another dimension named Oz during an altered state of conciousness; (in her case, unconsciousness). Most people who believe in other dimensions would at least be open to the possibility that what Dorothy had experienced might have been real. Rationalist skeptics in partiuclar and on the other hand would just brush off her account as having been a vivid dream or hallucination as a result of the temporary physical trauma to her head.

Most skeptical critiques about Castaneda have been written by non-Indians--mainly anthropologists. Many Yaqui Indians in both Sonora and Arizona have rebuked Castaneda as well, saying that they never heard of a Yaqui sorcerer of the past or present named Juan Matus, and like the anthros, say that the alleged teachings of "Don Juan" are alien to Yaqui spirituality.

The latter in particular is somewhat true. One of Castaneda's early mistakes, although perhaps not intentional at the time, was titling his first book, The Teachings of Don Juan--A Yaqui Way of Knowledge instead of A Yaqui's (single person) Way of Knowledge.

Back in the late 1800's there actually had been a powerful and revered Yaqui hechicero (sorcerer) from around the Río Yaqui region of Sonora named Juan Matus. However, Don Juan, as Castaneda respectfully called him, did not exercise conventional Yaqui shamanism even though he was well-versed in it. Don Juan's shamanic teacher was from an ancient lineage of shamans known as Nagual, which originated with the ancient Toltecs, but over time became a shamanic lineage made up of Mexican Indians from various tribes. You can sort of compare it to the various orders of the priesthood within the Roman Catholic Church. The Jesuits, Franciscans, etc. are made up of various nationalities.

The standard definition of nagual in Mexico is that of a shaman, hechicero, or brujo (witch) who has the ability to to transmigrate from a human being into a bird or animal. However, in ancient Toltec terminology, nagual also refers to a higher state of being and awareness beyond ordinary human mortal status. Ordinary human mortal status and awareness is referred to as the tonal.

Now if you're already familiar with those terminologies in their contexts from the Castaneda books, you now have an indication that he didn't make them up. The fact is, a lot of the terms, experiences, and people recorded in Castaneda's writings are authentic. So the question is now, was the Don Juan I speak of really Castaneda's teacher? The answer is "no." That Don Juan, using Castenada-recorded Nagual lineage terminology, departed for "The Third Attention" (an afterlife) via "the fire from within" (a form of spontaneous combustion) back in the early 1900's.

In the Roman Catholic religion, when a man is ordained a priest or a woman is ordained a nun, they take on a saint's name. Likewise, it is not uncommon among shamanic lineages for a shaman apprentice to take on the name of his or her teacher or that of another great shaman within the lineage, and that is exactly what Castaneda's teacher did, including some other shamans who took on the name of Juan Matus in his honor. Matus is a common Yaqui surname that means "root."

Like the Bible and a lot of other ancient religious texts, the writings of Carlos Castaneda are a mixture of historical fact, allegory, and myth. As far as Castaneda goes, the myth part consisted of him relating experiences in his books that he had while under the influence of psychotropic plants or while in "dreaming," but which he did not always reveal to his readers. This was especially true in The Art of Dreaming, where he was in an uncontrolled schizophrenic state most of the time. In his book Magical Passes, the movements illustrated are authentic in the way of being actual, ancient Mesoamerican techniques for protection and manipulating energy, although some of them as taught by Castaneda were slightly altered.

To most "westerners," schizophrenic experiences are purely uncontrolled halluciongenic fantasies, whereas to the indigenous, they are real but uncontrolled visions and mind journeys into abstract realms of existence. Medication, whether it be from a natural plant or a synthetic chemical is called for when people are constantly unable to control such journeys into separate realities.

Castaneda's doctoral dissertation was Journey to Ixtlan, for which he was awarded a Ph.D. Even prior to that, he had to write his two prevous books about his experiences with Don Juan like a screenplay in order for them to be entertaining and thus sell to the general public as opposed to just being dull, technical, anthropological texts. Why not make Don Juan and the other cast of characters in his books more colorful than they really were by paraphrasing their teachings and quotations? Castaneda had it in him to be a shrewd and creative businessman, and thus came up with a way to pay for his education and make a lucrative living afterwards with his unique brand of literary-like anthropological writings.

In the Wizard of Oz, the wizard turned out to be a humbug. He was really a fairly ordinary man who made himself appear more powerful than he really was.

In the works of Carlos Castaneda, it was the Peruvian Dorothy, Carlos, who was the humbug by portraying his experiences and the cast of brujos and brujas in his books, including his own personal wizard, Don Juan, as greater and more colorful than they really were.

Apart from that, one of the reasons why Castaneda was so elusive with the public most of his career as an author was because he had diseminated secret, sacred knowledge to the world that had never been revealed before, even to anthropologists. He was given permission to do so with restrictions from his "Don Juan" teacher, and that Don Juan himself ended up an outcast by indigenous elders in Sonora for sharing the sacred knowledge to an outsider that publicized it.

A lot of anthropolgists think that they end up knowing everything about an indigenous people they have studied, including their religion. But what they fall short of in many instances is knowledge of the sacred wisdom of an indigenous religion, which the indigenous do not share with outsiders.

As for the published writings of others who were cohorts of Castaneda and/or claim to have been students of Don Juan, they, like the works of Castaneda, are a mixture of truth, allegory, fantasy, and just plain old B.S.

Western Philosophers and Indigenous Sorcerers

Sorcerers are persons of knowledge rather than persons of reason. As such, they are a step ahead of Western intellectuals who assume that reality--which is often equated with truth--is knowable through reason. A sorcerer claims that all that is knowable through reason is our thought processes, but that it is only by understanding our total being, at its most sophisticated and intricate level, that can we eventually erase the boundaries with which reason defines reality.

Sorcerers cultivate the totality of their being. That is, sorcerers don't necessarily make a distinction between our rational and our intuitive sides. They use both to reach the realm of awareness they call silent knowledge, which lies beyond language, beyond thought. For one to silence one's rational side, one first has to understand his or her thought process at its most sophisticated and intricate level.

Philosophy, beginning with classical Greek thought, provided the best way to illuminating this thought process. Whether we are scholars or laypersons, we are nonetheless members and inheritors of our Western intellectual tradition. And that means that regardless of our level of education and sophistication, we are captives of that intellectual tradition and the way it interprets what reality is. Only superficially are we willing to accept that what we call reality is a culturally determined construct. And what we need is to accept at the deepest level possible is that culture is the product of a long, cooperative, highly selective, highly developed, and, last but not least, highly coercive process that culminates in an agreement that shields us from other possibilties.

Sorcerers actively strive to unmask the fact that reality is dictated and upheld by reason; that ideas and thoughts stemming from reason become regimes of knowledge that ordain how we see and act in the world; and that incredible pressure is put on all of us to make certain ideologies acceptable to ourselves. Sorcerers are interested in perceiving the world in ways outside of what is culturally determined. What is culturally determined is that our personal experiences, plus a shared social agreement on what our senses are capable of perceiving, dictate what we perceive. Anything out of this sensorially agreed-upon perceptual realm is automatically encapsulated and disregarded by the rational mind. In this manner, the frail blanket of human assumptions is never damaged.

Sorcerers teach that perception takes place in a place outside the sensorial realm. Sorcerers know that something more vast exists than what we have agreed upon our senses can perceive. Perception takes place at a point outside the body, outside the senses, they say. But it isn't enough for one merely to believe this premise. It is not simply a matter of reading or hearing about it from someone else. In order for one to embody it, one has to experience it. Sorcerers actively strive, all their lives, to break that frail blanket of human assumptions. However, sorcerers don't plunge into the darkness blindly. They are prepared. They know that whenever they leap into the unknown, they need to have a well-developed rational side. Only then with they be able to explain and make sense of whatever they might bring forth from their journeys into the unknown.

One isn't to understand sorcery through reading the works of philosophers. Rather, one is to see that both philosophy and sorcery are highly sophisticated forms of abstract knowledge. Both for sorcerer and philosopher, the truth of our Being-in-the-world does not remain unthought. A sorcerer, however, goes a step further. He acts upon his findings, which are already, by definition, outside our culturally accepted possibilities. Philosphers are intellectual sorcerers. However, their probings and their pursuits always remain mental endeavors.

Philosophers cannot act upon the world they understand and explain so well except in the culturally agreed-upon manner. Philosophers add to an already existing body of knowledge. They interpret and reinterpret existing philosophical texts. New thoughts and ideas resulting from this intense studying don't change them, except perhaps in a psychological sense. They might become kinder, more understanding people--or, perhaps, the opposite. However, nothing of what they do philosophically will change their sensorial perception of the world, for philosophers work from within the social order. They uphold the social order even if intellectually they don't agree with it. Philosophers are sorcerers manqué.

Sorcerers also build upon an existing body of knowledge. However, they don't build upon this knowledge by accepting what has already been established and proven by other sorcerers. Sorcerers have to prove to themselves anew that that which already stands as accepted does indeed exist, does indeed yield to perceiving. To accomplish this monumental task, sorcerers need an extraordinary amount of energy, which they obtain by detaching themselves from the social order without retreating from the world. Sorcerers break the agreement that has defined reality, without breaking up in the process themselves. ______________________________________________________________________
Excerpted and paraphrased from "BEING-IN-DREAMING: An initiation into the Sorcerer's World" by Florinda Donner. HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.

Christianity

It's time for an Easter Sunday sermon about the worldwide religion that celebrates it.

Some Indigenous American religions have incorporated some Christian beliefs and symbolism into them. A prime example is the U.S.-based, peyote-centered Native American Church. Some of their chants include lyrics about Jesus, whom they regard as a great saint. In a nutshell, the founders of the Native American Church had to flavor mescalito with some Jesus seasoning to legitimize the religion more for legal tolerance of the use of peyote by the anti-halucionogenic plant Demopublican government.

Many Mesoamerican/Latin American indigenous peoples have also incorporated a certain amount of Roman Catholicism into their indigenous religions as a means of avoiding being persecuted as total heritics by the Christocentric mestizo governments and societies they are dominated by. In Mexico, the Virgin de Guadalupe, who was first spotted by the Indian peasant Juan Diego (pictured with her near the end of this post) is revered more than Jesus by Mexican Roman Catholics. Many Mexican Indian traditionalists actually regard la Virgin as the mother Aztec goddess Tonantzín or another tribal equivalent in disguise. Her name was just changed to María and she was dressed in Middle Eastern garb as to avoid being totally forbidden by the Church heirarchy, particularly since she is otherwise portrayed as having a brown indigenous complexion. Ironically, the basilica in Mexico City where the oldest and most famous portrait of la Virgin is on display was built on top of an ancient Aztec temple dedicated to Tonantzín. Somehow the artist was able to paint the reflection of people in the pupils of her eyes, which can only be seen with a strong magnifying glass or microscope.

To this day, even the late Pope John Paul II is revered by many Mexican Roman Catholics more than Jesus, putting el papa in second place in popularity. The poor carpenter from Bethlehem whose character this whole religion was founded upon still places third in overall Mexican Roman Catholic popularity.

Millions of people, indigenous and non-indigenous, get a lot of genuine peace of mind out of the teachings and rituals of the various Christian sects. Others are brainwashed slaves to them out of a superstitious fear that if they don't believe in their church's dogma or at least go through the motions of remaining faithful members of their particular cult, they will subsequently suffer some sort of spiritual rejection in the afterlife. I use the word "cult" is this context because a cult is a religious or spiritual sect that claims to hold a monopoly on spiritual truths and the spiritual portal to a divine afterlife.

The European conquest of the Indigenous American peoples primarily consisted of government soldiers, and also "Christian soldiers" known as missionaries. They worked hand-in-hand in the coercive cultural genocide and assimilationist campaigns towards America's indigenous peoples. Today there are more Christianized Indians than there are indigenous religion traditionalists.

We minority of heathens who choose not to make an ancient Middle Eastern-rooted religion exported to America by Europeans as our spiritual and moral role model, look upon most Christians as not being true Christians, but Biblicans, being that the vast majority of Christian individuals and sects continue to pick and choose ancient customs and moral codes out of the Old and New Testaments to observe and judge others by. They ignore the teaching of Jesus in the New Testament, which says that he came to fulfill the Law of Moses (Old Testament laws) for those who believe in him as the Messiah and do their best to follow his example. He was never quoted as saying that everyone should continue abiding by all rules and traditions in the Torah, nor does it say anywhere in the New Testament that all of the opinions and attitudes expressed by it's authors were that of Jesus. Of course fundamentalist Biblicans believe that everything written in the Bible is the word of the "one and only true god" known by the names of Yaweh and Jehovah, or just plain "God" for short, and that those human mortals who wrote those words down for God were essentially his spiritual dictationists. Indigenous American traditioanlists look upon such religious fundamentalists as being spiritually constipated.

Most Indigenous American traditionalists regard the character of Jesus as nothing more than a Middle Eastern version of a Hindu guru. Guruhood existed in ancient Hindustan (India) long before it came into fashion in the Middle East. Some Indigenous American traditionalists are agnostic towards the existence of Jesus, while others, including some shamans, claim to commune with his spirit along with other great beings. However, they don't necessarily believe that he was the god Yaweh/Jehovah who was conceived by a human female virgin who became impregnated by a divine ghost in order to procreate his human messianic personage known as Yeshua. The belief in avatars (gods who incarnate as humans), immaculate conceptions, and virgin births did not originate with Christianity. Early Middle Eastern and European converts to Christianity incorporated those concepts from their "pagan" beliefs into their practice of Christianity.

"Having faith in Christ for salvatation" was borrowed from ancient yogic Hinduism's, "Taking refuge in the guru for the removal of karmic debt." Indigenous shamans around the world are even known to do this by temporaily taking on the ills of their patients in order to relieve the patient of his or her maladies whether they be physical, mental, or spiritual, and then transferring those maladies into oblivion. An example of unconditional love.

"Christ" from the Greek "kristos" originated with the Hindi/Sanskrit term "krishna," as in the Hindu deity Lord Krishna--the christened or divine anointed one.

The bottom line is, Indigenous American traditionalists reject the Christianist concepts of original sin and divine salvation, and do not believe that any foreign, non-Indigenous American religion is superior to any peaceful, non-sacrificial Indigenous American religion. To believe otherwise is the same as believing that the white race and European cultures are superior to the Indigenous American race and it's cultures. There were ancient times when Indigenous American civilizations flourished while peoples in other parts of the world were still grunting around in caves.

Further examples of how many Christian beliefs and practices were borrowed from other and much older traditions are available via this link:

The Origins of Christianity

Further recommended reading:

What's so good about "Good Friday?"



Biblical Contradictions

Vine Deloria Jr. with a link to his books

The core of Taoist religion and philosophy has very much in common with many Indigenous American religions and their philosophies, including my own:

Taoist View of Cristianity

Ilegal Indians and the North American immigration dilemma.

Most of my posts on this blog are not that long-winded, but this one is, and it includes a number of links to review. So, read it at your leasure.

To begin with, current U.S. Immigration policy is based on the attitudes of Demopublicans (Democrats and Republicans). Non-Indigenous American Demopublicans, particularly those of European ancestry, by-and-large hold the same attitudes about their place in America as Afrikanners did up until the end of South Africa's apartheid era, which is the illusion that they are just as "native" to America as Indigenous Americans are by viture of being born in America, or as even as indigenous to America as the white race of Germany is to Germany. Nevermind that the the United States and most other American nations of conquest were created out of brute force, genocide, and also to a great degree, slave labor. Therefore, from an Indigenous American traditionalist prospective, the nations of the Americas that were created out of European conquest are rogue nations, although their centuries of survival, industrialization , and among many of them mightiness, have gained them legitimacy globally.

Euro-American-centric Demopublicans hold a pervailing attitude that Americans of genetically mixed European ancestry make up a superior culture to pedigree European cultures, and that their nation, the United States of America, is the greatest nation on earth, even though the majority of them are not world-traveled enough to prove it to themselves. One cannot deny that some good things have evolved out of mainline American Yankee ingenuity such as advancements in medicine, science and technology that have bettered the human condition. And in spite of some of the rubbish it puts out, overall the American motion picture industry gets an "A" for its creativity. However, the majority of Americans take it for granted as a result of institutionalized Demopublican propaganda in the public school system and elsewhere, that the U.S. is the most free and prosperous country on the globe, when in fact there are some countries with greater individual and/or economic liberties. (Although the result of higher taxes and a significantly smaller population than that of the U.S., Canada currently is rated as having the highest standard of living in the world).

The majority of Americans ignore the fact that migration around the Americas on the part of Indigenous Americans has existed for thousands of years. Some indigenous tribes and nations have been more nomadic than others, yet practically all Indigenous Americans, whether frequently nomadic, seasonally migratory, or seldom migratory, have always looked upon migration for better living conditions as a natural right--just as natural as migration is on the part of many species of birds and animals. Most non-Indigenous Americans also buy into the Bering Strait myth, which asserts that all Indigenous American tribes originated in Asia and migrated to the originally void-of-humans Americas during an ice age. Therefore, American Indians are thus First Americans as opposed to Indigenous Americans,being that our ancient ancestors did not originate in the Americas. Yours truely takes this assumption to task in the December 2005 archives of this blog: (The Incredible Shrinking Bering Strait Myth).

Being that they consider the United States and its borders that define it georgraphically as legitimate, the majority of Americans thus classify Indigenous American-blooded people from Latin America who enter U.S. territory via non-official ports of entry to live and work, as being "illegal invaders" or "illegal aliens," including those who enter the country documented with U.S. visas, but who overstay them after their expiration date.

Nevermind that Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and other great Indigenous American "warriors" looked upon whites as foreign invaders of ancient, traditional Indian territories and themselves as foreign invasion resistance fighters. Granted that there were engaged conflicts between some Indian nations over the centuries, and that some of those conflicts were over domain of territory. However, Indigenous Americans never went as far as invading Europe. Prior to the European invasion of America, major territorial invasions only took place on the Eurasian and north African continents, primarily on the part of Aryans (Persians who invaded Hindustan), Greeks, Romans, Turks, and Mongols (Ghangis Khan). Even the Aztec empire was relatively small compared to those that ecompassed Europe, north Africa, and Asia.

The following link goes to a webpage that features a conservative, right-wing, white American woman who reflects the attitudes of many mainstream Americans towards undocumented migrants from Mexico and other parts of Latin America. She also quotes a contemporary Comanche Indian with similar views based on his tribe's traditional, historical attitude towards other Indigenous American nations and foreigners:

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=7272

I give the Comanche credit for telling it like it was. In the old days, the Comanches, including the Crow, Pawnee, Chiricahua Apaches, and the ancient Aztecs were nasty indios towards their indigenous neighbors.

Now here is link to a related commentary that makes more sense:

http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2006/03/statist-weasel-of-week.html

The failure to recognize traditional Mesoamerican migration as a natural right is not just due to ignorance and arrogance on the part of Demopublican society; it is also the result of self-racism towards Indianess on the part of Spaniardized Indians more commonly known for their racial mixture as mestizos, and pan-ethnically as hispanics and Latinos. Rather than go into detail about the roots of this self-racism myself, I have provided the following link to another site (Mexika Eagle Society) that does an excellent job of explaining the history of, Mestizaje and Self-Hate:

http://bit.ly/cWfddP

articleID=7272

The bottom line is, just like the majority of "Native Americans" today, the majority of people of Latin American ancestry are mestizo by blood. People of Mexican and Central American origin by-and-large have more Indigenous American genes than they do European. However, the difference between they and those who identify as "American Indian," "Native American, " or in Spanish-speaking Latin American countries as "indígena," is that they prefer to only identify themselves by their national origin or "Latino" instead of a more indigenous identity for reasons explained in the link above. If the vast majority of people of Mexican and Central American mestizo origin would identify themselves as indigenous and also avoid being neo-Aztec wannabes like a lot of Chicanos do, those who migrate from Latin America to the U.S. would be looked more upon as Mesoamerican migrants instead of foreign immigrants.

As indicated previously, migration from Mexico and Central America to the U.S. today is rooted in ancient Mesoamerican migratory practices for the purpose of better survival. Call it "economics" these days if you want, but it's still about better survival.

Focusing on Mexico, that need for better survival is also the fault of the Mexican government and the Mexican voters who keep electing inefficiency and corruption to public office. Vicente Fox was not able to bring about enough positive radical changes because he was not agressive enough in his approach, and also due to the two major opposition parties voting down the majority of his proposed reforms all for the sake of partisan politics, even though Fox initially formed a largely tri-partisan cabinet after he became elected Presidente de la República.

Mexico could drastically reduce poverty in the nation and greatly improve the economy by offering private industry a low flat income tax rate in exchange for agreeing to pay their employees a minimum of 30 pesos (almost 3 U.S. dollars) per hour, which the majority of the them could afford to do and still make a decent profit, but which the vast majority choose not to do. A low flat tax would also encourage more businesses to report their income to Hacienda (the federal internal revenue collection agency), which many currently do not due to the current, more complex and costly tax system.

Some white Americans in particular are pro tough-on-illegal immigration and call for the militarzation of the southern border to help fight "the war on terror" because they think it's a good smoke screen for their fear of brown-skinned Indian-blooded people taking back America. (See related commentary:

http://indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412741

They are also actually afraid of the possibility of Al-Queda terrorists slipping across the border from Mexico into the U.S., even though Mexico has military checkpoints on all of its thoroughfares leading north about every one-hundred kilometers, and it is the meddlesome, globalist foreign policies of the Demopublican-elected government that agitates aggression from abroad in the first place.

Other Americans take the tough on illegal immigration stance because they believe that the undocumented suppress wages in too many American industries with their cheap labor, and take more from the economy in public services than they contribute to it. I have researched these issues and have listened to the debates myself for many years, and have come to the following conclusions:

- Approximately 80% per cent of all undocumented migrants/immigrants in the U.S. are from Mexico. This link provides accurate statistics as to how much thley contribute to the U.S. economy and how much they take from it in the way of public services:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/taxes.asp

- Undocs suppress wages in certain U.S. industries due to the low wages they are willing to work for, but the majority of them work in industries and perform low-skilled labor that most U.S.-born citizens do not want to engage in for comparable worth.

- Mexican residents of the northern Mexican border regions who are able to cross into the U.S. legally spend approximately 3 billion dollars a year in most U.S. counties that border Mexico.

- Indigenous-centric people from Mexico who migrate to the U.S. undocumented consider their migration to be no more than that of an act of civil disobediance against U.S. immigration law because they believe that they are just carrying on the natural, historical right of their ancestors in the way of Mesoamerican migration. See the following related links:

http://indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1090337206

http://indiancountry.com/content.cfm?feature=yes&id=1096412864

- Mestizo-society-centric Mexicans who migrate to the U.S. undocumented also consider their migration to be no more than an act of civil disobediance against U.S. immigration law because upper Mesoamerica, which consists of the southrwestern United States, once belonged to Mexico that was lost to what most Mexicans consider an unjust war with their country initiated by the United States, and which ended in surrender in 1848.

Mexicans view the main enforcer of undocumented land migration from Mexico, the U.S. Border Patrol, to be nothing more than a contemporary version of the U.S. Cavalry whose purpose was to enforce Indian containment pograms, making Mexico, due to current U.S. immigration policy, a giant south-of-the-artificial border Indian reservation. The Mexican government favors a more liberal immigration policy on the part of the U.S. towards Mexican citizens, while at the same time it systematically deports Mayans from Central America, even though the Mayan nation includes southeastern Mexico. A case of hypocrisy and wanting your cake and eating it too.

- Undocumented migration to the U.S. from Mexico will always continue without interruption as long as Mexico continues to not develop a first world economy; as long as the U.S. maintains it's current immigration policy towards Mexican nationals, and as long as it does not increase its enforcement policies, such as heavily militarizing all 2000 miles of southern border, and cracking down on all industries that tend to hire the undocumented that would include much stiffer penalties for employers who do so.

Ideally, it would have made sense for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to include an immigration clause, which would have allowed U.S., Mexican, and Canadian citizens to live and work in each other's countries with minimal requirements as is the policy with the European Union and the five-nation South American free trade alliance. This would have forced Mexico to increase wages to a decent standard of living in order to prevent a large exodous and brain drain of both skilled profesionals and low-skilled workers. But until Mexico gets its economic house in order and the Demopublicans decide to quit playing Cowboys and Indians with Mexico immigration-wise, there will continue be an illegal Indian dilemma indefinately; that is unless the majority of American voters some day by miracle get fed up with Demopublican politics-as-usual, and replace Republicans and Democrats with Libertarians and Greens, (the third and fourth largest parties in the U.S.), both of whom favor a liberal immigration policy with Mexico.

Libertarian: http://www.lp.org/issues/immigration.shtml
Green: http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/socjustice.html#1002510

In the meantime, grant the undocs that are already in the country amnesty, and create a guest worker program for those who are still in Mexico and want to perform guest worker program-designated jobs, which would consist of those that most U.S.-born citizens do not want to engage in for comparable worth. That would at least decrease the ongoing dilemma of contemporary U.S. immigration law, which treads upon the ancient natural law of indigenous Mesoamerican migration.

This all boils down to a case of racially foreign and colonized inhabitants of the Americas suppressing the ancient migratory practices of the racially indigenous inhabitants of the Americas. Here's a final satirical look at the situation:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2006/04/05/fiorephobia.DTL

Abortion

Most Indigenous American cultures, including my own, believe that each human being possesses an inorganic soul, and that the soul does not incarnate into the body until birth during the first breath of life outside of the womb. Therefore, abortion has never been taboo in most Indigenous American societies.

Back in the old days, and among "primitive" societies today, Indigenous American women exercised abortion as a means of birth control during the first trimester with the use of a special blade made of stone or bone that was inserted into the uterus. Medicinal plants referred to in Mesoamerica as "purgas" were used to help induce an abortion as well.

Some non-Indigneous American religionists believe that the soul incarnates into an embryo upon conception, or at some point when it develops into a fetus prior to birth. Most people who are opposed to abortion and who do not want it legal base their argument against abortion on that belief.

There are other people who are ethically opposed to abortion on the grounds that it potentially robs humanity of a human being who might end up contributing to the betterment of humankind significantly in some way, such as another Eienstein or someone who develops a cure for a disease. However, that category of anti-abortion proponent tends not to be opposed to the legalization of abortion, though, realizing that on the other hand, an abortion might be sparing the world from a potential evil tyrant like Hilter or Pol Pot, etc.. They also tend to respect from a legal standpoint a woman's right to choose whether she wants to go full term with a pregnancy or not.

From a scientific standpoint, a fetus cannot survive outside of the womb prior to the third trimester without artificial life support, and fetal brain activity is not fully active until about the seventh month of development. Some "pro-choicers" thus advocate that abortion ought to be legal up through at least the end of the second trimester.

Some people do not believe in a soul, and as just pointed out, there are varying beliefs by others about at what point it incarnates into the body, which cannot be proven scientifically. Therefore, abortion should be a matter of individual conscious on the part of the embryonic/fetal host, and not on the part of government legislators or the host's parents, even if she is an adolescent minor.

As for birth control and family planning, Indigenous Ameicans by-and-large never over-populated because they would abstain from sexual relations with the opposite sex during certain seasons. Europeans and some other cultures even used to use dried sheep intestines as condoms. Most Indigenous Americans today continue to suppport methods of family planning, and the utilization of various artifical means to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Alcohol, Drugs, and Addictions

Most people who do hard core illicit drugs like heroin and cocaine become addicted to them and end up needing professional help if they want to overcome the addiction. Other illicit drugs like crystal meth, methamphetamines, and crack cocaine are highly addictive also, but easier to overcome addiction-wise. Out of all the most popular illicit drugs in use today, crystal meth is the worst because it does the most damage to the body and especially the brain with all those harsh, nasty, synthetic chemicals it has in it. It's use is the most widely spread because it is the most affordable.

Most people who consume alcohol and who smoke marijuana do so in moderation and go through life without becoming physically and psychologically dependent on those substances. However, alcohol abuse has been a particular problem among Indigenous Americans, particularly those from tribes north and east of upper Mesoamerica who were never exposed to alcoholic beverages prior to the European invasion in that part of North America. That is why most Indian reservations, particularly those without casino bars, to this day ban the sale of alcohol. On the other hand, indigenous peoples of the southwestern United States, Mexico, and further south had been accustomed to fermented, intoxicating beverages derived from the cactus family of plants for centuries prior.

Alcohol and drugs are not the only addictions people can become afflicted with. There are psychological addictions to such things as over-eating, gambling, excessive spending, excessive sex, fetishes, other recreational activities, and even love addictions towards certain types of people who fulfill an emotional dependency. A thing, person, or activity becomes an unhealthy addiction when it becomes an uncontrollable, consistent obsession that interferes with one's physical health, daily responsibilities, and overall well-being.

Some people remain in denial of their addictions. Others eventually seek help for them due to either pressure from friends and loved ones, hitting rock bottom, or best of all, by recognizing such a problem in its early stage before it's too late.

Traditional Indigenous American treatments for additions and substance abuse vary just as modern, conventional "Western" treatments do. Indigenous American medicine people have always recognized that some people have a biological disposition for certain addictions apart from them just being a psychological weakness. Certain medicinal herbs are thus prescribed to help control craviings. A medicine shaman can also serve as a counselor and talk therapist, and apply ritualistic, metaphysical, and holistic/integrative techniques in an attempt to cure addictions and other afflictions.

Marijuana and psychotropic plants should only be consumed for medicinal and spiritual purposes, and only in moderation with the guidance of a conventional or preferably naturopathic physician. The latter can include an indigenous medicine person. "Medicinal purposes" can include the relief of temporary stress and anxiety.

For persons who do not have any medical conditions that prohbit the consumption of alcohol and who are not recovering alcoholics, minimal consumption of an alcoholic beverage on a daily basis can be healthy for relieving stress whenever it is present, and also for the control of cholestrol.

There is really no need in this day and age to discuss in detail here the harmful effects of regular, daily tobacco use. Indigenous Americans have used raw tobacco for ages for ritualistic purposes, but not as a regular nicotine habit before cigarettes in particular came into widespread use.

Marijuana and psychotropic plants should not be illegal under any circumstances because their natural reason d'etre is medicinal, and/or for the awakening and enhancement of otherwise dormant areas of the brain that are used to direclty perceive the spiritual in altered states of consciousness.

Even illicit drugs ought to be legal because all their prohibition does is create and maintain high-priced black markets that commit acts of violence; breed corruption among public officials, and clogs up the law enforcement, judicial, and penal systems with offenders.

The "War on Drugs" is not winable in most countries because there is too much of a public demand for the product, and most political parties that legislate most governments and their laws are unwilling to sentence illicit drug producers and suppliers to death or life imprisonment for their trade, or sentence illicit drug consumers to years in prison for simple use and possesion.

Mandatory prescriptions of medications for adults of sound mind should also be abolished.

Most governments do not favor all-out drug decriminalization or the abolition of mandatory prescriptions because they are controlled by political parties with politicians and bureaucrats that:

a) Are morally and philosophically opposed to substances that can intoxicate, especially those that can potentially harm or be addictive.

b) Believe that government has a moral obligation to be paternalistic towards its citizenry in the way of detering people from potentially abusing themselves with substances, even if most of them are responsible adults of sound mind.

c) Cater to special interests that benefit and profit from mandatory prescriptions and drug prohibiton--everyone from black market drug cartels, medication-prescribers, and those in law enforcement who make their living off of enforcing illicit drug and prescription medication laws.

Just another example of how most of the world's major political parties are intrusive, hypocritical, and corrupt.

Capital Punishment

Indigenous American societies used to exercise the death penalty and still do in the remote Amazon. Apart from Aztec and Mayan human sacrifice to deities, putting people to death as punishment was primarily limited to rival warriors taken captive in battle, and for the unwarranted murder of a tribal member by another. Sometimes shamans believed to have cast evil spells were killed by those affected by them.

In this day and age in civilized societies, people convicted of first and second degree homicide ought to have the option or being put to death or spending the rest of their life in prison without the possibility of parole. The reason for this is twofold:

1) Too many people have been convicted of murder based solely on circumstantial evidence just beyond a reasonable doubt as opposed to an absolute doubt. Subsequent DNA evidence or reliable sources coming forth that prove otherwise have resulted in innocent people being released from death row and prison.

2) From a spiritual Indigenous American traditionalist perspective, spending the rest of your life imprisoned is a greater punishment than death, being that most traditional Indigenous American cultures do not believe in Hell or a realm of eternal damnation and punishment for the wicked and unrepentant "sinners" like some biblical Old Testament, Paulist, and Calvinist-oriented Christian sects do, nor do we believe in just one "heaven."

Although most Indigenous Americans believe that each individual possesses an eternal soul with a conscious and awareness that continues after physical death, which realm of existence that soul goes to and for how long depends on the overall life conduct of the individual. Evil souls can spend a long time remaining on the earth plain as a ghost to learn lessons, and then go on to a purgatory-type of realm for further lessons, but not for an eternity.

Indigenous American traditionalists do not fear death or consider it a punishment. For us, it is just a change of bodies and worlds. Therefore, punishment in the form of decades of incarceration is the less desirable of the two.

Most contemporary Indigenous American traditionalists hold the view that wherever capital punishment continues to exist, it should only be for murder beyond an absolute doubt; carried out swiftly and painlessly, and not made into a circus-like audience spectacle or ritual.

Cloning and Stem Cell Research

"All birds, even those of the same species, are not alike, and it is the same with animals and with human beings. The reason Wakantanka does not make two birds, or animals, or human beings exactly alike is because each is placed here by Wakantanka to be an independent individuality and to rely upon itself." -- Shooter, late 19th century Teton Lakota Sioux.

When Shooter gave that teaching, he was talking about identical personalities--not people who appear to be identical physically, being that identical twins are born into the Indigenous American race as they are all others, and most other creatures belonging to a species or breed of animal, bird, fish, etc. appear identical to the human eye. However, even they have their own individual personalities, including those that have been cloned artifically in recent years. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that a cloned human being would have any more of an identical personality to his or her genetic host than natural clones known as identical twins do.

The ethical issue in relation to human cloning at this stage of the science of artifical cloning is that it should not be performed until geneticists can guarantee that a cloned human being will be born birth defect-free. Many animals that have been cloned so far are born with various types of birth defects and have endured a short-lived life span for their species. The first successful animal cloning to be widely publicized, Dolly the Sheep of Scotland, only lived four years.

The purpose of stem cell research is to attempt to improve the human condition medically. Human stem cells are generally removed from human fetuses. Those who oppose this type of research do so on the grounds that a human fetus must be destroyed in order to retrieve the stem cells. They are the same people who oppose abortion, which is discussed separately in this blog. However, stem cells are generally taken from a fetus that has been removed from the womb for other reasons anyway, so why let them go completely to waste if the female host of the fetus gives her consent?

Shamans manipulate the elements and environment all of the time. In most cases, there is nothing wrong with scientists doing so in the laboratory as well as long as it is done responsibly.

Euthanasia

In the United States in the year 1998, Thomas Youk, who was of sound mind but suffering from terminal Lou Gherig's Disease, asked Dr. Jack Kavorkian, a pathologist famous for medical assisted suicide, and nicknamed "Dr. Death," to end his suffering by medical euthanasia. Mr. Youk's immediate family was supportive of his decision. Nevertheless, Dr. Kavorkian ended up being tried and convicted of second-degree murder in Michigan in 1999. Mr. Youk's euthanasia in 1998 was depicted in an episode of a broadcast of the ever popular CBS news magazine program "60 Minutes" the Sunday after the euthanasia had taken place. The photo depicted here of Mr. Youk seated in his home with Dr. Kavorkian standing by his side during his final moments is a scene from that broadcast.

Forms of euthanasia have been the norm in many traditional Indigenous American societies. Elderly, invalid Inuits ("Eskimos") as an example and back in the old days, used to voluntarily die of exposure to the freezing cold in a matter of minutes by being transported to a sacred place and removing their garments. Similar types of elder euthanasia took place among other indigenous societies throughout the Americas in a sacred cave or outdoor location. Traditional Indigneous American elders held the view that it was unfair of them to be a burden to their families and communities when the time came where they could no longer contribute to the community and tend to their basic needs by themselves. Younger people who ended up becoming severly disabled due to injury or disease also held the same view about themselves, especially when they suffered from incurable, ongoing pain.

In many traditional Indigenous American societies, newborns born with severe, dehabilitating birth defects were often euthanized by being placed in a natural body of water, usually a stream or river, to drown. It was not considered humane to allow such a person to spend a life in such a state of being.*

Persons born with severe mental disabilities, or those who developed mental disabilities due to illness or injury, were generally not euthanized if they were at least marginally functional physically, and appeared to adequately perceive and recognize certain people and their overall environment.

In this day and age of modern medicine and humane care facilities for the elderly and severely disabled, such mercy killings are no longer necessary in non-primitive societies. Nevertheless, contemporary Indigenous American traditionalists hold the view that assisted suicide ought to be a matter of legal individual choice on the part of those of sound mind to make that choice for themselves, including immediate family members having to deal with a loved in a permanent mental vegetative state.

Indigenous American traditionalists view death as nothing more than a change of worlds not to be feared, and consider most categories of mercy killing to be moral and humane as long as the act is swift and painless.

Infanticide in North Korea