In This Together

ALL. LIFE. IS. SACRED 
Episode 1

Labor Day weekend marks the one year anniversary of when Energy Transfer Partners desecrated a Lakota Sacred Burial Ground on Lakota Treaty land one mile North of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, and used attack dogs on the People defending the land. This is the first part of a long interview with Holly Bird, San Felipe Pueblo Tribal member and Attorney with the Water Protector Legal Collective (among many other things!) (It is split into many parts because she is such a wealth of knowledge/wisdom it was hard to stop talking!) In this first part, she recounts the day of the Dog Attacks, give some context and legal background to that, and describes the role that the Water Protector Legal Collective had and continues to have in the struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The parts to come of this interview shed light on the current status of the Pipeline (as of August 11th), Pipeline issues in the Great Lakes Region, the Flint Water Crisis, personal impacts/experiences of Colonization, White Supremacy and Cultural Appropriation...to name a few

Laura Ball's Album

Holly Bird: Legal Context: Day DAPL Desecrated Sacred Burial Site with Attack Dogs/Roles of the WPLC

"People don't often understand what it means to come to an Indigenous- led action. A lot of people think that Activism is just Angry people. Our People have been praying people since the beginning of time. Everything we do begins with a Prayer, with speaking to our ancestors. Allowing people to be part of that and to come together as one human family, and as that Na’tsa’maht- that one Prayer, one Voice, one Action. It always begins that way and we always close that way...

Our old people instructed us in a very beautiful way. They instructed us to love this place and care for it and protect it as we would our own child. That’s a high challenge for people whose ancestors are not under their feet. Our ancestors are under our every step here, in all the things we touch, and for somebody to not have that but yet to love this place that much, is quite a challenge. That’s the way need to love it, the way we were told to care for it and protect it. Because we are those things, we are our environment, we are the trees, the water, the plants and the flowers and all those things out there. That’s who we are, we are a part of them. That’s how close our Indigenous people are in understanding of who we are.
    So, I ask people to accept that challenge. To accept that instruction, it’s a sacred instruction, and that’s how our people have understood this place. They also instructed us to stand together like the trees and lift eachother up. The sign language of our people is to lift your arms up in deep gratitude, lift our hands up above our head in showing deep respect, ‘Thank you honorable one,’ and they say that we learned it from the Tree People, and we also learned to lift eachother up that way, when you raise your hands like that it signifies that you’re lifting everyone up around you. Our people should stand together like those trees. The trees never push one tree out by itself, they always stand together. So stand together like the trees, my brothers and sisters, and lift each other up. And I say that the ‘each other’ is not just the human family but the ‘each other’ is all the life around us, we must lift them up with the strength that the Creator gave us. When we put our hearts and minds together, that’s a lot of strength. And we’re coming together as a human family today, coming together and standing, recognizing each other, our relatives, and creating that bridge to the future because no one else is going to do it. Certainly the government and corporations are not going to build that bridge to the future, because they are working hard to rob that future of our grandchildren and other Life, so it’s our job to do it. Our belief is that we are put here for a reason, there are no mistakes and there are no coincidences. Creator put us here right here, right now, for a reason. And that reason is to stand up for life, to become a human being, to protect life, for the women to become the matriarchs and the men to become the protectors who stand behind the teachings, knowings, and strength of the women to protect all life. To learn from those ancient ways. We don’t need to invent anything new. The age of understanding has been here thousands of years, and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We can learn from the spirits of the land, the ancestors, the teachings of our ancient people right here, of how to care for every living thing, to care for our own Souls as we go through life..."

Protectors of the Salish Sea Paul Che'oke'ten Wagner Episode 4: Indigenous-led Action

Esta é uma gravação da primeira parte da discussão da mesa-redonda no evento do dia dos povos indígenas em abril de 2018 no parque lage, rio de janeiro, brasil

Lau Ra