Cheryl Angel, Sicangu Lakota Water and Land Protector, community activist and great-grandmother, was the first person in the lineup for Earth Sky Woman Tami Brunk’s EcoSapien Speaker Series. Because we never had a chance to delve deep into those wonderful interviews, we are going to be sharing some very special ones with you this year, beginning with Cheryl — in part because the sacred Black Hills, of which she spoke in this interview, are the subject of an upcoming investigative piece by Lakota Country Correspondent Talli Nauman, and so with this interview, we are laying the groundwork. We share some edited excerpts of this July 2022 interview here.
Cheryl Angel, Sicangu Lakota water and land protector, community activist and grandmother, giving a talk during the Sovereign Sisters Gathering in 2019. (Tracy Barnett Photo)
Cheryl: “It gives me a good feeling in my heart to know that people are here in attendance because there’s a lot of work to be done, there are a lot of alliances to be made and without those alliances and without people committed to do the work, our landscape and our environment and our world is going to continue to not be sustainable. And so every effort that people make to protect their watersheds, to return lands to the original caretakers, or to allow them or give them or restore the rights of nature, would solve so much.
If the rights of nature were restored, and whoever the landowners were, if they committed to those rights and they understood those rights and they built a relationship with the land that they’re standing on, the land would be telling them what to do. The land would be supporting them, in a really holistic manner. It would perform better because it would be a relationship, and it sort of follows the same philosophy when people say “talk to your plants because they hear you and they respond to you”. So does the land, and so do the plants on that land, and so does the water that runs through that land and nurtures it. That’s what being connected really means, is being able to understand that message that the land and the water and the plants and the animals are actually saying, because they have been endangered longer than we have; as a matter of fact, we put our own existence ahead of their safety and their needs and their habitats.
And so many species on the planet are dying now because of that philosophy that humanity comes first. Our needs come first. That’s not how the planet runs, that’s not how the Earth lives. The Earth was a Paradise for animals and plants until we came. This planet was already inhabited and had nations.”
Cheryl Angel was the first interviewee in ‘Earth Sky Woman’ Tami Brunk’s EcoSapien Speaker Series.
“We recognize the Lakota people and other tribal people. If you look at the oldest relics, what people call antiquities, you’ll see (images of) pumas, black panthers, leopards, buffalos, birds, snakes, butterflies. You’ll see whales, dolphins, you’ll see effigies of spiders, Because those are the oldest memories in this world. They hold older memories than we do. And I think it’s really important that we look at the world and we treat the world from that perspective.
And we can make that change when we change our perspective of how we look at the world, how we live with the world, how we communicate with the world. And it’s not too late.”
“Right now in Colorado, the Colorado River is endangered. Right now here in the Black Hills, Rapid Creek is one of the ten most endangered creeks or rivers in the United States.
I want to encourage everybody, wherever you live, you have a watershed that’s alive and needs your help. Wherever you live, there are landscapes that are endangered, where their rights are not exercised.
Maybe your watershed and your river is endangered. Maybe your creek has run dry. But there are things that you can do. So those are the things that I want to encourage you: to being committed to living in harmony. That’s the first start. Having a relationship with the land that you walk on is a start. Talking to people who took care of that land before it was colonized is a start. Understanding that comfort is keeping you from looking at the reality that’s happening all around you.”
Cheryl Angel leads a group on a pilgrimage to Black Elk Peak, one of the four sacred Lakota sites visited during the Sovereign Sisters Gathering. (Photo by Tracy Barnett)
Black Hills under attack
As Talli’s story details, the situation in the Black Hills has evolved since this 2022 interview. Because of the hard work of people in the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance like Cheryl – and in dozens of other grassroots organizations –, a flood of public comments compelled the USDA Forest Service to propose a moratorium on mining in the area, an unheard-of response from an agency long-since captured by the mining industry. Stay tuned for that story, to be published later this week, and for an opportunity to comment on the Forest Service’ final recommendation to the Bureau of Land Management.
Cheryl – “Right here in the Black Hills, gold mining permits – they call them exploratory permits – have been approved. And that’s the reason why I’m so worried. I hurt, literally. And, I’m so afraid that the watershed of the Rapid Creek is going to be damaged and contaminated, it’s going to be harmed.
And so when people ask me about the Black Hills, I say it’s under attack. The water is under attack. The Black Hills have been under attack because people are doing things that you wouldn’t do to a human being. If you had one beautiful being that sustained all of us, you would recognize that being as untouchable. And that’s how we view the Black Hills. As a sacred area and untouchable area, something that’s revered because we understand the power and the value of life. The light that it created here on this continent.
And to have things like exploratory boring – they bore 1,000 feet down. That’s what they call exploratory. They have core samples, and they bore into the ground 1,000 feet, and they don’t do it once. They do it a couple hundred times, in different areas all the way around Rapid Creek. So if you look on Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, you’ll see we provided maps to show you how many mining companies are located in the Heart of Everything That Is.
And you’ll see the words that we use to explain what’s happening. Because it’s not easy to convince people to stand up and say “what you’re doing is wrong.”
Allen King (left), Cheryl Angel (center) and Dave John (right) during the Covid testing and treatment campaign they carried out at Camp Mni Luzahan to ensure the protection of native people against the pandemic. (Photo courtesy Dave John).
“Go to the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. I’m one of the recent board members. Yesterday we had a water action. We took a pontoon boat onto Lake Pactola, because that’s the lake that provides all the water to Rapid City. And the exploration permits surround Lake Pactola and they’re actually less than a mile from it. And you know, water runs downhill, and they need water to do gold mining. And the process that they use kills the water.
Contamination is going into Lake Pactola every time it rains, because it’s surrounded, it’s like the bottom of a horseshoe. Everything runs downhill. It’s going to go right into Lake Pactola. So it doesn’t make any sense for the Forest Service to be handing out permits that are going to contaminate the only water source that flows into the Rapid City area.
And it’s also a tourist town. Everything is about tourism. It’s about the beauty. It’s about fishing, it’s about swimming. It’s about boating. And without water here, with contaminated water, people won’t be able to eat the fish anymore. Won’t be able to get into the water anymore. And worst of all, the animals and the people won’t be able to drink water. The plants won’t grow.
But if it was a child, and someone said, your child’s super, super special. And they’ve got things that we want and we’re going to explore the heart of your child, and we’re going to take core samples out of the heart of your child, and then we’re going to value all of those minerals, and then we’re going to sell them.”
Cheryl Angel in 2019 at a late-night talking circle, sharing reflections about her Lakota ancestors. (Tracy Barnett Photo)
If you listen to native people all around the world, there are people from Colombia, there are people from South America, there are people from Central America, who still have the stories of what their lands are called, and the names that they held since time immemorial. I believe that they were chosen to share with all the descendants so they know what that land is called, and how they came to be and what their purpose was, and how to communicate with the animals, how to communicate with the land and live on the land and listen to the land.
Those are the things I hope will change people’s hearts, that will bring them an understanding so that they can be a better relative to the Earth, to the animals and to the plants. Because they were the chosen ones. They were put here to exist on this planet. And we humans, we’re actually just passing through. We’re not going to be here very long. And yet the philosophy of consumerism and capitalism has made us think that we can take whatever we want while we’re here without giving back. And not only can we take it, we can place a value on it and then we can sell it.
This planet wasn’t made to be sold. This planet was made to sustain us for the times of our life that we’re passing through. And it’s beautiful and it can do that. If we just remember we’re passing through and everything that we touch, our grandchildren are going to touch. Everything we eat and grow should be there when our grandchildren come and when their grandchildren come. But we change the landscape so much. The rivers are drying up. And we’ve taken so much that our resources are being depleted.
This Earth, it’s not a machine. It’s a living entity. Nature has rights. We need to listen and follow and enforce those rights, in our communities, in our townships, in our state, and even in our Constitution. Because that’s where all the power lies today, in the governance that we follow here in America and in other countries.
Constitutions can protect the rights of nature. So there’s a lot of work to be done. First, we’ve got to stop this extraction that’s going on because resources are finite. But this planet was meant to live forever. We could enjoy eating an apple, sitting under a banana tree, watching a butterfly, swimming with the dolphins. Those are the things that we’re going to lose, that our grandchildren may not see, if we don’t start taking care of the planet like a relative, and understanding and learning what that is and how we can change.
EcoSapien interview with Lakota Water Protector Cheryl Angel / Tami Brunk
Ivan Sawyer, founder and director of Voices of Amerikua, a multimedia platform that shares the stories of indigenous people from North, Central and South America through films and social media campaigns, and cherished longtime collaborator of The Esperanza Project,has launched a series in which he interviews indigenous elders and leaders to talk about their environmental movements.
Tracy: Ivan, I’ve been looking at the lineup for your new series, and it looks amazing. Can you tell me a bit about this project? How did it come to be, and how did you get involved?
Ivan: I founded Voices of Amerikua about five years ago, and in the process I’ve been following and researching different indigenous movements in the Americas, and most of those movements have to do with environmental issues. And of course, the role that indigenous people play in protecting nature and resources and standing up protecting their land and rights and water.
The project was born in 2014, a couple years before the Standing Rock movement began. The Standing Rock movement was very important as it visibilized the important role that indigenous people play in water protection and in the defense of nature and resources threatened by extractivism.
As part of my ongoing work with Voices of Amerikua, I was invited by a group called Weaving Wisdom that organizes online workshops regarding ancestral wisdom, and they asked me to put together a program of any topic that I would like in which we would invite indigenous leaders, elders, guests to come and speak every week for different sessions. And so that’s how I came up with the idea of creating a series focused on environmental messages from the elders as a way to feature these speakers and their messages regarding environmental issues, which are so important to me as an activist.
I have been involved with many environmental issues, efforts and movements since long before Voices of Amerikua, as you know. In my home in Mexico, I was first involved with indigenous and environmental issues back in 2010, at the beginning of the movement to protect Wirikuta, where we started organizing activities around the country to support the Wixárika or Huichol people in stopping a mining project from being developed in the sacred land of Wirikuta, the desert where according to their cosmology, the sun was born. This movement influenced me in a big way to create Voices of Amerikua as a place to be able to share these stories and bring together different voices of communities, leaders, activists and artists for different environmental causes in the Americas.
So it’s out of that inspiration that I decided to put together this program that we called “Sacred Earth,” and for which we invited different guests. Most of them I know personally and I’ve met them throughout the years as an activist and researcher of indigenous activism and culture. And that’s how this vision came together.
Why did you choose these particular guests to participate?
Mainly because, to my knowledge, these were the people who not only speak to the indigenous ways and their own culture, but they also have focused a lot of what they do towards environmental causes and different aspects of the environmental crisis that we are living in the world today. We are faced with the weight of issues such as climate change, water pollution and human rights violations. The different speakers in the Sacred Earth series are deeply active and involved in addressing many of these issues and thus have an important message to share regarding the way that their culture, and indigenous culture in general, play a key role in generating solutions to environmental collapse. I believe that indigenous people and their message is not a thing of the past but actually provide a key to humanity’s future.
The series starts with Ilarion “Kuuyux” Merculieff, who is native Unangan (Aleut), from Alaska. Ilarion has been researching indigenous cultures for many years and has written several books. He speaks to the need to change the way we think and the way we perceive ourselves, and how the outer ecology is a reflection of the inner ecology. He is founder of Weaving Wisdom, an organization that brings together indigenous elders to discuss these issues, and they created a short film of the same name. I first met him in Hawaii in 2017 when I participated in the making of that film.
Then we have Grandmother Mona Ann Polacca. She is Hopi/Tewa/Havasupai, and she’s from Arizona. She has been an activist for over 30 years, and has participated in the United Nations indigenous forums speaking about water, the World Water Forums, speaking about the role of indigenous people in the ethics of water from an the indigenous point of view. She’s also the director of the Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, which is a very interesting movement that has traveled the world for more than 15 years years bringing together different indigenous women elders.
Then we have Ati Quigua from Colombia, an Arhuaco activist and political leader; and then Alex Isidro Lucitante, an environmental activist and traditional healer from the Cofan people of Ecuador, who was recently awarded with the Goldman Environmental prize.
Then we also have Drupon Lama Dorje, who is a Tibetan lama, who speaks to the development of inner and outer resilience and changing the world from the inside out. He brings his traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachings into the modern world and focuses also on environmental activism and ethics and inner activism.
We close the series with Pat McCabe, a Diné (Navaho) grandmother and artist, activist, author, ceremonial leader and international speaker from New Mexico. She is a voice for global peace, and her paintings are created as tools for individual, earth and global healing. Her work draws on the indigenous sciences of thriving life to reframe questions of sustainability and balance, and is dedicated to supporting the next generations, Women’s Nation and Men’s Nation, to be functional members of the “Hoop of Life” and champion the honor of being human.
What have you learned in the process of putting together this event?
Well, it’s been a really beautiful process, weaving together, coordinating and structuring the themes so that it makes sense, and communicating with each of these amazing guests that have so much to share. We’ve had to postpone the program a couple of times, and it’s been slow but it is all coming together at just the right time. These talks are now available HERE for people who want to listen to the entire series or to specific talks.
Each of the guests have their own organizations and initiatives, so this will be able to connect the participants with the different initiatives and organizations that the guests are leading. And specifically, I’m very excited about the opportunity to support Alianza Ceibo, which is an indigenous-led Ecuadorian organization focused on supporting communities and the protection of their land, and also the supporting of cultural initiatives within their territories. The funds raised from this series will go in part to support this beautiful and powerful organization, and also to pay for we are also offering scholarships for people who would like to participate but cannot pay.
It sounds like a really worthwhile and fascinating program. If people are still on the fence, can you say in a few words what will they take away that will be of use to them?
I think a lot of people are seeking hope and inspiration, and this webinar series will help inspire people to see ways to be of service to the planet and to their community. The sessions will provide practical tools for people to also work on the inner and outer resilience and transformation. We need to start from the inside, you know, from our own being. And there are a lot of practical exercises and tools that will help people to connect more with their own being and with their sense of belonging to where they are, and see how they can be of better service to their community and to the planet.
What are you most proud of about the way the event is coming together?
Ivan: I’m very happy and pleased with the way this webinar series has been able to come together and how many of the guests are actually really interested in participating in the other talks as well. I’m very excited about the way it has been creating a lot of exchange and reciprocity in terms of interest in each other’s themes and topics.
Global transformation starts with inner transformation, and we all have a role to play in the healing and the restoring of our Mother Earth. It is up to each and every one of us to be the change we want to see in the world. Join us in this journey into the Sacred Earth and learn from the words and experience of iindigenous leaders of the planet.
RAPID CITY, S.D. – Isolating herself from family after her Covid-19 diagnosis on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, Sicangu Lakota great-grandmother Cheryl Angel found little choice but to traipse from one lonely hotel room to another for shelter.
So, she was gratified when her post-recovery efforts succeeded in helping Camp Mni Luzahan conduct an unprecedented community-based Covid-19 health testing Nov. 13 for ‘houseless” relatives sheltered at its tipi circle here in the heart of the Great Sioux Nation’s indigenous treaty land.
Volunteers at Camp Mni Luzahan (Lakota for “rapid water”) conducted an unprecedented community-based Covid-19 health testing Nov. 13. COURTESY / Cheryl Angel
“This is what I envisioned when I was sick, alone, near death and couldn’t breathe,” she said. “Our tribe didn’t have anything set up, and if it weren’t for my relatives, I would have died in there,” she told The Esperanza Project.
Angel’s family members made two-hour drives twice daily to leave breakfast and supper outside her impromptu isolation wards, while inside she followed instructions to use a steroid inhaler four times a day and learned to shoot herself with an epinephrine injection when she felt faint.
She managed to keep her lungs from clogging with phlegm by running hot water in the shower to make a steam chamber and repeating a series of exercises “to get the goo off,” she recalled.
“My prayer was that, if I ever survive this, I’m not going to let anybody else be alone in a hotel room.”
She wouldn’t stay at her rustic Rosebud dwelling because two household members had pre-existing health conditions. “Access to running water and private bathroom facilities is absolutely necessary to recover and to contain Covid-19 from spreading,” she recognized.
“The tribe didn’t have a safe or adequate quarantine area able to provide Covid-19 support,” Angel told The Esperanza Project. So, she said, “I left the reservation.”
She alternately stayed in Valentine, Neb. and Kadoka, S.D., as room bookings permitted. Switching places, she said, “At one point, I was so weak I could barely walk.” However, she added, “I know I wouldn’t have survived on the reservation. Like my son, I probably would have been flown out. And who knows if I would have survived that.”
Weeks after Angel recovered, her son and fellow pipeline fighter Dale “Happi” American Horse, 30, received a Covid-19 diagnosis for severe symptoms when his brother rushed him from their home to the Rosebud Indian Health Service emergency room, just in time to be saved by a life-flight bound for a private hospital in South Dakota’s largest city of Sioux Falls.
Angel recounted that the brother, her younger son Elias American Horse, had tested positive eight days earlier, but didn’t know it because the Indian Health Service protocol was to wait a week before releasing Covid-19 test results.
An employee later told Angel the results were back from the lab the day after the test, she said. If she only could have had them, she could have administered the same Native herbal remedies she used to alleviate her symptoms before Happi’s condition became so severe, she lamented.
By the time of his emergency, Angel was in Rapid City working with a host of local grassroots organizations advocating for treaty land rights restoration and for people extremely vulnerable to the coronavirus, as they set up Camp Mni Luzahan to harbor underserved or homeless relatives without the constraints of pre-existing government and private agencies.
Wearing PPE attire facilitated by Hesapa Voter Initiative, Cheryl Angel administers a nasal swab Covid-19 test to a Camp Mni Luzahan participant, in community-wide grassroots effort. COURTESY / Camp Mni Luzahan
“Unhoused relatives have underlying issues,” said Minneconjou Lakota camp organizer Jean Roach of Rapid City, explaining the need for a grassroots mutual aid effort, despite existing services. Some Native community members in the independent movement dislike the label “homeless” because it “sounds institutional,” she explained.
She and Angel were among the first to set foot at the camp, which relocated in tribal government jurisdiction on the outskirts of Rapid City two days after police raided its original site in town. Angel lit a sacred campfire and put down a tobacco offering to keep the flames alive, as the snowy season began Oct. 18 here in the Black Hill.
Jean Roach, among the first to set foot at the camp, prefers the term “houseless” to “homeless” because it “sounds institutional.” COURTESY / Lloyd Big Crow Sr.
The camp crew convinced the nearby Oyate Health Center, a tribally-owned primary care clinic, to send a Covid-19 testing team on Oct 23, resulting in the discovery of nine positive cases at the group living site.
The crew moved the diagnosed to private quarantine lodging paid initially by the non-profit Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board, which oversees the Oyate Health Center, and subsequently by the South Dakota state government.
Coordinating the grassroots pandemic response there as a volunteer, Angel supervised the quarantined camp members in chores of maintenance and sanitation.
A mutual aid initiative fed them through Meals for Relatives Covid-19 Rapid City Community Response, which gathers donations, marshals chefs, and delivers home-cooked food.
Beef stew and dinner rolls prepared by Bobbi Jean Jarvinen for Camp Mni Luzahan. Courtesy photo
Meanwhile the Covid caseload in the state was burgeoning, and the camp lobbied the Oyate Health Center for retesting at Camp Mni Luzahan after the 10-day minimum quarantine period.
Although that protocol is not required for medical release in South Dakota, Angel said, “I wanted to retest everybody because it’s a vulnerable population going back to camp.”
The tribal health administration ramped up to create an emergency operations center, calling the lodge twice daily to check on needs of the quarantined, then delivering masks, medical packs, snacks, and cleaning supplies, as well as providing clinic transportation and contracting providers of catering, bedding change and security services.
However, the Oyate Health Center stopped short of agreeing to send another team to the camp to retest. So, Camp Mni Luzahan participants sought to take control of testing on their own.
On Oct. 30, Angel had met Dave John, a Tewa and Diné organizer from Peaceful Advocates for Native Dialogue & Organizing Support, PANDOS, when he was delivering an army tent that the Salt Lake City-based group raised money to purchase for the kitchen at the camp. By that time, the camp had more than tripled in size from its first four tipis.
Camp Mni Luzahan has more than tripled in size from its first four tipis. COURTESY / Mni Luzahan Creek Patrol
John works for ATL Technology in Springville, Utah, which makes cables, connectors, medical devices, and pandemic test kits. PANDOS, which does fundraising in order to purchase the Covid-19 test kits, purchased thousands of test kits to donate, too.
The non-governmental organization supports work to raise awareness on Native issues spotlighted internationally during the 2016-2017 mobilization at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline construction without indigenous consent across unceded 1851 Ft. Laramie Treaty territory.
PANDOS purchased thousands of the Covid-19 test kits to donate. COURTESY / Dave John
John dropped off the free nasal swab test kits at the camp and told Angel of his Zuni Pueblo and Diné partner Allen King, executive director for American Indian and Alaska Native Development at NextGen Laboratories, which is an accredited and certified Covid-19 test provider.
The two men had hooked up earlier this year with plans to go to the aid of the Southwests’ Navajo and Pueblo Indian populations, among the hardest-hit by Covid-19 due to lack of access to services.
However, as if that wasn’t a daunting task in itself, the partners soon found a lot wider demand. “Things moved a little bit faster than expected,” John told The Esperanza Project.
Soon they were not only testing the Navajo Nation Police in Window Rock, Arizona, but also the remote Navajo Mountain population of the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe in Utah, as well as patients at the clinics operated by Native Health of Phoenix, one of the largest urban public health care programs in the country.
“I’m glad we teamed up,” King told The Esperanza Project. The purpose is not to compete with urban or treaty-based Covid-19 care providers, such as the Indian Health Service and tribal governments, but to fill gaps they cannot, he explained. “We want to help all the tribes. We know that will take time, but our focus is the underserved,” he said.
After Angel contacted King and found his company willing to provide free laboratory testing for the camp in the Black Hills, she said to herself, “We’ve got a supplier and we’ve got a lab. What else do we need?”
Allen King (left), Cheryl Angel (center) and Dave John (right) vow to fill gaps in access to Native protection from pandemic. COURTESY / Dave John
That turned out to be a medical provider who would vouch for the training and reliability of a community-led process. It was almost a deal breaker.
Angel initially obtained Oyate Health Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Mark Harlow’s acquiescence, however, he said he would not have authority by the date scheduled for testing. Another doctor at the area’s largest private employer, Monument Health, reneged the day before the scheduled event.
“I said, gee, I’m going to really pray,” Angel recalls. So, she “went to the fire” at the camp. Having traveled in India and Mexico carrying a staff for global indigenous unity, she recalled how cultures far and wide use fire in ceremony, and she convoked the relatives to pray with her.
“I told them this fire is listening to you. If you have anything you can’t say to your fellow man, you can say it to the fire. It can heal and protect us just like air and water,” she said.
In fact, a number of people who frequent the camp had already healed to the point of taking sobriety pledges, and that evening they agreed to work as volunteers to help make it a haven for others in need, participants recounted.
Just as John and King were arriving in Rapid City, Angel received a phone call from Creekside Medical Clinic owner Dr. Nancy Babbitt, who had been informed of Camp Mni Luzahan’s predicament.
Babbitt stepped up to the plate in the nick of time. “I was really excited,” she told The Esperanza Project. “If we can use non-medical people and train them, this is one of the ways we can reduce the spread of this disease,” she said after signing an agreement with NextGen Laboratories.
“My experience dealing with Covid-19 in South Dakota is one of failed leadership. Our governor has made it clear it’s up to the people, so we have to come up with creative ideas to help stop the spread of the corona virus,” she added.
Joining John, King, Angel and others at the camp, Babbitt verified their training and cinched the testing of 14 volunteers and guests on the scheduled date.
“They did a great job. They had all the right equipment, and everything was done perfectly,” Babbitt confirmed.
Joining Allen King (left), Cheryl Angel (right) and others, Dr. Nancy Babbitt verified their training and cinched the testing. COURTESY / Camp Mni Luzahan
“When I saw what was happening at the camp, it filled my heart – to see people making a difference to the population there needing access,” she said.
“Safe quarantine is a luxury, especially if you are homeless,” she emphasized.
King verified that the test kits had been received and analyzed in California, then the confidential results were made available to the designated camp trainees by the end of the following day. All 14 came back negative.
He shared in the emotional response of “just being out there and seeing the amazing work they’re doing, like when a resident gets sober and joins up to help out at camp with the work.” The effectiveness is based on building trust through mutual aid, he observed.
“The camp organization is something that’s needed; not only for homelessness, but also for sobriety,” he observed. “It’s a lot of things combined.”
The camp is an outgrowth of the Mni Luzahan Creek Patrol, a Native grassroots watchdog for the at-risk community members who congregate along the banks of Rapid Creek, where it runs through Rapid City.
Participants rescue them from precarious circumstances that frequently end in tragedy, the most recently recorded being the police identification of a man’s body found unattended on the creek bank the day before testing at the camp.
Keeping the patrol, the camp, the meals, the sobriety, and the testing in the hands of Native community members is “innovative and grassrootsy,” but at the same time it’s all part of the promise forebearers made to keep the peace when they signed the treaties, Angel notes.
“I really believe in the treaties, putting down weapons and living in peace. That means we provide our own health care and education. We protect our water from gold and uranium mining, gas and oil companies,” she said. “They entered the treaties to protect the land and the people.”
Talking to relatives in camp, she said, “It’s a wonderful story about regaining our sovereignty.”
Roach said the camp organizers would like to offer testing to every new camper each morning and, “One thing about us is we can do it because there isn’t a boss to say ‘no’.”
John and King foresee the day when the camp trainees can use their companies’ free supplies to conduct mobile mass testing, not just at the camp but on hard-to-reach rural Indian reservations across the Northern Great Plains.
“So many people are dying every day with the misinformation and the dumb rules that they make,” Roach bemoaned. “It really feels good that these tests would be available in other communities.”
Talli Nauman is Lakota Country Correspondent for The Esperanza Project. She is a longtime Americas Program collaborator and columnist, a founder and co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, and Health and Environment Editor for Native Sun News Today. She can be reached at talli.nauman(at)gmail.com.
This story was reported and produced with the generous support of the One Foundation.
RAPID CITY — Oglala Lakota creek patrol stalwart Hermus Bettelyoun leaned on his shovel as his breath formed clouds in the cold. “We are not protesters or activists,” he told reporter Chynna Lockett. “We are here for our people. We set up camp over here for their safety. At the same time, we’re going to have an ongoing creek patrol.”
Bettelyoun was one of six #Landback activists who were arrested after setting up a tipi tent camp for area homeless on treaty land along Rapid Creek. Bettelyoun and others see treaty land as part and parcel of the homelessness challenge.
“I’ve been arrested for standing up for my people and I’ll do it again. If it takes me to sit in a white man’s jail, that’s what I’ll do. If you do something with a good heart, everything’s going to work out.”
The legacy of Lakota Territory treaty violation came back to haunt city officials in the freezing wake of South Dakota’s 2020 Native American Day, as #Landback activists defied city ordinance by setting up the tipi encampment to shelter homeless people on Oct 16.
On Oct. 18, Camp Mni Luzahan went up anew, this time on land universally recognized as being under tribal jurisdiction in a rural area just west of the Rapid City limits. COURTESY / Camp Mni Luzahan
Camp Mni Luzahan, fostered by, among others, the Rapid City-based national non-profit NDN Collective, which launched the #Landback movement in July, sent out a release, stating:
“The settler state of South Dakota, the settlement of Rapid City, and the Rapid City Police Department create the conditions that make it so that our relatives are unsheltered and kept from basic living necessities. It is our right and our duty to care for our kin.”
Before the end of the day, participants were forced to dismantle the camp at the orders of city police, who arrived in some 20 patrol cars with red lights flashing, backed by the Pennington County Sheriff and the South Dakota Highway Patrol.
The police and mayor sustain that the Mni Luzahan Camp’s mobilization is a protest not related to homeless needs, but rather to #Landback pressure.
Six participants in the camp mobilization who refused to obey orders to abandon the premises were arrested, handcuffed, forced into a transport vehicle, booked, and released after nightfall.
COURTESY / Camp Mni Luzahan
The tipi circle, named Camp Mni Luzahan by the independent homeless watchdog Mni Luzahan Creek Patrol that established it, takes the name from the Lakota words that translate to Rapid Creek.
The camp, consisting of four tipis and a chow line, as well as gear designed to provide warmth, light, and sanitation, popped up at a site over which the city claims jurisdiction on the banks of Rapid Creek adjacent to the fairgrounds.
A loose coalition of advocates for Constitutional treaty rights restoration and homeless protection asserts that if the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty were honored, homelessness would not exist in the Black Hills area.
Constituents maintain that since the treaty is broken, the city should bow to their demands for a native-run base to alleviate immediate needs of unhoused community members facing pandemic and cold season conditions, especially along the riverbanks.
The day after the tipi takedown, some news outlets received a media advisory that Mayor Steve Allender would hold a briefing to address the events surrounding it. Native Sun News Today, Rapid City’s only weekly and only Native newspaper, did not receive an invitation.
The initial camp popped up at a site over which the city claims jurisdiction on the banks of Rapid Creek adjacent to the fairgrounds. COURTESY / Camp Mni Luzahan
Freelance photojournalist Chynna Lockett, a member of the Independent Media Project who is a contributor to Native Sun News Today and The Esperanza Project, was personally refused entrance by the mayor, flanked by Police Chief Don Hedrick.
Lockett insisted: “I’m a journalist.” Allender retorted: “No you’re not. Step out, Chynna. You’re not coming in. You’re not invited. We’re not turning this into a circus.”
Mark K. Tilsen, an Oglala Lakota poet educator from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, was one of about a dozen people who also sought to attend the press conference, which was held at the mayor’s office. Allender, who is the former police chief, told him to quit holding the door open with his foot as Lockett argued she is a journalist.
He ordered Tilsen three times, “Shut the door,” then commanding, “Move your foot and shut the door; this public building is closed,” he pushed Tilsen back.
Allender’s action was greeted with shouts of, “That’s assault right there.” Supporting Tilsen, participants called on Hedrick to arrest Allender. One spoke up, saying, “If that was me that pushed him, I would be in handcuffs right now. You know it!”
Spouting expletives, they nonetheless dispersed after Hedrick said, “We’re not going to argue about this right now,” and “I don’t want to take anybody to jail today, okay?”
“The settler state of South Dakota, the settlement of Rapid City, and the Rapid City Police Department create the conditions that make it so that our relatives are unsheltered and kept from basic living necessities. It is our right and our duty to care for our kin.” COURTESY / Jean Roach
Lockett and Tilsen are contemplating filing charges, and could be eligible for support from a new Mni Luzahan Legal Fund. Lockett was on the scene of the tipi takedown and documented Lakota grandmother Carrie MiddleTent’s detention, among other things, reporting:
“She was roughed up or aggressively handcuffed in the tipi…dragged to the unmarked police van…put face down on the ground in the freezing rain during her arrest. She is facing three charges — obstruction, resistance, and camping. The five others arrested are facing lesser charges, and no one else was charged with camping.”
Lakota grandmother Carrie MiddleTent “was roughed up or aggressively handcuffed in the tipi…dragged to the unmarked police van…put face down on the ground in the freezing rain during her arrest.” Photo: Chynna Lockett
Grassroots coalition members also demand the city provide measures to stem long-term shortages of employment and affordable housing for all underserved community members.
They argue that half the city’s security budget goes to homeless issues but fails to be effective because it is not tailored to meet the needs.
The Rapid City Police Department earned a $750,000 grant from the Collective Healing Initiative of the International Association of Chiefs of Police to fund a Quality of Life Unit providing for “boots-on-the-ground social work services to homeless and vulnerable members of our community” in the Rapid Creek vicinity.
The unit, established in 2018, collaborates with Rapid City Collective Impact, Behavioral Management Systems, Center for American Indian Research & Native Studies, Working Against Violence Inc., and The Hope Center.
In accepting the award, Hedrick said the unit “believes that a measure of any community can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
However, at the exclusive media conference, Allender said he would not parley with the grassroots organizations that are caring for the homeless.
On Oct. 18, the day after the invitation-only conference, Camp Mni Luzahan went up anew, this time on land universally recognized as being under tribal jurisdiction in a rural area west of Rapid City.
Lloyd BigCrow Sr., leader of the OyateKin Chante Wastepi-Feeding our Relatives initiative, proclaimed, “The ancestors are with us,”
“I’m proud of the youth and elders here,” he declared as they set up the camp in the snow.
Some of the same advocates who had set up the initial camp, been forced to dismantle it, gotten arrested and gone to the mayor’s office were replanting the tipis, carrying firewood, and moving homeless from hotel rooms procured for the previous night.
The replacement camp is on land under the control of the Cheyenne River, Pine Ridge and Rosebud Sioux tribal governments, whose top elected leaders have given permission, Lockett confirmed.
Lloyd BigCrow Sr., a leader of the OyateKin Chante Wastepi-Feeding our Relatives initiative, proclaimed, “The ancestors are with us,” as he noted, he is “proud of the youth and elders” setting up the camp in the snow. COURTESY / Jean Roach
Sicangu Lakota grandmother Cheryl Angel, who is a spokesperson for pan-Indian unity, was among the first to tread on the grounds and exalt the new fire ignited at reborn Camp Mni Luzahan.
“Since time started, we’ve been lighting fires,” Angel told Lockett. “We start in ceremony and we stay in ceremony. All the knowledge we need to be sustainable is in it. We’re experiencing something our ancestors have been doing for tens of thousands of years.
“We’re in the sacred Black Hills. There were treaties signed on these lands and one of the things tribal people agreed to at that time was to maintain the peace. Maintaining the peace means making sure people’s healthcare, educational, physical, spiritual, and mental needs are met.
“The government has failed to maintain their responsibilities to the treaties. We are upholding our treaties. We’re going to maintain that peace and we’re going to take care of our people. Anyone who comes in, they are disturbing the peace.”
Sicangu Lakota grandmother Cheryl Angel, who is a spokesperson for pan-Indian unity, was among the first to tread on the grounds and exalt the new fire ignited at reborn Camp Mni Luzahan. Photo: Chynna Lockett
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1980 awarded $105 million to the tribes of the Great Sioux Nation for the theft of the Black Hills and other lands guaranteed under the 1868 treaty, which had promised the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, “the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Great Sioux Reservation.”
“A more ripe and rank case of dishonest dealing may never be found in our history,” Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun said in his opinion of the U.S. failure to enforce the treaty language as required by the U.S. Constitution.
Three decades later, the interest on the money in the U.S. Treasury has brought the offer to upwards of $1.4 billion. However, insisting that “the Black Hills are not for sale,” the Sioux Nation tribes refuse to accept a payout and have lobbied for a settlement to return them the portion of the Black Hills that is under federal management.
“We want to bring our people back,” said Bettelyoun. This is a healing for a lot of us. It’s a combined effort of many different people. We got tired of just hearing people talk.
Camp Mni Luzahan is here and we’re going to keep it going,” he concluded.
COURTESY / Camp Mni Luzahan
Talli Nauman is Lakota Country Correspondent for The Esperanza Project. She is a longtime Americas Program collaborator and columnist, a founder and co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, and Health and Environment Editor for Native Sun News Today. She can be reached at talli.nauman(at)gmail.com.
This story was reported and produced with the generous support of the One Foundation.
Sovereignty means different things to different people, but perhaps its essence is best displayed in times of challenge. And so it was for the powerful four-day Sovereign Sisters gathering held on the third weekend in August. Despite two of the group’s founders, Cheryl Angel and LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, being sidelined by illness and injury, the organizing committee forged ahead – principally Lyla June Johnston – and brought about a virtual feast for the soul.
Sovereign Sisters, the brainchild of Sicangu Lakota Water Protector Cheryl Angel, began as a gathering in the sacred Black Hills to thank the women who had supported her during the Standing Rock movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, and to explore the concept of sovereignty from the perspective of indigenous women. This year’s gathering was to have taken place in Standing Rock, hosted by the cofounder and icon of the movement herself, LaDonna. Excitement grew among the small “inner circle” of previous gathering attendees, who would be allowed to come and camp on the grounds of LaDonna’s Sacred Stone ecovillage in Fort Yates, on the Standing Rock reservation. From there, as the plan went, the main speakers would broadcast their message to the world.
But challenge after challenge emerged as planners grappled with the realities of the pandemic, and when Cheryl herself fell ill, it became clear that the gathering would be a virtual one. She was unable to summon the strength to appear during the meeting, but she took solace in knowing that something beautiful was happening as she fought for her life.
Artists and healers, scholars and visionaries, mothers and grandmothers and aunties were sharing their perspectives on the meaning of sovereignty in these times, and shared space for healing, collaboration and re-imagining of the world as it can be. Each day’s session began with an opening prayer and then a panel of four women discussing sovereignty, each from her own perspective. The innovative format included breakout sessions among random attendees to encourage new friendships and cross-pollination. It was self-organized, so that anyone among the 1,300-plus registrants could create their own thematic breakout room on Zoom.
The main panel each day was translated into to Spanish, and Latin American women were among the panelists, also forming their own breakout sessions; an estimated 200 registrants and presenters, from Argentina’s Patagonia to Ecuador to Mexico, joined in a powerful series of sessions that went on for many hours as sisters North and South shared from the heart.
A wide panorama of panels carried intriguing titles from ones like “Bridging the race divide: Mixed race/mulata/nepantla/liminal medicine for a world desperate for racial healing” and “White Women Ending White Supremacy Circle” to “Allies & Accomplices—Living the Language,” “Our Medicine is Resistance: BIWOC Healing Circle.” Other themes included Agroforestry, Land Back, Incarcerated Loved Ones, Food Sovereignty and Water Protection/Monitoring, to name just a few.
For a small taste of the Sovereign Sisters’ first online gathering, we share an edited transcript of the first panel, featuring physician and medical equity activist Rupa Mayra; Syrian-American rapper and activist Mona Haydar; disability rights activist Rebecca Cokley; and Quechua artist and activist Sarawi Andrango. We are currently seeking volunteers to help with the transcriptions of the other panels; if you are interested, let us know.
Lyla June presenting the panelists of the day at Sovereign Sisters 2020
Lyla June: Welcome, everyone. We’re so grateful that you’re here. We have a really exciting day planned, and we’re very honored that you would all join us. A lot of organizers came together to make this happen from many different nations, people who are really trying to create solutions on the ground. I think it’s pretty clear that these colonial governments are not going to take care of us, so we’re excited to learn how to take care of ourselves and each other in the old way.
One thing I just wanted to say before we start is we love you very much. We’re glad that you’re here. We come from a lot of different backgrounds and walks of life. We’re probably not all going to agree on everything, and we would like to create a space where different viewpoints can coexist.
Mona is Syrian American; she’s a rapper, she’s really quite connected to the Earth, and she’s a theologian.
She graduated from Union Theological Seminary and also is Muslim. And we’re just really grateful that you’re here. I’ll let her introduce herself more. We have Rupa Marya, who is an M.D. She’s a doctor out of the Bay Area and coming from Pakistan, her family roots, I believe. But I’ll let her introduce herself more. And she’s really fascinated with decolonizing medicine and also happens to be a badass musician. So that’s good. We have Rebecca Cokley, who is the director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress. And we have Sarawi Andrango, who is from Ecuador. She’s a Spanish speaker and she is an artist and she really explores resistance through art.
Rupa. Would you be open to just sharing who you are, where you’re from and what you’re passionate about?
Dr. Rupa Marya is an Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and faculty director of the Do No Harm Coalition, an organization of over 450 health workers committed to structural change to address health problems. Rupa is an internal medicine specialist and also an accomplished musician, performing frequently with her band, Rupa and the April Fishes.
Rupa Marya: My name is Rupa. I guess you could say I’m Pakistani because Pakistan and India are creations of the British Empire, and my homelands were cut through with a border like a scar on the land. My family is from Punjab, and I was born and raised in occupied Ohlone Territory. My ancestors were from Punjab for the last seven or eight hundred years. Before that, we were warriors in the deserts of Rajasthan. I come from a deep history as a Hindu and Sikh woman, understanding the legacies of violence, of colonialism from many different places, but most recently the British, and as well as caste violence in our own communities. And understanding how that recreates itself in these other iterations that we’re seeing now globally. What am I passionate about? I’m passionate about healing and composting our grief into the beauty of healing and moving forward. I’m passionate about life and medicine.
Lyla June: Thank you, sister. We really appreciate your being here. If you would be open to sharing — and the reason I asked this: Who are you? Where are you from? What are you passionate about? Is because when I was talking to LaDonna, she said that’s the first sovereignty, is knowing who you are, which I know, in this world, colonization has not made that an easy question to answer. I just wanted to share that side note of why LaDonna wanted to start with this.
So Mona, who are you? Where are you from, and what are you passionate about?
Mona Haydar is an American rapper, poet, activist and chaplain. Her EP is Barbarican (2018), and she is best known for her viral song “Hijabi (Wrap My Hijab),” a protest song.
Mona Haydar: Hello, everyone. My name is Mona Haydar. I come from Damascus, Syria. That is where my bones and my flesh were made. And in my tradition, we believe that you are made out of the earth that you will pass through. So just because we are born in a place doesn’t mean we are of that place, actually. And for some of us, that is true. And for some of us, we are naturally nomadic and diasporic and we travel. And I feel like a nomad, a traveler. I grew up in Flint, Michigan. I was born in Saudi Arabia. I have lived in the redwood forest in California. And I met my husband and partner, had my first child at the Lama Foundation in northern New Mexico.
And now I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. So I identify as a person of the diaspora, and my lineage is both Damascene and Kurdish. And I have more roots than that. I mean, obviously, we can talk about blood and purity and all that stuff, but let’s keep it simple for now. And I just feel so, so blessed to be here. Thank you, Lyla, and prayers to our sister and her healing journey. Excited to get into this with you all. Thank you.
Lyla June: Thank you so much. Rebecca, would you be open to just introducing yourself a little bit: who you are, where you’re from, what you’re passionate about.
Rebecca Cokley is the director of the Disability Justice Initiative at American Progress, where her work focuses on disability policy. Most recently, she served as the executive director of the National Council on Disability (NCD), an independent agency charged with advising Congress and the White House on issues of national disability public policy.
Rebecca Cokley: Thank you, Lyla June. Hi. My name is Rebecca Cokley. I was born and raised in the Bay Area and moved to Washington, D.C., where the land that we sit on now used to be Anacostan land. I live here in D.C. with my partner and our three children, who I am hoping to find ways to keep them entertained for the next hour, or they may show up as a special guest star.
I’m passionate about engaging across movements to work to ensure the inclusion of disabled peoples — of my people, with a broad definition for how we talk about what disability is as a culture, within all of our spaces and how it exists across communities; where 80 percent of people with disabilities in this country grow up with nobody like them in their families.
Being a Little Person, I have dwarfism. For me, it’s a cultural thing. Both my parents were Little People. Two of my three children are Little People. And so where some look at disability and see it as a diagnosis, we see it as a thing of pride and a cultural affiliation. And so that is what excites me because there is no movement alive on this planet today that doesn’t include disabled people. We just don’t include them well. And my goal is to help movements to get better.
Lyla June: Thank you, sis. We’re really honored to have you today. Now we’re going to hear from my sister Sarawi from Ecuador, an incredible sister. So Sarawi, who are you, where are you from and what are you passionate about?
Sarawi Andrango is a Quechua poet, writer, artistic producer, cultural manager from Ecuador.
Sarawi Andrango: I am Sarawi Andrango, I come from Ecuador, Abya Yala (Latin America). I work for the blooming and the flowering of people. My service is through writing, through my words, through poetry. I work as a community organizer, a cultural organizer.
I like to transmit what my grandmother, what my grandfather believed, what their philosophy taught, and to express that philosophy through art. That’s what my work is, what my service is. I’m very thankful and honored to be part of this sisterhood, this weaving of sisterhood that we are doing right now, to weave our sovereignty.
Lyla June: Thank you very much. Now I would like to ask Rupa, how does sovereignty fit into your work? What would you share with this group about sovereignty at this time? I know that’s a very broad question, and I want it to be broad so that you can really say whatever the heck you want to say.
This keynote speech was delivered at the 2018 National Bioneers Conference. Health visionary Rupa Marya, Associate Professor of Medicine at UC San Francisco and Faculty Director of the Do No Harm Coalition, urges us to radically re-envision and expand our concept of medicine to encompass and address the health impacts of poverty, racism and environmental toxicity. (Bioneers YouTube Channel)
Rupa Marya: Such a deep question. I am sitting here in Ohlone Territory in Oakland, California, surrounded literally north, east and south by wildfires, by fires that were started with lightning. I just got done with serving in the hospital at UCSF, where I work as a professor of medicine. With coronavirus and these wildfires and the blackouts and this excruciating heat, I’m thinking of the words, “I can’t breathe.” And “I can’t breathe” is really coming from the same systems that have killed George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, Mario Woods, Alex Nieto, so many Black and Brown people around the world, so many poor people, disabled people. This phenomenon of colonialism has brought us to this point where we are now squeezed into this moment and our bodies are so deeply impacted.
And with coronavirus, I feel like finally there’s something that has exposed to everybody around the world the fracture lines of our societies and how the suffering of Black, Indigenous, People of Color and Poor people is built into the architecture of our world, the world that was created through colonialism. The ways in which our societies are structured, they cannot function without the enslavement of our bodies, and the enslavement of other beings for our benefit. And by other beings, I mean the plants and the animals and the water, all of these entities that are necessary to thrive and be in good balance.
And so when I think of medical sovereignty, I really think of a very deep decolonizing of our understanding of what our health and wellness is, and our understanding of medicine, and how to use medicine. My practice of Western medicine is part of that same colonial project. So when I hear people at UCSF talking about health equity as if like, yes, we want health equity.
Rupa Marya & John Eichenseer from Rupa and The April Fishes perform “Stolen Land” from the album “Growing Upward” at the 2018 Bioneers conference. The album was released in April 2019 in a plastic-free, plantable format–as a set of 12 seed packets. Find this and all six of Rupa’s albums on the Rupa and the April Fishes website.
Well, the project of medicine as a Western scientific enterprise — medicine was used as a tool of colonization, of colonizing people and places. Often Black and Brown people and Indigenous people around the world were only kept well enough to extract the resources of our home countries. We were never meant to be kept truly healthy in the ways that were determined as European health, let’s say, at those times. And so what we’re seeing right now, and that’s just even in this language and imaginings of saying, oh, we want health equity, we’re seeing actually it doesn’t exist. It never has. It was never part of the equation.
A paper just came out this week that showed that Black doctors taking care of Black babies, those Black babies have better health outcomes, and the way that the paper was framed is like Black babies survive better with Black doctors. The way the paper should have been framed is that the racism of white doctors creates death for Black babies — because that is what it is. It’s the interpersonal racism, it’s the deep belief that Black lives don’t matter which has been part of the colonial project starting 600 years ago. From looking at the carceral state to even the arrival of a sacred new being into this world, a baby. And so when we see that in those structures, it really gives us a moment now where people are starting to make these connections that they were not making before and starting to ask, how did we get here and what can we do differently?
So when I think of medical sovereignty for all of us, I think of really finding a way to dismantle those structures within our minds, within our understandings, within our social structures and within our bodies to create the possibility for health. And by that, I don’t just mean health of our one self, our individual health, but health of our communities, health of our families and health of our relationships with all the entities that make health possible, which means the air, the water, the life all around us.
And so with coronavirus, this has really been an interesting moment where people have been talking about social distancing. And I have been spending a lot of time in a forest. Sadly, that forest is now on fire because of mismanagement from colonial practices of fire suppression. But in time with that forest, in this beautiful pool where these salmon babies, these coho salmon were growing, I shifted my understanding that what I’m doing is not socially distancing so much as creating my sanctuary with my family with all the other entities that sustain and enrichen our living.
This virus will be with us for quite some time. It will not go away any time soon. This is going to be the way we have to move forward. And so it really gives us an opportunity to think about how we want to structure our social lives, because we are social creatures and we need our community. How we structure ourselves to create those sanctuaries and really redefine those sacred relationships that keep us healthy and well, and then how do we prescribe those limits.
So I think that medical sovereignty for me is deeply about understanding the nature of how we got here, and then how we can create new structures that can make these other ones obsolete — from our food systems, from how we grow our food, to how we relate to our food and our seeds, to how we relate to each other.
One of the key things for our European friends who are on the line right now and with us is really looking at the violence of this concept of whiteness, how it was constructed in order to oppress others who were not white. And I think about this right now with the United States, because so much intensity is happening right now, it’s polarizing. And this is really having an impact on people’s health. I challenge people to really think about how we can dismantle this concept of whiteness and tie ourselves back to our own ancestral lineages, how we can dismantle false notions of supremacy so that we can better integrate into a fabric of life together..
So this concept of medical sovereignty is going to differ for everybody, but I think it really is about creating a sanctuary. That’s the brief answer.
Lyla June: I encourage everyone to Google Rupa, look at her YouTube videos. She has a wonderful one on white supremacy as a public health problem. Supremacism in general, male supremacy. So please feel free to explore her work more.
Mona, if you’d be open to sharing the same, How do you feel in this time? What is sovereignty? What could you share about sovereignty to all of our sisters and siblings here today?
Mona Haydar: Thank you, Rupa. That was just very enlightening. I am somebody who talks a lot about colonialism as a person of Syrian origin, whose people have been impacted by French colonization, European colonization, and I am sitting with that more so now than ever. That colonial wound has really referred me to the reality and to the fact that I cannot become truly sovereign, truly liberated as a human being if I continue to externalize my enemy, and to hate.
This is a difficult thing for me to articulate. But basically, I want to be liberated and I want to be sovereign as a being. And I have trouble with the dualism, the dualistic nature of externalizing the enemy. And I am attempting as a spiritual person, as a religious person, to see that which hurts me and to see the way that I reflect that back out into the world, the way that I perpetuate those trauma loops and cycles.
And so for me, as I grow, as I age — I’m a mother of two children — as somebody who has now entered my thirties, who sits at the feet of elders, I’m learning more and more that I have to harmonize that which is within me first. And when I balance that — when I love the parts of myself that are wounded, such as the colonial wound that I have — I become an agent of healing, inside the pain creation models of this world. And so I’m starting now to open my eyes to the truth, that as an artist, opening my heart to something like this virus and saying: I see you as something of this Earth, something that exists here. What do you need and how do I heal you, and how do we love you enough to stop hurting us?
I feel the same way about white supremacy. What is lacking in the nature of white supremacy? What is so pained inside of that existence that it can’t help but hurt and destroy the world? And I’m sitting with that. These are ideas that come from a spiritual tradition of Tasawwuf, of Sufism — the mystical practice of Islam —of seeing ourselves not as dominators of the Earth,which is a product of Empire’s religion. I have a master’s degree in Christian ethics. It’s not in the original project of Christ, of Christianity. It is in the original project of colonialism, of empire, which seeks to dominate the world. This Dominion theology is destroying us, that we are separate from the Earth, that we are separate from our enemies, that we have something different than them. And so we will rise separately. And so we will overcome. And the only way to truly overcome and to truly become sovereign is in ceasing to externalize the enemy and to create balance and harmony within us.
And that, I think, is the most radical thing possible, because when we join together and we are harmony makers in the world, we stop needing empire, we stop needing the garbage of corporate capitalism, unfettered capitalism. We stop buying their waste, their garbage, as things that we need. We stop commodifying our own lives. And when we do that, I think we become radical agents for true liberation and sovereignty. And that’s why I think we are conditioned to see an external enemy. We are conditioned to struggle against and not struggle together for collective liberation.
Again, I know this is like big and wide, but I do believe that when we cultivate internal harmony and balance and healing, we become agents of collaborative sovereignty, which I believe is the ancient way. I mean, we only survived to this moment by helping each other, not by competing with each other. So I’m so glad for this opportunity to talk about these ideas together and to work together to build the world that we all can see with our heart’s eye. In my tradition, we believe that the heart is that which truly sees. And so we’re building that together, I think, with our heart’s eye.
Lyla June: Wow.
Mona Haydar: Love you, sis.
Lyla June: Thank you so much for sharing.
And Rebecca, and then Sarawi, you’ll come after Rebecca. Thank you so much for joining us. The work you do is so beautiful and I’m so grateful that you’re here.
The government isn’t taking care of our relatives with disabilities. And as you taught me, a lot of us actually have disabilities that we don’t fully understand, that we are a part of that community. So please share whatever you’d like to share on the topic of sovereignty.
Reflections from an ADA Generation | Rebecca Cokley | TEDxUniversityofRochester
Rebecca Cokley: Definitely. Thank you so much for having me here. I said it earlier, but this conversation is amazing.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what Rupa said around health equity, and it’s a concept that is a real struggle for people with disabilities because how do you get to health equity and a framework that includes disabled people when we are seen as the problem that needs to be solved, versus a valuable contributing member of the society itself? What does it mean when the Americans with Disabilities Act turned 30 less than a month ago and there are still 80 percent of polling places in this nation that we can’t access to be able to cast a vote. And we are 70 percent unemployed and we are the majority of people in poverty in this nation.
And so it’s a real struggle. And at the same time, I think the conversation around “I can’t breathe” is really powerful. And for Eric Garner and many of whom have said it, I mean, Eric Garner had asthma. Saying “I can’t breathe” is a declaration of disability, which is protected under the law, and to our community the roots of ableism — and I included the definition that we use for ableism in the chat, and racism — are connected to the same tree. I mean, when you look at early policies around the controls against African-Americans in this country, they’re grounded in [00:42:31] phrenology and drape Tasmania. [00:42:34] They pathologized slaves with disabilities, whether or not they actually had them, as a justification for keeping people enslaved.
For my people, for Little People, we were bought and sold and bred across carnivals and circuses and beyond even just Little People, but people with disabilities in general, we were bred to be entertainment. And even though my lineage doesn’t go back that far, I have cousins who can trace their family lineage back to Vaudeville, back to the sideshows. They know when P.T. Barnum bought their grandfather and their grandmother and forced them into marriage.
I think the coronavirus for us as a community is one of those moments where — I don’t want to say we told the rest of the world so, but we told the rest of the world so. We started mourning our dead in February. We knew that our people were going to die the most. And as it is, two thirds of the people that have died are people that either live in or care for people that live in institutional settings. We still live in a society where we’re so uncomfortable by our disabled brothers and sisters that we ship them off somewhere else, versus caring for them in our homes, versus fighting for the right for disabled and aging people to live at home with their families, with the services that they need.
We’re prepared to see the biggest boom in this country, in the world, of disabled people that we have seen since AIDS and HIV in the 1980s. As a community we are welcoming our brothers and sisters who are going to have long-term disabilities because of coronavirus. And we know that that’s an impact. We know that people are ending up paralyzed, people are ending up with organ failure. And we don’t see them as weak. We don’t see them as a burden.
Our movement elders were the children of polio. The woman who is responsible for my family getting an education was denied the right to be a kindergarten teacher because she was told her wheelchair was a fire hazard. And so where people see burdens, where people see pity, we see the potential for strength and power. And in this moment and in this time, I really do believe that there is fear and fear is tangible. There is also hope — and I am endlessly curious about the impact of the Coronavirus Generation, what they have seen, what they have lived through, and the strength and the potential that they have for showing — not just here in the United States, but globally — a different way for how we should be living as a society.
Lyla June: Thank you, sister, so much. I’m grateful that you’re here. I’m very honored. Bueno, Sarawi, mi hermana, my sister, what would you like to say about this? Tell us about the work you do in Ecuador.
Sarawi Andrango: If you want to talk about sovereignty from multiple points of view that you are sharing from your spaces of resistance, to all the comrades, to talk about the women and the people that are on the front lines of disability and to have access to medicine. Also to remember ancestral medicine and to talk about the right to our own spiritualities in our own territory, with our freedoms. We the artists form a circle, like a little nucleus packed with content. And what do we do is to focus on this theme of colonization and sovereignty, and we transform that into music, painting, poetry, and we disseminate it around the world.
To be honest, here in Abya Yala, in Latin America, as in many other indigenous nations, our indigenous artistic expressions are the result of the transmission of the oral traditions that have been transmitted to us, that have been given from generation to generation. More than a written tradition, the philosophy and all the cosmology we transmit through the music, through the dance, through our songs. Our songs are to our seeds, to the water, to the air, to the rain. And all this is what colonization has tried to silence. This (colonized) way of communication presents our artistic expressions as something like entertainment, something like a folkloric spectacle.
In this time of the pandemic what we are seeing from the ministriesof culture is an attempt to overshadow what is now happening in our territories in terms of extractivism, mining, deforestation, agricultural extractivism. All of this is what we are working on through art in Ecuador and in Latin America, where a network of artists — women especially — are working. But of course they take away the public spaces, they take away the budgets, and so we are working to form networks like this one where we can dance, paint, sing about the things that Rupa and Mona and Rebecca and Lyla have spoken. Art is the tool we use to exercise sovereignty of the individual and collective, community rights. We hope that this will end in a decolonization of all aspects.
Lyla June: Many thanks, and please share your Facebook in the chat so that we can see the work you are doing there in Ecuador. She sent me some of the music videos that are making, some of the art that they’re creating, and as a as a fluent Quechua speaker, that’s a big deal.
So, I want to take a moment to thank each and every panelist. Thank you, Rupa. Thank you, Mona. Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you, Sarawi. It truly is a blessing to have you all here as leaders. We’re all leaders here. That’s one thing I was thinking was, if we could have all of you as panelists we would — but there’s just too many of us. So thanks, thanks to you all for your work.
UPDATE:Zoom Into the Huichol Center was a huge success with thousands joining from across the globe as Founder Susana Valadez and her team reported live from the Center’s remote headquarters in Mexico’s Western Sierra Madre. Susana shared with us the ways in which Covid-19 is transforming the continued operation of the Huichol Center, an internationally recognized nonprofit organization serving the indigenous Wixárika (Huichol) people of Western Mexico. She discussed how the pandemic is currently affecting some of the indigenous Wixárika communities, which have fiercely resisted colonization for centuries to maintain the integrity of their profound Earth-based cosmology. Hear about it in their own words and take a virtual tour through the Huichol Center’s operations in our live feed event, recorded here:
Susana and Rosy Valadez during the “Zoom Into the Huichol Center” Event, May 30, 2020
Hear from staff members about the resourceful strategies such as the permaculture project that promotes food sovereignty and other innovative programs that the Huichol Center has implemented over the years that have become particularly relevant during this current crisis.
Speakers included:
Lakota Spiritual Activist Cheryl Angel, who traveled to the Huichol Center’s remote headquarters in February and has maintained and “Eagle-Condor” conversation with Susana ever since, seeking avenues for collaboration and mutual support.
Cilau Valadez, renowned Wixárika yarn artist and activist and the son of Susana and Mariano Valadez, another internationally recognized yarn artist.
Ernesto Montellano, manager of the Huichol Center’s permaculture project.
Miguel Carrillo, Huichol Center board member and traditional authority of the Wixárika community of Santa Catarina Cuexcomatitlan
Sicangu Lakota Sacred Activist Cheryl Angel at the Tanana Gallery in Sayulita, formerly run by the Huichol Center and now managed by Cilau Valadez
See what the Huichol Center community is doing to ease the economic burden that confronts them and to thwart the imminent dangers to their well being in anticipation of what may soon cause devastating effects to their traditional way of life.
As an introduction to this highly spiritual indigenous culture, Susana and her crew will share some of their most poignant photographs from the Huichol Center Ethnographic Archive and then present a tour of the Huichol Center with commentary from participants. Learn about how the Huichol Center is stepping up to the plate to help ensure the survival of this vulnerable ancient tribe in the modern world. Towards the end of the presentation, Susana will share the new Patreon site answer questions from the viewers.
Closing moments of Esperanza is the Antidote Earth Day Special. Clockwise from upper left: Tami Brunk, Earth Sky Woman Podcast; Tracy Barnett, The Esperanza Project; Laura Wacker, Columbia Earth Day Coalition; Noelle Romero, Ecobarrios-Mexico City; Maria Ros, Inner Ecology; Kevin Hicks, Niños con Valor.
Earth Day 2020 marked a milestone for The Esperanza Project. We took our first baby steps into the world of broadcasting with our very first online program: Esperanza is the Antidote, a lineup of Esperanza Project collaborators from the USA to Argentina. Given that the 2-hour program was assembled and executed in just two days, we were amazed and proud of the results — and we think you’ll like it, too. Here we share a few highlights.
Tzelie Bernardo Ramírez, Tracy L. Barnett and Yamina Ramírez, broadcasting from Barrio Analco, Guadalajara, Mexico.
Because The Esperanza Project is headquartered in Guadalajara, Mexico, we began with a welcome from two indigenous Wixárika youths who are currently sheltering in place with yours truly, Esperanza Project Editor Tracy L. Barnett, led by Bernardo Tzeliekame Ramírez.
After a brief introduction we zoomed right down to the bottom of the continent — to Argentina, where Esperanza Project Foundation cofounder Hernán Vílchez, director of the internationally acclaimed film Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians, talked about his memories of Bernardo and Yamina during the filming of the movie in their community in the high Sierra Madre, when they were still children.
That film, and our subsequent collaboration, led to the origins of the Esperanza Project Foundation and Esperanza Project Film & TV, a showcase for the international interdisciplinary team that has continued to produce films and series that raise awareness in our society since the 2013-14 filming of the Peyote Guardians.
Hernán Vílchez, director, Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians, broadcasting from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
After a musical intervention from singer/songwriter and Soulpath Worker Trina Brunk, Sicangu Lakota Spiritual Activist Cheryl Angel beamed in from a horse gifting ceremony in rural South Dakota.
“Today something really special is happening all over the world,” said Cheryl, who was a passionate leader and Water Protector at Standing Rock. “People are remembering that it took 50 years for us to get this far — to make the policy changes that we needed to protect the air, to have the Clean Water Act. We are in reverse mode now, so we can’t be complacent in our love, in our visions, in our words, in our actions.
“There’s no room for complacency anymore. We’ve got to become spiritually active and we’ve got to move our bodies and use our minds and our hands to steer clear of the danger that’s ahead. I believe something good is coming — something extraordinary. Because we know it’s time; we have to move forward, and I see people moving forward every day.”
Cheryl Angel, Sicangu Lakota Spiritual Activist, sends a blessing from a gifting ceremony in rural South Dakota
Amy Christian, longtime artivist and puppeteer from Santa Fe, shared an initiative she helped coordinate with 100 people from Extinction Rebellion Climate Action Santa Fe — a remarkable project using art and creative coordinatio to overcome shelter-in-place rules, pulling together a powerful visual call to action.
Extinction Rebellion Climate Action collaborative art installation capturing the Rebellion’s heartfelt messages on video. See the entire presentation and connect with the organization here.
Ivan Sawyer presented the multimedia collaborative Voices of Amerikua’s new and enormously popular Online Library, which has brought to thousands during the global quarantine a growing collection of free films and online media projects highlighting a efforts to protect the culture and rights of indigenous peoples and Mother Nature throughout the Americas.
From Brownsville, Texas, Felicia Rangel-Samponaro told the remarkable story of the Sidewalk School for Children Asylum Seekers across the border in Matamoros, a volunteer initiative that has grown to a school that has hired 15 asylum seekers to teach more than 160 children stranded with their families by the Trump Administration’s Remain in Mexico policy.
Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, Founder of the Sidewalk School for Children Asylum Seekers.
Noelle Romero of Mexico City’s Ecobarrios project, an innovative program bringing ecovillage principles to urban areas, was one of many expressing optimism that this crisis will lead to a new direction for humanity
“Now that people are in their homes, wondering: Now what? I don’t have a job, or my job is on standby, or my business is closed — people begin to get desperate,” she said. “This is the right time for the Transition — and this is what Ecobarrios is about.”
These days Noelle and her colleagues are working toward the launch of a new Virtual Ecobarrios website, a platform for networking and sharing of techniques and success stories from the Ecobarrios projects.
Ecobarrios Coyoacán presentation by Noelle Romero, Ecobarrios Mexico City
Following up on the theme of hope, Tami Brunk, environmental writer, astrologer and founder of the brand-new Earth Sky Woman Podcast, reflected on the fact that human beings use only a tiny portion of our potential.
“My sense is that part of the reason we don’t use our full potential is because we live in a culture of profound separation from each other, where there’s a tremendous amount of isolation just from the way our communities are built, so we don’t have access to that type of connection that arises when we live in healthy connection in community,” said Tami.
“In the course of our most recent evolution, we’ve become completely disconnected from what all of our ancestors had — which was a sense of profound intimacy and connection with the more than human world… and my sense is that there’s this eco-sapien that’s arising now in a critical mass of human consciousness… so many people are waking up so rapidly to the possibility of something far better than what we’ve been experiencing.”
Other highlights included Earth Day organizers Hugo Sierra of Guadalajara 350.org and Laura Wacker of Mid Missouri Peaceworks, who have not let the quarantine slow them down in their work to stop the climate crisis. Columbia, which has long been the home to some of the largest and most colorful Earth Day gatherings in the country at the University of Missouri’s Peace Park, took Earth Day itself online this year with a variety of offerings, including the Earth Day Virtual Art Show on Climate Change.
Talli Nauman, founder of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, veteran environmental and indigenous rights reporter and educator, spoke about covering Lakota Country for Native Sun News Today, breaking the story about the resistance movement at Standing Rock long before the national press corps arrived.
“It is better to light a candle than complain about the darkness,” reminded Dr. Ana Ruiz Díaz, who has labored for years to shine a light on the issue of transgenics, collaborating with the class action lawsuit that has banned permits to sow transgenic corn in Mexico since September of 2013. A weaver of social change networks since her youth, she spoke of the nearly 30-year-old Vision Council-Guardians of the Earth, and compared the interconnection of social movements with a thread of precious beads.
Maria Ros, psychotherapist, permaculture designer and developer of Inner Ecology
Closing out the program was “Inner Ecology” developer Maria Ros, a permaculture designer and a psychotherapist. Maria reflected on the concept of the border effect — the idea that at the richest ecological systems are created where two ecosystems or two seasons come together.
“Right now I think that we are living in this border effect,” reflected Maria. “I think we are in this beautiful, blessed transition — we’re coming from what we thought our lives were going to be, and that is never going to be the same — and where we are going, we don’t know. We have some ideas, and we hope it’s going to be sustainable, and better than what we have now; but for sure it’s going to be a new cycle…. and we have so many resources at our disposal. And it’s kind of messy – but we have what we need… and this is our time to shine.”
Esperanza is the Antidote: Live Feed Lineup Wixárika Welcome: Tzeliekame and Yamina Ramírez – Guadalajara, Mexico Inroduction: Esperanza Project Editor Tracy L. Barnett – Guadalajara, Mexico Hernán Vílchez, Huicholes Film, Esperanza Project Film & TV – Buenos Aires, Argentina Trina Brunk, Singer/Songwriter and Soulpath Worker – Portland, Oregon Cheryl Angel, Lakota Sacred Activist – Lakota Territories, South Dakota Sarah Towle, The First Solution – London, England Amy Christian, Wise Fool & Extinction Rebellion – Santa Fe, New Mexico Ivan Sawyer, Voices of Amerikua – Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico Hugo Sierra, 350.org Guadalajara, Union of Concerned Scientists – Guadalajara, Mexico Laura Wacker, Peaceworks, Earth Day Coalition – Columbia, Missouri, USA Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, Sidewalk School for Children Asylum Seekers – Brownsville, Texas Noelle Romero, Ecobarrios – Mexico City Ana Ruiz Diaz, Consejo de Visiones/Defensa del Maiz – Mexico City Talli Nauman, Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness – Spearfish, South Dakota, USA Ana Barón, Canto al Agua – Bogotá, Colombia Tami Brunk – Earth Sky Woman Podcast – Prairie Home, Missouri, USA Maria Ros, Inner Ecology & Closing Meditation – Los Angeles, Calif.
Para leer esta historia en español, haz click AQUI
For Sicangu Lakota water protector Cheryl Angel, Standing Rock helped her define what she stands against: an economy rooted in extraction of resources and exploitation of people and planet. It wasn’t until she’d had some distance that the vision of what she stands for came into focus.
“Now I understand that sustainable sovereign economies are needed to replace the system we support with our purchasing power,” she said. “Our ancient teachings have all of those economies passed down in traditional families.”
Together with other front-line leaders from Standing Rock, including Lakota historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard and Diné artist and activist Lyla June (formerly Lyla June Johnston), Angel began acting on this vision in June at Borderland Ranch in Pe’Sla, the grasslands at the heart of the Black Hills in South Dakota. Nearly 100 Indigenous water protectors and non-Indigenous allies met there for one week to take steps to establish a sovereign economy.
The first annual Sovereign Sisters Gathering brought together women and their allies to talk about how to oppose the current industrialized economy and establish a new model, one in which Indigenous women reclaim and reassert their sovereignty over themselves, their food systems, and their economies.
To see the entire Women of Standing Rock series, including interviews with Cheryl Angel and LaDonna Allard, click here.
“When did we as a people lose our self-empowerment? When did we wait for a government to tell us whether or not we could have health care? When did we wait for them to feed us?” Allard asked. “When did we wait for laws and policies to be created so that we could have a community? When did that happen?
Sovereign Sisters drove to Rapid City, South Dakota during the gathering to join a protest and court hearing of the Riot Booster Act, a bill introduced by Governor Kristi Noem aimed at criminalizing pipeline protestors.
“We’ve given our power over to an entity that doesn’t deserve our power,” she added, referencing the modern corporate industrial system. “We must take back that empowerment of self. We must take back our own health care. We must take back our own food. We must take back our families. We must take back our environment. Because you see what’s happening. We gave the power to an entity, and the entity is destroying our world around us.”
Allard, June, and Angel shared a bit about the work they’ve been doing to establish sovereignty, each in her own way, since the Standing Rock encampments.
LaDonna Brave Bull Allard: Planting seeds
As the woman who established the first water protector encampment at Standing Rock—called Sacred Stone Camp—and issued a call for support that launched a movement, Allard learned a lot about sovereignty and empowerment during the battle against the Dakota Access pipeline.
As the camps began to dismantle in the last weeks of the uprising, she frequently fielded the question: “What do we do now?”
Allard’s response was simple: “Plant seeds.”
Lakota Elder LaDonna Brave Bull Allard joined a van full of fellow Sacred Stone Village residents who made the five-hour drive from Standing Rock to join the Sovereign Sisters Gathering.
Planting seeds is what Allard has been doing since the Standing Rock encampment, as she’s worked with her neighbors and with those who stayed on at Sacred Stone Camp toward a vision of a sustainable community.
“Our first act is taking care of self. So no matter what we do, if we’re not taking care of self, we’ve already failed.”
“I tell people that our first act of sovereignty is planting food,” Allard said. “Our first act is taking care of self. So no matter what we do, if we’re not taking care of self, we’ve already failed.”
These days, self-care is more important than ever, she said, with the accelerating climate crisis, something that Native people are acutely aware of and have seen coming for a long time. “We’re not worrying—we’re preparing,” she said.
Sacred Stone Village has installed four microgrids of solar power and have two mobile solar trailers used to connect dwelling areas that can also be taken on the road for trainings, and the neighboring town of Cannon Ball has opened a whole solar farm. They’ve been planting fruit trees and growing gardens, fattening the chickens, stockpiling firewood. And in some ways, life on the reservation is already a preparation in itself.
“On the Standing Rock reservation, as you know, we are below poverty level, and many of the people live by trade and barter. A lot of people live in homes without electricity and running water. We burn wood to heat our homes,” Allard said. “What I find in the large cities is people who don’t know how to live. And their environment—if you took away the electricity and the oil, what would they do? We already know how to live without those things.”
Lyla June: The forest as farm
A Diné/Cheyenne/European American musician, scholar, and activist, June has gravitated toward a focus on food sovereignty through her work to revitalize traditional food systems. Currently, she’s in a doctoral program in traditional food systems and language at the University of Alaska, where she works with Indigenous elders around the country to uncover the genius of the continent’s original cultivators.
“I think there’s a huge mythology that Native people here were simpletons, they were primitive, half-naked nomads running around the forest, eating hand to mouth whatever they could find,” she said. “That’s how Europe portrays us. And it’s portrayed us that way for so many centuries that even we start to believe that that’s who we were.
“The reality is, Indigenous nations on this Turtle Island were highly organized. They densely populated the land, and they managed the land extensively. And this has a lot to do with food because a large motivation to prune the land, to burn the land, to reseed the land, and to sculpt the land was about feeding our nations. Not only our nations, but other animal nations, as well.”
Musician, public speaker, and scholar Lyla June on recovering traditional food systems: “What we’re finding… is that human beings are meant to be a keystone species… what [we’re] trying to do is bring the human being back into the role of keystone species, where our presence on the land nourishes the land.”
June is intrigued by soil core samples that delve thousands of years into the past; analysis of fossilized pollen, charcoal traces, and soil composition reveals much about land use practices through the ages. For example, in Kentucky, a soil core sample that went back 10,000 years shows that about 3,000 years ago the forest was dominated by cedar and hemlock. But about 3,000 years ago the whole forest composition changed to black walnut, hickory nut, chestnut, and acorn; edible species such as goosefoot and sumpweed began to flourish.
“So these people—whoever moved in around 3,000 years ago—radically changed the way the land looked and tasted,” she said.
The costs to the food system as a result of colonization is becoming clear.
So did the colonizers, but in a much different way. The costs to the food system as a result of colonization, she said, is becoming clear, and the mounting pressure of the climate crisis is making a shift imperative.
“When did we start waiting for others to feed us? That’s no longer going to be a luxury question,” June said.
Besides the vulnerability of monocrops to extreme weather events, these industrial agricultural crops are also dependent on pesticides and herbicides. Additionally, pests are adapting, producing chemical resistant insects and superweeds.
“We’re running out of bullets in our food system, and it’s quite precarious right now,” she said. “The poor animals that we farm are also on the precipice … so we’re in a state where we should probably start asking ourselves that question now, before we’re forced to, and remember the joy of feeding ourselves.”
That’s June’s intention: to take what she’s learned from a year of apprenticeships with Indigenous elders in different bioregions, then return home to Diné Bikéyah—Navajo territory—to apply it, regenerating traditional Navajo food systems in an interactive action research project aimed at both teaching and learning, refining techniques with each year.
“I’m hoping at the end of three years, or four years, we will be fluent in our language and in our food system,” June said. “And we will be operating as a team—and we will have a success story that other tribes can look to and model and be inspired by.”
The long-range goal, she said, is to create an autonomous school that teaches traditional culture, language, and food systems that can be a model for other Indigenous communities.
Cheryl Angel: Creating sovereign communities
To Angel, sovereignty is best expressed in creating community—the temporary communities created at gatherings, like at the Sovereign Sisters Gathering, but also more permanent communities, like at Sacred Stone Village.
Part of being sovereign lies in strengthening and rebuilding sharing economies, she said. And part of it lies in reducing waste, rejecting rampant consumerism and the harmful aspects of the modern industrial system, like single-use plastics and toxic chemicals.
Cheryl Angel in a late-night talking circle, sharing reflections about her Lakota ancestors: “We were never into entitlement; that’s why we didn’t have kings. We were into revering, honoring, relating to everything around us. All of these living spirits around us… That’s the system nobody is talking about, that needs to be protected.”
“I saw it all happen at Standing Rock; everybody came with all of their skills, and they brought [their] economies—and they were medicating people, they were healing people, they were feeding people, cooking for people, training people, making people laugh—they were doing everything. Everything we needed, it came to Standing Rock.”
Despite the money the pipeline company spent to repress the uprising, she said, water protectors around the world stepped up and pitched in to create an alternate economy at Standing Rock, and millions were raised to support the resistance.
“We could do that again. We can gift our economies between each other. We’re doing it right here,” Angel told the women assembled in the Black Hills—women who were gardeners and builders, craftswomen and cooks, healers and lawyers, filmmakers and writers—and, above all, water protectors. “These few days we’ve been here prove to me and should prove to you that we have the skills to create communities without violence, without drugs, without alcohol, without patriarchy—just with the intent to live in peace.”
Tracy L. Barnett wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Tracy is a freelance writer based in Mexico and the founder of The Esperanza Project. Interviews with Cheryl, LaDonna and Lyla June are featured in the magazine’s Women of Standing Rock series.
Lakota Spiritual Activist Cheryl Angel believes in listening to her dreams – the ones that come to her at night as she sleeps, and the ones that arrive as messengers from the road as she travels the globe. She has been traveling extensively over the past two years, connecting with indigenous and non-indigenous women and people living in sustainable communities. Mexico in particular has been a rich source of inspiration as she has explored the best ways to take the Water Protector work to the next level.
Those travels – and a sacred staff she was entrusted with – are what inspired the June 10-15Sovereign Sisters Gatheringthat Cheryl is organizing this year in the sacred and besieged Black Hills of South Dakota.Here, Cheryl shares the story about the dream-led Sovereign Sisters Gathering, and how it came to be.
Tracy: What is the Sovereign Sisters Gathering, and how did it come about? When you say it is dream led, can you tell me more about that?
Cheryl: The Sovereign Sisters Gathering initially came from my deep gratitude for the women who were essentially the backbone of the occupation at Standing Rock. I wanted to gather them all and say thank you for your support, your knowledge, your bravery, your perseverance, your kindness, your generosity, your sharing of everything to make the occupation at Standing Rock into a community of water protectors.
I wanted to create a circle of healing for their traumas to be healed. I felt I needed to offer a Wopila in the Black Hills for the women who had supported me during my involvement during the occupation at Standing Rock. So a year ago I invited women who were vital to the occupation at Standing Rock and we offered prayers at Sacred Sites. I made a prayerful pledge at each site that I would bring more prayers to awaken the spirits leaving footprints on the lands and also to bring more water protectors to defend the “Sacred Black Hills — HeSapa — the heart of everything that is” from further exploitation and destruction.
Water Protector, artist and Indigenous leader Lyla June Johnston on the Sovereign Sisters Gathering(Click here to view).
Fast forward to September 14th of 2018 at theAniwa Gathering in New York, where I stood alongside a delegation of Indigenous leaders from several foreign countries to unite in a global prayer for the people at the World Trade Center. Later that day I reunited with a woman whom I first met at the Ríos Vivos (Living Rivers) Festival to save the river Atoyac in Puebla, Mexico. She handed me this box and said, inside the box is the woman’s staff, the Staff of Light from Peru. Accepting that box and learning about the responsibilities of the staff changed my life and gave me a vision that I have carried with me to this day.
I flew back to South Dakota with it and drove all the way from South Dakota to California, and I was alone with that staff in the car at several points. Every time I was alone with it, I felt this overwhelming need to pray. I felt that I was in ceremony, so I kept praying, and praying, and then I realized that it was only happening when I was alone with the Staff of Light.
Then I started having these dreams of women working with water and working with the elements, dreams of them living a sustainable life in a community free of violence, free of hate and illness – and I don’t even know what day it was when I woke up and said – “Wow, these are the economies that we have been missing!”
These past few years I’ve talked about how devastating extraction economies are to the environment and how the system needs to be stopped and replaced – but I never thought much about what we are going to replace it with. But actually, subconsciously, I was searching — because when I had the staff, all of a sudden I had these dreams and these thoughts.
Now I understand that sustainable sovereign economies are needed to replace the system we support with our purchasing power. Our ancient teachings have all of those economies passed down in traditional families. I found myself in small hidden communities where groups participating in ceremonies were there to learn, internally and quietly saying, “Teach us; guide us; show us the way.”
This planet has been sustaining every soul since our first breath of life, Woniya Wakan. However, it has always been the ancestral teachings and lifeways of Indigenous cultures that recognize and abide by the natural law of the land. It’s not the government, it’s not the state, it’s not the county – it’s the land that sustains us. The Sacred Earth Mother is alive! But today the majority of the people are not treating her like she’s alive, we’re not treating her like a family member. Yet despite our indifference, she is trying hard to continue to live, to continue to sustain all life. It’s very evident we need to change our behavior toward her, and choose a better economy to sustain ourselves, an economy that doesn’t destroy the planet, one that recognizes the natural laws of the land.
So just before I had gotten this staff I was determined to have a women’s gathering because I wanted hear women’s stories. I wanted to let those stories fill me with information and guidance. I’ve been listening to the elders for a long time, and I’ve been traveling everywhere in Mexico, India and Nepal, listening to elders in sacred places. I’m not the one with the answers, Creator has the answers. And people have stories that need to be listened to, and women have the stories that paint a picture of reality. Our realities as women are shared, so the effort to created a better reality comes from our own stories. Those are the stories that need to be brought to the Black Hills of South Dakota, to the HEART of everything that is.
When I was given the staff I immediately put it in the ground and made an altar for it. I told people about it, and I said that if they needed prayers, then they should go there. And I fed it water and fruit. Later I learned that it was called the Staff of Light and it was created in Qorikancha, Peru, by the circle of wise grandfathers and grandmothers of the planet. They saw the destruction on the Earth and they prayed. They asked what could be done to save the planet and get the people back on track, to live out their lives in peace and with dignity.
And they created two staffs, in duality, to establish the balance, a feminine staff and a masculine staff. They sent these two staffs along with a sacred cane on a journey together, moving from nation to nation to remind people that we have to live in harmony with all life on the planet, and to acknowledge each nation has teachings that are not only sustainable but are also about living naturally on the land — and they are recognizing that all nations have different cultures, different ceremonies and different sacred sites.
Soon after I received the Staff of Light, I was contacted by a group of women in Mexico –and they said, that staff has been missing, please bring it back – so I did. I flew here with the staff, and met all of the elders – they are grandfathers and grandmothers of the planet who meet and have ceremonies on the eclipses –they appointed me and another grandmother from Mexico to be the official carriers of the staff, a job that usually lasts a year. I told the grandmother that she should hold it the first six months and I would hold it for the second six months.
I was with this staff for maybe a month before I went to Mexico – and during that time I had the staff I felt completely different. My mind was always about the prayers of the people. Then I realized, this staff had gone to 12 countries before it came to me. And they had ceremony, and all the people came to pray with this staff. I thought, Oh my goodness – I’m feeling all of the prayers that people put into this staff.
All the prayers are for unity. The prayers are to stop all of the hardships that people are experiencing. They are for the hope for the future, for the betterment of the human race, for our planet, for our condition, for our lives. So the Staff of Light put me on this path where I began to think of the entire planet, and the need for unity and for us to treat the Sacred Earth Mother as a living being.
I realized that the Earth is totally, 100 percent alive, and has rights to life. The rivers are 100 percent alive, and have rights to life. But I was raised in such a way that individuals have rights and only individuals can own things – but in a legal sense, I never thought about the rights of the Sacred Earth Mother until I held that staff. And I thought – this planet has rights to life; she is the Source of Life. It’s as if we’re on a huge organic spaceship hurtling through space, spinning around the sun – She is amazing, this organic living vehicle, this life force – and she is a life force.
I had a dream when I first arrived at Standing Rock: I had my arms and my legs wrapped around the Earth, and I was hugging the whole planet. I was hanging on so tight – you know how you’re going around a Ferris wheel and you have to hold on or otherwise the centrifugal force will throw you off? So, I was hanging on for dear life, and I could feel the heartbeat of the planet. I could feel the heartbeat, the powerful bursts of energy and then relaxation. You know how the blood flows, it pumps out through your veins, and then it relaxes. That’s what I was feeling – I could literally feel the heartbeat of the planet.
And I’m thinking, this is alive. The planet is alive. Then I started falling asleep while I was holding onto the planet, like you would hold a child and protect it. After that I understand way more than I’ve ever understood — even though I thought I had a pretty good grasp on reality.
Life now, it’s all an illusion – all of these rules, all of these governments, all these genocidal policies that force people into wars, that force people to move from one space to another space. All these systems we hold up are an illusion, and the reality is that the Sacred Earth Mother is alive and she has a heart that beats. She has a power and we are the foolish ones who think we are in charge and that we have the power. In order for us to continue living on this paradise, we have to protect it. So we’ve got to stop being trash makers. We consume only about a tenth of what we create, and then we trash the rest. If aliens were looking at us or anyone was judging us from the outside, they’d say, “That’s a planet where they make trash, and kill each other instead of living in peace.” I want everyone to know… PEACE is a choice.
The way we have behave in America is very wasteful and it’s devastating to the landscape. So how can we get people back on track again? We can’t go on like this. Our soil is being destroyed for monocrops; the rivers are being killed by the tailings from mining operations. These things are happening everywhere. Lands are still being taken away, legally stolen from indigenous people since capitalism started. Since colonization started, people have been losing their lands and their rights to their lands.
So the Circle of the Wise Grandfathers and Grandmothers created two staffs, the masculine and the feminine, as a pair, signifying the duality of nature, including mankind. In Spanish it is referred to as a Bastón. These staffs travel from country to country and became a part of the protocol for the meetings held from country to country. They are to be carried and uplifted in ceremony in the land of the indigenous people. All those things, the language, the culture, the ceremony, must live in balance within natural law, and all of those things need to be taught and remembered, so that people wouldn’t be dependent on capitalism and the system. People can use those skills to save their communities and stop the violence against women and the violence against children, and to keep the bad influences from harming their communities, like alcohol and drugs. The Animal Nation and the Plant Nation need to be taken into consideration in the ways people are using the land, because more than humans are living there — so we need to be mindful of our relations.
So that’s what they were thinking about when they created these two staffs. And the Staff of Light is making its way north now. It is coming to me in June, so I have to create a place for this staff to be, where people are working and living off the land and the water in a traditional manner.
Last December I was invited back down to Mexico for a ceremony, a Kiva ceremony, where we light the fire and the traditional languages are spoken. The foods are all traditional, the dress is traditional – there were 20 different countries represented, and it was amazing. I saw all these beautiful regalia and languages centered around prayer for the protection of the planet and her people.
Traditional peoples from 20 different countries participated in the Raices de la Tierra Kiva Ceremony in Jalisco, Mexico. (Photo: Anna Katarina Jones)
So I wanted to create a venue in the Black Hills for people to tell their stories, especially women. And as I was traveling I learned and I saw with my own two eyes that they have sustainable economies. They have sovereign economies that were handed down from generation to generation about how to live in harmony with the Sacred Earth Mother, each one in the environment they were raised in. I knew that was part of the answer.
I want to show all the women in America – from the northern tip to the southern tip – that sustainable economies are available to us, and that we need to support a network amongst us, so that we can live. We can create these economies around us.
Tracy: What do you mean when you say “sovereign economies”?
Cheryl: A sovereign economy is one where you base your work and your lifestyles according to your existence in harmony with the environment around you. Retaining your culture, your traditions, your language – that’s what I was shown. That’s my interpretation of what I was seeing.
And so when I look at Walmart now – seriously – and seeing how other people live, so simply and so purely, without chemicals – I go to Walmart or even Walgreens now, and all I see is rows and rows of harmful products that we’ve accepted and allowed to be brought into our lives because we’re blinded. We don’t understand the substances in these products are causing our own illnesses and our own imbalance. So I try not to go into any of those stores at all.
So if I have a dollar I’m going to spend it on something that’s handmade – and support that community that has a sovereign economy.
But this didn’t coalesce until that staff was put into my hands. And then everything I’ve ever thought about started to connect to everything else. And then going to the sacred sites and the communities in Mexico – and hearing the stories of the people and of the history.
Sovereign economies meet basic needs while allowing people to focus on relationships with each other and the Earth. (Photo: Anna Katarina Jones)
Tracy: What are your hopes and goals for the gathering in the Black Hills?
Cheryl: It is time for the gathering of sovereign economies and celebration of people who have traditional skills living in balance and harmony with the Sacred Earth Mother, her waters, her life-giving plants and animals. And most importantly, uniting the people to stop the destruction of the planet by embracing the teachings that are tied directly to the Earth, the family and the sustainability of sovereign economies handed down within families.
I want to bring women to the Black Hills, not only for their stories of sovereign economies, but also for their prayers at our sacred sites. I’ve been to sacred sites all over Mexico, and I want to bring these prayers and tobacco offerings to our sacred sites so we can put gifts up there. They might be temporary and they might blow away, but that’s how it’s supposed to be.
I’m not here to build a church. I believe in temporary altars because we’re a temporary people who have sustained ourselves with our ceremonies and our language – and we’re still here.
But the blessings that we have — those are the things we put on our altar, that we want to protect. The seeds, the plants, the food, the good vibrations.
This gathering in the Black Hills is to empower women. I have learned that whatever is happening – a potluck or a picnic or a movement – women bring their children and their families.
Men will always be needed; they carry the seeds – and have a vital role. But the issue today is that they are part of the patriarchy. They’ve been uplifted by the church; they’ve been uplifted by the state; and they’re hanging onto that, because that’s what been offered up, but it can turn into a crutch or a cane. We are in a place that we couldn’t get out of without them sticking their hands in and lifting us up and pulling us out – and the churches did that, the state did that.
It works for the men — but it doesn’t work for women. If it worked for the entire community, there wouldn’t be any rapes, there wouldn’t be any murders, there wouldn’t be any child abuse, there wouldn’t be anybody starving in the communities. I know a lot of people go hungry. But when you have a sovereign economy – you’re not a grasshopper; you don’t eat every blade of grass you see. You have a sustainable economy that you can pass on to your daughter, you can pass on to your family.
The men have always surrounded the women; they are our protectors. We can’t live without men, and they can’t live without women. I guess as individuals maybe some can – but as a community, we cannot.
So yes, there will be men there – but I’m not inviting them personally, not right now, because it’s a women’s gathering. However, if a man shows up and says, “I want to work with a men’s group on how to protect the sacred,” I’d invite him to every gathering because that message is most powerful when it comes from a man. I already know that families are coming that naturally have a masculine presence. So yes, men will be at the gathering.
I want the women to empower each other, I want them to support one another, and I want them to experience what empowerment really is, because it’s really about uplifting one another. Women are a part of so many institutions that don’t lift us up and don’t hear our voices, and we’ve had to almost isolate ourselves and insulate ourselves from these institutions, insulate them from hurting us, because they don’t listen to us.
I believe men’s circles are needed just as much as the women’ circles are. I believe that men need to start talking about self-discipline. I believe men need to discipline other men who are abusing the Earth and abusing women. Because this is what I’ve learned and this is what I’ve seen with my own two eyes.
When you have a sovereign economy that a family practices in the home – it’s the woman in the home that’s doing it. What I’ve seen is that as the woman is becoming empowered, she is empowered to have an equal relationship with the man, and they have a partnership where both are in balance, and both see the strengths that they each have in the home.
In America it’s really off balance because the men are in charge, and if there’s domestic violence going on, it’s hidden. If there’s incest going on, it’s hidden. All these things that aren’t natural to us are going on in the home. The way our families are set up to be male dominated, that’s part of the reason why women have no voice. I want women to be empowered to create a sovereign economy. I want that balance to be restored in the family.
Driving along the Needles Highway in the Sacred Black Hills of South Dakota. (Photo: By Runner1928 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Tracy: What should people expect if they come to this event?
What I want is for the women to get together and figure out how they’re going to keep their place safe and keep everyone in balance – I want to see them use consensus. I want them to say – “OK, we’re all sitting around the table now. How are we going to have this community up for a week? How are we going to set up the place? What’s the best place to put the composting toilets up? If needed. Where’s the best place to feed people? Where’s the best place for ceremony to be happening? Where are we going to park all the cars?”
I don’t want to create spaces and then say, “OK, here, here, here, here’s all your places.” The land is pretty large and the practice of using common sense and consensus will be adhered to in order to teach the value of each and every person’s voice and place.
I want the women to volunteer to prepare the meals and take care of elders, and keep busy till everything is finished. We’re great at that!
One of the things that amazes me in Mexico is their food sovereignty – they protect their backyards and they grow the most incredible foods. They’re all superfoods, in my opinion, because they’re not full of chemicals and pesticides. So the menu’s going to come from these sovereign homes, these sovereign economies – from the women who bring recipes passed down. So it’s about sovereign food. It’s about empowering women. It’s about protecting the seeds from your grandma’s garden.
Tracy: You mentioned that training for non-native allies will be mandatory for all campers, sponsors, and volunteers. What would you like for non-native people to know about in terms of that dynamic that has come up in past organizing efforts?
Cheryl: We have enough cheerleaders – and it’s good to start out as a cheerleader. That’s good to hear, but I need allies to say, “Cheryl, I know that you have this project, and I am going to stand beside you because I see the importance and the relevance of it, and I know that information needs to be shared across the board – so I’m going to stand beside you and I’m going to do what I can to support you – other than just words. We have enough words; we need action.
So the things that do the most harm in the community are INACTION against racism, bigotry and the lack of good people standing up to stop bad behaviors, right there in their community. If I can say, “Hey Tracy, good job, I’m working with you and I support your project,” then I can also be saying, “Tracy, what you said is racist. You need to stop saying racist things here, change your behavior, because this community doesn’t support racism.” Words chosen to that effect that won’t escalate the situation.
Tracy: Indeed! We all need to practice speaking the truth to those around us. Is there anything else that I haven’t asked? Closing thoughts and reflections?
Cheryl: I want to empower the women so they can go back into their communities and feel safe and be confident that they are not alone, and that they have tremendous value and responsibility in their own homes, to offer sustenance to their families; and their men, in the form of traditional teachings. Women raise children, and we want to raise them to be sovereign and work in balance with Mother Nature. We cannot raise them to sit and be idle. Our children must be safe inside the home learning the skills from the parents on how to be self-sufficient by the time they are in their late teens.
Ultimately I want a school based on sovereign economies where the children will be taught the skills to create and express using their hands, their brains and their hearts. So this is just the first step. It’s more than just a women’s gathering. It’s the creation of a safe community where everything that tribal people have can be protected and practiced. I want a school that’s not tied to the government. I want a free autonomous school where all these teachings can be taught.
All these practices need to be alive, in practice – the language, the culture, the traditions. And our children need to see it. So this weeklong gathering of women is just so that everyone can learn from each other on how to set up a safe community based on a sovereign economy – a balanced community, each with safe spaces, to work from.
It’s a dream-led project, and I’m dreaming of a community for women and their families to live in harmony with each other, their partners, their neighbors, and their environment. What matters is living in balance, with peace as a goal. It’s vital to our communities that they have a sustainable economy; they’re talking their language, they’re practicing their culture.
People told me a long time ago, nobody wants to go back and live in the olden days. People are not going to give up their jobs, they’re not going to go backwards – people think we lived in caves and that it was a forced hardship to live. Going back to the ways of our ancestors doesn’t mean living in hardship. I just want to have an option for people who do want to live with sovereign economies in their homes, who want to live with their language and culture, who don’t want to be tied to the system. People shouldn’t have to send their kids to a school that teaches them to support a system responsible for creating trash, displacing people, stealing water, and destroying the habitats the animals live upon. I know there are people who want to live in peace with the Earth.
So that’s what the end game is for people who live in harmony with the Sacred Earth Mother in a sovereign economy and a healthy family and a community that makes decisions based on consensus and what’s good for all of the people, not necessarily for the bank account.
Tracy: How can people support this initiative?
Cheryl: Here is our GoFundMe link. We are raising money to cover travel expenses for elders and activists of limited means. If you can’t come, you can still support the event by pledging an amount to help us cover costs.
Cheryl Angel is a a Sicangu Lakota Spiritual Activist and Water Protector. She is a former spokesperson and occupant of Sacred Stone Camp at Standing Rock.
The third anniversary of the Water Protectors movement at Standing Rock passed by quietly earlier this month. With the pipeline construction industry booming across the U.S. and Canada, Donald Trump seeking to bulldoze the cancelled Keystone XL Pipeline through more than 800 miles of unceded Lakota treaty territory, and at least nine state governments working to criminalize protest movements like Standing Rock, it seems that there is little to celebrate. We caught up with Lakota Spiritual Activist Cheryl Angel, an occupant and prior spokesperson of Sacred Stone Camp, to get her perspectives on the movement and what has followed, and to learn more about her upcoming women’s gathering in the sacred and besieged Black Hills of South Dakota.
This is the first in a series of collaborations with Grandmother Cheryl, whose travels and insights provide a refreshing, original and powerful counterpoint to the prevailing discourse on everything from economics to immigration to gender roles. When a Lakota woman speaks, it’s a good time to listen.
LaDonna Allard, center, and Cheryl Angel at a march led by the women of Sacred Stone to the backwater bridge one week after a brutal attack there by law enforcement. (Photo from social media)
Esperanza: Can you start by telling us a little bit about your background before your activism days, and what led you to become involved in the Standing Rock issue?
Cheryl: Let’s see — where do I begin? Well, before Standing Rock I learned how to become a pipeline fighter and worked to stop a pipeline — the Keystone XL — at the Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s Spiritual Camp named Sicangu Wicoti Iyuksa, located near Ideal, South Dakota. And just before our camp was set up I began following Idle No More, and was excited to see our Northern relatives standing up to stop the tar sands and to protect their lands. So I guess I was slowly being prepped for Standing Rock.
However my background was being a parent for half my life and surviving on a reservation the other half. When you live on a reservation that has an imposed schooling system, living on a landbase originally serving as a prison area, while our treaty lands were ravaged by gold mining — and then later to have those treaty right ignored — you become actively aware of what is happening not only in your hometown and on the national level with Indigenous spokespeople holding the government to task, but also very aware that in the neighboring towns around us, racism is rampant.
As a parent I worked hard to keep my kids in school, safe, off drugs, and out of gangs – and I wasn’t as successful as I had hoped, and prayed, despite my intentions. My children suffered most of the same tragedies that a lot of our tribal children experience when they’re growing up under an imposed system designed to separate everything, starting with the taking of children out of the homes to go to school, a concept in direct opposition to our traditional teachings.
The removal of children into boarding school has left a dark wound upon our people, even in my own family. The boarding school era started so long ago, some kids today don’t know that their own ancestors were able to live free upon the prairie. This loss of knowledge is a shared tragedy of all our communities. The Boarding Schools… sad and heartbreaking. Yet our people, including myself, my mother and her mother, survived. Our traditions were meant to be to taught at home, and in the center of the circle in our communities. Right now I’m counting my blessings that my children are now grown and out of the dangerous age group that is most prone to die. It is an ongoing tragedy.
People don’t see a suicide or an overdose or a brutal killing or drug/alcohol related violence as a tragedy to the entire community. I see the tragedy. Why? Because the life of each member of each tribe is vital – we’re so small in the overall population, not even 1 percent of the entire nation – yet we have the traditions that were lived in our homes that were handed down generation to generation that held the teachings of everything needed to learn how to be a good person to yourself, to your family and to your community and nation. It’s a tragedy that now there’s not very many of us left to carry the message the Creator gave us to share on how to live with the animals and the plants of the land.
So we’ve adapted. We have to use the school system. We have to use whatever tools we have in front of us to make sure those teachings are being remembered, being taught and being practiced. And we have to remember how to live on the land without causing harm.
Photo by Magdelion Moondrop. @moondrop1111/social media post
Esperanza: I suppose that must feel like a huge responsibility.
Cheryl: Yes, it is and again it isn’t. Once you stand up in resistance to the destruction of our Earth, our mother, there is no way you can sit back down. I’m positive I’ll be standing in solidarity aligned with all those who understand the threat to our water until the end. At this moment there are just too many multinational extractivist corporations to ignore. And with the current leaders in many countries, especially in my homelands, writing legislation to criminalize individuals and fast-track pipelines, now is the time for more people to stand up and fight for our next seven generations.
In the last couple of years I have met with original stewards and ceremony/wisdom keepers of many nations experiencing the real live threat of losing their water, their ancestral lands, and their traditional economies. And after being in ceremony with these elders and watching them, and seeing the wisdom they have, I understand what to do now. Deep inside we all know what to do. Stand Up Fight Back! But do it in a way that our ancestors would be proud of us. Our ancestors never went looking for a fight. We are defenders of the people, we are not troublemakers. You can see exactly what I’m talking about when you watch the video of an elder who also lived at Sacred Stone during the occupation of Standing Rock, Nathan Phillips, when he stepped into the chaos of two groups of individuals yelling at each other in Washington DC.
We were able to watch the video of what Nathan Phillips said in Washington D.C. He saw the verbal ruckus going on between two different church groups – one was really small less than 10 people, and then there were about 50 on the other side. He wanted to calm the waters, so to speak – and his story is common for most natives. We find ourselves in the middle of two struggling sides and we work to get them in a calm, peaceful state. But instead, we’re the ones who end up getting attacked in the middle.
This really happened in the Washington, D.C. march. A Catholic group of kids were wearing Make America Great Again red caps, and they were surrounding him and were mocking him, and weren’t letting him pass. They were jeering and making chopping motions.
What Nathan said was really crucial for many reasons. He said, we taught everybody in the community we lived in a long time ago how to live.
A student from Covington Catholic High School stands in front of Native American veteran Nathan Phillips in Washington in this still image from a Jan. 18, 2019, video by Kaya Taitano. (Social media/Reuters)
I agree with Nathan: HOW TO LIVE: We were taught how to recognize nature as a powerful, living source that we treated with respect; that’s where the animals lived; that’s where we got our sustenance from, that’s where we set up temporary homes – we were so careful not to leave a trace, that the next year we had to find the landmarks we left to remember where it was that we camped – because there were times we buried our dead along the trail and left landmarks for them. We’re still finding them today, those landmarks. Our relationship with the land is everything. How we live on those lands is everything we need to know. We were taught how to live in peace.
I’ve always carried the old ways inside, in the words of my grandmothers – I was raised to always do the right thing for others — and even if I was reluctant, because I was the only one doing it, my grandma would say: Especially if you’re the only one who is doing the right thing, then you have to do it, or nobody will see what they should be doing. It doesn’t mean I’m perfect. It just means I think about what I do and say before I think about myself.
So my grandma, she was an activist because she believed in action. She believed in doing the right thing. She didn’t believe in just preaching. So I listened and I did what she told me. And I will never forget her words. I loved sharing the things I learned from the grandmas at the time when I was very little. I would dream of ways to bring back the old days and talk about making changes, and once my oldest told me, “you’re radical”. Hehehe, now those radical teachings are more important than ever. What’s so radical about opening our lands to the buffalo and taking down all the fences and letting the water run free? The buffalo were here long before we were here on these lands and we are the Pte Oyate because of an ancient covenant. Pte is the female buffalo and Tatanka is the male buffalo. Well, that’s what I was told, anyway.
Esperanza: So at what point did that find its way into activism for you?
Cheryl: Whenever the Oglala aquifer was threatened. When TransCanada started using eminent domain to get rights of way for the Keystone XL from landowners who weren’t fully aware of the effects that a pipeline spill would have on the land.
It was a lot of things. I’ve always been a radical thinker, but I never put my body on the front lines until Standing Rock. Activism really took ahold of me when I moved to Sicangu Wicoti Iyuksa; that’s when TransCanada started using eminent domain to create a pipeline on our treaty lands.
Sicangu Wicoti Iyuksa spiritual camp against the Keystone XL Pipeline, September 2014
I don’t like using the word “first”, but our Tribe set up the Sicangu Wicoti Iyuksa spiritual camp on tribal land near Ideal, South Dakota, in March of 2014.
At the camp we were constantly researching all the material, and focusing on TransCanada’s history, the failures of their pipelines. We made alliances – at the camp I learned everything I could. I didn’t have any skills at that time except passion. (Laughter) And that’s all I needed.
I was filled with passionate love for the planet – I knew what TransCanada was doing was inherently wrong and went against everything I was raised to know about how to treat the land. So I felt a deep ache to be at the camp actively supporting in any way I could. I had to be there, because everything that I knew was at stake. Everything I was taught was in danger. That’s what it felt like. Like everything would be lost. So it was easy for me to go there.
Esperanza: So you were involved in the fight to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline. And then the leaders at Standing Rock contacted your leaders to ask for help.
Cheryl: Yes. At one of the hearings in Pierre, South Dakota, there was sign posted about the “Dakota Access Pipeline.” It was the first time I’d heard of the Dakota Access Pipeline. By that time the Rosebud Sioux Tribe had made alliances with Dakota Rural Action and Bold Nebraska. When everyone learned about the Dakota Access Pipeline it wasn’t long after that the leaders from the Standing Rock tribe contacted leaders from our tribe and asked how we set up our spiritual camp — in the end we were successful in using the camp to build alliances and together with those alliances Obama denied the KXL-TransCanada permit that the earlier George Bush administration had approved.
Or so we thought. Now the threat of KXL is looming in the horizon with our current leaders severely out of touch with their voters while ignoring all the disasters caused by climate change. They are failing to see what most 5th graders realize. Humanity has left a damaging legacy that is changing our climate and we must stop using fossil fuels and move forward with renewable energies and focus on supporting sustainable economies in our lives, including disciplining ourselves.
March to the front lines – Indigenous Rising Media
Esperanza: So you became involved with the Sacred Stone Camp, correct?
Cheryl: Yes, Sacred Stone was opened on April 1 – Joye Brown had her tipestola set up already when I arrived with my camp family from Sicangu Wicoti Iyuksa to support and assist in the “Run For Your Life” event, which was a relay run by native youth of the Oceti Sakowin from Cannonball, North Dakota, to Omaha, Nebraska, the headquarters of the Army Corps of Engineers. The youth carried with them not only the prayers of protection from the communities but also a petition to deny the permit of the DAPL: a petition signed by all the people who did not want the pipeline built.
Yes, it was the middle of the month of April. There were four of us, myself, my two sons, and my sister, Leota Eastman. We are all pipeline fighters and water protectors. Leota occupied both Spiritual Camps in Rosebud and Standing Rock. She was in the caravan of youth runners on the second Run For Your Life relay run to D.C. that carried the petition to deny the DAPL permit.
The first Run For Your Life relay from Sacred Stone Camp, three of us ran: Leota, my son Lance and me – to deliver a petition of signatures in opposition to the DAPL permit, to the district office of the Army Corps of Engineers. The second run was in July 2017, all the way to Washington, D.C., to the headquarters of the Army Corps of Engineers to deliver the petition… by that time it was signed by over 60,000 people.
Esperanza: Ah, so your kids came around then and changed their views?
Cheryl: Yes, they did. They used to say – “nobody thinks like you, Mom, you’re old-fashioned.” But they came around, yeah. (laughter)
I brought both my sons, Happy and Lance – Lance was the one who helped start the Rosebud Camp on the other side of the hill, right across from the Oceti Camp. My son Happy American Horse was really instrumental – he was the first to lock down one of those excavating machines. That was the first non-violent action.
Happy American Horse and other activists took non-violent direct action by locking themselves to construction equipment. August 31, 2016. (Photo: Desiree Kane, Wikimedia Commons)
At the Rosebud Camp, we had ceremonies out there. We had a welcome area where we gave out the information, we had them sign in, we told them what the plan was and invited them to join us, and had different roles they could choose – either they donated money or they donated supplies or they brought more people or they got on the network or they reached out to their allies… but everybody did something.
And that’s how Sacred Stone Camp got started too. The first time I went there it was to support the youth run. We got there at like 3 or 4 in the morning. A young KXL Pipeline fighter greeted us, and we were so happy to see him, because he was at every march and rally that we went to. He was wise, but very young. He was security. We parked on top of the hill where all the flags were at; later there’d be more flags.
The camp was small; there was only one tipi. Wiyaka, he was there, he’s also a pipeline fighter and water protect from the camp family from Sicangu Wicoti Iyuksa in Rosebud. As a matter of fact there are many many people from my Tribe who will never sit back down, after standing up. I’m really proud of all the Pipeline fighters and Water Protectors on the planet but especially proud of the ones who stood up to stop the pipelines first. Wiyaka stayed that first night when they opened the camp at Sacred Stone. That’s an honor no one else can share.
In July Sacred Stone had their second youth run, this time to carry the petition to Washington, D.C., and by the time they came back to Cannonball there were nearly 5,000 people coming to Sacred Stone with nowhere to camp. Shortly after that our Tribe, the Sicangu Oyate, set up camp — and that camp was filling up, too. And pretty soon everyone was sent to an flat area called the overflow area, A beautiful place — that’s where many, many smaller camps were set up and that area eventually became the Oceti Sakowin camp.
Running for their lives: Native American relay tradition revived by Native youth to protest Dakota Access Pipeline. (Salon/Social media)
Esperanza: Can you share with me some of the lessons you learned at Standing Rock?
Cheryl: One lesson from Standing Rock that stands out for me is that without the support of mainstream media telling the truth about what was happening at Standing Rock – the truth behind why all the people were camped there – without their honest reporting as to the impact of these oil and gas and fracking pipelines to water, the people who will be affected won’t know the truth of how devastating pipelines are to watersheds and rivers and their water supply.
In my opinion, mainstream media failed the people of the country, not just the water protectors. They could have prevented all of the abuses of the law enforcement, the unnecessary jailing of hundreds, and no one would even have had to end up with trumped up criminal charges, if they had wanted to share the truth about pipelines. They didn’t care enough about the water quality of the Mni Sose or the people of Standing Rock. Mainstream media has not ever accurately reported the facts of what pipelines actually do to the environment, nor the truth about the governmental figures lending their political weight to approve illegal pipeline permits and how the banking system was funding the pipelines, even though it was very clear that the banks were not following the Equator Principal.
There were some news outlets that were very loyal, to not only our struggle but to struggles similar to ours in other communities – Democracy Now, I have to hand it to them. The Young Turks, Josh Fox; the Huffington Post, The Guardian, Unicorn Riot was on the spot, taking front line videos and sending those messages out – they themselves were jailed for reporting. Neil Young had a song he wrote and added an extra verse that included a statement about Standing Rock that included my son Happy. There were so many people coming I can’t even list all the people – those are just the ones that come to my mind first.
At the very end when the Standing Rock occupation was getting shut down, CBS came and some other people came but they had to sign waivers from the state of North Dakota.
“Right now we’re just pebbles. But when we march together, and we sit down and pray — we’re a rock.” Cheryl Angel, Nov. 27, 2016, Standing Rock. Video by Beth Pielert, goodfilmworks.com.
Another lesson I won’t forget is that even when you are right, it doesn’t necessarily change anything. Early on, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed in court saying that the permit was illegal, that was the legality for us holding those grounds – they were building a pipeline using an illegal permit, signed without tribal consent. We knew we were right, that’s why we stood as long as we did.
After the pipeline was built, when the case finally went to court, the judge said, ‘Yes, you’re right, the permit was illegal.’ Standing Rock knew that the permit didn’t abide by the guidelines — it didn’t have an environmental impact statement, and it didn’t have a statement on how it was going to impact the tribal culture, or those effects into the future.
The Judge also said that since the pipeline is already built I’m going to let the oil flow. Which doesn’t make any sense. The judge knew the Army Corps of Engineers approved the permit knowing full well that it didn’t meet the permit requirements and the oil should be stopped until the impact study is completed.
Winning in court didn’t stop the use of the pipeline and it should have. The DAPL permit was illegal, so the pipeline should be removed. Like I said —even when you win, it doesn’t always change things.
Ladonna Brave Bull Allard and Cheryl Angel make ceremony on the Back Water Bridge, Standing Rock November, 2016. Photo by Beth Pielert.
Esperanza: I know, that was very hard, and very unfair. I know it affected everyone who was there. After Standing Rock, what was your thinking about what you personally wanted to do next, with your own life?
Cheryl: Well, that’s just it. My own life isn’t my life anymore, because once you stand up and you see the injustice and you see the lack of concern for the environment from a corporate and legal standpoint, it doesn’t end that easily. Another thing, while you’re standing there you get to talk to the person standing next to you, and you get to hear their stories.
And they all came with stories – devastating stories about what happened because nobody stood up – or when they did stand up they were either killed or massacred or forced off the land. But at Standing Rock people weren’t going to lay down, because we knew we were right. The judge said we were right, even after the pipeline was built.
Now it makes perfect sense to protect water everywhere. I have a deep relationship with water. I know its alive. I know it can hear our pleas, and our songs and all the prayers said along its riverbanks and shores.
As Indigenous people with sovereign economies, we don’t have the need for a huge capitalistic society to come onto our lands and we certainly don’t need these pipelines destroying the water we need to drink.
So water is in danger, globally. Right now Indigenous communities are still at risk, and they are standing up, because they have to stand up. When you finally realize — WATER IS LIFE — you understand why you can’t sit back down.
People keep saying “after” Standing Rock – but I’m still of the same state of mind, I still have the same passion for the water, it has to be protected. It was when I was at Sicangu Wicoti Iyuksa that I learned about the aquifers that were in danger and when I was at Standing Rock I learned about the rivers that were in danger.
Cheryl Angel with Karen Little Thunder
When I went to Mexico I learned that pipelines are coming down from Canada and then through the United States on down to Mexico. So this is a global issue. This encompasses the entire Americas – Turtle Island’s waters are in danger from the pipelines and the oil and gas and gold and silver and copper mining. So there isn’t an “after” Standing Rock for me. I’m still standing and so are the hundreds upon hundreds who understand what “Mni Wiconi” really means.
In my travels after Standing Rock I listened to stories about rivers and lakes that need to be defended from oil/gas and mining extraction – extractivism. These extractivism economies are all endangering the environment – and hold a huge responsibility for climate change.
So the power of making alliances with Bold Nebraska and many others, the power of telling the truthful consequences of what’s going to happen to the water when pipelines break – that’s what I work for. That’s my job. That’s my responsibility. That’s my future. I guess that’s my job description. I work toward the unity of people, the making of alliances. I know that building those alliances are the key to stopping extractivism from contaminating our waters.
What do I want to be called? Water Protector. Spiritual Activist. Unci. In reality, I’m just one person who stood up with thousands of others when the water called them. As one person I feel called on, at a very deep level, to connect with water. I go to ceremonies – especially water ceremonies. For centuries peoples all over the Earth have been doing that because a reverence for water is what’s needed. And that’s what the world’s leaders fail to see.
I go to urban places and I talk to the landowners – because the places I go the people own their houses, they own their land – and I say, ‘It’s time you stand up to protect your watershed.’ If everybody stood up and protected their own land, and their own watershed – if they remembered what it used to be called, if they remember the river and what the natives used to call it, if they called natives to have ceremonies on these lands where the watersheds are, we would be more in balance than we are today. We would be on the right path to reconciliation and a movement of unification of people who lived on the lands.
So I’m really working hard to unite people because of the need to protect the water. I really do believe if people could protect their own watershed – if they could learn the name of the people who used to be the guardians of that watershed, if they could invite those people back onto those lands to have their ceremonies again for the water – that would be building an alliance, that would be holding the water in reverence, that would protect the water and could start to heal the people who have been separated for too long. I also call upon land owners to return their lands to the tribal nations that were forcefully removed from their ancestral homelands, the places where they lived in peace and were getting along by practicing their sovereign economies.
Esperanza: That would be a beautiful thing. And do you see that happening?
Cheryl: I do! It is happening. I have a friend – I was going on this tour to talk about watersheds and talk about people returning their lands to their tribes – and she has a big piece of land and she said, I’m not going to give away my land to the Tribe (laughing). So I felt obliged to correct myself and say, “For people who really feel it in their hearts that the land belongs to the native people and especially if it’s where they have ceremonies, that they give them back a piece of their land so they can freely come back and have ceremonies as needed.”
Esperanza: Oh, yes! I remember reading about that!
Cheryl: See? So people are listening (laughing). And my friend — eventually she made a land deal so that her lands would eventually be turned back into Trust Status for the Tribes.
Esperanza: You’re right, it’s true. It’s beginning to happen.
Cheryl: Art and his wife Helen are the best people to listen to when it comes to being a land owners and pipeline fighters! We keep in touch and they are family to me.
Esperanza: That’s amazing!
Cheryl: Yes, it is amazing.
Next: Cheryl talks about economic sovereignty, the lessons learned in her travels in Mexico, and her upcoming gathering in the Black Hills, June 9-16.
This series is produced in collaboration with Intercontinental Cry, a Native-led magazine covering Indigenous issues around the world.
One week after Sunday Bloody Sunday, when militarized police used water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas on peaceful water protectors, Cheryl Angel led over four hundred women to the same bridge to invite the officers there to join her in a water ceremony. They peacefully abided. This is a clip from the non-violent training she gave earlier that day, to all the women and men who participated in that peaceful action. Video by Beth Pielert, goodfilmworks.com and leavesawaken.com.
