In Support of Our Ancestors
by Joe Schranz and Clare Farrell, AIM of IL Repatriation Committee
"To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is
hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and
seemingly without regret...
...At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and
you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts
that once filled and still love this beautiful land: The White Man
will never be alone.
"
(In light of the ongoing excavation of our ancestors burial sites, with
the subsequent removal. study and storage of their remains and burial
goods, we choose to provide a foundation essay on our beliefs in this
regard. We seek to set forth a basis for our rights and demands to both
educate the public we are working with, and to protect our relatives of the
past, with special reference to the current burial site at New Lennox,
Illinois.)
It is with pain that we must continue to explain ourselves and our
ways--and those two cannot be separated--as we struggle to save the burial;
grounds of our people. The recent newspaper article in The New Lennox
Community Reporter speaks out in support of developing the New Lennox site,
listing the recreational opportunities that will upbuild the local
community, and the revenue that will be lost if the project is abandoned.
On the surface, if the site did not have the rich history of an 11,000 year
span of occupation, this a legacy deep within the earth's many layers of a
culture utterly distinct from the present one, these are modest goals. But
whenever the apparent good of one group interferes with the good of
another, the end is debilitating to both.
This must be examined carefully. In our age of many cultures sharing
the same land, invited or not, we find it necessary to consider the many
differences that exist among us in order to identify, thus preserve, our
own essential Native ways. Inherent in the struggle to protect our
ancestors' burial ground is our world view which traditionally differs from
the Western concept of life that developed in Euro-Asian cultures over the
past centuries. We continue to experience the complete divergence in
understanding that manifests itself in an intrusion and disrespect of our
ways, material and spiritual. It is our intense hope that a serious
endeavor to delineate these distinctions, coupled with a consistent demand
for respect, will touch the compassionate sensibilities integral to every
educated human being. We strive to ignite that sleeping awareness that
welcomes and celebrates the unique spiritual truth of every people and
nation.
A critical starting point is the basic fact that there are different
ways to view reality and all are valid. This foundation of successful
interaction between cultures--the recognition of common credibility--was
decidedly lacking in Western thought at the time of the invasion of this
land 500 years ago, Its absence marked the genocidal policies that fueled
the movement to populate the Western hemisphere with Easter hemisphere
peoples. A growing awareness that this Western mindset is not only
exclusive, but has serious limitations, has barely begun to alter governing
policies and attitudes that affect Native people.
We define some of the differences with the explicit goal of clarifying
our rights:
--The Idea of Progress
The vast difference is best expressed in opposing values of adaptation
versus control. The hundreds of nations spread across this hemisphere had
originally, as pre-industrial people, adapted to each natural location,
cultivating the land, hunting, gathering and developing unique identities
through interaction with the world, seen and unseen. During the
communication that continually occurred among nations, some of them 1,000
miles distant from another, the focus was on an exchange of goods, methods
and ideas, without a hierarchy of value. One thing was not better or best,
with others being poor or worthless. There was difference and preference,
and these attitudes allowed the co-existence of multiple choices, with
special recognition and reverence given to what is old. The item or value
that had withstood the test of time, proving it was valuable for the good
of the whole, held an honored place.
The Western concept of progress considers the new to be superior to the
old. The English language 'er' adjectives--bigger, faster, higher--express
the belief that life is a constant process of making the world better.
Taken to its logical conclusion, all is replaceable with something that
will surpass it, and old must make way for its successor.
--The Concept of Time
The traditional Native view of time is that life is cyclical. All is in a
continuous flow, a circle that links past, present and future. This brings
all reality together, interconnected and interacting. Relationships between
people are ongoing, with birth and death as points on the endless wheel of
life, which naturally dictates a moral code that embraces both ancestors
and the unborn.
Western society, on the other hand, is built on a linear time line, with a
view that looks away from a past towards a future. The present is a
separate unit which, disconnected from past and future, is open to varying
conduct that affects immediate persons and events alone.
--The Individual and the Community
For traditional Native people, the common good is the major concern and
goal of all activity, The individual is a link in a continuous chain of
united families across the ages. The aspirations of any one person was not
allowed to interfere with the well-being of the nation as a whole, and
those who sought power without service, excess property without sharing, or
honors without humility were shamed and corrected, or shunned.
In direct counter position is the Western society practice of
individualism, with its built-in permission to advance without regard to
others, to accumulate a disproportionate quantity of goods without guilt,
and the ability for leaders to exercise authority without upbuilding the
common good.
--The Idea of Space
The Native viewpoint does not separate material and spiritual, all being
one reality. Spiritual facets, though intangible, are present in every
aspect of life in complete partnership with the realities present in the
five bodily senses.
Western thought, in contrast, draws sharp distinctions between the visible
and the invisible, The things available to the five senses are accorded
certain reality, while all that cannot be physically observed is relegated
to a range of possible to non-existent.
To avoid the clear danger that these categories be taken literally, we
state here that this is a general outline of bodies of thought that direct
the actions of each respective group. There are variations and differences
in individual cases, while intentional manipulation has tampered with
traditional Native values. Programs to enculturate and assimilate have
deliberately attempted to replace these values--this very mindset--with
Western thinking, and has in many cases succeeded.
It is therefore clear why the New Lennox site, which will include more
burial places by virtue of its longevity of occupation, can be slated for
development in today's society, governed by Western ideas. It can be bought
and sold, altered and rearranged. The land is seen as a material entity
that can be used in the present time for the benefit of part of the people
in the name of progress. It will be new, therefore an improvement on the
old. Its past is not part of present time, and the spiritual reality of the
people buried there cannot be detected, and can therefore be discounted.
What is true for us is that the spirits of countless numbers of our
relatives abide in this sacred land, which is itself alive, that three
major villages occupied over an 11,000 year time span--triple the time
since the building of the pyramids of Egypt. We respect and revere these
ancestors who continue to stand with us today. We feel their presence and
know the power of our unity. And because they are old and embody the
traditional values that made our society strong, we honor them and must
protect the ground in which they lay.
A recent flyer distributed in the New Lennox area calls for support of
the recreation project, and the need for the revenue that will result from
the golf course for improvement to existing parks. It justifies the use of
the ancient village site in this way as a funding source for a swimming
pool (scheduled to be built where the remains of three children were
already found and removed), and to expand programs for the children, asking
the question: "What might they be doing without these programs?"
First, it is clear we are talking about finances above and beyond any
other consideration--money to be made if the project is completed, and
money to be lost if it is not. In our traditional way, which did not
include land ownership or a money-based economy, and which focused on
sharing all available resources, we cannot accept the desecration of this
site to this end. Even if there was not an acre left anywhere which could
be used for recreational development in that area--which is not true--we
say, enjoy what you have already, You have taken the whole country for your
use--leave intact the little, which includes our ancestors' remains, we
have left.
Secondly, what might your children do? Again, even if there was no
other site for a local swimming pool--which is not true--and the land
around New Lennox was left as untouched fields, then your children can do
the only thing left that will preserve an earth rapidly being consumed by
development: they can learn respect--for our way of life that can teach
them how to live in harmony with all living things of yesteryear and today,
so that they will have a tomorrow. What did our children do when they were
deprived, not of a recreation site, but of the land that sustained them?
They starved and they died. We want more for your children, for we know
that all of us are in this struggle to survive together. For the cry of our
hearts has never been exclusive, but recognizes a balance in the universe
that includes the four colors of humankind--black, red, yellow and white.
It is for all people that we strive to keep our burial sites untouched,
that this circle of life may be kept whole for the ongoing life of us all.
Ultimately, we do not need to explain ourselves. Without making a
judgment on any other world view, the fact is simple: this is our land, our
sacred land. But it is part of the Native prophecies that we must be the
ones who bring the sacred hoop of all nations back together, and thus we
offer this instruction as a gift. As adaptive people, we use this English
language, this printed text, and these modern methods of media dispersal to
send out this message.
Indeed, the ideas that originally set the ships to sail to our peoples'
shores still blow across the face of our land, determining our future, and
digging up our past. To those who can hear the truth, Chief Seattle's words
for 1854 ring out a cry and warning:
"To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is
hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and
seemingly without regret..."
Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people, Every
hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by
somesad or happy event in days long vanished. The very dust upon which
you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than to yours,
because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are
conscious of the sympathetic touch. Even the little children who lived
here and rejoiced here for a brief season will love these somber
solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits.
...At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and
you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts
that once filled and still love this beautiful land, The White Man
will never be alone."
To input and support, contact:
Joe Schranz
AIM of IL Repatriation Committee
Suite 144
6348 W. 95th St.,
Oak Lawn, IL, 60453
(708) 598-1061
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