but sometimes i'm a little disturbed by the finds and heirlooms folks bring in.
last night they were in oklahoma city, and various references came up regarding indian territory. according to wikipedia:
The Indian Territory served as the destination for the policy of Indian Removal, a policy pursued intermittently by American presidents early in the nineteenth century, but aggressively pursued by President Andrew Jackson after the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Five Civilized Tribes in the south were the most prominent tribes displaced by the policy, a relocation that came to be known as the Trail of Tears. The trail ended in what is now Arkansas and Oklahoma, where there were already many American Indians living in the territory, as well as whites and escaped slaves. Other tribes, such as the Delaware, Cheyenne, and Apache were also forced to relocate to the Indian territory.
The Five Civilized Tribes set up towns such as Tulsa, Ardmore, Tahlequah, Muskogee and others, which often became some of the larger towns in the state. They also brought their African slaves to Oklahoma, which added to the African-American population in the state.
In time the Indian Territory was gradually reduced to what is now Oklahoma and, with the organization of Oklahoma Territory, the eastern half of the state. The citizens of Indian Territory tried in 1905 to gain admission to the union as the State of Sequoyah but were rebuffed by Washington. With statehood in November 1907, Indian Territory was extinguished. Many American Indians continue to live in Oklahoma, especially in the eastern part.
my mother recently saw an episode where a pair of native american moccasins was appraised at something like $25,000. apparently it's rare to find artifacts from these people, and they had never been worn.
she said that she would put the shoes up for auction and give the money back to the nation who made them.
it would be nice if you heard that more often, wouldn't it?
it's easy for some to forget how this country was built and whose homes were trampled upon to expand this nation from the atlantic to the pacific. this history has left us with a salad bowl--not a melting pot, imo--of peoples and tensions that have never been properly explored, examined, healed, or even revealed. there are too many who do not understand their stake in this land from a holistic perspective.
everyone resting on this land has a story to tell.
which leads me, naturally, to the upcoming holiday season.
please consider the spirit, if not the practice, of buy nothing day. i touched on the idea of a sustainable future yesterday. at the rate we're going, we don't have a great chance at said future.
there are some of us who are able to downshift and simply won't hear of the idea of giving up the pretty baubles we enjoy from day to day.
be thankful for the real things in life...the things that don't cost a dime, and that you'd still have even if you were dirt broke and living in a crappy studio apartment like the one you had in college.
and if none of those things have a presence in your life, reevaluate.
that said, i hope everyone reading this winds up with a full belly and good memories by thursday evening. do everything you can to skip the drama (whatever that may mean for you & yours) this holiday season.
peace.
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