Native Traditions in the Americas and North American Religions Units.
Standing Together at
Standing Rock: Cross-Cultural Perspectives and Critiques: The #NoDAPL
campaign at Standing Rock drew thousands of protesters representing tribal
nations in the United States, indigenous peoples from around the world, as well
as diverse religious groups and nonindegenous peoples. The protesters were drawn by a common
cause but participated in ways that both created unity and dissension. The papers address these distinctions
ranging from interrogating Standing Rock as a social or protest movement to
address these distinctions ranging for interrogating Standing Rock as a social
protest movement to examining the occupation as a milestone moment in modern
inter-religious dialogue. Papers
give consideration to the complexities of the movement while drawing on
indigenous cosmological understandings and global interests in human-earth
relationships.
«
Margaret
McMurtrey – Standing Rock: Movement
or Spiritual Call? Confrontations
Concerning Space- and Place-based Rhetoric. Standing Rock: social movement or spiritual call? To the non-native observer, it is a
movement: a call to action on behalf of the environment and the people of Standing
Rock. For most Native and
indigenous people, it calls forth a complex and nuanced relationship with the
land. This paper examines the
current and historical legacies of native and non-native alliances around
social and spiritual “movements” that help to interrogate Native and non-native
responses to Standing Rock. Native
people are demanding that the “meaning” of Standing Rock be explained within a
rhetorical context of space and place.
The challenge: how can the language of ”social movement” be illumined
within the rhetoric of space– and place-based religiosity? Can space- and place-based rhetoric be
articulated to explain the nuances of Standing Rock from a Native and
indigenous perspective while facilitating the understandings of and promoting
the formation of large-scale community alliances?
«
Peter
Huff – Parliament of Religions on the
Prairie: Standing Rock as Interreligious Event. The 2016-17 Standing Rock phenomenon constitutes a turning
point in the history of modern interreligious dialogue. Oceti Sakowin and related encampments
represent not only the greatest Native American tribal gathering since the
nineteenth century but the most extraordinary open-air interfaith “camp
meeting” in U.S. history.
Representatives from Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish Muslim, Sikh, Unitarian
Universalist, Wiccan, Protestant, Catholic, and Quaker traditions assembled
with Native American spiritual leaders and international indigenous leaders,
forming not only a spontaneous parliament of religions on the prairie but the
first mass modern interfaith event informed by indigenous values and
practices. Based on first-person
participant observation and interviews with local actors, the paper traces the
development of the Standing Rock interreligious experience from the spring of
2016 to the February 2017 camp evictions.
Drawing upon the critical literature on the history of modern
interreligious dialogue, the paper identifies Standing Rock as a milestone in
global interreligious dialogue.
I came into this session after it had commenced; however, I
think I experienced more than 90% of it.
Again, my post-stroke note-taking leaves much to be desired.
 |
| Chief Arvol Looking Horse |
Peter Huff spoke of the leadership of Chief Arvol Looking
Horse, 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle.[1] White Buffalo Calf Woman (Ptesanwin) brought the Pipe to the
Dakota People more than 300 years ago.
Chief Arvol Looking Horse said:
In
our prophecy, the White Buffalo Calf Woman told us she would return and stand
upon the earth when we are having a hard time. In 1994, this began to happen with the birth of the white
buffalo. Not only their nation,
but many animal nations began to show their sacred color, which is white.
Those gathered in protest performed and/or participated in an
“Esseron”[2]
interfaith ritual. This turned out
to be a much bigger deal than the organizers expected. Karen Van Fossen, a minister at Bismarck-Mandan UU Congregation in North Dakota,
and Father John Floberg of the Standing
Rock Episcopal Churches, who were among the conveners, issued a notice to
the interfaith communities, resulting in more than 500 clergy-people and/or representatives from religious communities
coming, as opposed to the dozen they were expecting. Some readers may be aware that Andras Corban
Arthen and Patrick McCollum, both
prominent Pagan interfaith activists, were present, as were Cornel West and
others from around the country and beyond.
The ceremony was one of joyful community and rising
concern. They burned the Doctrine of Discovery,[3]
then celebrated the easement with fireworks. Among the participants were some teachers of interfaith for reconciliation from Belgium,
as well as Veterans for Peace.
Unfortunately some leaders of this gathering were targeted
with hate mail.
There was little access to the Internet, there being only
one place on a certain hill for Internet access.
«
Lily
Oster – Decolonizing Earth-based
Spiritualities: Negotiating Earth-awakening without Appropriation. This paper explores the ethical
complexity of white engagement with earth-based spiritual traditions,
addressing patterns of cultural appropriation of indigenous traditions while
also recognizing the potential benefit of more widespread human orientation
toward the earth as sacred. In a moment
when humanity urgently needs to cultivate ecological consciousness, many
indigenous traditions contain teachings of planetary connectedness and
worldviews that undermine extractivist framings of human-earth relationship. However – as was recently highlighted
by the migration of many white visitors to the pipeline resistance camps on
Standing Rock Sioux land – indigenous traditions are not necessarily open to
converts, and white seekers are not necessarily attuned to the protocols of
non-appropriation. This paper
makes a case study of white encounter with native religion at Standing Rock,
considering the decolonial possibilities and pitfalls of Eurowestern spiritual
engagement with traditions, practices, and philosophies grounded in the
sacredness of the earth.
Many Native activists have made it clear that they want no
white leaders. Nor are non-natives
able to participate in the Sun
Dance. I understand this
exclusion of non-natives in an eco-cultural context.
However, with the growth in numbers of people practicing one
or another Pagan spirituality with their commonly (not universally) espoused emphasis
on the holiness of Nature and our interdependence, and considering that
Neo-Pagans are mostly white and urban, I wonder where we can respectfully fit
in. As an urban white, associated
with colonization and appropriation, I can certainly appreciate Natives’
insistence on exclusion of non-natives.
Nonetheless, in broader interfaith activities I, as an ecologically
concerned Pagan Witch, think that our “greenness” is an asset and can inform
others who hold a more “dominionist” (the attitude, not the Christian right)
perspectives on the world, its assets, and its inhabitants. I wish to contribute to the
fortification of everyone’s efforts to address climate change, regardless of
religion or ethnicity or any other difference.
The basic underlying tenet of these Native people is that
everyone looks out for each other.
That’s behavior I try to cultivate and that I wish were more common
among non-Natives.
«
David
Walsh – Ceremony in Historical
Perspective at Standing Rock.
The #NoDAPL movement and the protests at Standing Rock have attracted
media attention for the direct action with police. However, this focus has obscured the historical context of
protest through ceremony. In this
presentation, I discuss cosmological understandings of the indigenous
participants. Their actions such
as individual ceremonies, the camps as ceremony, and direct action with police
as ceremony, suggest that the #NoDAPL movement is primarily a spiritual ecology
movement. To properly understand
this movement, then, it must be put into historical context with other
spiritual movements of resistance, such as the Ghost Dance movement and Idle No
More. Only then can we understand
how water protectors are protecting the source of life, water, from the forces
of destruction, the black snake, as they continue their cosmological battle to
cut off the head of the snake before it spills its poisonous venom – oil across
the land.
Mr. Walsh claims that the protests
against the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock are pan-indigenous
spiritual movements of resistance.
One practice is to bring water to pour into the river.
He likened this to a “mini Mokami,” which is a reference
either to (1) a river trail in present-day Labrador used by the three
indigenous peoples of that land: the Innu (Innu Nation), the Inuit
(Nunatsiavut), and the NunatuKavut (Southern Inuit); (2) a place in central
Missouri; or (3) a place in Santa Clara County in California. The phrase he credited to “mini Mokami”
is “Water Is Life.” Regardless of
the source, this statement applies universally.
This mixture of waters is similar to a ritual honoring the
Waters of the World that is widely practiced in the interfaith movement, both
national and international. Participants
from many places bring water from a spring, creek, lake, river, or ocean near
where they live to ritually comingle with the waters brought from far and
wide. I’ve been told that this
rite of mingling waters of the world (not pouring them into a river) began as a
UU practice. In any case, the
practice has been taken up within the Pagan movement, where it is not uncommon.
Nonetheless, It is important to remember that indigenous
rituals, whether environmental or otherwise, are focused on the local rather
than the universal, even when they have been displaced.
Mandans hold wisdom of the sky is covered and erased by
dams. The Native peoples at DAPL liken
oil to the “black snake that destroys the land.” That is an image I can easily envision. Protests opposing extraction from tar
sands in Alberta began in 1967, and amped up in the 2000s.
One of the activities mentioned concerned approaching and
standing upon a sacred mountain on the DAPL encampment. Humans who seek to go there must put
cedar bark in their shoes as a sign of humility and respect for the sacredness
of this mountain. Beyond
respecting this practice, I think such practices can be consciousness raisers
for non-indigenous people.
Created by people of Canada’s sovereign First Nations, Idle No More soon grew into one of the largest Indigenous mass movements in Canadian
history. “Idle No More calls on
all people to join in a peaceful revolution, to honour Indigenous sovereignty,
and to protect the land and water.”
INM began demonstrations in 2012 to resist extraction and
assimiliation.
In addition to the Ghost Dance in South Dakota and actions
at Wounded Knee, Native Americans and First Nations people have conducted Round
Dances at shopping malls. They
hold Sitting Bull as an honored ancestor.
By Mother Nature, Mother Earth and other names, I join all
peoples in respecting, preserving, conserving, and celebrating Earth, our beautiful
and sacred home.
[2] The word I heard as esseron,
thought it may have been asseron.
In any case, I don’t know its meaning and have been unable to find any
useful information about it.
[3] The
Covenant of the Goddess issued a Resolution To Repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, and Implement
the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2012.
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