Outlawing The Potlatch- Outlawing Indians- A Contemporary Analysis Of Canada & USA Ethnic Cleansing Aris-Arnelle Durocher of Paganmediathatbites.

com Published on: May 8, 2012 Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to some folks and realized in our conversation of trials and tribulations that First Nations in North America really don't have or know all of the history that happened to our Ancestry. We often read on Colonization however so much more in the brutal inhumane cruel treatment of Indians across North America happened and is historically the grassroots to what Indians experience across North America to this day with continual suffering in Indian communities across North America. I believe history tells the story, not manufactured history that politicians and the one percent put in the first books, the true history. I believe that once First Nations understand their ancestral history that it will strengthen First Nations and help to heal over time. Yes there were apologies made by Governments and Christian Churches, but those apologies don't even begin to cover the entire sordid truth about the savagery and violent attacks on Indians by the dominant race and the sub class of the one percent as we call them today. It is important that First Nation understand our Ancestors history and important that Non Natives also understand this history. For everyone to fully understand what truly happened in the History of Native Indians across North America. The Imposition of Canadian Criminal law on Aboriginal peoples showcase the issues that Canadian Aboriginals experience to this very day in Canada. Further if it happened in Canada similar of the same assimilation happened in the United States of America including the savage violent attacks from Governments and Christian Clergy. Issues reign from Colonization, Sovereignty and the role of the judiciary systems that were were made into racist legislation and law in Canada. Just as compelling is the Christian Church's role in their doctrine of savage and tyrannical attacks on First Nations peoples across North America. Indeed it was an all out assault on First Nations Indian Aboriginals as a collective government and Criminal Organized Churches agreement to savage, ravage, break down, take down, and commit atrocities against North American Indians. History tells the story of lethal ways used of extermination through bogus and unconstitutional laws, genocide, cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing of public murder, rape, sodomy, stealing children, assimilation, torture, physical and mental abuse and even slavery resulting in the biggest Holocaust in the history of mankind! When someone like Adolph Hitler studied the North America brutish systems and admired how the hegemonic Caucasian society handled their Indian problem, and that Hitler used North America's systems from Canada and the United States as a guidance to murder over six million Jewish people it should serve to show the demented, murderous inhumane treatment that was bestowed on Indians across North America. In which modern day genocide against the Indigenous is still a prevalent problem for First Nations in both Canada and the USA. When we understand our Ancestors history, we will all understand how the effect has been trans generational and may come up with solution to help solve the crisis in Aboriginal lives and communities today. The grassroots of the struggle, history for all peoples will bring the great awareness needed not only to understand the issues, but the deep struggles that have caused pain and suffering to First Nations/Native Americans. It helps Non Indians fully comprehend the soil of the blood spilled and

why Indians struggle today. Understanding bears the fruit of a better world that all of us can live in. In the late nineteen century First Nations experienced struggles as follows; The decline of the fur trade The migration of their lands to other Euro settlers while First nations were relocated The making of treaties ( Treaties 1-11 was made between the years of 1871-1921) The Riel Rebellion by the Metis people occurred in 1869-1885 as well as the successive trials and hanging of several First Nations people for their participation in the Rebellion including Louis Riel himself for treason. Aboriginals across North America were decimated by the European epidemic diseases. ( Just as a codicil before Euros arrived in North America First Nations had good lives, our Ancestors did not have the issues they experience today or in the past.)They were healthy, lived well and lived with the comfort of their tribes and community. They did not have diseases or any problems with Alcohol. It is important that First Nations realize that it was the Euro's that brought diseases to North America. In fact while First Nations lived clean healthy lives, several European countries lived in squalor and filthy conditions, this is true history peoples. After Euros came to North America, came not discovered there was widespread destruction by Euros of wildlife and resources. Something we continue to see today with governments and big business, such as the pipeline. First Nations also suffered disenfranchisement in terms of being forced to abandon their Indian way of life, their cultural, spiritual pagan religion and traditions. Basically North American Indians in Canada and the USA were criminalized and marginalized through racist policies and legislation that was dehumanizing and unconstitutional in North American legal decorum. The Canadian Government with the help of Christian Churches including the Popes, Priests, Missionaries and the Indian Agents outlawed their First Nations Indian ceremonies and celebrations such as the Potlatch, the Sundance and other ceremonies such as the Tamamawas. Because of Euro ignorance they didn't understand these sacred First nations ceremonies and enforced Christian religions on First Nations across North America. For that matter to this day some people feel that the Potlatch had no meaning and was just a ceremony of senseless dancing in Native tradition. This of course is the words of the ignorant that didn't bother to delve deeper into the sacred traditions of Indian culture. The Potlatch means gift giving, it was a customary ceremony tradition of North American Indians in both Canada and the United States . In essence it was a sharing of wealth among First Nations in which through the Potlatch gifts of wealth in terms of goods and resources would be given and redistributed among the tribes. In some cases that was the intimidate tribes/bands within their own community and other times struggling other Native communities would be the recipients of the Potlatch. You heard the saying spread the wealth that is exactly what Indians did before European Invasion , egocentric ascendancy government and Christian dominance. In fact in my studies of Arab history they had a similar system that once a year there more wealthy would give gifts of resources and money to those less wealthy. Yet the Potlatch was outlawed by Canadian, USA Federal Governments and the Organized Child Abuse, Christian Churches. There was nothing savage or heathen about the Potlatch only according to Christian and the dominant class demonic rule! There was also a pass system in the 1880's were the Indian Agent would decide who could and could

not leave the reservations. They imposed and regulated compulsive legislation and creation of Residential Schools in 1894 and Boarding Schools In the USA in 1870 in which the mindset in the USA was to Kill the Indian ,Save the man". The government also prohibited lawyers from representing Indians or any Tribe/Band in any action against the Federal Government of Canada. The imposition of the Indian Act in 1876 First Nations were forced to abandon their mother tongues and forbidden by law and punishment to speak their Native languages. They were forced to cut their hair to what was considered an acceptable European style. All these legacies that included murder, annihilation, genocide and cultural genocide of the ethnic cleansing are the historical grassroots to North American Native issues that is experienced today. According to Elder Kathentinehtha Horn of the Mohawk Nation, it is estimated that 120 million First Nations people were slaughtered and murdered over the course of human history across Canada and the USA. Indian Ceremonies were suppressed and legally prohibited by the organized crime system of the Christian and Catholic Churches. In fact it is said that Christian Missionaries and Catholic churches attacked and assaulted Aboriginals customs and traditions by confinement and enforcement, including slavery. In the United States of America The Federal Government restriction of Native Indians Americans to small parcels of land began in the U.S in 1786. Native Americans gave large amounts of land to the U.S. Government in exchange for annual payments of money, food and agricultural equipment. The General Allotment Act of 1887 made the establishment of reservations for Native Americans permanent, altering the nomadic Native American way of life to an agriculture-based culture. In 1871, the U.S. Government began to pass laws aimed at assimilating Native Americans into the Europe Way of Life. To Justify their dominance they,passed requiring many Native Americans to relinquish their traditional clothing, religions, customs. The government passed laws because of the Christian Churches pressures that Indians must be cleansed and value Christian Euro Ways of Life. The General Consensus was "Indians must be taught the knowledge, values, mores and habits of Christian civilization...Since the days of the common school movement, the schoolhouse had come to achieve almost mythological status. Reformers viewed it as a seedbed of republican virtues and democratic freedoms, a promulgator of individual opportunity and national prosperity, and an instrument for social progress and harmony. Moreover, because of the common schools alleged ability to assimilate, it was looked upon as an ideal instrument for absorbing those peoples and ideologies that stood in the path of the republic's millennial destiny." (Adams, p.18) Prime Minister of Canada John A MacDonald made a public proclamation in 1883 regarding the status of Indian customs, traditions, religion and ceremonies. Certified Copy of a Report of a committee of the Honorable Privy Council ( note the word Privy) His Excellency The Governor General in Council on the 7th day of July, 1883 On a report dated the 19th of June, 1883 from the Superintendent General of Indian Affair representing the strenuous measures should be adopted to put a stop to the heathenish custom know n as the Potlack and which his department endeavored through the Superintendent and Agents to suppress which still prevails by a

large extent among some of the tribes to this day. John A MacDonald went onto say that more civilized Indians recognize the desirability in their own interest of it ( the Potlack) being put to an end and have petitioned governments to adopt measures to end ( rather the more so called civilized Indians were coerced an threatened to agree and petition the governments so the government could justify why they were put down to a sacred spiritual ceremony of independence of gift giving and sharing the wealth which entailed a feast and happiness in giving to others. ) Canada's Indian Reserve Commissioner Mr G.W Sproate reported this to MacDonald as a means to end the evils of the Potlatch. How they found that to be evil and uncivilized is beyond understanding. There was absolutely nothing or evil, heathen or brutish about the Potlatch only in the dominant class eyes. I reflect that the Potlatch was not just an expression of gift giving and sharing the wealth it made Indians Independent of Governments and Churches, so Indians were unjustly, unconstitutional, unfairly, labeled as heathens and evil. When the evil and heathen really was with the Dominant Europeans and Christian Churches. In fact Politicians, various judicial components, Christian Churches and Education systems all conspired to manufacture history and the truth about what really happened to Indians in North American and you will find that the first history are lies and deceit on the parts of the dominant class of systems and they were everything they labeled North American Indians with in their manufactured texts of lies and fabrications. An example of this is Indians did not burn people at the stakes, rather Indians were burned at the stakes. In comparison the Salem Witch Trials is one indication on how the dominant class ruled and how they continued to burn people at the stakes. The different histories correlates the true history of human kind and those Evil peoples that dominated the humans that were different then themselves. In fact Bill Hipwell of the Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada writes the following in a letter to an editor at the Financial Post regarding Canada's apology to First Nations. First, indigenous peoples have populated the North American continent for at least 40,000 years, not 12,000. Secondly, the ecological behaviour of indigenous nations needs to be evaluated not on the basis of alleged activities twelve millenia ago (at a time when Europeans were living in caves and long before the extermination of the European lion), but rather by looking at the more recently evolved cultural systems of the past 1000 years. In this time frame, there is no question that indigenous nations across the continent had developed sophisticated adaptive systems that allowed large populations (an estimated 70 - 100 million people inhabited North, Central and South America before contact) to exist in harmony with the environment. Thirdly, Europe is not the originator of all "modern" innovations. For example, many medicines (such as aspirin - derived from willow bark) are in fact indigenous North American in origin. And the wealth that indigenous nations generously shared with European colonial settlers (none of whom could have survived in this "harsh" environment without the assistance of sophisticated indigenous survival techniques) allowed the later industrial revolution to take place. Finally, the civilizations of indigenous peoples such as the Mi'kmaq and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) confederacy taught Europeans such basic principles as democracy and human rights, not the other way around. Jefferson borrowed liberally from the Haudenosaunee political system in drafting the U.S. Constitution. As Benjamin Franklin said in introducing the Iroquoian notion of democracy to his colleagues, "All their Government is by Counsel of Sages; there is no Force, there are no prisons, no officers to compel obedience, or inflict Punishment." By contrast, at the time of the colonization of North America, the European population laboured under despotic monarchies, lived in squalor, and their city streets were filled with beggars. The first North American Natives to visit Europe were appalled by the comparative barbarism of European culture. The federal apology to Native people was only inappropriate in one regard: it should have been

accompanied by a profound "Thank You"!(Bill Hipwell , 1998) I hope this helps First Nations to better Understand our Ancestral history of brutality and Ethnic Cleansing of the biggest Holocaust in the History of Mankind as well as Non Natives understand the disenfranchisement and genocide that was committed on First Nations peoples across North America as well as Governments on all levels in North America to do more then they are doing for First Nations. I will be continuing on in articles about the true history of First Nations as time goes on. I wanted to start at the beginning and give the grassroots of the struggle that Indians experienced and why Indians are struggling today! And if you want to cry you cry because this was the most brutish merciless unthinkable Holocaust in the history of mankind on all levels of government and every denomination of Christian Religion which also included the " Social Segregation" of Indians. So when Non Indians asks what are Natives problem, you now know what the problem is and continues to be to this very day! May we all grow together from every culture and do better by each other as well as help each other! This is the true Indian way! The suffering and pain bestowed on North American First Nations by Corrupt Governments and Religious Criminal Denominations has had a tremendous impact on how well Indians do today and how they live. That is why an apology is only the first step to reconciliation, more must be done by the abusers in Governments and Churches and Educational Institutions. It is important that First Nations in Canada and the USA understand our Ancestral history and that all nations understand this dark history of Evil. Article Sources Bibliography Article was written from the sources of- Sociology of Law Supplementary readings ( Canada) . James S Friders , S. Native people in canada contemporary conflicts. (3 ed.). Calgary: University of Calgary. Excerpts from Forrest LaViolette The struggle for survival: Indian cultures. ( Toronto : University Of Toronto Press, 1973) at 2, 38-39, 43, 57, 59, 61, 69-72, 74, 83,85) Kahentinetha, Horn. (2005). The north american indian holocaust. Akwesasne Phoenix. Retrieved from http://www.nightslantern.ca/nativeholocaust.htm Bill Hipwell (1998). Letter to the financial post. Ottawa: Department of GeographyCarleton University. Mary Beth Norton, Cornell University. , David M. Katzman, University of Kansas, , David W. Blight, Amherst College, , Howard P. Chudacoff, Brown University,Fredrik Logevall, University of California, Santa Barbara ,, Beth Bailey, University of New Mexico,Thomas G. Paterson,, William M. Tuttle, Jr., University of Kansas,University of Connecticut. A people and a nation . (7 ed.). etal: