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Every race, and this is important that people get this, especially young people,

every race, with no exception has contributed to the civilization that we live in
today. The Black man has contributed, and don’t think he hasn’t. He’s made
magnificent contributions in spite of the uphill battle these people had to take
because of their dark skins. There is even some archeological evidence that
they were among the first people to make iron. That coffee you drank this
morning - my favorite drink - was a gift of those people, the Black race.

I don’t know how the Indians got along without it. Do you know who invented
the blood transfusion? A Black man invented the blood transfusion. That man
saved thousands of lives, maybe millions of lives, but how many people know
that a Black man invented that? Do you know how he died? They say he got in
an automobile accident, lost a lot of blood, was rushed to a hospital, and they
wouldn’t let him in cause they said he was a “nigger”, and he bled to death.

The other races made great contributions to this civilization, their cultures
were very ancient. The White man has made wonderful contributions and so
have the Red men of America, the Indians. Nobody, and I mean nobody has
the right to say to any other people “This is my civilization”. Everybody has the
right to say THIS IS OUR CIVILIZATION. Its like a big kettle of stew, it doesn’t
just have onions in that stew to make it taste good. There are many things in
that stew, gifts of every race in the world to make it what it is today, our
present-day civilization.

Now when I was a little boy going to school, a long, long time ago, I hate to
think how many years ago, at that time, they taught very little about Indians in
school. But sadly at that time, always bad, always. Well I remember it: I
remember that fat, ugly ol’ teacher! Her name was Miss Gillespie. I don’t
remember learning any reading, writing or arithmetic from her, but I do
remember three statements she had to say about Indians, and she was
serious!

The only good Indian is a dead Indian, Indians are inferior to White people Ð
both physically and mentally, Indians are like little children:

They never think of the future, they just live from day to day, without one
thought about what’s gonna happen tomorrow. And I take a look at what the
White man has done to this once beautiful land in the short time he has been
here, and you can tell that to children in school?? THINK ABOUT IT.

I became a teacher too. A science teacher. It takes from three hundred to ten
thousand years, that long - depending upon the location - for one little inch of
topsoil to from. Some parts of the Midwest, in the short time the White man
has been there, little over hundred-some years, that little while, eighteen
inches have washed down to the Gulf of Mexico.
And they wonder why they have floods every year in the Mississippi, Missouri,
Platte River Valley. Why the Indians stripped the earth of all its protection! And
they need not blame it on that big population!

The minute they landed on Plymouth Rock, they skinned our Mother Earth like
you skin a muskrat, without one thought of the future. Anyone with any
intelligence knows you don’t cut trees down the side of a hill or a mountain.
But for that precious dollar bill they worship so much, they stripped those
beautiful forests in California along the coast, and what happened right
afterwards? The mud floods started to cover their fancy houses. Did they learn
anything? No. Money first always. Right through California, Oregon,
Washington, probably now Alaska..

Where are the cones that used to hang from the trees? There used to be
thousands of cones hanging from those trees.. What happened to them? Why
are our trees sick and dying? ACID RAIN. So what do the big brains do in the
government? They have a study, and another study, and another study.. and
meanwhile our Mother Earth is sick and dying. I’m living here where I can see
what’s happening. They continue to have these studies.. and meanwhile our
Earth is sick.

Do you realize that millions of animals and birds are dependant on those
cones.. and seeds.. to feed their little ones.. to survive? Oh, yes, they say,
acid rain kills fish. They say no more. Certainly it kills fish.

And when the fish go, the mink, the otter, the loon, the blue heron, the fish
hawk, the kingfisher, they go too!

They have super-salesmen coming around to all these little communities,


selling some kind of a chemical poison, its supposed to kill black flies. Out of
curiosity, I went over the other side of that mountain, to a little place called
Vermontville, to see what this fella had to say.. little fat, stubby guy with a
fancy suit, driving a big cadillac car, big talker.. goes on and on about this
wonderful product his company turns out that kills black flies.. Finally after a
while, he says: “Any questions?” I said: “Yes, I have a question: What is it?
Does it kill other insects?” Oh, how he hates to answer that question! Talks all
around my question, finally after ten minutes I said: “Mister, I hate to interrupt
you but you haven’t answered my question: DOES IT KILL OTHER
INSECTS?” “Yes. Next question!” before I could say a word.

Dave Fyock, who used to live up here at Onchiota raised bees, wanted to
know if it killed bees. The same runaround. Finally, after a while, I said: “Look.
He would like to know, so would I. DOES IT KILL BEES?” “Yes. Next
question!”, I says “Wait a minute. What are you fools trying to play God for?
Every time you try and play God, you hurt this Earth a little bit more, you take
the future of our children away from them, if for no other reason, the black flies
are very valuable. Do you know why? To keep you butchers out of the woods,
so you won’t kill every bird and animal there is. And if this kills a useful bug
like a bee, how are we going to have any more pollination? How are we going
to have any more apples, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, huckleberries,
blueberries, and a thousand other pants? And if this kills all the insects, what
are the birds supposed to eat? What are the fish supposed to eat? What are
the frogs, the toads, the salamanders, and many other creatures supposed to
eat? And when they die, what are the things supposed to eat to live on them
and right on up the line? I wasted my breath!

Big fat lady got up, she says: “We don’t care about the birds and the fish, we
don’t want our kids to be bitten by black flies.” I says: “You continue to do
these things, and you will destroy the future of your own children. It’s that
close!”

... They spread their poison... I haven’t heard a whip-o-will since. Wiped them
right out.

Used to see flocks of cedar wax wing, sixty, seventy, eighty in a flock. Last few
years, I’ve seen fourteen, this year I’ve seen three. Have our birds are gone,
half our animals are gone, and the rest are sick and dying. And I am living
where I can see what is happening, and it scares me, and it also angers me.
And I could go on and on about what the White man is doing to this once
beautiful country, and not only to this country, but all the way around the world
for that thing they worship so much, that dollar bill.

But that teacher did say this: She said “The American Indians gave corn to the
world.” And that was it, as if that was the only thing the Indians ever gave.
Well not only did the American Indian give corn to the world, do you know how
many types of corn they developed all together? All together, the American
Indians developed over 300 different kinds of corn. Over 300 kinds. Even that
so-called Hybrid corn the White man boasts to have just discovered the last
few years.. That was known by our Indians in Mexico over a thousand years
ago. All of the beans in the entire world came from the American Indian except
for two: horse and soybean, they came from China. Even that famous dish you
hear so much about, Boston baked beans, was a Wampanoag Indian dish,
taught to the Pilgrims by the Wampanoag Indians, and that was the first time
that White folks enjoyed several dishes we enjoy today: Clam chowder, oyster
stew, pumpkin pie, believe it or not, cranberry sauce, corn soup, popcorn, all
of our corn, our beans, pumpkins, squash, celery, buckwheat, maple sugar,
maple syrup, vanilla, chocolate, peppers, tapioca, Irish potatoes, that’s right, it
didn’t come from Ireland like everyone thinks, and saved the Irish people?
Yes. It saved the people of the world, but it was a gift from the American
Indian.
And that nation of Indians that developed the Irish potato and gave it to the
world, do you know how many kinds they had? According to the National
Geographic magazine, they had over 79 different varieties of Irish potatoes.

Sweet potatoes is another gift of the American Indians to the world, and the
young people of this country ought to be interested, even peanuts, popcorn
and chewing gum were gifts of the American Indian. Pineapple didn’t come
from Hawaii, pineapple came form our Central American Indians where it was
brought over to Hawaii. Tapioca didn’t come from Africa, it came form our
South American Indians, where it was brought over to Africa. As a matter of
fact, according to agricultural scientists, American Indian food plants show a
further development from their wild prototypes. (that means the plants they
originally came from).

Take for instance peppers and tomatoes – both a gift of the Indians to the
world – Now these two plants belonged to a deadly poison family, the
Nightshade family, the same plant grew in a wild state across the ocean; yet
they took that plant over there and made it into one one good to eat, but our
Indians did... and when they offered it to the Spaniards for the first time to eat,
do you know what the Spaniards thought? They thought they were trying to
poison them. Today the whole world eats peppers and tomatoes, but I bet my
shirt that not one person in ten thousand knows where they came from, that
they came from this land, and that they were a gift from the American Indian.

According to the Museum of Arts and Science in Rochester, that’s one of the
best scientific museums in this country, one nation of Indians, the Inca Indians
of Peru, originated, developed and gave to the world more agricultural food
plants now in use today than all of the European peoples put together. Think
of it: All of them put together! French, Scots, Irish, Russians, Germans, Polish,
Italians, Czechs, all of them combined didn’t give as much as that one Indian
nation did. Now if that isn’t a wonderful gift to today’s civilization, I would like to
know what is. And why they don’t put these things in their school books when
they’re studying about Indians, I’d like to know why not also.

It wasn’t just agricultural food plants that the Indians gave the world, look at
the medicines that came from the American Indian... What would we have
done without quinine, an Indian medicine?

We might not have built the Panama Canal, or won World War One. Quinine is
one of many medicines we use today, gifts of the American Indian.

And according to Ripley, believe it or not, the first iodine and aspirin were
American Indian medicines. In the 400 years that White men have dominated
these two continents, they haven’t discovered ONE, not even one medicine
plant that wasn’t known by Indians.
Even that shirt you got on, it’s probably made out of cotton, and if it is, it’s
American Indian cotton, that’s right, with a foreign name, Egyptian, attached to
it, don’t ask me why...

There’s 20 or 30 Indian gifts to the world with European or other foreign


names attached to them – very misleading - . Like Egyptian cotton, Irish
potatoes, Turkey tobacco, India rubber, Italian beans, none of which came
from across the ocean. It’s true, the Egyptians did have a cotton, a short
fibered, crude cotton grown commercially anywhere in the world today. No
cotton in the entire world had longer or finer fiber than the kind the American
Indians developed and gave the world. Do you know what the White man
thought it was when he first saw cloth made from it? It was that fine, they
thought it was silk. Today it’s not only grown here in America, it’s grown all
over the world, along with the best, the longest, stable cotton developed by
any people, also a gift of the American Indian.

Even the government of the United States of America, actually in many ways
is imitating from the government of the Iroquois Confederacy. The White man
across the ocean never had a true democracy. They’ll take a magnifying glass
and they will desperately, frantically and vainly look all over European history
to find just one democracy, just one, to make good their claim, and they’ll
come up with this: “I got it in school, you got it in school, my grandchildren will
get it in school unless they start telling the truth for a change!” They’ll say this:
The Ancient Greeks had a democracy... Doesn’t that sound familiar? They’ll
say the Ancient Greeks discovered democracy. Well, I studied that so-called
Greek democracy. If that’s a democracy, I live on the moon! Over half of them
were slaves with no voice at all. Hey wait a minute. Any country that has
slavery, and that includes the United States when they started, is NOT a pure
democracy.

And I will never understand why they connect George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson with liberty, freedom, equality and democracy. Are they
blind or playing stupid? Washington, they say, had over 400 slaves. Jefferson
had the same number of slaves. The Iroquois outlawed slavery on all of their
territory, and at one time, their territory was as great as the Roman Empire at
its greatest height.

Furthermore, in Ancient Greece, your mother, your wife, your sister, your
daughter wouldn’t have a voice, nor would they have a voice anywhere in
Europe. Women were considered chattel, property, so how in the name of
heavens can they call the Greek government or any European government a
democracy, when one half of them were eliminated because they were
women??

In my own lifetime, and I’m not 100 years old yet, I can remember myself
when not one White nation in the entire world gave their women a voice.
I can remember that. The first one across there to give their women a voice
was New Guinea, north of Australia, and I’m not sure you call them White,
three fourths of them are dark.

The first one in Europe was England, just before World War One, the United
States right after World War One. Spain gave their women a voice 30 some
years ago. I THOUGHT Switzerland gave their women a voice, but last month
there was a Swiss tourist who came here, he sat right on that bench, and I
asked him about it. “Oh, he said... It didn’t pass in all of our states.”

And guess what little White country last year, as late as that, finally gave their
women a voice? Lichtenstein (west-Switzerland). The Iroquois, and not only
the Iroquois, but most of these Indian people under them, not only gave their
women a voice, they gave them far more rights that White women possess
today in this country America, contrary to the Big Lie that was slapped in my
face when I was a little boy going to school. How Indians treat their women...
Believe me, White women in this country would envy the rights of Iroquois
women.

Many would like to say that great Magna Carta of England had something to
do with freedom and democracy, every once in a while that would pop up, the
Magna Carta... Did you ever study it? The people, who aren’t even mentioned,
gave their nobles, their barons a voice, and not much of a voice. The great
mass of people all over Europe in those days, including England were “sirs”,
little better than slaves. And guess who those nobles and barons were? They
were little kings themselves.

I have a suspicion, it is my own theory, I could be wrong, but I’ll bet I’m not,
that what politically formed England, gosh, it probably was directly influenced
by the French Revolution, for good reason. Those nobles in England would
have lost their heads if those nobles in France thought they didn’t start
thinking about their people for a change. They must have realized it. “Freedom
is very contagious once it gets started, especially amongst an oppressed
people.” Those European Whites were for generations, for centuries, under
their dictators, their kings, their cesars, their czars, their popes, their
emperors. And where do you suppose the French got their idea of freedom
and democracy from? Right over here. The American Revolution, for men like
General Lafayette and French soldiers they brought over here, ... during the
Revolutionary War to help the Americans. And where do you suppose the
Americans got their idea of freedom and democracy? From the American
Indian, especially the Iroquois.

A very famous lawyer by the name of Felix Cohen, who worked in the interior
department of Washington for a number of years, has written a number of
books on law, in fact he was considered one of the greatest authorities on the
subject in the entire world. I always felt very lucky to have known him.
He had a camp right over here by the lake, ten miles away. He was sitting
right there on the floor, showed me a photo static copy of a report given by
three British spies who were sent over here to America just before the
Revolutionary war to find out why the colonies were so rebellious against their
Mother country. And it was their report to their superiors back home in
England... and believe me, it was interesting reading.

It was worded something like this:

”The Aborigine of America, meaning the Indian, are a strange people, with
peculiar customs and ways, very different from ours in Europe.. Why the
people actually elect their own leaders. And if their leaders don’t abide by the
will of the people, they are removed from office. And this is a serious and a
dangerous thing. This is contagious.”

Our American colonies are now demanding a voice and a government and
something has got to be done about this immediately. I read the report. And
why they don’t put these things in the school books when they’re studying
about Indians, I’ll never know. I’ll tell you something, you’ll find the truth about
the old Indian far more interesting, educational and instructive than that
garbage, and I mean dirty garbage with a capital-and-underlined, that has
been brain-washing the minds of people, especially children, about Indians for
over 200 years.

Now I’m going to explain our government to you briefly. There is a diagram of
it.

Each one of these rectangles the White man called a tribe was actually a
State. And they who sit in the counsel house, they called Chiefs. Those chiefs,
they weren’t like kings and queens and dukes and barons and what-have-you,
the noble’s system of Europe, who’s oldest son across the ocean in Europe
automatically became king, baron, duke when his father died, regardless of
what the people wished. Under their system, all over Europe, they inherited
the right to rule. Furthermore, it was backed by every one of their religions. As
a matter of fact, at one time, the Church thought that when the king speaks,
Gods’ speaking through his mouth, you got to obey him.

Those Chiefs simply represented their clans, and since everybody belonged to
a clan, in plain English, they represented their people, were put in office by
their people to represent them and their government.

That was unknown by White men, at least it wasn’t practiced by him before he
came to this land. There was only one other people across the ocean that built
a real democracy: It was not a White race in Europe, it was a Black race in
Africa, called Ashanti.
Now if those Chiefs, if they didn’t do as their people wanted them to do, After
the third warning by the women through their War Chief, they were removed
from office, replaced by Chiefs who would do as their people wished them to
do. Furthermore, they could never hold public office again ever as long as they
lived. That’s a democracy. You couldn’t do that with a king, you’d lose by
“divine right”, whatever that means. They had several state governments
whereby they controlled their internal state-of-affairs, they had their central
federal government at the capital Onandaga where they had two houses. A
bill, in order to become a law, had to go through those two houses... Now what
does that sound like? THERE’S where they got their idea of democracy, not
from the land of kings and queens across the ocean, don’t let them kid you!

Did you ever see a Lacrosse game? That’s a North American Indian game.

Did you ever watch a hockey game? Hockey is a South American Indian
game, comes from the Indians of Argentina. Did you ever play marbles when
you were a kid? You were playing an Indian game, although Europeans also
had a type of marble, today they play both kinds. Did you ever go downhill on
a toboggan? That’s an Indian invention. Did you ever sit in a hammock? That’s
an Indian invention. Did you ever sleep in a sleeping bag? Did you ever go
canoeing, snowshoeing? The Northern Indian and Eskimos were the first
people to ever make and use snow goggles. South American Indians were the
first people to make and use tooth brushes. Peruvian Indians were the first
people to fill cavities in teeth with gold or turquoise, remove tumors from their
brains BY SUCCESSFUL SURGICAL OPERATIONS.

I’ve only mentioned a few of the many gifts from the American Indians to the
world, but I say to you people here and I wouldn’t hesitate to bet my life on it
any day, that White people in this country, whether they realize it or not,

are actually living more the way the Indians lived at the time of Columbus,
thinking and governing themselves the way the Indians did at the time of
Columbus, eating foods that Indians ate at the time of Columbus, than the
Indians living the way the White man did at the time of Columbus. And if
Creator ever took away the many gifts of the American Indians to the world,
believe-you-me, this civilization we live in today would crumble, and crumble
mighty fast.

And that is why I say that such unfair and misleading statements as that
missionary article tacked to the wall, underneath that corner of that
contribution chart: “The Indian’s old world is disappearing, whether he likes it
or not, he must make the change to the White man’s civilization.” Such a
statement as that, especially in this day and age where people are as
educated as they are, and in contact around the world as they are, that
statement is not only ridiculous, it’s stupid, and it certainly isn’t true...
The civilization we live in today is made up of the gifts of every race in the
world: White, Black, Yellow, Red, Brown, and nobody has the right to claim it
as their own. It’s like a kettle of stew, it doesn’t just have onions in it, it has
many things, gifts of all people.

Now I’m going to add a little more to this message, because I feel it is very
important:

Now I taught in Indian Schools for at least 25 years, but there was a French
priest on the Canadian side. He says “Ray, come here.” I says “Yes, what do
you want?” He says “What are you teaching these Indian children to be proud
they’re Indians for?” I says “Say that again??”

He said “What did the Indians ever do for the world?”

You can take all the American Indians in the world, you can dump them in the
ocean, and you wouldn’t know a human being was over here before the White
man came.”

And then he went on to brag about the great coliseum in Rome that is
standing after 2000 years, I had to interrupt him, I said: “Yeah, they served
you with the lines, didn’t they?”, and he went on... He said: “What did the
Indians ever do?”

I says: “What did you have for dinner today?” Why?” “What did you have for
dinner?” -

Every single thing he mentioned came from the American Indian. I said: “That
fancy car wouldn’t run without a gift of the Indian. He said: “What’s that?” I
says: “Rubber.” I says: “The first time White people ever saw rubber, they saw
Indians playing a game very similar to basketball, and when that ball came
bouncing towards them, they left a record of what they did, they started to run
away from it, they thought it was alive! That’s the first time the White people
ever saw rubber. They weren’t just playing a game, they had practical uses for
rubber, they were wearing waterproof clothing, they had rubber boots on...”
And then, I told him what I just told you folks, plus a little extra. J I said: “My
advice to you is to go back to school and take a few science courses, and get
caught up a little bit, you’re behind the times!”

Now out west, on the Pine Ridge reservation, there was a priest called Father
Edwards. Entirely different kind of a person, he knows better than to teach an
Indian child to be ashamed of their own people. Did you ever stop to think how
an Indian child feels going to school, sitting there all alone, surrounded by
White children, the teacher gets up (in front of the whole class) and describes
that little Indian boy or little Indian girl’s grandmothers and grandfathers as
dirty, lazy, treacherous, cruel, eight or nine other bad adjectives, blood thirsty
savages... Did you ever stop and think what that does to an Indian kid? Goes
to a moving picture show, and there’s a «cowboy and Indian» story, next thing
you know, it makes a hero out of a White man because he shoots Indians... I
see what this does to Indian children and it angers me...

Now this priest in South Dakota, he’s an educator. He’s gone back into the
records. Further more, he’s not afraid to tell what he has found in the
records... He said he can prove by the records, that the average height of the
European White man at the time of Columbus was five-foot tall: average
height. That one out of ten Europeans in those days, due to insufficient diet,
lack of proper nutrients, were deformed in some way. That’s a big percentage.
He said thanks to what Indian America has given the world in the line of food
plants, medicines, ideas of sanitation and health, people today are as healthy
and strong as they are! He said many ideas about health that we take for
granted came from Europe, didn’t come from Europe at all. They were taught
the White man by Indian doctors from this land. Ideas like cleanliness. As a
matter of fact, one of the first laws ever passed against Indians, was passed
by Queen Isabella, forbidding Indians to bathe so much, that bathing was very
bad for their health.

He said these ideas, such as cleanliness, fresh air, sunshine, exercise, they
learned from American Indian doctors. In those days, if you were sick, you
were sort of condemned to death. The Indian put encouragement into a sick
man and made him feel good and he got well. He said an eighth grade student
in this country America today would have a hard time squeezing into a suit of
armor of a man who was considered a big man at the time of King Arthur in
Europe. He said in fact, it was the American Indian who put the White man on
the map! They never taught real Indian history across either this country or
Canada. Nor have they taught real White man’s history and culture in either
this country or Canada.

There isn’t a kid that hasn’t heard of the famous Pyramids of Egypt, one of the
seven wonders of the world. There a re three large ones, and a number of
small ones... Our Mexican Indians built literally hundreds of them, one or two
of them are larger in area than the largest Egypt ever produced, built by
Indians. As a matter of fact, the largest pyramid in the world isn’t in America or
Egypt, it’s in China. They brag about the Great Apian Way of Rome, did you
ever see it?

A few hundred miles long. Our Inca Indians of Peru built two lane highways
still in use today after thousands of years, made tunnels through mountains,
built suspension bridges over gigantic gorges, one of their roads, if stretched
out straight, would reach from New York city to Los Angeles, and make your
Apian Way of Rome look like a cow path!
Do you know they found archeological evidence that the Mayan Indians of
Yucatan knew that the world was round before Christopher Columbus was
born? That it revolved on it’s axis? That is was a part of the planetary system
with the sun at the center? That the entire thing was a part of the stellar
system? They could predict not only solar eclipses but lunar eclipses, that’s a
wonderful achievement! They invented zero a thousand years before it was
independently invented by the Arabs and the Hindus, they knew every bit of
modern mathematics that we know today including calculus, their calendar
was more accurate than the Julian calendar which all of Europe was using at
the time of Columbus, there’s even evidence that they knew abut penicillin!

Now why don’t they teach these things in school? What’s the average kid
taught in school about Indians? The Indians hunted, they fished, and they
KILLED people. They love to stress killing people when it comes to Indian
people, cause Indians tried to defend their country against a foreign invader!
It’s always got to be a war club, a war whoop, a war dance, a war paint, a war
this, a war that... I’ll ask YOU a question:

Who invented germ warfare, chemical warfare, poison gases, bombs, guns,
battleships, dynamite, torpedoes, defoliation, insecticides, biological warfare?

Who started these things to kill other humans? Indians?

Before they start to throw mud, they better look in the mirror and see what
color looks back at them! And I say it’s about time they told the truth, and
that’s why we have RACISM in America. Because they do not teach children
that this civilization today is not a White man’s civilization, it’s made up of the
gifts of all races, each important. It’s not MY civilization, it’s OUR civilization...

And until they teach these gifts of other races to young people in this country,
until they do that, we’re going to have RACISM IN AMERICA. And that little
innocent five year old White kid, you can’t get mad at him, he’s only five years
old...

He’s gonna grow up with a swelled head, thinking he’s better than everybody
else, and that little dark kid is gonna grow up feeling very inferior, very hurt,
and he’s never going to feel part of this country until they teach the truth! That
other races have given to the world, that it’s NOT a White man’s civilization!
It’s made up of White, Black, Yellow, Red, Brown. And that’s my message to
anyone that wants to listen, and anyone want to argue with me, they can come
on up here!!

That’s the end of my sermon!

by Ray (Tehanetorens) Fadden - Woodstock Museum, Woodstock New York.


Used with Permission

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