KIM’S NATIVE AMERICAN TOPICS WEBPAGE
Why the Native American topics webpage?
When my mother, at a fairly advanced age, began investigating the Indian presence in our family tree, it caused a serious uproar among other members of the family. In the Graham side of the family, this contribution was at least acknowledged, but was never discussed much. My grandmother Graham used to teach us kids some very basic Indian culture and language, but never in any systematic way. Most other members of that side of my family just sort of laughed off any discussion along those lines. But big trouble happened with the Ground side of the family, where news of those investigations didn’t garner her any popularity at all. Curiously enough her investigations actually produced more concrete documentation of an Indian connection on that side of the family.
So here’s the story as related to me by my mom:
My grandfather Ground was brought (they think) at a very early age from the Nez Perce to the Carlisle Indian School, where the federal government at that time was conducting an experiment with the policy of forced assimilation. The process apparently worked quite well for them as far as the case of my grandfather Ground was concerned. He went on to become moderately successful in the dominant culture as a storekeeper, married a woman of German descent from a well established family in the area, and never looked back to his native roots.
My great grandmother on my mother’s side apparently escaped the Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma and found her way to Atlanta where she operated a boarding house of less than sterling reputation. Her daughter married a vaudeville entertainer and mill engineer of Scotch descent who was to become my grandfather.
Where does that leave me?
Well, slightly more than half of my ‘real’ Indian friends and acquaintances (‘real’ in this context meaning being enrolled as an official member of some recognized tribe or another) regard me as a ‘wannabe’ Indian – that is, one who wants to be or tries to act like an Indian, but isn’t really. The other half are more liberal and consider anyone who accepts and attempts to practice Native culture as an Indian. In part this interpretation is supported by the fact of frequent intermarriage and mingling of Indian and European bloodlines over the past 500 years.
As far as I am concerned, I don’t ‘wannabe’ anything I am not. But I am interested in Native American culture, and I do try to practice some of the philosophy, which I think all of us in this country could benefit from examining a bit more closely.
So here are some Native American links:
Carl Bjork has a great site of ancient rock art and western photos. Thanks, Carl for the inspiration and early assistance in getting this project started. [2023 R.I.P. Carl and the site] HTTP://home.comcast.net/~carlbjork
Rustywire If they gave a Pulitzer prize for web posters, Johnny Rustywire would have one. His stories are filled with vivid imagery and tell of life, love and lore in the Navajo Land . http://www.indianz.com/News/2016/09/16/johnny-rustyire-the-angry-one-took-care.asp
Chimera Excellent stories and poetry full of imagery and resonance by Navajo poet Zoey Benally from northern New Mexico. http://saaniidotcom.blogspot.com/
Carlisle Indian School: HTTPS://carlisleindianschoolproject.com
HTTP://home.epix.net/~landis/index.html
Nez Perce website: http://www.nezperce.org/Main.html
Navajo central – culture, history, philosophy [2023 sadly, this resource is gone and nothing comparble exists today in a single place}: http://www.lapahie.com/index.cfm
Ahweeh Gohweeh Ahweeh Goweeh is [2023: WAS] a nice little coffee shop / bookstore / cultural center located in downtown Shiprock New Mexico. Stop in and say hello if you are passing through. http://www.falconlabs.com/ahweehgohweeh/ya'at'eeh.htm
Sam Silverhawk has some great web graphics available for free if used according to his terms and conditions. Still going strong after 25 years.
Unfortunately I am having trouble getting them to work in accordance with his requirements with the program I am using to edit the text oriented pages of this site (Microsoft Word), and the art program (Picture Publisher) that I used on the FalconLabs home page and others on this site does not deal well with text, so you may or may not find graphics on this specific page you are viewing now. If graphics exist on this one page, they are all his. He has some worthy ideas about using material from the Internet in building your website.
Check his stuff out at: HTTP://www.samsilverhawk.com
Maybe we wouldn’t be any better off with Indians running the Federal government.
We would probably still fight among ourselves, same as always.
But we certainly wouldn’t be any worse off than we are with the bunch of thieves, liars,
and corporate raiders that are in power now.
That doesn’t mean that I think the Democrats are any better.
