Where have the Ojibwa gone?
“Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.”
Where have the Ojibwa gone?
I am 1/4 Ojibwa and my Ojibwa grandmother raised me. She was took from her reservation at six years old. The government school cut her long black hair, they told her, do not speak your language, no-more. They changed her name and forced a life upon her. She told me. I don’t hold revenge, I have forgiven the white people. But I do not forget. I remember everything.
Now I live on the Ojibwa land, once Ojibwa land in the past and now the only remembrance of the great nation. The names of the public schools.
Where are the great forest, that never-ended. Where are the great tribes? The great tribes were put into reservations.
Once Michigan and Ohio were forest states and the white men destroyed the great forest. Now the forest is small and the cities are everywhere.
Where do the free animals go when the land is no-more?
Once my dear Grandmother was told to forget her language, become civilized and she taught me.
We are the people of the forest, once a great nation and now we have become quiet. Please teach your children, please teach your grandchildren to love the Big lake, the Great forest and befriend the free animals. Please don’t forget where you came from. We are the people of the forest.
Today I pray a Ojibwa prayer.
“Please be kind to the Big water,
please allow the trees to grow and touch the sky,
please allow the free animals to have free land to roam and live.
Please allow the children to dance with the Big water and
to find peace in the great forest.
Please Great Spirit,
give me more days to dance with the moon and the sun.”
Coyote
”Every animal knows more than you do.”
“Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn’t have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. Without a prison, there can be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore, among us there were no thieves.”
Dancing Coyote
Sad
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Yes dear Beth. We must remember history. For the bad things, not to repeat.
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I’m not sure where any of us went. It seems like a lot of peoples around the world with good ideas watch them being trampled.
When the Earth was larger, we had space to move away. We lost that space and we got some really bad neighbors.
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They were forced into small reservations and Government schools. Ojibwa are in Michigan and Canada. My grandmother was took from her reservation at five. The USA government cut her long black hair, changed her name and she was allowed to speak her language. The ugly USA history, we cannot be allowed to be forgotten my friend.
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Well, I meant more than your people, but yes.
There are peoples everywhere displaced by the Euro-colonial explosions. It must have been especially devastating to those responsible for preserving ways of Life.
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It was. Many tribes won’t accept help from the USA government. It is sad. How we treat human life in our world.
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