Manataka Smoke Signal November 2007 Page 2

Grandfather Tobacco
By Patrisia Gonzales, Column of the Americas (c) Sept. 3, 2007
Patzin (Nahuatl for Respect-worthy Medicine): a monthly feature on Indigenous medicine

Several years ago, I was asked to give a prayer for a gathering of tobacco researchers. In my hand I held ceremonial tobacco that friend Lawrence Shorty had gifted me. For years, Lawrence has grown Native ceremonial tobacco and offered this sacred plant for free to Native communities in hopes that Indigenous people will stop using commercial nicotine pro

ducts for prayers.

The researchers were surprised that I would pray with a plant that in its altered form is so poisonous. The many varieties of tobacco grown by Indigenous peoples across the Americas attest to a shared regard for the plant. While many nations have heirloom seeds, many of us also will use a commercial cigarette for a prayer when sacred tobacco is unavailable. Though it grows wild even in the desert, growing tobacco takes a certain
mastery and relationship with the plant.

Tobacco is a sacred granddaddy for many Indigenous peoples across the Americas. This Grandfather's smoke is used in ceremonies and purification rites. The tobacco leaf also has great medicinal power. In
Mexican Traditional Medicine, tobacco is used to address both spiritual and physical ailments. Precisely because it is so powerful, tobacco is treated with great care in these rites. Stories abound of a granny curandera smoking over someone with her puro.

While tobacco is often associated with American Indian peoples, tobacco also has a long ancestral use in various parts of the Americas. Tobacco flowers are depicted in numerous Mesoamerican symbols and pottery. Colonial friars recorded how Nahua people presented large bundles and gourds stuffed with tobacco as part of greetings and ceremonies. The painted picture books, thousands of years old, depict various ceremonial offerings with tobacco. Inquisitorial reports record incantations to tobacco in its Nahua ceremonial name as "Nine Times Beaten One," referring to its journey across nine spiritual levels of existence as
the smoke carried prayers. In keeping with ancient practices, it is snuffed in the Andes and drunk in the Amazons. Peoples in the Caribbean and Mexico continue to use tobacco in the spiritual cleansing known as
limpias, for protection rites or to introduce male energy.

A common tobacco remedy known by many peoples in the Americas is the use of tobacco and saliva or water for an insect or snake bite. It is also blown on crops as an insecticide as well as for blessings. The tobacco leaf is hot in nature, and soaked in oil or rubbing alcohol it becomes a pomade or liniment for muscle aches, including as a rub to assist women afterbirth during the lying in period. Tobacco provides heat and warmth for a cold condition, such as the period following birth. It is also used for burns, diarrhea, cuts, afflictions of the uterus, incision, headaches, inflammation of the spleen, toothaches, syphilis, asthma and dropsy and to alleviate pain. It is used for protection or rubbed on the body for fatigue or as a form of prayer. Friars attempting to irradicate Indigenous spiritual ways recorded a recipe for tenexiyetl-lime-tobacco in a 1:10 ratio for mal de frio (illness caused by cold), or to be used with tomato for swollen throats and for cysts.

Tobacco reminds me of how Indigenous people share what Native scholar Inez Hernandez-Avila calls "correspondences." Though they are distinct peoples they can also share similar values and approaches. Some Native midwives have commented that among their tribal traditions in the North, they also employ tobacco or peyote when there is a difficult labor or to diagnose causes and actions. In the 1600s, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón noted that in order to facilitate labor, midwives in Mexico "pick up the piciete in the hand and crush it, and then they move the hand with the piciete over the belly of the pregnant woman especially over the fetus." Iyetl - is tobacco in Nahuatl or Piciyetl -- "tiny tobacco." This tiny tobacco is known in Western botanical terms as Nicotiana rustica and is used to cure afflictions of the uterus.

When I shared that story with the Nahua midwife Doña Filo, she commented, "Fijate que si. You wouldn't believe it but it works. You just blow like this." She showed me how to lightly blow tobacco near the womb. Tobacco used in this physical and energetic manner is a technology of birthing because it is employed to move the labor, and therefore energy. However there are nurses, who upon hearing this story, were incredulous that tobacco would be burned near a fetus. Like the tobacco researchers, these health care professionals are unaware of the
ceremonial heirloom seeds still available to Indigenous peoples, or how tobacco is used in sacred or ritual forms. And, again midwives thousands of miles from each other knew to use the plant toward the same ends.
Lawrence Shorty, who is Navajo and Choctaw, argues that Native reliance on commercial tobacco for ceremonies impedes tobacco prevention/cessation programs in Indian country. Let us persevere to strengthen our original relationships to this powerful relative.

Manataka receives dozens of letters each week. Space does not allow us to publish all letters but we make a concerted effort to print letters that are representative of a majority. Let us know if there is a topic you feel needs to be addressed.

To: Manataka Members,

This letter is to introduce and cordially invite you to the 2007 Fostering Indigenous Business & Entrepreneurship in the Americas (FIBEA) Conference in Acoma Pueblo – Sky City Resort, New Mexico, USA. This event is scheduled for November 7-9, 2007 at the Sky City Resort and Casino. The conference agenda will include two days of academic & business workshop sessions, and cultural performances. We are expecting over 200 international and domestic academicians and students, Indigenous business professionals, government officials, NGOs, and indigenous tribal nations to this two-day event.

The 2007 FIBEA conference is timely given the importance and variety of issues permeating the study and practice of indigenous entrepreneurship on a global scale. Indigenous entrepreneurship is at the core of current and future economic development for indigenous nations and communities around the globe.

Through this conference, we hope to enable indigenous business people in the private, public and tribal/community sectors to present indigenous business opportunities, solutions, and problems to a local, regional, national, and international audience. We also want to promote networking among indigenous business people and communities toward problem-solving and business opportunities.

We encourage you to visit our website at http://fibea.mgt.unm.edu or e-mail us at fibea@mgt.unm.edu for more information. Or you can reach us by phone at (505) 277-6471 or by fax at (505) 277-9868.

Sincerely,

Raul de Gouvea, Ph.D.

FIBEA Conference Chair

Chair FIT Department

Jaye Francis

FIBEA Conference Coordinator

No Monkey Business Here

Dear Manataka,

My job is to seek out artists, filmmakers, photographers, and writers who may be interested in submitting their creations for presentation on the web site.

Web sites with similar themes... animal and environmental issues, green living, and generally anything with approaches that are geared toward positive lifestyles .... to mutually link with bonobo.TV. More detailed information about this is available at the site, which also provides a good mix of the kind of artistic material involved.

Thanks so much.

Juli

Indian Teen Suicide

Manataka,

I read about our Native Youth who are killing themselves and calling it, “A Good Day to Die”

From prayer I hear the words:

They walk with no hope, they walk alone, they take their lives alone feeling that no one cares.

They have fallen into the cracks that we have made. These are our children and yes
it is hard to look at some of our children today.
The ones who have become so hard and hateful. The first thought is to walk away least they hurt us with their anger.

It saddens my heart that we do not know how to look past their mask to see the faces of children and that we cannot hear past the poison that comes from their words to hear the truth of what they say. It is sad that we have lost a way to tell them we see them, we hear them, we love them.

It is a Good Day To Die is not Creator calling you to take your own life.
It is Creator telling you to live life in a good way, everyday so that when he calls you home it will your Best Day to Die.

We have used and abused almost every gift that Creator and Mother Earth has given to us to the point that life is not a playground for our children anymore.

They must hit the ground running. They join a gang maybe seeing themselves as being a part of a war party, they paint their minds with drugs and speak from the words of alcohol.

They do not wear with honor on their faces the paint of their ancestors but the mud of confusion that we have mixed from the tears of our Mother Earth.

It is not the voices of Ancestors who lead them on their path today but the voices of despair that come from greed, hate, anger and fear.

As their Ancestors once walked in peace and balance they now walk in darkness hearing the cries of their broken hearts calling, It Is a Good Day To Die.

We must pick ourselves up once again and walk to the voices of our Ancestors. Show our children that Creator has a better path, not every want will be given but every need will be filled.

We are the ones in the war parties now fighting to bring the light back to our children. We must all fight in a good way to open the path wider so that our children can find their path to that Good Day To Die. Aho!

Debi Redhawk

CHEROKEE PERSPECTIVE by Laurence French and Jim Hornbuckle

Dear Manataka,

Being an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokees, I was curious as to how many of these particular books you sell? Just found this book at a used bookstore in Tenn. I decided to buy it and read it. Boy was I surprised to find out Jim Hornbuckle was trying to pass himself off as a Eastern Band member. Well he isn't, but good try Jim. This book is a bunch of B.S. Please pull it from your inventory.

Thank you, sincerely a concerned and not stereotypical "real Eastern Band member"

J. L. Mendez

Time for the Columbus Mattress Sale Again

Challenging the widely held-beliefs of his contemporaries, Christopher Columbus sets sail across the Atlantic ocean on La Pinta, la Niña and the Santa Maria. The objective of this commercial venture, called The Enterprise, is to find a Westerly route to the Indies. After several months of sailing, on Oct. 12, 1492, he discovers America and proves that the world is round. He not only claims the continent and finds riches for the King and Queen of Spain, but begins the greatest civilizing project in the history of humanity, bringing both civilization and Christianity to the savages of the New World and to those in Africa as well. This divine mission becomes"The New Promised Land" for all those fleeing oppression and bondage, while seeking religious freedom, liberty, equality and justice for all. As such, America becomes the beacon for all of humanity, for all freedom-loving peoples.

The above is a commonly repeated children's myth regarding Christopher Columbus. It forms the central tenet of the Western "master narrative" of history. It also is the basis of U.S. history. In it, Columbus is
symbolically the quintessential Founding Father, not simply of the United States, but of the Americas. He is the person who symbolically culturally unites the East and the West and makes possible the unity of humanity. In this story, beyond ignoring ancient wayward travelers from other distant lands, ignored are Indigenous peoples as human beings. Ignored are thousands of year-old narratives of origins and migrations and epic journeys and thousands-of-year-old histories. In this so-called master narrative, Indigenous peoples don't count and essentially, are remanded to the status of savages waiting to be
discovered, civilized and saved by Europeans on divine [and commercial] missions from God. Without moving, Indigenous peoples are even displaced geographically as they are not part of the West and
certainly not part of the East. (Without moving, this is how many of us become aliens).

Neither the histories of Indigenous peoples, nor pre-Colombian contact (Vikings or others) between the continents, form part of the master narrative because they do not conform with the religio-vision of the
conquest of the Americas. Despite the Columbus story being mostly lore and fable, it survives because it is useful and it helps to weave the master narrative as one of divine mission, providence, and then later,
manifest destiny. In this manner, as Cree writer Sharon Venne argues in Our Elders know our Rights, it, in effect, serves to justify genocide, land theft and slavery and the complete dehumanization of peoples not inside of the Western or master narrative. In this religio-vision, she argues, Euro-Iberians were not simply entitled to these lands, but in effect, were carrying out a divine mandate to Christianize and civilize the entire world. This mandate enabled Spanish conquistadores, through divine right, to both take lands not claimed by Christians and to wage merciless war upon non-Christians. (Sound familiar?)

The mandate, which came in the form of the Requerimiento, a Spanish proclamation backed by Papal Bulls, was authorized by the King and Queen of Spain, plus the Catholic Pope. In this vision, violence and
genocide are not seen as such, or are seen as fully sanctioned by God.

Here is an excerpt from the Requerimiento, made available through Bartolome de las Casas "protector of the Indians." Here, it picks up after proclaiming, under authority of the Catholic Church, that the lands now belong to the King and Queen of Spain, and that those listening to this proclamation must accept and adhere to it:

"If you do not do this, however, or resort maliciously to delay, we warn you that, with the aid of God, we will enter your land against you with force and will make war in every place and by every means we
can and are able, and we will then subject you to the yoke and authority of the Church and Their Highnesses. We will take you and your wives and children and make them slaves, and as such we will sell
them, and will dispose of you and them as Their Highnesses order. And we will take your property and will do to you all the harm and evil we can, as is done to vassals who will not obey their lord or who do not
wish to accept him, or who resist and defy him. We avow that the deaths and harm which you will receive thereby will be your own blame, and not that of Their Highnesses, nor ours, nor of the gentlemen who
come with us . . ."

Now that we know the Columbus story, let's all go out and get us a discounted mattress.

Roberto Rodriguez
(c) Column of the Americas 2007

GRASSROOTS VICTORY OF THE MONTH:
JUNK FOOD COMPANY KELLOGG CLEANS UP ITS ACT
Caving to the threat of a lawsuit over the company's marketing practices, Kellogg has announced a new sweeping policy that will shift the company's nutritional guidelines and set a new standard for the food industry. Under the new guidelines, all products marketed to children under the age of 12 must contain a maximum of 200 calories, 2 grams of saturated fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 12 grams of labeled sugar and 0 grams of labeled trans fat per serving. Currently, 50 percent of Kellogg products marketed to children fail to meet their new criteria. The company says implementation will begin immediately. Twenty-seven percent of Kellogg's advertising budget goes to marketing to children under the age of 12.
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5651.cfm

PRODUCT PLUNDER OF THE MONTH:

AIR FRESHENERS FOUND TO CONTAIN TOXIC CHEMICAL
A recent study by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that 12 out of 14 air fresheners tested positive for harmful levels of pthalates, which are known to cause reproductive problems and hormone disruption in humans. Neither the FDA nor the EPA conducts any spot checking of toxic chemicals in air freshener products. Of the tested products, the only two products that did not contain pthalates were Febreze Air Effects and Renuzit Subtle Effects. The other twelve products tested positive even though some of the products were labeled natural.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_7326.cfm

GOVERNMENT SCREW-UP OF THE MONTH:

FDA CRACKS DOWN ON NATURAL HERBAL SWEETENER, STEVIA
The FDA, under pressure from the powerful sugar and artificial sweetener lobby, has issued a warning letter to Celestial Seasonings for using a popular natural sweetener in some of its teas. The letter indicates the FDA classifies the herb stevia as "unsafe", even though it is a main staple sweetener in countries like China and Japan and has been used without negative health effects by indigenous people for at least 400 years. In the FDA's letter to Celestial Seasonings, the agency aggressively condemns the use of the herb, noting that "enforcement action may include seizure of violative products". The FDA claims no evidence has been provided to the agency regarding the herb's safety, but federal records reveal the FDA has received over a thousand scientific studies regarding stevia, and all but one of them verify the safety of the herb. In sharp contrast, nearly half of the studies provided to the FDA regarding the artificial sweetener aspartame, previously owned by Monsanto, indicate serious health concerns, yet it is one of the most commonly used (and one of the most profitable) sweeteners in the U.S. The OCA has also verified the FDA has strengthened enforcement of stevia imports at the borders. Last week, the agency updated a document that mandates detainment of imported food products containing stevia.
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_7140.cfm

HEALTH TIP OF THE MONTH:
WHAT'S IN YOUR TAP WATER? MOVE BEYOND TOXIC PLASTIC BOTTLES
Although it's common knowledge that industry, factory farms, government agencies (especially the military), and municipalities are polluting our drinking water supply, this awareness has led to a widespread phobia of tap water that is ironically exacerbating the water pollution problem. It takes five times as much water to make the plastic bottle than the amount of water the bottle actually holds. Last year, Americans consumed 1.5 million barrels of oil to make disposable water bottles. That's enough to take 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. The average American adult spends nearly $200 each year on bottled water. And of course recent scientific studies indicate that hormone disrupting chemicals are steadily leaching out of those billions of non-recycled plastic water bottles that Coke and Pepsi are selling us, slowly and poisoning us. But how do you know if the water coming out of your home or workplace's faucet is actually okay to drink in the first place? Obviously, in some cases it's not, but here are some links to help you find out if your fear of your tap water is really justified:

This article is brought to you by ORGANIC BYTES, from Organic Consumers Assoc. http://www.organicconsumers.org/

For the more than 121 million people worldwide suffering from depression, medicating their disease with prescription drugs has almost become commonplace. In fact, the American Journal of Health reports that there are more than 2.7 million prescriptions written for antidepressant drugs each year in the United States alone.

When depressed patient’s consult with a doctor or mental health professional, oftentimes the first treatment option they are presented with is an anti-depressant medication. This is an alarming trend; one that is especially scary as the side effects of these medications become more apparent and publicly documented. See how anti-depressants can hurt your relationships

The controversial world of ADD/ADHD treatment saw a huge developments this past week as the FDA announced its plan to undertake a thorough investigation with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality into the effects of ADHD medications on the cardiovascular system.

For years researchers and physicians have been clamoring for such research to be performed, as many believe that the amphetamine-based ADHD medications being so readily prescribed to children and adults all over the nation may have serious long term effects on the health of the heart, blood pressure levels and the general strength and effectiveness of the cardiovascular system. Find out what you can do to stay safe

Tooth whitening is the leading dental procedure requested by people under the age of 20 and between the ages of 30 and 50. In the last 10 years alone, this procedure has exploded by 300 percent, according to The American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. see the simple way to get your teeth pearly white

Silibinin, a flavanone of milk thistle, inhibits lung tumor growth in mice and “merits investigation as a chemopreventive agent for suppressing lung cancer progression,” researchers wrote in a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Scientists at the University of Colorado, Denver decided to examine the effects of dietary silibinin on the growth, progression and angiogenesis of lung tumors in mice, noting that silibinin “inhibits the growth of tumors in several rodent models.”

Researchers injected mice with urethane to induce lung cancer. The rodents then received diets containing various doses of pure silibinin for 18 or 27 weeks. The researchers have been studying both silibinin and silymarin, another component of milk thistle, for over a decade in conjunction with their efficacy against various forms of cancer.

Mice receiving silibinin had “statistically significantly lower lung tumor multiplicities” than those fed a control diet. In the case of mice receiving a one percent (wt/wt) dose of silibinin for 18 weeks, there were 93% fewer large tumors compared to those in the control group.

Journal of the National Cancer Institute 98(12):846-855, 2006

Hay, homes sought for wild horses

Animal activist finding homes for mustangs on Cheyenne River Rez

By Steve Miller, Journal staff steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com

Karen Sussman and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe are trying to find homes for about 200 historic wild horses to keep them from the slaughterhouse.

Sussman, of Lantry, president of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros, had obtained 82 horses from the historic Virginia Range in Nevada in 2001 and gave them to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, which put them on a ranch on the reservation it had established for a conservation and children's program.

However, the programs didn't get off the ground, and the herd grew to 300 at the same time drought began gripping the region, reducing the amount of feed available for the animals.

The tribe, in danger of losing its ranch near La Plant, now plans to lease it out for cattle grazing, Sussman said. This week, tribal crews are attempting to gather the wild horse herd to move it off the ranch, she said.

Earlier, the tribe planned to auction the horses off for slaughter but now is working with Sussman to try to find people to adopt 200 or more of the horses, she said. Sussman plans to take 75 of the horses on the wild-horse society ranch near Lantry.

"Our goal is to save most of them," Sussman said. "I'm assuming I'll take whatever horses are not adopted."

However, the society's ranch is already crowded, with 300 horses from three separate wild horse herds occupying only 683 acres of rangeland. The ranch, like others in the area, has been hard hit by drought, particularly last year.

"We've had some rain this year, thank God, but we do feed a lot of hay," she said.

So Sussman is looking for people to adopt the horses, and she is asking for donations of hay and money to buy hay to feed the wild horses.

The Virginia Range wild horses were the first in the nation to be protected, under a county law passed in 1952, at the behest of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros's first president, Velma Johnston, known as "Wild Horse Annie." Johnston and the society were responsible for the passage of the 1971 federal law protecting wild horses and burros, Sussman said.

The horses on the Cheyenne River Reservation were filmed by Steven Spielberg's crews for his 2002 movie, "Spirit."

There are still about 200 wild horses from the herd in the Virginia City, Nev., area, but they are facing increasing pressure from burgeoning residential development in the Reno and Carson City areas, Sussman said.

"Part of the problem is these horses will come down into their natural habitat," she said. "Now, they're going into people's yards. That's a problem for some people. Then they have to remove some of the horses."

Sussman said her goal was to protect the horses and keep them running free.

She said the wild-horse society's ranch at Lantry raises money through donations and tourism.

Tourists pay fees of $20 an hour or $50 for a half-day tour.

"It's the only place anywhere in the United States where they're going to learn about and be able to see actual wild horse behaviors -- we simulate the horses in a wild environment," Sussman said. "Here you'll see a lot of interacting, especially in April and May during the breeding season. You'll see a lot of stud fights, battles over the harems."

Sussman said the society's ranch has kept the bloodlines of the wild horse herds pure. "Two out of the three herds here would no longer exist in our country," she said. "That was the point of us taking them. They would have been eliminated. The third herd that we have was expected to be eliminated in the next couple of years."

The additional horses from the Virginia Range herd on the reservation will put a further burden on the ranch's resources, she said.

Sussman said she hopes to raise $50,000 for hay and veterinary expenses.

How to help

The International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros is looking for donations of hay and money to help save historic wild horses that have been kept on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.

The society and the tribe also are looking for a temporary holding area, plus the loan of corral panels.

To donate, call the ISPMB at 1-605-964-6866 or write: ISPMB, P.O. Box 55, Lantry, S.D. 57636-0055

Contents:

Legends of Old:		`Coyote Steals Sun's Tobacco`
Feature Story:		Grandfather Tobacco
Letters to the Editor:		Papal Bulls, Indigenous Business
Organic Consumers:		Junk Food Company Kellogg Cleans Up
Elder's Meditations:		Paula Weasel Head, Blood
Member Recognition:		Grandmother Dottie Furr
Health:		Anti-Depressants Result in Anti-Love ADHD/ADD Drugs Causing Heart Problems? Whiten Your Teeth with Strawberries Fatal Fragrance
Herbs:		Milk Thistle for Cancer Treatment
Fluoride:		Adding Fluoride to Water: A Good Idea?
Animal Rights and Wrongs:	A	Hay, homes sought for wild horses
Endangered Sacred Sites:		Triumphant Rally Escalates Protest Against


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`Coyote Steals Sun's Tobacco`

`Apache / White Mountain Story`

`Slim Coyote was living with the Indians. One day he started out to the Sun's house. When he got there. Sun was not at home His wife was there and Coyote talked with her.`

`"nde (man) " he said, "Where is my cross-cousin, the Sun."`

`Sun's wife said that he had gone out and was not home yet.`

`"I came to talk with him about something," said Coyote.`

`Then Coyote saw Sun's tobacco bag hanging up on the side of the dwelling.`

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