Honoring Land Ancestors, The Osage

Today, walking in Overland I noticed a sign that mentioned an old Indian burial ground... I wandered behind a church and said a prayer on the grassy slope there... honoring ancestors. I decided to research the native American, indigenous people of the st Louis area...

The largest and most powerful tribe was the Osage.

Here we see an Osage warrior.

"The men are tall and perfectly proportioned. They have at the same time all the physical qualities which denote skill and strength combined with graceful movements. . . .

by Charles Evret de Saint-Me

". . . their ear[lobe]s, slit by knives, grow to be enormous, and they hang low under the weight of the ornaments with which they are laden. There is a complete lack of beard and eyebrows on their faces, for they carefully pull out the little hair which happens to grow there.

"Their calm, dignified faces show great shrewdness; there is something soldierly and serious about the expression. Their hair is black and thick. The Osage shave their heads, except for the top, from which two strands of hair branch off and grow straight back to the occiput, where they form a tuft which falls to the lower part of the neck; between these strands grow two braids, the beauty of which consists in their length. . . .

"The [Osage Indians] seldom go out without painting themselves; the colors they use are, first, vermillion, then verdigris [greenish-blue], and then yellow, which they buy from the trader; lacking these, they use ochre, chalk, or even mud.

"The Osage always paint red that part of their head around their hair, the eye-sockets, and their ears; these are the national colors, the war-time paint. The other colors, indifferently put on the other parts of their bodies, depend upon their individual fancy."

-Victor Tixier, physician, 1839

I am moved by the discipline, ritual and self respect that comes through these images and writings.  I long for the days when tribal earth- and ancestral-honoring traditions connected people to each other, the past and the land. I long for a deep sense of respect for oneself and for the land as a way of life that is shared in community.

by George Catlin

#osageindian #osagewarrior #missourinative #nativeamerican #nativelands

On Cancelling People

When Amy Cooper was videoed in Central Park saying to Chris Cooper, "I'm going to tell them I am being threatened by a black man," I kept wondering, WHAT did he say to her that triggered this reaction? I finally learned it today when I went searching the internet. In the statement from Amy, she says, "When Chris began offering treats to my dog and confronted me in an area where there was no one else nearby and said, 'You're not going to like what I'm going to do next,' I assumed we were being threatened when all he had intended to do was record our encounter on his phone."

Here is the summary that was reported over and over in the media: "A Black man asked a white woman to leash her dog in Central Park, as rules required. She refused. Then she called the police to say she was being threatened." And regarding the moments before filming began, "After he asked her to leash the cocker spaniel, the two exchanged words."

After that we got to hear in detail all that she said on the emergency call. (I assume everyone reading this has watched that video, and maybe some interviews with Chris Cooper.) She had assumed that what he was "going to do next" would be physically harmful to her because he was a black man? And she chose to use her whiteness to threaten him without bothering to communicate with him, human to human.

But I was like, "Well WHAT did he say to her?" Not that it would erase the racism that was plain to see, but why was this not in the news report? In an effort to remain connected to our common humanity I felt we deserved to know the whole story and when I learned what he said (according to her), I gained a glimpse of what could have put her into the fear response, albeit a racist one.

She has lost her job, home and reputation and seems to have become a pariah.

I heard a journalist yesterday say that we have a "cancel-society." We cancel people, kind of like a Black Mirror episode. Kevin Spacey, for example has been "canceled." Are we going to demonize and erase people to the extent they cannot actually be in society any longer? I want us to have regenerative processes for healing and learning in our society. I want us to stop throwing people away on one hand while we do the good work for justice and fairness on the other.

True nonviolent communication calls us to heal together, not put a distance with those that are harming and needing to grow... from what I read, she sounds open to growing.

I celebrate that Chris Cooper himself is open to forgiveness and reconnecting; in another article: "Asked if he’d accept her apology, Christian Cooper told CNN he would 'if it’s genuine and if she plans on keeping her dog on a leash in the Ramble going forward.'"

Here is her complete statement.

Excerpts from news article found here.