Updates from South Dakota June 23

Post updated at 8:30 AM on June 24 (Cali time)
These are updates from friends of mine who are on site, reposted without names.  The I is not me.

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I'm passing on news from the land in the Black Hills. My name is XX. I am XX partner. She has been at the seed camp and now on site. She has been to all of the councils since mid week last week. She asked me to share some of her insights. I am doing this from memory so details may be slightly rearranged.

The process of gaining trust & acceptance from the Lakotas has been intense but rewarding. There has been a group of young Lakotas staying in camp. They have expressed a desire to experience our process of building and maintaining infrastructure for large gathering so that they may be able to apply it to their own events such as the Sundances. They have been supportive and consider themselves to be cultural bridgers.

Apparently there was two agro incidents at the week of councils where a Lakota man spoke from anger on different days. That was two negative voices over many days of process. It seems that there are respected elders that are open to the gathering. The majority of the interaction has been welcoming. The young people have asked for a few Rainbows to meet their grandfathers and grand mothers at their homes on the res. Feather has been involved in this outreach and today a group of Rainbows agreed to join in a work party to clean and maintain the Pine Ridge pow wow grounds.
There is interest in elders and locals joining the gathering so there is plans to set up an elders camp where they could be and be tended to.

It looks to be a small gathering. Hundreds instead of thousands. At this point the LEOs nearly outnumber the Rainbows. I have heard that they are being intense and I have heard that they are pretty mellow. Depends on who you talk to.

If you choose to go, leave the alcohol and drugs out of it. This is a different kind of a gathering where we are guests of a host and it is important that we quickly learn what is considered respect and what is not.

It has been an uplifting experience so far from X's perspective.

I'm throwing in my own impressions from afar at this point. It seems that this is what many in Rainbow have been saying we need to do in order to better cooperate on a larger scale with indigenous people all over this continent but especially in the northern plains. The young people are interested in finding people with skills and knowledge in permaculture and food forests and feel that our culture would likely have those minds available. They are right. They are also struggling to keep the XL pipeline out and suffering from abuses of water and land from logging and mining.
Many of us are of like mind and this may give us an opportunity to do some meaningful work that builds trust and sharing between our cultures. We are all aware on some level that we need to work toward regenerating the lands of the entire planet. These people have such a spiritual perspective of the land many of us have aspired to such a belief system. We need to find what we can do to do that work. The people on the ground in the Black Hills on both sides of the cultural divide are doing that work.

I feel that XX and XX and the others that have been working on this outreach should be applauded for taking on such an epic challenge. It is important work

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Picture from site #1

Picture from site #3

Picture from site #2

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Lakota are helping us build Indigenous camp, with workshop spaces to teach about native culture. Today the Shining Light Kitchen bus took a dozen volunteers to Pine Ridge at the invitation of the res, to help clean up their powwow space and bring back Oglala folks who lack transportation but want to see our gathering.

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As many of you know, a group of us went out to Pine Ridge today and cleaned up a park and playground and finish the clean-up of the pow-wow grounds. We had folks ranging from 6 years old to 67, from first time gatherers to folks who started in 1972. Over 30 bags of garbage were delivered to the dump. Once we were done we delivered a donation of food (courtesy of Shining Light Kitchen) to a Necha (traditional family leader) for him to use in his upcoming Sundance.

While we were with him I asked him about some of our more troubling rumors, for example, are today's council members traditionals or "paper indians" (someone on the council for money, not for what's good for the people). He said that many of the council members are traditionals, but that the political system they have doesn't work for them and makes it almost impossible to be of service to the people. He said there is no "war" between "paper indians" and traditionals over the rainbow gathering. The rumor was that the paper indians were saying "yes" to us while the traditionals were saying "no." Once again, yet a different Necha says this isn't the case. It's only a couple of people with a couple of followers. This Necha even mentioned he might come out for the 4th. We're also thinking about arranging a day for us to come back out and help him get his Sundance grounds ready.

(To be fair, Duane Martin (Chanupa) did manage to get the signature of one elder onto his paperwork, but no one's been able to confirm that signature--this particular elder has been in the hospital the entire time). Given the ludicrous amount of negative rumors this year (and the even more ludicrous amount of people believing and spreading them), we've been trying to fact check everything, and this particular piece hasn't been verified.)

Either way, if you're writing or forwarding negative stuff about this gathering and have not talked to ACTUAL first nations people who claim this land, you're ONLY creating senseless negativity, feeding the trolls, and dividing our Family. Period.

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We have spoken to many respected elders. They all either welcome us or are neutral. We have spoken to two old native people who are not respected among their community. They create relentless Internet opposition.

The land is amazing! The gathering is amazing. Our prayer for peace is encouraged by everyone we've spoken to. The people who are not on the land, who have not spoken to the elders, who have not spent the time to go to the reservation and learn the tribal politics, and again--THOSE WHO ARE NOT ON THE LAND, HAVE NO IDEA WHATS GOING ON. If you would like to know how well everything is going, how intense the whole experience is, how mutually beneficial this is, contact someone in the land. The Internet is being coopted by agent provocateurs and misinformants and even well intentioned people who are parroting things they do not understand. Many people have come to see us, locals and natives. Everyone except Dwane Martin is very kind and welcoming. Dwane is not even welcome on the Rez and many people have mentioned despising him. They often just laugh when they hear about James Swan. That's the simple truth. All the elders tell us some version of, "you guys are praying for peace, why would that be more objectionable than uranium mines and KXL?"