Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Oklahoma Where The Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Plain...

I had to travel to Oklahoma again so I took a scenic route. I drove to Ponca City, then through the Osage Reservation. Of all the tribes forced to Oklahoma, only the Osage have retained a reservation. In looking into the history of the Osage, I discovered that in March of this year, a court in Denver ruled that the Osage reservation had been dissolved over one hundred years ago, in 1906 at the time of Osage allotment. No one knew it, though - not until the court of appeals decided it was so in 2010. The Osage are fighting being taxed in their own country, but lost - this round.

"The tribe’s appeal was filed against members of the Oklahoma Tax Commission, but 12 groups supporting the commission as friends of the court included state and local farm bureaus and cattlemen’s associations, electric cooperatives, petroleum interests, wildlife and environmental associations, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce, and others." From Indian Country Today

The white man circled the legal wagons in grand fashion against the Osage this time. If you want to incite a riot of white folk, just hint that they might be paying more taxes than you, or let them get the idea that you have something they have not already stolen from you.

I do not understand the evil wind that blew the Mayflower's first immigrants to the eastern shores of this continent. It has never ceased its destructive and voracious howling to annihilate the Indians, even to this day. What if there had been some basic belief that the people already living on these lands had an inalienable right to exist? What if there had been some shred of wisdom in the invaders' collective heart that guided them toward respect, to value the wisdom these old cultures may have had to share? If there had been some meeting of the minds, some small willingness to share, what manner of country may have been built? Perhaps we would not be facing environmental extinction at this point. Clearly, that evil wind continues to blow.

The good news is that the Osage people are alive and well and still fighting.

Osage to check out the Osage web site.

Native American Rights Fund if you would feel so inclined as to donate to the Native American Rights legal fund.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've never quite understood how the state of Oklahoma can boast of being "Native Country" while treating it's Native American population so poorly.

I've never grasped how a corporation can be a person even though it took an act of congress to make it that way.

Sometimes the things this country does to it's citizens, is just plain ol' messed up!