Author Topic: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY&quo  (Read 27060 times)

Offline educatedindian

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Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY&quo
« on: April 20, 2005, 02:36:32 pm »
Re: Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #34 on: Apr 18th, 2005, 12:39am »  Quote  Modify  

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Osiyo,  

My name is Ray Evans Harrell and I am from the Nuyagi Keetoowah Society, Inc.    I have posted on the Introductions part of this web site and if you have other questions I would suggest that you ask them of me and not of people who I know and don't respect or who have never met me but make judgements based upon mirrors of their own  minds.  The simplest act of respect is to talk to a person rather than about that person.    

I called the High School Counselor Dr. Richard Allen and he did not convince me that he was equipped to make the judgements he made.   There are many Cherokee communities in Oklahoma and they are varied.   Sterotypical statements are what drive the children away since they don't care to live "out of time."    

We suggest an alternative that allows people who leave home to still practice their faith.   People are in all levels of self-understanding and many who went to schools on Indian land had all languages deemed :"foreign" forbidden to them.   That tendency is still being driven by a Cherokee member of the Oklahoma legislature from Comanche with her "English only" bills.   Some, including Dr. Allen, did not have the advantage of having their language and some were not in jail or collaborating with the government and taking roll numbers.    

This complex situation demands that you understand completely since you have appointed yourselves judges.   Does that not mean that you should at least conduct a "discovery phase" including witnesses before you hold a trial?

I am very busy as I am not a professional Indian but earn my living in the world and practice my religion privately.   It is not only a faith but a religion because it brings people like myself, who are away from home and family, together to worship in the present in the traditions of our Cherokee families.    That has nothing to do with casinos or government land or funds.   We made another choice four generations ago and we still are.  

Thank you for your attention and I am at your service,  

Ray Evans Harrell  
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RAY EVANS HARRELL, artistic director
THE MAGIC CIRCLE OPERA REPERTORY ENSEMBLE, Inc.
THE AMERICAN MASTERS ARTS FESTIVAL BIENNIAL
200 WEST 70TH, SUITE 6-C
NYC 10023
NUYAGI KEETOOWAH SOCIETY, Inc.&  

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #1 on: April 20, 2005, 02:40:42 pm »
Re: Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #38 on: Apr 18th, 2005, 9:02am »  Osiyo Vance,  

I'm going to leave this on the list in the service of transperancy.   Normally I would answer personal questions personally.   I'm aware of the problem of the internet because the quotes of my posts to the economist's Futurework List are now a part of the internet search engine mythology.      

I went to bed last night and surprisingly when I got up this morning it had snowed and I can't get that white out of my hair.   I have to go the VA and see if they can do anything about it but I suspect it's just there and I will have to accept it.  

I appreciate your letter and spirit and will answer it in parts as I must teach, rehearse students for auditions and (seriously) go to the VA today.  

Just read your more aggressive second letter and the webmaster's as well.   If you google my name you will see a lot of what I do.  Yes the website is incomplete because we are opening a new Blog that will be interactive in American Arts and are slowly reconsidering our considerable monthly expense for this one.    

You would also find an entry on google for my late father who was the first Doctor's degree counselor at College High in Bartlesville and facilitated that work with minorities and upgraded the program in the 1960s and 70s.   So calling Allen a High School counselor is what he said to me and a degree in psychometrics or counseling is not a bad thing but a good thing.   I could not, however, imagine the attitude of “judgment of people you don't know??? as being a scholarly one.   Chief Ross of the UKB called here years ago and questioned us and we were open and told him who we were and there was no issue.   There is a difference in Indian Country between a question and a challenge.     We also sent our scholar's newsletter several year's ago to the CNO and Charlie Soap and had several conversations with him as a friendly hello but Oklahoma's business is their own as is ours.   They don't need us mucking around in it and having "opinions" about them.   I got that in Oklahoma myself.    

You may even know my Creek relatives from Okmulgee and I know that the CNO has had dealings with my relatives in Muskogee.  I tried in the Bird administration to make peace with them but that administration was too uppity to consider doing such a thing.   Now the average Cherokee is paying for it.    I will check with the relatives and connect you off list if they agree but let me just say that the politics of government involvement is not unfamiliar to me.   I was born in Ada and grew up in Picher and my father was the School Superintendent who had to deal with the government for the schools and Johnson O'Malley.  

As for nuage.   I would suggest that speaking metaphorically is not the sole property of the children of Fritz Perls.    They learned it from Indian people and traditional Ojibwa people in Canada at that.    

Must go now but will answer all of the questions as my time permits.  

oneh dodada gohv'i  

Ray Evans Harrell  

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RAY EVANS HARRELL, artistic director
THE MAGIC CIRCLE OPERA REPERTORY ENSEMBLE, Inc.
THE AMERICAN MASTERS ARTS FESTIVAL BIENNIAL
200 WEST 70TH, SUITE 6-C
NYC 10023
NUYAGI KEETOOWAH SOCIETY, Inc.&  

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2005, 02:57:20 pm »
 Re: Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #40 on: Apr 18th, 2005, 1:48pm »  Quote  Modify  

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Osiyo Joseph,  

He doesn't.    

We don't mention his name because he was disgraced in his relationship with our Founder and my adopted Father who took him into his home as an apprentice.    Whatever he did, it was bad enough to be shunned and considered dead by my Father.     That was all before 1983.  

We abide by that ceremonial that was done long ago.   As far as we are concerned, that's all there is.  

The person you asked about doesn't exist as far as the Nuyagi Keetoowah Societies and Grand Council is concerned.    Maybe he's a ghost.    

Our council has written a letter stating that we are the only Nuyagi Keetoowah Societies, Inc and we have the Stomp Ground passed to us by the Indian League of the Americas when they disbanded.   (That is probably the root of the "Mohawk" story since their President was Mohawk, but the Indian League was started by a Cherokee and had every tribe represented.  Our Founder was once a member of the Indian League as well.)

We mean no ill will and everyone has to listen to their own vision given by the Creator and walk their path but this is ours and we keep a very close watch on it both spiritually and legally.  

Donada Gohv'i  

Ray Evans Harrell

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RAY EVANS HARRELL, artistic director
THE MAGIC CIRCLE OPERA REPERTORY ENSEMBLE, Inc.
THE AMERICAN MASTERS ARTS FESTIVAL BIENNIAL
200 WEST 70TH, SUITE 6-C
NYC 10023
NUYAGI KEETOOWAH SOCIETY, Inc.&  

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #3 on: April 20, 2005, 03:16:49 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #44 on: Apr 18th, 2005, 9:37pm »  Quote  Modify  

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CONTINUED:  
Vance continued:  
As for the comment about “mirrors in their own minds??? I’ll assure you I am objective and in making that comment, am I seein’ just the shinin’ glimmer of a mirror? Well, I can understand yuo bein defensive . . .  

REH:
As has been said so often  "One may think they understand what they heard or read but if they are to know what was meant they have to ask the author."    Or just poke a hole in the mirror.  

Vance:  
iii.] you said—There are many Cherokee communities in Oklahoma and they are varied.   Sterotypical statements are what drive the children away since they don’t care to live “out of time.???  

Well I live in Oklahoma as have my ancestors since about 1828 (I have proof, with a coupe of periods missing, one in Ark and another in Tx). In the physical universe where we live—it is physically impossible to live “outside of time???. Can you elaborate?  

REH:
"outside of time" refers to the serious expression of a people in the world, i.e. its culture and art.    All culture and art is site/time specific.   Old art teaches us about our ancestors and other cultures.   Contemporary Art is a pursuit of the values of the artist and culture in the present.   Being "outside of time" means that someone does not know themselves but is just imitating.    The first rule is "know yourself."  

Vance:  
iv.] you said—We suggest an alternative that allows people who leave home to still practice their faith.  
 
reply—no one opposes that. Your website claimed yall had the blessings so to speak of the “revered??? Keetoowah Society (as yall put it) of Oklahoma (paraphrasing) and yall obviously don’t. Can you explain?  

REH:  
You are confused.   Our website is closed.   Some of our members dance in Oklahoma and elsewhere and have friends there.   You may believe you know what they meant but you should ask them if that was what they said.   Being from Oklahoma I know better than to use someone else to validate myself.   They don't do that and neither do we.   Each ground is separate and we are not the only stompground to have the relationship with both State and IRS.   I know of at least one other.  
 
Vance:  
v.] you said—That tendency is still being driven by a Cherokee member of the Oklahoma legislature from Comanche with her “English only??? bills.  
 
Ray, the last time my direct ancestors came back to Indian Territory in the late 1880s they lived near what became Duncan (Duncan was just an empty spot on the map when they moved there) in the Chickasaw Nation. My grandparents were married at Loco, Chickasaw Nation in 1904, 3 years before sattehood. It wasn’t 10 miles from the little town of Comanche, which was on the border of the Chickasaw Nation and the Comanche Tribe. I can drive there in maybe 75 or 90 minutes—I have been there and know the little town. Who are you talking about that is in the Ok Legislature? Can you give me some details.  

REH:  Last year I spoke with an Oklahoma Senator who was from Comanche who had proposed an English only statute in the State legislature.     Because I am in the Arts and encourage people to know many languages for living in the modern world, I called her and questioned her.   I mentioned Indian languages and she said that she was Cherokee and she still though English should be the official language.   Since you are from there.   Look her up.   I don't remember her name.  
 
Vance:  
vi.] you said—Some, including Dr. Allen, did not have the advantage of having their language and some were not in jail or collaborating with the government and taking roll numbers.      
 
reply—I can’t get a handle on what you are trying to say. Which language? what jail? You are talking about something that you have obviously left out. Please elaborate.  

REH:  
Study the history of the Keetoowahs or just study the great Willard Stone family.   They were not government collaborators in the death of the nation and they were not in jail to be given roll numbers.   Now that is harsh but no more harsh that the "official" government's harassment of Cherokee groups around the country through their officers like Kirk and Allen.    There are many serious traditional and learning Cherokee people out here beyond the limits of government connections.   It may very well be time for a new Four Mother's Society that goes to the Four Directions and gathers the dis-enfranchised Indian People into some sort of entity not unlike what Smith and others had at the turn of the last century.    It's a great history filled with genuine heroes.   It doesn't only belong to the authorized but to all Cherokee people.  

Continue for one more: REH

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #4 on: April 20, 2005, 03:19:12 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #45 on: Apr 18th, 2005, 10:05pm »  Quote  Modify  

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Vance said:  
vii.] you said—This complex situation demands that you understand completely since you have appointed yourselves judges.   Does that not mean that you should at least conduct a “discovery phase??? including witnesses before you hold a trial?  
 
reply—someone placed faulty information online, ie—yall are accepted by the Oklahoma Keetoowah Society (paraphrasing) and that is why yall came up here, I am pretty sure. When you make claims online you might not realize that some people who know of the REAL Keetoowah might be lisnin . . .  In teh big city, in NY and NJ where there are no or few Cherokee, you are far removed and think it is save to talk about a few thousand people isolated in small towns and farms of rural NE Oklahoma, and you can claim to be some of them. Who will ever know?  

REH:  
Vance that is insulting.    Are you challenging me?  

As for the big city.   There are more Indian people in the New York Metropolitan area than in any area of comparable size and population in the country.   And a very large percen

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #5 on: April 20, 2005, 03:20:34 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #45 on: Apr 18th, 2005, 10:05pm »  Quote  Modify  

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Vance said:  
vii.] you said—This complex situation demands that you understand completely since you have appointed yourselves judges.   Does that not mean that you should at least conduct a “discovery phase??? including witnesses before you hold a trial?  
 
reply—someone placed faulty information online, ie—yall are accepted by the Oklahoma Keetoowah Society (paraphrasing) and that is why yall came up here, I am pretty sure. When you make claims online you might not realize that some people who know of the REAL Keetoowah might be lisnin . . .  In teh big city, in NY and NJ where there are no or few Cherokee, you are far removed and think it is save to talk about a few thousand people isolated in small towns and farms of rural NE Oklahoma, and you can claim to be some of them. Who will ever know?  

REH:  
Vance that is insulting.    Are you challenging me?  

As for the big city.   There are more Indian people in the New York Metropolitan area than in any area of comparable size and population in the country.   And a very large percentage of them are Tsalagi from Oklahoma, North Carolina and Tennessee.   There are so many Cherokee here that a Cherokee desk was proposed in the state capital.    
If they are traditional then they are Keetoowah because that is the name of the religion in English.   I don't know why its OK for people to be Christian and still Tsalagi but urban Keetoowahs can't speak English.    If the folks at home in those little towns give up their Baptist relatives and challenge the culture of those relatives, then I will quit speaking English.  Of course I mean this with a light touch.   Baptists should be Baptist if that is what they have been given and they are family.   The world is multi-lingual and we should be at least as smart as the French who seem to be able to speak other languages and still keep their French culture, religion and art.    

Vance:  
I too am worried about accusing innoscent people, and this was put here is “research needed??? and not immediately on the “fraud??? site.  

REH:  
I would suggest that you remember the old adage about the snake biting his tail.  
 

Vance:  
viii.] You say you are Cherokee. Who are your Cherokee ancestors? Can you prove it or are you claiming it? I trace my ancestors to Brown and Guess (great great grandparents were David B Brown 1822-1865 and Hariet Guess 1818-1886) and no we are not enrolled either, and no, we can not prove they are Cherokee, but he have collected a lot of evidence. Also have evidence of Monacan/Saponi. I’d like to know somehting about the person I am talking to.

REH:  OK, if your family is the reason that you are Cherokee then you are only half way there.     Most of our peoples make a distinction between "two leggeds" and "real people" or principle people.   I was always taught that you have to earn your significance by becoming a member of the principle people.   Coming of Age.   The first stone is blood but that is only a beginning and sometimes people jump over that stone.   There have been some notable exceptions to blood amongst great Indian people.   Many were of other nations that were adopted and some were even European.    Especially women.   By the way I am related by marriage to the Gists.   Maybe we are cousins in-law.   My other cousins are Reynolds, Sullivans, Corn and Rogers by marriage.    I have relatives all over Oklahoma and all over the nation both by blood and marriage.   That is by my natural parents.   My adopted Father and last teacher was a Webber and that is not an unknown name down around Gore.   His wife was Ani-Awi York from Tennessee.   As in Sargeant York who was Tsalagi although like Will Rogers they rarely mention it.   But I know the family.  
Continue to conclusion:

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #6 on: April 20, 2005, 03:37:01 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #46 on: Apr 18th, 2005, 10:09pm »  Quote  Modify  

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I hate this geneology thing.   It is one of the things that made me leave home.   My faith is my own and my community is also made up of diaspora Tsalagi and other Indian people who wish to sing, dance, study and grow together.   It is our faith and religion and community.   We do not authenticate people, take money from the government, or claim an inheritance.   We simply love our families, are artists, scholars, teachers, and growers of every ilk as well as ex military people who take the care for our families very seriously.    We have given hundreds of thousands of dollars in American Indian Scholarships in honor of my late Elder in Tulsa.   She too was a scholar who accomplished great things without beating people about the head with her pedigree.  Our Founder was at one time a Wolf Clan Chief and a decorated World War II veteran in three different services, and later was the High Medicine (Peace) Priest.   I am a simple Priest who does his job as I am given to do.     We are artists and other professional people who live in the world as it is but do not give up our faith or culture.   We also practice the traditional crafts but do so as meditation and do not mix that up with Art.   Art is something more important.   It is that great mirror with a hole in it that tell us who we are and looks through to the Creator as to who we might become.  

Most of our community really doesn't want to have anything to do with the internet but I believe that it is a possibility for communication and connection.   I hope this will facilitate that but if it doesn't we are still who we are and will continue on the path given by the Creator of All.  

oneh dodada gohv'i  

Ray Evans Harrell    
 

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #7 on: April 20, 2005, 04:25:37 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #49 on: Apr 19th, 2005, 11:01am »  Quote  Modify  

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I realize that Mr. Allen doesn't remember that he told me his PhD was in education and counseling.   If he will remember I mentioned my father as well.   Maybe he has lead damage like those of us from Picher.   The VA has some good drugs for memory and as a Marine he is eligible.   I don't really care what his job is at present.  We all do different things.   I did call him at his home about six months ago on a holiday and he was surprised that I had his home phone number.   I looked it up.    I questioned him about his derogatory Shamanism article which didn't seem to know anything about the seminal work of the Kirkpatricks/Gritts on  "Cherokee Shamanism."    We had a conversation in which I found him rigid, authoritarian and limited in his experience.    

I wasn't in the Marines I was in the Army for six years and I live in New York where conflict is a way of life.   So I too am happy to converse.    Nothing like a couple of old farts trying to remember when their testaterone meant something.    

I tried to call and make it private but he chose this venue.  I'm happy to oblige.   Perhaps we should include our Council and Chief Smith in this as well.   How about the High Priest?  

People whose bottoms are bare should not be so aggressive.   We don't Wannabe anything.   We are who we are.   Wannabe is a vulgar derogatory term that shouldn't be aimed at anyone.     One who does that has a head full of old waste that didn't work then and still doesn't.   I believe it is called a "Trusel".  Sounds good but doesn't work.  

Both Allen and Kirk felt no shame at maligning not only a young organization like ourselves, in existence since the 1978 law made it legal, but an old community resource of Cherokees and Lenape  (the Sand Hill People) that Touching Leaves the great Lenape Linguist scholar paid homage to when she came to New York before she died.    The community historian, who happens to be a member of the CNO,  has carefully documented the history of the community and been peer reviewed and is exhibited in two Museums in New Jersey as a cultural resource.   The community is dispersed with only a few residents now but to deny their existence is criminal.   Where is your head Allen and Kirk.   What tunes are you singing?  

Ultimately It all comes down to government collaborator's descendants being recognized and Oklahoma traditionals being dis-enfranchised.   Ask him why they don't include the traditional Keetoowahs who refused and still refuse numbers in the nation?    What can't the Stone family exhibit their work as Indian or Cherokee?   Why are imitations of old pieces more relevant to life today than work that represents Cherokees today?     That is what we call "trinkets and trash" here in the Art world and what we call "looney tunes" at the American Indian Community House.    I have fought not to allow prejudice in the opera business against Indians, when essentially we are "invading" European cultural territory.   No one says that a painter who paints on canvas rather than wood planks, berry dyes and bird yokes is not a real Indian Artist and that those sacred belts with wire in them are really European.    Suprise!   all of those special symbols that everybody was stealing from you is found almost everywhere but as long as you didn't know different, you could believe what was in their minds.    This is not the way it was when I grew up in Oklahoma.   We had Moscelyn Larkin,  Yvonne Chouteau, Louis Ballard, the Hightowers,  Maria Tall Chief.   All from Indian families and Northeastern Oklahoma.    

As for Mr. Allen and his complaints.   He is still rude presumptious and ignorant and that is all there is to that.  
Ray Evans Harrell

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #8 on: April 20, 2005, 05:58:13 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #52 on: Apr 19th, 2005, 2:18pm »  Quote  Modify  

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back for a moment:  

AC quotes me:  
They don't know anyone [who] exists who isn't a part of the Dawes "collaborator's and criminal's" rolls."  
 
That is downright abusive towards people you are related to by blood and culture. Not to mention paranoid and just plain untrue. Very FEW enrolled Cherokees were "collaborators". The Watie/Boudinot faction was just a tiny fragment of the Cherokee nation, less than 10%. And, playing devil's advocate here, many of them felt they had reason for what they did, that they would be removed anyway from the homeland and so they should get the best deal they can. IMO that does not excuse what they did by signing a fraudulent treaty. But they (and their descendants) mostly did not see what they did as traitorous.  

REH:  
Al, I believe you don't know Keetoowah history here.   In 1883 through the turn of the century it was the traditional people, not the Boudinot faction, that resisted enrollment.   In fact Redbird Smith had to be caught, thrown in jail and given a roll number or he would have been in the same boat as over 6,000 traditional people who didn't and don't have roll numbers.   At the time of the Trail of Tears Christians were only about 10% and it had little to do with "blood".   In fact I was taught that a person who was culturally Tsalagi was a full blood and a Christian was mixed.   That is  of course lost with the exception of some very conservative communities.   Traditional Keetoowahs cannot be Christian, it is a different religion and the Keetoowah faith is the original faith of the Cherokee i.e. Anikituwagi.    If Smith had not been jailed, along with the criminals, he would not have had a roll number.    Since it is required that the descendant be direct, I suspect that the current Chief would not have been "Cherokee" had not his ancestor been jailed.   There is plenty of data about this available in the Cherokee Histories.   But remember, because of the "Religious Crimes Codes of 1883" that banned all native religions in America, Keetoowahs basically went underground when confronted by the authorities.    For the government the issue was land, especially for the Sundance peoples and their religious land coops (Tiospayes).   But as the Dawes commission report makes clear, and I quote:  

[In 1883 a small group of Eastern humanitarians began to meet annually at Lake Mohonk, where with an agreeable background of natural beauty, congenial companionship, and crusading motive, they discussed the Indian problem. At their third meeting Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, a distinguished Indian theorist, gave a glowing description of a visit of inspection he had recently made to the Indian Territory.  The most partisan Indian would hardly have painted such an idealized picture of his people’s happiness and prosperity and culture, but, illogically, the senator advocated a change in this perfect society because it held the wrong principles of property ownership.  Speaking apparently of the Cherokees, he said: “The head chief told us that there was not a family in that whole nation that had not a home of its own.  There was not a pauper in that nation, and the nation did not owe a dollar.  It built its own capitol, in which we had this examination, and it built its schools and its hospitals.  Yet the defect of the system was apparent.  They have got as far as they can go, because they own their land in common.  It is Henry George’s system, and under that there is no enterprise to make your home any better than that of your neighbors.  There is no selfishness, which is at the bottom of civilization.  Till this people will consent to give up their lands, and divide them among their citizens so that each can own the land he cultivates, they will not make much more progress.??? (36)]

(36)  1900,   pp. 25-32; Lake Mohonk  Conference, Report, 1904, pp 5-6; Department of the Interior, Annual Report, 1900, pp. 655-735.


That was the myth told by the Americans  but it was really about closing the Nation down and getting the excess land for settlers.   Redbird Smith and the Keetoowahs as well as the Four Mothers and other traditional societies were dead against that.   I do realize that some traditional families accepted and even pushed roll numbers.   I was told that by an artist descendant, but by and large the "mixed" cultural Cherokees were NOT the ones resisting enrollment, and I'm not talking blood here.  

I know a man who lost a huge ranch and was required to take 160 acres, so he shot the Marshalls and spent the rest of his life on the run.   He went from Prince to pauper.   The ranch was three Oklahoma counties.    The argument that it was going to happen anyway is the same argument made by the treaty party in Tenn.   I don't accept it and neither did my Grandparents.   They just stayed in Arkansas amongst our people there until it was all over.     They resolved to keep their community and family as well as the traditions but elected not to get involved in the fights.   The Civil War had nearly destroyed the family and they weren't going to do that again.  
Ray Evans Harrell  

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #9 on: April 20, 2005, 06:02:44 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #53 on: Apr 19th, 2005, 2:51pm »  Quote  Modify  

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AC quotes me  
"There are about 8 million Indian people in America who are culturally NOT European and who don't care now to have anything to do with governments."  
 
There about 7 million with NDN ancestry total in the US, and perhaps half of them say they are "part Indian." They know they have ancestry in a vague way, but they were not raised as such, they aren't treated as NDN by others or think of themselves as NDN other than having a little vague interest in the culture.  

REH:  
Actually, what Garcia Lorca called the "deep springs" are not all that hard to find.   They are vague feelings only if your feelings are vague.   Native studies begins with the clarity of the senses and proceeds to programming and archiving those senses in a systems way that is imprinted on the child very early.    Over forty eight years of teaching in the Arts private performance market, I've found that a serious cleansing of one's perceptual skills and exploration of how one thinks adds up every time to a cultural and linguistic style.   You can see it in the way Indian people use English for example.   Even if they never knew their own language they absorbed the verb process and use that instead of the "object relations" of European noun oriented English.   A serious study of one's expressive modes shows by style where things came from.     I remember a Long Island woman who was doing an exercise in class that included improvisational singing.   She imagined she was her ancestor and began to sing in that spot.   What came out was an incredible middle-eastern mix that made absolutely no sense with who she was in the world.   Then we realized it was Armenian which was her mother's people.    But to her it was unconscious.   I've seen Medicine People recognize "skins" over distances that were far too great for mere recognition.    

My point is that claiming on the census that you are native doesn't necessarily mean that, as we know.   But what does is family style and the systems that are deep within the person.   We say the first bible or "sacred library" is yourself and you must know how that works and where it comes from.   The second is the world that is our teacher and mother.  

There are 30 million descendants of 52 survivors of the Mayflower.    There are more descendants of Jamestown then that.   I suspect that there are more than eight million descendants of those millions of native people but that is at least a little less than there are Moslems in America.   I'm using logic here.  

AC:  
About half the self IDd or otherwise IDd as NDNs in the US aren't enrolled, including me and probably half the NDNs on this board too. So we understand your position, but wish you'd cease your largely groundless hostility towards your recognized cousins. They didn't invent blood quantum, the feds did.

REH  
True but the CNO is not blood quantum but direct lineage.   It has nothing to do with blood.   As for hostility.  I would appreciate it if you realize that I didn't start this, you did.

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #10 on: April 20, 2005, 06:10:00 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #55 on: Apr 19th, 2005, 4:40pm »  Quote  Modify  

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AC:  
Plus a tendency to use language that is drawn from Nuage more than traditional beliefs.

REH:  
Interesting.   How old are you?  

AC:  
And no, Nuage aren't the only ones to use metaphors. But they certainly overuse bad metaphors, and they do it hide their lack of clear thinking. "Mirrors of your mind" is an awful Nuage derived mixed metaphor, a really bad bit of overwriting.  

REH:
Actually it comes from Quetzalcoatl and his journey.     The four directions carry different mirrors.   The Nahua were great pedagogists and I did a production of a new work twenty years ago at the American Indian Community House written by poet Rafel Jesus Gonzalez and translated from the Nahuatl.    That was when I built my Meso-American Library.   It was good because when my father apprenticed me I already knew the elements of that in the ceremonials.   Since both of my fathers were teachers as well as my mother, and since I was trained as a pedagogist in undergraduate and did four years of educational research, it is now my language.   It is funny that you call it nuage.   Life cannot be expressed directly.   Especially in teaching.   You mustn't steal the learning by being obvious.   In music that is the difference between a teacher and a coach.   Remember the first fallacy of teaching is "I tell you therefore you know."  

AC:  
That, plus the hostility towards enrolled Cherokee, makes me wonder if you have Nuage members that are influencing you.  

REH:  
No I did a search and came across reference to myself and our community in a Cherokee talk group that used you as the authority for slandering us.   We have enough problems in the city as it is.   This is a city filled with groups that enjoy poking.   We work to be peaceful but we do not let anything get by lest it fester.  

That is the source of my hostility.   Wouldn't you be PO d if you and your close friends found your name in the fraud column of someone you never knew or heard of?     As for the "official" group, I don't like the way they have handled a lot of things including the Churchill issue as well as Red Lake.   I had a student who is Sac & Fox go to Germany and talk about blood quantum and racial purity.   They told her she was a Nazi.   That is too uncomfortably close to Red Lake for my taste.   We do not live as private islands in the world.   That was never and still isn't an option.   The only option is to have the skills to survive and maintain our traditions in the world.   Imagine a canoe.   Which will you use for the rapids, a lake canoe?    

First I don't understand how you could list as nuage TSALAGI the Cherokee language phonetic of Cherokee which is an old idiom no longer spoken.    Everyone in North Carolina, here and elsewhere says chalagi or t-s-a-la-gi depending upon their dialect.   But New Age?   Makes no sense.   It's like Nuyagi which we take from Nee yacki, an Algonquin word for the great rock Manhattan is built on i.e. "Place of Rocks."  The city of Nyack, New York is a derivative of the word.   We are Tsalagi so we say Nuyagi but that is where we get the word.   Perhaps they got it elsewhere from the Japanese.   Where do you think they got the word Dick-tu-lane-uh?

Secondly:  New Age is a type of Commercial Art.   It flows from World Music to Steven Spielburg.  In therapy it comes from Fritz Perls who founded Gestalt therapy with Laura Perls.   Both studied with an Ojibwa in Canada and the mix was Jewish and Canadian Ojibwa.  If you want to feel it purely "Canada" read some of the legal works of Rupert Ross or the Indigenous Science books by Physicist David Bohm and F. David Peat.   There has been a good dialogue between Indigenous Science and Physics through these European Quantum pioneers.    The language is what you call nuage but with an Irish accent since the Ojibwa love to clog.  

What was radical in the sixties and seventies is now mainstream both  commercially and psychoanalytically.   I studied with Ilana Rubenfeld for six years and she was a student of Perls, Feldenkrais and an expert in Alexander as well as being one of the great choral conductors and head of a major music school in New York (92nd street Y).  I also worked with the Minimalist Artists in Soho (Experimental Intermedia Foundation) in the seventies and pop culture has absorbed much of our language from that time, including rap.   I've also taught many different cultures to sing and relate to their physical instrument in their music.   These "nuage" terms may seem to the layman not to be specific in meaning but that is not true in my business.    I also worked with Robert Lewis one of the two founders of the Method Acting school and head of Yale Drama.   He was Brando's teacher.     The people you speak of have absorbed the language of Art, the Theater and physical and psychological therapies.   That is not the problem of the language but of capitalism and commerce.   I was a part of the people who invented the stuff years ago when I first came to New York.   Later the commercial souls took it over to sell it.   But they often missed the point.    Don't blame the serious artist for the foibles of capitalism.
Ray Evans Harrell

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #11 on: April 20, 2005, 06:20:43 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #57 on: Apr 19th, 2005, 5:07pm »  Quote  Modify  

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Rereading all of this work, I missed something that Richard Allen posted.   Since he did not equivocate but called me a liar, then it is possible that there is another Richard Allen who claimed to work for the CNO and who wrote a scurrulous article on the religion of 123 million Indigeneous people.....  

I keep thinking of those Medicine people who were surprised that their Medicine Wheel was found in Africa as well.   We all have to get out a bit.  

Richard finished by saying:  
I have the advantage of knowing the traditions, the culture and history of the Cherokee people having been reared in a traditional manner in a Cherokee community and accepted as the full blood that I am.  

REH:  
OK, maybe you weren't the one because that one told me as I remember, that he was not a native speaker of Cherokee but that it was a second language.    Obviously I am mistaken about the Baptist.   As for blood.   That is the first stone, the second is love.   As a specialist you know there are seven.  

I too have been cared for by the Cherokee people in my most difficult times.   When I couldn't relate to Tulsa because of the culture shock, Dr. Gene Curlin and Marvin Curlin practically took me into their home and helped me through.   She was an artist who knew the berry dyes and egg yoke on board ancient traditions.    Each time I was in need there was a teacher there from the people.   That is why I have given the scholarships as my give-back to those who gave to me.  

I am culturally 100% Nuyagi Keetoowah.   That was one of many horses in my corral.   That was the one that the Creator led me to and that is what I do.  I certainly don't do it because its fun or financially profitable.  

Richard:  
I am also a Marine Vietnam veteran so I don't mind a little verbal conflict every now and then.  

REH:  
You should feel right at home on our Council we have two Special Ops folks from that era.    One the Council President and the other retired and you insulted him recently.

Ray Evans Harrell

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #12 on: April 20, 2005, 06:34:18 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #57 on: Apr 19th, 2005, 5:07pm »  Quote  Modify  

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Rereading all of this work, I missed something that Richard Allen posted.   Since he did not equivocate but called me a liar, then it is possible that there is another Richard Allen who claimed to work for the CNO and who wrote a scurrulous article on the religion of 123 million Indigeneous people.....  

I keep thinking of those Medicine people who were surprised that their Medicine Wheel was found in Africa as well.   We all have to get out a bit.  

Richard finished by saying:  
I have the advantage of knowing the traditions, the culture and history of the Cherokee people having been reared in a traditional manner in a Cherokee community and accepted as the full blood that I am.  

REH:  
OK, maybe you weren't the one because that one told me as I remember, that he was not a native speaker of Cherokee but that it was a second language.    Obviously I am mistaken about the Baptist.   As for blood.   That is the first stone, the second is love.   As a specialist you know there are seven.  

I too have been cared for by the Cherokee people in my most difficult times.   When I couldn't relate to Tulsa because of the culture shock, Dr. Gene Curlin and Marvin Curlin practically took me into their home and helped me through.   She was an artist who knew the berry dyes and egg yoke on board ancient traditions.    Each time I was in need there was a teacher there from the people.   That is why I have given the scholarships as my give-back to those who gave to me.  

I am culturally 100% Nuyagi Keetoowah.   That was one of many horses in my corral.   That was the one that the Creator led me to and that is what I do.  I certainly don't do it because its fun or financially profitable.  

Richard:  
I am also a Marine Vietnam veteran so I don't mind a little verbal conflict every now and then.  

REH:  
You should feel right at home on our Council we have two Special Ops folks from that era.    One the Council President and the other retired and you insulted him recently.

Ray Evans Harrell

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #13 on: April 20, 2005, 06:42:00 pm »
Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY
« Reply #60 on: Apr 19th, 2005, 11:17pm »  Quote  Modify  

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Wow,  

What a nasty post.   You were the one who put Boudinot together with enrollment.   I just jumped it to the impulse for the Curtis Act which is when the whole Dawes Rolls that determine CNO membership were taken.    

Do you know who Boudinot was?   He was the founder of Patterson, N.J.    Watie took the name.  Seems maybe there was a connection between Patterson where the Sand Hills are and John Ross.   Otherwise how would Watie know to take the name?     I would recommend that you read all of the Cherokee Phoenix translations that are available on the Internet.   That gives you a good feel for the history from the Christian Cherokee perspective.  

You all continue to confuse the Priesthood.  I would recommend that you read "Tribes that Slumber" so you can get it straight.   Our Founder. my father,  was one of the resources for the book put out by the Univ. of Tenn.  

The Nuyagi Keetoowah has only one site and you have never seen it.   The Sand Hill site is a historian site by a member of the Cherokee Nation with BIA card.   A man who is a national resource for Indian rights organizations, has an Indian Foundation and has had breakfast with the President.     He grew up in Sand Hill and his family has been there over the period of its development.   No one knows more about that then he.   When he says Keetoowah he means religion and when he says Nuyagi he means here in the "place of rocks".   He means the group that came here and has a history with a Stompground that was noted in the newspapers of the day even though it was illegal.   The whites thought it was novel and so didn't bother them.   He has notes of it in the 1928 newspapers.   His work is in the Museums.   He is a member of our Stomp Ground and former Council Member but IT IS NOT A NUYAGI KEETOOWAH SOCIETY, INC. website or has anything to do with our official duties, etc.   He dances also in Oklahoma where he says and their approval is between him and them.    You should read the site carefully so you understand Stokes State Forest where they met in 1928 for the fire with our Founder.     He passed that fire to me in 1984 and I have been the keeper of it down to the present.   That is not all that I keep.   But the Sand Hill site is a historian site and is subject to the same rigors as all history.     We are proud of him but you have to take his context for his paper, not what you believe in your minds or what anyone else says.  

If you want to understand the quote on the Futurework site then read the whole thread.   It is much too complicated for you to judge simply by extracting that information.   Intent is always a part of the message and you miss that by not reading the thread.    The Futurework site is also NOT A NUYAGI KEETOOWAH SOCIETY, INC. website.   It is however a very good international discussion of the problems of work that we face in our pursuit of employment for our people.   Not a bad thing to know.  

That being said.   You know only what I have written about us and you have to read it all to get the point.   My writing is Cherokee English.   It doesn't scan and it is often in the passive voice with a stress on the processes rather than the nouns and objects.    That is the way my family taught me English.  

As for judging my tradition.   Who made you the authority on tradition?    It is not traditional to be disrespectful to a man with "gray hair."   I said all of the right things, the cues and the cliches and you didn't know them.   An Indian child would understand about snow in the hair.  

I'm going to leave it at that.   You may read for a while and then I will delete the posts as I don't want to leave this around.    You have already stirred up enough mischief and taken time away from my family.     You have also started a connection with Tahlequah that I have deliberately avoided because of growing up on Indian land and having to deal with governments.   I don't do that and that is why I am here and in the private sector.    

Finally, if you don't know the power of naming then you should go ask your parents because they messed up.   Wannabe is common but so was the N word when I was growing up and they said Segregation was OK.   Accusing someone of lacking authenticity is to judge their soul.   That is the real curse not saying that someone is a s**t head.    The next time someone comes to audition for me from Oklahoma and is a member of the CNO I will remember to ask them if they wannabe an opera singer or are they just faking it.  (just joking)  
Goodby

REH  

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Ray Harrell & "Keetoowah of Pomona NY
« Reply #14 on: April 23, 2005, 09:38:49 pm »
Ray, your post here was removed. For one thing, it's identical to what you posted elsewhere.

But more importantly you need to read the notices at the top of topics before you just start posting away. Show some basic politeness and quit being disruptive. The purpose of the archives are just that, for storage. Discussions are meant to take place in the other threads.