EAGLE ROCK TRADING POST

O' Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka

Whose voice I hear in the winds;
and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me!
I am small and weak,
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let Me Walk in Beauty, and make my eyes ever
behold the red and purple sunset.
Make My Hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make Me Wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let Me Learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.
I Seek Strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy-myself.
Make Me Always Ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes,
So When Life Fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit may come to you without shame.


---Chief Redcloud---

Feathers
Robert Francis
Jun 3, 2006

In the wake of the recent feather raid at the Lipan Apache Powwow in McAllen, Texas, I have entered into numerous discussions with Indians and non-Indians alike concerning the possession of eagle feathers and other sacred feathers as a religious freedom issue.  As a result of these discussions, I am struck with the realization that, while most people have some idea that feathers are important to Indian people, few non-Indians and even some Indians do not really understand the purpose of feathers within American Indian spiritualities.  I thought I might write something to help develop a bit of understanding.  I am no expert on the purpose or use of feathers.  All I know is what I am taught.  I’ll do my best to share that here.

 
To begin with, contrary to a popular misconception, Indian people do not worship feathers.  We do not pray to feathers.  We do not even pray through feathers.  We pray with feathers.

I can only explain this in accordance with the Cherokee ways in which I am taught.  (Please keep in mind that even among Cherokees there are differences in ways and teachings.)  According to the ways in which I am taught, Jol-Agahyuhli, the Spirit of Tobacco, lifts our prayers up to Uwohali, the Spirit of the Eagle, who lifts our prayers up before Creator. 

 
Just as the Spirit of Tobacco is understood by Indian people to be a helper spirit, so is the Spirit of the Eagle understood to be a helper spirit. These spirits are not mediators, mind you; they are helpers.  The Spirit of the Eagle is understood to be a special protector of the Indian peoples as well as a messenger between Creator and human beings. 

 In Cherokee, we use the term “adawehi” which means “one who has power” to describe such a helper. 

 
If a member of your family is very ill, maybe teetering on the edge of death, you may call for other family members and friends to gather round. “Come, pray with us,” you will say. When a person who follows an American Indian spirituality takes an eagle feather in hand or ties an eagle feather on his or her head, that person is calling on the Spirit of the Eagle, that great adawehi, to “Come pray with us.”

 
Now, when I have an eagle feather in my hand, and I am praying, that feather is not a symbol. That feather is a feather. That feather is real, not symbolic. That eagle feather is a genuine, tangible connection with the Spirit of the Eagle. The only time it can be said that a feather is a symbol is when it’s say, a chicken feather or a domestic turkey feather painted or dyed to resemble an eagle feather, hawk feather or some other kind of feather. In that case, you do have a symbol. The painted feather is symbolic of something it is not. But an eagle feather is not symbolic of anything. It’s real. It’s the same with hawk feathers or turkey feathers (unpainted) or with any of the other feathers that connect with specific helper spirits. And when I speak of the Spirit of the Eagle or the Spirit of the Hawk or the spirit of some other type of bird, I am not speaking of an individual bird’s spirit, but rather of the overarching spirit, the helper spirit associated with that particular species of bird.

Traditionally, an eagle feather may be given to a person by an elder or by someone recognized as a spiritual person among the people. The feather is given to honor that person for giving themselves for the people. Today, this whole process is complicated by the fact that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has presumed to make itself the elder of all the Indian people. Because of government interference, some Indian people wind up with an over-abundance of eagle feathers while other Indian people have no legal means available for obtaining feathers at all. According to how I am taught, a Cherokee person never wears more than one, single eagle feather. Again, there are differences in teachings. I’m not trying to speak for all Cherokees; this is just the way I am taught:  A person may hold an eagle-feather wand of several feathers in his hand during an Eagle Dance or may use an eagle fan to bless the people, but only one eagle feather is worn, on the head, at any one time. This feather is one that has been specifically given by an elder or spiritual person in honor for service done for the people. Other tribes have similar traditions, maybe not the one-feather tradition, but traditions that limit the wearing of eagle feathers to those who have proven themselves as protectors or warriors of the people. For this reason, it’s confusing to me when I see little children wearing eagle feathers on their heads or full eagle bustles at a powwow. I generally come away thinking, “Here’s a family to whom Uncle Sam has bequeathed more eagle feathers than can be used in a proper way.” 

 
I need to back up to comment on, “Who is a warrior?” There is some confusion about this.

  Recently, I listened as a member of the Tiah-pah Gourd Society explained that when that first-of-all modern Gourd Societies was formed in 1957, it was founded as a warrior society.  This man went on to say that, the modern warrior was defined by the founders of the society as, “the scholar and the teacher,” as these are the ones, who in modern times, are truly fighting for the life and freedom of Indian people. While United States war veterans were also brought into the Tiah-pah Gourd Society as warriors, as in truth veterans are also scholars and teachers, even so, the Tiah-pah Gourd Society was not founded as a veterans’ society but as a warrior society.

 
With this definition in mind, I feel it is very appropriate that our young people be given eagle feathers upon graduation from high school and college, as is done within some tribes today. This is not to take away from the honor given to military veterans but to recognize that there are many and various ways in which our people are giving their lives in the fight for life and freedom. Again, the problem is that eagle feathers may not be legally obtained or even held in possession by many Indian people in the United States. This makes it very difficult.

 
Aside from eagle feathers, the feathers of many other birds are held as sacred by Indian people of various tribes. Many tribes consider the Red-Tailed Hawk to be the War Bird, as the Red-Tailed Hawk never hovers before attacking. To Cherokees, the Wild Turkey is the War Bird, while Hawks are medicine birds. The Blue-Jay is the Bird-of-Happiness to Cherokees. The Red Bird is the Daughter of the Sun. The Jigalili or Chickadee is the TruthTeller. 

  Incidentally, as far as I know, there is no legal means of obtaining any of these smaller birds’ feathers for spiritual purposes. Only the feathers of raptors may be obtained from the federal repository. If your cat kills a blue-jay in your back yard, then your cat is in violation of federal law. If you pick up the feathers, you are an accomplice with your cat!

 
Of course, there are those who believe in higher laws. There are those who believe the blue-jay feather found in the yard or the dead hawk found along the highway or the eagle feather found at the side of the lake is a special gift from the spirit of that bird and from Creator. There are those who believe that to refuse a gift is to dishonor the giver.

What about owl feathers? Within each tribal tradition, there are birds whose feathers are never worn in the hair or on the person nor used as a fan nor brought to ceremonies or powwows. According to the Cherokee ways in which I am taught, the Owl is an example of such a bird. This is not to say that these are unclean birds. These too may be powerful helper spirits, but there are specific ways in which they help. These ways must be respected. Learn the traditions of your own tribe or band, along with the taboos. If you are invited to attend or participate in ceremonies conducted by members of another tribe or band, respect their ways as well. These ways were not just dreamed up yesterday, and they should not be dismissed as mere superstition. Everything is for a purpose.

The little dark eyed girl cuddled close to her mother inside the warm lodge. She pulled the new blue paisley dress around her to warm her legs as she awaited her fathers' story telling. Closely gathered near by were her siblings and her father sat leaning against the willow back rest. She begged to hear again, the story her father told each year in the moon of the popping trees....the story of the great flood that happened in the land of the big waters. (What we now call the Yellowstone river and valley)

He sat for a long time, looking into the fire and began to re-tell the old story....

The Great Spirit smiled on this land when he made it. There were mountains and plains, forests and grasslands. There were animals of many kinds--and men.

The Great Spirit told the people, "These animals are your brothers. Share the land with them. They will give you food and clothing. Live with them and protect them.

"Protect especially the buffalo, for the buffalo will give you food and shelter. The hide of the buffalo will keep you from the cold, from the heat, and from the rain. As long as you have the buffalo, you will never need to suffer."

For many winters the people lived at peace with the animals and with the land. When they killed a buffalo, they thanked the Great Spirit, and they used every part of the buffalo for the buffalo relatives took care of every need for the people.

Then other people came. They did not think of the animals as brothers. They killed, even when they did not need food. They burned and cut the forests, and the animals died. They shot the buffalo and called it sport. They killed the fish in the streams.

When the Great Spirit looked down, he was sad. He let the smoke of the fires lie in the valleys. The people coughed and choked. But still the fires burned and still these people killed the animals.

So the Great Spirit sent rains to put out the fires and to destroy the people.

The rains fell, and the waters rose. The people moved from the flooded valleys to the higher land.

Our great medicine man gathered together his people. He said to them, "The Great Spirit has told us that as long as we have the buffalo we will be safe from heat and cold and rain. But there are no longer any buffalo. Unless we can find buffalo and live at peace with nature, we will all die."

Still the rains fell, and the waters rose. The people moved from the flooded plains to the hills.

The young men went out and hunted for the buffalo. As they went they put out the fires. They made friends with the animals once more. They cleaned out the streams.

Still the rains fell, and the waters rose. The people moved from the flooded hills to the mountains.

Two young men came to the medicine man. "We have found the buffalo," they said. "There was a cow, a calf, and a great white bull. The cow and the calf climbed up to the safety of the mountains. They should be back when the rain stops. But the bank gave way, and the bull was swept away by the floodwaters. We followed and got him to shore, but he had drowned. We have brought you his hide."

They unfolded a huge white buffalo skin.

The medicine man took the white buffalo hide. "Many people have been drowned," he said. "Our food has been carried away. But our young people are no longer destroying the world that was created for them. They have found the white buffalo. It will save those who are left."

Still the rains fell, and the waters rose. The people moved from the flooded mountains to the highest peaks.

The medicine man spread the white buffalo skin on the ground. He and the other medicine men scraped it and stretched it, and scraped it and stretched it.

Still the rains fell. Like all rawhide, the buffalo skin stretched when it was wet. The medicine men stretched it out over the village. All the people who were left crowded under it.

As the rains fell, the medicine men stretched the buffalo skin across the mountains. Each day they stretched it farther.

Then they tied one corner to the top of the Big Horn Mountains. That side, he fastened to the Pryors. The next corner he tied to the Bear Tooth Mountains. Crossing the Yellowstone Valley, he tied one corner to the Crazy Mountains, and the other to Signal Butte in the Bull Mountains.

The whole Yellowstone Valley was covered by the white buffalo skin. Though the rains still fell above, it did not fall in the Yellowstone Valley.

The waters sank away. Animals from the outside moved into the valley, under the white buffalo skin. The people shared the valley with them.

Still the rains fell above the buffalo skin. The skin stretched and began to sag.

The medicine man stood on the Bridger Mountains and raised the west end of the buffalo skin to catch the West Wind. The West Wind rushed in and was caught under the buffalo skin. The wind lifted the skin until it formed a great dome over the valley.

The Great Spirit saw that the people were living at peace with the earth. The rains stopped, and the sun shone. As the sun shone on the white buffalo skin, it gleamed with colors of red and yellow and blue.

As the sun shone on the rawhide, it began to shrink. The ends of the dome shrank away until all that was left was one great arch across the valley.

The old man's voice faded away; but his hands said "Look," and his arms moved toward the valley.

The rain had stopped and a rainbow arched across the Yellowstone Valley. A buffalo calf and its mother grazed beneath it.

And as she fell asleep, the little girl in her blue paisley dress, she could not have imagined that others were hearing this same kind of story. These people lived in places so far across Mother Earth, that the little girl could never have imagined them. They spoke in different languages and had skin colors and facial features far different from those of her family. But each of these people across the Earth, told their children of the same image....of a great flood and the care of their God to protect them from this destructive force. Each race of these people had names for their "God" and had ways of honoring the Creator presence...yet none of these peopl e across Mother Earth had ever met, never spoken to each other nor shared a story telling within their differing lodges....yet all spoke of the same thing.

Bluejay - bluejay@imt.net
Dec 10, 2006

Indians Reclaim Ancient Foods:

To Preserve Their Health and Heritage, Arizona Indians Reclaim Ancient Foods

 Desert's bounty cuts overweight and diabetes

 Both fruits and pads of the prickly pear cactus are rich in slowly
absorbed soluble fibers that help keep blood sugar stable.

 Going back to one's roots could soon take on a more literal meaning
for the Indians of the American Southwest, as well as for peoples
elsewhere in the world who are poorly adapted to rich, refined foods.
For the sake of their health, as well as their cultural heritage, the
Pima and Tohono O'odham tribes of Arizona are being urged to
rediscover the desert foods their people traditionally consumed until
as recently as the 1940's.

 Studies strongly indicate that people who evolved in these arid lands
are metabolically best suited to the feast-and-famine cycles of their
forebears who survived on the desert's unpredictable bounty, both wild
and cultivated.

 By contrast, the modern North American diet is making them sick. With
rich food perpetually available, weights in the high 200's and 300's
are not uncommon among these once-lean people. As many as half the
Pima and Tohono O'odham (formerly Papago) Indians now develop diabetes
by the age of 35, an incidence 15 times higher than for Americans as a
whole. Yet, before World War II, diabetes was rare in this population.
Similar problems have been found among Australian aborigines, Pacific
Islanders and other peoples whose survival historically depended on
their ability to stash away calories in times of plenty to sustain
them during droughts and crop failures. The Pima and Tohono O'odham
Indians seem unusually efficient at turning calories to body fat;
nutritionists say they gain weight readily on the kinds and amounts of
foods people of European descent can eat with no problem.

 One tablespoon of buds from the cholla cactus has as much calcium as
eight ounces of milk. The buds are rich in soluble fiber that helps
regulate blood sugar.

 Preliminary studies have indicated that a change in the Indian diet
back to the beans, corn, grains, greens and other low-fat high-fiber
plant foods that their ancestors depended upon can normalize blood
sugar, suppress between-meal hunger and probably also foster weight loss.
These findings may also prove valuable to non-Indians who are
susceptible to overweight and diabetes, and perhaps also those prone
to high blood pressure and heart disease. The benefits, which are also
found in a few more familiar foods like oat bran and okra, stem from
primarily two characteristics of native foods: their high content of
soluble fibers that form edible gels, gums and mucilages, and a type
of starch called amylose that is digested very slowly. The combined
effect is to prevent wide swings in blood sugar, slow down the
digestive process and delay the return of hunger.

 Peaks in blood sugar increase the body's need for insulin and dips in
blood sugar can trigger feelings of hunger. In the form of diabetes
that strikes these Indians the overweight body becomes insensitive to
insulin weight loss increases the body's sensitivity to insulin and
slow digestion diminishes the need for insulin.

 On the Arizona desert, the desirable food ingredients are found in
edible parts of such indigenous plants as the mesquite (mes-KEET)
tree, cholla (CHOY-a) and prickly pear cactus, as well as in tepary
(TEP-a-ree) beans, choa (CHEE-a) seeds and acorns from live oaks.
Tribal elders speak fondly of these one-time favorites, which in
recent decades have been all but forgotten as hamburgers, fries, soft
drinks and other fatty, sugary, overly refined fast and packaged foods
gained flavor.

 Acorns from live oaks are among the 10 best foods ever tested in terms
of maintaining stable blood sugar levels. They can be eaten whole or
ground into meal.

 Even those Indians who still rely heavily on beans and corn are today
consuming varieties that have little or none of the nutritive
advantages found in the staples of their historic diet. For example,
the sweet corn familiar to Americans contains rapidly digested
starches and sugars, which raise sugar levels in the blood, while the
hominy-type corn of the traditional Indian diet has little sugar and
mostly starch that is slowly digested.

 Similarly, the pinto beans that the Federal Government now gives to
the Indians (along with lard, refined wheat flour, sugar, coffee and
processed cereals) are far more rapidly digested than the tepary beans
the Tohono O'odham once depended upon. Indeed, their former tribal
name is a distorted version of the Indian word meaning "the Bean People."

 When Earl Ray, a Pima Indian who lives near Phoenix, switched to a
more traditional native diet of mesquite meal, tepary beans, cholla
buds and chaparral tea, he dropped from 239 pounds to less than 150
and brought his severe diabetes under control without medication. In a
federally financed study of 11 Indian volunteers predisposed to
diabetes, a diet of native food rich in fiber and complex
carbohydrates kept blood sugar levels on an even keel and increased
the effectiveness of insulin. When he switched back to a low-fiber
"convenience-market diet" containing the same number of calories, the
volunteers' blood sensitivity to insulin declined.

Much Foliage, Few Beans

 In addition to the potential health benefits of traditional desert
foods, agricultural and economic factors strongly favor their
production. Marty Eberhardt the director of the Tucson Botanical
Gardens, pointed out that the plants that produce these foods are
naturally adapted to growing under conditions of high heat and little
water.

 Government food programs replaced the tepary bean, which is rich in
fiber, protein, iron, and calcium, with the pinto bean, which is far
more quickly digested and also lower in protein.

 Martha Burgess, education director of Native Seeds/ Search, a seed
bank and research and education organization here that studies and
promotes the use of native desert plant foods, said, for example, that
"If tepary bean plants are given lots of water, they produce tons of
foliage and few beans," adding, "But if the plants are starved of
water, they put their effort into flowers and seeds and produce beans
that can have as much protein as soybeans."

 Under the direction of Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan, Native Seeds/Search, (the
acronym stands for Southwestern Endangered Arid-lands Resource
Clearing House) is studying the value of native desert foods for
controlling diabetes among Indians and Hispanic Americans of the
border region. Dr. Nabhan, an ethnobotanist, was recently named a
recipient of a MacArthur Foundation grant to pursue his studies of the
agronomic characteristics and health value of desert food plants.
The group, which is housed on the grounds of the Tucson Botanical
Gardens, teaches health professionals about native foods and promotes
their use through school and community programs, seed distribution and
cooking instruction.

 "We should be eating the foods that grow here naturally instead of
spending so much to bring in packaged foods," Ms Eberhardt said.

 "People find themselves shin-deep in mesquite beans they don't know
what to do with, and some of us feel guilty throwing them into the
landfill."

 Although most Arizonans consider mesquite, which occupies 70 million
acres in the American Southwest, a pesky weed, it is loaded with
nutritious pods that have a natural caramel-like sweetness. Carolyn J.
Niethammer, the author of "American Indian Food and Lore" and "The
Tumbleweed Gourmet," a cookbook published by the University of Arizona
Press that features desert plants, said that mesquite pods were good
sources of calcium, manganese, iron, and zinc. The seeds within them
are about 40 percent protein, almost double the protein content of
common legumes. Even during a drought, mesquite is a prolific producer
of seed-filled pods.
Tribal elders speak fondly of one-time favorites that are highly nutritious.

The Value of Mesquite

 Carlos Nagel, who heads Friends of Pronatura, an American affiliate of
a Mexican conservation agency, remarked that " A healthy stand of
mesquite produces as much food value through its pods as does a wheat
field under cultivation, and the mesquite does it without
capitalization, pesticides, fertilizer or irrigation and with minimal
cultivation."

 Mesquite pods were once a treasured part of the Pima and Tohono
O'odham diet. The sweet pods are a good source of calcium, manganese,
iron, and zinc. The seeds within are 40 percent protein. Mesquite
flour from grinding the whole pods produces fructose, which can be
processed without insulin, and soluble fibers, which are slowly
absorbed, without a rapid rise in blood sugar.

 Dr. Nabhan, who has participated in medical studies of mesquite and
other desert foods, said that despite its sweetness, mesquite flour
(made by grinding whole pods) "is extremely effective in controlling
blood sugar levels" in people with diabetes. The sweetness comes from
fructose, which the body can process without insulin. In addition,
soluble fibers, such as galactomannin gum, in the seeds and pods slow
absorbtion of nutrients, resulting in a flattened blood sugar curve,
unlike the peaks that follow consumption of wheat flour, corn meal and
other common staples.

 "The gel-forming fiber allows foods to be slowly digested and absorbed
over a four- to six-hour period, rather than in one or two hours,
which produces a rapid rise in blood sugar," Dr. Nabhan explained. He
likened this "slow-release" New World food to two Old World legumes,
guar and carob, that are being used in Europe to help control blood
sugar levels in people with diabetes.

 Dr. Nabhan, who has scoured the Southwest for remnants of nutritious
wild and once-cultivated plants, said, "Prior to World War II,
mesquite was the single most important wild food staple for the native
desert peoples and probably protected them from developing diabetes.
However, such wild foods were discouraged by the force of civilization
and they dropped out of native diets."

 Mesquite pods and acorns from the Emory Oak, a nondeciduous oak of the
arid Southwest, are among the 10 best foods ever tested in terms of
maintaining stable blood sugar levels, Dr. Nabhan said. After falling
from the trees, these small tasty oval nuts are naturally toasted by
the hot desert sun. They can be shelled and eaten whole as a snack or
ground into meal to make burgers and muffins.

 Also rich in health-promoting fiber are the drought-hearty tepary
beans, the only cultivated beans with heat-resistant enzymes that can
withstand the 100 plus degrees of the Sonoran Desert, Mr. Burgess
said. Teparies, rich in protein, iron and calcium, once sustained many
Indians of the Southwest, as well as the famed Tarahumara Indian
runners of Mexico. But when post-war government welfare programs began
giving pintos to the Tohono O'odham and Pima Indians, they lost their
incentive to grow teparies, which are better for them because they are
digested more slowly.

Jell-O of the desert

 Today Mr. Nagel is trying to reverse the trend. In a cooperative
program with Mexican farmers, he is fostering cultivation of a variety
of tepary beans, which are already being grown commercially by Pima
Indians in Sacaton, Arizona.

 Seeds are rich in high-quality protein. Both greens and seeds have
large amounts of calcium. Raw greens are high in vitamins A and C and iron.
Amaranth, known to some gardeners as pigweed, is another nutritious
drought-tolerant plant that thrives in the desert, producing both
greens and seeds that once nourished the Indians. The seeds are rich
in high-quality protein, and both the seeds and greens are loaded with
calcium. Mrs. Burgess said that amaranth is but one of many edible
weeds commonly discarded by home gardeners, who fail to appreciate
their nutritive and culinary value.

 Mrs. Burgess is also enthusiastic about protein-rich chia seeds from a
salvia plant that produces two seed crops a year. When mixed with
water, the fiber in chia forms a gel that lowers cholesterol and keeps
blood sugar stable. She tells Native American children that chia is
"the Jell-O of the desert."

 Cactus, the signature plants of the desert landscape, round out the
nutritious native foods diet. Buds from the cholla are rich in
calcium: One tablespoon has the calcium equivalent of eight ounces of
milk. Cholla buds and the fruits and pads of the prickly pear are also
rich in soluble fibers that help to normalize blood sugar.

Dr. Nabhan said that 20 other native desert foods were now being
analyzed for their fiber and starch content and he predicted the
availability of an ever-widening menu of nutritious ingredients.
Among the main remaining hurdles is the need to develop commercial
Sources of foods like mesquite meal and to convince diabetes-prone
Indians that it is worth the trouble to prepare and consume their
traditional foods. Native American interns are assisting in the
effort, which is being pursued in school lunchrooms and classrooms and
at reservation clinics and health fairs.

Still, Mrs. Burgess said, habits are hard to change. "The most
frequent question from potential consumers is, "If I eat these foods
can I then eat all the hamburgers and ice cream I want?" she said.

"Everyone is looking for a quick fix."