During my current journeys through Europe I have come upon many
place of historical significance to the Nnee (like the Ndee, the
Nnee people are known to English speakers as Western Apache).
Although we have played a part in the formation of this world as we
know it, many of our own Nnee don’t realize how much we have
influence upon our beautiful Earth-Is-Woman. My trips abroad have
given me occasion to reflect on the influence we have upon the world
of the past, present and soon future.
In the past, as far back as the 1540s, the Nnee were making
treaties of peace between the king and queen of both Castille and
Aragon, or now current Spain. The Nnee women were being trafficked
by beaver fur merchants as part of the bigger slave trade that was
happening at this time. Slavery in the new world actually has it
roots not in the black slave trade but the trading of our Nnee women
to Spain and Europe as the Native slave trade that began in
Caribbean spread west. We must also take into account the mining of
gold, silver, and copper in our lands for the profiteering of the
Crowns of Castille and Aragon after gaining permission of the Nnee.
The influence of the Nnee language is seen worldwide with the
proliferation of the word tatsa (basket in our language,
cup in Italian, and container in Polish), and shi ta and
shi ma (without the shi), which is used amongst most
Spanish speaking countries meaning father and mother.
To this day we still hold value and influence upon the body politic
scene of the world. In 2015, The Apache Ndee Nnee Working Group, wrote a
report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of all Forms
of Racial Discrimination, for review of the Holy See, The Catholic
Church and Vatican, for the disruption of our way of life through its
Papal Bull Inter Caeterum of 1493. This Papal Bull or Pope’s Law was
used in 1823 in a court case called
Johnson v. M’Intosh, which eliminated aboriginal title of the
Original Peoples in the eyes of the United States. This affected we Nnee
only after 1848 when the United States and Mexico split our mighty
nation, and imposed alien governance systems through patriarchy and
patriarchal laws that reduced the power of our matrilineal forms of
governance. But the dissolution of our power wasn’t their only
motivation, either: Minerals and precious stones were being found in our
lands. Greed seduced Americans and Mexicans to invade and encroach upon
our homelands with war and conquest, which they then justified with the
1852 Gadsen purchase. The San Carlos and White Mountain Apache nations
are categorized as “executive order” and “non-treaty” because of this
seizure. The United States and Mexico stole our lands through illegal
action even though our Nnee was already an international body politic to
be reckoned with.
It is up to Nnee again, in these times, to chart our future. Decades
ago, our land was contaminated by Agent Orange contamination, and the
threat to us today is both real and hidden. We need to listen to what
the land is saying to us. We also need to start caring about each other
and about everyone else around us. What we don’t need is denial and
fear. It is sad to see every week someone dying prematurely because of
cancer and or some terminal illness; it’s worse to think that
Indian Health Services, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, the
San Carlos Apache Tribal government and many others have known for
years that we have been contaminated with the worst man-made chemical
known, dioxin.
We have a future if you believe in it. We must do work in the
Earth-Is-Woman to help repair and continue the good work of our
ancestors which the Creator, Bik’ehgo’ihi’nan, gave us in the beginning.
So, whomever you are in our Nnee communities, whether it’s in Mexico,
Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, or wherever you are found, it is time to get
ready and start praying it up with the heart and not with money or
whatever else that comes between yourself and Bik’ehgo’ihi’nan alone.
Bik’ehgo’ihi’nan is the only way things will get better but we must pray
without judgment upon anyone. None of us is clean but it’s time to stop
the insanity of thinking it’s ok for The People to die off without
saying anything or caring for ourselves and community, even if it’s our
own people who are bent on perpetuating death. Remember, it takes an
Ndee to get an Nnee. Remember also who you are as The People. Don’t be
ashamed if you want to pray all the time in both the ways of the
ancestors or in the new ways of Christianity. As for me, I am balanced
to sing the Holy Ground Songs and pray in English to Yeshua HaMashiach
(Christ the Anointed) without prejudice. So be free in all that you do
and be in truth because it is the truth that sets us free. Let us start
our journey together as one, undivided, for the sake of the generation
of Nnee to come.
Nzhoo doleel,
Michael Paul Hill is an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache
Tribe. He is a Spiritual, Legal and Human Rights Advocate in the tribal,
national and international systems. His work has been cited in many
publications including The Academy of Social Sciences for the People’s
Republic of China, Cambridge University Press, The United Nations, and
both local and national news outlets, just to name a few. Currently, he
is traveling throughout Europe igniting the fire of truth and advocating
on behalf of Earth Is Woman and the Creator.
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