In this Promethian year, I can see mounting evidence that the states are making Algonquin language and history preservation as difficult as possible. The economic weapons they use are just as invisible as the Deniable Action Weapons (laser, maser, phaser, tazer, or whatever) now being used on dissidents. I talked to Watie, and he caught me up on what has been going on with the Penobscot band council and cultural preservation committee. He said that Carol, who is opposed to my easy-to-use system of learning Penobscot, is right now an essential part of the current program (that is getting major funding from some mysterious source) and so her objections carry a lot of weight. I said as an outsider, it was hard for me to see that, but I trusted he was right as usual. He said I had the tribe’s (tacit) blessings however to finish the project and to go to the outside world if necessary for assistance, and reminded me that he and I had been working on preserving the language long before the creation of the committee. He said for the record that our groundbreaking work did not necessarily precipitate the creation of that committee. However he felt there was grassroots support for what I was doing, and that he wanted me to say that it was at his request I undertook the project, which was true. I am grateful for the opportunity to finish this important work, however I can’t help but feeling like John Henry, in that the committee has thousands of dollars at their disposal and I am without a cent. At one time there was talk of incorporating my work into the committee’s, but Carol objected. In the end, we shall see whose work bears the best fruit.
I talked to Wappingers native Dave Fisher about the growing need to form the Wappingers Council. I told him of the great turtle, which lies in Wappingers territory, and expressed my thought that it was an omen that we should unite the brothers and sisters of the Wappingers nation, at least in order to protect the turtle. He agreed. I explained my views to him concerning state recognition, which some have been holding out for. I said that we are ethnic Algonquins, and have an inherent right to speak up for our ethnicity. I commented, partly in jest, partly quite serious, that if a black person, such as Whoopi Goldberg, wants to stand up for black values, black culture, and civil rights, she doesn’t have to prove that she’s a citizen of Uganda or the Congo. Yet that’s how institutions treat us as Algonquins. We don’t need state recognition in order to reconstruct Wappingers culture. I urged him to move to unite the people and to stand up for what we believe in, the environment, individual freedom and dignity, and traditional culture. He sounded inspired. The next day, I ran across Bill W’s number. Bill is the strongest natural leader we have. He knows I am working on a Wappingers language program and a history book, and has named me Wappingers Tribal Historian.
I found the press conference from May 8th 01 today on the web, which bears further looking into. I also looked through Peace File’s website for a while, a wonderful place to webbrowze.
MoPress 
Leave a comment