Category: epritchard

June 12th, Saturday: I went to the post office, mailed the usual stuff, nothing in the box. I just missed the Woodstock Poetry Society meeting, walking around in the sunlight, a beautiful day. Doing errands, etc From one to four today, several people in my circle of friends who are healers, felt depressed for no reason whatsoever! Still no answer.

I got a message from Jennifer Meiers from the Poughkeepsie Journal, so I called her back and we did an interview on the spot about the relationship between the Native Americans and the rivers of the Hudson Valley, in the old days, and I stressed the importance of the estuary, the salt point itself, where sea and fresh water life is abundant. I also talked about the old canoe crossing from Waryus Park at the bottom of Main Street (next to Fall Kill Falls) and Highland Landing a mile to the north, how colonists used to stand on the shore and wave a white flag on a pole, and Native Americans would come and give rides in exchange for wampum, trinkets, food, etc. We may have talked for an hour.

Garrison Keilor is at Ocean Grove today, doing his show, but I didn’t go (to thank him for mentioning my book Whole Hearted Thinking on his Prairie Home Companion show) or listen in, too busy.

Shawna called out of the blue, panting, saying excitedly, “I found the rocks.” I said, “Can we go now?” “Yes!” So suddenly I was on another adventure with Shawna. Apparently, she had gone by herself and meditated and burned sage, etc, before trying to locate the rocks. The rocks “led her to them.” (I know, spooky, right?) She brought me with her to the spot. This time we found it, and I was quite puzzled and surprised. I found that the east wall was certainly man-made and well done, but there was a rock of different type sticking out which seemed to be carved into a turtle head, with a turtle’s fin to its right sticking out. The rest of it looks like it was at one time a hemispheric dome, six feet tall, representing the entire northern hemisphere. There were natural steps to climb to the top. I have often stated that Algonquins did not create monuments, and yet here is a monument of a turtle, a tremendous discovery. Of course there’s no way to prove it was not made by a “drunken farmer.” But here are some reasons to say it is Lenape; 1. Lenape used turtle designs as boundary markers 2. this spot is at the northeast corner of the old Lenape territory. 3. it is on the same exact longitude as the most famous turtle boundary marker, from the Bronx River. 4. it is created using the same techniques as the shelf or platform constructions found at Oley PA (at the SW corner of Lenape Hoking) and also in Vermont, where there are eighty of them on a single slope!. This shows that more “recent” Lenape did have this platform tradition still intact. 5. it can be used as a platform, but is much more. Ted added to this to say there are many possible “turtle effigy” spots in Lenape territory, but none are that convincing. I took a roll of pictures of the site.

At night, I worked on making a flier compiling news stories about space weapons which don’t get coverage in the US. The two main sources were The Ottawa Citizen, an article which I had seen on the stands while in Ontario, and Counter Punch, which I believe is British. Space weapons may pose the greatest threat to freedom and democracy if fallen into (or created by) the wrong hands. I called Raymundo to tell him of the Great Turtle. He was very pleased. He likes turtles. He’s a marine biologist.

Here is the email I sent Ted:

Hi, Ted,
Speaking of wild speculations, I saw and explored the new “rock pile” in Rhinebeck, and it is quite puzzling.
You have to see it for yourself, and decide if it is exactly what it looks like.
It is not like the platforms you have filmed, and is in bad shape, but perhaps it is MORE, not less.
It looks to me like it was a hemispheric turtle (facing East by southeast) about 6 feet tall, which was stripped of its capstones for fencing. There is a rock that emerges from a well-pieced and intact wall on the east face that looks like a roughly carved turtle head, and a turtle’s fin to its right. The rest could well have been what remains of a perfect hemisphere, (actually a little bit oval, in the opposite way than a turtle is oval) and yes, there is a ton of large quartz rocks near the top. There is also a little “doorway” opposite the turtle head. And there is also a large stepping stone which makes it quite easy to climb to the top, which leads us to consider it may have been a ritual platform as well as a form of sculpture.
Now here’s another thing: it is very roughly in line ( of longitude) with the famed Bronx River Turtle Petroglyph, known to be an eastern border marker of the Lenape, (Beirhorst says circa 1000 AD) as the turtle is the sign of the ruling Unami “clan.” It is also in the general area of the no-man’s land between Lenape and Mohican territory, roughly between Rhinebeck and Hyde Park. Therefore it is a candidate for being the NE boundary marker for all of Lenape-Hoking. It is certainly within a few miles of that spot. It is near or in Staatsburg, which I heard was a northern-jutting outpost of Lenape culture as was Coxsackie in the West.
What this implies is that,since it is part platform and part “modern” Lenape boundary marker, that the Lenape knew of the platform tradition and remembered it! Or perhaps the platforms are not that old. Oley PA was the southwest corner boundary of Lenape Hoking, probably during the 1730s (easy to research, in fact I have the relevant deed maps somewhere, and the date the Susquehanna ceded the land back to the Delaware) and also an important spot in 1000 BC. As I mentioned, Oley PA is rather near the Schuykill rift (about five miles north) which was a natural boundary between north and south.
I would suspect there would also be a similar “platform” marker near Lexington NY for the Munsee as that was their border with the Mohawk. The southeast border would probably have been Cedar Swamp in Delaware, or Cape May NJ depending on how you divide up the tribes.
According to my reading of William Richie, any Lenape boundary markers in Staatsburg would have dated from before 1300 AD, because the Wappingers had rather different E-W boundaries and didn’t use the turtle. However, their boundary with the Mohicans was roughly the same as far as we know.

The article on the stone walls in the bottom of the Hudson was published in the NY Times on April 16th, 2000!!!!
The divers/researchers claim no news since then. I suspect its all being kept secret. But there were significant numbers of Orient Point fishtail projectiles found at Dobbs Ferry less than a mile from those walls built at that same time.
I took a roll of photos which I guess I should have digitized and send to you asap. I don’t know how good they will look. But they may whet your appetite. It took about 20 minutes walking. I think I could find it again. There would not be a good view of the sunrise from that turtle’s perspective, but a better one of the sunset if the trees were clear.
I don’t have any tribal maps of Vermont, but there might be a case that the Rochester site was a northern boundary of L speaking (Lenape type) people. I have a Canadian government map of 1700 that shows Atikamek (Algonquin/Cree) people’s boundary down into Vermont quite a ways. They were N speakers, not a Lenape type. Just more wild speculation.

Talk to you soon
EVAN

June 11th, Friday; A slower, relaxed morning, more news on Reagan. NPR said, “Today we will honor the passing of a great communicator, Ray Charles!” Someone in the long line in Washington was interviewed, and quipped, “Isn’t this the Ray Charles funeral?” Made some phone calls. I took a walk around, and read on page 9 of the NY Times that Jason West finally got a judge who declared the licensing laws unconstitutional. Then caught a mid day train. The train was very crowded! I wrote out an outline for a new publication series The Stupidity Report, a periodical based on a mock investigation into the possibility of a new terrorist threat, the “stupidity virus” that makes you do stupid things. This will be a vehicle for investigating unusually foolish political agendas that lead to injustice and violence without being threatening or depressing about it. I learned today that Dick Cheney dropped out of Yale not once but twice. He voted against a house resolution to support the release of Nelson Mandella. He avoided Vietnam with student deferments. When they were eliminated, his wife had a baby 9 months and two days later. My son called; he’s going to a leadership conference in the Midwest, and is conducting a seminar on Native American leadership and spirituality, and wanted me to send him the words to Micmac traditional songs. I did, but it took a while to find them.

I had gotten an email from New Paltz’ beleagured mayor Jason West on Wednesday, just now received. He is interested in going on my tour perhaps. I had said, “Maybe you and I should go on a “don’t let the bastards get you down” world tour.” He said, “Yeah, and let’s bring David Rovics.” (a friend of his in New Paltz).

I wrote the following letter to him back in March, concerning constitutionality. By coincidence, the next day after he sent the email, (concerning the tour) New Paltz judge Jonathan Katz threw out Williams’ 24 misdemeanor charges against West. Williams is appealing the ruling in county court. (link to http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com. The Journal stated, (June 16) “West has maintained his marriages upheld constitutional law. That trumps the licensing provisions of state Domestic Relations Law, West’s lawyers have argued in court.”

To: Jason West
From: Evan Pritchard

I have been following your legal reformation campaign closely and with great interest. I am not a lawyer, but I thought I’d pass on a few notes that you might find interesting. You and your legal council can decide if they are relevant to your case.

In 1803, there was a ruling which stated that “All laws that are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.” (Therefore if Spitzer thinks the marriage licensing ban on gays might be unconstitutional, he should at least mention that it might be null and void.)

It may have been part of the following: “An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights, it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation as inoperative as though it had never passed.” Norton vs Shelby Co. 118 US 425, p. 442. (I believe this was the 1803 case above)

Further, The Bar Association, to which Williams and Spitzer belong, was chartered on November 21st, 1876 in Albany, New York and was written into the New York State Constitution a year later “to uphold and defend the United States Constitution, and the Constitution of the State of New York.” It seems to us lay people, from the previous statements, that the duty to defend the constitution overrides the duty to defend the law.

But what is the process by which one challenges a law in order to defend the constitution? It never happens by itself. Usually there is a case that comes to court, and that case generally has a defendant and a plaintiff. Then the constitutionality is discussed in fair and open debate by all involved. According to the original plan as I understand it, juries played a major role in deciding the merits of a standing law. One of the main original duties of a jury was to determine whether or not a law was just. This is rarely mentioned today.

John Jay, First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said in 1789; “The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.”

Samuel Chase, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, said in 1796; “The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts.”

Harlan F. Stone, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1941, said, “The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided.”

So it seems to me that when these state officials say “Let’s prosecute the marriage license issue now and let Spitzer worry about the constitution later,” they have it backwards. Constitutionality seems to be a first line of defense, not the last. That determination has always sat with the people themselves, under the guidance of the Judicial system, judging by the above statements.

President Bush swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States in his inauguration ceremony. Yet now he wants to use the power of Amendment as a way of reducing and eliminating the existing rights of gay people in San Francisco and Massachusetts, and New Paltz, based on religious concepts of marriage. However, marriage predates Christianity and even Judaism, and takes many forms throughout the world. To rewrite the constitution based on one religion over another (and in this case one sect of Christianity over another, for example Unitarianism is opposed to this amendment) clearly would erase the barrier between Church and State, which was guaranteed to English people in the Magna Carta and guaranteed to the colonies even under the tyranny of King George III. To un-separate them would take lawmaking back a thousand years, back to an age of holy wars and feudalism that makes most historians shudder to recall.

Let me remind you that New York is the “Bill of Rights” state, that under Clinton, New York refused to ratify the U.S. Constitution until a Bill of Rights was proposed. Melancthon Smith, Clinton, and others debated this issue from June 17th to July 26th 1788 (with Jay and Hamilton adding a Federalist (compromise between state and government control) view to the discussion) and didn’t give up until such rights were guaranteed, the first of which was “freedom of religion.” If New York had refused to sign, the geographical position of the state would have cut the nation in two and made any further ratification useless. New York did ratify the new constitution on July 26th, 1788, and there is a painting depicting the event in the Poughkeepsie Courthouse across from the Poughkeepsie Journal (which has decided to be anti-gay and anti-West in recent days), and so now we have a bill of rights. It is appropriate that New York defend that Bill of Rights now.

When someone recently said “the Constitution does not mention separation of church and state,” they were deliberately ignoring the obvious fact that the first amendment was brokered as part of the ratification of that Constitution. Amendment One reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The new anti-gay amendment that is being proposed seems radically different from all other amendments in that it removes rights and undermines civil rights, whereas the process of amending was originally intended to protect rights or add new ones. As regards the New York State laws, it is not clear to me that husband and wife denote male and female in all cases, as gay couples use these terms to refer to “breadwinner” and “householder” respectively. If any part of New York state law is deemed unconstitutional by the majority of its citizens, (my own opinion poll is still running about 100% in favor of Jason West) it does seem to me that the only way to test the waters is by either suing the state or having the state sue you. This legal process will also allow laws concerning the adoption of children into “married couples” to be formulated according to the will of the people, which is a different matter. It does not stand that all 1, 249 rights of marriage should be granted to gay married couples, particularly where adoption is concerned. Adoption might be seen by the majority as a privilege, not a right, as perhaps it should be.

I hope this is helpful,

Evan Pritchard

(This pretty much says that constitutionality “trumps” local laws)

New Paltz Deputy Mayor Rebecca Rotzler is expected to certify four gay marriages on Saturday, June 19th.

Here is the email I sent Jason West.

Hi Jason,
It’s great to hear from you. I was in the big city on Friday, but saw a news release on your most recent success in the courts concerning the constitutional issue (on page 9 of the Times). It made my day. Sorry you are still a “wanted man” but you did succeed in creating the correct precedent in this state concerning constitutional rights. Bravo! I hope Warren and John Jay et al were helpful. Who is David Rovics again? By the way I mentioned you in a sermon at a Methodist Church at Glenford, on Mothers Day and a cheer rose up from the congregation!! I was comparing you to the muskrat in the Munsee “Mud-diver” story. It was humorous..I was talking about my conversation with “the young puppeteer in the muskrat play” about Algonquin-locally-directed constitutionality…and that young man…..Jason West…… (ROARS AND CHEERS)….decided to run for mayor of New Paltz…..(more cheers) and won!

The Methodist church is evenly divided on gay marriage, so I think it was a turning point for the congregation to hear such vocal support for your work. The opposition crumbled. Thought you’d enjoy the story. There was more detail to it, I hope to write it up some day and post it.
It would be nice to spend some time talking again. I guess you’ve been busy. EP

I also got an email from Roberto Borrero from Wed. about doing an armchair walking tour of Manhattan at the American Museum of Natural History, during the winter. Of course I agreed. I’d just been talking about how we met at The Belonging To Mother Earth Worldwide Conference of Aboriginal Elders six years ago in Virginia Beach. I also got an email from the people at Tappan Bay, about the NY Times article of April 16th, 2000 on the 3000 year old 900 foot long walls in Tappan Bay. Also a note from Sally Dennison about the new edition of Native New Yorkers. She told me it would come out in the fall. I also picked up a series of emails from super-radical peace activist Johnny Asia, who sent me all kind of links on strange findings from the 9-11 investigations, most notably some evidence showing a “pod” on the bottom of the planes that crashed into the WTC, which are only used to fly by remote control. He sent more evidence that all of the people “on that plane” were either airline personnel or military. Of course, I’m open minded. He also sent links saying that most of the terrorists on those planes are still alive. Again, I’m open minded, but its hard to imagine how this could actually be pulled off. I mean, the guy who said “Let’s Roll” over PA is certainly dead. Of course, the fact is this country “went to war” over the death of those passengers, so its of no small importance. Even if it was really about oil. So if those people are not dead, where are they? Are they with Ronald Reagan in some white room? How does Ronald Reagan know he’s not dead?

June 10th, Thursday; Ray Charles died this morning at 73. I listened to WBAI, and NPR and WNYC radio, mostly getting tidbits about the ceremonies for Ronald Reagan, but also other interesting tidbits about what’s going on behind the scenes in government, and I actually took notes. There was a whole lot of news on what was going on with the World Trade Center “Freedom Center” and 9-11 Memorial. A man named Tom Bernstein (a founder of the Freedom Center) was talking about how “all the scholars were consulted” and I knew he was lying because I was one of the main scholars he was supposed to consult, and he never called me. (Most of the people involved are great, especially the architect Dr. Stanley Moses) It also seems that the Signature Theater got the contract to do theater arts at the WTC, a group which only does American classics. Then I heard Pataki say that “everything we do here must in some way honor the heroes we lost on 9-11.” If he’s talking about the 9-11 memorial that’s bad enough, (NY Times called it a “political sham”) but if he’s talking about the Freedom Center, its absolutely absurd, and designed to cut out all the rich native American history which is so relevant and needed. (And the responsibility for which has been placed on my shoulders by New York Algonquins!) I have yet to find out which speech that was, but it was trick wording to avoid any agendas that don’t serve the support the narrow and teetering Republican base! Someone called in and complained about undue attention placed on the families of those heroes at the growing expense of the other 7 million New Yorkers. I don’t know about that, but everything is so politically motivated in this case, its become annoying.

I mixed the tobacco from the workshop with sage and burned it in the window sill, the smoke playing in the breeze. At noon I shook the turtle shaker over it and played the water drum (which I did not bring out during the workshop). The purification of the fears went exceedingly well. I buried the ashes amid the happy, brightly colored flowers out on the street, in midtown Manhattan.

I looked in my suitcase and found my assistant had taken a copy of my book that belonged to the Open Center bookstore and placed it in there. So what would Abe Lincoln do? I had to walk all the way back to Spring Street to return it. Then I went on a wild expedition to find an old man in a butcher shop on the east side who could give my screenplay to an actress (Linda from last night) who could give it to Audrey Tautou, (my favorite actress, from Amelie) who is ideal for the part of the kooky co-star who is supposed to be amazingly beautiful. I got there, but there was no copy place near there, so I had to walk a half mile back westward to make a copy then a half mile back east to find the old man in the butcher shop, and then a mad dash mile to the cabin in the city and then take a taxi to the ferry for Hoboken. I was supposed to sing my Cats Don’t Care song at a banquet for the fourth anniversary of the Institute for Staged Recovery, but getting there was very elaborate. I raced for the boat and then waited on the other side. There I found therapists wandering around lost, looking for a way to get a ride to the banquet site, which was several miles inland. I said, “Good thing none of us have any abandonment issues!” which got a laugh. Someone got Jim on the cell phone and he eventually came and picked us up. We were saved. It was a great party; a lot of therapists, dynamic people on the cutting edge of their field. There were over fifty people there, surrounded by banquet tables lit only by candle light, groaning at the boards from all the food.

I had help from Susan who held the mike and the words so I could sing Cats Don’t Care, and it came out well for a first time. Dr. Michael Picucci, the founder of the institute, said I was the closest thing he’d ever met to a real Renaissance Man. He always knows what to say, knowing I was a little rattled at the difficultly in getting to the banquet. He said it was his honor to have me as the editor of his book Journey To Complete Recovery, for which he won Man of the Year from NIH for 2000. And he asked me to help edit his next book. It was a huggy moment. He was also the one who inspired and encouraged me to write Cats Don’t Care, (write it and they will come, he said) which is about how cats love you based on your heart not on how much money you have, it’s a satirical song which closes with a poke at VP Cheney, and what I’d do if I were his cat, (which is to give him thirteen stripes, a very patriotic song) but it is very loving overall, with lots of references to ideas from APT (Authentic Process Therapy, a term I coined for him, although Michael now uses APH (Authentic Process Healing). For those who don’t know his work, Michael has worked for two decades with those suffering from AIDS, and has used spirituality/psychology to help them be amazingly healthy and productive. To my knowledge only one has died in all that time. Staged Recovery is based on the idea that there is a whole lot more recovery needed after 12 step programs, and he starts where they leave off. The other singer was quite amazing, Chris, who recently won the distinction of Worlds’ Greatest Tango Singer, Male. He sang several tango songs, very stirring and authentic. By the way, I took home lots of left-overs. My friends in the car were talking down Reagan. I realized that this group is very dedicated to AIDS prevention, one of the most successful, and that Reagan “hid” the AIDS crisis for years, or neglected it as a “homo’s disease.” That kind of us-versus-them attitude generally creates anger, and our friends had a dose of it for the dearly departed.

Today I got an email announcement from singer Danielle Woerner for her “Arts for Peace” concert coming up. A line up of great performers, making a statement for peace that is pleasant and fun and spiritually uplifting. My busy schedule (sitting here typing) didn’t allow me to drop in, but I’m sure it was great.

Wednesday, June 9th; This morning I awoke to the sound of a wren in my yard, who repeatedly said, “Twenty twenty twenty twenty two, twenty two!” I called my bird watching mother to find out what kind it was; she thought some kind of Carolina wren. I went out and saw the bird up close, it let me come right up to it. I never did figure out the message, but later, in NYC I found a Julius Pizza that had a $20=$22 special. In spite of the repeated message of the bird, I declined the offer.

I was rushing around quite a bit, then finally felt ready to make the train for the city. I thought I left plenty of time, but the train came while I was buying the ticket at the computer booth, and they had to hold the train ten seconds for me, as the little ticket emerged from the slot.

At Grand Central I talked to Edith at the Story Corps booth. An interesting project. I hope to be part of it some day, but you need a computer to go online to schedule a time. I heard a great Doo-wop group, perhaps the best I’d heard, singing right in GC in the marble halls where the vibes are so cool. (I keep meaning to suggest to my son he get into a doowop group.) Then I got on the subway. I went to my (friends’) secret cabin in the city and repacked and showed up at the Open center to make lots of arrangements. Everyone was exceedingly nice, and organized! There was a large yellow poster under glass in the hall for my class. What an honor! In the lobby were big piles of the new New York Spirit Magazine, which I like anyway, but I like this issue even more because there is a two page article on Native New Yorkers, and a large map of ancient Manhattan, created by me as an exclusive for this issue. So I took a bunch and brought them upstairs. I had a flier for the upcoming walking tour and Carol made copies of that for me. Sojourner showed up as an assistant, and this made me very happy. I had met her “on the street” at the book fair at the Mercantile Library, and felt she was very spiritual, and invited her to come to the workshop. That was almost two months ago! Now here she was again, looking very spiritual.

As it turned out, almost forty people came, and we tried to make a circle in the small room as best we could. William Meyers and Leslie from New York Spirit, a high quality free magazine, were there to record the parts that could be recorded. This added more challenge to an already challenging program, in that according to my tradition, these types of encounters with spirit cannot be planned in advance. I had to go without notes, or outlines. Because of the large crowd, I knew I could not do as much one-on-one as I had planned. I sang a lot of songs. I offered each person a smidge of tobacco and we all prayed about our greatest fears. I pointed out that looway-woo-dee meant “bad things in my heart” and referred to confusion leading to fear, leading to anger, leading to conflict. I said the way to peace was to resolve the underlying confusion. Later I said in meditation that when you hear the turtle shaker around you, you will drop the human confusion for a while. I did not comment individually on people’s fears, but then passed a basket with ribbons of the six colors (small snippets) and each person chose one color. I said that the tobacco was like a microphone to the Creator, and that holding the ribbon was a constant prayer. We prayed for the power of the animal spirits to overcome our fears. As we meditated I simply went through and stated which animals could help with which fears.

Then I took out the turtle shaker and shook it around each person with the instruction that when they heard the sound of the turtle, they would drop their human persona, or mask, and become one with the animal world, and with their protector. They would drop the human confusion. Of course there was much more that went on, but I felt that each person got a new glimpse into how to live a more courageous life. I talked with a number of people afterwards (including “Medicine Flower”an Algonquin student from my classes at Marist.) One of the most dramatic moments came when a Caucasian-looking woman said her greatest fear was “that she might not fulfill her mission in life.” I said, “Are you Algonquin?” She answered, “Yes, that’s what my parents believe.” I said, “That’s an Algonquin fear! You’re probably Algonquin, if that’s any consolation.” (Of course other people have this fear too, but she was the only one in this classroom who put it that way) Then I gave her one of the few red ribbons and said, “Hold this! The red is from the east, the direction that has to do with the big questions, such as “why am I here on earth? What is my mission?” Everyone seemed to come away with something they could hold onto, other than the ribbon, which I asked them to keep. A lot of people felt that linking with the animal powers helped them feel stronger and less fearful, more peaceful. I collected the tobacco and packed it for burning the next day.