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From "Update on the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues", Report by the American Indian Law Alliance, Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council",
Oyate Wolakota Omniciye
Tetuwan Oyate
Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council Treaty Gathering
June 29 & 30, 2001 The Black Hills
Commission on Human Rights
Working Group on Indigenous Populations
July 23-27, 2001 Geneva, Switzerland
Introduction
Since 1894 the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council ("TSNTC") has provided an uncompromising voice in the struggle for the sovereignty of the Tetuwan Oyate, Lakota Nation. During the "reservation period" of the late 19th and early 20th century, the traditional chiefs, headsmen and the tiyospaye leadership struggled to maintain the ancient way of life, of respect, and of justice in a time of upheaval and genocice. Language was outlawed, spiritual interpreters were arrested for performing ceremonies, and children were taken by missionaries, while the United States government failed to live up to its obligations and promises. During the better part of the 20th century, the traditional leadership attempted to utilize the institutions of the colonizing Americans to have their voices heard about the internationally binding nature of the treaties, the sacredness of our territory and the theft of billions of dollars in resources.
In 1977, the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council entered a new phase in the nature of its work. After the failure of satisfactory resolutions in the American court systems, under the guidance of a few traditional leaders who had never abandoned the original spirit of sovereignty and independence, the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council invested its meager resources in advocacy on an international level. In the late 1970s, the traditional people were living under prison-like conditions on their own territory led by the Department of the Interior, the FBI and the Indian Reorganization Act Governments (IRA). In this setting, representatives of the Lakota Nation attended the first gathering of North American Indigenous nations at the United Nations in Geneva. As a result, the Working Group on Indigenous Populations was established within the United Nations system. Hearing of this historic development in a strategy for international advocacy, Tony Black Feather approached the elders, asking their permission to begin this work on behalf of the Tetuwan Oyate and the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council. Pete Fills Pipe bought Mr. Black Feather an "old rummy typewriter from a junkyard" so he could begin his work. In 1984, Chief Garfield Grass Rope and Tony Black Feather went to Geneva on behalf of the Tetuwan Oyate to insist upon the recognition of treaty rights, of sovereignty and the continuation of a way of life that offers hope to the world. Since that tine, communication of that message has never changed.
Human beings are now entering a new phase in our history. Many of the prophecies of our people talk about a time of great upheaval when our disrespect for Mother Earth will cause great suffering. Indigenous knowledge knows that this time is coming and our leaders have attempted for nearly two decades to carry this message to the family of nations.
"[Working on the Study] has afforded me the opportunity to enter a new dimension of thinking I inhabit as a jurist and as a human being. I have learned about a different reality. I am quantitatively different." (2)
It is a sophisticated process of opening the channels of international diplomacy to Indigenous nations while maintaining the principles of Natural Law and respect for the relationship between land and people. The consistent presence of the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council in the forums of the United Nations, along with brothers and sisters of many Indigenous nations from around the world, communicate this wisdom. The extensive archives consisting of reports and documentation from international assemblies and treaty gatherings of the TSNTC have recorded many of the words that communicate this wisdom.
"The Black Hills Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council was formed in 1894 to preserve the real leadership of the Teton Sioux Nation. We do not accept the white man's system of leadership which was forced upon us by the United states government. We are opposed to the United States' Trust Policy for the original red men of North America because it is destroying us through racial discrimination. Ever since the European settlers came to our continent, they have stolen our land and have used trickery and dishonesty to cheat us. Once we numbered 12 million full-blooded red men. Now we are reduced to a mere half million. Our children are committing suicide at a higher rate than any other group in the world. Something has to change now or the red man will be extinct." (3)
"We all have to live with the threat and fear of complete devastation of our planet through nuclear contamination or outright holocaust. How can we not think for an instant that something with this much evil potential does not have it's roots in some type of evil intent?" (4)
"Before the first Europeans landed in what to them was a New World, as many as 15 million Indigenous people lived in the area now occupied by the 50 states of the Union. The white man took their land and, in the doing of it, took their lives. The Native Americans were almost exterminated. By 1910, only about 200,000 American Indians still lived. Thus it was 'proportionately as if the populations of the United States were to decrease from its present level to the populations of Cleveland.' The magnitude of mass death was even greater than that of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews perished. The loss of the land, more than two billion acres from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was so vast that it admits of no comparison in world history. (5)"
Footnotes:
(2) Notes by the American Indian Law Alliance, Study on treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements between states and indigenous populations. Oral Presentation of the Treaty Study, July 30, 1998, p. 11.
(3) Statement by Tony Black Feather, Spokesman, Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council, before the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, August, 1990.
(4) Eduardo Duran, Buddha in Redface, The Los Alamos Manhattan Project, as seen by the Bhuddha in Redface, Writer's Club Press, 2000, p. ix.
(5) From the Brief, Anthony Pierson Xavier Bothwell, We Live on Their Land: Implications of Long-Ago Takings of Native American Indian Property. Golden Gate University School of Law, Annual Survey of International and Comparative Law, Volume VI, Spring 2000, p. 176. Return to the report.
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Photograph--Alfred Bone Shirt Sr. wearing a peace medal.