All quotes from
Miriam's book
"Our nations
are built on ceremonies, and our nations are built on understanding our
relationships with the earth". Intro Chapter by Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper
"That's the
instruction given to our peoples -- to be responsible. To be grown up and act like grown-ups, and to
take responsibility to look out for the future of our children". Intro
Chapter by Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper
"The Peacemaker
told us, "When you sit and you counsel for the welfare of the people,
think not of yourself, nor of your family, nor even your generation". He instructed us to make our decisions on behalf
of seven generations coming -- those faces that are looking up from the earth,
each layer waiting its time, coming, coming, coming". Intro Chapter by Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper
"Engaging in what
Marshall Shalins calls "the assimilation of the foreign in the logics of
the familiar", Indigenous peoples have long been expert at integrating new
forms of organization, activity, and technology into their own cultural schemes". Manley A Begay et al, Chapter: Development,
Governance, Culture: What Are They and What Do They Have To Do with Rebuilding
Native Nations?
"One way to think of
culture is to imagine it as embracing at least three intimately related
dimensions of human life. One is
cognitive: how people think, what they value, and the understandings they have
of themselves and the world around them.
Another is behavioral: how people behave, what they do, and the
relationships they enter into and sustain.
A third dimension is material: the objects -- from houses to art -- that
people make and use as they solve practical life problems and celebrate or
symbolize themselves and the world they live in". Manley A Begay et al, Chapter: Development,
Governance, Culture: What Are They and What Do They Have To Do with Rebuilding
Native Nations?
"One could not have
spoken, with any accuracy, of some monolithic "Indian culture" at the
time of European contact, and if some kind of pan-Indian culture, or at least
consciousness, has emerged in North America today, it coexists with multiple tribal
ones". Manley A Begay et al, Chapter: Development, Governance, Culture: What Are
They and What Do They Have To Do with Rebuilding Native Nations?
"Innovation and
adaptation are among the great traditions of Native North America. Long before Europeans arrived, trading
networks moved not only goods and materials but ideas and technological
innovations from place to place as peoples learned from each other, taking up
ideas or techniques that served their interests and ignoring ones that did not".
Manley A Begay et al, Chapter: Development, Governance, Culture: What Are They
and What Do They Have To Do with Rebuilding Native Nations?
"Indigenous peoples,
like most other peoples, have long been opportunistic developers of their own
cultures -- analyzing their choices, developing new ways of doing things, and
engaging and adapting other peoples' technologies, materials, practices, and ideas
to increase freedom of action or efficiency, to solve problems, and satisfy
aesthetic or spiritual values within their own understandings of the world".
Manley A Begay et al, Chapter: Development, Governance, Culture: What Are They
and What Do They Have To Do with Rebuilding Native Nations?
"For decades,
Canadian policies have treated First Nation governments as little more than
branch offices of the federal establishment". Manley A Begay et al, Chapter:
Development, Governance, Culture: What Are They and What Do They Have To Do
with Rebuilding Native Nations?
Rebuilding Indian
nations may require both restoration and innovation, drawing on past principles
and practices and, at the same time, on the adaptive skills that Native peoples
have long employed as they adjusted to new ecosystems, new trade opportunities,
alien cultural influences, and unexpected problems. Stephen Cornell, Chapter:
Remaking the Tools of Governance: Colonial Legacies, Indigenous Solutions.
The legacies of
colonialism have been destructive, undermining cultural continuities, rupturing
relationships, and belittling -- if not outright prohibiting -- many Indigenous
ideas and practices. Stephen Cornell, Chapter:
Remaking the Tools of Governance: Colonial Legacies, Indigenous Solutions.
"Contemporary
Indigenous leaders face daunting challenges.
They are expected to defend and expand the powers of their nations. They
are expected to protect the interests of future generations. They are in frequent negotiations with
federal, state, or provincial agencies. They have to track, interpret, and
address the actions of national legislatures and courts. They have to deal with pressing daily issues, from meeting payroll
to addressing the concerns and complaints of individual citizens. They are
expected to find solutions to language loss, health problems, housing issues,
resource management challenges, unemployment, and a hundred other things".
Manley A Begay Jr et al, Chapter: Rebuilding Native Nations: What Do Leaders
Do?
"The continued
existence of Native nations today is itself a powerful testament to the skills
that generations of Native leaders have exercised in the face of invasion,
conflict, and colonialism". Manley A
Begay Jr et al, Chapter: Rebuilding Native Nations: What Do Leaders Do?
"In the late 1990s,
the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma discovered that it had almost no fluent
Cherokee language speakers under the age of forty-five. This discovery precipitated an intense
discussion within the nations that eventually led to a declaration of national
emergency". Manley A Begay Jr et al, Chapter: Rebuilding Native Nations: What Do
Leaders Do?
"There are no
one-size-fits-all solutions for the challenges Native nations face. Nations vary; their cultures vary; their
circumstances vary". Manley A Begay Jr et al, Chapter: Rebuilding Native
Nations: What Do Leaders Do?
Relying on leaders
as the key to the future demands that we always choose outstanding leaders.
