I am the Scottish Indian, creator of fine Jewelry, drums, rattles, and medicine bags. I dedicate this site to my mother, where everything that is good in me came from her.Her native and Scottish decent made her the perfect parent.She taught me the healing properties of plants, to respect all life, and the power of the stones she placed in my young hands. My mother crossed over in 2006, but she will always be in my heart.I love you mom.
My Mother My Friend
If only people really lived this way, what a truley wonderful planet we would live in.
BY: Jasper Saunkeah, Cherokee
Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect.
Remain close to the Great Spirit.
Show great respect for your fellow beings.
Work together for the benefit of all Mankind.
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed.
Do what you know to be right.
Look after the well being of mind and body.
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good.
Be truthful and honest at all times.
Take full responsibility for your actions.
Let us greet the dawn of a new day
when all can live as one with nature
and peace reigns everywhere.
Oh Great Spirit, bring to our brothers
the wisdom of Nature and the knowledge
that if her laws are obeyed
this land will again flourish
and grasses and trees will grow as before.
Guide those that through their councils
seek to spread the wisdom of their leaders to all people.
Heal the raw wounds of the earth
and restore to our soul the richness
which strengthens men’s bodies
and makes them wise in their councils.
Bring to all the knowledge that great cities
live only through the bounty
of the good earth beyond their paved streets
and towers of stone and steel.
Taken from First People.us
The scared pipe has always blessed my life with miracles. Here is a Lakota story I want to share with you:
One summer so long ago that nobody knows how long, the Oceti-Shakowin, the seven sacred council fires of the Lakota Oyate, the nation, came together and camped. The sun shone all the time, but there was no game and the people were starving. Every day they sent scouts to look for game, but the scouts found nothing.
Among the bands assembled were the Itazipcho, the Without-Bows, who had their own camp circle under their chief, Standing Hollow Horn. Early one morning the chief sent two of his young men to hunt for game. They went on foot, because at that time the Sioux did not yet have horses. They searched everywhere but could find nothing. Seeing a high hill, they decided to climb it in order to look over the whole country. Halfway up, they saw something coming toward them from far off, but the figure was floating instead of walking. From this they knew that the person was waken, holy.
At first they could make out only a small moving speck and had to squint to see that it was a human form. But as it came nearer, they realized that it was a beautiful young woman, more beautiful than any they had ever seen, with two round, red dots of face paint on her cheeks. She wore a wonderful white buckskin outfit, tanned until it shone a long way in the sun. It was embroidered with sacred and marvelous designs of porcupine quill, in radiant colors no ordinary woman could have made. This wakan stranger was Ptesan-Wi, White Buffalo Woman, also called Ptecincala Ska Wakan Winan. In her hands she carried a large bundle and a fan of sage leaves. She wore her blue-black hair loose except for a strand at the left side, which was tied up with buffalo fur. Her eyes shone dark and sparkling, with great power in them.
The two young men looked at her open-mouthed. One was overawed, but the other desired her body and stretched his hand out to touch her. This woman was lila wakan, very sacred, and could not be treated with disrespect. Lightning instantly struck the brash young man and burned him up, so that only a small heap of blackened bones was left. Or as some say that he was suddenly covered by a cloud, and within it he was eaten up by snakes that left only his skeleton, just as a man can be eaten up by lust.
To the other scout who had behaved rightly, White Buffalo Woman said: “Good things I am bringing, something holy to your nation. A message I carry for your people from the buffalo nation. Go back to the camp and tell the people to prepare for my arrival. Tell your chief to put up a medicine lodge with twenty-four poles. Let it be made holy for my coming.”
This young hunter returned to the camp. He told the chief, he told the people, what the sacred woman had commanded. The chief told the eyapaha, the crier, and the crier went through the camp circle calling:
“Someone sacred is coming. A holy woman approaches. Make all things ready for her.”
So the people put up the big medicine tipi and waited. After four days they saw the White Buffalo Woman approaching, carrying her bundle before her. Her wonderful white buckskin dress shone from afar. The chief, Standing Hollow Horn, invited her to enter the medicine lodge. She went in and circled the interior sunwise. The chief addressed her respectfully, saying:
“Sister, we are glad you have come to instruct us.”
She told him what she wanted done. In the center of the tipi they were to put up an owanka wakan, a sacred altar, made of red earth, with a buffalo skull and a three-stick rack for a holy thing she was bringing. They did what she directed, and she traced a design with her finger on the smoothed earth of the altar. She showed them how to do all this, then circled the lodge again sunwise. Halting before the chief, she now opened the bundle. the holy thing it contained was the chanunpa, the sacred pipe. She held it out to the people and let them look at it. She was grasping the stem with her right hand and the bowl with her left, and thus the pipe has been held ever since.
“The Circle has healing power. In the Circle, we are all equal. When in the Circle, no one is in front of you. No one is behind you. No one is above you. No one is below you. The Sacred Circle is designed to create unity. The Hoop of Life is also a circle. On this hoop there is a place for every species, every race, every tree and every plant. It is this completeness of Life that must be respected in order to bring about health on this planet.”
~Dave Chief, Oglala Lakota~
Native American Ideas and the Origins of American Feminism
An aspect of Native American life that alternately intrigued, perplexed, and sometimes alarmed European and European-American observers, most of whom were male, during the 17th and 18th centuries, was the influential role of women. In many cases they hold pivotal positions in Native political systems. Iroquois women, for example, nominate men to positions of leadership and can “dehorn,” or impeach, them for misconduct. Women often have veto power over men’s plans for war. In a matrilineal society — and nearly all the confederacies that bordered the colonies were matrilineal — women owned all household goods except the men’s clothes, weapons, and hunting implements. They also were the primary conduits of culture from generation to generation.
The role of women in Iroquois society inspired some of the most influential advocates of modern feminism in the United States. The Iroquois example figures importantly in a seminal book in what Sally R. Wagner calls “the first wave of feminism,” Matilda Joslyn Gage’s Woman, Church, and State (1893). In that book, Gage acknowledges, according to Wagner’s research, that “the modern world [is] indebted [to the Iroquois] for its first conception of inherent rights, natural equality of condition, and the establishment of a civilized government upon this basis.”
Gage was one of the 19th century’s three most influential American feminists, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Gage herself was admitted to the Iroquois Council of Matrons and was adopted into the Wolf Clan, with the name Karonienhawi, “she who holds [up] the sky.”
We Are Connected
In traditional Lakota culture the Hanblecheyapi, vision quest, is a spiritual journey, a period of solitude and reflection during which one searches for inner revelations that will provide meaning and direction for one`s life. Vision quest preparations involve a time of fasting, the guidance of a tribal Medicine Man and sometimes ingestion of natural entheogens; this quest is important for the first time in the early teenage years. Hanblecheyapi is usually a journey alone into the wilderness seeking personal growth and spiritual guidance from the spirit, and Wakan Tanka. The seeker finds a place that they feel is special, and sits in a 10 foot circle and brings nothing in from society. A person may take their own medicine such as their pipe, a medicine bundle, vision prayer stick, altar, and prayer ties. A Vision Quest usually lasts two to four days within this circle, in which time the seeker hopes for a vision or insight for whatever has lead them to this path.There is something about being alone in the wilderness that brings us closer and more aware of the 4 directions and our connection to the Creator. We go to seek truths and divine realization, just as many of the ancient prophets did in their time. Though the Vision Quest is associated with Native Americans traditions – it is practiced all over the world. Our creator send us all kinds of signs to help us. Everything has a meaning from the tinest bug to the things we smell during the Hanblecheyapi……….
A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation.
The traveler left rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But, a few days later, he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I know how valuable this stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this stone.”
And here is my Wise Woman`s Stone:
If we carried this prayer in our hearts, Always, what a world it would be!!!!!!
” Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind,
Whose breath gives life to the world.
Hear me, I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset, Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people.Help me to remain calm and strong in the face of all that comes towards me.Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock, Help me seek pure thoughts and act with the intention of helping others. Help me find compassion without empathy overwhelming me. I seek strenght, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy. ……Myself…… Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes, so when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.
Taken From- FirstPeople.us
