Members Of The First Nations: Embrace Future Generations To Honor Your Ancestors And The Great SpiritCopyright © 2007-2008 Eagle ValeAs Native Americans, we share an experience. We share a belief in the Great Spirit, a respect for our ancestors and a community spirit that cannot be taken away from us, as our land has been since the "settlement" of the Americas over five hundred years ago. However, that community spirit – as well as our culture, our history and our stories – is threatened. If we cannot come together to share our stories, if we cannot bring our youth together and pass down our stories, today's youth may not share the same respect for the sacred. Rather than encouraging their participation in the greater society's obsession with celebrity, we need to share our stories. Rather than encouraging our youth to be a part of the white man's community – young girls who court the media's attention and make poor choices so that they can stay in the public eye, young men who do not carry themselves with respect for themselves, their culture or their history – we need to create an atmosphere where our youth can connect, where we can foster in them the spirit, history and tradition that our ancestors fostered in us. As members of the First Nations, as members of North American tribes, we owe it to our ancestors and to our youth to reach out to the generations that will follow us and the generations that will follow them. One way of doing so is to participate in a community like MyRezSpace. There, we can embrace the future generations by taking advantage of the knowledge base of the global Native American community. There, we can share our stories with today's youth and tomorrow's youngsters as well. Members of Native American tribes can gather to tell the stories that have been passed down throughout our histories. We can share tribal histories from our region. Midwestern nations can share the stories that have been passed down to them about the Black Hawk War of 1832 or of the Dakota Conflict Trials of 1862. Similarly, tribes from the South can share their rich history – whether in the form of details of their Chickasaw tribe or stories passed down through the generations about missions through which the white man came to our ancestors to sway them away from the Great Spirit. In addition to sharing lessons from our histories, we can share our customs – comparing the Native American experience from one tribe to the next. We can share images of those customs in practice and images of our cultural events. Our children should not learn our history from textbooks written for the white man, by white men. They should not learn more of our culture and custom from "mascots" at the white man's sporting events. We owe it to our ancestors and we owe it to ourselves and to future generations: we owe them our stories in our own words. We may be Cherokee. We may be Blackfoot. We may be Cheyenne or Seminole. We may be Chickasaw or Pueblo, Navajo or Sioux. But we are all members of the First Nations. We are all Native Americans. And, most importantly, we all have a story to tell – a story that can be told in words and in pictures, as well as in music and movies. Come to www.myrezspace.com. Share your stories. Listen to elders who share their wisdom, their history and their own stories. Share your art, your music, and your movies. Contribute to future and honor your past. Be a part of a community that honors the Great Spirit and shares the pride of the First Nations with generations to come. About The Author:
*** Digital Reprint Rights *** *** Author Notification *** We ask that you notify the author of publication of his or her work. Eagle Vale can be reached at: eagle.vale@thephantomwriters.com *** Print Publication Reprint Rights *** If you desire to publish this article in a PRINT publication, you must contact the author directly for Print Permission at: eagle.vale@thephantomwriters.com
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