Saturday, October 12, 2024

Indigenous Peoples' Day 2024 (10/12-19)

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Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz said it best.
There comes a time when we must honor, rejoice, and celebrate the people who came before us, who were stewards of the land and its animals. That day is now called Indigenous Peoples' Day (second Monday each October) in the U.S., or at least parts of it.
An Inglorious Columbus (1885)
Many still cling to the biased past that held up genocidal crypto-Sephardic Jew (Spanish Converso), who was not an Italian. Not Italian? What was he then? He is buried in Spain; his grave was dug up, and his corpse was tested, showing that he was Spanish. As the discoverer of "America," though he only made it as far as the Caribbean and turned around, people are led to believe he was killing people up and down Mexico like a post-Columbian Conquistador.
Resist imperial colonialism Roman/Euro rule!
What did the Natives like so much about Nature?

Sunland-Tujunga (lacity.gov)
Those were the gold-seeking European missions that followed Columbus' report to Spain. He was An Inglorious Columbus:

Edward Payson Vining in 1885 documented that Buddhist Afghan and Chinese missionaries discovered the West Coast (Fusang) before Columbus. Leif Erikson was a European Viking who preceded Cristobal Columbus.



The Chinese call this fUSAng.
There is a well-founded legend of an Irish monk who made the voyage, taught the Indian tribes about governing in counties, and returned to Ireland. Fifty thousand years ago, Australian aboriginals seem to have left archeological evidence of their arrival. The truth is, ancient humans navigated the seas and knew of other cultures.

The crazy belief that everyone was separate and just doing the same sort of thing, like building pyramids for kicks, is preposterous. Cocaine did not get up the nose of an Egyptian mummy by dreaming of pyramids in the Americas. The Grand Canyon did not get ancient visitors who built an underground city and many monuments of an Egyptian, Buddhist, and Hindu sort just by happenstance. When we celebrate "Indigenous" people, we are celebrating all of the First Nations, the tribal groups up and down the Americas.

Lies My Teacher Told Me (J.W. Loewen)

There were 100 million people in what is now the USA, with plenty in neighboring Canada and Mexico, to say nothing of tribes all the way down to Argentina where humanity sort of just stops for the thing that is "Antarctica," not likely a continent but something much stranger.

Los Angeles celebrates twice: Oct. 12 and 19th
Celebrate L.A.’s Indigenous communities in two special events on October 12 and 19, 2024, at the Jerry Moss Plaza at The Music Center.
FREE: The Music Center’s programming arm, TMC Arts, in partnership with The Chapter House, will create a space on two Saturdays in October for cultural affirmation and joy among the county’s Indigenous communities to foster greater awareness, respect, and understanding of the ongoing cultural contributions of Indigenous people among Los Angeles County residents. These events are by and for Indigenous Peoples, and all are welcome to join. 

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