Cross Posted from big Orange, Please go rec if you can, this diary is very important to me.
It’s been at least a couple of weeks since I heard Pat Buchanan on the Thom Hartmann show and I can’t get what he said out of my mind. Buchanan was torn up about the disappearance of Europeans on Planet earth. Of course you know what he’s talking about. Here is an excerpt from a review of his book…
When one remembers that if there is one cause Mr. Buchanan himself cherishes it is immigration restriction – when one recalls his words on “national suicide” and the “invasion” of America by nonwhites, and his constant inveighing against multiculturalism – when one remembers that the first pages of this very book lament that “as a share of world population, peoples of European ancestry have been shrinking for three generations,” that “we are slowly disappearing from the earth” – Mr. Buchanan’s feline criticism of Churchill stands as a piece of truly shameless hypocrisy.
Offensive yes. Especially since I personally know of the true disappearance of a people, a generation lost and on it’s way out and sadly, the loss of a culture. I hope it does not go away completely.
I’m speaking of the Mojave Indians. My husband, Gary, is part Mojave Indian and his Grandmother was one of only a dozen or so pure Mojave Indians left. She passed away a few years ago but Gary is grateful he was given the chance to meet her and get to know her a bit.
Her name was Basil Fass. She was know as an Elder among the tribe and if you mention her name to someone who knows these Elders, they know Basil well. She helped carry on their cultural traditions up until her death and the Avi Casino in Laughlin Nevada also attempts to share some of their cultural heritage. Yes, a Casino!
Every year the Fort Mojave Tribe holds an annual Pow Wow called “Annual Avi Kwa Ame Pow Wow” at their Casino.
Native Americans from across the country will gather on the banks of the Colorado River in February for the 13th Annual Avi Kwa Ame Pow Wow, a festival honoring the traditional dance, costumes and cultures of the many participating tribes.
The event includes competition in various traditional Native American dances, as well as vendor booths serving up Native American food and handmade Indian arts and crafts. It is presented by the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe and takes place in the new Mojave Crossing Event Center near the Avi Resort & Casino, on the reservation just a few miles south of Bullhead City.
Pow Wows are all about drums, songs and dance. The drum – a term which describes the instrument and its complement of singers, what Americans would call a band – is the center of the arena and the center of attention. The drum performs songs for all occasions, including contest songs, flag songs, memorial songs, intertribal songs and more. Drums travel many miles to attend Pow Wows Dancers from as many as two dozen tribes will participate in dance competitions, with competitors broken into groups from toddlers through senior citizens. They’ll compete in fancy dancing, grass dancing, jingle dress dancing, bird dancing and singing, and many other structured dances.
“They come from all different tribes across the country…we’ve had people from Canada, South Dakota, North Dakota, New Mexico,” said Debbie Bricker, Pow Wow coordinator for the Fort Mojave
Indian Tribe. “We’re expecting a big turnout again this year.”
Gary never met his Mother, Esperanza Fass but he did meet his grandmother Basil due to me being a persistent pain in the ass. It was a few years ago that we met her and she was lovely and so happy to see him, it had been literally years, she had not seen Gary since his mother died when he was very young.
It’s tragic and sad and his paternal Grandparents helped his father raise him away from the tribe and their land. Gary came back but it’s been hard, we haven’t been in years. To think that you came from somewhere but you have no connection, at least it must feel like that to him. It was overwhelming to all of a sudden have not just another whole family but a whole tribe.
We hope to return again very soon and bring Charlotte to meet her great Aunts. Most of the elders are gone now but the Mojave people are keeping their language and traditions alive and they should be honored and admired for doing so. This is a struggle to keep meaning and a whole people living Pat, this is what it means to see something disappear.
The Mojave Indians suffered many injustices under the new rule of America just as many other Native peoples were.
The late 1800s were years of change for the Mojave. In 1861, constraints of the American Civil War forced the military to abandon Ft. Mojave. Tribal leadership was in upheaval as the Great Chief Homoseh awahot relinquished his post to Yara tav, who favored peace with the Americans. He had seen their power, having traveled to Los Angeles, San Francisco and to Washington, DC to visit President Lincoln.In March 1865 the US Government created the Colorado Indian Reservation near Parker, the southern range of the Mojave. Yara tav, though disapproving of the poor farmland, led 500 to 800 Mojaves to the new reservation at Parker Valley. Homoseh awahot resumed his post as great chief to lead those who refused to leave the Mojave Valley. The people were split into two tribes.
…
Those living around the fort were called Ft. Mojaves when the building and 14,000 acres were transferred from the War Department to the Interior Department in 1890. The fort became an industrial boarding school for the Ft. Mojave and other non-reservation Indians.
The plan was to eradicate native language and culture. A compulsory education law was passed, and truant children forcibly returned to school were often whipped and locked in an attic for days, and given water and a slice of bread for meals.
The Mojave have fought hard to retain and keep their traditions alive even against such odds as the attempted assimilation by American Settlers. The Mojave have continued to fight for what is theirs from their water rights to keeping a radio active waste site out of Ward Valley (which could have impacted not just the environment but the water that the tribe has access to).
After a couple of years in the background of the dispute over a nuclear waste dump proposed for Ward Valley, five desert Indian tribes stepped in 10 days ago and brought the plan to a sudden halt.
Federal officials said they will not proceed with the plan as long as the Indian elders are on the land the tribes have declared sacred.
About 40 Indians from the five tribes of the lower Colorado River remain at the site this weekend along with an equal number of anti-nuclear activists but their role in the dispute began much less visibly.
More than two years ago the Fort Mojave Tribe obtained a permit to set up a camp at the dump site and allowed non-Indian protesters to stay there. While the white activists were more vocal in opposition, the Indians continued to fight the permit process through government channels.
“This action where tribes take the lead over an environmental issue is unique,” said Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network of Benidji, Minn.
I’ve hunted via the internet for anything about Gary’s Grandmother Basil and found this one quote that ends a lovely story about tortoises joining the Ward Valley Occupation.
This visit by our first tortoise to come into the village came on the
day negotiations between the Colorado River Native Nations Alliance – Ft.
Mojave, Chemehuevi, Cocopah, Quechan, and Colorado River Indian Tribes –
seemed to have broken off. We, at the camp, felt honored by his visit and took it as a sign that the valley and its natural inhabitants welcome us. We have since had other visits. The tortoises seem content with our
presence; they appear to enjoy our greetings.Basil Fass, Ft. Mojave Elder, said, “See, they show us they are here.
They bless us when they come. They know we will win this fight for our
sacred land. ”
Basil wouldn’t let go of our hands when we met her the first time. We her met at a pow wow in Indio and she held both our hands for a long time, taking us to different people to introduce us but she was so happy to see her Grandson and she had eventually urged him to become involved in the tribe’s political future. I think she would be proud that he is running for California State Senate and Gary is seeking the support of his tribe. It would mean so much to be able to speak out for the Native people in California, Nevada and Arizona.
Please help us if you feel compelled. I know there are great things that Gary can do if elected to our State Senate. There are so many people who are forgotten and unseen. I am going to attempt to make it back to Fort Mojave and I will chronicle that journey here as well. We have so much to learn.
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I started this when I wrote another diary about giving to candidates down ticket. They money I’ve raised here has been seed money for our campaign and has been a tremendous boost. When you give here it does matter, it really does and our campaign is grateful.
Gary and Charlotte Pritchard