PRAISEWORTHY

excerpt from BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE, An Indian History of the American West, by Dee Brown

"It began with Christoper Columbus, who gave the people the name Indios..... As was the custom of the people when receiving strangers, the Tainos on the island of San Salvador generously presented Columbus and his men with gifts and treated them with honor.

' So tractable, so peaceable are these people,' Columbus wrote to the King and Queen of Spain, ' that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation.  They love their neighbors as themselves, and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied with a smile; and though it is true that they are naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy.'

All of this, of course, was taken as a sign of weakness, if not heathenism, and Columbus being a righteous European was convinced the people should be made to work, sow and do all that is necessary and to adapt our ways.'  Over the next four centuries (1492-1890) several million Europeans and their descendents undertook to enforce their ways upon the people of the New World....

Arawak resistance brought on the use of guns and sabers, and whole tribes were destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people in less than a decade after Columbus set foot on the beaches of San Salvador, October 12, 1492"


When I lived in Cherokee NC, I saw a t-shirt with the words "We've known about terroism since 1492".


What is wondrous and awe-inspiring to me is the deep spirituality and nurturing present in my friends in Cherokee and other Indians I have met along my way.