Deceptive Dakota Protesters at Coldwater Spring

by Thomas Dahlheimer

In the National Park Service's " Sacred Site and Traditional Cultural Property Analysis" Coldwater Spring report, there is a presentation of a couple of statements by Gary Cavender, a Dakota elder:

"There are seven groups of Dakota [Mdewakanton, Wahpekute, Wahpeton, Sisseton, Yankton, Yanktonai, and Teton]. There are seven stars in the constellation of Orion. We are the spirit beings from the constellation of Orion and those seven stars. This whole area [Mdote] is important to us because this is where we first came as spirit beings - to the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. We spread out from there becoming human beings as we spread out from there."

"The water from Coldwater Spring comes out from underneath the land and some of the spirit beings that arrived went into the water and they appeared on earth here and so became Dakotahs."

When addressing the subject of Dakota creation storie[s], Wilhelm K. Meya, one of the most active anthropologists working with the Lakota today, wrote: "The Mdewakanton are considered in the oral tradition, one of the most ancient divisions of the Sioux Nation or Ocetisakowin 'Seven Council Fires'. The sacred lake (Mille Lacs) figures prominently in Lakota/Dakota creation stories. The lake is considered sacred because the Dakota people emerged from it as human beings into this world." ref.(1.)... ref. (2.)

The National Park Service report also states that: "Gary Cavender also talks about Coldwater Spring and the Dakota origin tradition. This account is not related in the ethnography report, but it is very important. Cavender testified that, 'The Spring is the site of our creation myth (or 'Garden of Eden') and the beginning of Indian existence on Earth.' He does not explain what this means. Since Mdote (the confluence) is recognized as the place at which the Dakota came to Earth, Cavender could be including the spring in a broad area around the confluence that would be within the bounds of their 'Garden of Eden'." ref.

Are there two Dakota creation myths in the Mdote area, or one Dakota creation myth in the Mdote area? Gary Cavender seems to be contradicting himself. And he CONVENIENTLY does not mention the Dakota people's Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) creation myth (or "Garden of Eden"). If fact, he testified that the Spring is THE site of OUR (the Dakota's) creation myth...and did so, when he (I believe) knows (it's common knowledge amongst the Dakota people) that the Dakota people also believe that there is a Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation myth (or "Garden of Eden"). ref. In addition, there is also a Dakota Black Hills creation myth: "According to tribal history, the Oceti Sakowin (the Sioux or Dakota) came from the Black Hills, literally emerging from the Earth at a place called Wind Cave. The Oceti Sakowin consider the entire Black Hills region sacred and call it Paha Sapa, 'the heart of everything that is.'" Therefore, Wind Cave is where there is another Dakota creation myth (or "Garden of Eden").

What statement about the Coldwater Spring site makes the site appear to be more important to the Dakota people? The Spring is THE site of the Dakota creation myth? Or, the Mdote area is the site of ONE of the Dakota's creation myths, another Dakota creation myth site is at Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake), and there is even one more Dakota creation myth at Wind Cave in the Black Hills?

And which one of the following two statements about the Coldwater Spring site makes the site appear to be more important to the Dakota people? (1.) The Coldwater Spring site is THE Dakota's "Garden of Eden"? (2.) The Coldwater Spring site is ONE of three Dakota "Garden of Eden" sites, another Dakota "Garden of Eden" site is at Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake), and the third Dakota "Garden of Eden" site is at Wind Cave in the Black Hills?

Covering up the truth about the Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation myth hurts the work of, both, Dakota activists and Dakota rights activists who are working to rectify injustices being committed against the Dakota in the Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) area. ref.(1.)... ref.(2.)... ref.(3.)

After reading Gary Cavender's statements and the National Park Service's report, I became aware that people who do not know about the Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation myth would wrongly believe that there is only one Dakota creation myth and that it is in the Mdote area. I am trying to rectify this injustice. There is a group of people (mostly made up of Dakota activists) trying to discredit me and my Dakota rights activist work in the Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) area... and doing so, because of this initiative of mine.

Article: History of the Dakota in their Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral homeland

On a Mille Lacs Kathio State Park interpretive sign, Leonard E. Wabasha is quoted as saying: "My people are the Mdewakanton Oyate. Mdewakanton means the People of Spirit Lake. Today that lake is known as Mille Lacs. This landscape is sacred to the Mdewakanton Oyate because one Otokaheys Woyakapi (creation story) says we were created here. It is especially pleasing for me to come here and walk these trails, because about 1718 the first Chief Wapahasa was born here, at the headwaters of the Spirit River. I am the eighth in this line of hereditary chiefs." ref.

When addressing the subject of Lakota/Dakota creation stories, Wilhelm K. Meya, one of the most active anthropologists working with the Lakota today, wrote: "The Mdewakanton are considered in the oral tradition, one of the most ancient divisions of the Sioux Nation or Ocetisakowin 'Seven Council Fires'. The sacred lake (Mille Lacs) figures prominently in Lakota/Dakota creation stories. The lake is considered sacred because the Dakota people emerged from it as human beings into this world." ref.

The following interpretation of the name Mdewakanton, an interpretation that incorporates the Dakota's creation story associated with Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake), is displayed on the Prairie Island Mdewakanton Dakota Community website. "The Mdewakanton, 'those who were born of the waters,'..." ref.

On the Prairie Island Mdewakanton Dakota Community website there are the words: "For many hundreds of years we have inhabited this area of Minnesota. The Prairie Island people are part of a larger group called the Dwellers of the Spirit Lake (Mille Lacs Lake), in our language the Mde wakan ed otunwahe. Over the years this name has been shortened to Mdewakantonwan or Mdewakanton (M'DAY-wah-kahn-tahn)." The Mdewakanton "Dwellers of the Spirit Lake" (Mille Lacs Lake) are the people who were (according to one Dakota creation story) "born of the waters" of Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake).

Comments by Dakota people:

Jeff wrote:

I grew up by the Rum River and never knew it's significance as a kid. I have since become re-connected with my deceased Dakota fathers' side of the family. I have learned a lot about what was important to our ancestors. The Mille Lacs area creation story is paramount to our ancestral identity as is the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers story. They are all wakan. The name "Rum" should definitely be dropped and changed to something more appropriate. Wakan or Spirit River, for instance.

Seems to me that claiming any ancestral rights to land in the vicinity of the Twin Cities metropolitan area spells M-O-N-E-Y. This may be why the individuals you mention seem to be disregarding the Dakota creation story of Mille Lacs Lake. Or it may be to avoid confusing wasicu who do not understand these things but with the intent of gaining rights to lands near the Twin Cities in lieu of rights to the Wakan River.

Jeff's Uncle wrote:

In all my travels amongst the people I personally have never heard it said that Mendota was credited with being the 'Center' of Dakota origins. Mendota was given this particular spelling and pronunciation by the American Fur Company who established a fur trading post there and the word itself comes from the Dakota word 'mdote' meaning where 'one river joins another or meets another' (the St Peters River now called the Minnesota R., and the Miss. R.) Ft. Snelling was established by the American gov't near that location to claim, protect, and establish their influence in the region. The natives of Mendota are called Mdewakantons for a reason. When working amongst my Lakotah brothers even they referred to their place of origins as 'Spirit Lake' (Mde Wakan or Mille Lacs Lake). More can be said of the above issue but will let this suffice for now.

In an Isanti County News article about a 2008 Wakan Wakpa (Rum River) Canoe Expedition that provided a group of inner-city Dakota boys from Minneapolis and St. Paul an opportunity to paddle the natural artery of their ancestors LeMoine LaPointe, director of the Healthy Nations Program at the Minneapolis American Indian Center, is quoted: (1.) "Their 165-mile paddle from Mille Lacs Lake to Minneapolis commemorated many important aspects of Dakota history and culture..." (2.)"The Rum, known for centuries as Wakan Wakpa (Holy River), is an important spiritual and cultural artery to the Dakota who, until 1745, lived at Mille Lacs (Mde Wakan) and considered it the center of their world." Dakota creation stories include considering the place of origin as "the center of the world".

During the Coldwater Spring/Bureau of Mines open house on February 23, 2009, Sheldon Wolfchild, who was representing the Lower Sioux Mdewakanton Community, (one of four federally recognized Minnesota Mdewakanton Dakota Communities), exaggerated the importance of the Mdote/Bdote area by demeaning the importance that the Dakota place on their Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral homeland. And did so, by denying that there is a Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation story.

And the Lower Sioux Mdewakanton Community has NOT even given its support for the effort to change the profane name of the "Rum River". This river, Wakan Wakpa, is a sacred part of the Mdewakanton Dakota's Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral homeland and it is being radically desecrated. It is a disgrace and scandal that the Lower Sioux Community has not given its support for the effort to change this river's profane name. The demeaning of the importance that the Dakota people place on their sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral homeland could be the reason, or one reason, why the other three Minnesota Mdewakanton Dakota Communities, as well as many other Dakota communities/tribes (located in other states), did not have representatives at the February 23, 2009 meeting, giving their communities' support behind the Dakota activists who are in the forefront of the movement to try to influence the National Park Service officials, and other federal agency officials, to give Coldwater Spring back to the Dakota people.

The Dakota activists on the forefront of this movement are betraying their own (Dakota) people, by radically demeaning the importance that the Dakota people place on thier sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral homeland.

A statement in the National Park Service's report reads: "Mdote. The physical confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, which figures in Dakota history as a place of origin and the center of the earth." And in a Lower Sioux Community statement delivered to National Park Service officials there are the words: "The Coldwater Spring is a sacred spring for the Dakota people the spring is the dwelling place of the underwater spirit 'Uuktehi' and encompasses part of the center of the earth for the Dakota people." ref. I doubt if very many Dakota [now-a-days] believe that Coldwater Spring encompasses part of the center of the earth for the Dakota people.

What is the meaning of the term "the center of the earth" to the Dakota people? It does not mean the core of the earth. Jim Anderson, the co-cultural chair and historian for the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, said that Mdote was literally at the center of Turtle Island, the Native term for North America, the Earth's northern hemisphere. Or, in other words, "the center of the earth" means the center of the Dakota's world. When looking at a globe, Minnesota appears to be at or near the center of Turtle Island. The term "the center of the earth" (in part) means the geographic center of the Dakota's world. The term also means the spiritual center of their world. Therefore, the term means that the place that is being called "the center of the earth" is the Dakota's most important (sacred) place in their world.

Just because a Dakota spiritual leader at some time in the distant past said that a particular place is "the center of the earth", his statement does not mean that all of the Dakota, at that time, believed what he said. And even if they did, it does not mean that the place would forever be the center of the Dakota's world, or their most sacred place.

Some Dakota activists who are trying to protect the sacred Coldwater Spring site are being deceptive when they say that the Modte area is the Dakota's most sacred place, because, many years ago, a Dakota spiritual leader said that Mdote was the "center of the earth".

The truth is, where is more than one place that the Dakota people have concidered to be "the center of the earth" or "the center of their world" The Dakota believe that Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) is [a] place of orgin and it was once the center of their world. And [now-a-days] many Sioux (or Dakota) believe that the Black Hills are the center of the earth/world, or the Dakota's most sacred place. "For the Sioux the Black Hills, Paha Sapa, are the center of the world, the place of the gods, where the warriors would go to wait for visions and to speak to the Great Spirit." ref. "While the whites found gold, the Indians mourned the loss of their sacred religious grounds. The Hills were where many sought the Great Spirit in Vision Quests. Black Elk, famous religious leader of the Dakota people, was taken to Harney Peak in the Black Hills-- the "center of the world"-- in his Great Vision." ref. "According to tribal history, the Oceti Sakowin (the Sioux or Dakota) came from the Black Hills, literally emerging from the Earth at a place called Wind Cave. The Oceti Sakowin consider the entire Black Hills region sacred and call it Paha Sapa, 'the heart of everything that is'". ref. "The Oglala (a Sioux, or Dakota band) become more centrally organized with most bands following Bull Bear with many of the rest following Smoke. This was a change from their previous more loosely governed bands with many leaders of comparable influence. The Bear Butte area in western South Dakota, extending west to Devil's Tower was the geographic and spiritual center of their world." ref.

Another statement in the National Park Service report reads: "The NPS must also consider another point. There is the danger that we would be giving a site a meaning and power for the Dakota that it did not historically have. If the evidence does not support historical use of the spring by the Dakota for any day to day or special ceremonial use, then maybe it was not special to them. If this were the case, then we (and all those non-Dakota interests who support giving the spring a special designation) may be creating Dakota history, rather than recording it. Since this process will be well documented, what we say now about Coldwater Spring will become permanent fact."

It is also true that there continues to be a danger that the same radical distortion of Dakota history associated with the Coldwater Spring deception could further give (in the National Park Service's and general publics' mind) the whole Mdote area a meaning and power for the Dakota that it does not historically have. And do so, by attributing the area as the ONLY PLACE that there is a Dakota creation myth and the ONLY PLACE that the Dakota have considered the center of the earth.

The Coldwater Spring site did not receive a special designation. However, the Coldwater Spring site that was formally occupied by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, became federal property of another agency and the National Park Service will, according to a preliminary decision, acquire management and ownership of Coldwater for all peoples.

Dakota Creation Myth[s]:

Two Dakota creation storys within the bounaries of the Fort Snelling Reservation: (1.) The first two Dakota people were created [from the earth] on a prairie below St. Anthony Falls. (2.) "The water from Coldwater Spring comes out from underneath the land and some of the spirit beings that arrived went into the water and they appeared on earth here and so became Dakotahs." [from the water].

(1.) [from the earth - on a prairie] "A 1720 French manuscript account of the 'Sioux or Nadouesis,' a reference to terms invented by the Ojibwe to describe the Dakota people, states that according to the belief of the people themselves "the first Sciou and the first woman of their tribe came out of the earth, which brought them forth on a prairie below St. Anthony Falls, a location, interestingly, clearly within the boundaries of the Fort Snelling Reservation prior to its reduction in size in the 1850s, if not its later, reduced form (Ames 1980: 201)." ref.

(2.) [from the water - Coldwater Spring] The National Park Service report states that: "Gary Cavender also talks about Coldwater Spring and the Dakota origin tradition. This account is not related in the ethnography report, but it is very important. Cavender testified that, 'The Spring is the site of our creation myth (or 'Garden of Eden') and the beginning of Indian existence on Earth.'" "The water from Coldwater Spring comes out from underneath the land and some of the spirit beings that arrived went into the water and they appeared on earth here and so became Dakotahs." ref.

(3.) When addressing the subject of Dakota creation storie[s], Wilhelm K. Meya, one of the most active anthropologists working with the Lakota today, wrote: "The Mdewakanton are considered in the oral tradition, one of the most ancient divisions of the Sioux Nation or Ocetisakowin 'Seven Council Fires'. The sacred lake (Mille Lacs) figures prominently in Lakota/Dakota creation stories. The lake is considered sacred because the Dakota people emerged from it as human beings into this world." ref.(1.)... ref. (2.)

(4.) The Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Nations are all a part of the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires. The Oceti Sakowin (Sioux or Dakota) Black Hills creation myth: "According to tribal history, the Oceti Sakowin came from the Black Hills, literally emerging from the Earth at a place called Wind Cave. The Oceti Sakowin consider the entire Black Hills region sacred and call it Paha Sapa, 'the heart of everything that is.'"

(5.) Another Dakota creation myth, a plains creation myth. The first man came from the soil (like Adam, in the Bible genesis creation story).

(6.) The Oglala, a Sioux (or Dakota) band of the Lakota tribe, have a creation myth "There are several legends that together give the genesis of the third of the four times, the Moon time. A brief of them is this: The Gods had their feasts in the regions under the world. There Skan created mankind to be the servants of the Gods. Mankind increased and became many, so Skan named them the Pte people. The chief of the Pte, Wa, and his wife, Ka had a daughter whose name was Ite"(Walker 1991:50-53)."

The people who are trying to create a false Dakota history, and doing so, by writing and speaking misinformation (lies - or maybe just delutional deceptive statements) that discribe the Mdote area as the ONLY PLACE that there is a Dakota creation myth, and do so in books, newspapers articles, internet articles, press conferences, Dakota history conferences, etc. are Chris Mato Nunpa, Gary Cavender, Ansela Waziyatawin, Jim Anderson, and Sheldon Wolfchild.

Because of the very important work that Dakota and Dakota rights activists are doing to rectify injustices being committed against the Dakota people in their sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral/traditional homeland (references 1... 2... 3., these people who are wrongly claiming that there is ONLY one Dakota creation story and that it is in the Mdote area are radically demeaning the importance of the Mde Wakan area to the Dakota people, and I believe that by doing so they are not only radically betraying their own (Dakota) people but also betraying all other indigenous peoples.

During a three-day Dakota conference at Marshall, Minnesota's Southwest Minnesota State University, a conference that addressed the history of the European colonists' and (later) Euro-American's extreme mistreatment of the Dakota people, Angela Waziyatawin and her father, Chris Mato Nunpa, told the conference participates that according to THE (only) Dakota creation story, the place referred to as Bdote (called Mendota in English), is where THE (only) Dakota created story is.

When I was corresponding with Chris Mato Nunpa, he sent me a message wherein he wrote that he was going to tell Jim Anderson to quit working with me. And do so, because I believe and publicly teach (in contradiction to what he and his daughter teach) that there is [also] a Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation story. After Jim was told by Mato Nunpa to quit working with me, Jim quit working with me.

On a regular basis, Jim and I had been meeting with the mayor of Anoka. And I had set things up for Jim and other members of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community to meet with the Anoka Human Rights Commission. And I had spoken with the mayor of Cambridge, Minnesota and she had scheduled Jim and I to address the Cambridge City Council. And I had set things up for Jim to address the Anoka-Hennepin School District Indian Education Parent Committee and staff, etc. And this all came to an erupt and rude end because of Mato Nunpa's influence over the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community's co-cultural chair and historian, Jim Anderson.

The three-day Dakota conference in Marshall had an agenda that totally left out [ignored] the history of the present-day Dakota people's ancestors in their sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) homeland. The conference started with some Dakota people living in Mendota.

The nearly millennium long history of the present-day Dakota people's ancestors living in their sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) homeland ref.(1.) ref.(2.)....the Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation story ref....the history of the "doctrine of discovery" associated with DuLuth setting up France's Coat of Arms in the sacred ground of the ancient Dakota people's main Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) area village and then claiming all of the Dakota people's Minnesota homeland for France ref (1.) ref (2.)...the history of how the European colonists used the Mille Lacs Dakota people's weakness to abuse alcohol to lure many of them from their sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) homeland to far away trading posts ref.(1.) ref.(2.)....the history of how the European colonists tricked and used a band of Ojibwe to violently force the last remaining Dakota from their sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) homeland and spiritual center ref..... the local (MN), national (U.S.A.) and international movement to change the profane name of the "Rum River" (a river located in the Dakota's sacred Mille Lacs Lake ancestral homeland) back to it's sacred Dakota name [Wakpa Wakan] ref...the establishment of the beginning stage of an Anoka, Minnesota (A city located at the confluence the Mississippi and "Rum" rivers) Anoka Dakota Unity Alliance ref.....the activist work near the confluence of the Mississippi and "Rum" rivers to influence the Roman Catholic Church to change the racist name of a Catholic organization named the Knights of Columbus and to also revoke the 15 century papal bull (Inter Caetera], a papal bull that is the source of the establishment of brutal colonialism and the hateful racism against the Dakota people in their Mille Lacs Lake homeland ref. ref. ref. ....the work to change the derogatory name of Mille Lacs Kathio State Park to Mille Lacs Isanti State Park ref...... my draft Minnesota Indian Affairs Council resolution (which the MIAC asked me to write) supporting the bill to change our state's derogatory geographic place names that are offensive to Natives, include the profane "Rum River" name ref....the work (supported by Archbishop Harry Flynn) to change the profane name of a bar and liquor store in Wahkon, Minnesota, a town located on the south shore of Mille Lacs Lake ref....Jim Anderson's Rum River name-change movement activist activities ref....and the work to regain the Dakota people's Wakpa Wakan (Rum River) watershed ancestral/traditional homeland, including the Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) area, were not mentioned by any of the conference's organizers, nor quest speakers. ref. (1.) ref. (2.)

There is a group of Dakota activists and Dakota sympathizers who are so obsessed with the Mdote/Bdote area that they have become delusional, thinking that the Bdote area is where it is all at for the Dakota people, and that there are no other very sacred Dakota areas. And instead of working with activists who are working to rectify injustices being committed against the Dakota in other very sacred Dakota ancestral homelands, they have become hatefully competitive against them. They want all the attention on themselves and the Bdote area and will use whatever evil tactics they want to discredit other activists and their work. They have become like a delusional cult.

History of the Dakota in their Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral homeland: "In 1656, the Dakotas were living near Mille Lacs in five villages numbering about 5,000 people. It is possible that the Tetons and Yanktons had at this point already began migrating west, although Hennepin found them above the Falls of St. Anthony on the Mississippi River in 1680. In 1701, they were at Lake Traverse. The Yankon and Yantonai left Mille Lacs at about this time." (ref.) http://www.fsst.org/PDFs/History_FlandreauSanteeSioux.pdf

"From what was written on this subject by Hennepin, La Hontan, Le Sueur, and Charlevoix, and from the maps published under the superintendence of these authors, it is sufficiently clear that in the latter part of the 17th century the principal residence of the Isanyati Sioux [Mdewakanton, Wahpeton, Wahpekute, and Sisseton] was about the headwaters of Rum river, whence they extended their hunts to St Croix and Mississippi rivers, and down the latter nearly or quite as far as the mouth of the Wisconsin. " (Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll, I, 295, 1872.) reference

"Father Louis Hennepin visited the Sioux at Mille Lacs Lake in 1680 and reported that it was the sacred lake of these Indians and the focal point of the whole nation, from which the tribes and bands spread out over a wide area. (Wilford 1944:329)." reference

"The Mille Lacs area is rich in Native American history, from ancient tribes from the Old Copper Tradition dating back over 4,000 years, to the early Dakota people, a band called the Mdewakanton 'the people who live by the water of the Great Spirit.'" reference

"Hundreds of years before Europeans settled in the region, the Dakota people established permanent villages along the shores of Ogechie Lake, and the Rum River. These people came to be known as the Mdewakanton, which translated means 'Water of the Great Spirit.'" reference

According to one Dakota creation story, a creation story that "figures prominently in Lakota/Dakota creation stories", the sacred lake Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) is where the Dakota emerged as human beings into this world. The sacred lake is one of the Dakota's Garden of Eden sites. Evidence indicates that it is their primary Garden of Eden site, and that it is the Garden of Eden and Jerusalem (Holy Land) from which they were forced out, and to which they will return. It is where one of their creation stories says their nation was born. And it is where their primary genesis site is located. And it is where their genocide first began.

Griff Wigley, the Project Leader, Minnesota Sesquicentennial Advisory Committee for Native American Partnering (SACNAP) knowingly presents (despite my public protesting) some of the mentioned above Dakota activists' radical distortion of Dakota history on his SACNAP web site. ref..

During a publicly posted debate between Wigley and I, a debate on his Native American Partnering blog, Wigley wrote: "As I said to you that day at Coldwater, it doesn't matter to me right now whether there are one, two, or many Dakota creation stories. Everyone agrees about the importance/sacredness of the B'dote (M'dote) and Coldwater areas. That's all that matters, so leave it at that."

So, according to Griff Wigley, it was alright (during that particular time, that is, before the federal government decided for or against giving Coldwater a special designation) for some Dakota activists to lie to both the federal government and the general public, and also for him to post their lies on his web site...and do so, in order to help influence the federal government and general public to believe that the Mdote area is more important to the Dakota people than it is.

Evidently, Griff Wigley believed that it was alright for him and some Dakota activists to radically distort Dakota history, so that the federal government would believe that the Mdote area is the ONLY PLACE where there is a Dakota creation story, and by doing so, help influence the National Park Service (a federal government agency) to decide to designate the Coldwater Spring site as a federally recognized Dakota sacred site - and also discredit me and my (as well as Leonard Wabasha's) activist work in the Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) area.

And according to Griff Wigley, only after this occurred, or the federal government decided not to give Coldwater Spring a special designation, would it be appropriate for him (providing, the mentioned above Dakota activists finally decided to tell the truth about Dakota history) to acknowledge that there is a Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation story, and that the Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) area is (a least in the minds of a lot of Dakota people) actually more important to the Dakota than the Mdote area. Thus making it (in Wigley's mind) the appropriate time to go whole heartedly forward with the effort to rectify the injustices being committed against the Dakota in their sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) area.

We are still waiting for the mentioned above Dakota activists to tell the truth about Dakota history.

reference: Dakota Creation Stories

By Thomas Dahlheimer,

Griff Wigley is the Project Leader, Minnesota Sesquicentennial Advisory Committee for Native American Partnering (SACNAP). He has a Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission guided Native American Minnesota blog site. He displayed a blog on his site, titled: "My Problem with Thomas Dahlheimer's open letter to the Oyate." We were corresponding with comments in response to this blog. He continues to not post the following comments of mine. 

Click letter to the Oyate to read my letter to the Oyate. In my letter to the Oyate I displayed a link to a longer presentation of the letter, tilted Dakota Creation Stories.

My un-posted comments to Wigley and his blog readers:

…..You wrote: "I already explained my position re: the Sesqui statement on genocide. I was glad to see it on their web site and I think it's significant that it's still there. But it falls far short of a public acknowledgment that Chris and others would like to see.

Never-the-less, the Sesquicentennial Commission did admitted genocide.

You wrote: "As I said to you that day at Coldwater, it doesn't matter to me right now whether there are one, two, or many Dakota creation stories. Everyone agrees about the importance/sacredness of the B'dote and Coldwater areas. That's all that matters, so leave it at that.

Your comment "it's all that matters" is getting me angry now. Who are you to say, "that's all that matters". Have you been working to rectify injustices being committed against the Dakota within their Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral homeland for over a decade? There is a Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation story, and not only two Mendota area Dakota creation stories. Christ Mato Nunpa and Jim Anderson used the Coldwater Springs gathering to spread their lies that misinform people about where all of the Dakota creation stories are located. It is important that people know that there is a Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation story, and not just two Mendota area Dakota creation stories. This is a common practice of theirs. And you post their lies on your blog.

You wrote: "I asked you to explain your obsession with the creation stories and your explanation then didn't really make sense to me. But your letter's inclusion of your statement that you believe you've been given it as a goal from the Great Spirit *does* explain it. I think you're very misguided and mistaken… and that continuing in this way really hurts your cause of getting the Rum River renamed.

I do not care very much what you think! I do not have an obsession with creation stories. Chris Mato Nunpa and Jim Anderson have an obsession with the Mendota area, including the two Mendota area creation stories… and do so, to the extent that they will not publicly acknowledge that there is also a Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation story. This is an injustice that I am trying to rectify.

Maybe you do not know that Native creation stories add to the importance Natives tribes place on sacred sites of theirs.

In response to my letter to the Oyate submission, the editor of the Sota Iyaye wrote: "Great". He did not have a problem with my belief and statement about the Great Spirit. It's you who are very misguided and mistaken…and your insulting comments could be hurting my movement to change the name of the Rum River.

___________________________________________________________________

Comments by Dakota Indians:

Jeff wrote:

I grew up by the Rum River and never knew it's significance as a kid. I have since become re-connected with my deceased Dakota fathers' side of the family. I have learned a lot about what was important to our ancestors. The Mille Lacs area creation story is paramount to our ancestral identity as is the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers story. They are all wakan. The name "Rum" should definitely be dropped and changed to something more appropriate. Wakan or Spirit River, for instance.

Seems to me that claiming any ancestral rights to land in the vicinity of the Twin Cities metropolitan area spells M-O-N-E-Y. This may be why the individuals you mention seem to be disregarding the Dakota creation story of Mille Lacs Lake. Or it may be to avoid confusing wasicu who do not understand these things but with the intent of gaining rights to lands near the Twin Cities in lieu of rights to the Wakan River.

Jeff's Uncle wrote:

In all my travels amongst the people I personally have never heard it said that Mendota was credited with being the 'Center' of Dakota origins. Mendota was given this particular spelling and pronunciation by the American Fur Company who established a fur trading post there and the word itself comes from the Dakota word 'mdote' meaning where 'one river joins another or meets another' (the St Peters River now called the Minnesota R., and the Miss. R.) Ft. Snelling was established by the American gov't near that location to claim, protect, and establish their influence in the region. The natives of Mendota are called Mdewakantons for a reason. When working amongst my Lakotah brothers even they referred to their place of origins as 'Spirit Lake'. More can be said of the above issue but will let this suffice for now.

The Dakota's name for Mille Lacs Lake is Mde Wakan. When translated Mde means Lake, and when Wakan is translated it means Spirit. When translated into English Mde Wakan means Spirit Lake.  When translated into English Mdewakanton means people born of the waters of Spirit Lake.

It has been the tradition of Minnesota to distort the true history of Minnesota in order to cover up the atrocities it has committed against MN's Natives, and Wigley is doing a good job in keeping the tradition of covering up the truth going. He does not want the people of Minnesota to know about what happened in the Mille Lacs Lake area, therefore, he likes the way some leading Dakota activists are distorting the Dakota's history and therefore helps them promote their lies, and by doing so, distracts attention away from the Mille Lacs Lake area and the atrocities white people committed against the Dakotas within their sacred Mille Lacs Lake traditional/ancestral homeland.

For several months Wigley had not blogged anything about the bill to change Minnesota's derogatory geographic place names, including the derogatory Rum River name. Nor did he blog anything about the local (MN), national (U.S.A.) and international movement to change the faulty-translation and profane name of the Rum River back to its sacred Dakota name [Wakan]. Nor did he blog anything about the history of the Dakota people in their sacred Mille Lacs Lake ancestral homeland, where they had lived for nearly a thousand years. Nor did he blog anything about the Dakota's Mille Lacs Lake creation story. Nor did he blog anything about how the Dakota were violently forced from their sacred Mille Lacs Lake and Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed ancestral homeland. Nor did he blog anything about how Duluth, while following the edicts of his King and Pope, set up France's Coat of Arms in the Dakota's main Mille Lacs Lake area village and claimed all of the Dakota's Minnesota land for France. Land that was later transferred over to Britain by way of papal bull sanctioned international European colonial law , and even later, by way of following the same racist process or law, to the U.S.A.. Nor did he blog anything about the many Dakota rights activist initiative in the area, including the petition to change the derogatory name of Mille Lacs Kathio State Park. Nor did blog anything about the movement to regain the Dakota's Mille Lacs ancestral homeland . Nor did he blog anything about the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council's Draft resolution to change MN's derogatory names. Nor did he blog anything about the related Minnesota Apology Resoltution . Nor did he blog anything about the Dakota activist initiatives in Anoka, Minnesota, a city located at the confluence of the Wakan (Rum) and Mississippi rivers. And when he was forced to add a blog about the Mille Lacs Lake area it was deceptive and hateful, his way of discrediting the Dakota's and my activist work within the Dakota's sacred Mille Lacs Lake and Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed ancestral homeland.

More information about this topic can be viewed and read by clicking

(1.) http://www.towahkon.org/Dakotahistory.html

(2.) http://newsfornatives.com/blog/2008/02/16/mdewakanton-rights-activist-initiatives/

(3.) http://www.towahkon.org/alliance.html

(4.) http://www.towahkon.org/Changeknights.html

(5.) http://republicoflakota.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=18&sid=3c1461761b6dbdc2f0facadfbae1fb

(6.) http://www.towahkon.org/summary.html

by Thomas Dahlheimer

Tony Castanha -a Jibaro activist with indigenous roots in Puerto Rico, who was the project director for the indigenous peoples delegation that went to the Vatican in 2000 calling for the revocation of the 1493 papal bull "Inter Caetera", recently contacted me to give his approval and support for my indigenous peoples rights activist initiative associated with my youtube video wherein I tear up a copy of the Papal Bull "Inter Caetera" in front of Anoka, Minnesota's Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Saint Stephen, located in the Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Indian's traditional/ancestral homeland.

Papal Bull "Inter Caetera" is a decree that was issued by Pope Alexander IV to Christopher Columbus by the Roman Catholic Church on his second voyage to the Americas along with the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, which sought to establish Christian dominion over the world and called for the subjugation of non-Christian peoples and seizure of their lands. The decree, which granted rights to land throughout North and South America to Spain, under girds much of international law today, as well as the Doctrine of Discovery that is enshrined in US federal Indian policy.

In 1999, Steven Newcomb, co-director for the Indigenous Law Institute, attended the National Catholic Gathering for Jubilee Justice, at the UCLA campus. A committee of Catholic laity drafted a petition titled, “National Catholic Gathering for Jubilee Justice: A Call for the Revocation of the Inter Caetera Bull.” The petition called upon Pope John Paul II to revoke the Inter Caetera papal bull of 1493. It was hand delivered along with Newcomb’s pamphlet “Pagans in the Promised Land” to Cardinal Mahony of the Archdiocese in Los Angeles, and to Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, Pope John Paul’s personal emissary to the Jubilee event.

Also, in 1999, Tony Castanha was invited to be on a panel at the Hague Appeal for Peace in the Netherlands to discuss the papal bulls. He drafted an essay for the occasion entitled, “Christian Universalism and the Movement to Revoke the Papal Bulls.” Nalani Minton (Kanaka Maoli - Hawai'i) and Steven Newcomb drafted “The Pu’uhonua Peace Pact” that, among other things, asks the world community to call for the revocation of the papal bull of 1493.

In 2000, a letter to the Prefecture of the Papal Household and to the Most Reverent Eminence Re is co-written by Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, Diocese of Honululu, and Tony Castanha, Project Director for the Matsunaga Institute for Peace – requesting a private audience with Pope John Paul II on Wednesday 11 October 2000.

Also, Steven Newcomb contacted me to thank me for my Indigenous Peoples Literature article Restoring the fundamental human rights of Indigenous Peoples.

 source reference link  

My letter from the PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE is located at http://www.towahkon.org/Vatican.html

On September 17, 2008 - the editor of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Nation's on-line newspaper published the following "Letter to the Oyate" of mine. This Dakota nation is a 12,000 member nation. A link to my article "Dakota Creation Stories" was published with the letter.

NOTE:  Griff Wigley, Project Leader, Minnesota Sesquicentennial Advisory Committee for Native American Partnering (SACNAP), is mentioned in this letter. He did not like this letter and wrote on SACNAP, in response to this letter and a comment of mine on SACNAP:  " As I said to you that day at Coldwater, it doesn't matter to me right now whether there are one, two, or many Dakota creation stories. Everyone agrees about the importance/sacredness of the B'dote and Coldwater areas. That's all that matters, so leave it at that."

The truth is, it is NOT "all that matters", it is very important that the importance that the Dakota place on their Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) traditional/ancestral homeland is not being demeaned, AT ANY TIME, and that the Dakota's Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) creation story is not being denied, AT ANY TIME, by Dakota activists or any one else for political gain. 

Check out my article The Coldwater Spring Deception for more information on this topic.

Letter to the Oyate

Greetings from the small town of Wahkon, Minnesota. I initiated and am spearheading the movement to change the name of Minnesota’s Rum River back to its sacred Dakota name, Wakan. On September 5th, I participated in a Dakota gathering at the sacred Coldwater Springs site. Where a small group of Dakota activists launched the reclamation of this sacred site. Jim Anderson, an organizer of the event, and I met at the gathering and had a good conversation. But unfortunately, during Chris Mato Nunpa’s press conference presentation, Mato Nunpa made a bold faced lie. He said the "Sesquicentennial Commission will not admit genocide." (ref.)

During the gathering, I asked Griff Wigley, Project Leader for the Sesquicentennial Advisory Committee for Native American Partnering, if he heard what Mato Nunpa said about the Sesquicentennial Commission. Wigley said that he did and that it was Mato Nunpa's "speed" and that it made his presentation "sound good". I then told Wigley that Mato Nunpa has also been lying to hurt me and my work. A few months ago, the Sesquicentennial Commission admitted that Minnesota committed a genocide against the Dakota people during its early history. (ref.)

I believe that Mato Nunpa lies and distorts the Dakota people’s history in Minnesota in order to gain leverage to accomplish his and Jim Anderson’s activist goals in the Mendota area. Anderson is the historian for the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community. A few months ago, after showing Mato Nunpa evidence of what I believe he is doing, he became very angry with me and insulted me as well as told Jim Anderson to quit working with me, and do so, because I believe and publicly teach (in contradiction to what he teaches) that there are not only two Mendota area Dakota creation stories, but also a Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation story.

Leonard Wabasha, a Mdewakanton Dakota hereditary chief, has publicly acknowledged that there is a Mille Lacs Lake Dakota creation story. (ref.)

And Wilhelm Meya, an anthropologists who works with the Lakota, wrote: “The sacred lake (Mille Lacs) figures prominently in Lakota/Dakota creation stories. The lake is considered sacred because the Dakota people emerged from it as human beings into this world. You may want to look up the story itself in some of the Dakota mythology collections." (ref.)

By denying that there is a Mille Lacs Lake Dakota creation story, I believe that Mato Nunpa is demeaning the importance that the Dakota people attribute to their Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral homeland.

Not long ago, Anderson told the mayor of Anoka that the Mille Lacs Lake Dakota creation story is “one” of the Dakota’s creation stories. However, because of Mato Nunpa, Anderson no longer works with me, nor does he publicly tell people that there is a Mille Lacs Lake Dakota creation story.

Mato Nunpa’s lies are hindering me from accomplishing the goals that the Great Spirit has given me to accomplish in the Dakota’s sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral/traditional homeland.

More about this topic can be found at: http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/875739

Thomas Dahlheimer Director of Rum River Name Change Organization.

I initiated and am spearheading the local, national and international movement to change the faulty-translation and profane name of Minnesota’s Rum River back to its sacred Dakota name, Wakan.

I recently participated in a Dakota gathering at the sacred Coldwater Springs site. Where a small group of Dakota activists launched the reclamation of this sacred site with four days of ceremonies to celebrate the seasonal transition from summer to fall.

During the gathering, Jim Anderson, the historian for the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, and I met and had a good conversation. But unfortunately, during Chris Mato Nunpa’s press conference presentation, Mato Nunpa, a Dakota activist as well as an organizer of this event, made a bold faced lie. He said: "the Sesquicentennial Commission will not admit genocide".

Griff Wigley, Project Leader for the Sesquicentennial Advisory Committee for Native American Partnering, was at the gathering. We met and had a conversation. I asked him if he heard what Mato Nunpa said about the Sesquicentennial Commission. He said that he did and that it was Mato Nunpa's "speed" and that it made his presentation "sound good". (It "sounded good" but was not the truth) I then told Griff that Mato Nunpa has also been lying to hurt me and my work. A few months ago, the Sesquicentennial Commission admitted that Minnesota committed a genocide against the Dakota people during its early history.

Check out my article TheColdwater Spring Deception  for more information about this topic.

I believe that Mato Nunpa lies and distorts the Dakota people’s history in Minnesota in order to make his work in the Mendota area seem more important than it is. A few months ago, after showing Mato Nunpa evidence of what I believe he is doing, he became very angry with me and insulted me as well as told Jim Anderson to quit working with me. And Jim did what Mato Nunpa asked him to do, he quit working with me.

On a regular basis, Jim and I had been meeting with the mayor of Anoka. And I had set things up for Jim and other members of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community to meet with the Anoka Human Rights Commission. And I had spoken with the mayor of Cambridge, Minnesota and she had scheduled Jim and I to address the Cambridge City Council. And I had set things up for Jim to address the Anoka-Hennepin School District Indian Education Parent Committee and staff, etc. And this all came to an erupt and rude end because of Mato Nunpa’s influence over the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community historian, Jim Anderson. Mato Nunpa draws in internationally renowned Native activists to give support for his and Jim Anderson’s activist initiative in the Mendoa area.

It seems to me that Mato Nunpa has a serious problem and that he is hurting the Dakota people. I recently sent a letter to the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community wherein I wrote that it was my wish that all of the members of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community would become aware of this problem and do something to solve it.

The information presented throughout the rest of this blog is about Mato Nunpa’s lies that distort the true history of the Dakota people. Mato Nunpa ignores and demeans the importance that the Dakota attribute to their sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral/traditional homeland, and he also over emphasizes the importance of the Mendota area to the Dakota people. And by doing so, he makes his work in the Mendota area look more important than it is.

On a Mille Lacs Kathio State Park interpretive sign, Leonard E. Wabasha is quoted as saying: "My people are the Mdewakanton Oyate. Mdewakanton means the People of Spirit Lake. Today that lake is known as Mille Lacs. This landscape is sacred to the Mdewakanton Oyate because one Otokaheys Woyakapi (creation story) says we were created here. It is especially pleasing for me to come here and walk these trails, because about 1718 the first Chief Wapahasa was born here, at the headwaters of the Spirit River. I am the eighth in this line of hereditary chiefs." (ref.)

During a three-day Dakota conference at Marshall, Minnesota’s Southwest Minnesota State University, a conference that addressed the history of the European colonists and Euro-American’s extreme mistreatment of the Dakota people, Angela Wilson and her father, Chris Mato Nunpa, told the conference participates that according to the (singular) Dakota creation story, the place referred to as Bdote (called Mendota in English), is the site where the Dakota people were created.

I knew that Wilson had read my article Regaining The Dakota’s Mille Lacs Ancestral Homeland and therefore knew that there is another Dakota creation story that says Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) is the site where the Dakota people were created. And when I asked Mato Nunpa why he and his daughter, Angela Wilson, were teaching that there is only one site where the Dakota people believe they were created, and that that site is Mendota, Mato Nunpa wrote: “People like you quote Leonard Wabasha”. By denying that there is a Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation story, Mato Nunpa and Wilson demean the importance that the Dakota people attribute to their Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral/traditional homeland.

When I was corresponding with Mato Nunpa, he sent me a message wherein he wrote that he was going to tell Jim Anderson to quit working with me. And do so, because I believe and publicly teach (in contradiction to what he and his daughter teach) that there is a Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) Dakota creation story. After Jim was told by Mato Nunpa to quit working with me, Jim quit working with me.

The following letter was published in the Mille Lacs Messenger.

 by Thomas Dahlheimer

In an Isanti County News article about a 2008 Wakan Wakpa (Rum River) Canoe Expedition that provided a group of inner-city Dakota boys from Minneapolis and St. Paul an opportunity to paddle the natural artery of their ancestors there are the following statements:

“Their 165-mile paddle—from Mille Lacs Lake to Minneapolis—commemorated many important aspects of Dakota history and culture. The expedition departed from the Mille Lacs headwaters the morning of Tuesday, June 24, with the group getting 32 miles behind them that day. Unfortunately, the low water forced the canoeists to walk over several stretches.”

“The Rum, known for centuries as Wakan Wakpa (Holy River), is an important spiritual and cultural artery to the Dakota who, until 1745, lived at Mille Lacs (Mde Wakan) and considered it the center of their world.”

Healthy Nations, an Eliminating Health Disparities grantee agency of the Minnesota Department of Health, sponsored the expedition.

“These young people are taking the initiative to scout the length of the river in order for their tribe to become familiar with it, and in so doing, reclaim their tribal legacy,” says LeMoine LaPointe, director of the Healthy Nations Program at the Minneapolis American Indian Center.

LaPointe says reclaiming the Rum River is important to the health of the Dakota community.

“Over thousands of years of repeated use of that river Indian people saw something there that was good for them, and infused that into their physical and spiritual health. Knowing and interacting with that river had an enormous positive impact on them.”

LaPointe says it’s also important to the health of Native American people that the river be called by its original name.

“Rum is a pollutant, a destructive chemical. It’s not a poison river, it’s a holy river,” he said. “That river has contributed to the development of successful tribal communities for thousands of years. Recognizing it as Wakan Wakpa, Holy River, reattaches a positive connotation that will be felt in mind, body and spirit in many different ways.”

I am thinking that my movement to change the name of the Rum River back to its sacred Dakota name as well as my online articles about my many Dakota rights activists initiative in the Mille Lacs area, including my article Regaining the Dakota’s Mille Lacs ancestral homeland, were influential in respect to the initiation of the Dakota’s original idea and planning behind the reclaiming the Rum River sacred Dakota expedition on the Wakpa Wakan.

by Thomas Dahlheimer

On May 9, 2007 Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Brazil for his first visit as pope to Latin America, where more than half of all Catholics live. During his visit he made perverse and morally obscene remarks which described the genocidal destruction of the Western Hemisphere’s pre-Columbus cultures as a "purifying" act which gave the indigenous peoples just what they were “longing” for. His historical revisionism whitewashes genocide, ethnocide, slavery, land theft, and the continuing subjugation of Indigenous Peoples.

The Pope declared that "the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean" were "silently longing" to receive Christ as their savior. Colonization by Spain and Portugal was not a conquest, but rather an "adoption" of the Indians through baptism, making their cultures "fruitful" and "purifying" them. Accordingly, "the proclamation of Jesus and of his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbian cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture."

In a United Nations World Conference against Racism document there are statements that radically contradict the Pope’s remarks. “Historians and academics agree that the colonization of the New World saw extreme expressions of racism - massacres, forced-march relocations, the ‘Indian wars’, death by starvation and disease. Today, such practices would be called ethnic cleansing and genocide.”

“In the fifteenth century, two Papal Bulls set the stage for European domination of the New World and Africa. Romanus Pontifex …declared war against all non-Christians throughout the world, and specifically sanctioned and promoted the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-Christian nations and their territories. Inter Caetera ….officially established Christian dominion over the New World. It called for the subjugation of the native inhabitants and their territories,….”

“The Papal Bulls have never been revoked, although indigenous representatives have asked the Vatican to consider doing so. These ‘doctrines of discovery’ provided the basis for both the ‘law of nations’ and subsequent international law. Thus, they allowed Christian nations to claim ‘unoccupied lands’ (terra nullius), or lands belonging to "heathens" or "pagans". In many parts of the world, these concepts later gave rise to the situation of many Native peoples in the today - dependent nations or wards of the State,…”

According to Pope Benedict the invasion and conquest of the Americas, which caused the deaths of upwards of 90 percent of the indigenous population of around 100 million, was something the natives had been pining for all along. They weren't just "asking for it," as some male rapists depict the women they raped. They were actually "longing" for it, since salvation and "purification" came with it. The Pope’s logic is similar to the following statement. If a man brutally rapes a woman and she gives birth to his child she should be grateful and thank the rapist for raping her since their child came with it.

In the wake of (1.)…the United Nations statements about the Roman Catholic Church being primarily responsible for the genocide committed against Indigenous Peoples, and (2.)…nation states such as Australia and Canada recently apologizing for the atrocities committed against Indigenous Peoples in their nations, and (3.)…U.S. Senator Sam Brownback’s sponsored May resolution which acknowledges a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the United States Government regarding Indian tribes and offers an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States, a resolution that is making its way through Congress, and (4.)…the U.S. Colorado state government passing a resolution in April which compared the deaths of millions of American Indians to the Holocaust and other acts of genocide around the world, and (5.)…the recent Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission’s admittance that Minnesota committed ethnocide and genocide against Natives during its early history…the Pope and other high ranking Catholic officials are, unquestionably, looking at dealing with another upcoming big scandal, a scandal that will make the pedophile priests’ sex scandal cover up look like a drop in the bucket.

Hopefully, Pope Benedict XVI will soon formally revoke the 15^th century papal bulls which were primarily responsible for the horrible atrocities committed against Indigenous Peoples and then lead the Catholic Church and Western “Civilization” through a process of radical transformation, and by doing so, lead humanity into a new age, wherein Indigenous Peoples will be given their due respect.

On June 17, Indigenous Peoples Literature (IPL) posted an (online) article of mine titled "Proposals to heal the genocidal wounds of indigenous peoples." In the article, I quoted a statement made by Louis Stanley Schoen in the Star Tribune, Minnesota's best-selling state-wide daily newspaper.

"What if a public commission were to begin to examine the American (and European) history of white supremacy - and, here, how that doctrine shaped the formation of Minnesota and its public and private institutions?

"What if such a commission learned how to offer leadership and resources to dismantle this evil doctrine?"

After this quote, I wrote that the "evil doctrine" that needs to be dismantled is the 15th century Papal Bull Inter Caetera. After reading my IPL article, Steve Newcomb, a writer for Indian Country Today and an internationally renowned leader of the movement to dismantle the Inter Caetera Bull, contacted me and said, "Thanks Thomas, Good Work!"

In my IPL article I also wrote: "I recently sent a proposal to Griff Wigley, the project leader of the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Advisory Committee for Native American Partnering (SACNAP) and blogger for the SACNAP's blog, wherein I asked him to post Louis Stanley Schoen's article on the blog. And do so, because it is a good article and also because I could then, in response to Schoen's posted article, post a comment with a link to a petition of mine where tribal leaders and prominent non-Indian Minnesotans could add their names and comments to this petition, a petition that asks our Governor [Tim Pawlenty] to establish a public commission to accomplish the goals that Schoen proposed in his Star Tribune article."

Mr. Wigley not only posted a link to Louis Stanley Schoen's article, he also presented a new addition to the SACNAP blog, titled: Does Minnesota need its own Truth and Reconciliation Commission? This new addition to the blog includes a number of links to associated articles and quotes from these articles. A link to my article that was published in Winona, Minnesota's daily newspaper [Winona Daily News] was one of the links included in the blog's new addition. Its title is "State looks to settle up with the past."

Also, after contacting Indian Country Today, the world's leading American Indian news source, I was interviewed for an article about our state's Sesquicentennial Commission's acknowledgement that our state committed ethnocide and genocide against American Indians during its early history. The article was published and also displayed on the SACNAP blog. A paragraph in the article was about my movement to change the name of the Rum River back to its sacred Dakota name, Wakan.

Nick Coleman, a writer for the Star Tribune, recently called me. He is going to write an article about my Rum River name-change movement.

Note: This article was recently published in the Mille Lacs Messenger, a Minnesota county newspaper.