A Revolutionary Earth Day
by Mark Maxey, Okemah Free Press
Earth day this year falls on April 22. Earth Day is an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, it now includes events coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network in more than 193 countries.
On Earth Day 2016, the landmark Paris Agreement was signed by the United States, China, and some 120 other countries. This signing satisfied a key requirement for the entry into force of the historic draft climate protection treaty adopted by consensus of the 195 nations present at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.
In 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace, to first be celebrated on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature’s equipoise was later sanctioned in a proclamation written by McConnell and signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations. A month later a separate Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. Nelson was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award in recognition of his work. While this April 22 Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations.
For me, part of my ancestral lineage is the Yuchi tribe, part of the Mississippian Mound Culture. My great-great grandfather, Samuel W. Brown, taught his family, my ancestors on how to take care of the land. My cousins still to this day preserve the original allotted Indian homestead of our relations. We continue to protect the earth.
Where does one start when so much time and memories have eroded over 100 years. Luckily for us, Sam was one of the first members of the Oklahoma Historical Society. He bequeathed over 30 boxes of paperwork, pictures, and valuable Yuchi history forever preserved. As well I personally rely upon my cousin, Bill Breckenridge, who has lived at the families Wealaka Camp area since 1972. His vast knowledge of Yuchi, Muskogean and archaeological research adds more to the wealth of information we have.
The importance of the Yuchi traditions and lineage weighed heavily upon Sam’s shoulders. Not only raising his children around the sacred fires, but teaching the ancient medicines found in herbs and plants. He also kept a ledger handy so he could record all the new Yuchi babies being born into the tribe. This would equate to the reason for him reporting such with the Creek Census. His children were raised upon the Polecat grounds for the Green Corn Ceremony. He insured that the language was passed on to his children. When he died, over 30 Chiefs of various tribes attended his funeral. He was a revered Chief, leader, entrepreneur, and a great father.
Our traditional way of life is centered upon community. Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels spoke of the community socialism which can benefit humankind. Earth Day is part of a time honored ritual of honoring Mother Earth. We all are inhabitants upon Mother Earth.
The planets moving through constellations in a fixed rhythm above demonstrated a predictable method of marking time for the ancients. Observing these cycles provided the knowledge of when to plant and harvest, allowing civilization to thrive. While these patterns reveal our dependency on what is taking place above, it also shows the outline or behavior of a larger organism connected to what is below.
All people are complex networks of cells, but we only recognize them in one form. Your perception makes distinctions in the natural world that are not necessarily there. In the same way, you can project qualities on others from past experiences or repressed fears that make a person appear different than what they really are. Interacting in social circles allows you to learn about yourself through your differences to identify your unique gifts. You sometimes discover your deficiencies too, or uncover unhealthy dynamics that you carry forward into relationships. Fellowship can be a learning journey through interaction.
These nomadic and regional Indigenous nations had populations as high as 100,000 people. “These early populations are really blasting across the continent,” says David Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, who co-led the Science study. Although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers-and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are-many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time and work in reshaping and cultivating the flora indigenous to the Americas.[27] Although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, city-states, chiefdoms, states, kingdoms and empires. Among these are the Aztec, Inca and Maya states that until the 16th century were among the most politically and socially advanced nations in the world. They had a vast knowledge of engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, planting and irrigation, geology, mining, sculpture and goldsmithing.
Cultural traits brought by the first immigrants later evolved and spawned such cultures as Iroquois on North America and Pirahã of South America. These cultures later developed into civilizations. In many cases, these cultures expanded at a later date than their Old World counterparts. Cultures that may be considered[citation needed] advanced or civilized include Norte Chico, Cahokia, Zapotec, Toltec, Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Chimor, Mixtec, Moche, Mississippian, Puebloan, Totonac, Teotihuacan, Huastec people, Purépecha, Izapa, Mazatec, Muisca, and the Inca.
These Indigenous tribes had men societies, boy societies, women societies, and every voice was heard before the Chief made their decisions. It was a collective cooperation that allowed Indigneous cultures to survive on this continent for over 100,000 years.
These Indigenous cultures protected the natural resources, nourished the agricultural needs of their tribes, everyone had a job or task to do, and they formed a unique community. The did this with no land ownership, no monetary means, and when traveling to seasonal locations, they made sure what they left behind would sustain another tribe who might stay while they were gone. This is a perfect example and predates the summations of Marx and Engels. Yet it reflects that their theory is based on scientific understanding of pre-historic Indigenous history.
John Trudell, Indigenous rights social activist said:
I think I want to talk a little bit about who we are. Because see reality is based upon our perception of reality. It’s what it is. But we really need to understand that see, and I think one of the objectives in life is to understand. It’s not enough to know, right? I know how to turn on the TV but I can’t even begin to understand how it works. So it’s not enough to know.
So I think one of the purposes that life teaches us is, the further we make it into life, the more coherency we have left and we will understand. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a reality where I’m surrounded by all these beings that don’t know who they are. They don’t know who they are. And because they don’t know who they are, they don’t know where they are, they don’t understand the language that they speak, so there’s a general confusion and chaos that just takes place in their reality.
Trudell goes on to say in the same article:
So anyway, who we are. We’re human beings. And the DNA of the human being — my bone, flesh, and blood is literally made up of the metals, minerals, and liquids of the Earth. We are literally shapes and forms of the Earth. That’s who we are. And we have been.
Our being comes from our relationship to the Sun, and to the universe. Because our relationship to the Sun — I mean let’s be, you know, be very coherent and clear about this: without the Sun we would not have life. Alright, it’s almost like the rays of light that the Sun represents and brings to the Earth, see, this is the sperm that gives life to the womb that the Earth is.
So our relationship to power and our relationship to the reality of power is connected to that relationship. Anyway, what I see, the human, the being part of human is being mined through the human experience. See they’re mining us.
Karl Marx and Engels envisioned communities living peacefully, self governing, self productive, and were the care takes of the natural resources. This is socialism, this is communism they envisioned. It has its roots in the ethnocentric history of the Indigenous nations. So we know it works, it can work, and it can still bring positive changes to our society.
If we can grasp this, then we can see the validity of searching and experimenting ourselves locally, within a new community built upon the theories of the Indigenous people and Marx & Engels.
This April 22, let’s join in conscious awareness and protect Mother Earth. On Earth Day make a commitment to improve on how you treat this earth. Learn to embrace the benefits of socialism. We live here on this planet, let’s make it safe and natural for all.
Originally published at http://okemahfreepress.wordpress.com on March 9, 2020.
