Editor:
I was deeply heartened to hear of the healing and renewal of the Wiyot people after such a horrendous history (“Renewal,” March 20). It speaks volumes of their resilience. I send my heartfelt support as they rededicate their sacred presence on the land.
On the death penalty in California or anywhere (“A Capital Question,” March 20): no state-sanctioned killing. Period and exclamation mark.
Lynn Kerman, Eureka
Editor:
It was with tears of great joy that I read the people of the Wiyot will again dance the ceremony of world renewal. For this is a vital thread needed to strengthen the fabric we must weave to repair the tears in the tapestry of the life of this land and make it whole again.
May all of us, the first peoples of this land and, like me, immigrants of tribes long past from other lands, take a moment during this time of sacred ceremony to pray to whatever spirits that guide our soul, that we too may find a path of balance and harmony in healing the land we call our home. And let us also dance in remembrance and respect for the peoples of this land who once danced in ceremony each year but live on only in spirit.
As spoken by the shaman of the peoples of the Sinkyone, first peoples of my home, the Mattole, at the beginning of their world renewal ceremony: “We must sing and dance each year to make it right again.”
Merlin Nelson, Petrolia
Editor:
The fumbled apology to the Wiyot by the Eureka City Council (“Fumbled Apology,” March 27) makes me wonder how much we could have learned from them. And as we are still incapable with our ways which replaced those of the Wiyot of even saying sorry our ancestors killed you all as you slept unawares, we prove in those 154 of our glorious years how little we’ve learned even from ourselves.
Kathryn Bergman, Arcata
Editor:
As a resident of Eureka I would like to offer a formal apology to the Wiyot people for the atrocities inflicted upon their people by a group of white settlers on those fateful nights in 1860.
Ultimately a cowardly act carried out by aggression, bigotry and fear, it was a time in history that resulted in a “dark night” period for all the native peoples of the north coast. I can only imagine after the brutal, New Year’s morning murder of Father Eric Freed and our community’s reaction of shock, sadness and anger how it would have been if, in addition, 100 white women, children and elderly people had been brutally assaulted as well.
I wish the Wiyot people well in the rejuvenation and revival of their most sacred ceremony, the World Renewal Ceremony, and pray for their prosperous future.
Dennis Houghton, Eureka
This article appears in Carving Space.
Here’s what I can do for you, Table Bluff Wiyot friends. Cheryl Seidner knows as do some others in of Wiyot tribe that I have been working on a way to use Native American gaming and sovereignty rights to establish a Native American lottery system to raise money to buy back lost ancestral lands and economically benefit tribal peoples.
I have worked with Bear River on this starting in 1995 when I brought the lottery project to then acting Bear River Tribal Council Chair Wayne Moon and his Council with a plan on how use Indian Gaming rights to establish a state-wide lottery system to buy out Headwaters Forest and all of Maxxam in a partnership with Palco ESOP workers. I worked with Bear River tribal member Don Brenard on this project called the Heartlands Project. And as some of you know Bear River Casino Commission head to become B.R. Chairperson Leonard Bowman opposed our Heartlands Project almost all the way through his terms of office and control of Bear River’s economic development. To the great loss of the tribe in our estimation. Now Bear tribe is paying off an expensive hotel that Bowman insisted on building that costs each tribal member a rather significant loss of per cap to pay down the hotel’s construction costs.
Since Bear River’s recent tribal election reinstalled the same set of former Bowman Tribal Council people opposed to our Heartlands lottery project, Table Bluff Wiyot Tribe now has an opportunity to become our West Coast representative. Our Heartlands Project is now called the Heartlands Lifeline System and is actually going well, we’re working with Pineridge, Oglala Lakota Nation in South Dakota and their economic development people on establishing the first of the Native American banks that are core to this system.
Our first goal is to establish an arrowhead of three tribal banks, one on the West Coast, one in Central U.S.A., and one on the East Coast, closest to one of the primary regions our Lifeline Lottery system will benefit, hurricane hit Caribbean and Florida. We are waiting here back from the Seminole Tribe who have our Lifeline lottery system basic business plan outline.
Every lottery system must have a Good Cause in order to achieve public and governmental approval and ours is one of the best there is: Disaster Relief. We will be creating a funding system for disaster relief teams to come into disaster hit communities with instant shelters and immediate aid, then establishing long term replacement of the destroyed community systems, but replacing them with state-of-the-art sustainable eco-village technology using local materials and renewable energy sources so that the villages come out better than they were. Plus the villagers have learned how to build eco-villages systems and can become part of the Lifeline system’s tech support system, i.e. they will end up with Jobs.
On April 14, your next Tribal Council meeting with Vice Chair Bryan Mead’s scheduling us to present our Heartlands Lifeline Lottery System to the Table Bluff Wiyot Tribal Coucil, you will an opportunity to join a most wonderful way for Native Americans to regain a great deal of economic strength in a sea of European and Asians economic competition dominating most everything necessary for tribal well-being.
I encourage all Wiyot tribal members to attend this most important economic development agenda Tribal Council meeting on April 14th at 4:00 p.m.
Steve Lewis
Coordinator for the
Heartlands Lifeline System Project