WATER, Weather Camp & the Winnemen Wintu

Winneman Wintu Chief Caleen Sisk (r.)
at Stanford Mother's Day Powwow
of Northern California with other women in 2012

This disturbs me greatly. I was at a presentation at Howard University two days ago on Meteorology. Present were high school students from around the country who had been studying for two weeks an assortment of subjects and ideas at a Weather Camp hosted by NOAA Center for Atmospheric Sciences. Each child presented their findings to family, friends, and staff. It was extraordinary. At the end of five hours I spoke because the camp director, Mike Mogil, asked for comments from the audience.


I spoke about the women in different tribes who are responsible for the water. When I spoke about them my hand involuntarily held my stomach the way a woman holds her Womb as if I was embodied by any one of the women of those circles I've met. I could see the correlation between the new technologies and the science around air and water and land and the ancient ways and knowledge of indigenous nations around and with water. The two can and should come together. The director was astounded.


"Who are you and who are  you with?" he asked.


I told him, and he said, "We need to talk afterwards."


We did and I learned the people in his field of interests have been unsuccessful connecting with the American Indian communities.


"We have, obviously," he said; "connected with the Black American community, the Hispanic and white communities. But..."


I mentioned Swift Otter's vision of building sustainable environmental community for his people, the Menominee, and I thought of other people to introduce, but the time was short and the space for such things was not there on the Howard University campus. So we exchanged cards.


My cousin Amber Liggett is 16 years old. She was one of the select students in the Weather Camp. In her talk she addressed the large islands of plastic in the oceans. Masterfully, she painted the picture with her words of our trash making a circle and coming back to slap us in the face. It seems to be an irreversible cycle. Answering a question she illustrated how the plastics and trash in the water can be picked up but it would more than likely be buried in land fills! I reason we are in a fix because there are limits to that solution, and if we send the trash to outer space we add to an overflow of trash already circling the Earth's atmosphere. If what can be burned is burned it adds to the pollution in the air joining volcanic ash in the air that is already a threat to air travel!


When I spoke before this small assembly I remember saying what my friend Pam Tinker says often, "A man's religion is revealed in the way he treats water." Ponder that and take this in:


The U.S. government wants to flood more of the land of the Winnemem, and refuses to acknowledge they exist somehow. This occurs in the open. It is easy to suffer this much in the United States with most eyes focused on the glitter of trivia, and inconsistent notions of freedom. The myopic approach to the problem of pollution seems to be merely focused on tobacco smoking to the exclusion of the myriad and complex problems of the near end results of philosophies, ideologies and practices of desecration common to the advancement of European powers, and the perpetual motion of misdirection by the illusions created by the image makers of North Americans who don't know how to own their images, or relate in a sacred manner with the Earth, our Mother!


The time is now. The time is right now to focus the nation away from the idiot and self-servicing reasoning, and justifications for destroying water, land and air. Our children do not yet understand the relationship of the US government to the indigenous people of the land. They don't understand how nefarious and dangerous it is the waters of activism, and how deeply entrenched  notions of dominance and superiority are alive within industries, and large segments of the United States. It is staggering  the belief structures killing us! Life will always prevail, and Peace Makers will always be birthed by women is the hope for tomorrow. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 

Amber Liggett (l.) & two other Teenpreneurs who competed
for a feature in Black Enterprise magazine. Amber won
and was featured in the June 2012 issue!

Tow Winnemen women sitting on a bench
April 23, 2012