First People's Summer

Winter made a brief appearance last month dropping a cold wet blanket of snow over the prairie. Thankfully, it retreated leaving us with warm sunny days and clear cool nights. In my childhood we referred to this gift as an Indian Summer. I have no idea why we referred to an extended summer as Indian, but I do know that the people we once called, Indian, and more recently, Native American, have experienced a paradigm shift in consciousness shucking the white man's labels and asserting their own identity as The First People.

Living on the plains of North America has given me an opportunity to realize and understand more fully the people who once thrived on this land.

Even though our history books paint a very different picture, we are all painfully aware of the white man's behavior toward the people they discovered in North America, of how they were demonized so as to justify ethnic cleansing. Their culture, beliefs, values, language, and their revered means of survival--the bison, were all slaughtered. Those who resisted were killed, those who submitted were stripped of their identity and forced to live on dead land receiving handouts and Bibles from the white man's government.

The more I learn about our shared and collective history, the more disgusted and ashamed I become of those who define my ancestry. A horrific wrong has been committed out of ignorance and arrogance. Although history cannot be changed, it can stand as a beacon lighting the way toward greater understanding, compassion, and recognition of ourselves as one people of one consciousness. For now, I stand humbled by the First People of the Plains who endured atrocities too numerous and horrifying to comprehend. I am encouraged to know that the tribes and nations have begun reclaiming their identity, their language, their beliefs, and their rightful place as The First People. There are whispers of change in the wind growing louder with each passing day. I look forward with the assurance that all is well as I enjoy the gift of our First People's Summer. And so it is.