Washington Foreign Press Center briefing on “Understanding America: The Legacy of Native American Military Service”

Transcript

Good morning and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center briefing Understanding America the legacy of native American military service. My name is Jen McAndrew and I am today’s moderator in advance of Veterans Day and in tandem with National Native American Heritage Month. This briefing will explore the history and contributions of native Americans in the U. S. Military which has recently gained long overdue recognition with the launch of the National Native American Veterans Memorial at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. This memorial was supported by tribal governments and tribal veterans organizations. Today’s briefing will include perspectives from Rebecca. Trautmann, curator at the National Museum of the American Indian and Harvey Pratt. Native American artist veteran and the designer of the memorial. We greatly appreciate both of our briefers for sharing their expertise today and now for the ground rules. This briefing is on the record. The views expressed by briefers not affiliated with the Department of State are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U. S. Government participation in Foreign Press center. Programming does not imply endorsement, approval or recommendation of their views are briefers will give opening remarks and then we will open it up for questions and with that I will pass it over to our briefers Rebecca over to you. Thank you, Jennifer. Okay thank you good morning and thank you for the introduction Jennifer and thank you very much for inviting us to talk about the National Native American Veterans Memorial and the history of Native American military Service. Native Americans including American Indians, Alaskan natives and native Hawaiians have an extraordinary history of serving honorably and in great numbers in the United States Armed Forces veterans are among the most honored and respected individuals in many native American communities on our songs are composed and sung for them. In many communities, ceremonies are held for service members when they before they leave for their service and again when they return. Yet. This tradition of service and sacrifice has not been widely recognized. The United States Congress directed the National Museum of the American Indian to create a National Native American Veterans Memorial to honor the outstanding service of American Indian Alaska native and native Hawaiian veterans and to raise public awareness of this rich history of service. To quote from the legislation, the memorial is intended to give all Americans the opportunity to learn of the proud and courageous tradition of service of native Americans in the Armed Forces of the United States. The memorial is located prominently on the grounds of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall In Washington last November. On Veterans Day, we marked the memorial’s completion and opening with a virtual program honoring and thanking native American veterans for their service. Native Americans have served in every major military conflict since the Revolutionary War In the 20th century. More than 12,000 native Americans served in World War and 10,000 native women joined the Red Cross During World War II. Over 44,000 native Americans. American Indians served including nearly 800 women. Since World War two, Alaskan natives and native Hawaiians have also served in great numbers and with distinction During World War II for example, more than 6300 Alaska native men and women between the ages of 12 and 80 volunteered to serve in the Alaska Territorial Guard On D. Day in June of 1944, 500 Native Americans and Canadian First Nations citizens participated in the invasion at Normandy helping to bring the war to a close the story of the code talkers, maybe the best known part of the history of native American military service. The military’s practice of employing native language speakers to transmit sensitive messages began in World War and eventually included speakers of 10 native languages In World War II. The program was expanded to include about 25 tribes of whom, the 420 Navajo code talkers are the best known using the languages. Many of them had been punished for speaking as Children in boarding schools and sometimes creating complex codes. The code talkers contributed in ways they were uniquely able to do Service continued at a high rate throughout the 20th century. In peacetime and in war Today, there are more than 24,000 American Indian and Alaska native men and women on active duty and more than 183,000 veterans identify as American Indian or Alaska native mm hmm. When the museum began work on the memorial in early 2014, we knew we needed to seek guidance from those whom it would honor. We began by by forming an Advisory Committee of nearly 30 American Indian Alaska native and native Hawaiian veterans, tribal leaders and family members. The committee members contributed invaluable guidance, sharing their insights and experience and assisting us with outreach. This timeline gives an overview of our work on the memorial. Beginning with a consultation process from 2015 to 2017. A Jury Design Competition in 2017, The design selection and development, Groundbreaking in September of 2019 and then construction and completion of the memorial From 2015 to 2017 museum staff spent about 18 months traveling across the country to hold consultations with native veterans, active duty service members, tribal leaders and community and family members. We held 35 consultations in 16 states and the District of Columbia, sharing plans for the memorial and listening to what native veterans and their families hope to see in the memorial. We met with about 1200 people in all. During these consultations, veterans discussed their reasons for serving. We heard many different reasons, but foremost among these something we heard again and again was an inherited sense of responsibility to protect one’s homeland, family community and way of life. A veteran at a consultation hosted by the southern Ute tribe in Colorado remarked that the land he and his grand he and his community live on holds their great great grandparents bones and they’re committed to defending it. And in Anchorage, Alaska au pic veteran remarked that the memorial must reflect life. We were taught to love life even to the point of risking our lives to save the life of another person. These conversations were essential to understanding what native veterans and their families wanted to see in the memorial, the values it must embody and what the experience of visiting the memorial should be. There were several themes and wishes that we heard expressed again and again in these consultations which formed the basis for the design goals for the memorial, we heard that the memorial must be inclusive honoring all American Indian Alaska, native and native Hawaiian veterans, men and women from all branches and all eras of service. We heard a desire for the memorial to also acknowledge the sacrifices made and support given by the families of those who serve. We heard that the memorial should reflect native American spirituality again in a very inclusive way. And there was a desire for the experience of visiting the memorial to be a contemplated and healing one, whether for veterans remembering their service decades ago. For families of families, thinking of loved ones who served or for young service members just returning home. There was a sense that the memorial should not be about war, but about those who have served to select a design for the memorial. We held an international juried competition. 121st Round proposals were narrowed to five finalists from which the jury unanimously selected the design concept submitted by Harvey Pratt, which they felt best accomplished what was laid out in the design goals for the memorial. Harvey Pratt is a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma and a southern Cheyenne peace chief. In addition to being an artist, he’s a Marine Corps Vietnam veteran and a retired forensic artist. Harvey brought to his design, his own experience as a veteran and as a tribal citizen who has lived this long tradition of service. Harvey will talk to you next about his design, but I’d like to first let you know about a few resources for learning more about native American military service. To mark the opening of the memorial, the National Museum of the American Indian published a book titled Why We serve native Americans in the United States armed forces tracing the history of service of native Americans in the United States military And the two editions of the book are shown here. There’s an online exhibition by the same name based on the book. The exhibition can be accessed on the museum’s website and that web address is shown here. There’s another educational exhibition on the museum website, on the Code Talkers of World Wars one and two titled Native words Native Warriors and the address is shown here and the fall 2020 issue of the museum’s member magazine, which can also be accessed online is a commemorative issue with stories on the memorial and native American military Service. Now that the memorial is completed and open, the museum will continue to develop programs, exhibitions and publications to ensure that the story of native American service continues to be told for generations to come. We look forward to welcoming native American veterans, family and community members and the public to the memorial’s dedication on veterans day of next year 2022. We’re planning a weekend of public programs and a large procession of native American veterans on the national and world. And now I’m very pleased to introduce the memorial’s designer, Harvey Pratt who will talk about the memorial and the inspiration for its design. Harvey Harvey do we have you? We just need you to unmute yourself now. There we go here. Can you hear me now? You can hear you now. Please go ahead. I’m sorry, thank you very much for allowing me to be with you guys today. I appreciate it. It’s a great honor for me. I uh, was a great honor for me to be involved in this memorial. I had initially, uh, had not thought about doing it. And even though I attended several meetings, I, I felt like was they’re not, there would not be a chance for me to even do this then and some tribal tribal people asked me to go ahead and submit a design and I said, let me dream on it, let me think about it then, I will. And and My initial thoughts were how do you reach 574 federally recognized tribes without naming a specific tribe. Mhm And I come from a very traditional family uh and was involved in a lot of ceremonies and being a Cheyenne chief, I had had been to many different tribes and participated in ceremonies that and I thought the way you do that is, is through ceremony and tradition and history. Mhm And I thought rather than doing the statue, I wanted to do something that was interactive that you could walk into like when we walk, when we go into the chief’s lodge, you know, it’s a, it’s a different world and you have to go there? And I said that’s what I have to do. You have to build something that people will want to go to, has to be a destination. And I thought, mm the path of life as you, as you walk through your life, you kind of drift in and out and you get pulled back into your into your path of life, sometimes you drift away and you, you make that way and you think about about your, your plans and what your desires are and what you have to do in life and mhm which hat are you gonna wear today? Are you going to be a father, are you going to be a brother? An uncle? Uh so you, you walk that different path and uh I thought that’s that’s what you do and and I thought about it. I said you know Indian people we’re the same but we’re different. We all have the same basic concept about about the earth and another earth and trees and rocks and water and fire in the air quick. And I thought that’s what we incorporate. I need to incorporate all of those things into into that. So that trouble people will recognize those elements. You know we uh huh some tribes say they came from out of the mountains and some tribes say they come from the stars and they go back to the stars. And so uh Indian people paid attention to the environment. They paid attention to the animals and the and the plants and the rocks and the earth and they used fire and water and and I thought that’s what I’ll incorporate those those elements that they can use. And so the path of life is you walk there until you get to a certain area and and you walk around and when you enter into the inner circle uh you become in harmony with the earth, the air, water and the fire. And so I incorporated those four elements into the, into the yeah warriors circle of honor and those for four things were the principal concept uh and a drum in the very center with a large steel circle and the steel circle to me represents the hole in the sky where the creator lives and we send our prayers through there and he sends his gifts back to us. And, and the drum is uh is water has water flowing across the top and the water flows with a certain volume and another pump makes it ripple, gives it a a ripple that goes down across the drum. And the, I incorporated the directions, the directions north south, east and west. And then we, A lot of tribes, we refer to the six directions up and down. And some tribes refer to the 7th direction, which is where you stand. So I made a, I made openings where the energy can come into this inner circle, the uh huh place of harmony. So your directions are there and then I incorporated the cardinal points. The cardinal points are the, the southeast and, and that’s the sacred color white And the Southwest is uh the sacred color red and the Northwest is the sacred color yellow, that’s mother earth. And and the Northeast is the color black. And that’s where our ancestors, our and our ancestors taught us all of these things, they gave us all these ceremonies. So we ask our ancestors to come watch us to make sure we do these ceremonies the way that we were taught and instructed to do. And so Once you’re inside the inside of all of that there’s four lances and those lances, I have eagle feathers of it and they have the sacred colors on the battle streamers. And uh, we also incorporated uh rings on the lances where you could tie prayer cloths. And not all tribes use prayer cloths, but a lot of the plains tribes use prayer cloths and, and medicine bags and different things that they tie into the trees are in the branches and we tie them onto those lances and those are uh, you say a prayer into that cloth. And then every time the wind blows that, that prayer goes out for somebody and we want this to be an area where people can come and be respectful and they can pray for their, for their veterans and they can come in there to be healed because people are going to come here and they’re gonna make ceremonies and they’re asked for blessings and it’s going to become a powerful place and it already is doing that now. Uh, so when you come there, you can say a prayer, sit down and meditate and hopefully something will come over you and, and it will help you be healed. It’ll also be a place of education, a place that native people to come there and do their ceremonies and, and non-native people can watch and see what these people are doing, can ask a question, what, what, what are they doing? They’re making an offering, their, their blessing, the water, they’re using the water to bless themselves. They’re, they’re using the fire, they like their uh sweetgrass and sage and uh, they’re cedar and so they, you’ll see them doing these ceremonies and it’s just like going into a sacred teepee or where the different uh, clan’s meet, different societies meet and they have their ceremonies in it and it becomes a place of healing. And that’s what we want this to be a place of healing. And uh, it’s not just for one era, just, it’s not just for uh, a particular time. It’s for all times. It’s for the past. If my great grandfather walked in there, he would recognize these elements and people today when they walk in, they’re veterans and, and families and walk in there, they will recognize these elements. And my grandchildren, grandchildren will walk in there and they’ll recognize these elements. And so it’s for the past, the present and the future. And it’s a designed to be an ongoing and endless timeless, timeless design and that’s what I, what I hoped it would be. And uh, when uh, my wife and I, uh, Gina, we went there last veterans Day and we watched people come in our native people come in and do ceremonies and high prayer cloths and sing songs and duke and do little ceremonies and non-native people came in and looked and watched and they, they became aware of this, they became aware of, of native people and what they were doing singing their songs and praying for people. And this system has a sound system and it’s, If you walk around, uh, the museum has a plays 24/7 music, native American songs, flag songs, veteran songs, honored songs. And uh, when you can come in there, you’ll hear those songs very quietly. And uh, you can sit down and on the inside and, and as on the path of life, we, we have a panel wall there with the bench and it has the, the seals, the military seals on that wall. As you come by, you can recognize your, the service sets you, uh, served in it and those, those, uh, you’ll see the seals there and we left a space for additional seals in the future. Uh, so uh, as you walk down there, you’ll notice a pattern, a pattern in in the railing and a pattern in the walkway. And that is the vibration, uh, that goes out from the, from the drum and the water and the fire. And that vibration goes out across the memorial across the mall and continues all out. And the drum vibration calls the people to this memorial and this memorial is a destination. You have to want to go there. It’s not a short going somewhere else. It’s a, it’s a destination that you have to want to go there and you see that we’ve been, we put it on a, partially on the water and on the land and people can do ceremonies there as they walk down there. And, and uh, we put a bench halfway down on the walkway because I know that during desert Storm guys that were affected by the burning of the whales, oil wells said they had a lot of trouble with lung trouble and guys with bad legs and wounds. And so we give them an opportunity to sit down and contemplate before they moved on into the warrior circle of honor. And we find out that a lot of people are aware of of these ceremonies because they, they use them themselves. But native people are use them daily. You’ll use these, the water that earth, the fire and the air. They use all those things almost every day. And a lot of cultures, uh, will bless themselves with water. Use a fire. We leave things in the earth, return things to the earth. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s a design that I, I hoped it to be timeless uh, for, for all people and they’ll recognize these things and we’ll educate nonnative people. And this design was specifically for native people. But we invite all veterans to come there and to be with us and to sit down and, and and use some of the things in a respectful way and watch what what goes on and maybe it’ll help heal them to, you know, a long time ago, Indian Indian warriors uh, when they went out and went out for an adventure and before they came back into the camp, they had to stay outside outside the camp. And uh, they would, people didn’t, wouldn’t let him come in because they’ve been out doing battle. And so the medicine men would go out outside of the camp and go to these men and they would purify them and clean them up. And and they were treating PTSD long before we even knew anything about it. But native people were treating their, their warriors like that and go out cleansing and purify them before they could come into the camp and be among the human beings. And uh they didn’t want him coming in there being angry and mad and and and having a, oh a bad attitude about things. And so they cleansed him up first. They did that to me whenever I came back from Vietnam and my family yeah, had a ceremony for me and there he is, gave away their belongings to the people and they fed everybody and they had a ceremony for me. So uh, I think that I’ve always appreciated that. And my uncle was a World War Two veteran and uh he was one of my heroes. He had all kinds of wounds and I noticed that as as I proceeded through my life that in some tribes, uh, some tribal people would not even stand in the shadow of their veterans. They wouldn’t step on their shadow and almost every tribe has a veteran’s memorial on their property, uh where they honored their veterans and list their names and and talk of them and tell stories. And we’re always taught as Children to go shake hands with veterans, you know, and even the men and the women and uh they’re they’re they’re honored in our in our culture. They honored people in our culture. So uh, this has water in it, lights in it. Speaker systems around it is the only speaker system uh, where there’s, there’s a sound system on the model of all the memorials. This is the only one that has that drums singing. Well, thank you Harvey for that. Very um, a detailed insight into the memorial and the symbolism before we turn to journalist Q. And A. I know we are going to have Rebecca, just ask a few more questions. Rebecca. Yes, thank you. Jim. And I thank you Harvey. Um, you know, I think you you really, you touched on this some in your remarks. But um, I think that your design really reflects that you brought to it, your own experience as somebody who has served as a veteran as and as somebody who grew up with this tradition of respect for veterans in your community. Um, could you talk a little bit more about how your experience as a native veteran and as a, as a tribal citizen, helped to inform your design for the memorial and what what you felt people would want to experience when they visited the memorial. Mm hmm. Mhm. Well, you know, as a growing up and and seeing seeing veterans in uniform and and thinking about what I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. You know, I I always knew that I was going to be in the military. I wanted to go to the military and uh the culture of my uncle and the men that I saw in the women that I saw, my aunt Margaret walker served in World war Two and and she would come come to our house and then she would take us four boys for a walk and she would march with us. And I always, I always enjoyed walking with her because she, she wore her uniform and it was in it. I just, I just thought that was, it was a wonderful thing to do and participate in. And as I got older I started going to different ceremonies and and looking at what people were doing. And my grandfather said, we’re people of circles. He said, we have uh we have the circle of seasons, we have the circle of life. We pass through a stage of life. He said, and if you look around, he said our Tps are around, you know, he said our dance grounds are around, he said that keepers different Hogan’s and different things around he said, and if you look out there, he said that tree trunk is round, he said that’s it’s a trunk is around, he said and you go out pluck a piece of grass. He said that stem is round. He said everything is circles, he said and somewhere circle people. So that was what I kind of thought about. I had not been to the middle to the to the museum at that time. I was supposed to go but then I got sick when I opened it up I was ill and so I didn’t know there were circles all over on the grounds. But my design without seeing the grounds with circles had vertical circles and horizontal circles overlapping circles and a pathway. And so I thought those things all were important to us and you know you you saw people you see people with baskets, you know and and pottery and they’re all circles, you know. So I said, you know we gotta have circles in this in this. So that’s how I thought about the the circle and the walls and the designs in the granite. Yeah. And I look at this picture, we’re looking at down, you see the museum behind it, in the museum behind it is is a beautiful architectural structure. Uh There’s no corners on this outside of this design. It’s all wind swept, it curves. It’s just gorgeous. It’s I think it’s the prettiest building in Washington. And and we sit on this little area where there’s a small pond there and trees all around. They’re even uh when we were picking this, this design, we were picking this location. Hawk came down and landed on this very location that we were that we were looking at and it and it jumped around, danced all around on the ground and then it flew up into those trees above the pathway and stayed there for a full hour or so. And among the planes, people when you saw a rapture come to the ground, that was a good sign. That means you were going to be successful that day for whatever you were doing. And that’s the way we looked at it. We said, you know what? That’s a good sign. This is going to be successful, you know, and and that Hawk comes back at various times. It stays there at this memorial. And I think that those are are things that happen that you don’t plan, you don’t plan for it. They just happened like we discovered the dancing fire in the water and over your hand when the lights come through it, it looks like your hand’s on fire. And that was another thing that just happened. So there’s things that just happened about this memorial that in my mind we’re making it a more powerful place. Thank you, Harvey. And you know, I I agree that you’re going back to something you said a few minutes ago about the use of the circle, the circle motif again and again in the memorial is part of what makes it so inclusive and so welcoming and so powerful. One of the biggest challenges, I think I mentioned this earlier. One of the biggest challenges we faced in creating this memorial was trying to find a design that was going to be meaningful to people from so many different backgrounds. Uh you know, native Americans from the continental U. S. The uh native Hawaiians Alaska native people, people from so many different backgrounds and experiences and cultural traditions. And it was very important that this memorial be inclusive um that all of those veterans feel represented and feel welcome here and feel a connection to it. And I think your inclusion of this, your your focus on this circular design really, really accomplished that. Um, I wanted to ask um, in your conversations with people since the memorial opened, how, how, what kinds of things have you heard from people? How has it been received by native veterans and community members? You know, when Gene and I was there, you know, people would come in there and they felt like it felt you could just here, I’m talking as they were coming out, then it got quiet and calm down and and uh it got, they almost got, they got respectful, you know, they may not have understood everything, but they got, they knew there was something going on here and they and they were quiet and they came in and they said it’s it’s peaceful here. It’s not like the hustle and bustle of going down the street going down uh Jefferson are one of the other where people are talking and it got quiet in here. Just it it was that’s what we wanted to do, we wanted people to come in here and the Hawaiians, the Hawaiians came in and they tied cloths on our on our lances of prayer cloths and said their prayers and and people came in and uh brought their drum and they sang, they sang their flag songs and their warriors songs and their veteran songs and their honor songs and and uh they might do a little ceremony there. So there’s a place for for them there at the earth that they could use the earth water, they could put things in there, put things in the water. It you saw people that at night even when we went at night people were coming in there. They would see that that circle and they may not even known what it was but they saw something there and they come on the grounds and walk down that path and go in there and some people would go in and and stand by the drum and walk around the drum where the water is and the big circle steel circle and and some people would sit down and just just sit there for a while and they could hear that drum, that drum drumming the singing and and uh that they were some natives and non natives. There was something that drew up into there and I think that’s what that’s that’s what I wanted it to do and that’s what it apparently is doing now that people go down there and become respectful and quieted. It’s different. It’s it’s there’s something different about about that memorial. Mm rather than being on a on a street or a walkway. This is a definite definite yeah, you have to want to go there. Well, I think on that note thank you Harvey and Rebecca for that really insightful conversation and will now go to journalists Q. And A as a reminder, you can submit your question in the chat box or you can virtually raise your hand to ask your question. Our first question will go to dice. Okay. Nikki from Asahi Shimbun who had submitted an advanced question. Uh, okay. If you would like to a mute yourself and ask your question. Hi. Um, thank you very much for doing this talk. I’m based in new York city but next time I’m in Washington D. C. I’ll definitely try to make time to go see the memorial. That’s really like a fascinating place. Um, my question is sort of about the state of Indian rights and indigenous peoples rights. There’s been a lot of attention this year. There was the discovery of the mass graves and the Canadian residential schools and Secretary Haaland has said that she’s going to start looking into the US boarding school system as well. At the same time the Cleveland Indians have been changing their name. And during the world series there was the old controversy over the tomahawk chop. And um Commissioner Manfred said that the braves, the local Indian community was supportive of that and then some people came out and said no they weren’t supportive of. It, sort of showed how there’s still the discord there. Um I was sort of hoping you could talk about how you see the situation concerning American Indians and indigenous peoples rights in 2021 and the meaning of opening the memorial in such a time. Well that’s uh that’s a big, big subject, you know, to cover a lot of that covers a lot of stuff. And I think that uh uh there’s been some tragic times in our past the way the native people were treated. And you know when they, when they’re they they wanted to to kill the culture, they wanted to kill the culture. They want they wanted to kill who we are. Uh this story was save the man killed the Indians say so kill your culture and and then I took they took Children away. So so that they wanted to change it. They forcibly took Children from families. You know, they even did that in the fifties in the late fifties, early fifties they took they took native people from their homelands and send them to, to Chicago Detroit and Washington and Minnesota. They sit in California to try to incorporate them into the, into the dominant culture and that it didn’t work. You know, we’re, we’re strong people. We are strong people. And uh, we didn’t let them take away our, our culture. And growing up, I I was told don’t talk about certain things because they’re going to take them away from you. They’re going to take it away from you don’t talk about it. So we were very careful about what we said and we were careful about certain ceremonies, You know, we didn’t want them to, they stopped a lot of them. They tried to take away, they wanted to destroy our chiefs to shine rappels. Uh, they wanted to take away our chiefs that we wouldn’t do it. They took away a lot of, a lot of the chiefs from their tribe from other tribes because they wanted to break that circle that the chiefs had. And when I see things that, that uh, and I’ve seen a lot of, a lot of, a lot of things in my life about uh huh help people respected Indians and some people did not respect Indians and some people would say things that were, mm hmm we’re demeaning. But they acted like it wasn’t, you know, so we had to record, we learned to recognize certain things and weeks. And so when I see certain things uh, that are being done. And I wonder if this is being done out of respect or is it being done to be little and you have to make that you have to make that distinction of what someone says and what someone does. Uh, how has it meant? And I can become offended. Uh, you know about certain things and, and something’s not, I’m not offended by because I feel like maybe done it, that means something. But if they do things meaning that, that this chop it, if it means that they’re saying that’s that’s what we did. We kill people. You know, and I say that and that’s not true. You know, it’s a certain degree. It’s not true. You know, it’s not like that’s that’s what we live for. What we did is a warrior is someone not only he defends the camp, he defends his family, he defends his people, he defends his ceremonies. He takes care of people. He’s beyond fighting. He takes care of them. He takes care of the orphans. He takes care of the old people. He feeds people, he gives away things, uh, to take care of people. And not to me, that’s that is what a warrior is. He’s more than just a fighter. He takes care of people and I can, you know, where concerned about certain things. And I’ve heard all sorts of things in my whole life, uh, growing up and experienced a lot of things in and some people they would talk about in the incidents respectful and some people would talk about Indians and say things that were not respectful and I could walk away from that. I could walk away from that from not being respectful. So Mhm. In my age I’ve kind of learned to I’ve kind of learned to pick and choose you know and to walk away from it and ignore certain things. And I think that that’s what as yeah as a Cheyenne chief uh I’m not supposed to be arguing with people, I’m not I’m not I’m supposed to be someone that’s a mediator, someone that will listen to you and then give advice, you know give you advice and not choose sides and attack somebody. So uh I will tell you that’s hard to do. That’s hard to do that you know to to uh be in the middle, you know, because I get offended. I mean I get offended like anybody else, Some people will want me to to defend them, you know and you know what I said, I have to try to be in the middle. So I think that that’s just the way I was raised and and and that’s the way that uh Southern Cheyenne chiefs are supposed to be don’t be arguing, don’t be fighting with people, you have to give that up. You have to give up your war ways. You know I can’t do some things I can’t, I can’t, I can only be defensive, I can’t be aggressive and that’s the way I feel about it. Thank you Harvey. Our next question will go to Alex Rafa glow from Tehran’s news agency Azerbaijan, thank you jane for this very timely event and Rebecca Harvey remarkable presentations on a very remarkable history. Uh, the Defense Department put out some numbers earlier this month, which made it clear that a significant amount of native Americans have served in all of the national sports. So beginning with Revolution of water, you know, when when Jean and uh colleagues at the foreign percentage shots last with this event last week and I tried to pitch this story to my editor some 6000 miles away from here. The first question came to their minds was vile. Native Service in America presents a paradox to non-native. So why why would they fight for America? They say given its long complicated history from colonizing two attempts to I think I’m gonna borrow your verse Harvey killing the culture as you put it. I know it’s a fraught history and I do have my own text, especially after seeing your wonderful presentations, but I do want to give you a chance to address this obvious question. Thank you so much. Okay, here’s here’s what I think, here’s what I think about this, you know or when a, when there were no one here on in a, in a the Americas north and south was no one here. The creator Gave America to the Indians 1st. He gave us this land. The creator did this, this is Indian country. It will always be Indian country. We have fought for this for this land. From the very beginning, we’ve had to fight for it. Our blood is soaked in this earth and our ancestors are all buried in this sir. And this would regardless who owns it, who owns it. Now, this is this is always Indian country. This is our land. We’ll fight for it. We’ll fight for this land and we fought for it here here and and now we’re fighting for it across the world. Our blood, our Indian blood is soaked all over this, all over this earth. And I think that we fight for it because this is our land just as as anybody else. And we fight because everybody else did just the way the way countries did all over this world, they fought for their country, their mother, your mother. Uh and that’s the way that’s where we are. The fight for this land because it’s ours too. Thank you. We do have another hand raised pearl. Matip, who’s a freelance journalist from Zimbabwe and South Africa Pearl Over to you for your question. Thank you so much for your presentation. And I guess understanding what happened through your lens has been interesting to listen to. Um I wonder if you could speak to how you have managed how native Americans have managed. Two thread the culture and the norms and the values and the moral ways that they would live and so on into, into the way of life in America, which itself has its own values completely different to native American values. How do you, how do, how do you see that? I see a lot of parallels to the story that you have been sharing with many tribes in Africa who themselves were colonized and had to adopt another culture. Some wondering what lessons could be learned from native Americans and how they managed to bridge that I suppose hence still not lose was essentially their norms, their values. Um, I wonder if he could speak to that. Thanks. No, thank you. That’s, that’s a, that’s a good question. I, I think that our ancestors were oppressed. Mm hmm. They tried to try to change them into somebody else. And and the culture was uh, of the, of the tribes uh, is still very strong. So they, they went kind of dormant for a while because they were so dominated and there were so many of them that were displaced and moved around and uh, they had to be very careful about about what they said and what they did. And I experienced that in my life that are, I was raised by people that were born in the 1870s. My grandfather, my my mother’s aunt’s uh, and her relations and, and they were and my mother would be if she were alive, she should be 100 and 10 years old, Today should be 110. And uh yeah, they were they were oppressed and character had to be careful what they did and what they said. And I think that’s uh in secrecy, they continued to do the things that they did and uh they were so dependent on. Uh and so under the thumb of the government that that they couldn’t do anything on their own. And they moved him into certain areas and they had to had to stay there. They couldn’t travel outside of out of their jurisdictions in a long time ago. And and so they become became very guarded it and they wouldn’t share things. I grew up with people say I grew up with Indians, I know Indians, what they really didn’t, they really didn’t know what did people, Yeah. Even though even though they were, you lived among them, they still we kept our we kept our secrets and our ceremonies. And once we were able to get out from underneath the thumb, uh my grandfather couldn’t even sell his own land. He had he had to have a a guardian to tell him what he could do and how he could do it. And when he wanted to sell something or where he wanted to go, they had and uh but they don’t do that anymore. You know, native people have tried tribal people that I’ve gotten stronger over the years. We’ve we’ve gotten stronger uh we’ve uh self-governing sovereignty and and were taken care of are taken care of our people. You know, were shine reptiles are very small tribe, very small tribe. Uh huh. You know, probably Less than 15,000 of us here in Oklahoma Indians. But there’s 39 tribes here in Oklahoma. There’s 39 tribes in Oklahoma and they all have their their their areas and they all have their ceremonies. Now now we don’t have to hide, we don’t have to hide our ceremonies. You know, we are, we can do them in the open and they never used to do that. So now a lot of tribes lost some ceremonies and they’re trying to revive those ceremonies that they used to do it. Yeah, we had all of our ceremonies at the Cheyennes did and the Arapahos did. Uh they would do them in secret and they called him other things. You know, we still have our Sundance, we still Sundance here and uh shine rap hoes in different locations every year. It’s a renewal of, it’s a renewal of people to renewal of the earth and that’s what the Sundance about is is a renewal of people and that’s what’s happening to us. We are we are being revitalized and right, becoming stronger and in our culture and are not afraid, we’re not afraid to have our culture now and to do to do these things and we invite people to come see what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. I think that. Uh huh that’s how people survive not only just Indians but other cultures you know uh into central America and south America. You know there they’re finding things and that okay Cities of 50,000 people in Central America and South America is huge cities. If they’re finding huge huge uh compounds here in North America where Indians gathered up for 20,000 people living in a in a in an area and people didn’t think we did that. But you know we’re now starting to learn all of those things about ourselves and our culture and our ancestors that they tried to oppress and suppress. Mhm. Yeah. I think I think the worm has turned. Uh huh. Girl did you have a follow up? I see your hand is still raised. What’s that? Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. It’s a quick follow up. I heard you speak about sovereign way of life. And I’m guessing that that is documented somehow. Um Can you help uh maybe share where I can access a resource like Or maybe talk about what is one thing about the sovereign nous that is different to the American constitution. Like is there one thing you can point to if not that’s fine but maybe you can share where I can look up some sovereign documents. I want to see what are the differences that make you were so sovereign. That’s different to the US constitute, you know, thank you. You know, the American constitution was, was, was patterned after the Algonquin unity. You know, they had, they had their unity of tribes and that’s what that yeah, economists saw that and pattern their constitution after those tribes because they were a union of tribes. And that’s and a pattern there. They’re this constitution in American constitutional on that same pattern. So uh, there’s, you know, a lot of people probably don’t even know that that’s, that’s exactly what happened. They based uh, that on those charges from a Algonquin, There are 6, 6 or seven tribes that banded together for unity. And so I think, I think that’s what you can look up. You can look up those Alabama drives and, and uh, I think it was Franklin Jefferson and some of those guys that looked at, they’re the ones that are designed added pattern that after after those particular tribes and Rebecca, perhaps you might have some resources at the Smithsonian that you could share with pearl and we can pass that on to her. Sure. And the one thing I wanted to mention is that that the, at the National Museum of the American Indian. We currently have an exhibition called Nation to Nation that focuses on the history of treaty, treaty relationships between the United States and native nations and so that is an excellent resource. Thank you for that Rebecca. Uh, we have come to the end of our time, so with that we will conclude today’s briefing on behalf of the U. S. Department of State and the Washington Foreign Press Center. I want to thank the Smithsonian Institution’s and our briefers for giving their time today to brief the Foreign press. Thank you. And good morning. Thank you, Jennifer by Rebecca. Thank you very much, Jennifer. Thank you Harvey Bye bye.