Little Crow aka (Taoyateduta) or His Red Nation

The Note’s Must-Reads for Tuesday, December 20, 2011

The Note’s Must-Reads for Tuesday, December 20, 2011: The Note’s Must-Reads are a round-up of today’s political headlines and stories from ABC News and the top U.S. newspapers. Posted Monday through Friday right here at www.abcnews.com Compiled by ABC News Digital News Associates Amanda VanAllen, Jayce Henderson and Desk Assistant Erin McLaughlin LATEST...

13 Grandmothers: First Gathering Part 1

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Jack Nicholson & Will Sampson

Ere many generations pass, our machinery will      be driven by power obtainable at any point in the      universe. It is a mere question of time when men      will succeed in attaching their machinery to the      very wheelwork of nature.                            ---Nikola Tesla There is a definitive opportunity for the Indigenous to take control.  The free energy movement is one of empowerment and of the future.

Proposed Keystone XL Pipeline through Indian Country

Sacred Spirit - Yeha Noha

Tribute to Floyd Red Crow Westerman

http://www.floydredcrowwesterman.com/

The Amazon Ecocide

Lakota Youth Pride

#Prophecy

#PROPHECY
“They Are Coming…They Are Here”
9/10/09
Yesterday September 9, 2009 they showed themselves to me.  Their light is bright, definitive, attentive, their coming, and their also already here.
Our Fathers, our Grandfathers.  Our Mothers, our Grandmothers, our ancestors, our center.
I am so grateful, I am filled with love and compassion for them, for this time, and for everything I have been given.  And I am filled with love for the human race, mankind, and all people.  This is the goal, this is the objective.  Only love, compassion and kindness can change us, and prepare us for them.
Only love can prepare us for their coming, acceptance is the key to the continuation of mankind.
I am Anishinabe = Ojibwe/ Mdewakanton -Dakota.  I am American Indian, Native American, First Nation made of my father’s blood and of mother’s blood.
My Father was Mdewakanton - Dakota and my Mother was Anishinabe-Ojibwe.
We have about 27 months to prepare, or to continue preparing.  Prayer, belief, commitment are all within our grasp.  They are all free.  They are all necessities to a greater understanding and tools for acknowledgment.
I have always been told we are pitiful human beings.  And if not we will become pitiful in our own time.  There is no harm.  There is only transformation, enlightenment, the greater good if you will.
In my spiritual practice we honor the iyan, the stone, and the grandfathers.  They are the first beings.  They have been and they will always be.  They have been our support, our teachers, and our rock if you will, in hard times and in good times.
Respect life, honor thyself, and be of love not of hate.  Allow God to open your eyes ever so wide, ever so wider.  He wants you to see the change.  He wants you to be the change.  He wants you to know you are the change.  He wants you to know you have always been the change.  Do not live in fear, or anger.  They will only hold you back from drifting on the river of life, from wading in the waters of change.  He wants you to accept who you are today; remember you are as he wants you.
Be at Peace with yourself and with your life.  And when they see you, they will know you for who you truly are, and you will discover who you are in the reflection of their eyes.
Their love is so great, magnanimous, and unconditional that it could overwhelm you if you are not prepared.  I know this to be true, for I have experienced it.  In our ceremonies it has always been there.  That love, that comfort, the steady beat of the heart, the silence of the mind, the acceptance and the resolution.  The love is in those precious songs, Wakan Odowan as we say in our natural language; it is in those age old languages. Those deep, deep feelings we cannot seem to shake or destroy.  We have always had the key to direct communication.  Some of us have learned to understand that and accept that we have tools for camaraderie.
The truth is coming.  Whether we want to accept it or not.  It is not coming from without, it is coming from within.  And where are we when it comes to the “within.”  Are we being true to ourselves, to our God given being, or are we whoever we want to be.  We deceive ourselves with the belief that we know the truth.  Because of what we see and what we hear, or maybe even what we say.  Now to speak as a human being and to have the audacity to believe that what we are saying is the truth, now that’s frightening and that is what we need to fear.  We should fear ourselves and our own minds.  We are the enemy.
We have been told.  They have told us and we have chosen not to listen, and now it is too late.  They are coming and they are here.  When I say this to you where does your intellectual mind go, “who are they” of course.  Well we know them, we have always known them.  But we have chosen not to believe that we know them.  We have chosen to live as skeptics, questioners, doubters.  Well now it doesn’t matter, we are no longer in control of our own destiny; we have sold our choice for self gratification.  We have chosen to be consumers rather than cooperators.
The river is here.  The river is moving. What is your choice, what are you going to do.  You will have to make a choice and you will not be able to wait any longer.  Will you walk in, will you dive in, will you be afraid, or will you accept.
And once in the river will you fight the current, will you try to climb out back onto the shore, or will you grab onto your neighbor hoping that he will save you, or will you accept the river and go where it will take you.   You have a choice and you are making it now as you read, you made it when you picked up this book, you made it when you awoke this morning and faced another day.
Nothing I say here is new, so if you came looking for new, it’s not here. This is the old.  This is the known.  This is the subconscious and the super-subconscious.
Everything you have ever wanted you already have.  You have seen to that, they have seen to it that you do.  If your life is filled with the negative, it is because you have attracted the negative to you.  That is your own free will.  Now is the time for the positive.  You have been told this over and over.  They have told you, in your relationships, in your experiences, in your dreams.  You have chosen not to hear, even though you may have listened, you refused to hear.  And that my friend is your karma.
In our ceremonies we have learned to learn.  We have in silence been taught, throughout the millennia we have been right where we were meant to be and we have not strayed.  Others have tried to move us from the path, but we have accepted and resisted.  You know that history.  It is your history too, especially if you call yourself an American.
But now the time for demarcation and division is gone, it is over.  Some will see and some will not.  But we are at a time now when our participation is not optional.  Participation is not mandatory either.  That might seem to be a dichotomy but once you ask and you have the answer, the understanding will be in the answer, and you will discover you have had the answer all the time.
Ask them to help you, they will, they are not of the negative, they are not polarized as you and I are, they are only there and now they are here.  Speak to them, help them to help you.  Be yourself; live in the light, even if for one day.  Be there for them and they will see you and you will see yourself, sometimes in them.
President Barack Obama said in his speech yesterday the “time for action is now”.  See, you are being told.  He was talking on health care in America, but he could just as easily have been talking to the starving in Uganda, or the prisoner in Thailand or the poor in Moscow.  And I know he was talking to you.
Find solitude, find the quiet in you, and remain there for awhile.  Don’t interrupt yourself.  Hear your heart and your soul speak to you.  Be at one with yourself.  The message is there.  Look deep into your well, look way down past the garbage you have piles upon yourself and find that light, that innocence.
I can only implore you so much, much is up to you.  I am only one messenger in a world of thousands.    But I would not be saying these things to you if I did not truly love you.  Even though you don’t know me and we have never met and may never meet.
Every day around the world a bell tolls and rings every hour on the hour in a church or a chapel, hear it and then listen to it, the message is there, in the sweet sound of life, of love of compassion.  They want you to hear, to listen and to hear.  But you have to turn away from the intellectual mind and turn to the spiritual mind.
Once I spoke to a group of people at a retreat in Minnesota, that’s where I’m from, and I tried to tell them of the spiritual mind and how we have access to it and how it would guide us if we would only allow it to take control.
But rather than hear me and listen, they chose to ask questions, interrupt and come to their own conclusions before I had the chance to explain it to them.  They were not ready.  It was very sad for me to see that happen to them.  But they chose to separate, investigate and they used their intellectual minds, which were very powerful, and develop conclusions based on who I was, and not on what I said.
We have all done this.  I have done it.  But during the last year or so, I was active in my addiction, alcohol and drugs and I too allowed the frailty of my humanness to lead me and to run my life, my program.  In AA we say “program” a lot while speaking of our attempts to recover from numerous bouts of active using.
But for me the lesson was that I am frail, weak, easily distracted, taken off course, waylaid. In short I am human.
I was running because of fear, I was afraid of me.  I was using, kicking up the dirt, dust and grime of my addictive behavior so that I would not have to really see me.  I used others as excuses.  Fortunately for me I have a wife who did not give up on me and brought me back into recovery.
But I allowed my own human weakness to conjure up my disbelief systems.  And did they ever come alive.  I separated myself from all that was truly me, my wife, my friends, my family, my canupa (my pipe).  Oh my God, my canupa, my center, my life and my love in its essence.
Fear, selfishness, resentment, anger, alcoholic disease, these are all the antithesis of who I am, and what I am suppose to be doing.   My life should be of God and not of me.  I am my own greatest distraction.
But here today, a short time into my recovery my insight is returning, my attentiveness has sharpened.
Much has been said about the great change that some say is coming and others have said is here.  So I am not alone in my beliefs.

Water has Memory

Full Moon Beauty

Honor's New Contact Info - Offices Consolidated to White Earth Reservation

Honor the Earth is excited to announce changes to our overall organizational structure and the consolidation of our offices. We will maintain our space in northern Minnesota on the White Earth reservation. Historically, we have also held an office in Minneapolis, but due to recent changes we are working solely out of our northern office.

Contact Info:
Honor the Earth
PO Box 67
Callaway, MN 56521
Phone: 218-375-3200

The Shift

Unrepentant-Native Genocide

Tavie, My Goddaughter, isn't she beautiful, and she has great parents...

Dual Transference of Knowledge

     Yesterday I returned to an old CD that I've been carrying around for awhile.  "Eurantia" is a message about God and the Universe which trys to explain the cosmos as known to many beings with the exception of ourselves.  One day when shopping for cheap books at a thrift store I came across this book called Eurantia.  Quite a heavy tome, but it had an interesting cover, it grabbed my interest, and for a buck, what the hell.  Anyway it was tough reading and I never did get very far, but I read enough to understand the basic premise. It was a message to Earth (Eurantia as were known elsewhere in the universe) that explained how the universe works and what it is made of.  Primarily God and God's creation.  the book included a CD in the back, which I didn't realize until much later.  Well I gave the book to my daughter and I kept the CD.  And yesterday I listened to it a bit longer, as it is hours worth of listening time I only heard seven sections of chapter one.


Anyway during the last few days I felt as though I were chasing something, not quite sure what, but it was just out of reach.  So I did a couple of things.  I made a list, I drew a sketch, I read and re-read some, I prayed, and I shared some with my wife.  I felt pretty good about my "work."


This morning I woke up with a revelation, an awareness or an understanding, for myself at least.


1. We have had visitors from a variety of other planets.
  There is plenty of evidence with regard to this revelation.  And there is plenty of denial.  I've done enough research for myself to come to believe that the human race has had credible and consistent inter-relationships with beings from other worlds.  I would go on to say that as far a race we are incomplete in our holistic evolution.  Much of this stifling comes as a result of "progress" and "civilization" and it's inhibited sphere of growth opportunity and a lack of independent will to go beyond what we believe to be consistent with God's will.  But this is beginning to change.  There's a convergence taking place in the mind, body and souls of many individuals on earth who are not in touch with one another.  They only understand what it is they are experiencing.  So the convergence is harmoniously taking place.


2. We have had visitors from God, representatives if you will.
  This revelation and the first are often confused.  We have had both.  These representatives have been with us since the beginning.  Some of us have welcomed and acknowledged their inference to our delight.  But others have not been willing to believe in them and have had a hard time in coming to their own realizations about spiritual inference and interface.


They are and have been trying to share with us and out limited capacity to comprehend a series of solutions and choices.  Why? Because they know where we are headed and they really don't want that.


Our problem has been in a lack of willingness to interpret their messages.  And until we can do that we will not be capable of advancing to the next level.


Historically other civilizations have had these "visitations" and because of their "primitive" societies they were able to believe, understand and incorporate the messages. So in tun they "advanced." We have become somewhat stagnant.


But, there is a growing community of believers and they are becoming more and more vocal and their messages are becoming more widely and genuinely accepted.


Because the Universe is God's universe, he is all.  There is only him.  And all that transcends space and time is him.  And he wants the best for his children, us.


So he sends help.


Both from other Hyper-Universal Nations and from his own arsenal of  Spiritual Guardians.


So that's it for now. Wopida Tanka.

Year of the Rabbit-12 signs

Thought you might find this interesting.

Canadian Holocaust -Try Not to Cry

 Contact me @

Edward Benton Banai


Ceremonial Review for Policy: Teachings are the spiritual and real life substance of the Midewiwin faith and way of life for the original people of this part of the world the Anishinabe. To be a Midewiwin is to be a positive sober, drug free, peaceful person. A person that is working practicing contributing to ones family and community is fulfilling to the person in all walks and pursuit of life and happiness. By attending the seasonal ceremonies and working, participation in the various cleansing, healing ceremonies, memorials a person is thus renewed, re-energized for the daily tasks, work, school, career, home and community responsibilities of life, in the contemporary world we all live in today.-Eddie Benton-Banai

Call for Submissions 12-31-2011 deadline

No Man is Holy

HINHANNI WASTE MITAKUYEPI, Nasula waste na cante waste Canku Luta he omani, onipi waste uha kte. Hecetu yelo. MITAKUYE OYASIN!-Good Morning my Relatives, If you walk the Red Road with a good mind and good heart you will have a good life. It Is So. ALL MY RELATIONS!

http://www.intermediaarts.org/catalyst-series-present-your-work11

http://www.intermediaarts.org/catalyst-series-present-your-work11

HomeLand Security Plans to Kill USA Citizens

Hundreds homeless in Attawapiskat - Timmins Daily Press - Ontario, CA

Hundreds homeless in Attawapiskat - Timmins Daily Press - Ontario, CA

Dakota Perspective: Follow me on Twitter

Dakota Perspective: Follow me on Twitter @Redlakespirit

Follow me on Twitter

@Redlakespirit

"THRIVE" and Universal Energy

thrivemovement.com

A few days ago I was flipping through Facebook and I came on a film entitled "Thrive", the introduction was intriguing so I watched it with an open and curious mind.  This film was produced by Foster Gamble after years of research on some very basic questions.  One of which was the unequal international distribution of food.  In the process of following "the money" he also came upon some other very interesting facts and discoveries.

As described in a enlightening film entitled "Thrive" the energy of the universe can be summarized in this image.  Always evolving and always moving.  Life is consistent motion.  Much of what was described in the film/documentary was familiar as lifestyle knowledge within the Dakota Oyate.

I recommend that you view the film for your own purposes and maybe as a search of your own.  My comments here are thoughts and observations from a Dakota point of view, an indigenous point of view if you will.

The photo insert is called a Torus, a universal primary pattern if you will that replicates itself consistently on a variety of scales.  There are several variations of the Torus and you will recognize many of them as you watch the film.

The film states that the Torus can be utilized as a major energy source replacing many destructive energy source methods in use today.  Naturally the major energy producers of the world would not support a system that replaces their mega profit generating conglomerates.

Which brings me to conglomerates.  Robert W. McChesney writes in his book "Rich Media, Poor Democracy" (1999) that "the media have become a significant anti-democratic force in the United States...and worldwide."

The power cores for all aspects of society whether it be democratic, socialist, or totalitarian are becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of a powerful elite minority.

Mass Murder of Children in Canada exposed by International Tribunal into...

Ted Means RIP

One of the greatest leaders of the Oglala Nation passed away today, AIM brother, uncle, elder Ted Means.  Our thoughts and prayers on this National Day of Mouring go out to the Means family on this very difficult day. Many of us in AIM worked beside Ted in a concentrated effort to improve conditions for all Indigenous people of the western hemisphere and in the Oglala Lakota Nation of South Dakota.  We will miss his humor, dedication and commitment in good times and bad times. Ted Means gave his entire life to helping the Lakota people and all Native communities who sit without necessary resources each and every day.  Mitakuyeowasin

American Indian Movement-OGLALA LAKOTA NATION=Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

Navajo Supreme Court Case at Yale Law School Yields Lessons in Indigenous Justice

Navajo Supreme Court Case at Yale Law School Yields Lessons in Indigenous Justice

Quantum Entanglement-draft

Quantum entanglement as described in an Ancient Aliens program on the History Channel is the theory where one object can have an effect on another object in another place in the universe.  Universal telepathy is an example of this type of cause and effect. Separate forces connected over vast spaces. Indigenous natives with the capability to communicate with extraterrestrial beings through traditional headdresses, feathers, and other psychic antennae.

When I was very young I was told a family story.  A family member was very sick and so they had a ceremony.  During this ceremony the man sent a turtle to Canada for the medicine they needed.  Canada was hundreds of miles away.  In a hour or so the turtle came back with the medicine in his mouth.  They used the medicine in a tea and my relative was cured.

You can't tell these things to non-Natives due to their skepticism.  But in Indian Country these stories are the lifeblood of truth and the headstone of belief and faith.  So when we see stories like the quantum entanglement story we can immediately identify with it's truth and we can see it's connection to the Great Mystery.


see: History.com

The Catholic Church and other Criminals-draft

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops spent $27 million in 2009 to lobby on issues such as same sex marriage.  I noted in a Twitter post that this is ironic since the Catholic Church houses some of the worlds most notorious pedophiles.  Even now former Boston archbishop Cardinal Bernard F. Law is stepping down as from a position in a basilica in Rome. It has been nine years since the sex abuse scandal in Boston forced him from his powerful position as archbishop.  It appears to have haunted his career and it has shadowed his capability to continue to serve the Catholic Church in any meaningful way.

The Catholic Church is now being exposed as the two-headed dragon that the Indigenous people of the Northern hemisphere have always known they were.  The mega oligarchy that is the church has spent millions to influence the US legislative process in order to protect their fiscal interests.  But the real purpose has been to defray any further investigations into the mass sexual abuse that has been the poisoned life blood of the church for many centuries.

The church is no longer even a church per say but more of a corporate dragon whose slimy tentacles reach far and wide in the international community.  Their veins of influence have enabled them to cover-up major crimes and consistent abuse of the masses who have been helpless against the onslaught.

In September of next year the ITCCS will hold hearings on these abuses and other crimes in Belgium.  This may be the first time that the crimes of the church have been brought before an international tribunal.

Welcome to "Minnesota Mdewakanton Dakota Nation" - ronleith71@gmail.com - Gmail

Welcome to "Minnesota Mdewakanton Dakota Nation" - ronleith71@gmail.com - Gmail:

'via Blog this'

Red School House Alumni

Red School House Alumni

Letter of interest

April 19, 2011



Application for Dakota Project Consultant



Thank you for giving me the opportunity to submit my resume and a short review of my history, experience and knowledge as application to assist with the Minnesota Historical Society’s Dakota History Project.  Please consider this letter a brief compilation of my personal experience and background as it may be related to your project.

Speaking and sharing of Dakota history is a true pleasure of mine.  I feel this way because Dakota  history really is one of the under-researched gold mines of Minnesota and American history.  It has been over-shadowed by the Civil War and by the war of it’s cousin, the Lakota Plains Conflicts of the Great Sioux Nation.

I am an enrolled member of the Red Lake Nation.  My parents were members of both the Ojibwe and the Dakota communities in Minnesota.  My father was from Lower Sioux Indian Community and my mother was from the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians. So I am the proud product of what I call an indigenous dichotomy.  We spent many years shuffling between St. Paul, Red Lake Indian Reservation and Lower Sioux Indian Community.  St. Paul has always had a significantly activist Ojibwe/Dakota/Hochunk community.  We spent every summer in Red Lake and Lower Sioux, and many other Indian communities visiting relatives, going to pow-wows and attending ceremonies. So I consider myself to be very fortunate to have had a trilingual (Dakota,Ojibwe,English), multi-tribal and cross-cultural family history experience.

Much to my advantage the St. Paul Indian families were very cognizant of and loyal to their cultural roots, history, traditions and languages.  So throughout 50’s, 60’ and into the 70’s there were always annual cultural events to attend as many families spent their free time together in a very close knit community.  It was at these events that the youth got to hear the languages spoken, tribal stories told and re-told, and observe pertinent tribal traditions practiced with much reverence and respect.  And these stories were always given by men and women of respect and stature.

I want to start with a story that was told to my family in North Dakota at the Turtle Mountain Chippewa-Cree Indian community.  “They say” that during the winter of 1862/63 when many Bdewakantowan Dakota Tewahe (Dakota/Sioux families) were forced to leave their homelands and move west, some of them travelled through the Turtle Mountains where they were taken in and cared for by the Cree until they were able to continue traveling.  During this time there was a sharing of traditional knowledge, and cultural and spiritual expertise. There were inter-tribal healing ceremonies that took place as many were suffering from illness.  And so in gratitude and in remembrance of that time spent with the Dakota the Windigokhan, or spiritual beings of the Cree began to wear two different type moccasins during their ceremonies.  On one foot was the Cree design and colors and on the other was Dakota design and colors.  And so now during their annual Sundance, the Windigokhan always appear during the healing round wearing the two moccasins.  The Dakota exiles then continued on north into Canada where they settled several communities, including present day Sioux Valley and Dakota Tipi.

I’ve always considered (Minnesota) Dakota history to be a living oral history.  It is constantly being challenged, defended, and embedded into the fabric of everyday Dakota family life.  Dakota history and Dakota life among the Dakota are one and the same. You cannot separate the two, nor can you isolate the effects of one from the other.  In the same way life and spirituality among the Dakota cannot be individualized, or compartmentalized.

Recently there has been a significant re-emergence of interest, diligence and commitment to the preservation and revitalization of Dakota language, history and cultural significance.  This revitalization has had it’s particular focus on language and it’s authentic interpretation, as all else that is culturally significant is derived from this root source.  Without the Dakota language to use as a reference point there is only cultural death and decay.

For example in the Dakota creation story “they say” that the Ikce Wicasa were originally part of a group of creatures that resided deep in the Wasun Wiconiye , but in order to understand this story and relate to it you must have a nominal command of the language in order to gain an appropriate interpretation of it’s full meaning.  You must also have a generic understanding of the male and female linguistic derivatives and how they apply to any given situation.

These oral teachings make up the integral components of the oral traditions.  These stories and the in-depth meaning of the stories hold the mystery of the authentic.  This is how the Dakota maintain a true national hegemony when in alignment with other nations.  Although this method of historical cultural transference is not unique to the Dakota, it is recognized that the Dakota were first among the Seven Council Fires in origin and therefore the oldest of the Council Fires.  These fires are also represented by the seven brothers that make up the celestial constellation typically referred to as the Big Dipper.

In order to keep the traditions of oral teaching and interactive learning alive, you must return to the root of all Dakota knowledge, which is the language.  Within the language is the key to understanding the universe and how we are related to the mystery of the cosmos.  Once you understand the Dakota view then you are in a receptive alignment to understanding the Nakota and Lakota cultural intricacy.

The history of the Dakota Nation in Minnesota is a very diverse, difficult, sensitive and a vital historical record.  Like many other historical conflicts and campaigns in Indian country, it brought out both the best and the worst of human attributes, character, and values.  Many of the oral stories surrounding the Dakota Conflict have been handed down from family member to member.  As a collection they are very powerful.

The highlight or focus of many anthropological research efforts in Minnesota  have been the Dakota Conflict of 1862/63.  But there is a lengthy prelude and an extended post-script to these centrally located events.  They must all be seen as folding into one another, overlapping, and of having a tremendous effect on all individuals whose families survived these events and lived through those poignant times.

In my opinion, Minnesota Dakota history must include a preliminary review of events leading up to the 1862 Dakota Conflict.  Perhaps beginning with the events surrounding the 1805 Treaty and the involvement of US Army’s first Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, who mistook his location for the headwaters of the Mississippi.  There must also be a thorough understanding of the political, social, and psychological consequences of the mass exodus and seclusive hibernation of the Dakota Oyate both in the American Upper-Midwest and in Canada.

I’ve had the privilege teaching Dakota history and culture to a variety of audiences since 1971.  Along with the wide range of Indian history as a whole, it formulates in one sense a magnanimous epoch in the development of American history in general, and Minnesota history in particular.  In another sense, it reflects an American disaster in cultural relations. The personal research I undertook in order to teach a history of truth revealed a very wide scope of untapped information never before provided to those who deserved it most, native youth.

To speak of the Minnesota Dakota presence in present tense, is to speak diametrically of our existence because in actuality we are not supposed to be here, we were to have been categorically and legislatively expelled from Minnesota Territory as a community, and as a nation in 1863.  It is only due to certain circumstances that existed within the Dakota communities themselves that created the opportunity for a small contingency of Dakota to remain in Minnesota. It is this particular historical anomaly that served as a conduit to the presence of the three major Dakota communities we see today in Minnesota.

One can refer to the Dakota as a Nation (Oyate) because as a nation they faithfully entered into historically legal contracts, or federally recognized treaties (1805-1858) with the United States government.  Those treaties are still currently viable and legally binding.  They also continue to bring a significant bearing into the present day relationships between the U.S. government and the Dakota communities.

In 2010 I organized the 1851 Dakota Treaty Conference that was held at Redwood Falls, Minnesota in January 2011.  This treaty conference was a result of many discussions taking place among Dakota elders with regard to the current viability of the Dakota Treaties. There were participants from all of the Dakota communities including those from Canada.  The day of the conference there was a huge snowstorm. Despite the weather the conference was a success.  Several individuals who were eager to learn and share knowledge, came together and broadened the Dakota network and connections to the treaties. We continue to pass along interesting research and treaty meetings are taking place in several Dakota communities.  

I feel very fortunate in that I have had the advantage of being mentored by some of the best that Indian Country has had to offer.  Early in my career I met many mentors, including several who were in leadership positions within the American Indian Movement, the National Congress of American Indians and the National Tribal Chairman’s Association.  These mentors offered a direct solution to the problems that existed for Indian students in mainstream educational systems.  This was important to me because I had seen what the current systems were, and were not, providing for Indian youth.  The answer, of course, was Indian child-centered curriculum and Indian administered systems of educational training and learning.  This was the system that I wanted to be a part of and I began at the ground floor in the research and  development of the American Indian Movement Survival Schools for Self Determination.  There I had the freedom to select the best that relevant literature, art, history, science, and politics had to offer and synthesize that work for teaching Indian students.

As a last point of information, in late May I am scheduled to teach a seminar in Dakota history and culture to a group of students from Carlton College at Northfield, Mn. This seminar is to be held at Birch Coulee Battlefield where we will be discussing the Dakota Conflict and the circumstances surrounding that event.  My contact for this seminar is Dr. Jay Levy, Professor of Humanities, office phone: 507-645-8565, for reference.

I would hope that I have given you somewhat of an insight or glimpse of the qualifications I posses and that they would be of some service in the project you are committed to fulfill.
If there are any questions that I can answer or any discussions that I might be a part of, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely at your service,

Ronald P. Leith
116 W. 5th St.
Redwood Falls, MN 56283
507-430-5919
ronleith71@gmail.com