As usual, Gary speaks clearly and succintly about purpose for NativeNet and
its growth process and change.
Last week while we were in Florida attending a conference, my son and I
sneaked off one day (while our computer specialist was attending a BOF
session) and drove over to Miccossukee to see some basket weavers and
quilters and then on toward Miami with meet another Ojibwe family we had
previously only communicated with via NativeNet. I mentioned that rather
than this bizarre trip from California to Florida being just another
culturally meaningless vacation, thanks to other Network subscribers, I
had been able to "connect" with other Native Basket Weavers, and make many
interesting discoveries including the vast differences between the meaning
of several words of the English language which take on different meanings
in Florida compared to what they mean out here. (They make their baskets
out there from a material that looks like green pine needles, but which
they call sweet grass, but which the western U.S. calls wire grass ...
"Sweet Grass" grows in the more northern U.S. and Canada and is
incorporated into the baskets of the Ojibwe, Oneida, Abanaki, and other
Northern nations). To us here in California, a "Pine Ridge" would
PROBABLY mean a ridge of land .... like above a valley... that is covered
with Pine trees. To the Seminoles it means a line of Pine Trees, or a
break in the landscape where, for example, there has been just sugar cane,
or marsh plants, and all of a sudden you come to a bunch of pines.
Sorry for the digression .... At any rate, we wouldn't have met these
people, or made these interesting discoveries if it weren't for the
"freedom" of being able to post a note to NatChat and say "hey guys, we're
heading for Florida and want to meet some "like-minded" people. etc/
and then actually get information back from this great group of fellow
Natives (in most cases) and other well-meaning ex-tourists.
At any rate, while I'm busy talking "around" the subject, this family we
visited (you'll notice the confidentiality here) and I discussed the fact
that back in 1989 when we joined up with NativeNet we were under the
impression that one of the purposes, if not the main purpose, was for
Natives to have to outlet to meet other natives and discuss issues/ask
questions about things that concerned us (be it travel, identity, or
whatever). Since that time, however, it seems to have moved away from
just "natives-meeting-natives" to mostly just discussion about native
issues, with some criticism if we ask a question that is deamed "unrelated
to Native concerns". Gee, I don't know, maybe our two families are
"alone" on this, but I've always been naive enough to think that what ever
concerns some native family, somewhere, is a "Native Concern"... Did I get
on the wrong boat somewhere?
Niin sa,
Lyn
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-- Galileo Galilei
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"We did not weave the web of life. We | Lyn Dearborn; Naturalist/Person
are merely a strand in it. Whatever | Turtle Clan Ojibwe
we do to the web, we do to ourselves" | dearborn@anchor.esd.sgi.com
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Comments from NativeNet moderator, Gary Trujillo (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us):
The purpose of the NativeNet mailing lists is not now and has never been
exclusively that of facilitating Native people meeting and discussing
issues with other Native people, though that aim is certainly an important
one, and I hope it is being well fulfilled. The lists were established
in order to promote dialogue between Native people and non-Native people
as well as among people within each group. My feeling is that it's just
as important for non-indigenous people to get a good understanding of the
issues which are critical to the health and well-being of indigenous
peoples and their way of life as it is for dialogue to occur among people
within indigenous communities, and I don't see those two objectives as
being necessarily in conflict with one another. As I have said before
whenever this subject has come up, anyone is free to set up new lists or
other mechanisms for electronic communication where the groundrules are
different from what they are here, and I will support such efforts to
the extent I feel I am able.
Actually, one of the conclusions I hope we'll come to as a result of
our electronic adventures on this increasingly interdependent planet
is that we're really all in the same boat, like it or not! :-)