> I've been trying to sort out my feelings about this
> conversation as to what is or is not appropriate to an
> e-mail list.
> I felt that if I waited I would know the response of the
> ancestors to a question that they could never have
> anticipated.
>
> Today it has settled in to me that the very fact they could
> never have anticipated this is itself part of the answer.
>
> All through our history of relations with the non-Indian
> world our peoples have faced choices of what was right to
> incorporate as their own without assimilating to the other
> ways.
> Often there have been fiery conflicts over the answers,
> sometimes because there was no right answer.
>
> The preservation of our ways and our communities is our
> first responsibility. But many of us find ourselves cut off
> from community, geographically speaking. I am reminded of
> when our ancestor Sequoia devised the Talking Leaves
> (writing on paper) so that the Cherokee could communicate
> with each other from remote locations. Some of his kinsmen
> and women were skeptical (probably many were). They thought
> he was a fake, a hoax, or that he was doing something evil.
>
> Soon they learned it was true and within a generation the
> Cherokee achieved virtually universal literacy. The
> advantages of literacy in their own language while fighting
> to prevent removal don't have to be recited here.
>
> Who was to say what should and should not have been put down
> on those first Talking Leaves? Who is to say what should
> and should not be discussed on the equivalent today, the
> internet?
>
> My thought is this: if it helps to preserve our ways and our
> scattered communities, it is good. I was taught, "There are
> no wrong questions in the family." If this list feels like
> family to some who are distant from blood relations, then
> there must be no wrong questions here either.
>
> When our traditions differ on what is and is not spoken,
> then those who feel free to speak should speak and those who
> feel constrained to be silent should be silent.
>
> --My contribution, that's all it is.
> Pamela
>