It is inspiring and a great honor to work with Steven Newcomb, amplifying his thoughts, research, critical analysis, and perspective. The lens through which he sees the world is imbued with the wisdom and timeless Life-Ways experience of Original Free Nations and Peoples beyond the confines of the mental world of domination promulgated by European Settler Colonialism and Western Imperialism.  The following presents the opening segment and Conclusion of his 11 August 2023 essay published on Original Free Nations, followed by the Contents listing of the complete essay. —Dave Ratcliffe

“The words that we use create and maintain the reality that we experience.”
Steven Newcomb, On the Doctrine of Christian Domination, 15 Dec 2021

Conflicting Perspectives Regarding the Holy Mountain Called “San Francisco Peaks,” and Other Sacred and Significant Places of Original Nations and Traditional Healers

Steven Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape)

Our original nation ancestors understood mountains and other geographical areas as living beings imbued with spiritual energy. Our spiritual people knew and still know how to spiritually attune and align themselves with that energy in a ceremonial manner, by means of our languages and ceremonial ways. This has always been the central purpose of our Spiritual Way of Life.

Prefatory Note: The Free Existence of Original Nations

Mentally picture the free and independent existence of all the Original Nations and Peoples on this continent, extending back to the beginning of time through their oral histories and oral traditions, before the Christian Europeans had invasively arrived. Throughout that timespan, our ancestors lived free from the words and mental world of Western Europe. Our ancestors lived entirely free from the clever Euro-American metaphors, ideas, and arguments now used on a daily basis by the United States government against our nations and peoples.

Our original nation ancestors understood mountains and other geographical areas as living beings imbued with spiritual energy. Our spiritual people knew and still know how to spiritually attune and align themselves with that energy in a ceremonial manner, by means of our languages and ceremonial ways. This has always been the central purpose of our Spiritual Way of Life.

Our traditional healers and medicine people knew and still know why it is necessary to conduct ceremonies, especially in Sacred and Significant Places of concentrated spiritual energy. Even today our traditional spiritual people continue to carry on their ways, to fulfill the sacred responsibilities that our peoples have to care for our rightful place on Mother Earth.

However, invading and colonizing peoples from Western Europe eventually arrived to this continent more than five centuries ago. They showed no respect for the Life-Ways and free existence of the original nations and peoples because they had carried with them across the ocean, a mental world of domination. Based on the Bible, the invading nations of Christendom mentally claimed that their “God” had “given” them the lands where our Ancestors were living,[1] and where our spiritual people carry out their authority and sacred responsibilities.

The invading peoples assumed that their “God” had given them the right to use their ideas and arguments as a means of depriving our nations and peoples of our original free existence. They assumed that their “God” had chosen them as a people with whom “He” would make a divine “covenant” or treaty.[2] And on that basis they further assumed their “God” had “given them” the right to name and claim as their own,[3] the lands and Sacred Places with which our original nations and peoples already had and still have a well-established spiritual relationship that has lasted millennia, to use Western time-frame language.

The difference between our original-free-existence perspective, and the claim-of-a-right-of-domination perspective of the dominating society, invariably produces conflict. That difference gives rise to competition between those who carry these two distinctive perspectives over questions of power and decision-making. Given the existence of these two opposing perspectives, both of which are competing to make final decisions regarding the use of a particular geographical area, the question becomes: which perspective will end up in the final decision-making position? Now apply this question to a dispute between the United States government and traditional ceremonial Native people regarding a Sacred and Significant Place of original nations — so-called San Francisco Peaks, a place for which our original nations have our own name in our own respective languages.

. . . .

Conclusion

These days, it is typical to hear the United States of America being portrayed as a “democracy” even though they (the “States” ) have operated for more than two centuries as a federal system of domination in relation to the original nations and peoples of this continent. This is especially true when it comes to our Sacred and Significant Places. Federal employees of the U.S. government, and even tribal government officials, are not likely to have known before now the information about domination found in this essay. No one, however, who ends up reading this essay, will be able to feign ignorance about the U.S. claim of a right of domination.

As a model of a way forward for Traditional Healers and Ceremonial Leaders, a powerful challenge to the United States was presented by the Yakama Nation in the amicus legal brief that the nation submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Cougar Den case in 2018. The Yakama Nation, guided by the leadership of Chairman JoDe Goudy, and influenced by the framework of domination found in this essay, decided upon that course of action. It marks the first time that an Original Nation of the continent has directly challenged the U.S. government’s claim of a right of discovery and domination.

Anyone who might wish to make a counterargument to oppose what we have presented here, is going to have a difficult time crafting a meaningful and effective response to rebut the information we have provided. After all, it would be senseless for anyone to claim that the language of domination found in the Vatican papal bulls, or in the Johnson v. McIntosh ruling, and elsewhere does not actually exist. It does exist. Authoritative sources spanning centuries contain this information, even those documents which illustrate the organic laws of the United States.

Our responsibility is to have dialogue with U.S. government officials, including, when possible, members of the U.S. Supreme Court,[80] and hold them accountable to end their nefarious claim of a right of Christian domination over our spiritual people, over our Sacred and Significant Places, and over our Original Nations and Peoples and our Homelands. We need to transition to decision-making based on the Natural Laws of Creation that sustain all Life, which are the basis for our ceremonies. Those Laws of Creation guided our Ancestors and Spiritual Ways of Life before and after the invasive arrival of the ships of Christendom.

 

Contents

Corporate Globalization Grandmother Earth's Wisdom History of US Corporate Empire State Indigenous Resistance to Genocide and Land Theft Mind Control--Psy Ops--Propaganda--and Disinformation Sacred Hoop Restoration