Friday, December 27, 2013

stars







There were stars
Before the sky was turned black
By war guns
Of alien armies who came
To put flame
To the land,
Searing scars of
Colonization, genocide, racism
And greed.

The echoes still roar.

Hollow eyed sockets
Of false reality still see those rockets,

Still stare
Into the gory red glare
Of scorched earth
Burnt bare,
Burned to a stump
In corporate orange
Kool Aid
Trumped up
Version of
White man's burden.

Claiming the
Throne of empire,
Gaming the land lust desire,
Marketing the electorate,
Commodifying the constituencies
of
White supremacy
and
Modern day
Manifest Destiny.

Against whom they stood.

They stood in resistance.
They stood in rebellion.
They stand in regeneration.

They
Who are
We
Indigenous Peoples
Understood.

The stars
will return
in the
sky.

Tupac Enrique Acosta
Huehuecoyotl

*******

Tlazolli 

The concept of title in relation to land is a mythological construct, in which the world view of cultural identity is embedded and perpetuated across generations.

The simple reason is of course that the land is eminence itself, preexisting and outlasting any human society.  The relationship with the land, with the material world which emerges from the land, is then defined and evidenced by the traditional systems of inheritance and identity which perpetuate these teachings to the generations of the future. This is universal for all societies, but it is the traditional Indigenous Peoples from around the globe that create identity by ecological relationships to the constellations of families, mountains, rivers, deserts, nations, oceans and stars that define our homelands in the universe.

The societies of the European-American settlers do not.

The present systems of the United States and other governments states of the hemisphere which derive their justifications for jurisdiction over the land on the Divine Right of Kings to Dominion over the Earth and its Peoples, is pure myth.  Or better said, it is false myth -- a dead story with no teaching to teach but only a power grab to justify.

It cannot even hold coherence before the science of its own culture, now finally clarified that matter-energy are aspects of relationship to life, with automatic inflection by the world view of each clan, family, tribe, community, nation, and culture.

To claim ownership by land title today in view of the above is the equivalent of proclaiming that the world is flat. It is the position of a lost world, and a false reality.  It is an empire with no clothes.

Tupac Enrique Acosta
chantlaca@tonatierra.org
TONATIERRA
www.tonatierra.org





TLAZOLLI is the sacred weaving of elements, our tie to Tonantzin - Our Sacred Mother Earth - that connects Heaven:Earth like an umbilical cord weaving sacred realities known as: Mexico.  It is what the religions of the world call love and the scientists call gravity. 

************** 
The following is a transcription of the intervention submitted to the United States Government representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland in 1987. It is being offered here as an initiative of the Archives of Aztlan.

In Geneva in 1987, we met with traditional leaders from the Indigenous Peoples of South Africa, chieftains of the Zulu who were living in exile in Switzerland due to their trade union activism. We discussed the points that we were bringing forward and compared our histories and knowledge. Upon reading our position paper which called for the reopening of the question of integration of the territories within the bounds of the US control in light of the current international instruments and protocols for decolonization, these leaders immediately drafted a parallel document that exposed as identical the legal tactics of the British-Boer regimes to those of the British-American techniques of colonization.

 Archives of Aztlan: Tlahtokan Izkalotl




YouTube:

stars

Monday, August 19, 2013

Tlahcuepayoliztli: La Palabra de La Autoridad Tradicional de Santa Maria Ocotan, Durango

Encuentro Internacional de Pueblos O'dam
Durango, Mexico
15-17 agosto 2013
Sonora - Chihuahua - Durango - Arizona

 Radiodifusora
"Las Tres Voces de Durango"
YouTube:

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Ilhuicatonatahtli

Don Julio Martinez Enrique
Cualli
Ilhuicatonatahtli




Father of Suns

Mixcoatl

Is known as the Father of the Suns.

One

Of these it was foretold

Would fall

To earth and become the Star-Seed of the Xochimeh,

Whose star serpent clouds of light-flowering-song

Furthest fastest flying

Arrow Feathers:

Cada movimiento una reflexión, una memoria

De su destino Azteca y

La leyenda de

Quetzalcoatl.



He is known

As ever dreaming and

Ever wakeful, his

Arms spiraling to embrace

Ilhuicayolotl - Heart of the Sky,

Tlalyolotl – Corazon de la Tierra.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

The Doag O'otham of Durango, Mexico

By Tupac Enrique Acosta
April 27, 2103




She had travelled over a thousand miles and bridged a thousand years of history, but when Vicky Flores Flores arrived at ASU West last week to participate in the DISMANTLING the Doctrine of Discovery International Conference, she was returning for the third time to visit her relatives among the O’otham Nations.  She came from the traditional O’dam Community of Santa Maria Ocotan in the State of Durango, Mexico which lies along the Eastern flank of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range in the heart of Mexico.  Her people, also known as the Tepehuano, consist of some 26,000 O’dam peoples distributed in 2 municipalities and 6 communities that cover one of the largest land bases of Indigenous Peoples south of the US-Mexico border.  A majority of the O’dam of Durango are still fluent in the language.  Santa Maria Ocotan lies at about 9,000 feet elevation among the mountain pine forests of the Sierra Madre Occidental.

 
Map by Tupak Huehuecoyotl


I first met Vicky in Mexico City at a continental Indigenous Summit in 2010, where I was doing media work, recording interviews of the different delegates from across the hemisphere that were attending.  When I asked her for an interview she graciously agreed and it became very clear to me very quickly that this was a special opportunity.  In beginning the interview when I asked Vicky to introduce herself, she stated she was “O’dam”.  We were conversing in Spanish but I then told her that I lived in Arizona which was the homeland of the O’otham nations, and shared a few O’odham words that I had picked up from talking with Shannon Rivers of the Gila River Akimel O’otham.  The rest is not only history, but perhaps at the end of the day her travels to the O’otham Jeved here in the north may become the fulfillment of prophecy.



It was in 1990, in Quito Ecuador that the First Continental
Encounter of Indigenous Nations, Pueblos, and Organizations convened for the first time after nearly 500 years of colonization and genocide.  We gathered in Quito over twenty years ago to reaffirm our self-determination as Nations and Pueblos of Indigenous Peoples of the continent, and made commitments to each other as survivors of the greatest holocaust ever committed upon humanity to organize ourselves together under the principles of the Continental Confederation of the Eagle and the Condor.   According to traditional histories, this ancient continental confederacy was the original United Nations of the hemisphere, and extended from pole to pole and coast to coast across our entire continent of Abya Yala [the Americas].  The Eagle represents the symbol of the Indigenous Nations of the North and the power of “Sees Far”, while the Condor represents the Indigenous Nations of the South and the power of “Sees Within.”



At that gathering in 1990 in Quito, it was revealed that along with the tradition and memory of the Eagle and the Condor came a legend of the Prophecy of the Reuniting of the Eagle and Condor in a process of healing from the violence and trauma of centuries of colonization.



The two-day international conference on DISMANTLING the Doctrine of Discovery held at ASU West last week was a continuation of that decolonizing work, and also a fulfillment of those obligations made twenty-two years ago, but the story goes back of course even further.  



TONATIERRA of the Izkaloteca, Maya Vision of the Maya Nations, and the Techantit Cultural Center of the Nahuat Pipil Nations were the conveners of this international conference.  Among these three organizations, within our shared cultural mandates and instructions, in spite of the centuries of oppression, suppression, and repression, there continues till today the interdependence and foundation in daily practice of our ancient calendar systems and teachings of the milpa, our ways of life as People of the Corn Mother.  When we look forward from this perspective, and with these teachings, it is a vision of the past seen from the future that we become.



And so when Vicky Flores Flores arrived at Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix on Friday April 19th after having to sleep overnight in the airport in Mexico City because of a mix up in the connecting flight, she was just in time to make it to the afternoon session of the DISMANTLING conference and give the closing remarks at the end of the first day.   She spoke in her O’dam language, and as had occurred during each of her other prior visits to Arizona, the O’otham relatives could understand her message. 



The event convened a broad representation of academics and Indigenous leaders from across the hemisphere who presented on the historical process of the imposition of the Doctrine of Discovery over the past five centuries, within the present context of Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery as called for by the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues during the 11th Session of May 7-18, 2012 in New York.  Two recommendations from this session of the UNPFII served as objectives for implementation for the DISMANTLING the Doctrine of Discovery International Conference (DDD):



4.            The Permanent Forum recalls the fourth preambular paragraph of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirms that all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust. Legal and political justification for the dispossession of indigenous peoples from their lands, their disenfranchisement and the abrogation of their rights such as the doctrine of discovery, the doctrine of domination, “conquest”, “discovery”, terra nullius or the Regalian doctrine were adopted by colonizers throughout the world.  While these nefarious doctrines were promoted as the authority for the acquisition of the lands and territories of indigenous peoples, there were broader assumptions implicit in the doctrines, which became the basis for the assertion of authority and control over the lives of indigenous peoples and their lands, territories and resources. Indigenous peoples were constructed as “savages”, “barbarians”, “backward” and “inferior and uncivilized” by the colonizers who used such constructs to subjugate, dominate and exploit indigenous peoples and their lands, territories and resources.  The Permanent Forum calls upon States to repudiate such doctrines as the basis for denying indigenous peoples’ human rights.



9.            The Permanent Forum recommends that States include in all education curricula, in particular the school system, a discussion of the doctrine of discovery/dispossession and its contemporary manifestations, including land laws and policies of removal.



In bringing these issues forward towards implementation, nearly one hundred high school students including members of the Native American Educational Program of the Phoenix Union High School District attended the conference.  Chief Jake Edwards of the Onondaga Nation, members of the Haudensaunee - People of the Longhouse also known as the Iroquois Confederacy shared the message of Great Law of Peace with all conference attendees, which also included many non-indigenous folks.  Chief Edwards presented on the history of the confederacy, and its establishment over a thousand years ago as the oldest democracy in the continent.  He also shared the story and meaning of the Haudenosaunee Wampum Belts which document the principles of mutual respect and self-determination that must prevail between the Indigenous Nations and the non-indigenous societies of the settler states of the Americas.

Onondaga Nation Chief Jake Edwards
Also attending the conference were delegations of Nations and Pueblos of Indigenous Peoples from the entire hemisphere, from the Lenape of the North [Canada] to the Mapuche Nation of the South [Chile].  Representatives of the Maya of Totonicapan [Guatemala] and the Nahuat Pipil [El Salvador] , the Arhuaco and Embera [Colombia] joined with Indigenous Nations of the O’otham [Arizona] and the O’dam of Mexico [Durango] and the Havasupai to receive the Continental Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Abya Yala intent on regenerating the historical and political vision of responsibility and traditional alliance that has sustained the collective cultural identity and nationhood of Indigenous Peoples for millennia. 



Sharing at Gila River Rez
Before returning back to Mexico, Vicky Flores Flores visited among the O’otham Nations relatives of Salt River and Gila River communities sharing language, food and the spirit of the O’otham-O’dam Himdag, for which there is no border on the land or in time which cannot be overcome with patience, hard work, and a lot of love.



Epilogue



This story is to be continued, as Vicky Flores Flores has extended and invitation to receive a delegation of the O’tham to visit her home community in Durango, Mexico. Plans are still in the making, but she suggested that the best opportunity falls in Mid- May when the O’dam ceremonies are in full swing.  Keep posted.



Tupac Enrique Acosta, Yaotachcauh

Tlahtokan Nahuacalli

TONATIERRA

Link: 
Gathering the Relatives at Salt River Rez


Photos of Santa Maria Ocotan, Durango Mexico





Embassy of Indigenous Peoples
A
PROJECT
 *******
Livestream Video Link:
DISMANTLING
The Doctrine of Discovery 

**************
March 23, 2012

Virginia Flores Flores at the Arizona State Capitol House of Representatives
Message to the O'otham Nations


Sunday, April 14, 2013

The Age of Abya Yala

In icuitlacuah oquipantiac in tlapetlanilli.

Le pego el relámpago en la
cuitlacuaitl, en la pura nuca, but by that time it was too late.


They had already begun to laugh out loud, and that beginning was the very first wispy whisper of the roaring wind of their resistance, which came to be later documented in the Archives of Áztlan under the chapter known as the Atecocoli, a chapter which had neither beginning nor ending but kept on growing in remembrance and aspirations as the tale tellers grew, yes, grew older as the elders.

It was too late to expect for federal recognition from the United States government as “Native Americans” and being exactly 160 years after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), the government of the Republic of the United Mexican States would never flinch now to explain why or how as a political sovereignty recognized within the United Nations system, how could they (as States) transfer territorial integrity to the government in Washington, DC over lands, rivers, mountains, caves, glaciers, and entire ecosystems that they never even knew the name of, except only as shadow provinces of a New Spain that never made it past Geronimo into the New World, tracing projections of the way points of Americo Vespucci, Adams, and Onis.

“Sabes what?”  He said, not questioned but said as only a truly close relative might, could and did say: “Sabes what?”  He began asking out loud to the other ones, who there were not that many (they were not the masses, but only the surviving veteranos of the Movimiento Chicano), as a matter of fact at times there were only a few, or two, or an even one.


It was the multitude in miniature.

“Do you realize we live in the age of Abya Yala?”


He said it out loud but the question part of it went inward to return again four decades later (Gregorian) understanding that it was not resistance but fulfillment that created the high and low pressure zones, states of correlating social sciences trying to account for the lack of human relationship as human beings (what else?) across the territory of the lands of Abya Yala. [AKA: the Americas].

“We are no longer in America.” It was a declaration of voluntary departure. “We no longer live in America, this is now the age of Abya Yala”, and it was a statement of celebration in the powerful hushed tone of reverence and just simple luck to have lived long enough to sense it, see it, and realize that they had become the veteranos of the movement in spite of it all and because of it all.  Because of it all, La Causa had called and they had not resisted but fulfilled its mandate to go where all men and all women had gone before, those who had the good sense to go before and become the ancestors of those of us now going to find out just how they did it, how did they fulfill their love for life and humanity, and so they said it again repeating:

“Let us say with absolutely no risk of sounding ridiculous that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”

It sounded good but in actuality the preference was for: 

“Prefiero morir de risa que vivir sufriendo.” 

And so it began, once, again.  Beginning with an echo, the laughter came out with that wispy nostalgia, whispering the question loudly in clear free flight, and with night sky of the desert wind for a trail:  “Where have you been?” 

I was trying to remember.  Already I was trying to remember what it was like to live in America before the Age of Abya Yala.





Chapter 1. Cemhueytlalpan - Pangaea



******************************************************************************http://aulex.org/nah-es/?busca=continente&idioma=en
hueytlalpan:  continente m  continent

ixachitecatl: indígena americano, nativo americano, amerindio, gente autoctona que habita en las tierras de todo el continenteamericano, desde Alaska y Groelandia, hasta la Patagonia chileno-argentina.
Indigenous person of Ixachitlan, Abya Yala [the Americas], (native american), amerindian, auctocotonous peoples who live in the lands of the entire continent Abya Yala [the Americas], from Alaska and Greenland to Patagonia of Chile and Argentinia. 

Ixachitlan: América (Lugar de la gran tierra), así nombraban los aztecas al continente americano antes de la llegada de los españoles.
Abya Yala [America] (Place of the great land), thus was named by the Azteca the continent before the arrival of the Spaniards.

http://aulex.org/nah-es/?busca=grande 

ixachi: bastante, suficiente, grande, gran, mucho
full, sufficient, great, much, 



*************
Anahuac, Cemanahuac
Hueytlalpan, Cemhueytlalpan


Gaea |ˈjēə|
variant spelling of Gaia (sense 1). Gaia |ˈgīə| |ˈgaɪə| |ˈgʌɪə|

1 (also Gaea, Ge) Greek Mythology the Earth personified as a goddess, daughter of Chaos. She was the mother and wife of Uranus (Heaven); their offspring included the Titans and the Cyclopes. [ORIGIN: Greek, 'Earth.' ]

2 the earth viewed as a vast self-regulating organism. [ORIGIN: 1970s: coined by James Lovelock, at the suggestion of the writer William Golding, from the name of the goddess Gaia.]

DERIVATIVES

Gaian |ˈgaɪən| noun & adjective

******** 
pan-combining form

all-inclusive, esp. in relation to the whole of a continent, racial group, religion, etc. : pan-African | pansexual.
ORIGIN from Greek pan, neuter of pas 'all.'-

There are 5 results for «relampago»


tlahuetequi: rayo m, relámpago m
tlapetlalli: relámpago m
tlapetlanalotl: relámpago m
tlatomitl: rayo m, descarga eléctrica f, relámpago m
tletletl: rayo m, relámpago m

******************** 

 
Framework of Dominance: UN Preliminary Study on the Doctrine of Discovery
 

This preliminary study establishes that the Doctrine of Discovery has been institutionalized in law and policy, on national and international levels, and lies at the root of the violations of indigenous peoples’ human rights, both individual and collective. This has resulted in State claims to and the mass appropriation of the lands, territories and resources of indigenous peoples. Both the Doctrine of Discovery and a holistic structure that we term the Framework of Dominance have resulted in centuries of virtually unlimited resource extraction from the traditional territories of indigenous peoples. This, in turn, has resulted in the dispossession and impoverishment of indigenous peoples, and the host of problems that they face today on a daily basis.


 


Thursday, April 4, 2013

5 de Mayo




 




According to the traditional ancestral teachings of the Nican Tlacah, the Indigenous Peoples of the Nahuatl Nations, all of humanity shares equally in the warmth of Father Sun, and the sacred sustenance from Mother Earth.  Besides being a scientific formula written in cultural terms,TONATIERRA, this relationship serves as TEOXICALLI: a nest of consciousness and context for the full development of our collective human awareness and cognition one which allows for the emergence of understanding, respect, harmony, and peace, CENYELIZTLI.



Living with Wellness
Sumak Kawsay

TOCUALNEMILIZ


At the horizon of a new day, a New Sun, the Izalotekah bring these traditional teachings forward upon the celebration of 5 de Mayo. More than just a historical commemoration of the Battle of Puebla, Mexico in 1862 the indigenous ceremonies related to 5 de Mayo have an ancient astronomical significance. It is during these days celebrated annually by the Indigenous Nations of Mexico, that a certain constellation of stars gains prominence over the southern horizon in Anahuac for the first time since winter: the CHACANA: the Southern Cross, also known as the constellation of the Confederation of the Condor, Tawantinsuyo.



La Chacana

Chakana Cross
 
TENAMAZTLE OF THE COSMOS
Three Steps
Emergence – Presence - Return

The three steps represent levels of attainment of consciousness in the three 'worlds' or tiers:
 * Hanan Pacha: the upper world of the stars, celestial beings and gods (also represented by the condor)
 * Kay Pacha: the middle world of Mother Earth and human life (also represented by the puma)
* Uqhu Pacha: the lower world of the underworld and death (also represented by the snake)

Central hole
The central hole represents the Incan capital of Cusco, the portal from one tier to the next, and the Eye of God.

Twelve points
The entire symbol additionally represents the cyclical year, with each of the twelve corners corresponding to a month.

Four arms
The four 'cross' arms represent:

    * the four directions of the compass,
    * the four 'classical elements' of earth, air, water and fire,
    * the four main stars of the Southern Cross, an important constellation for the Inca, who believed that was the centre of the Universe.
Star Turtle's Island
As members of the Indigenous Nations of the Continental Confederacy of the Eagle and the Condor, El 5 de Mayo is thus also a commemoration of the ancient Treaty between the North and the South which mutually binds us to this day as Nations of the Indigenous Peoples of this continent Abya Yala and the world.

On August the 12th  1521, the traditional council of the Confederation of Anahuak issued a mandate for the future generations from the center of Mexico, in Tenochtitlan.  Nearly five hundred years later, the traditional circle of families of Izkalotlan
continue to perpetuate this powerful call to destiny and harmony for all humanity, known as the Nahuatilamatl
 

 


logo final.jpg


The Zacapoaxtla Battalion

and the Battle of 5 de Mayo, 1862

 




Originating from settlements of the Indigenous Nations of the Nahuas, Chichimecas and Toltecas, the region known as Zacapoaxtla is recognized for providing the majority of fighters at the Battle of 5 de Mayo in 1862. These some 4,000 Indigenous Peoples faced the bayonets and rifles of the 8,000 man French Army armed only with only machetes and valor.  They emerged victorious, and left the legacy of one of the most significant military victories by the Indigenous Peoples of the continent against those who would subjugate us to colonization.

The French were arrogant and Eurocentric in their thinking, and were eventually deported back to Europe.  Today we face the same battle, and must recall the same courage as in 1862.  But today our weapons are not instruments of destruction and death.  Today we are called to battle not in a military campaign, but against the doctrines of cultural supremacy, racism and fear that would deny the reality of our common humanity that we share with each and all.


Today our weapons are our Principles: Respect, Dignity, Cultural Self Determination and EDUCATION, as we advance in the
Battle against Ignorance, the Battle of 5 de Mayo!

!La Batalla de 5 de Mayo es todos los Dias!
It's not about what we want, it's what we WILL!



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Chacana Izkalotecah


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