Members of the nine congregations on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation that were closed by the Diocese of South Dakota voted March 14 to create the Lakota Oyate Episcopalian Church, elected officers, wrote bylaws and approved a resolution that it will submit to the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Land Committee on March 23. A report this week in the Rapid City Journal said the resolution asks for ownership rights to any of those church properties that the tribe receives from the diocese.
“Other than by media reports, we are not informed of the most recent developments,” Steven W. Sanford, diocesan chancellor, told The Living Church. “The diocese has no intent or interest in any disposition except that which best promotes local control. We have had productive discussions with the Oglala Tribal Land Office and hope that we can accomplish agreed transfer to the tribe or other local interests in the near future, assuming the litigation in tribal court can be resolved. We also expect to make adequate arrangements for preservation of any cemetery associated with a closed location.”
Ah, the wonderful missionary ministries of TEC. If these mission parishes were granted 1/100th of the monies spent in litigation, they would be able to be maintained.
Prayers rising for these Episcopalians who have been abandoned by their diocese.
Aren’t the Oglala the folks who got Custer?
[i]assuming the litigation in tribal court can be resolved[/i]
I thought TEc was supposed to be all for minority rights, for inclusiveness, yet here they are suing the “Indians” in tribal court? What hypocrisy!
libraryjim: You are mistaken. TEC did not sue the Indians (and why “Indians” in quotation marks? Do you not believe they bona fide indigenous people?). The tribes sued their diocese in Tribal Court in 2008 in an attempt to block the closing of their churches. The “litigation in tribal court” reference is about that internal, tribal court litigation and doesn’t involve TEC as a defendant at all. Before you “draw, shoot, aim” maybe you should read the article in its entirety first.
Thanks for clearing that up.
by the way:
The quotation marks to avoid the appearance of any potential PC awareness violations. I have met Lakota peoples when I was up in Wyoming and South Dakota a few years ago. The prejudice against them by certain segments of the white population (thankfully, not everyone!) was very unsettling. It was what I imagine the treatment of blacks must have been like in the 50’s.
Just for the record, in recent years the Native American Councils made it clear that “Indian” was an acceptable word for the collective tribes that made up the “First Peoples” of North America.
Whether they WERE the first peoples of North America is being questioned as well, as archeologists think that there may have been older groups of people here that were driven out or killed off by the arrival of the new settlers coming either across the Bering Straight Land Bridge or perhaps sailing in from the Pacific Rim areas.
But that’s another topic.
#6, libraryjim, Thanks for the comments regarding the “first tribes” moving into North America. Having read some literature dealing with ancient North Merican tribal movements I was lead to believe there were more “first American” tribal movements into our country than the present tribes now residing; some of which date back for ~10,000 years or more. What’s even more interesting is the discovery of many movements across the Bering Sea landbridge filtering down into many areas we now call South America.
I would prefer the term [i]American aborigines[/i] which is how the rest of the world refers to “Indians” or “Native Americans” or “First people”. But it is not my call so back on topic…
What is interesting about the new church organization is that it has an Episcopalian priest and a CANA priest and they are cooperating. Egads! Ms Schori, the new sheriff in town, ain’t gonna like that at all. She’ll have to rustle up a posse to ride those Nigerians out of town.
Maybe we could just call them the ‘Pre-Colombian Inhabitants’? I’m not sure Aboriginal is any more accurate than “First Peoples”. But as you say, it is not our call.
A representative of the Cherokee Nation puts it thusly:
[blockquote][b]What is the correct terminology: American Indian, Indian, Native American, or Native?[/b]
All of the above terms are acceptable. The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name. Native people in the Western Hemisphere are best understood as belonging to thousands of distinct communities and cultures. Many Native communities have distinct languages, religious beliefs, ceremonies, and social and political systems. The inclusive word Indian (a name given by Christopher Columbus, mistakenly believing he had sailed to India, a term used by the Spanish to refer to much of southern Asia) says little about the diversity and independence of the cultures.
In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or indigenous American are now preferred by many Native people. Native American, however, grew out of 1960s and 1970s political movements and is now used in legislation. Legally, it refers not only to the indigenous people of the lower forty-eight states but also to Native people in U.S. territories. As an adjective, many people now prefer to use simply Native or Indian.
Canadians, too, have addressed the question of names—many Native Canadians, especially Métis (people of indigenous and French descent) and Inuit people, reject the appellation Indian. Similarly, the Inuit, Yup’ik, and Aleut peoples in Alaska see themselves as separate from Indians. Canadians have developed a range of terms, including aboriginal, First Nations, and First Peoples.
In Central and South America the direct translation for Indian has negative connotations. As a result, Spanish speakers use the word indÃgenas.
—Mary Ahenakew (Cherokee)
[url=http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=shop&second=books&third=DoAllIndiansLiveInTipis]National Museum of the American Indian[/url][/blockquote]