The arrival of Columbus and the rest of Europe brought a perception of reality that is alien to the original peoples of this land. The perception of the European was a religious perception based upon authority, greed and brutality. The Native perception of reality was a spiritual perception based upon spirit, respect, responsibility and balance. Since the European arrival, there has been a European war of perception waged against the Native peoples’ perception. This war started with their arrival and has never wavered. In our generation, this war manifested itself to us through broken treaty laws, racism, land theft and poverty. Our generation responded the best that we could. This response took the form of cultural re-identification and cultural movements. When that happened, the 7th Calvary was replaced by the FBI.
The linkage I see between Annie Mae and Ingrid is that both women were murdered by ruthless men. These men had a distorted commitment to the goals, objectives and realities of their movements. Somewhere in the course of time, our movements lost their direction. This may have happened because what started out as cultural movements for the rights and defense of the people were manipulated to [the] point of distortion, frustration and lost causes by our enemy–the state. This manipulation took what was a cultural movement in the U.S. and turned a cultural movement into a political movement with all the aggression that comes along with political movements.
These cultural movements turned into political movements, and in that turning acquired the competitiveness, ideological territorialness, fragmentation and egotistical entities all of which are traits of the enemy that these cultural movements opposed in the beginning. The mind sets, behaviors and perceptions of the individuals involved become altered by this. This altering evolved into an incoherency and lack of clarity that unknowingly resulted in the betrayal of trust. respect, and culture.
What happened to Annie Mae and Ingrid is tragic, made horrific by the fact and act of murder committed by those claiming to be our own. In the case of Annie Mae, the people representing the movement that were involved in her murder did so at the instigation and manipulation of the FBI. This makes no excuse for their participation. The fact remains they were used in the role of assassins for the FBI. Now we find ourselves in a very peculiar situation where the movement people who were involved in her killing have put themselves in the position of protecting the FBI and its operatives in order to protect themselves. This was the FBI’s intention all along.
Annie Mae and Ingrid exemplified the heart, strength, spirit and coherency of our cultural movement. It is important that in our recognition of Annie Mae and Ingrid we do more than recognize, we exemplify who they are, to carry on our culture every day. It is important that the truth be seen and heard regarding the murders of Annie Mae and Ingrid. Wherever these truths may lead, there is a lesson to be learned. And this lesson has something to do with the soul of our movements and the spirit of our culture. It has to do with the integrity of our future, the clarity of our coming generations and the well being of our people. We need to know what happened so we can learn from it. ~