Category Archives: Native American

The Greatest Democracy on Earth (lol)

13 Thursday Apr 2023

Posted by in Anti-Political, Humor, Humorous, Native, Native America, Native American, Poetic Blog, Political, Political Satire, Politics, Spiritual, United states, USA

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USA5

-by Bill Watkins
(he, she, it, Christian, liberal democrat, unregistered ex-patriot conservative white liberal)

***

Congratulations.  I assume if you are reading this piece, you are:

a. literate
b. intelligent
c. humor-curious, at least
d. alive.

E., you might be confused about your nationality, and I aim to help you with that.  Your sexuality and identity politics are yours, so there, and stop putting it in my face please.  I’m not angry, just enraged as a displaced European land thief, thousands of miles from my roots and hundreds of years since the great theft that gave us the United States of America.

Pause.  Consider the glory in creating a perfect people-rule democracy after removing the first people of this land!  Brilliant sleights of hand gave us white Euros a sound footing to tell our old world monarchs to buzz off, while with the other side of our mouths we taught the bible to the heathen, earth-loving naturals.  We scared them next with our guns, then threw money around until we claimed ownership of this land, carving our likeness into the natives’ spiritual mountains and worshipping our concrete, asphalt and steel creations.

Pause.  Consider us some more!  People-rule!!  Never mind the earthquake, hurricane, wildfire or tornado, we are certainly in charge!  We bow to nothing because we are white and use gun powder to explode things and kill people better than any living organisms in the history of this world!  Never mind those guns are now turning on ourselves, civilization itself proving that the “homeless” dude living in a tent may have the right idea.

There were many nations here before guns created the United States of America.  Without those guns, we might be a collection of native and migrant nations peaceably trading and honoring mother earth, what a bore!  There might be no roads, cars, mass burning of earth blood, litter and pollution.  There’d be less noise and no mass shootings, but what would happen to the wonderful, perfect people-rule democracy those brilliant ex-patriot British established on land formerly inhabited by earth-adoring savages?

Geocracy?  Earth-rule?  Insane!  Mutual respect of different nations, races, cultures and creeds?  Ridiculous!  Consensus between all people instead of alienating elections filled with winners, losers, majorities and minorities?  It couldn’t be!  Nothing could be better than democracy except the truth itself, which knows of a Power, is humble to it—enough so to refrain from the self-worship of Eurocentric auto-erotic secular religio-politics.

Guns Are for Cowards

24 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in Guns, Native, Native America, Native American, Peace, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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The native bow and arrow, quiet
and flowing with nature not good
enough to the conquering European
with our war sickness, our gun
powder blowing up targets loudly
and cowardly from distance.

Like splitting the atom, some think
it’s good while others see a diabolical
power unleashed, the Asian invention
and European application satisfied
the war addict, put humans above
nature and God.

Bombs, guns, fireworks—do they please
the Creator?  The birds?  The beasts of
the wilderness?  In battle, do guns
show someone’s courage and honor?
Or… do guns show cowardice, a warrior’s
unwillingness to face his enemy?

From the fields of the native Great Spirit
let us dive into the bible, the other
weapon England and Spain used to
conquer America.  What would Jesus
say to guns?  What does the bible say
about killing?

It’s so easy to hate your enemy, try to
kill them or scare them with something
like guns.  Anyone can hate someone
they do not like, but what strong heart
and soul can love their enemy as a brother,
see them walk on and come from the same

Earth?  From the same great Mother, all
humans human with the same needs,
hopes, fears, doubts… Faith?  Where is
yours, in a loud weapon that creates
fear and noise?  Mine is in love and Peace,
In the rainbow after the rain, in

the great but worthwhile struggle to
love those who persecute you, to see
them as fellow children in this merry-go-
round called Life

Thanksgiving Lie

28 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Land Theft, Native, Native America, Native American, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Thanksgiving Lie

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Thanksgiving Lie -- Native1

There was partnership with
native tribes to be sure, after
we had squatted on their land.

There were allies, in-fighting,
out-fighting, and all the normal
chaos that comes with coveting.

Competition with Spain and others
so fierce, the sickness of conquest;
Viking and Roman member measuring.

We came, we saw, we coveted,
we indeed stole—first erecting
a Fort in Paspahegh land without…

communication nor permission.
White, Christian and armed seemed
enough to the sick and damaged

English, attacked and vulnerable
at all sides of its island at home.
“Attack first, hit hard and win”

Now plagued America, the coast
a notch on the belt of a warring
people, who knew no other way.

June of 1676 was a time of party
for the English settlers, who in
writing set down Thanksgiving—

A prayer of thanks to God almighty
for victory over Native Americans
in war for their land: “It certainly

bespeaks our positive Thankfulness,
when our Enemies are in any measure
disappointed or destroyed…”

…went the document, “Thanks for
killing the native people, Lord, so
we can inhabit their lands in peace.”

Have a nice turkey, if you think the
feast a proper one.  Not me, I’ll spend
the day as much as possible making

amends for stealing land.

Wingandacoa

09 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by in Native, Native America, Native American, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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Wingandacoa1

There was a name for a place.
It was named how it was named
for a reason, thousands of years
of tradition, story, repetition and
heritage made that place special,
its people living, dying, circling
the earth in spirit and land—

Gratitude for the water, the food,
the abundance and song.

Then came the British white man,
who was vain and violent enough
to change the name of the place
at a glance because its inhabitants
were not Christian, bible-toting or
“advanced” enough in war (cowards)
to carry and use loud, destructive
firearms—

the kind that still kill in malls,
churches, streets and schools today.

The British white man called this
land “Virginia,” after their virgin
queen Elizabeth.

Vanity.  Violence.  Usurpation…

To first usurp the Bible and Christ
for violent land acquisition.

Then to usurp the land itself…

Wingandacoa lives and breathes;
is the place I cherish and maintain
in my heart one of abundance,
native beauty and tradition.

No Roman-influenced conquest by
a people bedeviled by war and
violent competition with other
European nations can change
the essence of a place, unless
one yields to untruth.

I do not and call the land
where John Smith landed:

Wingandacoa.

Land Theft Invalidates USA

30 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by in History, Native, Native American, Poetic Blog, Politics, USA

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Native People Mapping1

by Bill Watkins 9/5//2019

Men will not think that robbers and pirates have a right of empire over whomsoever they have force enough to master, or that men are bound by promises which unlawful force extorts from them.  —John Locke

Land theft is no basis for a valid government.  Someone could appeal to violence and war, rationalize the European conquest of the Americas, but underneath the movement and close to the soil of this land is the truth that crimes against humanity established the thirteen colonies, who rebelled against England to assert themselves as the United States of America, while America’s original inhabitants were to be killed off, subdued, moved and forgotten.  A criminal for-profit enterprise, leaving us with usurped land, its native inhabitants pushed into small reservations—a miniscule percentage of their natural inheritance—people who never gave consent to be governed by Europeans, and never should.

When Queen Elizabeth chartered Sir Walter Raleigh’s exploration of the American eastern coast in 1584, she granted him license “to discover, search, finde out, and view such remote, heathen and barbarous lands, countries and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian Prince.”  The first “Virginia Charter” backed up that thought, as King James urged English adventurers to “bring the infidels and salvages living in those parts to humane civilitie and to a setled and quiet govermente.”  Professed Christianity would help the English usurp the land called Wingandacoa by the natives, James ordering his sailors to propagate the “Christian religion to suche people as yet live in darkeness and miserable ignorance of the true knoweledge and worshippe of God.”

Having studied native American culture diligently for a few years, sober for twenty years, sensitive and aware, hungry for truth, it is clearer to me every day that it was the alcohol-consuming, cursing, armor and gun-loving Europeans—not the natives—who lived in darkness and miserable ignorance of the truth that the Earth was to be honored, respected and preserved. That guns, explosions, killing and noise were not strength but weakness.  And strength?  Witness a piece of it in the eloquence of a great native chief:

From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things—the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals—and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man.  Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery.  

Chief Luther Standing Bear1

Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Lakota Sioux

Like the English, the Spanish were guilty of land theft, starting with Columbus’ 1492 raid, leading to a threatening letter from King Ferdinand to the Taino-Arawak people of the West Indies.  In the letter, King Ferdinand informs the native people that the Pope is the ruler of the world, the bible’s God is the ruler of the universe, and that Spain shall be the ruler of all non-Christian lands they discover.  Should any of the native tribes resist, the Spanish would declare “war upon you from all sides and with all possible means, and we shall bind you to the yoke of the Church and of Their Highnesses.”  Further that “we shall enslave your persons, wives and sons, sell you or dispose of you as the King sees fit; we shall seize your possessions and harm you as much as we can as disobedient and resisting vassals.”

And so these supposed Christian people stole land, people who touted a bible that forbade stealing.  We erected laws and a Constitution that also forbade stealing, even though the privilege to write laws and hold land here was obtained through armed theft. Usurpation and theft can never be a valid basis for government, something John Locke proposed and I hereby second today.

…the aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war with another, and unjustly invades another man’s right, can, by such an unjust war, never come to have a right over the conquered…

Yes, Sir John, you speak the truth.  So should all of us, so should all of us!

Wilson Lake

12 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by in California History, History, Native, Native America, Native American, Nature, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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San Marino used to have a lake.

(The San Marino in Southern
California, not the tiny country
in Europe.)

San Marino used to have a lake
until the settlers came, made
a claim, had ideas and acted
before asking what the land could
actually take.

Soon a guy named Wilson “bought”
God’s land, called it his, used all
that water to farm aggressively—
crops not always indigenous or
natural, or free.

“The lake had dried up into a swampy
morass due to excessive water usage
by local settlers”

an article reads.  So, then,

They brought the dirt down and filled
in the lake.

I have no judgments to make,
nothing biting or sharp, just
the observation that mistakes
mostly happen at high pace,
on the way to claim a lake—

or even on the way to the bank.

When we fail to ask before
we take—

The mass of swirl that is “Karmic
Gate,” opens up to teach us,

sometimes a hard lesson that will
be remembered and never again
re-made.

Every choice has a consequence,
every single one—

so maybe it’s not the first thought
that should win, but a third
thought fought for, prayed
for, asked for and won.

Concrete River

11 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by in Los Angeles, Native, Native America, Native American, Nature, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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We fail to see what the Indian saw;
goalposts moved, the feeling is raw.

God gave all peoples land, but fate
brought white Euros away from theirs,

Hope was in the “New World,” except
that for its old inhabitants, a grave

challenge emerged from the golden
ships on the Eastern horizon, the

Atlantic bringing bibles, armor, guns,
horses and a love for gold not seen

by the decorated native soldier, the
adorned native explorer—who roamed

a wild land with ease, the world a
welcome mat to sleep upon, gather

and hunt.  A river was sacred, a waterfall
the same; trees, even rocks worshipped

as gifts from the Great Spirit.  Instead
of human art, a reveling of God’s art

was the native way; instead of a written
history or spirituality, there was one

passed down with poignant, well-placed
words and teachings, songs and music,

Ones about the “L.A. River” before it
was called that I’m sure existed.

It would be full and running wild at
times, dry and trickling at others,

through trees, brush and local wildlife—
including bands of Indian tribes,
grateful for the flow.

Civilization is a double-edged mess.
I think I like it.  I hate it.  I’m sad
about it, but sure like the plumbing!

***

What of the river?

Concreted over now, we took away
its beauty.

A crime by any view, there is no
possible way to support killing
it and doing God’s will, we stopped

the wild flow, the thrill.

We placed our destructive flag on
its top, moved wildlife off their spot,

Came with horses, buggies, then
cars and our own urinated rain,

the plumbing’s good, but we are
not—

God’s Earth is full of things still
pristine, and those like the L.A.
River—

That dies every day civilization soars,
roars and choppers rot.

I dream of a day when time
forgot.

Looking for Native America

22 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in Native, Native America, Native American, Poem, Poems, Poetry

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It’s a long journey from Wales
to here;

400-plus years of wandering
makes one wonder what they feared.

We left our fathers’ graves behind,
Welshmen and women ground into
the winter soil, Celtic calls for
adventure, armored up and ready
to go, sir!

Captain John Smith is noble enough,
we can handle this sea, this new
land, the savage race—look at us!!!

We’ll make the Crown proud, become
stars, make names for ourselves,
but only if this colony comes off okay.

We’re British and militaristic; we see
these brown-skinned people, compare
and contrast, seek advantages, a way
to squat and succeed.

“Success is a peace of mind, knowing
you did the best you could to be the
best you were capable of becoming.”

Best Christians, John?

Best warriors?

Best Explorers?  Businessmen?  Reps
of the Crown?

People.  The best People we could be
requires more looking back than forward
if the looking causes you to cringe with
regret and shame.

Go back, see the poverty of the native
tribe, the reservations in shackles
of bison’s spoiled hide.

Hunted and sold, looking for gold—

Not realizing the real value was in
the wisdom of the land, expressed through
its proud care-takers.

There are many differences from nation
to nation today, and as much or more
between the native nations then and
now as the Great Spirit

hides under Western medicine, civilization
and money.

Stop taking it.  Fight for your land, still,
Native America, seek out the documents,
the treaties, the promises made, take
them to court, and win.

Hire attorneys and win.  Reclaim and rise,
never give up the spirit to try, we are
a part of the land, it is God’s

and is our pride.

They break the rocks for concrete, burn
the blood for rocket fuel, we pray for
the lost Europeans, that they find
their way back home.

Matoax

30 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in Native, Native American, Poem, Poems, Poetry

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american-2029937_1280

Never in vain.

God keep me whole and pure
as I try to explain.

Words fail to describe the oneness
with falls, rocks, streams, and nature—
a people at one, praising in song,
movement and dance.

The hug with your land complete
on a shore invaded by armor.

British with Bible were a different
thing; in 1607, written on a Roman
guide, people came and Oneness died.

But not before a native princess kept
my people alive.

She came, first to save a captain,
then she visited us when in the Winter
of our wanderings we had run out
of warmth, food and all other
provisions needed to live.

Dead and left in the wind, until
Matoax and with her God came.

Native Great Spirit—the river of life,
warmth and skins, food and love.

We were dead in the Winter, beheaded
in a tent, our armor and fortress failed,
weapons of war useless.

She came to us, brought by God.

At the princess’ feet we prayed thanks;
she, at one with God.

Us, white and ignorant of the land,
the lowest of her ranks.

Good Bye Los Angeles!!

25 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Blogs, Los Angeles, Native American, Politics, Tongva Nation

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Some Thoughts Before I Go:

-by Bill Watkins 4/24/2017

***

God, give me the wisdom
to say something of value.

Amen.

***

Greetings, “Los Angeles,”—a Tongva/Gabrielino land.

We cannot always look forward, or up at the next skyscraper or project.

It is wise to look back, to make sure our past is okay.  Mended and tightly made!

***

Wherever native peoples are buried, we must have recognition, designated posts and plaques, remembrance of the first caretakers of God’s land.

We should now and forever, institute SPACE on our panels and councils FOR NATIVE PEOPLE TO JOIN AND PARTICIPATE.

For the Los Angeles City Council, for instance, TWO seats should be made available for First Peoples to fill.

Those seats would not be voted in by the public, but by Native Councils—like the Los Angeles Native American Indian Commission.

The County Board of Supervisors should reserve at least one seat for this purpose…

***

We have inherited other evils besides native neglect, like the sin of slavery committed so many years ago.  No matter how much time passes, a sin will fester and cause problems until it is examined and amends are made.

Every “American” should reflect on what is the proper reparation to offer African-descended people, who can claim descendancy to people brought here in chains against their will.

Emotional debts must be paid, just as financial ones—if we are to be a thriving community.

***

With a proper council that includes native people, and with a mind to repair past sins to African Americans and anyone else wronged by government policies:

It would be time to clean up the city and county of Los Angeles, and to budget the enforcement of every law and code on the books.

Right now, it is obvious that many codes are not enforced.

And aiming especially at Education:

NONE OF THE CODE IS CURRENTLY TAUGHT IN SCHOOL.

We need to Teach Law, if we hope that the community will Obey and Respect the Law.  (https://travelingpoet.net/first-step-education/)

I have personally taught law and law code to Children ages five and up!!  It can be done. It must be done.  (https://travelingpoet.net/2014/04/01/law-dragons/)

Here is the little book I have begun for this purpose:  Law For Kids

***

We could do so much more.  We could be so much more.

We could have clean streets and sidewalks, metros, metro platforms.

And Clean is Safe!  Ask my dad, John F. Watkins of forty-plus years in the Steel Business.

We could expand City Personnel to include job offers to homeless and formerly homeless—BEGIN A PEDESTRIAN STREET CLEANING CORPS!!!!

CLEAN L.A.

***

Mayor visits to Dodger games, spouting about sports and Funding PARTIES must be curbed in favor of mass Clean-up efforts, Law education, noise reduction, and a Budget overhaul of both the City and County resources.

Let us move away from controversial, unproven, non-universally accepted Health and Science concepts.

To push non-emergency western “health care” on citizens should be outlawed in the same way that the Church and State are separated.

“Health” is defined by all differently.  (https://travelingpoet.net/2017/03/23/what-is-health/)

The same could be said for “religion.”

So, Government:  Stay out of it.

Build us roads, infrastructure.

Keep trying at Security, and study real defense/martial arts—keep moving away from lethal weapons.

Killing is Never Defense.  (https://travelingpoet.net/2016/03/07/the-old-argument/)

***Adopt a fifty-fifty budget (City of Los Angeles — Budget Proposal)—keep it simple!!!  May we stop playing God with Government funds, pray to one, fix some roads and PAY OUR DEBTS!!!

Start and end with prayer.  With supplication to the Great Spirit, to “God,” to a Higher Power than us; consult with native peoples, and invoke wisdom.

***

Fireworks and Noise:

Please, God, help us Put the Foot Down on Illegal fireworks.

Help us Re-Think Helicopters and Sirens.

The loud, metal, brutal force of industry kills the healing peace of our land in its natural state.

Help us all to see the poor philosophy of “helping” a household or individual with a robbery by KILLING THE PEACE IN A TEN MILE RADIUS with loud airplanes and sirens.

Our authorities are supposed to Keep the Peace, not destroy it.

Shhh!  God is working a masterpiece.  (https://travelingpoet.net/2014/01/22/chess/)

Bad things happen.  Do not make bad things worse by making a bunch of noise.

I challenge emergency services to take a walk in the woods and reflect on Real Health.  No person should consume flammable liquids.  Start your safety program there, by Never “drinking” alcoholic beverages.

Most emergencies come from carelessness and diabolical drinks/drugs.

Abstain and join me in more quiet, respectful living!

***

(Another reason to be wary of Dodger Games, Mr. Mayor, and Laker support.  Sports are full of gambling (money+emotions), Alcohol rampant.)

Focus on our roads, sidewalks, adopt a more humble face, and one not so easy to sell himself and Los Angeles:

Especially when this place is so dirty.

Trash litters in every direction, from gutters to sidewalks, to our Metro services—often the first look we give tourists.

Yesterday, I could hardly see the pay screen at a Gold Line pay kiosk, through the dirt, grime and graffiti.

We need an adequate PLAN, just like with fireworks, to stamp out that problem.

We need to expand City Personnel, START HIRING EVEN DAY WORKERS!!

“We need bodies,” I have heard the Animal Services Department utter.

Stop looking for perfection, favorites, or someone for a thirty year tenure and GET PEOPLE OUT WORKING TODAY!!!!!!

The Homeless doesn’t have to be a problem.

They are a Work Force, waiting to be tapped!!!!

***

So decide. Decide, like I did, when I gave up DRINKING a flammable, volatile chemical “sold” as DRINK fifteen years ago.

Start caring about yourself and others, as I did, when I took that step toward health. (https://travelingpoet.net/2014/03/14/you-learn-to-care/)

Read and study the Native way, read Kent Nerburn’s great collection, a cheap buy online that will change your life:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=the+wisdom+of+native+americans

***

I am off to Livingston, Montana—Crow Country.

Please keep a prayer and thought for me, and when you do, let Tongva Nation help you in Los Angeles.

Let the Gabrielino Tribe rise to help you protect this land.

Hoist up the L.A. Native American Indian Commission, and may it vote into reserved spots key players in determining wise courses of action.

God is real.  Call it by any name you choose.  That is not religion, which is organized.  Spirituality, your walk with God—is yours.  Bring its rewards, wisdom and charity, into your council chambers and bring God, Spirit, and Nature back to this community.

Quiet our sirens and choppers, and hear the parrots, escaped from that South Pasadena store fire so long ago.

Smile.

After we clean up, take in a ballgame, but not until we clean up, and enforce every code on our books.

Dissolve the heliport in favor of a great foot patrol outpost.

A non-lethal, giving one.

—Love and Highest Peace
Forever.

Bill “Naked Horse” Watkins
Honorary Tongva
http://www.travelingpoet.net

Firework Worksheet

Health and Safety Code Amendment — Asset Forfeiture Applied to Illegal Fireworks — Watkins Proposal 2016

Consumer Fireworks Ban — Watkins Proposal for Gomez — CA — 2016

You Learn to Care

Dear LAFD Commission

Fireworks Petition1

Fireworks -- Margaret Note