Press Release - for immediate release - May 4, 1998
Chief Yellow Horn descendants and others announce re-creation of Blackfoot
Confederacy.
The Blackfoot Nation - For many years members of the Blackfoot people and
others have been meeting in what now is called Canada and the United
States. Their discussions have centered upon the necessity of re-creating
the ancient Blackfoot Confederacy that once numbered many thousands of
people. Among them the Blood, Blackfoot and Peigan.
Among the members this group there has always been included the
descendants of Chief Yellow Horn. Today his modern day descendants carry on
the discussions and are among the many hundreds of people who seek the
revival of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
The Yellow Horn family is represented by Vern, George, Rocky and Howard,
and their wives, of Brocket, Alberta.
Rocky Yellow Horn said, "We seek ways to bring our people out of the
grinding poverty we find ourselves in today. We are in this situation
because we have no control over our present or our future".
One idea we have" Mr. Yellow Horn continued, "is to create a situation
where we use our existing land base to use ourselves instead of leasing it
out to non-members of the Blackfoot Nation". He said, "We must use our
resources to stop the growth of welfare rolls and create an nation of
self-supporting native people".
Mr. George Yellow Horn said, "We appreciate the welfare support of our
white relatives to this time, but it is time for all of us to recognize
that the whiteman's welfare system has been a gross failure".
"There are other things we must discuss with our white brothers and sisters
in Canada and the United States", George Yellow Horn continued. "This is
the fraudulent nature of Treaty 7 that has divided the Pikanii into two
different groups, the so-called Blackfeet of Montana and the Peigan of
Alberta. We are actually one people".
"We also have to discuss this Treaty 7 situation with our American
relatives", said Yellow Horn. "They have land rights in Alberta. We want
them to come home, so to speak, because they are separted from us by an
imaginary line".
Vern Yellow Horn said, "Our father, Albert Yellow Horn, found in 1985 that
Treaty 7 was not signed by all 54 men whose names appear on the fraudulent
treaty. His research confirmed that the supposed signers of Treaty 7 had
their names put on the paper by the same whiteman who made all the "X"
marks". And he continued, "The research of Albert Yellow Horn is further
collaborated by a Father Constantine Scollen who wrote the RCMP Major
Irwin that the Indians who were at Blackfoot Crossing in September of 1877,
did not even understand why they were there" These are but a few of the
reasons we announce the re-creation of the Blackfoot Confederacy."
The declaration reads as follows:
Declaration:
The Blackfoot Confederacy and allied nations is re-created as a
means of bringing the people back to a great and beautiful heritage, a time
when people honored each other and felt their native spirituality at the
center of their being. We are the children of the Great Holy Being,
iit-tsi-pah-tah-pii-oop (the Source of Life) We gather together of our own
free will because the Creator made us to be free and to live in harmony.
We announce to the world that we hereby take our place among the
nations of mankind, responsible to no one person or authority, because
there is no one greater than ourselves except the Great Source of All Life.
We call together those who have been members of our alliance in
the ancient past. We welcome those who wish to join us from among the other
nations. We call you home to be our relatives in the shining light of
knowledge and the love of our Creator. Once again, we shall live by our
sacred vows, spirituality, traditions, and beliefs. We have created a
great and powerful nation based upon respect and honor for all beings of
this Earth and beyond.
Among the many purposes of our confederacy are these:
l. We join together to freely associate with all people in honor and
respect. There is no greater way.
2. We gather together to help each other in good times and hard times.
3. We seek our rightful share of the Earth's resources and to correct the
greed that has denied us this right.
4. We seek to correct those political, religious, economic, social and
other policies of those who have sought to enslave us. We call upon all
people to stop their genocidal pursuits that seek to kill us and destroy
our cultures and we ask them to finally give honor to the teachings of
their holy books.
5. We come together, each of us, to offer our skills, knowledge, resources,
and whatever abilities we possess to put them to work in the communities of
our people so we may live together and raise healthy families as the
ii-tsi-pah-tah-pii-oop intended.
6. We come together because we reject the dogma of mankind which enslaves
the human mind and kills the human spirirt. We reject any and all things
that cause mankind to fight, kill and be unhappy through the self imposed
death of their being.
+ + + + +
For further information call: 403.965.2839 (Vern) or
403.965.2828 (George) or
403.965.2563 (Rocky)
Or contact: Spirit Talk Press, The Blackfoot Nation, Box 390, Browning,
Montana USA 59417
Telephone: 406.338.2882
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
