NANISH SHONTIE...
Nanish Shontie in the Western Shoshone language means "to ask the Creator for a blessing." We chose this name since we are asking the Creator for a blessing of all things on the Mother Earth and for guidance in our project to build this camp and healing center.
Nanish Shontie is a Native American nonprofit, inter-tribal and inter-racial community that is coming to life this very moment in Oregon. We are now a small community working together to raise the money for the land that we will move onto. We are in the process of purchasing 25 acres near Eugene, Oregon, USA.
Nanish Shontie's purpose is to have an inter-tribal, inter-racial community where people will have an opportunity to learn from traditional native people about the native way of living with Mother Earth. Nanish Shontie will help to build a bridge between the modern world and indigenous world so that we may work together for the healing of Mother Earth.
Nanish Shontie will share the teachings of the ways that were taught to us from Mother Earth. This will be shared with those who come in a respectful manner. Native people recognize that there are many good paths on this Mother Earth and that each person needs to find the path that is right for them. We see the need to share ours ways in an effort to help restore the balance of Mother earth. And as each one of us helps in restoring that balance to Mother Earth, we will find that it will help in our own personal healing.
This newsletter is to share with you information in more detail about the vision behind Nanish Shontie, a little on some of the people behind it, progress that has been made and plans for the future.
We give this newsletter freely from our hearts. Should you be in a financial position to help with the continuation of this newsletter, or to help Nanish Shontie in some way, it would be greatly appreciated.
A TRADITIONAL CAMP AND HEALING CENTER PROJECT
Native Americans have been finding an increasing number of people that are coming to them looking for answers in their lives. They realize that the Native people that live in North America, which we call Turtle Island, have always tried to live in harmony with the Mother Earth and incorporate this into their daily way of life. The Indian people call this "a way of life" or "Walking the Red Road". The Red Road is not an easy one to walk. Most, if not all of us, have been steered towards a way of life that values greed, jealousy, racism and exploitation. It is not easy to just wake up one morning and rid yourself of the subtle and not so subtle trappings of what is called civilization.
Some Native leaders and elders have realized for some time now, the need for a place, where people from all walks of life can come together and live and work alongside Native people of Turtle Island to relearn the ways of living in harmony with the Mother Earth. To be able to have a living example of how people can also live in harmony with each other and themselves, following a traditional way of life. At this camp the Native leaders and elders also see the need for a healing center, where indigenous healers are able to utilize their gifts and share knowledge with healers from other cultures. We know that the time and need for this camp and healing center is now, for it will also help to build a bridge between the Native world and the modern world. Many of our Native people believe in this vision and we hope you will join us in this vision also.
Nanish
Shontie is a legal nonprofit that was incorporated in the state of Oregon, USA.
It has a Native American board of directors.
The
board members are Corbin Harney (Western Shoshone spiritual leader), Katherine
Blossom (Western Shoshone Elder), Danena Ike (Western Shoshone), Medicine Hawk
(Muscogean), Sky Young Sparrow Pope (Tlingit), and Mala Spotted Eagle Pope (Western
Shoshone). Nanish Shontie has also put together a board of advisors (list can
be provided upon request).
TRADITIONAL CAMP
The vision is to build a place where a limited number of inter-tribal and inter-racial people will be able to live and work together year round to maintain the camp and healing center. This will not be a resort or "new age camp". All visitors must be willing to join in and help out with the ongoing work.
The social structure and cultural ways of the indigenous people of Turtle Island will be followed as much as is practical given today's limitations. We know that there are many good paths to the Creator, but as there are so few places for American Indians to practice and live traditional ways, we must request that foreign religions and traditions be practiced away from the camp.
We will appreciate and welcome anyone that comes in a respectful manner to learn
the Native way of life. Racism of any form will not be tolerated by anyone.
This is a project that will have no time limit as it is the rebuilding and preserving
of a way of life that once lived in harmony upon the Mother Earth and, therefore,
strives to be much more than a mere project with a beginning and an ending.
We do ask that, even though we will be learning from each other, the Native
people will be the teachers of traditional values and the way of life in the
camp. When people come to the camp and healing center, they need to understand
that there will be no drugs of any kind except legal prescription drugs, no
alcohol in any form, and no violence tolerated. Any weapons will be locked up
in a designated and secure place. These steps are necessary so that we may all
live in a safe, healthy and peaceful manner while we are following spiritual
Native ways.
The Goals of the Camp will be to:
1. Preserve and practice the traditional knowledge of Native American indigenous people, and understand how to co-exist with the new ways.
2. Create a place where Native values can be taught by Native people to break through the stereotyping and misuse of Native ways.
3. Help people to remember their connection with the Earth through traditional values.
4 Be examples of how to live in harmony with the Mother Earth, each other, and ourselves in a respectful manner.
5. Create a place where people can learn how to live within a tribal framework, and support one another.
6. Bring back the clan system, as it gives people a traditional social structure and a way of living in harmony with each other.
7. To listen and learn from our traditional Native elders.
8. Provide housing for Native American elders who are helping with the camp goals where they can be treated with the respect that they deserve and not have to worry about rent or house payments.
9. Create a healing center, where Native medicine men and women can work along side healers from other walks of life to share and learn from each other.
10. Have a place where children, which we prefer to call little people, can not only learn about a traditional lifestyle but also live it. A place where they can see beyond the differences in each other and where they will be able to judge somebody by what is truly in their heart.
11. Build a school to teach the little people academics with a strong foundation in Native earth culture and values.
12. Create a traditional Native council that will live at the community to oversee the daily building & operation of the Camp.
13. Bring together the knowledge of traditional Native people from all parts of Turtle Island that will advise the Native council on Native traditions, culture and spiritual ways.
14. Combine earth friendly technology with Native ways and values.
15. To work towards becoming self-sustainability.
16. Create a place free of any type of violence, mental or physical.
17. Have a place that will be free of drugs and alcohol.
18. Build a library to help preserve knowledge and traditional values.
Possible ways to sustain the Camp in an environmentally friendly manner:
1. Growing pesticide free crops.
2. Operating a fish farm
3. Running a goat dairy farm.
4. Raising animals for natural meat, fur, and other products, and to keep people aware of their connection to the Earth through what they take in, and where it comes from.
5. Recycling waste-materials.
6. Making Native craftwork.
7. Hold workshops on non-sacred subjects.
8. Setting up a newsletter containing news of the camp, environmental updates and Native news.
9. Teaching school-classes on ways to live better with the Mother Earth.
10. Growing and selling natural plant seeds.
Other
compatible projects
in which the Camp could be involved:
1. A base or satellite for other Native organizations such as Shundahai Network, Poo-Ha-Baa and others that are compatible with the goals of the Camp.
2. A place where Native tribes can bring their people, especially the young ones, to help relearn and share their knowledge.
3. Indian treatment centers, boarding schools and other Indian organizations can bring those that they feel want to learn and experience more about their Native heritage.
4. Traditional and non-traditional information can be collected and saved so that it will be accessible to present and future generations.
5 To become a network for Native news, Mother Earth events and resources.
6. Gatherings
Healing Center
Traditional Native people, especially healers, have known for a long time that the Mother Earth is getting dangerously sick.We perceive the Mother Earth as a living being to which all forms of life are directly connected. If we are ever to stop the progress of the sickness of this earth, we first need to heal ourselves. Pollution doesn't start in the factories or automobiles; it starts in the mind.
If we can become healed, so that we can learn to create and think in a healthy manner, then and only then, we can truly begin the healing of the Mother Earth.The American Indians are not the saviors of the human race; it will take people from all different races and ways of life on the Mother Earth for the healing to be successful. There are many good paths on this Mother Earth. There are also many places to go to practice those paths but not places for the American Indians and people who want to follow the Native path in the correct manner. We are trying to create a place that will be inter-tribal and inter-racial where anyone that is sincere in learning the ways to live in harmony with the earth can do so by following the traditions and customs of the people of this land. An important part of this will be the healing center.
There has been a dream for a long time amongst many Native healers and spiritual people that one day there will be a place where healers from all walks of life can come together, work side by side, and share their knowledge with each other.
Anyone who has made himself or herself ready for a healing can go there and not have to worry how much it will cost them or how they will be treated. The person must take the first steps since everything comes to us for a reason, and in the end it is we who heal ourselves. The healing will therefore be on a holistic level and not just physical.
One of the primary purposes of the traditional camp is to support the healing center as much as possible. The hope is to have a place where healers can either live or visit. They will not have to worry about their living expenses while they are at the camp as the camp will house and feed them. They will be able to use their gifts in a positive environment for the best healing.
One aspect that will be watched closely is whether people are true healers and if they are ready to do healing work. A traditional council of elders and healers will have to oversee this area and approve those who come to heal. If people are allowed to work on people when they really don't know what they are doing or before they are ready, they will only end up hurting the patient and themselves. That is why all healers that come to this camp will need to work under the guidance of our council of elders to insure everyone's protection and healing as much as possible."As I see it all around me, the trees are dying out, our water is contaminated, and our air is not good to breathe. Those are the reasons why today I'm trying my best to come back to our ways of thousands of years ago.
"We have to come back to the Native way of life. The Native way is to pray for everything. Our Mother Earth is very important. We can't just misuse her and think she's going to continue.It is very important that we as Native peoples of North America relearn our culture and ceremonies. Without the ways of honoring the Mother Earth, each other, and ourselves, we will become just as destructive to the environment and ourselves as the "modern" societies. The traditional camp could be a place where we can once again learn how to walk in balance upon Mother Earth. The traditional practices that would be taught and learned there would be the seed for the future generations coming up.
A
place is needed where people with the right intent, both Native and non-Native,
will be able to come and learn to live and practice the traditional ways of
life. To live in a place where you will be judged by your actions and deeds
and not which race you are from, what sex you are, how old you are or many of
the other stereotypes that we deal with in modern society. This would be a place
where even guests would be able to be a living part of tribal community life.
The
elders have always told us that the ways of the Mother Earth are the ways of
the heart. When we don't follow these ways, we think more with our brain and
less with our heart. Our heart becomes harder but our spirit never forgets and
longs for that natural balance. All people on this Mother Earth were tribal
people at one time in their history. We all understood the importance of honoring
and respecting the Mother Earth, for we understood that we are a part of the
Mother Earth and not separate from her.
We all have the need for a place where we can
live or visit, where our spirits can reconnect again with the ways that our
heart understands. We were not put on this Mother Earth to hurt and destroy
without any regard for the future. We seem to have forgotten that we are supposed
to be the guardians and caretakers. Native people are not perfect people; we
do not claim to have the perfect way nor do we claim to have the only way.
To all friends and supporters of Nanish Shontie:
As most of you know, Nanish Shontie is an intertribal and interracial community started in March of 1999. There is so much happening here with Nanish Shontie. It has already become a reality at my family's rented home. However, Nanish Shontie is in the process of raising $450,000.00 to purchase land in Oregon. We have found a place, which the elders have agreed, feels like the right place to build our community upon. The 25 acres of land is near Eugene, Oregon. It was used as a drug and alcohol treatment center and still has most of the support facilities there. It has plenty of privacy to be able to conduct our ceremonies and drumming.Thank you -
ZON MEA NOH (WALK IN A GOOD WAY)
MALA SPOTTED EAGLE POPE
President of Nanish Shontie
If you would like to offer support for the vision of Nanish Shontie, please fill out the following pledge letter and return by mail.NANISH SHONTIE PLEDGE LETTER
I _____________________________ am able and willing to make a monthly pledge of $______________ to Nanish Shontie. This will be for a time period of ________________. This monthly pledge will be used only for the purpose of helping to pay back the loan of $260,000.00 on the property near Triangle Lake, Oregon that Nanish Shontie is in the process of purchasing. Should for any reason that the purchase of this property not happen, this pledge will then become invalid unless otherwise notified by the one making the pledge.
Date_____________________________________________________
Signature
_____________________________________________________
Printed
Signature
_____________________________________________________
Address of sponsor
Please send a copy of it back to Nanish Shontie at:P.O. BOX 177 MONMOUTH, OREGON 97361 U.S.A.
Phone (503) 606-9354 fax (503) 838-3914 E-MAIL MalaSpottedEagle@cs.com
MALA SPOTTED EAGLE POPE
SANDRA (SKY) POPE
CORBIN HARNEY
KATHERINE BLOSSOM
DANENA IKE
BOB (MEDICINE HAWK) McCLELLAN