November
1, 2016 Cannon Ball, N.D.—With night falling over the sprawling town of
tents and teepees here, BJ Kidder describes Sitting Bull massing his
forces in this very same spot, at the confluence of the Missouri and …
The protests are about water, fossil fuels, and questions of tribal
sovereignty. But beneath all that, tribes from across the US say they're
unifying around revitalized Indian traditions and religion.
Cannon Ball, N.D.—With
night falling over the sprawling town of tents and teepees here, BJ
Kidder describes Sitting Bull massing his forces in this very same spot,
at the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers, before the
Battle of Little Big Horn.
This time, thousands of Native Americans haven't come to wage war. They have come to protest through prayer.
And six years ago, Mr. Kidder believes, his father predicted it.
“My
dad said all the [native] people are going to come together from
everywhere to see how we’re destroying Mother Earth, but when that time
comes, I’ll be gone.”
Here at the front lines of protest against
the Dakota Access Pipeline, every movement is weighted with the
indigenous history of the region – a tragic history that’s reflected in
Mr. Kidder’s own life story. Born and raised in the neighboring Standing
Rock Sioux reservation, he describes being beaten as a boy by priests
at a Catholic school, and watching as the 1973 occupation of Wounded
Knee energized and united Indian country like never before.
Now looking out over the main Oceti Sakowin camp – an ancient collective name
for seven Dakota peoples and now home to the largest gathering of
Native Americans in modern history – he sees signs of change and
progress for his people.
“A lot of hard things have been done to
our people,” Kidder says. “It’s finally changing, slowly, after years of
barely changing.”
Indeed, talk to Native Americans here, no
matter the tribe, and you will hear many of the same things. After
generations of oppression and neglect, mired in systemic poverty and
prevented from doing basic things like practicing their religion, the
protesters here – who prefer to be called “water protectors” – see their
stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) as not just a battle
against a specific project, but public signs of a reconnection with
their collective traditions and religion.
It is this reconnection,
they believe, that has sustained the protest for over seven months. And
in turn, it could have broader ripple effects both on and off tribal
lands. For one thing, the protests here may be turning Native Americans
into a leading force in the domestic movement on climate change.
Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor | Caption
The $3.8 billion pipeline, which is more than half-built
already, would cross four states and carry up to 570,000 barrels of
crude oil per day from North Dakota’s Bakken oil patch to Illinois
pipelines that feed Gulf Coast refineries. Dallas-based Energy Transfer
Partners, the pipeline’s developer, says it will create thousands of
local construction jobs and millions in tax revenue. The planned route
would bring the pipeline within half a mile of the Standing Rock Sioux
reservation, however, and the tribe believes the pipeline has destroyed
sacred sites and may pollute the Missouri River, a key water source.
After police violently cleared protesters
off a camp directly in the pipeline’s path last week, construction has
been progressing rapidly and the pipeline is now just a few miles from
the Missouri.
It isn’t clear when construction could finish, but
it is clear that the protest has had a profound effect on Indian
country. Regardless of the ultimate outcome, the protest is likely to
only further build momentum for native activism that has been growing
since the Keystone XL protests and the Idle No More movement of earlier this decade.
Joye
Braun, a protest organizer, traces this revival of indigenous activism
to a very specific point: the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of
1978. Prior to that act, many native practices and rituals had been
prohibited by federal laws and policies. (For example, the laws
protecting endangered or threatened species restricted tribal access to
eagle feathers or bones.) Native Americans have been slowly revitalizing
those practices.
“In the 1980s we didn’t know how to do what
we’re doing now,” Ms. Braun said last week, sitting under several
blankets around a camp fire at the protest’s “front line” directly in
the path of the DAPL’s planned route.
“It’s really important to
remember that it was only 1978 that we as indigenous people had the
legal right to even pray in our way,” she added. “Everything we do is in
prayer here, and prayer is an essential part of revitalization of our
cultures and our languages.”
Those principles were tested three days later. After police
dismantled the frontline camp, clearing a path for construction crews to
the Missouri, some more militant protesters have called for more aggressive tactics to stop the pipeline.
But
over the previous seven months – before the national media spotlight
found the protest – this renaissance of Native American activism has
been centered on prayer, and fostered through a potent blend of
revitalized indigenous traditions, modern hashtag activism, and the nonviolent direct action principles of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor | Caption
And native youths have been a driving force behind the
protest, Braun says. Part of that is technology, though youth
involvement hasn’t been limited to popularizing hashtags and
live-streaming Internet videos. They have also been doing their part to
bring Indian country back in touch with its traditions and religion.
“The
youth aren’t buried down with all the things that we older ones carry
on our backs. They don’t carry the same luggage that we do,” she says.
“They carry luggage – they carry a lot of it – but it’s not the same
luggage.”
“They are moving us forward into a world where unity truly is possible,” she adds.
The entire DAPL protest began with young Native Americans reviving the traditional “crow hop” relay run
to raise awareness – one person running two-thirds of a mile or so,
then being relieved by another runner, and so on. The first relay went
through the Standing Rock reservation; the second went 500 miles from
the reservation to the Omaha, Neb., headquarters of the US Army Corps of
Engineers, the agency responsible for permitting the pipeline; then a
third went 2,000 miles from North Dakota to Washington, D.C., ending
with a rally outside the White House.
And there’s Nathan
Piengkham, a young man from the Kalispel reservation in Washington
State, who traveled to the protest in the summer to join a canoe paddle
down the Missouri. The canoe they brought was the first his tribe had
made for 100 years, he says. They gave it as a gift to the Standing Rock
Sioux, who also hadn’t had a canoe for a century.
“We’re getting our traditions back,” he says. “Canoes, horses, [protecting] the earth – those are our traditions.”
A
fire crackles in the background, and some protesters laugh as a First
Nations man from Ontario recounts his experience getting arrested during
an action a few days earlier.
“I thought I was just going to come here, pray, and go back,” the man said.
Mr.
Piengkham had similar thoughts. He had planned to return to Kalispel in
October, then his little brother showed up at the protest. With the
pipeline inching closer to the river, and rumors of imminent police
action heightening tension in the camps, he decided to stay put.
The
next day, that tension almost boiled over. As actor Mark Ruffalo
delivered an array of solar panels to the main camp, word reached the
main camp that police were moving in.
Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor | Caption
Dozens of protesters rushed to the front line in time to see
two armored police vans, sent to negotiate, disappear into the morning
fog. For the rest of the morning, protesters gathered at the barricade
there, singing, dancing, praying, and staring down the fog-shrouded
highway.
Police would return the next day, this time not to
negotiate. While many protesters prayed peacefully as officers in riot
gear dismantled the front line camp, ordering them to move off private
land and deploying pepper spray and concussion grenades, others
retaliated by setting fire to cars and throwing projectiles, including
homemade firebombs.
Some peace has been restored to the area since
those clashes last week, and Jose Aguto, a former senior policy adviser
with the National Congress of American Indians now with the Friends
Committee on National Legislation, believes the nonviolent activism
fueled by revitalized native traditions could see indigenous people
become leaders in the climate movement beyond the DAPL protest.
“The
spiritual dimension that’s being offered here is what I think is
resonating with a lot of people and finding a place of growth for them,”
he says.
“This is the tribes really affirming their identity and who they are,” he adds. “It’s a great opportunity for tribes to lead.”
Crouching
around a wood stove in his tent one frigid evening last week, Johnnie
Aseron, an Oceti Sakowin camp organizer, says that as protesters prepare
to dig in for the winter, “there’s the hope that prayers that come from
here can be heard by others.”
“That’s really, truly how this
began. We came to pray about it,” he adds. “To me, this started with
prayer, and it will end with prayer.”
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