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PBS - THE WEST - Black Kettle

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:21:12 -0800

BLACK KETTLE (d. 1868) "... his repeated efforts to secure a peace with honor for his people, despite broken promises and attacks on his own life, speak of him as a great leader with an almost unique vision of the possibility for coexistence between white society and the culture of the plains."

If you live in America, you should know and respect this man's name.

the electric lotus journal

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:00:23 -0800

"Our greatest goal is to support the objectives of the Charter for Compassion, by developing a grassroots community of individuals dedicated to alleviating suffering. In a city such as ours, that will present limitless possibilities for service to the poor, the sick and dying, the marginalised and the hungry.

Additionally we hope to provide the region with a fresh, reinvigorated and inviting look at the Dharma of the Buddha and the Compassionate Way of the Christ, interpreted through a non-sectarian, non-theistic and postmodern lens… to offer a diversity in forms of meditation, liturgy and study, so that the Dharma of Compassion is accessible to all who are interested. "

Cooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving Massacre : Russell Means Freedom

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 07:50:48 -0800

William Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chair of the anthropology department of the University of Connecticut, claims that the first Thanksgiving was not "a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children."

Silas Soule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 07:20:00 -0800

SILAS SOULE
(July 26, 1838 - April 23, 1865)

If anyone is looking for good historical subjects to represent in film, here is a colorful and meaningful life of high adventure and moral principle. Born in Maine, at 16 his family moved near Lawrence Kansas to help settle the Territory and bring it into the Union as a free state. Father established the house as a stop on the Underground Railroad and son became an expert in the hit and run tactics of the border wars known as Bleeding Kansas. Silas helped execute jail breaks for those convicted of assisting runaway slaves. He gained access to John Brown in prison although the old man insisted on being martyred and refused to be rescued. Soule fought the Confederates at Glorieta Pass, southeast of Santa Fe where Union troops used ropes and tackle to scale cliffs and flank the rebs. The climax approaches as Soule rides with Col. Chivington and his volunteers to Sand Creek where our hero refuses to attack the Indians camped there. His subsequent testimony against Chivington led to his murder in cold blood on the streets of Denver. National outrage at the massacre influenced the US Congress to refuse the Army's request for thousands of more troops for a general war against the Native Americans of the Plains.

Sand Creek massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:28:32 -0800

NOV 29 1864 Col. Chivington and his volunteer militia descend on the indians camped at Sand Creek on the plains east of Denver, killing 133 Cheyenne and Arapahoe, 105 of them women and children. Chief Black Kettle and his wife manage to escape but both will be killed by Custer's troops on the Washita in Oklahoma under very similar circumstances four years hence.

Phurba Totally Explained

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:06:15 -0800

"The phurba affixes the Elemental Process of Space to the Earth, thereby establishing an energetic continuum."

A good background on the phurba or kila, the ritualistic dagger used in Vajrayana rituals.

Earliest evidence of peanut, cotton, squash farming

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:11:32 -0800

"...wild-type peanuts, squash and cotton as well as a quinoa-like grain, manioc and other tubers and fruits in the floors and hearths of buried preceramic sites, garden plots, irrigation canals, storage structures and on hoes. The researchers used a technique called accelerator mass spectrometry to determine the radiocarbon dates of the materials. Data gleaned from botanists, other archaeological findings and a review of the current plant community in the area suggest the specific strains of the discovered plant remains did not naturally grow in the immediate area.

"The plants we found in northern Peru did not typically grow in the wild in that area," Dillehay says. "We believe they must have therefore been domesticated elsewhere first and then brought to this valley by traders or mobile horticulturists.

"The use of these domesticated plants goes along with broader cultural changes we believe existed at that time in this area, such as people staying in one place, developing irrigation and other water management techniques, creating public ceremonials, building mounds and obtaining and saving exotic artifacts."

The researchers dated the squash from approximately 9,200 years ago, the peanuts from 7,600 years ago and the cotton from 5,500 years ago.

Ababinili - VisWiki

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:44:49 -0800

A Chickasaw Legend: "Ababinili is the spirit of fire and manifest in fire and the sun."

THE NATCHEZ MASSACRE

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:09:05 -0800

A good summary of this relatively unknown tragedy excerpted from Louisiana History by Grace Elizabeth King, John Rose Ficklen, L. Graham Co., 1905

Luminosity of the Mind by HH Dalai Lama & Buddhism now

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:53:26 -0800

HHDL: "The mind is an affirmative phenomenon, but on the ordinary level it is obscured by concepts, different states of thinking and preconceptions, and so on. In order to recognize the essential nature of the mind, therefore, we have to peel off these different layers and clear away these obscurations. Then we shall see the true face of our own minds."