Thinking like one of the people

There is a way of seeing this world, an old way, one that not everyone can see or understand, but to even share it with them is almost wrong because they do not respect that which is sacred.

Tonight I am who I am, tonight I am thinking like one of the people, I am Anishinaabek. Tonight I see. I will not forget.

Among the Anishinaabek, before we take a tree, we ask it's permission, we reach up and touch it's spirit and if it pushes back we know it is not our right to take the tree. When the Europeans came and after they had wiped out so many animals, there was no food and there was much starvation among the people. Many of my ancestors were forced to do the bidding of the Europeans to cut down the trees and they stopped asking because it was so painful, the trees did not understand why their friends had turned on them and many of the Anishinaabek began to drink to avoid thinking about what they were doing.Then during this period and before during the slaughter of the animals at the Europeans bidding, the Creator judged the Anishinaabek with small pox and typhus and many other spirits who killed 90% of our people. 90% was a price very similar to what the Anishinaabek had taken from their brothers the Animals who had saved them many times and their friends the trees. I almost weep to tell this tragedy. But now I watch British Petroleum poison the waters down south and I think "We won't get fooled again." and I think, the Europeans have not changed and I fear their corporations and pray that Gitchi Manidoo would stop their evil even though he doesn't like to intervene, believing in the goodness of our hearts and requiring that we say "No!" ourselves. 90% I think, 90%.