Posted by Sarah M. on August 05, 1999 at 11:41:27:
Greetings all -- I'm working at my desk with my headphones on to drown out the nearby hall and cubicle noises, listening to my newly-purchased soundtrack to Smoke Signals. If you don't have it, I recommend it (as did others before). I'm particularly taken with the words of the last song, by Ulali (one of the groups on Rebecca's list, BTW), spoken with a background of their singing to the beat of drums. Wonderful words, I thought I would share with you...
"To our elders who teach us of our creation and our past, so we may preserve Mother Earth for ancestors yet to come.
We are the land.
This is dedicated to our relatives before us thousands of years ago and to the 150 million who were exterminated across the western hemisphere in the first 400 years time starting in 1492
To those who have kept their homelands and to the nations extinct due to mass slaughter, slavery, deportation, and disease unknown to them and to the ones who are subjected to the same treatment today
To the ones who survived the relocations and the ones who died along the way
To those who carried on traditions and live strong among their people
To those who left their communities by force and by choice and through generations no longer know who they are
To those who search and never find
To those that turn away the so-called non-accepted
To those that bring us together and to those living outside keeping touch with the voice for many
To those who make it back to live and fight the struggles of their people
To those that give up and those who do not care
To those who abuse themselves and others, and those who revive again
To those who are physically, mentally or spiritually incapable by accident or by birth
To those who seek strength in our spirituality and ways of life and those who exploit it, even our own
To those who fall for the lies and join the dividing lines that keep us fighting amongst each other
To the outsiders who step in, good or bad, and those of us who don't know better
To the leaders and prisoners of war, politics, crime, race and religion, innocent or guilty
To the young, the old, the living and the dead
To our brothers and sisters and all living things across Mother Earth and her beauty we have destroyed and deny the honor that the creator has given each individual
The truth that lies in our hearts
All my relations."