 I'm Marcia Joyner and this is The Ties That Bind. My co-host Beatrice is on a plane and to get here to be on time, but she'll be with us next week. So let me tell you a little bit about The Ties That Bind. History is a reminder of what's possible. These are the words spoken by President George W. Bush as he emerged from a guided tour of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. And now we begin this series, young and old alike, to take a look at the past, our past, your past, the past that is not seen in the history books. Books that are his story, what we refer to as mirrors of the past. But we as colonialized people, indigenous people, people of color, look into the mirror and do not see ourselves. In the letter from the Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King wrote, we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied with a single bar of garment or destiny. Whatever affects one affects us all indirectly. We can never again rest with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with the effects and not the underlying causes. So today we examine the underlying causes. And I guess today is a dear friend, Dave Mulnex, who is going to talk to us about a hidden heritage. He is Native American from the Wabash Confederacy or Wabash Tribes, which is right, which is … It just talks about the area. So yeah. Okay. Thank you, Marcia, for having me on. So tell us about you being Native American and what that means. What does that mean to you? I know it has a, again, what the history books tell us. But you are, what, fourth, fifth generation from the Wabash Tribes, is that what it is? So tell us what being Native American means to you. I didn't grow up in that society, you know, because we lived in the farm country of Ohio and my grandpa's mom wasn't on the reservation, they had a farm. So my grandpa would tell me stories. And so to me, it's like a way of life, it's a way of seeing the world. Indigenous people have a whole different concept of the world than, you know, Western civilization. And that like the mother is our mother, mother earth is our mother. It's not a, you know, a stone floating through space. This is actually our mother, you know, and the Creator is with us at all times. There is no separation. We don't need anybody to intercede in between that the Creator is in every fiber of our being. So there's certain things that, um, awarenesses that I've always had, you know, and my grandpa would I think would reinforce. So I was always having a hard time in American society because things didn't make any sense, you know, like my mother just didn't lie. So I grew up not lying. I didn't know, you know, that they didn't have to lie. We could tell my mom anything. And she, you know, we knew we were caught anyway, because she's mom's always on her way here. Your mom knows. So what the hell? You might as well tell her. So, uh, so being honest, you know, and the other thing is that that from an Indigenous perspective, which is kind of like, I think that that was a whole basis of socialism and communism is that you look out for the people first. You know, you're looking out for others before you're looking out. You're making sure that everybody gets something to eat, that everybody has a place to sleep, that everybody is taken care of. You're not just looking out for yourself. So those are basic Indigenous concepts that I grew up with that as I went through the world. So, um, but it was quite a challenge because the rest of the world doesn't work like that. Yeah, we, the American society is winner take all. It's all about, it's all about me. You know, what can I get for me? And then when I get what might then maybe I'll share some, I'll make some donations or whatever. But what can I get for me? And it's, and it's, and it's that kind of capitalist, that kind of greed really, because I can get all I want, and I don't have to share with anybody. And so the people who really are in need aren't being looked out for, you know. So we have all these homeless people, we've got Indigenous people, we've got people of color, women, gays, all these different groups of folks that aren't being taken care of because everybody's looking out for themselves. Well, you've got to find that strange because the three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Muslims, all of them in their Bibles, in their books, they all have the same thing. It says that you feed the hungry, care for the sick, close them. It tells you how to care for these people and yet they don't do it. But that's the same in each one of those books. It's absolutely the same. So there's a disconnect there between what they profess and what they do. Yeah. And that's because, well, the Bible, I mean, you know, everybody can read it and get out of what they want. I mean, basically, you have to interpret it. You cannot read it straight. You have to interpret it. And so that's why the Klan and the civil rights marchers, you know, that movement, we're reading the same book and getting exactly different information from the same book. Yeah. Because it's all interpretive. But from an Indigenous perspective, it's about making your connection with the Creator and the basic principles of loving your people and loving your nation and loving the earth. So no matter what information you might feel you're getting from the Creator for your path, that's always going to be in there. You know? Well, now tell us about, for most of us that don't know, you were from the Wabash tribes or, yeah, Wabash Confederacy, Wabash tribes. What does that mean? Well, so there's a lot of different mixture and things changed over the years because there was different wars and different confederacies and all that. So the one group that my family's from is the Cherokee and Delaware and Lenape. They got their show. One group of my family's waiting on the beach in Delaware. Well, the other group of my family ends up on the beach eventually. That all comes to pass. And then there's the Potawatomi, Miami tribes. So they, the Delaware, I think they had 37 treaties, more treaties broken by the United States than any other nation. And started out in Delaware and ended up in Oklahoma and eventually were even disenfranchised as a nation. So, but there was a big war in Ohio over Beaver. And that was where the French were. Indian War wasn't all about getting the resources there for the Beaver. And when that war was lost, then everybody was sent to Indiana. So that was like the first Oklahoma. And so that's where our people agreed to live like the white man and have towns and villages and all that. And that was, and there was one more big war that was Takumsa. He tried to bring all the, he's a Shawnee. He tried to bring all the tribes together. This is one of my heroes as a child because he was trying to bring all the tribes together to stand up to protect. You know, if we all get together, we can stop these Americans from taking our land. And so he was making this huge Confederacy. And so he had that going in Indiana. And by the governor attacked the village and they murdered Takumsa. And that was kind of the end of that resistance. The American governor of Indiana? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He became president eventually. Who was this? Oh, I remember his name right now. But yeah, he became, that was one of his big, you know, you got to be, you got to be a general and kill people and then you can become president. Was that Harrison? Yeah, I think that was Harrison. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So then later on, later on the 1800s, the Potawatomi, the other part of my family tree, they were living in the regular way they were supposed to live and peaceful. All the wars were all over by this point. And the people and the governor decided, we're just going to take the Potawatomi land. We're going to take all the Indian land. So they double crossed the Delaware and tricked them out of their land. And that's an incredible story. But they said, OK, we'll take it. And so they sent the state militia up to the town. And they were in church, you know, everybody's in Sunday school. And behind the militia is all these wagons of white people. And they come up to the town and they say, you're evicted. And the chief goes, no, we've got a treaty with the United States. They said, well, Washington DC is like a long way from here. And the US Army can't get here to do anything about this. You're leaving today. So they threw them into open wagons. They didn't give them a chance to get anything. And force marched them towards Kansas. Well, it was late fall, early winter. And so the old people died, the babies died, the children died. And one of my great-grandmothers was on that. She was a baby. And she survived that. Now, is that like the Trail of Tears? It was called the Trail of Death. And that was just prior to the Trail of Tears. So that was. There were five different Trail of Tears. Yeah. This was the Trail of Death. Trail of Death, they called it Trail of Death because it was prior to that. Because it was basically a force march and people were just dying. And they didn't provide anything for them. Yeah, they didn't give them. They didn't bring along any food, any water, any warm blankets or clothing. Just, you know, we're going to get out of here. So it was really racism and brutality was really rampant in those days. And they didn't consider them, even though they were good Christians, they didn't consider them human beings. So they forced them out. She eventually ended up in Missouri. Daniel Boone moved to Missouri. So that was the frontier. And she moved there. And married a white man. And they had a farm. Everything was going great. And then Missouri passed because of the Trail of Tears. They passed a law, no Indians can live in Missouri. And if you do, you can't own anything. So if her husband had died, then everything that she owned, her farm, animals, any money that they had, any white man could come and just take it all and leave her absolutely destitute. And they realized that was not good. So they moved from Missouri over to Iowa. And that's where they finally settled. And then they moved to Michigan. But anyway, that's kind of that. So she was pretty strong. They had a big battler, it was Carthage, Missouri. They had a big Civil War battle there. And they had cannons firing. And two armies fighting back and forth through the town. And she was pregnant and had a couple of toddlers. And there's these bullets flying through the town and all this battle. So she was a pretty tough cookie. Now I have a great, great-grandmother who, when I was a child, and this is Indiana. So I was told that she was Blackfoot. And it was only a couple of years ago that I found out the truth, that she was a chock-tock. What is it? Cherokee? Cherokee, yeah, Cherokee. And that she was on the Trail of Tears. And my great-grandfather was a freed Black man. And they took her, his family, took her in and married her because to this, because they're the same age. So they married her to protect her. And then they lied about saying that she was Blackfoot to protect her. And from the bounty hunters, because they were bounty hunters to get all of the, any Indians that escaped, take them back and they got paid for them. So my uncle told me as a child, he absolutely loved spending time with her because they had hiding places. And all little children love hiding places. And he said it was easier to be Black than it was to be Indian. And it just took, for years, I couldn't figure what does he mean. And I go, how could that be? Well, I mean, it had to do with the genocide. Slavery couldn't get much more horrendous than slavery. The genocides, one more step into that. And so in the end, you could just kill them. I mean, slaves just like, well, hey man, you just cost me some money here. So I'm not going to let you kill slaves. But Indians, there was nothing to stop them from killing. So yes, a lot of, and I don't know how it worked out with my ancestors, but a lot of them pretend I'm Italian. All right, whatever. Yeah, pretend to be something else because that was safer than being Indian. Well, we need to take a break. And we will come back and tell us more about the Indians. OK, great. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. My victory was finding the strength to be a champion. My victory is having a job I can be proud of. At DAV, we help veterans get the benefits they've earned. My victory was finishing my education. My victory was getting help to put our lives back together. DAV provides veterans with a lifetime of support. My victory is being there for my family. Help us support more victories for veterans. Go to DAV. Aloha. I'm Marcia, and we are back. We are talking about Native Americans with David Mulnex. And David, I must tell you, David works at the Bishop Museum. And so if you want to go and have a conversation with David, that's the place to go. The museum is absolutely magnificent. It is fantastic. I'm inviting them to come visit you. So tell us, from the time that the Americans or the British or whoever first stepped on to Florida, tell us about what happened then. Because these are people that have been there forever. So now you get somebody that plants a flag and says, this is ours. So what happens? Generally, what happened was that Indians were traders. Loved to trade. That was like a trade all the time. So here come these colonists, these folks who have like metal knives and metal pots. These are pretty handy, because if you don't have a metal pot to cook in, you're really limited on how you can cook your food. And then beads and all kinds of fancy clothing and stuff. So they were really excited about trading. And so the trading started. And of course, these guys who first got there were rich guys. And they had no skills at all in camping or building or whatever. And they did bring a few peons to help them do that stuff. But they died off because they didn't have a whole lot of good food and all that. So pretty soon, you've got these rich guys who have these forts and stuff who don't know how to do anything and they're starving. And that was pretty common. So they started stealing the food of the Indians. And so first their Indians are helping them, saying, oh, let's give you some food. And we'll help you get settled here. And we'll do this all great trading. And you guys can have this piece of land. And it was all doing. That's the way that the people saw it happening. But as soon as the colony got strong enough and they had enough weapons, then they would just go and start taking. OK, well, now we're taking this land. And you're going to sign this treaty. And indigenous people really didn't. I mean, they talk about the chiefs and stuff. But it's not like they showed in the movies. The chiefs were like representatives. And they really didn't have like bossing people around. It really was. They were more like representing the people. So the story is like Chief Joseph. They have this great story of him fighting the Americans all the way up to Canada. And he has this brilliant military leader and all that. And they're all sitting around the council. And they said, which way should we go? And then they would all be like, oh, we'll go that way. It's Joseph. And so they would go that way. And that was kind of the history of really indigenous people, as well as even the civil rights. I mean, Martin Luther King was not the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. He was a representative. But for a capitalism of the American society, you need a leader so you can corral that guy to get what you want. And so that's what they did. And if they couldn't get the chief to do it, the chief, they would say, you're the chief. They would pick somebody, get him drunk, and say, OK, now you're the chief, sign this piece of paper, and they'd take the land. And Indians were pretty smart. They weren't going to wait around for someone to come and kill them. And they were really good warriors. So the Americans really couldn't. The Americans, the British, the French really couldn't beat them in war because they were not going to run into bullets and all that. They would hide behind trees and all the standard stuff. They knew the land. They knew the land very well. So the policy, and this was the policy of all the folks that were doing wars at that time as you go to the villages, kill all the women and children, burn the village to the ground, and then the men would quit. And that is how the Indian wars across the United States were fought. That was literally, it was a genocide. And it started practically from day one. And that was basically what was going on. So all these big hero stories of Custer or whoever fighting the Indians, that Custer battled prior to that is what he did. He grabbed the women and children. And so the warriors didn't attack them. But he had murdered women and children in the village prior, a few years earlier. So that was the policy because Indians weren't considered people. So that still is around today. I mean, in the 1970s, people were still killing Indians. And I don't know that it's happily stopped because they're not seen as equal. The whole thing at Standing Rock, right? That is their land. They have a treaty that says so. The United States has no right to be there at all. Yet they force this pipeline through their land and completely ignoring the rights. They ignore treaty rights all the time. The US government completely ignores treaty rights. Doesn't give them any value at all. Oh, we've got to make sure we keep our treaty with Brazil, both American Indians. They ignore the treaty. So anyway, so there's that kind of issue that has not been dealt with. And people kind of don't realize the real history. Do you still, even at modern day tribes, do they still have that distrust? Is there still? Yeah, you bet. Yeah, there's still this issue between the American government, especially the Department of the Interior. Yeah, yeah, no, because they know that the, yeah, they, well, see the whole system of after the wars, the whole system was set up, this government system was set up. It's not the American Indian system. You couldn't have a president and a vice president and a tribal council. Well, the only reason they set up the tribal council was so once again, they had a leader or a group of leaders and if they didn't like them, then they would find some guys, give them the money, make sure they got elected and then a tribal government would give them the coal, the oil, uranium, you know. So the tribal government often doesn't represent the people. It's representing the issues of the corporations. So that was one of the big wars we're about. I, many seems like, I taught a school in New Mexico. A tiny little Catholic school, Father John B. Hay. And there were nothing but mascara in it. And it was so pitiful. The land was so bad. It was just sad. And these little kids, well, you've known me a long time, I smile all the time. These little kids never smile. There was a sadness and my heart just broke all the time just looking at these kids. There was nothing you could do to make them smile. Right, yeah. The most extreme poverty is on Indian reservations, you know. The most destitution, the most lack of resources, the most lack of ability to move up or move out. Yeah, there was no way to go. There's nowhere to go. Right, you're completely trapped in destitution. And there was this old, the trading post at the bottom of the hill, at the bottom of the mountain. And the native people would come down and bring what they called old ponds, beautiful work that they had created with the turquoise and the silver. And then the howly guy that owned the store which sell it to whoever was driving by. Right. And it just terrified me to think that this was, my husband was in the military so that's the reason we were in New Mexico to begin with. And it just ate at me to see these little kids. Now they tell me they have casinos, which of course is another way to rip them off. But at least. Yes, it is. So right now one of the big problems that a lot of native people trying to bring to attention is the missing women. Women, especially with all these fracking and oil camps, indigenous women all across the United States are disappearing. They're being raped, they're being murdered, they're being, and they're just disappearing. So they have these man camps set up, was that putting in the pipelines. And there's Indian women are disappearing. It's a big, big problem and it's a whole movement to try to bring attention to it. So it's really hard. One of the things when I was at Standing Rock was that one of the, we were protesting, putting in the pipeline because it was completely illegal. And so they're arresting people illegally for, and we were peaceful, nonviolent. The police were brutal, tear gas and rubber bullets and all this sort of stuff. So they arrested a bunch of folks and then there was a couple of white guys in the group that got arrested. So this white kid, he's a teenager and he goes to court like he's supposed to and he's in all the room with him. Only one of the white guys, all these Indians and they're going through all of them, come up and they had the charges initially of trespassing. Well, they started throwing all these felonies resisting arrest, violent, whatever. Just one felonie and just loading up felonies and the kid's going, wow, I was just standing there. Well, I'm gonna get a felonie because everybody was getting a felonie. One Indian after another and many. And so he's getting really scared. And so he comes up to these, and the judge says, what are you guys doing here? And it's like, well, we came to a trial. And he goes, what? You guys don't belong here. You belong downstairs. You're in the wrong courtroom. But these are the guys we got arrested with. And then he goes, no, no, no, no, go downstairs. So they go downstairs and the judge goes, okay, great, trespassing, okay, case dismissed or community service, whatever it was, you can go. And the kid realized, oh my God, the Indians were getting all these felonies. And I'm let go because I'm white. This is North Dakota today. This is not a hundred years ago. This is the mentality of the people of that system today. The racism is so still intense. So that, you know. That just breaks my heart to even think. Now my granddaughter, who lives in Seattle, went to, of course, you know, with me as a grandmother, what else would she do but show up, you know, I was like, okay. Her mother was not happy, but her grandma was, yay. Yeah, so she was there. And she was saying, you know, at least they again looked at her and said, you're not Indian, what are you doing here? Yeah, yeah, right. And but she's protesting and what have you. But I was so proud of her. And she says the same thing, that how she was just pushed aside. Yeah, right. So yeah, there's still this racist mentality that exists, you know, and it's not just, you know, it's also going on in South America. I mean, there are a lot of indigenous leaders or indigenous folks who've stood up to say, you can't cut down all the forest and all that. And they're being murdered, assassinated one right after another. I don't remember how many it's been now, but there's like scores that have been murdered, you know, in South America. They're indigenous and they're leaders. So, you know, they just do it. Yeah, well, that's why I'm sorry that Beatrice isn't here because her mother comes from one of those tribes. And she has great stories about that. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, the indigenous, you know, what's gotten me through my life is my indigenous heritage, is that respecting the family, you know, looking out for the people. I mean, that's what I do, you know, in all my involvement, right? That is what's back of what I do. That's why I'm not afraid. That's why I go forward and just, because I know this is my responsibility. You know, the warrior wasn't, you know, brave because he was getting all these honors. You know, he was brave because he was protecting the families, protecting the people. And that is our duty. That's our destiny. That's who we are, you know? So that's kind of how I see it. You know, it's like, but it isn't just, you know, the indigenous people, it's all the people. This is our family here in Hawaii. It's like Martin Luther King, right? It was for civil rights, but at the end, he was for all the poor. You know, he says this is for human rights. Yes, and he had moved, completely moved in a different direction by that point. And so, and so yeah, that's what we all need to be doing, looking at each other. Thank you for looking out for everyone, and thank you so much for spending this time with us. And you will come back. Oh, that'd be great. Great, thank you. And we'll come back to the museum and talk to you some more. Thank you so much. Thank you for being with us. Aloha.