Saturday, August 29, 2009

All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life by Winona LaDuke



by Eric Hjerstedt शार्प
editor-publisher
The Tall Timber Telegraph


LA POINTE, Wis. _ "Madeline Island holds a special spiritual significance," said LaDuke at Tom's Burned Down Cafe Thursday night.



Originally called Mooningwanekaaning ("The Home of the Golden Breasted Woodpecker") Madeline Island is the traditional spiritual center of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) people. LaDuke chose Tom's Burned Down Cafe in the town of La Pointe as the venue for her 50th birthday bash and the annual benefit for Honor the Earth, a native-directed and controlled organization of which LaDuke is the executive director. Honor the Earth's mission is "to create awareness and support for indigenous environmental issues and leverage needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable indigenous communities. Honor the Earth develops these resources by using music, the arts, media and indigenous wisdom to ask people to recognize our joint dependency on the earth and be a voice for those who are not heard," according to the organization's mission statement.

LaDuke and the staff of Honor the Earth urged participants to be aware of local food communities and to follow sustainable paths to help the earth heal after centuries of neglect and resource depletion.

Native rocker Keith Secola on guitar and others joined the celebration at Tom's Burned Down Cafe for an evening of music and dance. Secola was joined by Chequamegon Bay-area musicians including Laughing Fox (Michael "Scooter" Charette, flute), Marky Rossow (Marky Mark sax, banjo and drums) and others at the event.

Photos by Chad Lampson, The Tall Timber Telegraph photographer and technical editor






FLUTIST LAUGHING FOX from Red Cliff, Wis. constructs his own flutes. A poet and artist, he has taught people of all ages.

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