Ceremonies

This week of ceremony and visiting with friends at Carlisle is one that can only be lived and not put down in words. I was very honored and will now go home and sit with our families so they can know and understand what has taken place. All our people have looked forward to this day and now these young ones lives have been completed and are home. Many things were learned by all who were able to attend and much more was learned by all who visited after the ceremonies. I hope we left everyone with a little more understanding on how our families feel and see the history that has affected all our families for so long. Our schools and government have written history as they see it and most of us have just repeated what was written. We all know there is another side to these stories but what is it? Many of us learn to look at how the Indian schools "helped" the Indians and maybe we just want to walk away with the thought that it was not all bad. I wonder how many of those children and families would have succeeded if they had just been left alone. This can not be looked as an experiment. I has to be remembered for what it was, much worse. Our country has apologized for wrongful acts it has done to peoples such as the Japanese, yet much worse has been done to an entire nation of Indigenous People and all we hear is silence. Indeed silence speaks louder that words. For us we choose to honor our ancestors strength, courage and all that it took for them to live through this turmoil and to bring us here today. We honor them and will never forget them. All of them.
Richard Gonzalez
Lipan Apache Band of Texas