Each people, tribe and human being, in particular, has its own identity to put it this way, in all a different thought influences that allow us to continue traditions and customs; and if we are immersed in it, we look for ways to inherit our children and descendants. I can not understand (without judging) how the thought of the tribes that are said today pure and original, are so tied to a thought that is alien to them, that is not in their primary historical DNA, celebrating with crosses, rosaries and all kinds of “Spiritual” parties associated with an identity (and an entity) that does not belong to them and with which they were treated to annihilate, this is the worst part of colonization:

… we inherit a thought that is not ours …
The love for the sword and the cross of the perpetrators …

Nor do I understand and here I judge; as some modern anthropologists rejoice in a culture that they declare with pomp and elegant words that are extinct ?, and their descendants are labeled as crazy and usurpers, then reason; The cigars are enslaved by modernism, Catholicism and the thoughts of a religion that is not ours and the usurpers (which, of course we are not) seek to restore our ancestral traditions, eliminating intermediary thoughts, loving mother earth, the sun , to the wind and sacred water, without crosses, without rosaries and without images that only remind us of thoughts of slavery, misery, annihilation and abuse of all kinds.

Without a doubt that we are influenced by our thoughts, our history, what we are and feel, it is a constant reminder of the events that have marked our lives, a matter of which, with that primary influence, we are able to restore the greatness of what we once We were free human beings.

Wikipedia data:
The so-called indigenous peoples, indigenous reductions or headwaters of doctrine were indigenous villages that existed during the Spanish Colonization in America. They were promoted by the Spanish authorities in the second half of the 16th century, from the Royal Decree of 1545. They were devised to make a more efficient collection of taxes; to increase control and acculturation of the subject population, through Christian preaching; and to ensure concentrations of labor.

In law as the basic administrative organization of the so-called Republic of Indians, that is, it was a kind of indigenous municipality. The urban settlement policy of the ethnic groups conquered in villages in many cases was limited to providing legal recognition or relocating to existing towns. In other occasions, the towns of Indians were concentrations of dispersed population in settlements designated ex profeso. The policy of indigenous peoples, complemented by the reductions, was supported by a part of the Catholic clergy, who saw in it an instrument against the abuse of mining mita and the discredited encomienda system, accused of having been converted by the encomenderos into an overlapping method of enrichment and exploitation.

Read more here (in Spanish).

During the past NABI, it was of great pride and honor that the honorable Verlon Jose who was the tribal chief until May of 2019 as vice president of the Tohono O’odham Nation carries the coat of arms of our people Hoi-Ra-Ua. called Opatas. It is very significant for us and of high value because it indirectly contributes to our process and struggles for reunification as a differentiated people that have not been extinct as it had been expressed in the last two decades. We are recognized as a people from which we descend thousands, but unfortunately many do not assume for different reasons that have happened over the centuries.

Through this note, we want to give the specials again thanks to my brother Julio Cesar Ortega Lopez and my nephew Julio Everardo Ortega who represented us very well in this event where brothers from many parts of the world and original peoples of Sonora – Arizona met. The creator is sending us blessings so that we can help him to rescue this wonderful place that he created for us and that we call home, our mother earth. And although the theme was the sport we know that if our young people, our children live in a healthy environment, they will be the ones that continue with this fight. Thank you very much to the teacher Edna Soto Gracia and Isabel Valadez Arias who coordinated for this to be possible, you are a blessing for our peoples.

This flag was designed by Teresita Leal, our commander who today takes care of us from that spiritual level where she undoubtedly continues to send us blessings. She gave it to me and we will always wear it with pride, WE ARE the Hoi-Ra-Ua, Opatas (Tehuimas, Jovas, Eudeves to mention the most numerous families), WE ARE BRIDGE BEINGS, a nation that came to light again to enrich the culture of our State of Sonora and of our country.

We recently found out via our Noragua Rushingwind (Opata-Cahuilla), that 2 songs of his solo album “Keeper of Secrets” (Google play Music) that won a NAMMY Award will appear 4 times on the Documentary “The Warrior Tradition” which will air November 11, 2019, on National PBS. There will be a premiere at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC in October 2019.

The Warrior Tradition tells the astonishing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and largely-untold story of Native Americans in the United States military. Why do they do it? Why would Indian men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands? The film chronicles the accounts of Native American warriors from their own points of view – stories of service and pain, of courage and fear.

The Warrior Tradition, a one-hour documentary, is a co-production of WNED-TV, Buffalo/Toronto and Florentine Films/Hott Productions, Inc. Produced and directed by Lawrence Hott, written by Ken Chowder, Edited by Rikk Desgres. Cinematography by David Litz, Sound by Mark Henry. John Grant is an executive producer for WNED. NativeAmericanMusicAwards.com High Spirits Flutes Southwest Stories with the two Steves