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International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples

In 1994, the United Nations General Assemby designated August 9 as the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples.  2011 marks the 17th year of recognition, and the theme for this year is "Indigenous Designs: Celebrating Stories and Cultures, Crafting Our Own Future."  An event highlighting this theme was held at the UN Headquarters in New York City. 

We at BetterListen! have great interest in the contributions and concerns of indigenous cultures around the world.  BetterListen! staff were privilged to attend the First World Conference of Indigenous Peoples in 1992, and witnessed and recorded this historic event. In recognition of the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, we are delighted to offer a free download (for a limited time only) of "The Indigenous Peoples Message to the World" recorded at the Conference in 1992.

Click here for free download of "The Indigenous People's Message to the World"

More information on the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples

 

Excerpt from "Witches, Scholars, and Other Freedom Fighters" with Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem offers us this excerpt from her recording “Witches, Scholars and Other Freedom Fighters.”

 

What was true in my day is still far too true now, and so we need scholars who are revolutionaries and who dare to think what we might study if we looked at the world as if everyone mattered, and if we studied each continent in the reality of their existence instead of the political fact of their power, in our view of the world.  In fact by not doing that we are missing a very great deal. Think about what we did not learn about the Native-American cultures.  There are hundreds of sophisticated peoples, yet we are only just discovering how useful to us Native American cultures are that were already in this country before it was “discovered”.  And think about the true source of much of our democratic tradition in this country.  

I doubt very much the immigrants -- the European immigrants who came here -- knew a great deal about ancient Greece.  And in any case, in ancient Greece, only about five people voted.  It was a very limited privilege -- very limited privilege -- and in fact the source of our knowledge about democracy really came from the Native American cultures that were already here. We learned the structure of our government from the Iroquois confederacy. And those wise people advised us and were present in Philadelphia explaining that it was of course possible to allow a high degree of autonomy as they did to various nations.  The Cherokees and others still cede overall umbrella powers in a confederacy. Benjamin Franklin admitted that this is a major source of our democracy in this country, but with condescension: “Well if those savages can do it so can we.”

BetterListen! Free Sampler Mix with Thich Nhat Hanh, Shlomo Carlebach, Gloria Steinem, Coleman Barks

Welcome to the First BetterListen! Sampler Mix.

Our sampler mixes offer you a taste of our titles. This Mix features Gloria Steinem, Thich Nhat Hanh, Shlomo Carlebach, Coleman Barks, Beryl Bender Birch, The Indigenous Peoples Message To The World and more.

As far as we know, we've never seen a sampler mix anything like this, both in format and content. So please let us know how the technology works and how you enjoy the content.

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Excerpt from "Indigenous Peoples -- Message to the World"

  We at BetterListen! are delighted to offer this excerpt from our recording of "Indigenous Peoples -- Message to the World." Below is a transcription of The Indigenous Peoples Declaration of Interdependence. Recorded Live at The First Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.

Declaration: We the Indigenous Peoples walk to the future in the footprints of our ancestors, from the smallest to the largest living being, from the four directions, from the air, the land and the mountains.  The Creator has placed us, the Indigenous Peoples, upon our mother the earth. 

The footprints of our ancestors are permanently etched upon the lands of our peoples.  We the Indigenous Peoples maintain our inherent rights to self-determination. We have always had the right to decide our own forms of government, to use our own laws, to raise and educate our children, to our own cultural identity, without interference.  We continue to maintain our rights as peoples despite the centuries of deprivation, assimilation, and genocide. We maintain our inalienable rights to our lands and our territories, to all our resources above and below, and to our waters we assert our ongoing responsibility to pass these on to the future generations. 

We cannot be removed from our lands.  We the Indigenous peoples are connected by the circle of life to our lands and environment. 

We the Indigenous peoples walk to the future in the footprints of our ancestors.  Signed in Karoka, Brazil on the 30th day of May, 1992.

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Women and Wild Animals - Author Notes Part III

Although I began to put this together in 1983 I  recorded the stories with Steve Gorn in the early 1990's in Boulder, Colorado for NorthWord,My father had died a few years before and the last tale, a true story is about his death and four herons. 
I continue to tell the stories, going deeper hopefully in my capacity to bring them to life without manipulating them  (my attempt).  They feel more relevent today then twenty years ago.  Beside a good story never getting old; they are always fresh when they are brought out, released, and  shared.  But, our need to be reminded of our interdependence with the natural world, our abiding presence as connection - wilderness of our own heart..  is vital to our ability to live on this earth and to lessen the increasing propulsion of violence and greed that are destroying the world.   

One pathway to access that place in ourselves... that is not a place at all, but the open receptivity of direct engagement with our being that is all ready interwoven, part of - is through deep listening to such rich tales. My ever apprecation for your willingness to listen. And for having the good fortune to be a storyteller.  Open your animal eyes and ears..  Tell the stories to someone else.  laura
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Women and Wild Animals - Author Notes Part II

I have never tired of telling LOK SNOWEDJAS and learning about the story.  My first encounter with it was in Strand Bookstore, where I saw a book  of Moduc
tales printed in 1904, in the wrong area and bought it -  because when I opened it, I read the first line  of a tale, " LOK SNEWEDJAS was a woman during the day but at night she became a bear." it was the final story that I chose at that time.  I  phoned up Ron Evans, a Chippewa-Cree Keeper of the Talking Stick who was living in North Carolina at far from the reservation where he grew up in Saskatchewan. He was building a boat in Barbara Freeman's (a storyteller) driveway far from any water. 

He called me back collect later that day and we spoke for three hours. I told him the story. He listened. I asked about meanings and symbols. He never explained anything to me. But he kept telling me stories, other stories,  anecdotes about his life and being trained to be  a storyteller or being in the bush with old hunters.  I was a bit
frustrated, having always in the back of my mind my seemingly seering questions. 

Finally I asked, "why do you think I chose this story?"   He said, "You did not choose
the story. This story has chosen you."  Getting a bit nervous I said, "Perhaps I should not be telling this Native myth."  He laughed and commanded, "It chose you.
You have to tell it now. Don't be impatient or you will gather a dust storm."

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Women and Wild Animals - Author Notes Part I

In 1983 I  began gathering the stories that eventually became this recording.  It was  a process of cutting and pasting, listening and responding, to the fact that I had so many stories, both traditional and personal that were about the relationship between human beings and animals.  So many of them about women. A friend who was a  Jungian analyst said that I was living with animal eyes and ears.   The title WOMEN AND WILD ANIMALS came to mind  one morning and so the series of tales was born. 

The first time that I told these stories was at the Center for World Music that was in a storefront downtown Manhattan at that time.  We were a storyteller and three musicians (Steve Gorn, Julia Haines and Glen Velez).  The Center was packed.  The concert lasted well over three hours and none of us, audience included, seemed worn out at all. In that time the audience became  a traditional tea house audience anywhere in the world, responding, calling out, humming along, lost in deep silence or outrageously laughing together.  These stories seemed to touch a nerve, like an acupuncture needle.

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