Mangawhai teen stands tall at Standing Rock

 

An ancestral search has taken a Mangawhai 15-year-old on a journey halfway around the world and seen him involved in a significant environmental and cultural protest movement.

In December 2015 Rodney College student, Carlos Gillon, discovered that he descends from the Native American tribe of Ojibwe in North America, through the bloodline of his paternal grandmother.

Inspired to learn more about his new heritage, the adventurous teenager embarked on a ten month student experience in Bemidji, Minnesota, where he currently boards with a Native American family and attends the local high school. Accompanied by the family, Carlos joined the Standing Rock Sioux and other Native American tribes in North Dakota, USA, for four days, in their fight to halt the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. Financed by Energy Transfer Partners, the conduit proposes to carry crude oil from the North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields across to Illinois for refinement.

The tribes perceive the pipeline as a potential threat to the health of the waters of Lake Oahe on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation as well as the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Sacred Native American historical and burial sites have also been destroyed by excavation machinery.

In April this year a grassroots protest movement formed, attracting thousands of supporters to Sacred Stone Camp at Standing Rock throughout the summer.

The intentions of the protest are on uniting in a peaceful ‘spiritual resistance’ via ceremonies, prayer and peaceful occupation although a handful of activists have allegedly escalated efforts by vandalising construction vehicles and setting fire to machinery.

“The camp doesn’t support or claim responsibility to any individuals who do or shout anything aggressive,” Carlos says. “We are peaceful.”

However the protesters’ presence has been met with force by police and private security, with pepper spray and rubber bullets being fired on people and horses, vicious attacks by guard dogs, multiple arrests and alleged human rights violations which are currently being investigated by the United Nations.

“On our last day… people were gathering to protest and sing songs by the river,” Carlos says. “The police were across the river and up a steep hill. We were singing and protesting peacefully but were met with tear gas and mace. They also threw flares which ignited the grass but we put our clothing in the water and put out the fire using our wet clothes.”

Carlos also took part in what turned out to be a powerful emotional experience – a peaceful pipe ceremony involving prayer, sharing of pipes and lighting of a sacred fire.

“Before we started, horse riders came running in and around the circle, it was a really magical moment and made a lot of people cry,” he says.

“Next were runners from Hopi and Navajo nations from Arizona. They ran all the way to North Dakota to symbolise the forced running of their ancestors, the forced removal of their nations. One young man said, ‘Last time we ran this, we were forced to run, woman and children as well… out of our homes. But not today, we ran not because we were forced but because we wanted to.’ That speech made everyone cry.”

As pipe songs echoed around the camp, prayers were offered for the tribes’ healing and gathering of strength but also for those who oppose them.

“We prayed mostly for the police and the pipeline workers to realise that if this pipe goes through it won't only affect us but their world as well.”

For Carlos, standing in unison with Native American people appears to have deepened his connection to his new heritage.

“It means to me that as an *Anishinaabe person, for us to live off the land our Mother Shkaakaaikwe needs to be protected to survive,” he says. “We are not doing this just for us, we are doing it for the whole world.”

* Anishinaabe is the autonym for a group of culturally-related indigenous peoples of Canada and the United States. The Anishinaabeg translates to ‘the good people’. [Wikipedia]