Convening of Four Winds: The Warrior Way at the Phillip Deere Round House in Oklahoma

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, September 8, 2024

OKEMAH, Oklahoma -- Sharing a prayer song, Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca, spoke of the love and the knowledge that has always been. "You're like the river that flows, you have the water inside you," Casey said on Sunday, the second day of the Convening of the Four Winds gathering at the Phillip Deere Round House in Okemah.

"Water has life, water has memory," she said weaving the thread that runs through all created things as she spoke of protecting the water and rivers, and the role of the Rights of Nature.

The gathering is a continuation of the Warrior Way, she said, speaking of the joy of being with her family here, and remembering the AIM warriors and her family at Wounded Knee.

"And yet my babies in Palestine are being murdered. I see the war in Ukraine. I see the United States government still inflicting genocide on my people, and trying to kill the river herself."

"At this time, we are one."

When Evan Haney, Seminole, was in the military in Vietnam, he suffered a trauma. He found a culture like his own, and found he was fighting the wrong war.

Evan spent the rest of his life fighting the United States government.

"We're fighting the wrong war," he remembered saying to himself.

"When I got back to the states I was totally against the United States, I found the right war, I found Alcatraz."

Evan dedicated himself to the American Indian Movement.

At the Phillip Deere Round House during the two-day gathering this weekend, Ponca and Seminole joined their host, Mvskoke and the family of the international rights leader Phillip Deere, known for his voice at the United Nations and on the Longest Walk with the American Indian Movement in 1978 as a leader in the battle for Native American rights.

Speaking at the Phillip Deere Round House, Muscogee Creek described how it is all about the money these days for those who dug up the ancestors and handled them in a disrespectful way to build a casino on sacred Hickory Ground in Alabama.

Mvskoke Samuel 'Bonnie' Deere, son of Phillip Deere, spoke on the devastation of 57 Mvskoke ancestors who were dug up for the casino, ancestors in the homeland before the cruel Trail of Tears.

Honoring the ancestors and the rights of nature, Casey said these rights have always existed.

"We were just recognizing it in a formal way."

Inspiring youths at the gathering, Talia Landry, Mashpee Wampanoag Native Environmental Ambassador, spoke on the youth movement to protect their herring and the inspiration of the Rights of Nature movement.

Those gathered spoke of the need to protect the Kiamichi River, a tributary of the Red River, in southeastern Oklahoma from a devastating planned pumped power hydroelectric station and the threat of the loss of homes by eminent domain.

Read the series reported live at Censored News, with the live radio broadcast by Govinda Dalton.

Convening of the Four Winds, Day 2
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/listen-live-convening-of-four-winds-at.html

Defending the Ancestors: Voices from the Phillip Deere Round House
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/defending-ancestors-voices-from-phillip.html

Live from the Phillip Deere Roundhouse: Day 1: Convening of the Four Winds
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/live-now-from-phillip-deere-roundhouse.html