As far as the colonizers were concerned, we were never supposed to survive let alone master the papal documents and legal doctrines of Christian domination that nearly led to our complete eradication. We’ve walked through the fire of a centuries-long genocidal onslaught, and, yet, we press on. We have scars but we’re still standing. We’ve been traumatized but we’re still vibrant.
We are still mentally alive and spiritually grounded in our ceremonial traditions. We are not “conquered and subdued” nations because we are still in this fight to maintain our existence as original free nations. We press on and we will never surrender or “reconcile” ourselves to a system of domination that has worked so hard to destroy us but has failed in that attempt. All Our Relations – Steven Newcomb