http://www.su-spectator.com/news/grandmothers-form-unique-alliance-become-activists-for-native-people-1.21461432011.4.6_News_Grandmothers_MarisolVillanueva1
The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers
Each of the grandmothers is descended from a Native American Tribe.
2011.4.6_News_Grandmothers_MarisolVillanueva2
The microphones in Pigott auditorium were chirping and screeching over and above the voices of the two indigenous women speaking on stage.
Gail Lasprogata, director of the Center for the Study of Justice in Society hurried on to the stage in an effort to quiet the microphones.
Lasprogata conferred for a moment with the women on stage while the audience waited. Rita Pitka Blumenstein, an elder of the Yup'ik tribe of Alaska, bumped her clip-on microphone sending a low feedback screech through the auditorium again. She threw her weathered hands up and covered her eyes, giggling.
"Technology!" said Blumenstein, as the microphone screeched again. She shifted in her chair and her microphone squawked again; she slapped her thighs, bursting into a fit of laughter.
Blumenstein and Hopi elder Mona Polacca spoke to a packed Pigott auditorium about the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, of which they are a part. The Council was founded in upstate New York in 2004, the vision of Jeneane Prevatt of the Center for Sacred Studies.
Prevatt sent out invitations to many indigenous grandmothers, but only these 13 came. In New York they decided to form an official organization and to continue to meet. The women had come from Tibet, Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, Brazil, Gabon and Nepal. Over the next several years the women would travel to each other's homes, even boating down the Amazon River to visit two of the Grandmothers at their home in the Amazon Jungle. The formation and subsequent journeys of the 13 Grandmothers has been turned into a documentary called "For the Next 7 Generations." The Grandmothers are currently touring the world sharing their documentary and vision.
"The elders used to say, you don't make a kayak in one day," Blumenstein told the audience, but these Grandmothers seem to have gone from little known tribal leaders to international advocates for peace, stars of their own documentary and world travelers in just a few years.
The film documents the Grandmothers' visit to Dharamsala where they met the Dalai Lama.
"I think females should take more of a role," the Dalai Lama told them.
"In order to have compassion in society, mothers' role is very very crucial," said the Dalai Lama.
The 13 Grandmothers asked for a letter of introduction to the Pope from the Dalai Lama. The Grandmothers had sent a letter to a high-ranking cardinal asking for an outdated papal decree sanctioning the suppression of indigenous cultures and customs to be taken off the books. They had received a polite reply, but nothing had been done. The Dalai Lama agreed, but the Grandmothers decided to travel to Rome anyway to attend a public audience with the Pope.
In Rome, the Grandmothers discovered the audience had been canceled. They decided to leave an offering at the Vatican for the Pope nonetheless but were harassed by security. That episode is just part of a reoccurring theme of grievances with the church despite the respect that the Grandmothers have for Catholicism.
The presence of the Grandmothers at Seattle University, then, is part of the effort of this university to bridge that divide, and heal the wounds inflicted by the church.
The Grandmothers will meet again for the ninth time at the home of Grandmother Rita Pitka Blumenstein in May.
Community Forum
Topic: The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers (Read 1584 times)
July 10, 2010, 01:35:47 am
