Izzie said, "Cool, go for it." (well, maybe not in those exact words.)  

So one day in 1491,   Chris set sail with his three little ships, the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria.  As time went on, it became clear that our intrepid explorer couldn't tell the difference between a Sex Pot and a Sextant. He eventually sank his flagship, the Santa Maria, but that's another story. As a result he  sailed west instead of east.  He ended up a very lo-o-o-ong way from his original destination, India, of course being in the opposite direction.  Sigh ! 

By the time young Chris arrived on the shores of what is know today as the Dominican Republic, (he called it Hispaniola), his men were starving and diseased. "India, India, Ave Maria, I'm in India !" gasped Senor Rocket Scientist as he staggered on shore.  

 

As he pointed to the elegant, copper-skinned Taino People who were waiting to greet him, he wrongfully concluded, "And, you are Indians, Ave Maria (again), you are Indians!! we've reached the promised land!."  

Er-r-r No.  

Not ever having seen a white man never mind one who spoke Italian, The beautiful Taino People just smiled, and set about saving the lives of Chris and his men, after which they returned the favour by savaging them in most heinous ways.  The photo (left) is of a bohios (straw hut)*

Fact 1: cutting children to bits to see who many could be cut in half with one swipe of a sword is what makes a monster not a hero.

Fact 2: The world he arrived in was hardly new having been here for a few thousand years. The Taino culture, in particular, was one of the most highly developed cultures in the caribbean.

Fact 3: How does one discover that which was not lost in the first place?

Oh, and by the way, despite his best efforts the courageous Taino people survived to tell their stories.

Taino Resources List

STOP WITH THE FOLLOWING MYTH ALREADY..

The man was not and never will be a hero except to those deluded non-Native souls who continue to think he is a great man....because he discovered the new world.

DID HE OR DID HE NOT COME TO NORTH AMERICA?

Many folks think, for some reason, that Chris and the lads made it to North America and discovered it.  Well, there are two things wrong with this notion:

1.  How can anyone discover that which was NOT lost in the first place.
2.  Hispaniola is not part of  the North American continent

The poor Taino people were forced to endure this creep four times  between 1491-1496. The man never set foot on North American soil - GIVE THIS MYTH A REST!

What is sadly ironic is the fact that even though young Chris never made it to North America, the word 'Indian' managed to find its way from the bottom to the top of Turtle Island. Ain't no justice.

And............

The rest, as they say is history.....Turtle Island's First Nations people have been stuck with the handle  "INDIAN" ever since.  Listen up! 

Canada's Native people are not   INDIANS; we weren't born in a foreign place across the sea! 

Canada's First People do not want a name that is already owned by another noble culture. Certainly, Spanish people do not want to be called Italians, or Italians called Greek.  Why is it, then, that the world continues to perpetuate an incorrect identifier for Turtle Island's Indigenous people. Guess what?  We actually have our own names - what a concept!!

Furthermore, the word 'ABORIGINAL' is also not quite accurate. AB as in AB-original is Latin for 'Away'. The definition of 'Aboriginal' is: 'first into a region', suggesting, in other words, that First Nations people, although first to arrive, came from some other place, hence that pesky and persistent Bering Straight Theory (which is also wrong!)
(See Indigenous History page) 

  'Aboriginal' implies that Native People 'emigrated' like everyone else to Turtle Island, and therefore the Europeans, once they "discovered" Turtle Island considered the land to be terra nullius (the land belongs to no one) and could be claimed by whomever was the strongest and most influential, hence the term 'Manifest Destiny' which in 1839 became the rallying cry for Washington to claim its God-given right to expand, expand, expand (still going on, gotta have the oil in Iraq).

Au contraire! All Native Creation stories point to the fact that The People came from another world, NOT from another geographical location on Mother Earth. (See Indigenous below)

Some Scholars prefer the term "AmerIndian" - Hello!! anybody home? What the hell is this? Has it occurred to these scholars to ask the Indigenous people what they prefer to be known as? The sheer arrogance of these so-called 'expert' interlopers into Native culture, history and spirituality is simply staggering. "Amer-Indians??" 'America' did not exist for the first sixty thousand years that Indigenous People lived alone and in relative tranquility on Turtle Island!!   This is another persistent and patriarchal view that Turtle Island's history commenced when it was "discovered" by the Europeans. 

Oh please, stop already!  

The following can never be repeated too often: One cannot discover that which was never lost in the first place.

Sadly, even First Nations people have bought into these common usages because they have been identified for hundreds of years as Indians or Aboriginals.  Unfortunately, these terms, now pour trippingly from the tongues of Indigenous people as well. 

As an Educator, Thunderbird and others are fighting lonely battles to change this, but old habits die hard.

ALSO, do not use "ABORIGINE"  or "ABORIGINES" when referring to Turtle Island's Native People - NO, NO, NO. This is a term that is tightly confined to the Indigenous people of Australia. 

 "Aboriginals"  also sucks.

CORRECT TERMS:  
  1) By Individual Tribe within a main Tribal Grouping - In Thunderbird's case, for example, 
 GILUTS'AAW 

OR

2) By Individual Linguistic Tribal Group: 
Coast Tsimshian, Southern Tsimshian, Haida, Cree, Lakhota, Mi'kmaq, Mohawk

OR AS A COLLECTIVE:
2) There are three distinct groups recognized in the Canadian Constitution:  
First Nations, Inuit and Métis

OR

3) "The People": For sixty thousand years, Indigenous people were THE ONLY PEOPLE living here

OR

OR

5) "Indigenous" (Latin for 'IN' - means 'Native to') because they have always lived on Turtle Island. As an Elder once said, "We came in a time before time began, we came out of the dreamtime of our creative Ancestors, and have kept the land as it was on that very first day." I realize that there has to be a non-Native empirical comfort zone, everyone SIMPLY HAS TO HAVE COME FROM SOMEWHERE - BUT WHERE DOES THAT STOP? If, for example, we came from Siberia, where did we come before that, before that, before that and on and on into complete lunacy.

HEREIN LIES A CLEVER RUB.........

There is enough of a difference between the two words for the Canadian Government to steer clear of using 'INDIGENOUS' as much as possible. If they were to acknowledge that Native People were 'Indigenous' in any legal sense, they would also have to acknowledge that Canada's land mass was obtained by theft and trickery.  

In other words, the visitors would have to give up their deluded notion of terra nullius and accept the fact that Turtle Island was filled with millions of original Indigenous inhabitants who never gave up title to their territories, and who have legitimate claims to their ancestral land.

Therefore, Thunderbird who always likes to think big and continues to believe that hope springs eternal, claims on behalf of Native people everywhere, Toronto, Mississauga, (oh what the heck, all of Ontario!), the Canadian Shield, the Rockies, the Territories, East Coast, beautiful Newfoundland, Nunuvut, Labrador, Greenland, Quebec, Plains and the entire Pacific Northwest Coast (but, then, southern British Columbia is pretty nice, so she's decided to go for the whole Province - if she missed anything, she claims that too)! She is also rooting for the Mississauga of the New Credit as negotiate for the City of Toronto and surrounding area!

OR

In a pinch, Thunderbird will accept the term 'Native'. However, the 'N' in Native, and the 'I' in Indigenous, 'A' in Aboriginal (if you insist on using it) must be capitalized, they are proper names, and she does not care where the words appear in a sentence.  When referring to Canada's First People, always ! CAPITALIZE !

UNAVOIDABLE REALITY

Until Thunderbird is able to educate the entire world, she has been forced to use the words INDIAN and ABORIGINAL on her web page, for the simple reason that the terms are embedded in twenty-first century popular culture. They are the main INTERNET GLOBAL IDENTIFIERS of Turtle Island's First Nations People.

She put the words on her site only after months of contemplation, prayer and discussion with some Elders, and even then was dragged kicking and screaming to the inevitability of it.  Her only solace is that she can correct the misunderstanding when folks arrive at the site. 
All My Relations.

"Columbus Rant" is one of the tracks on Thunderbird's CD, "May Your Spirit Be Strong" She simply had to get it all off her chest!