Once upon a time there was an Italian Guy with a lousy sense of direction....A man who did not discover North America.

There is some dispute as to his actual nationality; a suggestion abounds that he was actually Jewish, which is odd given that his funding was Catholic-based! Read on.

His name was Chris Columbus. Being a bit of a rogue, he eventually had to escape his homeland and ended up in Portugal. It was rumoured, while there, he was having a mad affair with Queen Isabella, much to the chagrin of King Philip. Chris had a grand scheme on how to get oughta town fast.......

"Izzie, honey, gimme a few ships; I'm gonna rock on to India, loot that land and bring back every exotic spice I can find and beside I'm a thinkin' Philip is royally cheesed off." (or words to that effect)

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

So one day, allegedly, in 1491 (not 1492), Chris set sail with his three little ships, the Nina, Pinta and his flagship, the Santa Maria, sporting Templar crosses on the sails (Hmmm, I thought he was being funded by the Spanish). 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. Lucky for them - sigh !

By the time young Chris arrived on the shores of what is known today as the Canary Islands, his men were starving and diseased. "India, India, Ave Maria (or Oy Vey), I'm in India !" gasped Senor Rocket Scientist as he staggered on shore. He remained there for a month or so; because the winds were calm, he then set sail and found a combo-pack of Haiti and the Dominican Republic which he called Hispaniola.

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 (Oy Vey! again), you are Indians!! we've reached the promised land!."

Yeah, Er-r-r No.

Not ever having seen a white man never mind one who spoke a foreign language, 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. The brave Taino people were forced to endure his presence four times between 1491-1504

Fact 2: The world he arrived in was hardly new having been there for thousands of years. The Taino culture, in particular, was one of the most highly developed cultures in the Caribbean.

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

Taino Resources List

*Photo borrowed from an interesting website on the Taino http://www.topuertorico.org/reference/taino.shtml

STOP WITH BELIEVING THE FOLLOWING CRAPOLA ALREADY..

1. Columbus 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 so-called 'discovered' the new world. He was a savage, ruthless excuse for a man.

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

a. How can anyone discover that which was NOT lost in the first place. He was lost, not the North American continent!
b. The forty-odd islands including: Bahamas, Jamaica, Barbados, etc. he is credited with visiting (not discovering!) are NOT part of North America.

The man never set foot on North American soil What is sadly ironic is the fact that even though young Chris never made here, the word 'Indian' managed to find its way from the bottom to the top of Turtle Island. Ain't no justice. It is also curious as to why Columbus Day is celebrated in the United States. What's that all about?

And...The rest, as they say is history.....Turtle Island's First Nations people have been stuck with the handle 'INDIAN' ever since. Columbus eventually died in 1506 and was buried somewhere in the islands, and vanished without much of a whimper into the annals of history, but, still, managed to screw it up for Turtle Island's Native people.

Canada's Indigenous people are not INDIANS; we weren't born in a foreign place across the sea! I, for one, do not want a name that is already owned by a noble culture half a world away. 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!

Furthermore, the word 'ABORIGINAL' is also not quite accurate. AB as in AB-original is Latin for 'Away From'. The definition of 'Aboriginal', therefore means "first into a region", suggesting, in other words, that First Nations people, although the 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" it, 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! Native Creation stories point to the fact that Indigenous People came from another world, ie. the fifth world above us, NOT from another geographical location on Mother Earth. (See Indigenous below)

Some Scholars prefer the term "AmerIndian". Has it occurred to these scholars to ask us what we 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.

The following can never be repeated too often: One cannot discover that which was not 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, I 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/New Zealand.

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

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

OR AS A COLLECTIVE:
3) There are three distinct groups recognized in the Canadian Constitution: First Nations, Inuit, M�tis.

5) Lifestyle Tribal Grouping: Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse) or Anishinaabe (From Whence They Were Lowered) - in other words, Ojibwa knowledge explains that they were lowered from the upper world, and did not cross the Bering Strait.

6) "Indigenous" (Latin for 'IN' - means 'Native to') because we originated 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 an anthropological, empirical comfort zone for academics, that states everyone SIMPLY HAD TO HAVE COME FROM SOMEWHERE - BUT WHERE DOES ORIGINATION 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. Our Creation stories quite clearly state that we originated on Turtle Island. Oral histories have truth and power, listen to them!

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.

In a pinch, I 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 I do not care where the words appear in a sentence. When referring to Canada's First People, always CAPITALIZE THE FIRST LETTER, WHICHEVER TERM YOU USE!

UNAVOIDABLE REALITY

Until I am able to educate the entire world, I have been forced to use the words INDIAN and ABORIGINAL on my website, 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. I put the words on my 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. My only solace is that I can correct the misunderstanding when folks arrive at the site. Wilwilaaysk, All My Relations.

"Columbus Rant" is one of the tracks on my CD, "May Your Spirit Be Strong" I simply had to get it all off my chest!

MORE FACTS AND FANTASIES ABOUT
INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

Here is another interesting take on the whole Columbus debacle, which begs the question, why do the Americans celebrate Columbus day when he never came here.....just asking......It also supports my research that Columbus was also being financed by the Catholic Church, in particular the Templar's, hence the Templar Cross emblazoned on the sails of his ships (more info on the Templar Cross below).

Teachers Tell Us About Columbus

From "Illuminating the Historic and Contemporary Path" by David Michael Wolfe. Reprinted by permission of the Manataka American Indian Council, July Newsletter

The self-proclaimed inheritor of the �Right of Discovery�, the United States government and its European imperial ancestors successfully usurped the entire Western hemisphere from the original indigenous peoples and redefined their identity, ways of life, community standards, family structure, language, tribal confederations, concepts of sovereignty and freedom, clan and blood laws, and spiritual practices. To ensure their destruction the powers of the Empire devised what I freely term, a �Fire and Forget� strategy; a self-perpetuating and artificial construct, termed the �American Indian� and the �American Indian world�; an artificial person and world that is maintained by the very subjects that it has subjugated and redefined.

The Roots of the Term �Indian�

The origin of this term is purportedly due to the circumstances of a 1400's Genoese sailor, [Christophoro Columbo/aka Columbus] allegedly discovering a shorter oceanic route to what � we are told were the lands referred to in his day as the �Indies�. Was �India� known by its original peoples as the Indies and or, India prior to 1492? No.

India was not the true name as used by the people of that anomalous name in the 1400s. The Etymology of the term �India�. From Latin India, �region of the Indus River," later used in that region and beyond, from Indos "Indus River," from O.Pers. Hindu, the name for the from Latin India, from Greek, India "region province of Sind, from Skt. sindhu "river." The more common form was Ynde or Inde. From Fr. (see Indies). India : the term [Indies], began to prevail circa 16th century, [1501 to 1600], under Spanish or Portuguese influence.

Beyond the reality that the indigenous peoples of, �India�, did not refer to their domains as such, even at the time of the infamous �Columbus�, the name India was not in use until the 16th century. As seen and stated by its own people, �India�- has been called Bharat even in Satya yuga ( Golden Age ) The name `India� is derived [by later invading entities] from the River Indus, the valleys around which were the home of the early settlers. The original [Pre-Christian] Aryan celebrants referred to the river Indus as the Sindhu.

Persian invaders converted it into Hindu. The name `Hindustan� combines Sindhu and Hindu and thus freely infers, the �land of the Hindus�. Thus, at the �time of Columbus �India� was known by the by the Persian epithet; variously; Hindus & Hindustan�. No country, land, sea or people in the world were named "India" prior to 1492.

The �sub-continent� of the nation and country known today as �India�, did not become officially so named until the later arriving and permanent British presence in the 1700; s. The Eurasian domains of [India] and the various autonomous indigenous domains were prior to and at the time of 1492, known by their various, proper designations as, Hindustan, Turkistan, Kurdistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.; as designated by their varied original indigenous peoples.

Hence, the question, if the slang referent Indies, and its consequent, Indio, did not surface in popular use among Spanish and Portuguese lingua until the 16th century, how could Columbus possibly spewn forth from his mouth in 1492? Either �Columbus had knowledge of the future�, or, he didn�t set sail �for the Indies�, until at least the 1500's when the term India and Indies was in use. So, how has �India� as a reference to all Original Indigenous peoples of the �Americas�, come to be a correct justification for the term �Indian, American Indian�?

People or Children Of God

Some of the Indigenous terms of identity as expressed by the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean Islands that were first visited by Columbus are detailed in an original narrative that is in the public domain; �Brevisima relacion de la destrucc�on de las Indias", by Bartolome de las Casas, originally published in Seville in 1552. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20321

�POPERY Truly Display'd in its Bloody Colours: Or, a faithful narrative of the and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India; �Together With the Devastation�s of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them �. Composed first in Spanish by Bartholomew de las Casas, a Bishop there, and Eye-Witness of most of these Barbarous Cruelties; afterward Translated by him into Latin, then by other hands, into High-Dutch, Low-Dutch, French, and now taught to Speak Modern English. (London, Printed for R. Hewson at the Crown in Cornhil, near the Stocks-Market. 1689)

Within the narrative is an indication as to the inception of the term, �Indio�, as an ultimate referent, though in its original telling, the term Indeo [hence Indio etc], indicates within context, an inference to; �of heaven or heavenly�. �las Casas� states;

�Finally, in one word, their Ambition and Avarice, than which the heart of Man never entertained greater, and the vast Wealth of those Regions; the Humility and Patience of the Inhabitants (which made their approach to these Lands more facil and easie) did much promote the business: Whom they so despicably contemned, that they treated them (I speak of things which I was an Eye Witness of, without the least fallacy) not as Beasts, which I cordially wished they would, but as the most abject dung and filth of the Earth; and so solicitous they were of their Life and Soul, that the above-mentioned number of People died without understanding the true Faith or Sacraments. And this also is as really true as the precedent Narration (which the very Tyrants and cruel Murderers cannot deny without the stigma of a lye) that the Spaniards never received any injury from the them, but that they rather reverenced them as Persons descended from Heaven, until that they were compelled to take up Arms, provoked thereunto by repeated Injuries, violent Torments, and unjust Butcheries.�

In the Latin language of ecclesiastics and royalty of the time, [the] �People or Children Of God�, as Spaniards often referred to the Indigenous, translates freely as �Los Ninos� de la Endeo� and consequently, Los Ninos de la Indios� [more-literally �children of God�];�En de o� [freely] �of God. This proceeding from narratives of, Bartholomew� de las Casas, together with additional reports concerning his pleas to the King and Queen of Spain in behalf of the few surviving indigenous of the Caribbean, is likely as close as one is to come to comprehending the origin of the term, Indio and Indian as applied to �American �Indian[s]�.

Within one of many trips back to Spain, [from the Americas�], to plead with �King Ferdinand and Queen, Isabella�, for the souls and lives of the Indigenous peoples then, swiftly disappearing under the subjugating sword, disease and slavery of the Spaniards and Portuguese, �las Casas�-summarily informs the �Royal heads of �Castile�-[Spain]; that upon observing the nature and manners of the Indigenous peoples of Guana�hanni�, [the island that �Columbus first visited] that;

�their manners are decorous and praiseworthy, they are guileless and honest, with no vices among them, they have no thieves or liars among them and they give freely of all that they have, and when they have no more to give they cry�. [He continues], �they are truly as the children of God�. [i.e. Los Ninos de�la�endeo]

Note: En de o/of God & Los Ninos-the children [of] In the Latin tongue of the day, the expression, [children of god] is �freely� translated as [in the feminine form; la� ninias de la endeo�, and the masculine form; Los Ninos de la Endeo�: children of god; a term later corrupted by the aberrant Spaniard tongue as los nineos de la Indio� then, ultimately reaching contemporary ears as Indio, then, Indianer, and Indian. Why-is this understanding of the aberrant term, Indian, hence American Indian, less plausible than a tale concocted by dogmatic Imperial standard bearers� to hide the truth?

The inhabitants were called "Los Ninos de la Endeo" (Children of God) by Columbus

As to �Columbus' fortuitous possession of certain knowledge of lands west of the �Pillars of Hericles� [Herculese]; the Templars of which, Cristoforo Columbo of Gennoa� associated with and deferred to, possessed a knowledge and map of the Americas� having gotten hold of a copy [via the Zeno brothers], from Islamic sources who in turn, may have shared such cartographic information with a Muslim seaman named, �*Perri Riese�, who it is said, was later executed for betraying his brethren by allowing infidels share in such knowledge.

Templar Cross

The Templar Cross is an icon of an even more ancient Gnostic tradition that decorated the sails of the ships commanded by Columbus, the Nina, Pintoe� and Santa Maria is not commented on by historical biographers.

Why a Templar Cross? After all we are told Columbus was being financed by the Spanish crown. Or was he? A methodical investigation of Columbus� financiers, shows evidence of Papal Financiers. The papal financial arm of the day was the �Templar-Hospitalers�. All Templar's were and are masons of various orders, including the High Masonic order of the Scottish Rights.

Thus the peripatetic path like an aged vine continues through to the present. Albeit a co-opted invasive constricting vine whose influences are seen among the present forms of many reformed �tribal councils� and many council members are Masons. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, commonly known as simply the Scottish Rite is one of several Rites of the worldwide fraternity known as Freemasonry. See http://scottishrite.org

Greek Gnostic form of early Christianity in the 2nd century A.D. brought with it stark realities of early Christian teaching. Original Gnostic tradition explained God in equal and dual gender as Mother and Father; a concept that the Holy Roman Empire and Vatican decidedly did not want out there. Certain gospels excluded by the Roman Church speaks of a celestial Father and Earth Mother and the temporal relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Those gospels reveal that self-realization and knowledge is the pivotal message of Jesus of how to attain the heavenly paradise. Adding more of a threat to the Church fathers, those gospels explain the resurrection of Jesus metaphorically and in stark opposition to stated Church dogma.