Editor:
In response to J.A. Keane (letter to the editor, March 2), in the Christian ethic, if you steal land - including by broken treaty - you have to pay for it, give it back or both! So that will always be the moral obligation. It is the moral obligation to the words of honor written in the treaty, "as long as the grass will grow...." Whatever the phrasing, we have a obligation over the United States of America and America will always live with this dark side to it.
But if my people accept that, if other Indians who have signed treaties accept and sign their lands away, it will be the final steps toward the termination of Indian nations if we relinquish our rights to the land. By treaty or by broken treaties, we still own the land and that's my contention. The treaties were never honored, so the contract is broken and any treaty signed at that level is above the Constitution, it is the law of the land. To those among my people who say, "I don't think we will ever get the land back," it does not make any difference - the land is still there. We should refuse any kind of offer and never sign. It was never agreed upon by the majority of people. So, Chris Barnhouse (letter to the editor, Feb. 16) and J.A. Keane can go back to England or France or wherever they came from.
We don't say anything when others urinate and yell obscenities at 2 o'clock in the morning in the parking lot of the Elk's Lodge.
Dakota Youngeagle
Towaoc
Via CortezJournal.com
