ELDERS EDITORIAL

Dear Red Paint Clan, 2/3/2008

Greetings to all my Brothers and Sisters and to all of the nation. I pray you will forgive me for not writing to you sooner but the last year has been very stressful for me, and adjusting has been very difficult.

I received a copy of the Clan Roster and I about jumped out of my seat to see how you all have grown in members and it did my heart good.

This letter will be short due to I am under the weather but I will write to you all again. It is my hope to stay in touch with you all with your help, for my time is coming to a close and in roughly 20 months possibly sooner if I am able to come up with a Ga. address to parole to.

I hope I speak for both Red Spirit Fox your Co Clan Chief that I hope and pray you will all work together to help, and support one another not just in the good times for thats easy, but when times are tough cause thats when it counts most. Be there for each other, cause in that we stand tall.

I would also like to say to our “fallen” Brothers behind the wire, There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Keep to Red Path and may God Bless you.

Chief White Coyote Warrior

Osiyo to all of my fellow Keetoowah Brothers and Sisters,

I am writing this letter not to bring praise to myself for my faithfulness in the Great Spirit but to bring praise and respect and admiration for Great Spirit for the blessings he bestows on all of us within the Nation. With this said I may now begin.

As you may or may not know I have had a little trouble recently in regards to my medicine pouch. The guards wanted it searched where they open it and pour it in their hands but I said, “No! This is not the way it is to be done! It is to be poured in my hand and let you see there is no contraband in either my hand or the pouch.” This resulted in a lack of freedom for me for about a week and a half because they put me back in A-Unit. To most people this is not long but to someone like me who has been down as long as I have (about 6 ¼ yrs.) any time away from this place is a blessing. Thankfully Great Spirit kept me calm and blessed me with activities to take my mind off of the situation. During this time I constantly prayed that Great Spirit would take care of this situation and get me back outside. Finally one day I was talking to Chaplain Eldridge (or Standing Rock) and I asked him to call the Deputy Warden of Care & Treatment Ms. Kasper so I could talk to her to try & get the straight scoop to the Warden. Unbeknownst to me Great Spirit had already taken care of their main fear, me physically lashing out for disrespect of my medicine pouch. Earlier our Principal Chief and my teacher made me promise him that I would take no physical action against any one of the officers for disrespect and to promise not even to fuss anyone out but that the onlyh thing I would do is paperwork on the person(s) only and I said I would. So as you see Great Spirit had been busy taking care of things to help me out. Ms. Kasper even had me conduct a search of my medicine pouch in Standing Rock's office to find out what was in it and how far they could go with the search before I considered it too far, but she was polite & respectful the whole time. After the meeting she had a meeting with the Warden and obviously he liked what he heard and sent me back to B Unit & an outside detail. I stayed two days (Thursday & Monday) on the detail and wrote a letter to Ms. Kasper to reinstate me to a Trusty detail and on Tuesday I got a sheet showing me that my detail was now Lafayette Police Department. The whole time from Wednesday to the next Tuesday I prayed to Great Spirit that he have me fully reinstated and he saw fit to do so. So as you can see prayer does work or Great Spirit answers prayers!

Plainly & simply he saw one of his faithful followers in need and answered his prayers. In retrospect I see why I had to endure this situation, I had to suffer to help out my fellow Enden Brothers & Sisters who are behind the walls. The Warden here has set a precedent that all of my fellow people behind the walls can use if they find themselves in a similar situation. So my fellow Brothers & Sisters the message is simple: no matter the situation put it in Great Spirit's hands and he will take care of it for you and all he asks in return is that you pray to him for the help you need. A simple “Look Great Spirit I don't know what to do in this situation or I can't handle this so I put it in your hands to take care of” and he will take care of it for you. This works no matter whether you are Christian and call him Jesus or choose to call him by his Keetoowah name Great Spirit and this is a beautiful thing. By the traditional code of ethics I cannot push my religion on you and I wouldn't anyway but I do encourage you that if you do not have a higher power in your life that you seek your niche in religion or the place where you feel you belong. Take it from me, once I found my niche in the Great Spirit nothing and I mean nothing keeps me down long. I just say a prayer & forget the situation and put it in his hands & he takes care of it. I pray that this letter has an impact on you, my fellow Brothers & Sisters, and that you see that the Nation is loved by Great Spirit and that he is at work within the Nation & within its people. I also ask that you continue to support our Principal Chief because as you can see Great Spirit used him as a tool to help relieve any fears the Warden had about retaliation by me if an officer disrespected me by desecrating my medicine pouch.

I hope it is in Great Spirit's plans that we have our Principal Chief on this Mother Earth for a good many years to come so that we can all learn everything he will teach us.

Please take care of yourselves my Brothers & Sisters and may Great Spirit ever guide your steps on the good Red Road.

Until we see each other again

do na da go hv:

Ella Nvwisgi Nuada Unega Gahvi