December 25, 2006
Xmas was forced on my people by the white man... just like hatred, sliced bread, and the toilet!
Jesus is the reason for the season! Or is it compulsory consumption? I'm not sure. I'm not even sure what "Jesus" would buy if he was here.Shopping malls, bills, frenzies, stress, buying, parking lots, driving, and what ever else one can think of when the words "Christ" and "Mas" are put together. I am not against sharing. I am not against traditions. Giving on one day eh? Why not give all year around. Why not gather your resources together and celebrate through our beautiful that goes back thousands of years before this tradition even existed! Why support the idea of materialism, especially in children, when our land is being destroyed because of that materialism. Once a year we give some gift to someone, then rest of the year go about doing blah. Spend quality time with people. Do things for people. Say affirming words to people. Not just on Dec. 25th, or March 3rd, or even July 19th, but all the frakking time. Oh, but you want to put up a nice pretty tree in your house because it smells nice? How about going for a walk outside, there is lots of nice tree's there too. But no no no, we have to buy some fake plastic tree, even though plastic takes a few hundred years to degrade. In the end, I raise my glass (it has no eggnog in it, just water). I raise my glass to this ridiculous holiday that celebrates two religions I disagree with: Christianity and Consumerism.
And of "gift-giving". When I want to give and receive gifts, I'll have or go to a potlatch. Do the same, you won't have to cover up any guilt.
Also,
I've figured the most subversive thing one can do on Xmas is sleep through it.
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Too all my Indigenous brothers and sisters:
- Celebrate something that needs celebrating
- Do things that needs to be doing
- And learn and live things that needs to be
by
Rivers
on
Monday, December 25, 2006
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3 comments:
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Couldn't have said it better myself. Great Post. Like my friends of the pre-columbian rock group Yaotl Mictlan "Muerte al Christo Blanco!"(death to white Jesus). Peace and Power to the People.
Er, well, I can understand dissing Christianity+Consumerism, but the holiday in question is ultimately very pagan - European tribal - in origin - and remains so, despite the Christian overlay. I look past the tinsel and angels and see the holly and the evergreen boughs, and know that it's "Yule" (still "Jul" in Scandinavian languages), the old mid-winter feast, which corresponds to the Mid-Winter Feast of local peoples (as everywhere). Ancient European pagans recognized the essential unity of all cultures' beliefs, as with Alexander recognizing Hercules and Dionysos in the other pantheons of the countries he conquered/visited; likewise the Romans assimilated "my" people's beliefs and gods when they annexed Gaul, Britain and parts of Germania. Christmas was stolen by the Christians from Germanic and Celtic paganism; but they don't own it.
Skookum1, you may be right about the pagan history, but in these lands, it's foriegn. And, we may do many other foriegn things (ie. chat on the internet, use writing, drive), in this place, this day, we can say "no", and resist. In the spirit of resistance. For effect.