GUILFORD — For weeks after Standing Rock, the smell of smoke and ash permeated my hair and skin.
The early morning calls to the sacred fire pulled people from all over camp out of their beds; you could hear the low voices of women, the scampering of children, and the chopping of wood and you could watch the stars fade as the sun rose.
At night, it grew so chill that blankets weren't enough to protect those sleeping on the ground from the chill of earth. People managed to put wood stoves in the center of their tents and to insulate them with bales of hay.
Nonetheless, the mix of people from around the world, the common prayer and concern for the Earth was transformative for anyone there and possibly for the relationship of Native peoples to each other and to the rest of the world.
Now, just over a year ago, I was called with clergy from around the nation to be present and witness and in solidarity with the water protectors at the Oceti Sakowin Camp in North Dakota - and, as importantly, to stand before the Native elders to repudiate a document at the heart of modern civilization: the Doctrine of Discovery, otherwise known as the Papal Bulls.
The Papal Bulls of the 15th century gave Christian explorers the right to claim lands they “discovered” and to lay claim to those lands for their Christian Monarchs. Any land that was not inhabited by Christians was available to be “discovered,” claimed, and exploited.
If the “pagan” inhabitants could be converted, they might be spared. If not, they could be enslaved or killed.
Many indigenous people claim these bulls are still being used by countries throughout the Americas to deny the rights of indigenous peoples, and to perpetuate colonization throughout the Western Hemisphere.
To begin to bring that system of colonization to an end, and to move away from a cultural and spiritual tradition of subjugation, the World Council of Churches repudiated the doctrine and encouraged churches to begin educating themselves to do the same.
Since then, the United Church of Christ, Episcopal Churches, Evangelical Luthern Church in America, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Unitarian Universalist churches have issued their own statements and members of those denominations symbolically read and burned the doctrines in front of Native elders that cold Novmber morning.
From there, those gathered were offered a ceremonial smudging and sent on to the bridge to join the water protectors in protesting at the site where the Keystone Pipeline was to cross the Missouri River.
The intention of the Seven Nations of indigenous peoples at Standing Rock had been to prevent the pipeline's completion before it changed the ecosystem of the Missouri River basin and the ancient sacred plains of their homes.
A year later, The New York Times reported that about 5,000 barrels of oil, or about 210,000 gallons, gushed out of the Keystone Pipeline on Nov. 16 in South Dakota, blackening a grassy field in the remote northeast part of the state and sending cleanup crews and emergency workers scrambling to the site.
The fears and predictions of the Native peoples are proving justified.
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The history of colonization has, throughout history, been intertwined with religious persecution, desecration of lands sacred to others, and with terrible genocide, continuing into today with literally thousands still awaiting trial for protesting the pipeline, which has now spoiled the reservation on which we have forced Native peoples to live to eke out incomes.
We can actually quote one of the first encounters with the people native to what we call the Americas because we have the words of Edward Winslow, who was there in 1621:
“We have found the Indians very faithful in their covenant of peace with us; very loving and ready to pleasure us: we often go to them, and they come to us... and we for our parts walk as peaceably and safely in the wood, as in the highways in England, we entertain them familiarly in our houses, and they as friendly bestowing their venison on us.”
Having offered that reflection, he then went on to say:
“They are a people without any religion, or knowledge of any God.”
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Unfortunately, it has taken us hundreds of years to understand and acknowledge the deep faith and spirituality of the Native peoples whose lands we now inhabit, to begin to fathom the kinship with other creatures they understood and to begin to respect the interconnectedness of the Earth with our own health and well-being.
Only now are sociologists and environmentalists coming to understand the battles fought so fiercely for the land, the bison, and other fauna and for the tribal cultures of the peoples who had thrived for thousands of years.
Only now are we coming to understand the depth of the ritual of gratitude for survival they shared with the Pilgrims, to appreciate the sacrifice they made and continue to make to teach us how to relate to the Earth with gratitude and respect.
At Thanksgiving, we do well to remember the hospitality our forbears were given and the collaboration we learned with each other, just as we face the truth of the work of reconciliation which is long overdue.