My problems with Thomas Dahlheimer’s ‘Open Letter to the Oyate’

Thomas Dahlheimer spearheads the Rum River Name Change Movement, which seeks to “… change the faulty-translation and profane name of Minnesota’s Rum River back to its sacred Dakota Indian name (Wakan), which translated means (Great) Spirit.”

He has posted comments to this blog and we met face-to-face for the first time recently at the Coldwater Spring encampment press conference.

I just learned that he has an “Open Letter to the Oyate” in the Sept. 17, 2008 edition of the Sota Iyayeyapi, News of the Lake Traverse Reservation, Volume #32 Issue #38. (The letter is also posted to his blog here, with a longer version here.)

In his letter, he states:

Jim Anderson, an organizer of the event, and I met at the gathering and had a good conversation. But unfortunately, during Chris Mato Nunpa’s press conference presentation, Mato Nunpa made a bold faced lie. He said the “Sesquicentennial Commission will not admit genocide.”

During the gathering, I asked Griff Wigley, Project Leader for the Sesquicentennial Advisory Committee for Native American Partnering, if he heard what Mato Nunpa said about the Sesquicentennial Commission. Wigley said that he did and that it was Mato Nunpa’s “speed” and that it made his presentation “sound good”. I then told Wigley that Mato Nunpa had also been lying to hurt me and my work. A few months ago, the Sesquicentennial Commission admitted that Minnesota committed a genocide against the Dakota people during its early history.

Later in his letter, he writes:

Mato Nunpa’s lies are hindering me from accomplishing the goals that the Great Spirit has given me to accomplish in the Dakota’s sacred Mde Wakan (Mille Lacs Lake) ancestral/traditional homeland.

I don’t know enough about Dakota creation stories to weigh in on that debate.  But three things trouble me about Dahlheimer’s  letter:

1. I never commented on Chris’ presentation style to him. I have no idea what he’s referring to.
   
2. Last May, a statement was posted to the MN Sesquicentennial Commission web site (‘May is American Indian Month in Minnesota’ page) that reads in part: “Yet we remain either unaware of or unable to look at our own history and acknowledge the painful wounds of ethnocide and genocide right here in Minnesota. We have a very hard time acknowledging that the pain remains and that it has affected much of our history thru to the present day.”

   I’ve highlighted this quote and the entire statement on this blogsite because I think it’s a significant admission. But it doesn’t explicitly say that the State of Minnesota committed the ethnocide and genocide. It could easily be interpreted to mean that the U.S. government committed the ethnocide and genocide, that the wounds were felt here in Minnesota, that we’ve had a hard time acknowledging those wounds.

   Lastly, there was little or no publicity about this statement. No press release was sent out that I know of. No member of the Sesqui Commission was quoted in the media reading or mentioning it. The statement is virtually invisible on the Sesqui website. There are no links to it from the home page, and even back in May when the page was created, the link to the page/page name (‘May is American Indian Month’) didn’t convey that there was an important statement there. I can understand why, as this whole issue is still a political hot potato.

   But I also can understand why Mato Nunpa continues to maintain that the Sesqui Commission has not admitted genocide. It makes no sense to me for Dahlheimer to accuse Mato Nunpa of lying about this.  At most, it’s a difference of opinion.
   

3. Lastly, it makes no sense to me for Dahlheimer to maintain that the Great Spirit has given him goals. Many of us might pray to a Higher Power for guidance on setting and achieving our goals but that doesn’t mean whatever we come up with is what our Higher Power intends.