AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

Human beings have inhabited North America for centuries. From the beginning they told stories - stories of creation, values, consequences of one???s actions, and respect for all living things. Due to European colonization many tribes were displaced and their land lost for the sake of progress. Developers seized the lands and natural resources. Tribes have been overlooked for centuries. Their ongoing marginalization and acculturation is part of the continuing attempts of genocide against the Indigenous peoples that inhabit the lands we now call California. Part of the genocide has been to take the land and water from Indigenous people without regard to their religious and beneficial sound ecological use of this resources. Clean water is essential to life. This is a deeply held feeling for Indigenous people as water is one of the elements necessary to carry on the Native cultural, traditional way of life. For this project, I was the coordinator and video editor for the Tribal Water Stories. The project consists of personal testimonies about water that were recorded during the first California Tribal Water Summit proceedings, Protect Our Sacred Water, November 4 - 5, 2009, in Sacramento, California. The oral stories and subsequent analysis provide the basis for this current research. Conclusions drawn from this analysis shed light on a dark void that exists between an Indigenous world view and a European overlay imposed on the American West.