HIGHER GROUNDS OF STRUGGLE SAVAGE FAMILY
CODE OF CONDUCT
H.G.S. S.A.V.A.G.E. F.A.M.
I recorded myself reading the manifezto as printed, for those that don't have access to the document, and those that can't see, and/or read.
HGS SAVAGE FAM - THE VISION (MUSIC VIDEO)
If you wonder why I make, sale, and give away medicine bags, this right here.
Higher Grounds of Struggle:
Let us first introduce ourselves as you and therefore all of these ideas are open to interpretation and change as long as we as a collective agree. This is an ever-continuing work in progress towards healing. Understanding that this is at the request of our native brothers and sisters incarcerated, we would like to make a statement. S.A.V.A.G.E. F.A.M. is a code of conduct and not a name.
To Stand Against Violent Adversaries in Genocidal Environment and remain Forever Always Movement is a choice that we have made in order to provide the example that many suggest that we need and that many claim to be. We no longer have time to discuss decolonization only; we must become decolonized, even if at an individual level, in order to provide the proof that it can be possible to free ourselves from the ideologies and actions that keep us enslaved/colonized. As an instrumental youth in our struggle once suggested, “ we need to stop just talking about it, we need to be about it.” Within the context of the ideas that will follow we would like to state that the term native is also open to ones interpretation-bloodlines does not secure an individual’s place as a native. We understand that at some point people who are causing harm to their communities and completely disregard our original teachings as natives and/or are unwilling to work towards an understanding of who we are as natives at some point cease to be native and must be dealt with in order to keep the collective safe and healthy. We are not functioning as ourselves but as each other and as our peoples that we come from. Many people have questioned the ideas that follow as a purpose to try and change or preach to people. We have come to an understanding that for some strange reason only those that suggest ideas that are positive in nature, meaning that the ideas are not based on individualism or manipulation/deception/lies to others for personal benefit, are questioned as preaching to others. The question that we would have to ask is; what is the difference in those that speak on the negatives, are they then not preaching as well? They are only preaching for the means of their own personal prosperity. So if we speak on community healing through means of ridding ourselves of the ideas and actions that are detrimental to the community as a whole then we are preachers as opposed to those that maintain the ideas of individualism and community manipulation for personal reasons. We are not trying to change or preach to anyone, only offer an alternative to the abundance of ideas that continue in our communities that teach us to continue the self-oppression of our people. Anyone has the personal right to turn away and ignore the needs of the community but they have an obligation/responsibility to their peoples to work towards/for the needs of their people. The ideas that follow are meant for those that do and wish to stand with us as a nameless resistance to the demise of our peoples ideologically, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Again, Savage Family is not a name but a code of conduct. Native Pride as a term or belief we have noticed through our travels and interaction with other natives that the term native pride always has o a tendency to find its way into circle of natives. In some instances this term is used simply as a term. What is meant by this is that people talk about native pride but do not follow the principles that were, should, and are encompassed by the idea native pride as a belief. Can one truly speak on such a term as native pride and then turn around and contribute to the demise of our people? Can one speak on native pride and then disrespect our women, children, elders, and people by action in ways counter to those offered to our people as principles of being who we are and functioning as healthy peoples and communities? The answer to that is a simple NO! You cannot suggest yourself as a native or from this or that specific peoples if you are working towards the continued genocide of those peoples. You cannot contribute to the dysfunctions and/or destruction of native peoples ideologically, physically, mentally, or spiritually on one hand and then suggest you have pride in who you were, are, and will become as peoples. We are the people, the unwanted, the ignored, the marginalized and the forgotten. We do not assume that one is any better than another and have came to the realization that as long as our communities are unhealthy, we cannot consider ourselves to be healthy individuals regardless of what we have been able to achieve or accomplish. Until all are free, we are all imprisoned and we have committed ourselves to leave no one behind in our struggle for truth and recognition of our purpose to exist as human and spirit. The basis of the movement is to utilize traditional and contemporary wisdom of our indigenous peoples for the means of empowerment. We represent a voice of indigenous revolution for social change in communities that are plagued by the social ills created through colonization and genocide. Savage Family was not founded or established by one person or a particular group of people, instead the foundation of the Savage Family movement is in our indigenous brothers and sisters worldwide and the ideologies that have driven our peoples since time immemorial. You can cut the flowers, but you cannot stop the spring from coming our people are under siege every day by a foreign colonial system that wishes to see us removed from our place within the circle. The ones who suffer most are our children. They are forced to live under two difficult levels of oppression. One is from the foreign illegally occupying governmental system now known as the united snakes and the other is at our own oppressed hands. Through our oppression we have become the oppressor of our own. The voices of our most enlightened, innocent, and un-corrupted are the voice we ignore and suppress. Our children are our leaders and we treat them as nonexistent within our lives. We now exist in a state of foreign government led electoral political systems that enforce the idea that the youth do not matter or have a voice until they are 18 and are worth a vote. This concept is counter to historical/traditional beliefs of our indigenous ancestors who understood the importance of our children. What has come to pass is a youth filled with internalized and externalized violence. We have forced them to speak to us through violence towards themselves and others. We have neglected and abused them for far too long and forced their hand and yet we still lay the blame on them. We believe the youth possess knowledge and wisdom of our people and the contemporary problems that we are faced with and knowledge and wisdom on how to deal with these issues. We are failing our youth as a people and we need to begin to listen to them again. We will not go in to what we have done for our people because it is them, their suffering, and their beauty that drives us and therefore are them and deserve no credit. The purpose of the movement, struggle, and existence in non-existence as indigenous peoples is to promote the well being of our indigenous communities at all costs and by any means necessary. One of the most important aspects of our current situation is accountability. We need to be accountable for the fact that we have and are failing our past and our future. We possess capabilities and opportunities that our ancestors did not have. We need to realize that we are creating environments for our youth that are hostile, violent, and altogether unhealthy which is indicated in the contemporary issues that we are faced with. We need to begin functioning in manners that are to create a path of empowerment for our future generations. If our self proclaimed community leaders do not live up to the guidelines and possess the virtues that leadership in indigenous communities is supposed to be functioning with they must be called out and in turn removed from their imposed rule. It cannot be expected for the youth of the communities to be functioning in healthy manners if the leadership is functioning corruptly. This is not to blame the issues on the individuals who are acting corruptly but to begin questioning the system of corruption that has been imposed upon our people for the past 515 years. There is on victim blame only a reasoning to call to question issues that we too often avoid. Another issue that arises is our tendency to have allegiances to foreign, colonizing systems of control. We need to hold no allegiances to outside national, social structures/systems. We cannot be functioning on the lie of sovereignty, autonomy, and self-determination if we hold allegiances to foreign nations especially if those nations have the interest of maintaining oppression, genocide and control over our destinies of existence. We are our peoples and should be addressed and address ourselves as such. Savage Family fully recognizes that all of our native brothers and sisters incarcerated by the illegally occupying peoples now known, as Americans and/or the United States government are political prisoners by any definition of the term. Although we do not condone all of the actions that may have led to the incarceration of our native brothers and sisters, we fully believe that it is up to natives (hostages in our homelands) to deal with the process of justice for our peoples as long as it is on our traditional homelands. With that being said we offer our full support towards the function of freeing all of our native brothers and sisters illegally incarcerated by a foreign colonial power. Along with the issue of allegiances are the problems that arise in our understanding the movement or struggle towards our liberation form foreign colonial control and genocide. We need to begin to recognize that the movement does not have a face or name. The movement has always been and will continue to exist with our without organizations and individuals. This is not to say that certain peoples do step up but we need rid ourselves of egos. We need to also alleviate the issue of in fighting. If your medicine is good and your motivations are righteous then nothing can defeat the spirit of the movement. At all moments you should exist as the spirit of the movement and function without focusing on the intentions of others towards you. You are not special but we are all special and as long as we place blame and create accusations we cannot keep it movement on a path to healing. We cannot focus on hating each other. We need to recognize and realize again who our real enemy is. It is the system that continues o destroy us and even makes it possible for those of our own who wish to do harm to the people to even think of functioning in these manners. We need to place our attention on destroying that system so selling out will no longer be necessary because there will be nothing that is offered by those who wish to see us destroyed that can rival the gifts that we possess already. However at this point where sellouts, snitches, and fakers do exist they should be a little concern because their medicine is weak when observing the larger picture of our spiritual existence. The importance of being part of this named nameless movement is to first recognize the similarities in our nonexistent existence. We, as native people, share in the fact that we have continuously been victimized by others (non-natives) to the point that we have become complacent with our assumed position of inferiority. We victimize ourselves, our family, and our relations (relations is being used in the most loose of definitions, relations in against the illegal occupancy of our homelands given to us by the creator) more readily than we are willing to protect them from the constant attack being placed on us. We have become the primary culprits in our extinction process. We have gone against millennia of teachings from our ancestors, in fact we are directly fighting against those teachings and therefore we are fighting against our ancestors and the spirit of who we are, and we are now working for the very people and ideas that wish to see us dead by utilizing their tactics of annihilation against ourselves. This needs to stop at all costs, by any means necessary. The understanding of higher grounds of struggle/Savage Family Higher Grounds of Struggle represents our struggle to rise above the situation that we are faced with. As native peoples we are forgotten about. We have become foreigners in our homelands. Everyone who seeks out social justice, be it black, Latino, Asian, white, or other only utilize the natives when we are needed and not vice versa. The fact is that we are living in an illegally occupied territory due to the breaking of the 371 ratified treaties leaving them “null and void” and therefore useless in terms of occupancy of non-natives unless natives allow it. Natives have allowed way too much up to this point. As a great native historian by the name of Vine Deloria Jr. suggests “natives have been to polite.” The politeness needs to stop. We have and continue to be treated fare too disrespectfully to just stand by and watch as we are murdered and kill ourselves. S.A.V.A.G.E. F.A.M-Standing Against Violent Adversaries and Genocidal Environments-Forever Always Movement Savage: of the woods (as our ancestors lived) Family- in this instance family suggests the natives that share in the struggle, even natives that we disagree with. We have to understand that it is the history that we have been faced with, a history of genocide, that has led many of our peoples to become backwards in their thoughts and actions. We must work to heal first and then take steps that may be needed once again. As natives, we must remember that we are not inferior; the death of natives came at the hands of deception and lies. We were too honest of peoples; the European man feared our peoples and therefore created lies of treaties so that we would not go to war (this is why many treaties are treaties of peace). They then waited until our numbers were reduced by disease (often times given as a form of biological warfare) before they became willing to go to war. Even with superior technology of weaponry natives still won many battles and had a death rate of one to every thirteen Europeans. These are facts. We came from warriors that would hold off hundreds and thousands of European/American soldiers with only a handful and were willing to die behind the honor and spirit of who we are. It is not until our own began to sell our own out that we became weak enough to be suppressed on reservations. We have not been conquered, that spirit still lives in our spirit and walks beside us as our ancestors. Only when we choose the ways of others do we become weak. We are native; even in the face of hundreds or thousands we should be willing to stake ourselves to the ground and defend whom we are. Nobody can stop our spirit as long as we allow it to live. Obligation and sacrifice are ideas that many of us have forgotten about but should guide us as natives in our current state of emergency to free ourselves from all ties that bind us. Our obligations to our people should have us ready and willing at any time to sacrifice anything for the betterment of our people. Obligation: we are born of the prayers that our ancestors offered since time immemorial. Our obligation is to that fact and to them. Our obligation is to not want or need anything for ourselves but instead be willing to sacrifice and give everything that we may have in order to protect our peoples and communities. Due to our ancestors selflessness we are still present in physical existence. Our obligation is to keep the spirit of our people living. Within these obligation comes not only the protection of our people but also the cause to learn and understand the teachings of our people and/or make it possible that our peoples and communities can continue these cultural traditions/teachings/understandings without outside interference. We must work to revitalize and maintain our languages, stories, songs, and spirituality through the constant attack and siege being made against our people. We have been told that we, as natives, do not matter and that is not a beautiful existence to be native. Our obligation is to restore the pride and beauty of being native. We must not allow non-natives and natives that wish our people harm to function. Our strength is in our beliefs, values, and understanding of our obligation to our traditions we will begin to understand the purpose and cause behind or tradition and we will begin to know ourselves without fear of who we are. Our obligation is to protect who we are as peoples, by any means necessary, b it one on one or one against a million. One with an understanding of spirit is stronger than a million with no understanding at all. Sacrifice: sacrifice is our willingness to endure any level of physical, mental, and spiritual pain, anguish, and suffering, so that our people do not have to endure it themselves. Our complete purpose is to create and maintain a healthy environment for our people even at the risk of our own health. If we sacrifice and are willing to sacrifice behind the physical, mental, and spiritual meaning of being native then our people will begin to understand the importance of being native again. If we are willing to be injured or to die behind being native (something that we should be willing to do) people will once again understand what it truly means to be native. This does not mean to sacrifice without good reason. We must understand the tradition is of our peoples in order to understand what it is we are sacrificing for and what sacrifices need to be made. This is why we must understand our obligations to our people and also why obligations and sacrifice go hand in hand. Faceless, nameless, voiceless movement the movement and cause behind being native exists with or without us. We are not special in that fact. In this case HGS Savage Family has been utilized to add structure to the piece of the movement that is in disarray at this moment but we fully understand that these ideas that we offer are not our own but have existed with our people since time immemorial. There is no individual face, name, or voice that can sum up our struggle to be free of genocide. We cover our faces to remind ourselves that we are each other, that everyone of us is both insignificant and significant at the same time, insignificant as an individual but significant as a family. There are a number of different native peoples represented within savage family and therefore we are nameless beyond the idea of who we are. Until we can understand who we are we will remain nameless. We all share in a voice of struggle against oppression of our peoples and therefore when one person’s voice is heard we are all being heard. Facelessness, namelessness, and voiceless ness allows for us to be willing to sacrifice without need of recognition but for the purpose of obligation. We stand together as a family not as individuals within family. Within Savage Family: violence towards other natives is viewed as blatantly disrespectful of who we are and who we were supposed to be. People who commit violent acts towards other natives within Savage Family must have just cause for their actions. We understand that there are people that are continuing the process of genocide within or own communities and they must be dealt with accordingly but banishment without violence is always the first option. If we are met with violent resistance it well b addressed accordingly. The purpose of keeping healthy communities is primarily for our women and children and those not fit to protect themselves, so they can maintain the sacredness and beauty of whom we are. We will protect our own at all costs. Native women are to be treated with the utmost respect. Native women are a physical manifestation of our culture and our culture has been under attack since first contact. Native men cannot add to this oppression and must instead be the protectors that we once were taught to be. Native children are to be viewed as sacred. By any means we must work to protect them on all levels. We must work to rid our communities of the negative elements that lead our children astray. This begins within us as individuals. We must not allow the process of sickness and death to continue to allow our children no choice to become positive native leaders. We have all been victims of all of these circumstances and must now work to change the circumstances. Gang allegiances are viewed as a duel allegiance (as suggested before). We are not a gang; we are a family of many peoples. There is far more power in that on many levels. Gang banging only continues the process of violence towards our own people. Our allegiances lie with the people that we come from, our descendants, our ancestors. We understand that these allegiances are already present in many instances but the purpose of Savage Family is to allow for those allegiances to change into allegiances to our people. Peoples that wish us forgotten and/or gone founded gangs and we should hold no allegiance to our own demise. Substance abuse (drugs and alcohol) is viewed as a compromise of mind, heart, body, and spirit. We are too short handed to be faced with that. We understand that man people have already established these addictions but we must work to overcome them. Substance abuse allows for our 4 directives of direction to be infiltrated and compromised and leads to the negatives above. We are not functioning for ourselves but for the health of our communities and therefore no personal want should be placed above that. The four directives of direction are 1. People 2. Prayer 3. Purpose 4. Position the people must come first. We are nothing without our peoples. They are our leadership. It is through them that we realize and recognize who we are and what it is that we are to be taking action of or against. Our peoples are our connection to the past from the present and the future to our selves. Our actions cause reactions that effect the well being of that connection. Our existence is purposeless without out people and therefore our dedication is to and for them. Sacrifices however minimal or tremendous must be made for the purpose of maintaining our connection to the people, prayer, purpose and position. Prayer is the most powerful of our possessions. Prayer is the one thing that no man, no army, no force can take from us. Prayer is not only a function but a dedication and an obedience to our actions. This can never be broken as long as we understand that prayer/spirit/movement/ motivation is our function and purpose. We only exist as a prayer from and for those who sacrificed and continue to sacrifice for us. We must be willing to do the same for them and others. Our purpose is our roots in the truth that gives us strength to stand against the storms, sieges, and surge of destruction and self-destruction and deception. Our purpose is our peoples and the prayers/spirit that walk with us. Our position is our place in our purpose within the path given to us as the creator/creation offered us. We are caretakers of the gifts of all things sacred. Through our suffering, through our ceremonies, and through our appreciation of life and for truth we find ourselves as humble servants to the forgotten and unheard. Through our people, our prayers, and our purpose we find our position in the sacred circle where we must recognize that we are all relations.