Arapaho – Page 2 – The Sand Creek Massacre

December 3, 2011December 4, 2011

Sand Creek Massacre Message to Methodists

In order to continue to cement relations between the Cheyenne people and the Methodist Church, the Methodist Church needs to show proper respect towards the Cheyenne people by talking with the Cheyenne people about the Sand Creek Massacre facts. In place of relying on Caucasian statistics, according to certain Cheyenne people and at least one of their chiefs, over 400 Cheyenne people were murdered at Sand Creek. Also, according to certain Cheyenne people and at least one of their chiefs, there were no Arapaho at Sand Creek during the massacre. The Arapaho always camped about 8 miles from the Cheyenne.

Donald L. Vasicek
Writer/Director/Producer of the award-winning documentary film, “The Sand Creek Massacre”
http://www.sandcreekmassacre.net

June 7, 2011September 13, 2011

Chief Niwot Speaks to Donald L. Vasicek

Note: I am sharing the following with each of you.
The reason why I am sharing this with each of you
is because it is In “Conversations with God”.
Author Neal Donald Walsch, said on Larry King,
that “God can be anything.”

The following came unexpectedly to me one day. It was from Harry Strunk:

“I’m on a personal journey in my writing and am channeling Chief Niwot to bring Native American wisdom to our problems of today. It will be similar to “Conversations with God” (by Neal Donald Walsch) in a question/answer format entitled “The Left Hand Journey to Wisdom: A walk with Chief Niwot.” (Niwot means left hand in Arapaho). Whether this materializes in a physical walk from Sand Creek to Gold Lake or merely a metaphysical walk – or combination of the two – has yet to be determined.

The Sand Creek massacre seems to be playing an important role in this project since it represents loss and separation…we all have our own personal Sand Creeks. It also represents the healing that we all face and the change in life we can’t control.

Here is a message from Chief Niwot…”

“Donald Vasicek,
Your walk is never more important as now. The blending of the four colors is just beginning – Obama is testament to that. This is why your project is not only timely, but of great importance to the collective healing that must take place.

Remember in your message…being stuck in victimization and hanging on to the wound is detrimental to this healing. Through the lessons of time, the teaching part is to let go of the past and embrace forgiveness, while still using that past as a history lesson.

The Great Spirit of the Southern Arapaho is the same for every man. It is telling us all and using these tragedies as a way to touch our hearts. The sadness must overcome the anger to stir the deep love we have for each other. Fear and hatred has no place in this process.

Move ahead with your project as the funds will come from the love and hearts of many.

Blessings and good medicine on your journey.”
Chief Niwot

August 27, 2008March 3, 2009

“We’ve used a passive approach to the telling of the brutality at Sand Creek for the purpose of showing the ignorance of utilizing killing as a means to solve problems. Violence always leaves an impact, but the graphicness of the murders, the rapes, the mutilations, even after people were dead, leaves a remarkable imprint on students, parents, and educators. They see an historic reality that motivates them to do more to circumvent violence in the present as a means to solve problems. And that includes fourth graders who viewed the film in an elementary school in Centennial, Colorado who shared their thoughts with me after the screening.”

-Donald L. Vasicek
Award-Winning Writer/Filmmaker/Consultant

“We Cannot Be Who We Are Not” “Always keep in mind that the main issue which has led to so many other issues is land. The earth has always been the Cheyenne/Arapaho’s power. As their lands dwindled because of European immigration, their power dwindled. Today, most older, and many younger Native Americans are living without that power. Instead, they are living on reservations that yield little, ifany resources. This has reduced Native Americans
to a cross between their native heritage and the incursion of others into their space. Many know little about moving forward, because the past is where all of their power resides, and, it is gone.

Native Americans are born to roam the earth. Many of their ancestors went where the buffalo went. The buffalo were the source of their existence. In the beginning, the Cheyenne and Arapaho people had 51 million acres of land. They were free. They lived with the elements and they prospered. Today, most conceive themselves as prisoners of a society that has little bearing to who they really are, what they inherited from their ancestors, not too unlike each one of us. How can we be who we are not? The answer is, we cannot be who we are not, and until we discover who we are, then live that way, is when we experience the ultimate peace of who we are. It is my belief that most Native Americans are not who the society they live in forces
them to be, in order to survive.

So, if you surround yourself with this attitude, with this approach, with this theme, then, everything else you are being asked about which to understand, will fall into place.”

-Donald L. Vasicek

“Award-Winning Sand Creek Massacre Film Archived”

August 27, 2008 — CENTENNIAL, CO — Golden Drover Award winner for Best Native American Film in the Trail Dance Film Festival, “The Sand Creek Massacre”, has been archived in The Billie Jean Baguley Library in the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

Award-winning Writer/Filmmaker/Consultant, Donald L. Vasicek,
said, “By having the film archived in these prestigious institutions,
my goal of informing, educating and creating awareness for the
Cheyenne and Arapaho people via their oral histories in the film,
helps all American native people. The Cheyenne and Arapaho
people, vowed, after the Sand Creek Massacre, that they would live
on this earth forever. The film keeps their dream alive regardless
of the genocide that has stalked all American native people from
the inception of European people’s arrival on their lands to the present.
The film is a permanent recording of their ancestors and who they are as
a people.”

Vasicek continues his efforts to record the Cheyenne and Arapaho
history. He has placed, “Ghosts of Sand Creek”, a two-hour, six
episode series, into development. Vasicek said, “Ghosts of Sand
Creek” will dimensionalize the Cheyenne and Arapaho people’s
story. It will show the white man’s continuing invasion of their human
rights.

“I read recently where actor Brad Pitt raised $500,000 for
people in Darfur. He should now raise money for American native
people so that they can also eat. Walk down the main street
in Lame Deer, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne’s reservation.
Cruise the Northern Arapaho Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
American natives on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota
need groceries, socks, underwear, shirts, shoes, trousers, fuel to
keep warm, etc. And they have to go across the border into
Nebraska to buy liquor. You will experience, as I have, many times
over, the abject poverty American natives experience. This is
genocide at its finest in all centuries.”

Vasicek said, “America’s native people need America’s help. Be part
of ‘Ghosts of Sand Creek’.” Go to donvasicek.com for details.

Contact:

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net