Giants
An Essay by Aimée Medina Carr
Boom! Boom! Boom! Are giants stomping on the roof? It woke me from a deep sleep. Ancestors told stories about the way back time when men were the size of trees – yé’litsoh (the giant). When all living things and anthropomorphic animals could talk and communicate with us. Un memento mágico, when living in good relations with plant, animal, and water nations, flourished. Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (Lakota Sioux), we are all related.
It was a time before the European invaders brought diseases and pandemics of hatred, prejudice, selfishness, and greed. Scarcity didn’t exist until they came; Mother Nature provided everything needed. The unwritten laws of caring for each other, as survival and safety were the priority, not the accumulation of wealth, possessions, and domination of the land.
I belong to this holy place, born of the cosmos, reared by awe and mystery—where the sky and earth are lovers. A long heritage of brothers and sisters of the Corn. The Indian religion believes in the fundamental interconnectedness of all living things in this infinite web of life. I am you, and you are me; we are one.
Our church is the Earth and the grand liturgy of great beauty and bounty, created over 13 billion years ago. The Ancient Ones forged a reciprocal relationship with La Tierra Indígena—an unending circle, a sacred hoop symbolized by the Medicine Wheel. Mi gente (my people) call it Querencia: a deep communal connection with the land and family where the heart resides. This land sanctifies my soul!
I am a legends granddaughter, progeny of America’s Ancestral Founders, and first familias of New Mexico – Nuevomejicanos: a mosaic of a rich Native and Spanish colonial past. Descendants from the Rio Grande Valley are called Coyotes, Genízaros, Chicanos, Mestizos, Manitos, and Indo-Hispanos. A complicated and ambiguous hybrid blend of Indigenous, Spanish, Portuguese, and Europeans. Ancestors give us agency – their blood coursing through our veins is our credentials.
I hail from the Ancestral Puebloans of New Mexico, who thrived from AD 850 to 1250, and the Diné (Navajo) and Apache ancestors migrated from the subarctic several centuries before Columbus. My antepasados (ancestors) were the original founding families of this land. They were here before it was a country. Descendants of New Mexico are not Immigrants; our Indigenous lineage goes back thousands of years. The New World’s first pioneers of Spanish/
European descent came many years before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock and preceded Lewis and Clark’s expedition by nearly two hundred years! These facts are omitted by American mainstream historians and in school textbooks, which explain the efforts to maintain the status quo.
Hiding the truth from children about genocide, cruelty, and land-grabbing compounds an evil corrupt system. We must document our true ancestor’s history—warts and all to learn from past injustices to correct, balance, and repair this deeply wounded world.
The First People—the original inhabitants of this land, the Indians roamed freely following the buffalo; Manitou, a spirit of the mountains that instructed where to settle and plant roots. Ownership was an unknown concept. Currency was determined by each clan member’s service to the community, the Creator’s overflowing gifts, and the luxury of time to grow old with their children. The intergenerational transfer of knowledge and oral historias were for the preservation and continued success of the Diné (people). It was of the highest honor and the definition of bravery to protect the orphaned, widowers, and the elderly.
The Four Sacred Medicines
Sacred Medicine: 1. Tobacco is used in prayer to the Creator.
When the European colonizers arrived, they found healthy and robust Nations with thriving villages and townships, established trade routes that later became the thoroughfares and highways, and governments that Democracy and The Constitution are modeled after. Over half of the American States’ Indigenous names beautifully reveal the nation’s historical legacy.
Indians were pressured to become white.
The antelope had to become a white man.
—Vine Deloria, Jr.
The European settlers killed, imprisoned, and enslaved the original inhabitants of this country. Natives were unwelcome on their own land. The white man stole it outright and erased the Indian’s existence by naming towns, settlements, monuments, and schools. They ignored Indigenous sovereignty. It’s vitally important to correct the wrongfully told history; mistruths repeated often enough become reality. We must control the narrative and tell the true stories of our Nations and the dispossession of the land.
Sacred Medicine: 2. Cedar purifies and cleanses.
Everything changed drastically when the first Europeans set their racist, land-grabbing, imperialistic boots on this sacred ground. We can build a bridge between understanding and reconciliation of the spiritual owner of the land—American Indians, and the political owner of the land—American whites. Until then, this country will remain stained by its dehumanizing and cruel past.
Sacred Medicine: 3. Sage repels negative energy.
The Indigenous People have survived five hundred years of colonial brutality—the American Holocaust is the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world: The only good Indian is a dead one. Anti-Indianism was the gateway to anti-Semitism. The white’s so-called “cultural superiority” has caused immense suffering and tragedy. The false belief that one race is better than others is the root cause of injustice. We must destroy racism’s long hateful tentacles and close forever that chapter of our shameful history.
We can overcome the legacy of the United States’ forefathers. This country was founded by a group of slave owners who declared all “men” are created equal. The false narratives and myths constructed by historians ignored and marginalized the voices of women and people of color. As a result, prejudice, patriarchy, ignorance, and greed have erased, diminished, enslaved, and vanquished those unheard voices and unseen populations into second-class citizens and the nation’s neglected step-children. No more forgotten people living in the shadows – power grows with our population of 63 million strong (IPOC).
Diversity and multiculturalism are the superpowers of this country despite all the fearmongering, weaponized racism, and culture of cruelty. No amount of the great replacement propaganda bans on critical race theory, and disinformation will keep our country from continuing to be the gold standard of Democracy.
Viktor Frankl once observed, “This I learned in Auschwitz: There are only two races. The race of the decent and the race of the indecent.”
We are amidst a massive reckoning that has reached a turning point. We must evolve and break through the old broken structures of institutional racism and injustice. Dismantle and transform hearts and minds to rebuild our communities. I am my brother’s keeper is what makes this country work. Out of many, we are ONE (E pluribus unum). The devastation of a raging forest fire is followed by rebirth and renewal.
We must shift focus from gender, religion, class, and culture to soulful interactions of openness, equality, reconciliation, connection, service, and most importantly, Love. We’ve arrived at this pivotal period in history for a reason. Like our ancestors who were forced to the brink of extinction, we rise by using experience to overcome these dark times. No one can save the entire world, but we can reach out and help those near – one spark can ignite a blaze of enduring hope and change for good.
My Indo-Hispano ancestors survived three distinct cultural periods: Spanish (1698-1821), Mexico (1821-48), and the territory of the United States (1850). Our culture is a unique blend of all these elements with our language, food, music, and art. An ancient and deeply spiritual culture of Native American Pueblo communities, four centuries of genealogy blended to create contemporary Nuevomejicanos. My descendants survived colonial violence, slavery, and the dispossession of their land. We’ve got to be beloved rascals and fight the greed, corruption, and neglect to forge the generational healing of traumatic wrongdoing to our people.
The continual looting of the entire continent and its resources has resulted in climate change disasters. Modern-day robber barons and rich corporate barbarian’s quest for material wealth have created environmental emergencies threatening our species’ survival.
Everyone is responsible for rebuilding and caring for our Mother—The Earth, before it’s too late. Our people honor the revered Indian ancestors who paid for this land with their lives—when remembered, they are healed. They illuminate our birthright as a Great First Nation; out of the shadows comes rebirth.
Sacred Medicine: 4. Sweetgrass purifies and brings the positive.
“The Universe is a mirror of the people,” the old teachers tell us. Truth is savage and dangerous, but it never stays in the dark—what is just is eternal. Our descendants were made of tough grit and perseverance. We build on their sacrifices and owe it to them to be radically responsible ancestors for future generations. We are the great-great-grandchildren of the Indians that could not be removed and the ancestors of those yet to be born. We are the wishes and dreams of our ancestors come true.
We are still here.
Giants is adapted from Aimée Medina Carr’s forthcoming second book, Wisdom Keepers. Her debut novel, River of Love, received an Honorable Mention for Homebound Publications Landmark Prize in 2018. She lives with her family in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in northern California. She is a fifth-generation southern Colorado Coyota (Indian, Chicana, Spanish). Her ancestral homeland is southern Colorado/northern Nuevo México. Visit her at aimeemedinacarr.com