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Winnemem-Wintu: Protecting Women's Rights of Passage
Caleen Sisk-Franco, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem-Wintu discusses the Balas Chonas or Puberty Ceremony-which honors a girls transition into womanhood, her decision to declare war against the U.S. government, and her tribes work to return indigenous salmon to the McCloud River, for International Women's Day.
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The Winnemem-Wintu, "Middle Water People" are a small tribe of California Native Americans. The U.S. Government relocated them from their land during World War 2 to build the Shasta Dam. After nearly 80 years, under the leadership of Caleen Sisk-Franco, Spiritual Leader and Chief of the Winnemem-Wintu the tribe has returned to the McCloud river, near Shasta Dam to revive the Puberty Ceremony. "Balas Chonas" in Wintu marks a girls transition into womanhood.
For 3 days and nights, men sing and dance on one side of a river, while the women, pass on traditions to girls on the other side, defining the difference between girls and women. But holding a ceremony on stolen land can be a challenge. The U.S. government has not granted the Wintu's requests to access their ancestral land in privacy and the Wintu say a federal plan to raise the Shasta Dam would flood their remaining sacred land.
The ceremony is held with recreational boaters driving by, and camping as the tribe works to hold it's right of passage. Under the guidance of their Chief and Spiritual Leader, Caleen Sisk Franco, the Winnemem-Wintu declared war on the U.S. government in 004, have since sued the federal government to protect their rights and their ancestral land, and is working to return indigenous salmon to the McCloud River watershed. Caleen Sisk Franco says preserving the Puberty Ceremony is preserving their way of life.
For 3 days and nights, men sing and dance on one side of a river, while the women, pass on traditions to girls on the other side, defining the difference between girls and women. But holding a ceremony on stolen land can be a challenge. The U.S. government has not granted the Wintu's requests to access their ancestral land in privacy and the Wintu say a federal plan to raise the Shasta Dam would flood their remaining sacred land.
The ceremony is held with recreational boaters driving by, and camping as the tribe works to hold it's right of passage. Under the guidance of their Chief and Spiritual Leader, Caleen Sisk Franco, the Winnemem-Wintu declared war on the U.S. government in 004, have since sued the federal government to protect their rights and their ancestral land, and is working to return indigenous salmon to the McCloud River watershed. Caleen Sisk Franco says preserving the Puberty Ceremony is preserving their way of life.
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Coal, gas, oil, and atomic energy is destroying the planets livability and therefore the last forty-eight years of ecological green revolution has brought into being the hi-tech tools to put in place wind, tidal, and solar power that transforms to electricity and is more power than can be used by society. No more blackouts. This non-pollution solution is given freely in natures kinder laws and provides work for all and forever more.
This shows that damning rivers for electricity is not needed anymore, now that the technology and science of tooling the sun has been brought into being. Solar panels on each roof in the world ends fossil fuel and river damning. In the mean time and until the Re-tooling takes place, fish ladders around the damn could be a way to re-stock the river in question.
That knowledge should be used to help you end the west coast damning of the salmon rivers so that each and every river can be returned to full natural salmon runs to spawning possibility. One of the methods that could be of use to you is to build a salmon hatchery on each river close to the spawning beds. It has been shown that natural hatchery brings into being approx. 38% success, while catching a male and female and stripping their eggs into a safe area, with no enemies causes approx. 83%.
Giving nature a helping hand can bring back the natural wild salmon runs to the rivers that the damns have destroyed. Intelligent intervention makes liberation a possibility. Too bad its been missing all these years. Even the Great Lakes is dying from their ignorant pollution policies for money. Viva socialist liberation. End pollution wars, not endless wars for more polllution.
This shows that damning rivers for electricity is not needed anymore, now that the technology and science of tooling the sun has been brought into being. Solar panels on each roof in the world ends fossil fuel and river damning. In the mean time and until the Re-tooling takes place, fish ladders around the damn could be a way to re-stock the river in question.
That knowledge should be used to help you end the west coast damning of the salmon rivers so that each and every river can be returned to full natural salmon runs to spawning possibility. One of the methods that could be of use to you is to build a salmon hatchery on each river close to the spawning beds. It has been shown that natural hatchery brings into being approx. 38% success, while catching a male and female and stripping their eggs into a safe area, with no enemies causes approx. 83%.
Giving nature a helping hand can bring back the natural wild salmon runs to the rivers that the damns have destroyed. Intelligent intervention makes liberation a possibility. Too bad its been missing all these years. Even the Great Lakes is dying from their ignorant pollution policies for money. Viva socialist liberation. End pollution wars, not endless wars for more polllution.
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