User talk:ScMcB

The rights of women and their use of drums has been usurped.. As the father of a Mi-Wuk girl I know there are no "age-old" historical bans on women and drums within her Coastal MiWuk tribe or her associated tribe of Californian Pomo indians.

In the 1960s and/or 1970s some natives made new rules created that disenfranchised women. Perhaps this was a tribal need to establish power after men no longer lost the need to hunt. Women were the primary user of the drums in almost all indigenous tribes throughout the world as they used the drum to call for help and communicate with the "hunters."

The chauvinism and sexism of a male only drum leader must be stopped. Any tribe and Pow-Wow committee should disqualify any group that supports this sexist ban. Furthermore this is a violation of federal law per Title 9.

Tribal traditions and pow-wow practice assert the need for a participant to receive permission to use the drum. I will make sure my daughter never honors a chauvinistic, sexist attitude that keeps her from finding her soul and connecting with her maker. The drum connects us to dance and a spirit beyond us all.

My daughter, will have her own drum and become a "holder of the drum." This will allow her to invite all good people to reach out to and find their soul with mother earth and our great father. She will never engage in discrimination by keeping males out of the circle. She will demand respect. Our great father never placed a taboo on women.

The changes may be due to the fact that men felt a need to gain back the control they lost through women's suffrage, women's rights, and the end of sexism in the workplace. Some are perpetuating myth and gathering power that never existed until the last 50 or so years. 200 years ago men had little time to dance and use regalia. Women used the tribal drum to communicate and made regalia to create joy. Perhaps women will teach better than the sexist male teachers that perpetuate discrimination and violate the laws of this great country. Title 9 demands that women have equal access.

How do I know this? It is common sense. It is also simple history...

Men were hunting and women were caring for the tent, the cave, the tepee, the lodge, or the home. Power corrupts and when one door opens another one closes. It is a complete corruption of our ancestral history to tell women they cannot share the drum. The fact is that they likely used the drum out of the need to communicate BEFORE men. NO known scholar has ever verified the right of men over women to lead the drum prior th the 1900s. This is created sexism. This hurts my daughter. I have been called a feminist over this. It is not feminism to stand up for my child. She won't swing a hammer or dig long deep ditches. There some roles she won't be ab;e to do. Nonetheless. I refuse to put limits upons her and keep her from her native indigenous roots.

Power is hard to give up... I do get irritated when I am confronted by a loving wife that asserts the needs of our family over my own immediate needs. I also know that she has been a mentor and a savior as we walk this earth. I love my wife, my daughter, mother earth, and our great creator. My wife is not perfect and neither am I but it is real discrimination to tell me she is less than me because she is a woman. My daughter will stand with us, not behind or in front.

My daughter will have the right and power to drum. She will have her rightful place in the circle.