Nican Tlacah Ilhuitl

NAHUACALLI

Embassy of Indigenous Peoples

802 N. 7^th Street Phoenix, AZ

www.nahuacalli.org

SIGNATURE

 

 

After more than three decades of struggle at the international levels of UN diplomacy and centuries of outright genocide and forced assimilation programs, the Indigenous Peoples of the world are now finally acknowledged as full members of global society with inherent rights of Self Determination under international law.  The passage of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007 addresses both individual and collective rights, cultural rights and identity, rights to education, health, employment, language and Treaty Rights.

 

A new day is upon us, the Indigenous Peoples Day - Nican Tlacah Ilhuitl.

 

Each one of us, as members of the great and humble family of the Indigenous Nations and Pueblos of this continent Abya Yala, have a story to tell in the long battle to achieve recognition, respect and protection for the rights of our Indigenous Peoples.  Many of the stories are told with sadness and even pain, as we recall the sufferings and trauma that our peoples and the land itself have endured as the result of centuries of colonization.  In this sense we are all veterans of the wars of colonization.  The battle is still long from over; centuries of trauma will take generations to fully heal, yet we have arrived at the dawn of the day which was foretold by our traditions and prophecies.

 

And how long is this day? How long shall it last?  This day - the Nican Tlacah Ilhuitl - began with the first rays of the original light of creation, when Life Giver made known the message and meaning of life itself, among all of our relations of the natural world. We, as Indigenous Peoples of the entire world continue to carry the meaning of this message in our hearts and endeavor to pass this sacred tradition on to our future generations.

 

May our signatures here be a sign, of our continued commitment to encounter one another and all of our brothers and sisters of the Family of Humanity along the good road of Self Respect and Self Determination.

 

How long is this day? As long as the Light….

 

 

 

Signature:_______________________________________________________________

 

 

Altepetl - Nation(s) of Indigenous Peoples:

__________________________________

 

Date: March 13, 2010

Indigenous Peoples Day

NAHUACALLI

Embassy of Indigenous Peoples

United Nations

Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Eighth Session  May 20, 2009

UN Headquarters New York, NY

 

 

Agenda Item: 4 (a) Human Rights

Implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

 

Statement by Tupac Enrique Acosta, Yaotachcauh

Tlahtokan Nahuacalli, Izkalotlan Aztlan

O’Otham Nations Territories, Abya Yala North

 

 

Good greeting to all my relatives, relations of Indigenous Peoples from around the world and distinguished members of the Permanent Forum:

 

Madam Chair,

 

Ayo.  Today we are called to address collectively a review and follow-up on recommendations made to the Permanent Forum regarding implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  In the moment of reflection, and at a time of convergence that realizes the crises of climate change and global economic recession as the frame of collapse of the dominant planetary paradigms of human economic and social development, the work of the Permanent Forum and the self determination of the Nican Tlacah Cemanahuac – Indigenous Peoples of the World - also faces the challenge of redefinition and clarification.

 

 

At the initiation of this Eighth Session of the Permanent Forum, the Indigenous Peoples Global Caucus in our opening statement referred to this challenge as a foretelling of the call to all members of human society to recognize the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a necessary instrument to address comprehensively and simultaneously the global climate crisis and economic recession as a mechanism of world peace. 

 

As process and product of standard setting at global scale, the UNDRIP integrates the self-determination of Indigenous Peoples with the principle of peaceful coexistence among all peoples as a Human Right. The realization of the UNDRIP expresses the universal and fundamental reality of all systems of international jurisprudence, emerging from the evolving inter-relations of customs and usages of distinct peoples, and finally codification in the statutes and mandates of the government states, individually and collectively.

 

The UN Charter itself proposes to defend this process as an instrument of world peace, by implementing mechanisms of combined effort among the Peoples of the United Nations through international cooperation.

 

In review and follow-up to the recommendations made to the UNPFII over the past eight sessions, it is evident that taken as a whole, the implementation of the UNDRIP institutes a new systemic standard that calls for complementary readjustment among entities of the government states and the Nations of the Indigenous Peoples, normalizing peaceful relations based on mutual respect and cooperation.

 

The potential that this systemic standard may serve to assist in addressing the global climate crisis is only just beginning to emerge.  By linking and codifying the principle of respect for cultural diversity with acknowledgement of collective ecological responsibilities, the UNDRIP establishes a new framework for the ancient principle of respect for Human Rights of the Future Generations of all peoples.  The immediate challenge is to bring to scale the necessary economic policies of accountability to the processes driving the global economy, in accord with the parallel principle of global ecological responsibility.

 TEZCATLALLI

 

Espejo de la Tierra      Earth Mirror

 

The day will come

when

the shards of rubble,

will be swept away;

the remains

of loved ones will be carefully laid to rest in places

at that moment where

worlds that were

will also be

no more, and

new world’s

Discovery brought us all a shudder of horror

to have lost those who through knowing them,

being

with them and of them,

made us

human. 

 

The day that comes,

comes for us all.

The coldest winds before that dawn,

the shards of humans being inhuman

to each other and themselves, look for the broken places in our

mind

and heart,

look to wounds searching for caves of fear, far beyond the chasing

conscience of the One:

 

At that moment shall appear,

When the ground is finally clear,

A shining dust

A mirror of earth, and she will speak again.

“What have you done to my children?”

And foundations of Heaven’s Earth, respond -

In justice of war gods unbound.

 

 

 

Decía la Llorona cuando se miraba pa' el norte -

 

" Y mis hijos -

Que les pasará?

Reconocerán la lucha

de sus tatas?

Sentirán el calor

de su historia indígena,

como yo los enseñe?

Serán ahogados

en el río

de la historia europea, o

nomás

mojados?"

 

 

IXTLALLI

 

Han sido siglos y siglos

Pero para nosotros ya no son.

Por que nosotros no somos

seguidores de los siglos.

Nosotros

somos contadores de los cielos

Y ahora

Es este cielo que nos esta

Llamando

Con las llamas de un Fuego Sagrado

Azulado la tierra

Azulado el viento

Y la Abuelita Mar

Nos hace recordar

Conociendo y reconciendo

El sonido del suspiro del creador

A tocar la costa de cada continente

De Cemanahuac.

Nos hacen sentir la responsabilidad

De ser

lo que somos.

Somos responsables con la Madre Tierra,

Somos tambien responsables con la Abeulita Mar

Y el Viento de Fuego, el Fuego de Vientos

Nos hacen sentir

Lo que ahora nosotros

Hemos creado

En un un momento

Para cumplir.

AYO

 

 

The Teotlachtli of Huehuetlapallan

 

 

And then I realized that I was in the netemihuiliztli, I was a ballplayer on the court in and within the field of play, along with many others. Some of these others I could sense were my teammates, relatives, allies and ancestors as we ran in crisscrossing surges on the grass winds of the verdant court.

 

The ball court walls rose on either side beyond dimension to the turquoise sky, following the design left by Smoking Star when he released the Arrow of Awe into the world drawing the quadrant window in the sky, rising and turning like the great canyon walls of our beloved Huehuetlapallan and her sacred waters that carry the Rain of Time.

 

And the tlachtli, the pulse, the momentous sacred ball whose presence was movement, direction, and measure, the all of alls - shone.  Tlahuilia.  In the illumination, a line was defined: one side black, one side red. One side was the shade of light, the other the colors of light.  It was the boundary of the ball court, the teotlachtli: the context of the contest.

 

And so it occurred. With the shift of polarity, the intermission of the xinachtli released the regeneration of the Izkalotekah and sent the ball along the boundary line, and then, across. And I - ollamani, a ballplayer: I followed and so here I am now.

                                                                       

(As told by Tupac Enrique Acosta, Ikalotekatl)