This past year was prophetic in that it has outlined the obstacles that lay in our path towards a brand of sovereignty that has eluded us for a bit less than 200 years.

This is substantial, and I only understand a bit of it, to be honest. I am not a diplomat, I am a seeker and producer of thoughts.

Primary to our course as I see it is the work of unifying the words we use and the concepts we project. Our representative organizations, the BIA-recognized tribal trustee organizations and our Treaty Councils must all come to the agreement that if not for our ancestors, who knew nothing of tribal anything but understood decentralized nationhood, their successors would be without the base that informs our logic of diplomacy and policy. The notion of an NDN Nation is not that of a country but of a bunch of people simply trying to get along. Family, Clan, Nation, nowhere in this equation is a Tribe. Sovereignty, Oren Lyons once said, “…is the act there of.” Simple as that. From this we know that our Traditional Councils are the treaty signers, and treaties are made between nations. More: At its very core, the logic is that a Nation cannot make a treaty with itself. Tribal organizations are a creation of the Federal government. By definition, a Tribe cannot manage treaty obligations, only the treaty signers (governments) can. Where are out traditional governments?

How we present ourselves and how we speak of ourselves defines us in the eyes of the U.S. agencies and heads of state. Do we want national representative organizations whose members are deemed authoritative by another Nation? Where are our traditional councils?