In response to President Trump ditching Indigenous Peoples’ Day and opting instead to proclaim Italian explorer Christopher Columbus as “the original American hero,” Kanipawit Maskwa shared the following earlier today via social media. (NOTE: Kanipawit Maskwa is the ceremonial name of John Gonzalez, a Taíno/Pimicikamak journalist,activist and filmmaker, which translates to “Standing Bear.”)
When I hear words like “Columbus, the original American hero,” I feel a heaviness in my chest – not because I am angry, but because I know how stories can wound when they are told without truth. Our people have lived on this land since long before that man ever dreamed of crossing the ocean. The rivers already had names. The stars already had songs. The people already knew the Creator. To call him a hero, and to erase the names of the ones who were here, is to speak only half a story – and half-stories have always been dangerous things.
When the leaders of a nation use their power to lift up conquest and silence the survivors, it tells me they have not yet learned the meaning of kinship. A true leader does not fear truth. A true leader does not need to erase others to stand tall. Our ancestors taught that greatness is not measured by how far you travel or how many lands you claim, but by how well you remember your relatives – all your relatives – the four-legged, the winged, the swimmers, the crawlers, and the human beings.
When I was young, the old ones told us that stories are medicine, but they can also be poison if told without humility. This proclamation feels like that – words dressed in honor but carrying harm. It forgets the women and children who suffered, the languages silenced, the songs that were not allowed to be sung. It forgets that this so-called discovery began a long night for our peoples, one we are still waking from.
I do not speak these things to divide us. I speak them because truth must be spoken if there is ever to be peace. We do not need to hate Columbus to honor our own story. But we must not let his name stand above the countless ancestors who greeted him with open hands and were repaid with chains.
Today, when the government once again chooses to remember the colonizer and forget the Indigenous, it is not surprising – it is just a reminder that our work is not done. We must keep teaching the children who they are. We must keep speaking our languages, planting our medicines, walking softly on the land that still remembers us.
So I say this: we will not disappear because a proclamation forgets us. We were here before Columbus, and we will be here long after the politicians are gone. The land remembers. The water remembers. The wind carries our names. And as long as we breathe, we will keep telling the whole story – the one that begins not with discovery, but with belonging.
– Kanipawit Maskwa
Today is a gift.
The Great Spirit’s breath still touches the land.
The sky glows with colors of fire,
The wind sings softly.
And for this, I say – thank you.
I am grateful
For another chance to live a good life –
To walk with kindness,
To use my hands to bring healing,
To speak with honesty and truth.
Sacred breath,
Fill me with patience,
Help me to listen deeply before I speak,
And to walk gently where my ancestors once danced.
Let my heart remember:
I am never alone.
My ancestors walk with me –
In every breath, every step, every beat of the drum.
Today, may I live with love,
With courage,
And with a spirit that helps others.
This is the truth:
The sun rises for all of us, not just me.
We are in this life together.
So keep going, my relatives.
Together, we rise.
– Kanipawit Maskwa
Related Off-site Links:
Trump Declares Columbus Day, Omits Indigenous Peoples’ Day Recognition – Native News Online (October 9, 2025).
Noam Chomsky: World Indigenous People Only Hope for Human Survival – teleSUR (July 26, 2016).
The Real Christopher Columbus – Howard Zinn (Jacobin, October 12, 2015).
Five Young Native Americans on What Indigenous Peoples’ Day Means to Them – Sarah Ruiz-Grossman (The Huffington Post, October 9, 2017).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Words of Wisdom on Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• Something to Think About – October 9, 2017
• Something to Think About – February 23, 2017
• Something to Think About – October 13, 2015
• Quote of the Day – September 27, 2015
• Something Special for Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• Recognising and Honoring Australia’s First Naturalists
• “A Mysteriously Charged and Magnificently Alive Archetypal Presence”
• An Australian Spirituality: “A Festival of Light and Rock”
• Australian Indigenous Culture and the Reality of LGBTI Lives
• Celebrating Mabo
• Matariki
• “It Is All Connected”
• Forever Oneness
• Standing Together
• Standing in Prayer and Solidarity with the Water Protectors of Standing Rock
• At Standing Rock and Beyond, Celebrating and Giving Thanks for a “Historic Decision”
• Come, Spirit . . .
• Exploring the Meaning and History of “Two-Spirit”
• Tony Enos on Understanding the Two-Spirit Community
• North America: Perhaps Once the “Queerest Continent on the Planet”
• The Landscape Is a Mirror
• “Something Sacred Dwells There”
Opening image: “The heart of everything that is” – Pahá Sápa, which is the Lakota name for the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. (Photo: Michael J. Bayly, June 2013.)
