1.) A message from the Secretariat of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues:
Dear Friends,
Please receive our very best wishes for the holidays and the New Year. May 2007 bring you and yours peace and happiness, good health and prosperity.
Avec nos meilleurs voeux.
Felices festividades.
Aaja, Broddi, Ekaterina,
Elsa, Hui, Mirian, Olivia & Sonia
Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
2.) A message from Faye DeAbreau (Arawak):
Seasons Greetings to you and all
Takaji
What a wonderful year this has been. I look back on the seasons and realize that once again the Creator has blessed us with life and its many quirks.
In my family we have had a wedding, a couple births, a death and many squabbles between the hugs and kisses. We have had many joyful moments and some moments of intense reflection as well as some moments we are not so proud of.
Sometimes I am sad, sometimes I grieve for what has passed and what is to be. Sometimes I bubble over with joy at the same thing that made me cry yesterday. Always I am hungry, always I am thirsty and always I want to share and be close to my people. I am hungry to know my past and my future. I thirst for the knowledge that has been forgotten. I crave the lullabyes of my grandmother, whose tongue I do not understand yet crave.
I remember a time when much was not forgotten. I remember looking through the trees at the river and hearing the conch blow its herald. I remember and those memories are stored like precious jewels lest they, too, be stolen.
In this new year I ask that we have mercy on each other and show kindness more readily. Think kindly eagerly. Let's not judge each other so harshly and so easily. Let's take time to listen to the wind for it often carries so much more information than the voice. Let's speak our hearts not our minds for our minds have become embittered by history but our hearts are refreshed every dawn within the sheer joy rising with the sun.
I love you all my family. Bo'matum for sending your words of wisdom out to me. Bo'matum administrator Roberto for your kind work in keeping up with this website despite the changes in your life. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to make the friends that I have through your website.
Bo'matum wonderful readers who share so much and have given me so much. We are once again privileged to to come together to bring our strenghts to fore. I am proud to be with you. Bo'matum.
3.) A message from "TANA":
Wishing to you all a Happy New Year, and that the Creator bring to all lots of blessings from behalf of the Taino abuelo in Vega Baja, Manuel Galagarza, and myself. And God bless you Millie Gandia for being who you are, small but big in heart, people don't value that.
Love you always, your sister,
Carmen
Dear Friends,
Please receive our very best wishes for the holidays and the New Year. May 2007 bring you and yours peace and happiness, good health and prosperity.
Avec nos meilleurs voeux.
Felices festividades.
Aaja, Broddi, Ekaterina,
Elsa, Hui, Mirian, Olivia & Sonia
Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
2.) A message from Faye DeAbreau (Arawak):
Seasons Greetings to you and all
Takaji
What a wonderful year this has been. I look back on the seasons and realize that once again the Creator has blessed us with life and its many quirks.
In my family we have had a wedding, a couple births, a death and many squabbles between the hugs and kisses. We have had many joyful moments and some moments of intense reflection as well as some moments we are not so proud of.
Sometimes I am sad, sometimes I grieve for what has passed and what is to be. Sometimes I bubble over with joy at the same thing that made me cry yesterday. Always I am hungry, always I am thirsty and always I want to share and be close to my people. I am hungry to know my past and my future. I thirst for the knowledge that has been forgotten. I crave the lullabyes of my grandmother, whose tongue I do not understand yet crave.
I remember a time when much was not forgotten. I remember looking through the trees at the river and hearing the conch blow its herald. I remember and those memories are stored like precious jewels lest they, too, be stolen.
In this new year I ask that we have mercy on each other and show kindness more readily. Think kindly eagerly. Let's not judge each other so harshly and so easily. Let's take time to listen to the wind for it often carries so much more information than the voice. Let's speak our hearts not our minds for our minds have become embittered by history but our hearts are refreshed every dawn within the sheer joy rising with the sun.
I love you all my family. Bo'matum for sending your words of wisdom out to me. Bo'matum administrator Roberto for your kind work in keeping up with this website despite the changes in your life. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to make the friends that I have through your website.
Bo'matum wonderful readers who share so much and have given me so much. We are once again privileged to to come together to bring our strenghts to fore. I am proud to be with you. Bo'matum.
3.) A message from "TANA"
Wishing to you all a Happy New Year, and that the Creator bring to all lots of blessings from behalf of the Taino abuelo in Vega Baja, Manuel Galagarza, and myself. And God bless you Millie Gandia for being who you are, small but big in heart, people don't value that.
Love you always, your sister,
Carmen
From: "Jaime Rosario", Thu Jan 4, 2007
ReplyDeleteBomatum, Carmen and familia... From way over here on the west coast in the northwest corner of US/BC Canada... if it had not been for all of you sending your information, words of wisdom, love for our people alive and passed... life would not be the same for me, so I thank you all for the big and little things that you do so we can continue to learn about our ancestry and ancestors.
I agree with sister Carmen referring to the healing of our hearts and minds and become heart-minded as ONE PEOPLE and show the rest of the country and world how we can come together as ONE with our diversiveness of walks and experiences and share with our hearts and minds to become ever better people for the future...
I too thank you immensely Roberto for calling me this past summer here in BC, after Sundance season to talk and become more aware of each other and to know where we stand... as I told you...I will stand with you brother... in all things that deal with our people and culture even if we have not met eye to eye... but we have heart to heart... Gracias/Bomatum....
Bomatum to all who read this and many blessings to you from me in my prayers... Pidamayayedo, Sungtokca Ho Waste miyedo.... Thank you... Wolf with Good Voice.... gracias... Tainoti... Oma bahari... Jaime Rosario Rivera... Taino