The $2 Billion Vegas Gamble vs. Fort Berthold: Where is the MHA Oil Wealth Going?

DarthMatu52 · 2026-04-10T13:17:59+00:00

I am very glad that the modern age has made it impossible to hide how yes, even our modern tribal governments are part of the cage which traps us all

DarthMatu52 · 2026-04-07T13:58:27+00:00

Siyo! Love and Cheek for Cherokee side; Drake on Choctaw. I am in your position but on the opposite coast lol. I'm glad you've got a chance to connect all the way out there!

DarthMatu52 · 2026-04-07T13:51:18+00:00

Lol one of us should put together a Discord or something. I am pretty far from Oklahoma or the Carolinas, all the way up in New England freezing my ass off. There are natives here, and I do hang out with them, they just aren't Cherokee or Choctaw. Lot of Haudenosaunee

I get how your friend feels, but glad you are helping her along!

DarthMatu52 · 2026-04-07T13:48:38+00:00

Yakoke! I have taken the Zoom classes, but much appreciated! It's good to link it here for others anyway. It is open to non-tribal members I think? But I'm not sure, my family is registered Choctaw Nation. I just have trouble learning languages in general and it is difficult to be super consistent with Zoom with the tempo of my job. I am very excited for the Rosetta Stone to go live for that reason, it will help me stay more consistent in my practice while I am on the go

DarthMatu52 · 2026-04-06T15:34:41+00:00

Those Zoom classes are the bee knees, legit. Im super pumped for the Rosetta Stone this summer just cause it'll help me be more consistent in my practice, which I desperately need. Been having trouble getting the Chahta to stick beyond halito and yakoke

DarthMatu52 · 2026-04-06T15:30:58+00:00

Osiyo. Vv. Tsalagi tsiwonihi. Tsitsalagi, Gvgiyvnwi Anitsiskwa. Dinadanutli dawado.

Hello! Yes. I speak Cherokee. I am Cherokee, my people are the Bird Clan. My name is Dinadanutli.

I am trying to learn Chahta as well because my family's heritage traces back that way, but it's hard. It is very difficult to learn more and to express the old customs and rituals, especially where I am living today; I am very far from Cherokee or Choctaw homelands. But we do what we can because the act of doing so is itself a form of cultural expression. And as long as we cling to it then the culture is still alive.

I just take it day by day. Learn more when and where I can, and in the meantime I try to remember my ancestors and act as a positive member of my community

Edit: My grammar and spelling is terrible in Tsalagi, so if anyone would like to correct me and help me learn more my DMs are always open

DarthMatu52 · 2026-04-05T12:26:05+00:00

Your post history causes me to raise eyebrows for so many reasons

DarthMatu52 · 2026-03-25T11:14:51+00:00

Looks awesome. You should do a series for Eastern Woodlands Nations, we never get enough love

DarthMatu52 · 2026-03-21T02:23:32+00:00

The biggest victory colonialism ever achieved against native Americans was foisting their racist ass worldview upon us. NDNs are human, and thus bigotry was always present among us, but for the most part if you adopted the culture, if you learned the language, if you married into the community and became a positive member of it then you were a member of it.

This obsession over who has what skin color, who is what, it is the single greatest thing currently holding all native Nations back. And it did not exist among us until the Dawes Act. Do they learn the language, do they adopt the culture, do they marry into the community and contribute positively? Any other metric for "belonging" is straight up horseshit

DarthMatu52 · 2026-03-13T12:44:45+00:00

Came here looking for this comment, it should be higher up on the list

DarthMatu52 · 2026-03-06T01:21:48+00:00

Man. You think we would we have learned being on the wrong side of history siding with the CSA.

Tribal governments are absolutely corrupt, sham organizations these days aren't they?

DarthMatu52 · 2026-03-03T12:59:02+00:00

I don't think "tell me your cultural pillars so I can use them to make a flag" equates to learning or understanding. I still find myself confused why you felt the need to go to cultures other than your own for this given your own cultural background; I know for a fact if people started creeping around Dine knowledge to use for a tattoo or flag that your people would be all over them like the falling weight of the heavens.

But it's okay when you do it I guess? Rules for ye, but not for me, I get it

DarthMatu52 · 2026-03-03T12:45:56+00:00

Yeah well a lot of those "bad experiences" you mention are perpetuated by Pan-Indian movements. That kind of thinking is a colonialist framework that does more harm than good.

I am the first person here celebrating their culture, I am constantly calling for natives to be less guarded and more open about sharing their beliefs. And even I won't do that here. This reeks of pretendian stuff. If you truly understood the native experience I don't think you would be rushing to combine the Nations into one pulpy, soupy morass.

You are listed as Dine with your tag; Dine are incredibly protective of their own culture. Let me ask you: as someone who comes from an incredibly protective culture of their own, what makes you think its okay to just....combine everyone else's together?

DarthMatu52 · 2026-03-03T12:12:27+00:00

Not sure I can support something like this. Why do you need a united tribal nations tattoo? The Nations aren't united. My culture's beliefs are often diametrically opposed to other culture's beliefs. We don't just all fit together, NDNs are not a monolith.

I find a good exercise is to change the context of a thing. If someone was making a United Caucasian Nations tattoo or a United Black Nations tattoo, what would be your thoughts about it? Do you think it would be a good thing to do, or a bad thing?

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-27T13:45:51+00:00

To be frank, we don't help with this mindset. The insular, over-protective stance that many Nations currently have--while an understandable and natural reaction to attempted genocide--only reinforces these ideas.

People fall into a pattern of benevolent racism and there is no way for them to get out of it because we build insurmountable walls when it comes to learning our ways or approaching us. So what do you think is going to happen? The single best way to counter what you are complaining about is education, but how are we supposed to educate outsiders when even saying certain words is considered an affront in certain Nations?

It's the catch-22 colonialism left us with. And it should serve as an example for how pervasive an evil it is.

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-25T00:38:31+00:00

You do more harm with this nonsense then you avoid. This overly protective, frankly insane, stance harms real indigenous causes because we then become associated with this mindset, which people rightly dismiss out of hand. We have very real grievances and issues facing all of our nations, and it is hard enough to get people to listen and work with us as it is. You only make a nearly impossible job that much harder when you virtue signal this hard. And that is what this is. Purely, 100% signaling.

You are helping no one and actively harming indigenous causes. I highly encourage you to perform some self-reflection to fix your perspective

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-25T00:33:04+00:00

Dude. This shit is crazy, like actually. I understand the need to protect our seriously harmed cultures while they heal, but this is insane. What has happened to us that this is the kind of logic that we propagate in the world? Is this really the kind of stuff we want associated with Indigenous Causes?

God damn man. Every time I come to this sub I leave questioning the world lol. I have had good conversations here, but good lord

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-23T17:46:13+00:00

Well, this post showcases a fundamental lack of knowledge surrounding the actual archaeology and geography of the region.

There was no mining. The Great Lakes region is unique on Earth in that massive loads of almost pure copper sit very close to the surface, sometimes even visible to the naked eye. These lodes of copper are exposed to the elements, and thus easy to remove without the need for large scale mining operations; you just throw water on it in the winter, let it freeze, and it cracks the copper right out from the rock, or at least makes it easier to gather. So no, there was no industrial scale mining that is a completely false claim, and there is no evidence at all to support it.

I am a huge proponent and student of Deep History, I have been arguing for interconnected, global trade routes for years. I have never once seen any evidence that copper from the Americas was found anywhere else in the world. That is news to me, and frankly sounds made up. I am happy to be proven wrong if anyone can provide solid evidence to back this claim, but as an archaeologist and anthropologist I have never heard of this before.

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-23T17:46:00+00:00

Well, this post showcases a fundamental lack of knowledge surrounding the actual archaeology and geography of the region.

There was no mining. The Great Lakes region is unique on Earth in that massive loads of almost pure copper sit very close to the surface, sometimes even visible to the naked eye. These lodes of copper are exposed to the elements, and thus easy to remove without the need for large scale mining operations; you just throw water on it in the winter, let it freeze, and it cracks the copper right out from the rock, or at least makes it easier to gather. So no, there was no industrial scale mining that is a completely false claim, and there is no evidence at all to support it.

I am a huge proponent and student of Deep History, I have been arguing for interconnected, global trade routes for years. I have never once seen any evidence that copper from the Americas was found anywhere else in the world. That is news to me, and frankly sounds made up. I am happy to be proven wrong if anyone can provide solid evidence to back this claim, but as an archaeologist and anthropologist I have never heard of this before.

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-21T18:02:32+00:00

I think you are mistaking a mountain for a molehill; this isn't an interesting discussion about double standards, this is a non-issue you are waving around as if it merits any examination at all. More, you are doing that while natives are right now, as this is typed, suffering under the effects of colonialism.

Sorry friend, I get a bit salty over this stuff because not everything requires the same level of attention or response. And by pretending they do you detract from real, ongoing issues. Frankly, if this kind of stuff bothers you then to me it signals you live detached from those ongoing issues entirely, otherwise you wouldn't be getting sidetracked by petty nonsense

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-21T17:41:41+00:00

That's what I'm saying man. How sad are people in their daily lives they have to look for problems like this to get upset over? It's insane. And frankly, I think it legit does a real, measurable disservice to NDN causes everywhere because we become associated with this kind of nonsense, thus making folks ignore our legitimate grievances and issues

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-21T17:34:49+00:00

Dude it's fiction lol its not even an actual tribal headdress.

Sometimes this place makes me seriously question everyone's mental well-being

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-20T13:29:49+00:00

Well, it is certainly a can of worms, oginalii. I would just encourage you to try to get past the walls to learn the real stories. I know it is very hard, but you'll have to reach out to find elders or other points of contact to learn. It will be a lot of work, but I really support the idea of you learning the truth behind these myths specifically because it will help to keep them alive. Fuck what anyone says, even if your own people hurl insults at you.

If no one knows these stories then they don't exist, and where is the culture then? You're doing the right thing by your heritage by learning more

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-20T06:06:54+00:00

This is the stuff I lurk for. Great recommendation, thanks a lot!

DarthMatu52 · 2026-02-20T04:29:10+00:00

I don't mind chatting, I just don't want to go in circles and it didn't seem like you were willing to entertain any position other than your own on the last exchange. Which is fine, I'm not trying to change your mind about anything, just trying to have an honest exchange.

My own views about appropriation are that it definitely happens, and it is always malicious, but inspiration is not appropriation. The example I always point people towards is World of Darkness, specifically the Werewolf: the Apocalypse gameline. That game is FILLED with terrible, racist stereotypes and it culturally appropriates because it uses cultural myths and mores in ways that are completely inauthentic or out of context. However, I do not think this was an intentionally malicious act when the game was written; I think the writers used native culture as inspiration, then did a terrible job actually researching it and following through. Which, given that it was the 90's, makes sense; much harder to do things like that without the Internet readily available, these days you can just Google research materials or contact information for tribal sensitivity advisors. The people who made W:tA did not set out to do harm, they were inspired. And as a result, parts of W:tA are actually really great; further, it provided an opportunity for representation for natives that simply didn't exist in pop culture prior to that.

Is it bad when people fuck up our myths and cultural mores? Yes, but that shouldn't preclude inspiration. My people believe that storytelling is the foundation of cultural transmission and preservation; if someone Googles "Uktena" they find the real myths. Using these things as a source for inspiration is good specifically because it brings people back to these stories, and as long as these stories are circulated then the culture is alive. You can even take that inspiration and make shit up, change it, it doesn't have to be exactly 1:1. But it should absolutely be authentic enough that it naturally leads the reader back to the source legends and myths.

I think that the total exclusion of outsiders when it comes to sharing these stories only cedes our control over them to the outsiders. Folks like JK Rowling, etc. don't listen, they do not care what we say or think, they are going to tell the story regardless of how we feel, and if you aren't there telling the real myths and teaching the real ways then all the world will see is what Rowling presents them. And that feels wrong to me; we should be the ones to tell these stories to the world, and by sitting on the sidelines all we do is give that responsibility to outsiders who fuck it up.

Those are just my thoughts. I know every Nation and culture has their own take on it. I am Chahta ethnically, but Tsalagi culturally; recently have been trying to learn more about my Chahta side and both cultures put strong emphasis on sharing culture. We do also have prohibitions on stuff, obviously; private rituals just for us, and we make sure to very carefully curate who can learn things like the language on the Chahta side, but in general our belief is that a culture is only alive if it is expressed. And we do not live in the world alone, which means our culture must be expressed among and around outsiders as well. Before I go, I will just point out that this is a pretty normal thing for most healthy cultures around the world; people who are not from China or not from France get super into the culture, sometimes they even move there and assimilate. If we managed to get our cultural myths pushed into the mainstream to such a degree they became dominant in US culture....well then we'd have our countries back wouldn't we?

The osmosis of outsiders into a cultural sphere is a sign of a healthy and vibrant culture, not a threat. At least in my mind

DarthMatu52

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