Warren Petoskey is an elder of the Waganakising Odawa and Minneconjou Lakotah nations. He is a writer, artisan, musician and dancer—and lectures on the infamous history of Indian boarding schools. He and his wife Barbara, whose ancestors survived the Trail of Tears, live near Lake Superior.
Introducing himself, Warren writes:
Barbara and I share blood memory through generations of our people.
I lived for years before I realized that many things I believed to be true—are not. Then, I asked the Giver of Life to teach me the truth and the truth I learned set me free.
;)
The Creator gives me dreams. In one dream, the Creator showed me the woman I would share my life with and, seven years later, we met and married. We now have seven children and 14 grandchildren.
Often in life, though, we lose our way. In one dream, I saw the Path of Life and the promise of a successful journey if I followed the Creator’s directions.
For more than a decade now, I have counseled men and women suffering the residual effects of the nation’s infamous Indian boarding school system. My father, Warren Frank Petoskey, was one of the children forced into those schools. So was my grandfather, Cornelius Joseph Petoskey.
We Indian people—our families—have survived five centuries of genocide, sterilization, relocation, reservations, urbanization, boarding schools, orphanages and a foster-care system—all of which were designed to erase the consciousness of what it means to be an Indian in North America.
Our hearts have been on the ground because of all these things. We know what it is to feel hopeless and to live in fear. We know what it is to be poor and destitute. We know what it is to be unable to feel self-worth, self-esteem or confidence. At one time, I lived this kind of life.
The Creator directed me to write this book out of love and honor for humanity, but especially for my Red Brothers and Sisters, and most especially for the generation that is coming. This coming generation whose members, I worry, feel no responsibility for the words of their great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers.
I have also written this book to validate our experience as Native Indigenous People. For too long, we have remained silent and have internalized our feelings.
I welcome all people to come and share this journey with me. We all come from a spiritual origin and we are on our way to a spiritual destination.
I am walking the Red Road.
It is a good path to travel.
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