The Elements of Honor
By Swil Kanim

My name is Richard Marshall. That is just my name. Who I am
is Swil Kanim. That is my Lummi name. I am an enrolled member
of the Lummi Nation. That is what they call us. The Lummi Nation.
That is not who we are though. For centuries we were called the
Laq'temish. ~The People from the Place of Frogs.~ Maybe something
got lost in the translation during assimilation.

Some would say that I am part Chillawack, part Nooksack, part
Upper Skagit, and part Samish. I don't know which part of me
is which. I guess that means that I am everyone I am. Not part
anyone. Like in the spirit of ~We the People~ we are everyone
we are. Not part anyone. We are all of our stories told and untold.
We are all of our mistakes, failures and our victories. We are
our 500 word essays and our haikus. We are all the right answers
to the wrong questions. We are every version of the truth and
every feeling, meaning and decision we have made. That is who
we are.

For thousands of generations my ancestors have addressed the
people in the language of the land by saying, ~All my relations.~
Albert Einstein in the language of physics said, energy is equal
to the mass times the constant squared. E=MC2. The constant
is the speed of light. The result of this theory is that for
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You see,
we are all related to the speed of light through the night sky.
We are all related to enlightenment and bigotry, ignorance and
inquiry.

For every privilege there is an equal and opposite oppression.
I may stand before you in the privilege of being a public speaker.
When I speak, I will speak for every one that has ever been told
they weren't good enough to speak. Like when I play my violin
in front of an audience there is no doubt someone is in the audience
that 'used' to play because they believed the lie that they weren't
good enough to keep on playing. I have received accolades as
a 'sensitive' man when a woman behaving the same way would have
been perceived to be weak. We the People must learn to be generous
with our being. We must use every privilege to uplift the oppressed.
That includes assuming the privilege of overcoming our own internalized
oppression for the sake and honor of all.

In 1983 Native American elders met at the University of Lethbridge
to address substance abuse on reservations. Their conclusion
was, ~The hurt of one is the hurt of all.  The honor of one is the honor of all.~
It is my responsibility to honor all by expressing
who I am in the context of community. My self expression has
most constructively been expressed through my heritage of music
and spoken word. Self expression in community is not selfish.
In fact self expression in community identifies who we the people
are.

© 2004 Richard A. Marshall aka Swil Kanim