Celebrating Columbus Indigenous People's Day On The Lake Wichita Boardwalk

With this second Monday of the 2024 version of October chilled into the 60-degree range, pre-noon, it was to Lake Wichita I ventured on this clear blue-sky day, to commune with nature, including a walk on the Lake Wichita Boardwalk, which juts out into the lake from atop the Lake Wichita Dam.

I saw only a couple other celebrators on this Columbus Indigenous People's Day. And those celebrators were on bikes, a more sophisticated means of motion than my primitive walking means of motion.

The current Texas weather forecast is for a cold front to arrive on Thursday which will chill the entire state to the chilliest it has been in 6 months, with a low in the 50s and a high in the 70s.

I suspect come Thursday I will require blanket coverage all night long. Last night around three in the morning I felt the chilly need to seek limited blanket coverage via a thin throw blanket.

I have located my thick winter blankets, long underwear and sweatpants.

I am ready for incoming frigidity...

Happy Indigenous People's Day From New York City & Spencer Jack On The Today Show

Text message from Spencer Jack's dad this morning when I woke up my phone....

Good morning. I don't know if you're a Today Show fan, but if you watch the first half hour, your Favorite Nephew Spencer Jack is standing right behind Lester Holt.

Well, I have not watched the Today Show for years. That would seem to indicate I am not a fan of the Today Show.  Well, I guess it sort of does indicate I am not a fan. I assume if I were a fan I would be watching the Today Show.

I am so out of touch with the Today Show that until I read this morning's text message from Spencer Jack's dad, I did not realize that Vice-President Debate moderator, Lester Holt, is on the Today Show.

The two Today Shows photos came via email, not via phone. The photos included no explanatory text.

But, I am assuming in the photo at the top Spencer Jack is at One Rockefeller Plaza, looking in on the Today Show set.

The second photo also appears to be at One Rockefeller Plaza, with the throng that looks through the window at the Today Show in progress.

Maybe I am a Today Show fan, without knowing it, what with knowing what I am looking at in these photos without being told what I am looking at.

Monday, October 10 would make this Indigenous People's Day in much of America. Columbus Day in less enlightened locations in America.

Columbus & His Crew Of Undocumented Immigrants Refused To Learn The Local Language

Continuing on with our week of celebrating Indigenous People, which began on Monday with Indigenous People's Day, I thought that which you see here to be amusing.

Sadly, there are those who wouldn't understand the amusement.

On Indigenous People's Day it became clear to me that there were some  people who had no clue as to why enlightened, educated sorts might think it really is not a good idea to be having a federal holiday honoring Christopher Columbus.

I think those who think it blasphemy to tamper with a holiday honoring Columbus are people who learned a myth in grade school and never unlearned that myth upon higher education, such as that which one gains when one goes to college.

But, one does not need higher education to learn factual non-mythical history. One can go to a library and check out a book. Or just Google "Christopher Columbus" and read something like the Wikipedia Christopher Columbus article to find yourself a bit of enlightenment via real history, such as the four paragraphs below...

According to the report, Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. Testimony recorded in the report claims that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomé on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was of lowly birth.

The document also describes how Columbus put down native unrest and revolt; he first ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed and then paraded their dismembered bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion.

"Columbus's government was characterised by a form of tyranny," Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told journalists. "Even those who loved him [Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."

De las Casas records that when he first came to Hispaniola in 1508, "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it..."

In our current times the only thing that comes close to the Columbus style of subjugating conquered people is ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

You think in 500 years they will be celebrating ISIS Day in Iraq?

Sadly, that may come to be. Just like Columbus Day.....

Indigenous People's Day Celebrating The Invasion Of Columbus

This morning I was dealing with an aggravating aggravation that aggravated me so much I forgot today was Indigenous People's Day, formerly known, by most, as Columbus Day.

The day some Americans honor a guy from Italy who sailed the oceans blue, in 1492, finding islands in what we now call the Caribbean, but which Columbus, that intrepid explorer, thought must be India, and so the Indigenous People's Columbus discovered became known to the incoming European invaders as Indians.

Columbus plundered what he could from the Indigenous People, left them with some diseases, to which they were not immune, kidnapped about a dozen of the "Indians", shackled them and floated them back to Spain to show to his benefactors, Isabella and Ferdinand.

The Indigenous People Columbus kidnapped were never returned to their homeland. I don't recollect how the kidnapped IPs died or where they were buried.

The Spanish method of dealing with Indigenous People was to convert them from their heathen ways to being good Christians and if met with resistance to torture and kill the resistors so as to save their mortal souls. Sort of an ISIS of its day.

I think I will continue my Indigenous People's Day celebrating by making an Asian stir fry for lunch.

Looking Forward To Celebrating Indigenous People's Day Possibly With The Texas Kickapoo Tribe

Every once in awhile, well, actually, almost every day, I'll be reading one the online versions of one of the newspapers in my old home zone of Washington and find myself thinking, well, that is a headline that will likely never been seen in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Like the headline above.

Can you imagine the Fort Worth City Council causing natives to get celebratory by replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day? I don't know if there are any Indigenous People still in Fort Worth to do any celebrating. Most were moved via a primitive form of eminent domain abuse, a long, long time ago, with most who survived being slaughtered ending up in Oklahoma, like Quanah Parker.

We do have a Quanah Parker Park in Fort Worth, though. So, there is that.

Seattle is not the first American town to celebrate Indigenous People's Day. That honor goes to Berkeley, California and Denver, Colorado.

I have long known that Columbus Day is a federal holiday. I did not know til today that four states opt out of Columbus Day. Those four would be Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon and South Dakota. I don't know if Alaska, Hawaii  and Oregon have a Columbus Day replacement, like Indigenous People's Day, but I do know that South Dakota replaces Columbus Day with Native American Day.

It is fitting that South Dakota celebrates Native American Day. What with the shady way the Black Hills were taken from the Sioux. And what with the last massacre of the Indian Wars taking place in South Dakota at Wounded Knee.

Other American towns have cancelled Columbus Day, such as San Francisco, which celebrates Italian Heritage Day instead, I'm assuming because a lot of San Franciscans are of Italian descent and Christopher Columbus was Italian. I may be assuming incorrectly.

One would think Columbus, Ohio would celebrate Columbus Day. Instead the Columbus, Ohio Columbus Day Parade has been cancelled since the 1990s, due to the revisionist modern view of Christopher Columbus and his "discovery" exploits.

Unlike Texas, Washington has a large population of Native Americans, with some 30 tribes owning tribal land. Below, from Wikipedia, is a list of all the federally recognized reservations in Washington, followed by a list of the federally recognized reservations in Texas....

Name of Reservation	Date Reservation Established	Area of Reservation (acres)	Location of Reservation
Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation	1860	4,225	southeastern Grays Harbor County and southwestern Thurston County
Colville Indian Reservation	1872	1,400,000[2]	primarily southeastern section of Okanogan County and the southern half of Ferry County
Cowlitz			Cowlitz County near Longview, Washington
Hoh Indian Reservation	1893[3]	477	the Pacific Coast of Jefferson County
Jamestown S'Klallam Indian Reservation			near Sequim Bay, in extreme eastern Clallam County
Kalispel Indian Reservation			the town of Cusick, in Pend Oreille County
Lower Elwha Indian Reservation			the mouth of the Elwha River, in Clallam County
Lummi Indian Reservation	1855	13,600	west of Bellingham, in western Whatcom County
Makah Indian Reservation	1855	30,010	on Cape Flattery in Clallam County
Muckleshoot Indian Reservation	1874[3]	3,533	southeast of Auburn in King County.
Nisqually Indian Reservation	1854	5,000 (approx.)[4]	western Pierce County and eastern Thurston County
Nooksack Indian Reservation			town of Deming, Washington in western Whatcom County
Port Gamble Indian Reservation			Port Gamble Bay in Clallam County
Port Madison Reservation (Suquamish Indian Reservation)			western and northern shores of Port Madison, northern Kitsap County
Puyallup Indian Reservation	1854–1856[3]	18,062	primarily northern Pierce County
Quileute Indian Reservation			southwestern portion of the Olympic Peninsula in Clallam County
Quinault Indian Reservation	1856	208,150	primarily the north coast of Grays Harbor County
Samish Indian Reservation			Anacortes, pending outcome of legal claims
Sauk-Suiattle Indian Reservation
Shoalwater Bay Indian Reservation
Skokomish Indian Reservation
Snoqualmie Indian Reservation
Spokane Indian Reservation	1881	133,344
Squaxin Island Indian Reservation	1854	1,418 (Squaxin Island) / 1,715 (total)
Stillaguamish Indian Reservation
Swinomish Indian Reservation
Tulalip Indian Reservation	1855	24,300
Upper Skagit Indian Reservation
Yakama Indian Reservation	1890s–1914	1,118,149

Wikipedia's American Indian reservations in Texas article does not have a table listing all the tribe's reservations in Texas, because there are only three tribes to list....

• Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas
• Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas
• Ysleta del Sur Pueblo

The only one of the three Texas tribes I'd heard of before is the Kickapoo, due to having made a webpage about the town of Eagle Pass, which is near the Kickapoo reservation and their Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino.

I wonder if the Kickapoo celebrate Columbus Day? Or do they opt to celebrate Indigenous People's Day instead?