International Day of the World’s Indigenous People

On December 23, 1994, the United Nations General Assembly declared August 9 as International Day of the World’s Indigenous People.

In honor of the occasion, I share a poem published in The Academy of American Poets newsletter.

More than Something Else

Something Else.
Some one else
Some where else

That place is here,
In my home,
We are here.

I am brown,
Brown hair,
Brown eyes,
Like cookies Feather tells me, and I like to think it’s perfectly
cooked Pueblo cookies.

My kids are something else,
9 different shades of brown,
All beautiful.

My grandkids are something else,
4 brown eyes, 2 blue eyes,
All Native,
Definitely something else, as I watch them be rowdy, be loving,
be here in this world.

We are here
On this earth
In this time and place

In our homes,
On our lands,
In the cities,
With our families, laughing loudly, cooking together, protecting
each other.

We are something else
With our songs
Our dances.

We pray with corn meal,
Eagle feathers,
Medicine bundles,
Burn some sage, make sure to acknowledge the four directions,
as the sun comes up.

We are the something else,
Who were here,
To greet Christopher Columbus

We were born from
This earth,
Crawled out of the center,
Of our mother’s womb, we are important, we are strong.

We are something else,
We are Pueblo people, Plains people, Forest People, Desert
people, Nomadic people, Cliff dwellers, Ocean fishers, Lake and
river fishers, hunters, medicine collectors, horse riders, artists,
speakers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, we are human beings.
We are something else,
We are Native People,
Indigenous to this land.
We are a proud,
Something else.

written by Rainy Dawn Ortiz

The Academy of American Poets included these additional links to poetry by Indigenous People.

• On the Backs of American Bison” by b: william bearhart
• “(De)colonial Therapy” by Esther Belin
• “A Quest for Universal Suffrage” by Kimberly Blaeser
• “Sonnets from the Cherokee (I)” by Ruth Muskrat Bronson
• “All the Tired Horses in the Sun” by Joy Harjo
• “Lullaby of the Iroquois” by Emily Pauline Johnson
• “On the Hills of Dawn” by Alexander Posey
• “Iris of Life” by Zitkála-Šá
• “Amphibious” by Aimee Suzara
• “A Song of a Navajo Weaver” by Bertrand N. O. Walker