Terrence Lilly Littlewater

Partial Transcript: My name is Terrence Lily Littlewater. I have lived in South Carolina since I graduated from high school, which was in 1976. My father was in the United States military, and we traveled all over the world prior to that. And South Carolina was his home, so he retired here, and I have been here ever since. In the last twenty-five to thirty years, I have worked with the Indian people in the state of South Carolina in many capacities, mostly with the South Carolina Indian Affairs Commission. I still sit on the South Carolina Indian Affairs Commission. I have been their executive director, secretary, et cetera. And the South Carolina Indian Affairs Commission began to—in order to establish government-to-government relationships. In other words, relationships between the tribal governments in South Carolina and the state government of South Carolina. The state of South Carolina has not recognized or established a stand-alone commission for the Native Americans in the state. We opted to form a South Carolina Indian Affairs Commission on our own to accomplish that—that purpose. Most states in the United States do have an Indian Affairs Commission. The reason why Indian Affairs Commissions are necessary is because other ethnic groups and minorities do not have separate governments. We have—we are a sovereign nation, so we do have separate governments, and there are different laws and different issues that have to be handled on a state level. And so that is what an Indian Commission is supposed to do. There is a commission here for minority affairs that does operate for some of the concerns for American Indians in the state, but most of their work centers around state recognition. State recognition means that the state of South Carolina recognizes the Indian persons as a tribe, a group, or an entity. There are three levels. And that’s where they work. We did not have any recognition for tribes in South Carolina until a very few years ago actually. And so a great deal of work was done to establish legislation, which was eventually passed, and now we do have a recognition system through the Minority Affairs Commission in South Carolina. And we’re very grateful for that.

Partial Transcript: Well, I think that one of the greatest things that happened—and I had nothing to do with this personally other than maybe working in some administrative level where I was working in a support capacity—we were able to pass a bill that allowed the chiefs of tribes and/or their medicine persons to conduct marriage ceremonies. They could not sign a marriage certificate for their own people, and that’s our traditional way of being married. So we would have to get another person from another spiritual or religious authority or of course a notary public, which seemed ridiculous because they weren’t the ones who were marrying us or had anything to do with it, so why do Indian people have to go out and—did Indian people have to go out—and search for a completely different entity to validate their marriages? So we thought that it was very important that we were able to do those things for ourselves because that has a great deal to do with carrying forward our culture and our tradition, and we didn’t have that right. And we felt that it was somewhat an issue of denial of religious freedom. A rabbi could marry. Any minister could marry. I think the law said a person of the cloth. So we could not—we did not have that privilege. So I think that that is one of the biggest changes that we’ve had. And it was long overdue.

Partial Transcript: My father is Lumbee Indian. And my mother is Oglala Lakota. So, yes, I am Native American myself. I have—my father was also Irish, and I’m just as proud of that. My culture teaches us to be proud of all parts of ourselves, and all of our family members are just as important as the other. However, from the day that I could think, being American Indian or being what we call Indian was the only thing I knew. It’s the only way I self-identify.

Partial Transcript: It’s important to keep our cultures alive because—and I say plural, cultures—because, like I said before, 550 federally recognized tribes, several other hundred that are awaiting recognition, et cetera. We’re all different. But I think that people don’t realize how much we have to offer. And that is especially why it is so important to me. When you think about the fact that most of the medicines that you use come from indigenous people, come from indigenous lands, come from indigenous cultivation, come from our knowledge. Our way of being and our way of relating to the natural world is extraordinarily important. We can already see how we are eroding the natural world and our human effect upon it and how important it is to find ways to—if we cannot reverse what’s already been destroyed—to find ways to at least preserve what has not. So we have a great deal of knowledge about that. We also have a great deal of knowledge that I feel has been ignored almost to a fault of dominant society about the history of the world. Everybody is constantly arguing about how we got here. Did we come over this land bridge? Did we come from South America? They would be greatly surprised to find out that this continent was not completely empty until someone came across this particular land bridge. And if they would talk to our elders and talk to us and understand that our oral histories are just as important and just as—I’m trying to think of the word, I’m sorry—that our oral histories are just as important and as accurate as anything written in a book or anything a scientist can find. When discoveries are made, often we chuckle a little bit and say, “Well, why didn’t they ask us?” So we have a great deal to offer, and that is why our cultures are important.

Partial Transcript: Well, you know everyone does not have the same spirituality, and part of our spirituality—one of the most important parts—is that we understand that we are—that it is not a hierarchical system. In other words, we do not have dominion over the earth or animals or anything in the natural world. A good example of that is a little story that I was told when I was younger. I was asked, if there were no water, could the earth survive? It could not. If there were no standing people, which are the trees and the plants, could the earth survive? It could not. If there were no winged and four-legged creatures and the fish that swim in the waters, could the earth survive? It could not. Could the earth survive without you? Yes, it could. So, thus, you are not the most important thing on the earth.

Partial Transcript: We lose our brothers and sisters. These creatures are our brothers and sisters. They were put here as a system where each relation needs the other. That’s Mitakuye Oyasin—with respect to all our relations is the way that my tribe—that’s the way that we end our prayers. Everything is in respect to our—every relation. And that is anything that has energy or carries life. That can be rocks, rivers, animals, sea turtles. So when a tiger or a sea turtle or any—even the smallest creature—becomes extinct, it’s almost a blasphemy, because we have destroyed something that the creator meant to be here. They were put here for a purpose. And we do not have a right to intervene in that purpose in a way that—I get a little sad. It’s a very emotional thing. We don’t have a right to intervene in the world that our creator made and to change that so drastically. It is a gift.
When we erode our ecosystems, it is—it is like a blasphemy because what we’ve done is we have destroyed a gift that the creator has given us. We have negated creator’s purpose, and we have no right to do so. So in our spirituality, to do that is a grave, grave, grave—I wouldn’t—I don’t want to use sin because that somewhat does not translate correctly.

Partial Transcript: I think that in order to reconnect with that balance—will be very difficult for a lot of persons because our current culture in the United States is really about external things. It is about what we can acquire. And we live on a basis of acquirement, what kind of house you have, what kind of car you drive. I think that what we’re going to have to do is we’re going to have to refocus our thoughts, and we’re going to have to refocus our priorities and understand that it’s not as important when you leave this earth what kind of car you drive or how many bedrooms you had or even what you particularly achieved in your career. How you walk this earth and how you treated the other creatures on this earth is what’s important. And we have to live that kind of life as opposed to the ones that are more materialistic.

Partial Transcript: Something I don’t even want to think about. When we lose connection to our past, we lose connection to—I truly believe—a part of our souls. We believe that our ancestors live inside of us and that they are here to help us and aid us, give us strength, to help us walk in the correct manner, to help us live with dignity and integrity. And when we lose our past and our connection to the past, we lose the foundation that was built for us by people who were far more courageous, far more gentler, far more knowledgeable—they gave everything, their lives, their children, their homes. They gave all of that so that we could live. And that is a past I don’t want to lose. And that’s why I do what I do in the Indian community because my ancestors still speak. And I can still hear them. And I want the world to hear them. So to me, it’s very important that, when we maintain our communities, our communities stay intact, our children stay in their communities, they are not adopted out of our communities. Right now we’re fighting to keep the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act in place so that children cannot be adopted out of our tribes unless it’s absolutely necessary. In other words, we have that choice. So preserving our communities and preserving our cultures is—it’s just—I can’t even describe the importance or the relevance. It’s almost like a light in the world would go out.