A quest can take you so many unexpected places: to the other side of the world, to your own backyard.

My father’s grandfather was born on an Indian Reservation in the mid-west.  He and his twin brother were orphans, and when the reservation closed, they were still minors.  One of them had the Indian name of Walk in the Rain, and thus, the boys were given a standard American last name of Walker.  My own father, apart from being a psychologist, a doctor, and a lawyer, was also a medicine man of a Native American tribe in the panhandle of Florida.  I appreciate my heritage and wish to preserve it and understand it in every way possible.

At some point in my father’s life, probably before I was born, a friend of his was walking in the woods and tripped over a rock.  He examined the rock and realised it was not just a rock, but rather, a cache of over a hundred arrowheads, projectile points, scrapers, drills, and hammerstones.  He gave them to my father as a gift.  A gift in honour of his heritage.  A gift of preservable culture.  The provenience, in this particular case, has been lost, but the artifacts remain and are available for anyone who wishes to view them.

Was this wrong?

A huge debate rages between private citizens and scholars.  The two opposing warriors both fighting for their own rights as well as the rights of others – the rights of those who have no voice – the cultures all but lost (quite literally) in the sands of time.

Where do YOU stand?

More discussion on my stand on this to come…