The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this continent. I’m marking the occasion with a series of daily posts related to the history of the Native Americans and their interactions with encroaching Europeans. Some will have to do with pop culture; others will be weightier. This series is dedicated to Sterling and Samantha.

November 25 also happens to be the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The occasion brought to mind two points of intersection:

According to one version of an Iroquois myth, the earth was created in violence and anger. When Sky Woman learned she was with child and about to bear a pair of twins, her husband in grew furious in his jealous, uprooted the Tree of Light and and threw Sky Woman through a hole in the heavens. She then fell headlong from their Floating Island in the Sky toward the primordial sea, where the animals in their sympathy built up a home for her by putting mud on a turtle’s back. The mud grew into the land beneath our feet.

I found a truth in this creation myth that probably shoots past most people who encounter the tale. The idea that the world is sets off on the wrong foot by an episode of male violence, and is later shaped into something solid and stable by generous, empathic creatures — it not only resonates, but gives one hope during these dark days.

Native American women are the victims of violent crime at several times the national average. For example, at present there are an estimate 4-5,000 unsolved missing persons cases in the U.S. where the victim was a Native American woman. While May 5^th is also recognized as the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), it’s equally fitting today to mention this under-reported catastrophe, the neglect of which is a perfect store of racism, sexism, and all-around indifference.

Some recent documentary films about the issue to explore. Several are available on Youtube:

If I Go Missing (2019)

Vanished: America’s Missing Indiginous Women (2021)

Finding Dawn (2021)

The Missing and Murdered (2021)

Gone Without Trace: Canada’s Missing Indigenous Women (2022)

Bring Her Home (2022)

Murder in Big Horn (2023)

For more info, visit the National Indigneous Women’s Resource Center here.