by Kristine Shotley, a.k.a Ricey Wild

There are a few things that really aggravate me and for the record I am going to tell you what they are.

You may wonder why I would describe my pet peeves in print because then you would know exactly how to piss me off. Well, I figure if you do such a thing I will just scratch your name on my list of "Bad Meanies‚" and avoid you like you were a drunk skunk with an attitude. I figure as well if you like me you won't say or do things to annoy me. No one should.

That being said, here are a few of the things I absolutely loathe:

People who saturate themselves with buckets of perfume or cologne. Yuck. Ish! People who wear too much foo-foo are totally obnoxious, and need to get used to using soap and water, rather than trying to cover up their stink. Repeat after me: SOAP AND WATER!
People who TALK TOO LOUD! Yeez. Those folks think everyone is fascinated by their irrational, self-important and illogical monologues. Tone it down and tell someone who cares. And the most nauseating thing that sets me off?
The Bering Straight Theory.

I talk about our reservation, its history, the culture, the people and our language. I also talk about our creation stories and that they tell us we Native people originated on this land. Which of course directly contradicts western scientific theory.

I declare that all of us have been bamboozled by an evil, hardcore group of scientists who have created and desperately maintained the Bering Straight Theory, which is a complete and utter fabrication.

For those who were not listening in school that day, the theory is this: about 12,000-14,000 years ago a land bridge opened up between present day Russia and Alaska, and a few hundred prehistoric Mongol-type people followed a bunch of hairy elephants in to what is now North and South America.

They are said to be the direct ancestors of all modern Native Americans.

(Please excuse me while I knash my teeth and wipe the spittle off my face before it ruins my makeup. There).

Let me start with truths. The truth is no one alive today or even last week was there to witness these immigrants cross the land bridge, if in fact they did so. Aha! "Immigrant" is a key word here, because that is the lie that the scientific deceivers have written down as truth. Because our supposed ancestors were originally immigrants, they say we Native people do not and have never had any valid claim to this land. Therefore, in their twisted reasoning, the hostile takeover of these continents is justified.

Are you still with me? Geez I hope so. Now, I have several arguments to prove that we did indeed originate here as our stories tell us we did. But, the one that will carry most weight with the scientific community is hard, factual science, ennit?

Before colonization most (99.9%) of Native people who lived on these continents had A or O blood types. The majority of Asian people have B blood type. How, then, could we possibly be descended from Asian peoples? Work out the science. It is flatly impossible, and their own scientific methods prove it, much to their chagrin.

It may be that some people may have migrated from Asia and settled here, but if the Bering Straight Theory is going to be held factual at all, the migration went the other way. Modern man appeared in Europe only 35,000 years ago. Bones of Homo- sapiens (modern man) have been found in the U.S. that date back 50,000 years, yet no one wants to publish the findings or admit that the scientific tools they created are accurate because it contradicts their desperate theory.

And, someone needs to clarify exactly how our supposed ancestors managed to populate two immense continents with millions of people with characteristic physical features, diverse cultures and languages. They would have had to be related to bunnies to accomplish this.

However, as we all are aware, if a lie is repeated enough and ground in to our collective psyche as fact, the lie becomes the truth. I, however, have been trained to question and I dispute the above lie, which is just as bad as the one where history says some chump named Columbus "discovered" America.

Listen up you mad scientists and history fiction writers! The truth will be known, and you will be the ones to prove it with your so impressive technical devices. Its like my Unk Gene always used to say, "It ain't easy being Indian since the boat people showed up; they wrote the history and conveniently left out the truth."

PS: No jury in the world would convict me if anyone shows up within 100 feet of me wearing a pail of foo-foo and raving incoherently at the top of his or her lungs about the Bering Straight Theory.