Peace the only way: Born With A Tooth

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Milton Born With A Tooth leaned forward and placed his hand on the note paper.

"My world cannot be documented on your white paper with words. Your dictionaries reveal the white society and show how whites go in circles. Words simply refer to words and are only excuses for what's real The real world is about fresh air as medicine going into my lungs and the enjoyment of each meal as my last one."

Born With A Tooth has been in jail since being arrested in mid-September on weapons charges after a standoff with RCMP officers on the Peigan reserve. The police move in after members of the reserve's Lonefighters Society attempted to divert the Oldman River.

By white standards, Born With A Tooth, 33, is unemployed. However, he see his job as healing the Oldman River and saving people's lives.

Born with a Tooth offers tribute to his mother as being the biggest influence in his life.

"Who was my god, my creator. I was her chance in life, her facilitator. Because of that she gave me everything. To her I was something special."

Born with A Tooth is the third youngest in a family of 15 children; two died in childbirth and four died of alcohol-related deaths.

Born With A Tooth was born with tuberculosis and spent the first 18 months of his life in a sanitarium.

"Warm, hugging nurses are all I can remember."

Halfway through Grade 7, he left and looked to elders for guidance. They told him many things in the circle and introduced him to major literary influences like Aristotle. They were his education an they taught him well.

When he was eight-years-old, the government suddenly allowed Indians t drink and he started drinking. By the age of 13 he was an alcoholic. And by the time he was 20, he was in a big, black hole. He knew death initially.

"I made friends with death, but I said 'See you later.'"

The startling turnaround in his life can be attributed to a small voice getting through to him while he was in a drunken stupor: 'A bunch of Indians are marching across America in protest.' So in 1978 he packed up his car and went on a last, three-day drunk before joining The Longest Walk from Alcatraz to Washington, D.C. The walk was in protest of the U.S. government's plan to dissolve all treaties. Born With A Tooth expected violence and confrontation, but instead found answers to some burning questions. "Why do Indians turn to alcohol" Why are we living in poverty? Why don't whites like us? Why are governments trying to assimilate us? And why are our own people selling us our?" The walk gave him new hope and vision.

Born With A Tooth says he condones only peaceful means of social change.

"Peace is like sweetgrass. It has a secret smile you can't see and a calmness you can feel. It can go through walls, through anger and through governments. Its powers reflect my position as the most peaceful human in the world."

The Lonefighters action is an extension of his peaceful nature. "I kept violence and terrorism out of our society," he says.

Born With A Tooth says he fired two distress shots into the air in the Sept. 7 standoff to prevent Alberta government workers and the RCMP from trespassing on reserve land.

"The shots were fired in peace and intended to keep the peace. The police and courts have called me the aggressor. Little do they know what influences I could unleash upon them. I they call this violence, they are sadly mistaken. My voice is for peace. Even today in the face of the insults of the court, they wish to turn me into a violent man in jail. They cannot. They are violent. They are afraid. Fear does strange things to people. I have no fear and that makes me even more dangerous to them. They want me to fear. I will not. guess that makes me a danger to society."

Born With A tooth suggest he is a sacrifice because he stood up for his beliefs.

"One person can make a difference. I am proof of that. Our government is sending soldiers to Kuwait to die for Canada. We Indians are willing to die for our rights. It's he same thing."

Born With A Tooth was twice refused bail on the basis of the "public interest", while a Peigan Indian charged with the murder of another Indian was released on bail.

"If he had killed a white man, there would be no bail," said Born With A Tooth.

"The boiler is about to blow," he said. "If they don't want it to blow, they better start listening."