Saudi Arabia says East-West pipeline pumping 5.8 million bpd as reflected on by Elder Thomas Many Feathers
News reaches our council lodges. Steel tubes across distant sands force millions of barrels of crude oil across the earth daily. My mind does not turn to markets or ministers. Instead, I think of the ground beneath our own feet here in the Great Plains basin. For generations, our relatives have warned us. Treating the blood of Unci Maka, Grandmother Earth, as mere plunder brings a fever upon all living things. Distance does not change this wound’s nature. Whether in the sacred hills of the Lakota or across Arabian deserts, the story remains the same. An insatiable appetite forces its will upon the land, much like the Saudi East-West pipeline.
Ministers speak with pride of restored capacity. They boast of millions of barrels rushing toward tankers and refineries. This follows violence that threatened to choke the line. In halls of power, people call this resilience and economic triumph. Yet, from our ceremonies’ perspective, it reveals profound spiritual blindness. A system depends entirely on extracting and burning the earth’s deep entrails. It operates under constant threat of conflict. Therefore, that system is not resilient. It lives on borrowed time, mistaking frantic motion for enduring life.
The True Cost of the East-West Pipeline
Our people know what living in pipelines’ shadow means. We remember bitter winter winds along riverbanks. Grandmothers prayed in the snow. Private guards and heavy machinery cut through unceded burial grounds. Furthermore, we know the sick feeling that settles in a father’s chest. Water tests show traces of poisons. Silence falls over an encampment. Corporate lawyers declare sacred waters to be mere industrial corridors. The language used in foreign capitals today is identical to the language used against us: security, necessity, and national interest.
The law of reciprocity stands at the center of our traditional teachings. We understand that we take nothing from the natural world without giving honor and care in return. The sacred teaching of Mitakuye Oyasin reminds us. All things are related: the winged ones, the four-legged, the grasses, the waters, and human beings across every ocean. Millions of barrels of oil are drawn out daily. This feeds war machines and endless consumption. Where is the offering? What gratitude is given to the living soil? Nothing is offered except soot in children’s lungs. Warming currents bleach corals and dry our northern pastures.
Beyond Fleeting Wealth and False Security
The modern world calls an energy victory merely the hardening of an addiction. When the East-West pipeline was struck, fear gripped global exchanges. Human society has built its entire shelter upon dry leaves near a flame. Instead of pausing to ask whether such vulnerability demands a different way of walking, the machinery is simply reinforced. Thicker steel and heavier armaments are added. True security cannot be defended with soldiers and surveillance along thousands of miles of pipe. It can only be found when a people learns to live within the limits of the sun, the wind, and the water Creator provided freely.
Tribal sovereignty teaches us that true authority begins with stewardship, not domination. An elder earns honor by how cleanly the river runs for his great-grandchildren. He does not earn it by how much timber he cuts down or game he hoards. Leaders of nations celebrate these immense conduits. They would do well to sit upon the earth without their papers and entourages. They should listen to the quiet breathing of the soil. Until humanity learns to honor the earth’s veins instead of tapping them for fleeting wealth, every repaired pipeline remains only an omen of greater sorrow to come.
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