Native Orthodox Church

REV. MICHAEL WAYNE MAROUSEK-BELCHER

NativeOrthodoxChurch.org – Yourhungrycoyote@att.net

(213) 440-0334

Dear Community, I’m a Native Californian of Mission Indian descent, grandson of Artie Ortego aka Chief Little Horse who participated in parades, rodeos, pageants, and appeared in over 24 motion pictures from 1912-1955. I’m a student of Indian Lore, history, and theology. Studied under Ataloa Mary Stone McClendon, Chickasaw. Worked with Red Dawn, director of American Indian Lore Association. Worked with the “Y” Indian Guide, Woodcraft Rangers, and various private camps as an Indian Lore and Craft Director, Camp Counselor, and Archery Instructor. I’ve also worked assistant to Sun Bear, publisher of Many Smokes magazine.

I’ve been an active member and worker of the Indian Center Youth Group and the Navajo Sand Painters Club under the direction of Jones Wallace Benally. On December 1969, I joined the LA Times and worked with the Associated Press on a documentary about problems indigenous people face in the inner city. While working for the advertising department, I sometimes did research for reporters and kept them informed about the Native American Community. In 1971, I was elected to the Indian Center Board, following year appointed to board of directors for the Huntington Park free clinic. In 1980, I became Provisional Scout Master for the Indian Center and became a member of the American Indian Education Commission.

At my son’s elementary school I served as chairman of the Advisory Council, State School Site, Region G Chess Committee, and volunteered at Title VII LAUSD. During this time I was also promoting computers, music, and art in schools. In 1997, I retired from the L.A. Times and to incorporate the Native Orthodox Church.

I’m an independent scholar, I attend workshops, and class lectures at both ELAC, and CSULA. I can be found most Saturdays at the American Indian Resource Center, Huntington Park Library.

My true passion is working to ensure the vitality and relevance of leadership in the community we serve. There isn’t a week that goes by that I’m not moved by how meetings, powwows, and dances have united people and changed lives. It’s wonderful to see our community make new friendships and in a few cases find their life partner. I love bringing people together to break down stereotypes. We have an incredible opportunity to be innovative and take risks to reinvent and reinvigorate our roles in society. I hope we can continue to learn and evolve from one another.

– Rev. Michael Wayne, Your Hungry Coyote

Websites: NativeOrthodoxChurch.org and ArtieOrtego.com.

Here’s an article I had in my archives of newspaper/magazine clippings about games California Natives played and the toys they made.

To the One above, the First Person and the First Maker, we offer pipe to you.  We seek your guidance, over us at all times, for we wish to live well and to be happy always.

Mother Earth, I am offering next this pipe of peace to you. May our lives on you be long ones and happy ones.  Do not permit us to travel crooked trails, not let any of our trails go astray, and may our trails follow the Trail of Beauty Forever.

I turn to the North, where the eternal winter lives, and to you who resides there, take also of this pipe. We are weak against your coldness.  Be kind to us.  Send us only the amount of cold that we can endure.  We ask you to send us only the good snows and healthy winds.  Snows and winds that quicken our bodies and clean our minds.

Now from the East, from when the Old Man, our Grandfather Sun comes over the far eastern hills and brings us daylight, I offer this pipe to you.  May you bring us always good days, bright days, warm days, and we ask of you – let there be nothing to sadden the daylight.

South, where eternal summer lives, I present my pipe to you.

When the days grow longer after winter, we beg you to send us a good summer – one in which fruits grow abundantly so that we may live well, and one where grass grows plentifully for the buffalo to feed upon.

To the West, I point my pipe to you. To the peace where our Grandfather, the Sun, wraps his scarlet robe around him and takes the daylight with him, as he goes over the hill.  Yours is the place where our ancestors have gone, and we ask of you now to have them watch over us safely.  When the time comes for us to follow them, we want to have a joyful reunion with them.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN