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Where our shirts come from does matter!
100% cotton unless noted otherwise.
ALL SHIRTS CARRY PROUDLY THE OFFICIAL COPYRIGHT-TRIBAL TRADEMARK LOGO ON THE BACK.
(If it doesn't have the authentic Ti Pi Ts seal, it is NOT the real Homeland Security T-shirt created by Colleen-Lloyd)
NOTE: Upon request we are happy to print on organic cotton or hemp if possible, or on the back instead of front, although this may increase costs and delivery time and limit selection. Colleen: My ancestors the Tuscaroras' name means hemp gatherers, because they wore skirts made of it, so hopefully we can make lots on hemp to honor them and keep their ways going.
100% COTTON HEAVYWEIGHT 6.1 OZ PRESHRUNK GILDAN ULTRA TEES(or comparable HANES Beefy Tee/Jerzees/AA according to supply) "No idigenous people were harmed in the making of this shirt!!" But we sure are helped
A Little About me and TiPiTs
Colleen: This little HSFTS1492 "tribe" is called TiPiTs, or Westwind, for making and distributing other native-conscious products too. The shirts are printed by various printers which include Dine', Lakota, Choctaw, and Part White But They Can't Prove It heritage people too depending on where and when. Also artists who have contributed their work to the shirts or are currently doing work for the products are Tsa-la-gi Lakota, Shoshoni-Bannock, Huron, Northern Ute, trying always we are to create opportunities and bnefit the people this way.
"By the way, check out Rezdog.comfor more awesome shirts and say hi to my friends, owners Keith and Mary DeHaas out there in Norman, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, where my Grandma (Choctaw) was born the year of the land rush, 1889. And check out my Powwowatami Trail Tribe, Vendor Clan member and buddy Bob Peasley's "Creative Native" shirts -- you have to get his "B.I.A. Buttheads in Action" (I have one) and "Indian Intertribal Nation" (a Harley Davidson takeoff -- my Inca fluteplayer friend Wakay loved the one I gave him) People ask why would I link to Rez Dog's site. Because we are here to unify and support each other. This land started out with plenty for everyone and that is the native way. That's why the pilgrims got fed instead of kicked out by Border Patrol. And some of their descendants still are not grateful for that. -- Colleen
American Indian History 101:
Q: Where did the Homeland Security shirt come from?
A: This is the legend as passed on by our elders:
This site is set up by myself, Colleen-Lloyd, the creator of the Homeland Security T-shirt and poster,.
It began as an email back and forth between "NDNs," just a modern version of a smoke signal joke, after myself and others expressed this feeling since the day they announced the big facade known as "Homeland Security." People began to send the message around to each other and various people put pictures with it, like the Tribal Sovereign Tees designs with Lakota Chiefs and others (no, I don't make anything but my design with Geronimo and the Apaches) -- you can find it at many of the same powwows I am at as well as their other powerful designs like "Real Eyes Realize Real Lies -- Columbus Discovered America." Now the phrase has become almost a cliche or a motto of the Native Nations, a political expression that belongs to the people of our time, like Support Our Troops and God Bless America. Except it is for the indigenous First Nations, and I feel like we are wearing our flag that says who we are when we wear the message after the leaders of the American people began to destroy themselves and the world by flying airplanes into their own buildings as Act 1 of The Greatest Show on Earth, and offering human rights sacrifices to Bush, the God of War and Oil. It is the fastest-selling thing stores who carry it have ever seen. I love this shirt -- it is a passion and a phenomenal thing and I am honored to be part of what I am doing with it and representing those of us who have indigenous heritage and the hypocrisy of so many wars with it.
I never saw a T-shirt or poster of this before I made them, but I have seen many versions since. It's obvious some were copied from mine, like the "Hickory" one and the "PSI" one (I went to Phoenix and gave them a flier to buy shirts, but they knocked mine off instead of paying me for the real ones.>. And the reproduction of the poster I left at a Mideasterner-run gas station in Denver I saw walking around as a T-shirt at the Denver Powwow. I am trying to get the government to enforce Title 17 like the Lakotas are trying to get them to honor the Fort Laramie Treaty.
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But some people just have no Native Pride. RAA (Real American Ahole) conned me into having them print the shirts (like you would pay Kinko's to print your manuscripts) and ripped my complete design off in violation of copyright law, reproducing it exactly from my files and stupidly leaving my copyright icon right on the shirt and representing the shirt as Indian-made by my company, saying they were paying me royalties, when I never saw a dime for any shirt they made -- as witnessed by customers like Taos Mt. Outfitters and I Love Taos. At least I Love Taos has the decency to refuse to buy their bootlegged shirts, while Taos Mt. Outfitters is still doing business with them .
I made a poster and drove around with it in the back of my car window after 911 until my friend John
Fairneny put up the money to make shirts. I just wanted to wear the statement so much I couldn't stand
it, and in order to pay for the first 40 shirts I had to print, I got all my other native friends to buy one
and took it to a Carlos Nakaii native music festval. People just flipped out and I had this vision of everyone in the
country wearing it, and it has just about happened. Even Dept. of Homeland Security dudes wear it to work. I seriously think George Bush would even wear it if his Daddy told him to, but he wouldn't really get it
that the joke is on him.
Many people who buy from TPTs, my division of West Wind World for native clothing, also advertise it on
their sites, and sell at powwows and festivals and in hundreds of trading posts and stores. By doing this
they support their families, art, and crafts, and keep in business -- and that is one great thing the shirt
is doing for the "Homeland Security Tribe" of friends I have made on the powwow trail. I let them advertise on the Net because I am not as interested in making money as in people displaying the message.
When you buy the real shirt, poster, etc. made by TPTs, you are contributing to good things we are all
involved in for the native community. Native Voices Foundation, tribal events and giveaways, supporting native artists, companies, and
professionals, and promoting those who are friends and patrons of indigenous culture. The $20 you spend on a shirt goes pretty fast right back into the hands of those Navajo mothers selling their beadwork in their
stands on the side of the Arizona Highways, to native musicians, and to the many, many NDN people who are always the ones to pitch in and help work the TPTs Homeland Security booth when they see me trying to do too much alone to keep the shirts getting to you. My good friend Red Bear (White Mountain Apache) whose family is on the HSFTS1492 shirt and keeps everyone laughing is helping run things and we are getting a press this year for that purpose.
My
mother's "Indian name" for me is West Wind. She is where I get the "Part White" in the T-shirt, "I'm Part
White But I Can't Prove It." My Dad is where I get the native blood and brown eyes.
My middle name, my mother says, is actually Darhing, after my Grandmother, Grace Darhing Colley,
who was born in Indian Territory in 1889, the year of the Oklahoma Land Rush, during which my
Great-Grandfather claimed a piece of land where Purcell University is today. They lived there in that
Chickasaw Nation country between Tahlequah (now capitol of Cherokee Nation) and Norman for til 1890, when they
migrated to the Horse Heaven Hills near Eltopia, Washington. I grew up on the banks of the Columbia
River, a sacred site to my family, on Grandpa Lloyd's homesteaded land.
Our native Turtle Island ancestry is traced through her clear back to Virginia,My friends Mary and Keith at Rez Dog make a shirt that says, "I was NDN before NDN was cool." When I was growing up, no one wanted to know if they were Indian. My Grandma showed my Mom a picture of her mother or aunt and told her about our ancestry. When I was in my early twenties, it dawned on me maybe that was why I just could not function in and accept the governmental and religious society structures I felt were a slow genocide. I had a desire to be part of what was real and what my identity was and what was NOT whatever this other life was that felt foreign to me. So I sought out the good native path, which I learned is called commonly The Red Road or The Right Way.
