On May 22nd, members of the Tsawout (SȾÁUTW) nation, with support from the Songhees and the other local WSÁNEĆ nations, including Tsartlip (WJOȽEȽP), Pauquachin (BOḰEĆEN), Tseycum (WSIKEM), Malahat (MÁLEXEȽ) and allied supporters from the Greater Victoria community, will lead an action to reclaim the original name of PKOLS, now known as Mount Douglas, in what is now known as Victoria, in what is now known as British Columbia.

I live 3400 km from PKOLS, and I am not apart of the SȾÁUTW, Songhees or the WSÁNEĆ nations. As an Anishinaabekwe however, I know intimately the importance of standing in ones territory, freely practicing our ceremonies at our sacred places, harvesting our foods, and telling our children their stories of creation in the exact spot creation happened and is happening. I know that living as Anishinaabe is one of the most important things we can do, on reserve, off reserve, in the middle of the bush or in the middle of the city. So I know that the reclamation of PKOLS is an extraordinarily important act for the SȾÁUTW, Songhees and the WSÁNEĆ because it physically connects them to a powerful place, alive with story, and breathing with history. I hope for non-Natives living in Victoria that it instills in them a sense of responsibility to the land and to the peoples whose homelands they live in – a responsibility to learn what that means on the terms of the SȾÁUTW, Songhees and the WSÁNEĆ nations. I hope it reminds every non-Indigenous visitor to PKOLS that we are still here – as living, breathing, intelligent, creative peoples committed to living in and protecting our homelands.

This process of re-naming is a prominent part of colonial dispossession. Naming within western thought is a signifier of occupation and ownership, and mapping is a highly political act, deliberately designed in a colonial context to erase Indigenous presence, history, and connection to the land. English and French place names reflect a narrow, constructed view of history that erase any question of Canada’s claim to territory. Looking at a map of Canada, it is as if Indigenous Peoples never existed, except to infuse the odd anglicized word from a Native language in a series of otherwise disconnected place names taken from colonial homelands, and white hero-ized men who are celebrated only for dispossessing Indigenous Peoples of our lands.

Peaceful co-existence requires much more.

Indigenous Peoples name places for much different reasons. In my own homeland, the Mississauga Nishnaabeg part of the larger Anishinaabeg nation, places are named for the connection our people have to that particular place. Our place names are holders of story, history, teachings, events – our collective and individual intimate connections and interaction with place. The stories and cultural meanings embedded in our place names connect our people to the land spiritually. They link our children to both their future and our history, and to a time when our environment was intact. Sometimes they mark events – political gatherings or ceremonial and sacred sites. Sometimes they are poetic descriptions of our affection for the natural features of our land. Although these names rarely appear on the topographical or roadmaps of Ontario, they continue to exist in the oral tradition.

A few days ago, I was visiting Doug Williams, an Elder at Curve Lake First Nation in Ontario. Together we’ve begun to record Mississauga Nishnaabeg place names on topographical maps. I began asking him about Buckhorn Lake on the west side of the reserve. Using his finger, he drew a circle around the water surrounding Wagosh Minis, or Fox Island, and told me that this part of the lake is called “Omiimiinens Zaaghigan”. I asked why. He explained that in the past, large flocks of passenger pigeons flew over this part of the lake. The flocks were so large, that the sky was dark for three hours. Another place was named because there were lots of cranberries there. Another, because if you paddle towards it from the south, it looks like a curve. Then I read him a few names I’d found in old history books and the archives. At one point he said “Leanne, imagine yourself in a canoe, paddling in the lake, looking for an entrance to the river. You see what might be one, but it looks too marshy – it looks like it’s going to be too difficult to get in, but you go anyway. When you get there, it’s actually easy to get in. I think that’s what that place name is telling us”. That’s key to understand Mississauga Nishnaabeg place names – you almost always have to look at it from the perspective of paddling a canoe, and that makes sense since our ancestors spent so much time on the water travelling through our homeland.

In 1993, some of the Elders at Curve Lake First Nation, led by Gladys Taylor, launched a complaint to the Ontario Geographics Name Board to have the name of the Squaw River changed back to its original name Miskwaa Ziibi, (meaning Red River), for reasons that should be obvious to everyone. The Ontario Geographics Name Board agreed. Miskwaa Ziibi is now one of the only original place names on topographical maps of Ontario.

Reinstating Indigenous presence is not just happening in rural areas. This winter, the Ogimaa Mikana Project emerged as an effort to restore Anishinaabemowin place names to the streets, avenues, roads, paths, and trails of Chi Engikiiwang/Tkaranto/Toronto. A small section of Queen Street was renamed Ogimaa Mikana (Leader’s Trail) in tribute to all the strong women leaders of the Idle No More movement. Another street sign was installed along Spadina Avenue, restoring the name Ishpadinaa, meaning a hill in Anishinaabemowin.

The dispossession and removal of Indigenous Peoples from our homelands so that these homelands can be exploited for large-scale natural resource development is the end goal of Canadian colonialism whether it’s 1876 or 2013. Building a strong, connected Indigenous Nationhood Movement rests on reclaiming the lands and sacred sites we have been removed from. It involves using the original names of these places, not symbolically or as an act of semantics, but as a mechanism for reconnecting our peoples to the land, our histories and our cultures. At the core, our responsibilities to our homelands, whether they are urban or rural, require a substantial number of us to inhabit them, to maintain relationships with their features and to pass that presence down to our children and grandchildren.

For every body of water – lake, river, stream, creek, spring; for every mountain, prairie, peninsula, bay, island, ridge, portage; for every trail, portage, place of birth or burial ground, and for all the places our ancestors or our families gather there is at least one Indigenous nation that has a name for that place, and there are often several. It is time to find these names, learn them and as Taiaiake Alfred says, saturate our homelands with our peoples, our languages and our ceremonies. We all have within our territories our PKOLS, many PKOLS – sacred places waiting to be restored to their place within the fabric of Indigenous societies. Whether it is a mountain, burial ground, hot springs or spring water, buffalo rubbing stone, tipi ring, teaching rocks, a medicine picking spot, or a travel route or a city street, the PKOLS reclamation provides us with impetus to not just feel inspired, but to act.

For more information on the PKOLS reclamation, click http://PKOLS.org/

To endorse the action, sign on here: http://PKOLS.org/index.php/endorsements

Spread the word on Twitter using #PKOLS and #May22 hashtags and follow @INMvmt for updates.

Spokesperson:
WEC’KINEM (Eric Pelkey) – Tsawout First Nation, 250-480-8529 / ehpelkey@tsawout.ca

Supporting Media Contacts:
Taiaiake Alfred – Indigenous Nationhood Movement, 250-686-7250 / gta@uvic.ca
Jarrett Martineau – Media Liaison, Indigenous Nationhood Movement, 250-216-8688 / jarrett.martineau@gmail.com
Eric Nordal – SocialCoast, 250-858-6014 / eric@socialcoast.org

This piece was originally posted May 22, 2103 on my blog: leannesimpson.ca

******

Follow Leanne on Twitter: @betasamosake

Leanne Simpson is a writer and academic of Mississauga Nishnaabeg ancestry.  She is the editor of Lighting the Eighth Fire:  The Liberation, Resurgence & Protection of Indigenous Nations and This is an Honour Song:  Twenty Years Since the Blockades (with Kiera Ladner).  Leanne is the author of Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back:  Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence (Arbeiter Ring) and The Gift Is in the Making, a re-telling of traditional stories, forthcoming Spring 2013 (Debwe Series, Highwater Press).  Her first collection of short stories, Islands of Decolonial Love is forthcoming from Arbeiter Ring Fall 2013.  www.leannesimpson.ca

I don’t get weddings. I never have. They always feel forced somehow. I’ve never understood the need for them. If two people are committed to each other, living together, perhaps have children together (which after all is so common these days), then what difference or good would spending a small fortune on a one-day event do? It doesn’t make sense to me that it is looked at as the ‘beginning’ of a life together, when the couple has already begun their life together when they began dating.  Its like a birthday, you are the same before your birthday as you were after.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not judging. Marriage is something people enter into willingly (for the most part) and it’s important to most people. And I understand why it is particularly important legally and unequivocally support the right of couples to marry regardless of gender. But I’m curious about the wholesale acceptance of the “white” wedding as having been adapted into our cultures.

When I witnessed the recent marriage of my dad Tony and his long time partner Danielle last June I cried too along with everyone. It was heartwarming. The exchange of vows was poignant and beautiful. I was honored to be there. Maybe it was the pipe, the traditional songs and the way they created the ceremony to suit them, as an intimate gathering in their backyard that I found comforting or maybe it was that they vowed to care for each other, in this, the Elder stages of their lives.

Credit: Aboriginal and Tribal Nation News Facebook Page

I just came across this photo on Facebook and it got me thinking again about the whole thing. Within the comments one word was repeated over and over again by commentators, and that word was “sad.”

“Sad”, we say, when we see these photos in black and white. Perhaps its because in our minds we see this “before and after” photo as marking of the end of an era. Perhaps its because it reminds us of all the crap our ancestors had to go through during those changing times and we long to regain what was stolen from us: our lands, our cultures, our traditions, our ceremonies. Perhaps its because we look at photos like this and know the horrors of what followed during the Residential school era and the suffering that continues to this day.

Yet how many of us have been to relatives weddings, weddings of Indigenous couples, who choose to wear the white dress and to have a church wedding?  How many of us have seen our sisters and brothers share full colour photos of their weddings? Do we consider those events as sad? Not at all. Its strange, I thought, how we look at the loss of culture as a thing of the past, yet it continues today and not only don’t we say anything about it, we consider ‘White weddings’ something of a celebratory nature. Again, I’m not judging, I’m just observing. But I can’t help but think we are also living in changing times now just as our ancestors did. The question is, where are we going and what are the things we do now that are setting the course for the next generations? What pictures will they look at from these days we live in now, let’s say 100 years from now, and will our descendents say to themselves, “that is sad?”  We can look at these photos and see survival and resilience as well. We can look at them and understand our own lives and how we ourselves follow trends. We can look at them and see our own grandparents and families and not judge them but understand they were living in complex times. We can look at them as say how beautiful and young they were. Like the lives we live in now, this photo is complex, full of these dichotomies.

Stating the obvious, there is no doubt that weddings in a white dress, with wedding parties, diamond rings, cake and the use of a reverend or priest to do the ceremony are Christian in origin.

The white wedding dress began as a fashion trend in England after Queen Victoria wore a white lace gown to her wedding.  The diamond wedding ring was a marketing ploy by DeBeers in the 1940’s when their marketing department came up with the catch-phrase “Diamonds are forever.”  Bridesmaids, who originally were dressed in the same dress as the bride, were a Roman invention based on a belief that “evil spirits” needed to be outsmarted by what the women wore and wouldn’t know which woman was the bride, therefore thwarting any evil-doing the spirits would do. Weird stuff.

Maybe another reason why ‘I don’t get weddings’ is because I can’t help but feel like the “white wedding” is not our own. Christian marriages were something imposed on our people. Our own marriages were not recognized as being legitimate. White men initially were not considered legally married to the Indigenous women they had created families with. Any child born of these unions were never considered by us to be “illegitimate”, but they were by Europeans. And similar to looking at old photos of our people going through the various stages of assimilation and feeling sad about it, I also think about the role of women, about violence against Indigenous women and how all of this is somehow related.

I’m no expert and there are people who are doing incredible research and writing on this very subject (including Maria Campbell who I need to acknowledge for speaking with me about her work on this).  But I will note briefly what she shared with me and that is within the Jesuit Relations (reports that spanned two hundred years written by the Jesuit missionaries to North America which began in the 1600) that the Jesuit’s observed and were appalled by what they considered to be the “lack of morality” of Indigenous women. They proceeded to “teach” the women how to be subservient to men, and they also taught the men how to keep their women in line. These were the origins of the disruption of our ways of being and the origins of the roots of violence against Indigenous women.

I have been to traditional weddings. Weddings where all aspects of the ceremony and celebration were traditional. But one thing that has always bothered me is that after the Elder completed his or her ceremony with the pipe and prayers at some point in the day the “wedding license” had to be signed by an official.  In some cases that meant the couple had to have a ‘reverend’ on hand to sign the papers. In other cases it meant they had to do a repeat civil ceremony in front of a justice of the peace. Why?  I once heard Wilfred Peltier, an Odawa Elder say, “we cannot marry and bury our own.” I think about this often.

Just as our ceremonies were outlawed in the past, they remain partially outlawed today.  It means for instance that without the “license” “registration” and “official” having signed off on the marriage, its not recognized legally in this country.  In fact, in Ontario, for example, there exists a list of “Religious Officials registered with the Office of the Registrar General to legally perform wedding ceremonies in Ontario.”  Take a look at the list and see how many of our traditional Elder’s names you see on there.  I’ll save you time. None. None unless they got their “reverend” papers, which some have done to be able to assist the couple to avoid the re-do on their wedding.

My question is why do we live with this imposed system when laws and ceremony existed here already first? We had our own laws, protocols, and ceremonies for all these things. Along with naming and burying, I feel like we should be questioning these things and perhaps challenging them in court if need be. I have great faith in the coming generations that they will do this, if we don’t do it first.

For me, the ideas of a “white wedding” are all from some place else. They are a reminder to me of the damage the church did to our people. They are a symbol of our colonized selves. And although they can be great fun and a reason to celebrate, maybe all these reasons are why I never did quite “get” the whole tradition of a “white” wedding.  But perhaps how couples choose to marry is not the issue. Perhaps the larger issue is really that those of us who choose traditional marriages and ceremonies that have existed since before Europeans set foot on North America, shouldn’t be subject to the rules and customs of a foreign land. The issue is really that our Elders shouldn’t be questioned or made to become “legally” recognized in order to sign the papers that affords couples the legal rights married couples enjoy. Wilfred was right, we should be able to marry and bury our own without question.

Follow Christi on Twitter: @christibelcourt

Christi Belcourt is a visual artist with a deep respect for the traditions and knowledge of her people.  The majority of her work explores and celebrates the beauty of the natural world.  Author of Medicines To Help Us (Gabriel Dumont Institute, 2007), Beadwork (Ningwakwe Learning Press, 2010). Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Gabriel Dumont Institute (Saskatoon), and the Indian and Inuit Art Collection (Hull).

I live in a world where everything ends up completing a full circle when it comes to issues that are of relevance to First Nations people. Or maybe I live in a world where I feel like tires are constantly spinning and where traction is never being reached and forward momentum is never being gained, or if it does for a small period of time, it is never maintained. I’m not sure which idiom works best here and I suppose that on a day to day basis, my feelings about the world I live in are in flux. As I write, an important series of events has recently transpired here in Canada and the ripple effects can be felt across the globe as First Nations people have spent the last two months engaged in activities related to the Idle No More movement.

Across this country I have witnessed a series of protests, community events, flash mob round dances, teach-ins, traditional fish stock-only diets and one of the most impressive smear campaigns offered by the mainstream Canadian media that I have witnessed in a long, long time. It’s a cold, stark reminder of our peoples’ place in Canadian society, and while it was never really questioned before the rise of Idle No More, it’s a cold reminder of the true nature of the relationship between First Nations, Metis and Inuit people and mainstream Canadian society.

I have been quietly poring over news accounts, editorials and online blogs in an effort to see where we have come to this milestone in Canadian history since the crisis in Oka in 1990.

Remember Oka? For me Oka was the watershed moment of a lifetime. It was those Mohawks that defined a point of relation between me and my identity as an Ojibway man. In the years that have passed, I have paid keen attention to the way in which we are dealt with, discussed and evaluated in the media. It’s been a long time since that 78 day struggle for land and the Idle No More movement has now come to bring these issues to light for all Canadians to deal with.

I can only say that for as hard as we have been working since Oka, a new generation of our youth has now come to understand that we are commonly viewed as criminals, cheaters, vermin and the kind of simple-minded people that need to be extinguished from this land once and for all. I have read one wave after the other about peaceful protesters, elders and children who have all been completely shrugged off and dismissed.

More commonly, I have witnessed cold and vilifying assurances that First Nations people who raise concerns are nothing more than domestic terrorists. I have heard our leaders being evaluated, insulted and deemed to be a pack of modern day savages wholesale, and on a nearly daily basis, experienced firsthand how social media has exposed a deep passionate defense of colonial attitudes and an enormous black, churning cloud of hatred towards us. The worst part of all of this is that I can’t see how anything has fundamentally changed since 1990.

But it’s 2013 now. Bill C-45 came out of nowhere even though we all saw something wicked coming for us. It was introduced by the conservative Harper government without any consultation with anyone whatsoever. By violating previous contracts, this bill unilaterally changes treaty rights and replaces democracy with imposed plans and deals to ensure that no discussion or dialogue can take place between nations.Harper’s government is concerned that any reasonable form of democracy would result in disagreement with his plans for capitalist expansion and accumulation.

Democratic checks and balances are in place in this country to ensure fair and meaningful dialogue. The introduction of C-45 in effect removes those checks and balances. In doing so, public land and resources will now be raffled off in some buffoon-headed grab on behalf of private interest, most notably pipeline development across First Nations territory, lakes and rivers. In the eyes of thousands of First Nations people and our allies, this is nothing but a disgraceful ongoing maintenance of a colonial system that has always been centered on the concept of displacement, genocide and capitalist advancement at the expense of human life and natural resources.

In addition to environmental concerns that have been a focal point, Idle No More has also focused on issues pertaining to the ongoing failure of the Conservative party in this country. We have hoped to see issues such as recent and abysmal cuts to health care, union busting, regressive employment insurance reforms, and refugee rights open for discussion.

These are some dark times right now and it’s been fascinatingly atrocious and appalling to see how the mainstream media has dropped the ball, and behaved in the most cowardly of ways I have seen in years. I fear that any further consumption of this festering garbage will turn me into a much stupider, meaner and more intolerant person. Which is exactly its function.

There is a colossal amount of ignorance and rampant stupidity offered by the overwhelming majority of news I have consumed. These ill-informed, ill-equipped apologists for colonialism or neo-conservatism have all turned an understanding of the history, spirit and intent of treaties with First Nations people into a cheap circus side show, ripe with ample opportunity for ridicule, intolerant behavior and shameful, boorish bigotry. Everyone’s been piling on as well in an attempt to discredit, bully and smash the hearts of our people back into the corner where these old white men would prefer that we cower in silence, fear and in shame, just the way they have always liked it.

Efforts to maintain this economy of apartheid have been relentless. While efforts to resolve treaty and other outstanding legal matters have been expensive and without conclusion, the neo-conservative agenda of disinformation and lies has been hard at work, laughing at the idea of fundamental human and treaty rights, in favor of public policies that embrace land and cash grabs for the political and individual elite. The newspapers and televised news programs serve to rationalize and validate these sleazy and manipulative tactics by limiting the scope and nature of discussion.

“Every Federal party in the history of this country has done everything in its power to stonewall the resolution of these issues, or else they have chosen to pursue a course of theft and disingenuine processes that accomplish nothing.”

Time and time again I have read or listened to esteemed journalists sneer at us, referring to our concerns as troublesome and empty rhetoric, referring to grassroots leadership as simplistic, all of this while in the next breath, assuring a population that only they have the countries’ best interests at heart. This Pavlovian domino effect has been utterly revolting to observe and the manner in which these cowards have spent their time attacking the critics instead of the criticism, while masquerading a feigned ignorance to the issues the Idle No More movement has advanced is sickening and shameful. This stonewalling tactic is either cause for termination for being incapable of asking questions or becoming knowledgeable of the recommendations contained within the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, or it is a carefully crafted mission to discredit and manipulate the public while ignoring the disgusting bald-faced hypocrisy and failures advanced by Ottawa in the first place.

Time and time again like a broken record, I have watched our leaders and our people and our allies speak, yell, cry, scream, plead and beg to have their voices heard and our questions answered in some nearly hopeless attempt to understand where the provisions of democracy have disappeared to in this country. Recently singer/songwriter Buffy Saint Marie told a reporter that the worst part of Idle No More is that for many of us, there is no news here. We feel like we have been slamming our heads against the wall for the better part of our lives and we feel like no one is ever going to listen, and that if they ever did, our fears and our sense of being stolen from and our lives will be evaluated, laughed at and dismissed with the amount of ease that I have seen over the last two months of observing the coverage of our lives.

I now understand that for as long as I breathe, we will always be regarded as sad and over-emotional coloured poor people who are being lied to by our own incompetent leadership. And these sentiments will be advanced by those who refuse to examine their own crooked histories and their own lying, murderous leaders who have been running this disgraceful charade for over 500 years.

But enough is enough. We now live in a time of social media. We live in a time where accessing alternate points of view is as easy as a click of a mouse. I see people of all ages and all backgrounds refusing to follow the party line offered by sad, angry worthless old white men. I see that while there are those who blindly follow the old guard of capitalist settlers and their criminal legacy, that people are less inclined to accept this white-washed accounting of history. Too many of our eyes were opened over a 78 day period in Oka, Quebec. Our lives were saved during that conflict and we thank those Warriors, those women, those elders and those who stood up for us. Thanks to them, we have been able to tell our stories to a wide audience of people eager and willing to listen. Willing to help. Willing to stand up and willing to sacrifice their privilege for a better world where we can all flourish and enjoy the benefits of self-determination and democracy for all.

Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeAlexande

Mike Alexander is from Swan Lake First Nation. He was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He sings in the political grindcore band Head Hits Concrete. Mike is active in the underground punk/metal music community promoting tours and local concerts for bands. Mike has had an interest in writing since grade 5 and has self-produced several zines with a focus on music and politics. In his spare time, Mike enjoys blogging for his favortie Canadian Football League team at www.angrybomberfans.ca Currently, Mike works at Klinic Community Health Centre in Winnipeg, facilitating sexual and reproductive health workshops for youth all over the province of Manitoba. 

It was a beautiful calm day as me and my son Nathan headed out on the lake, we were in a fishing tournament on Lake of the Woods. Our first tournament together. After 50 years of being on the lake and guiding for 30 years I am a careful boater. I stressed to him that weather was going to be a factor in how we did, that there may be some fishing spots we may not get to fish if the waves came up. He didn’t seem to care. Cool kid. Just being together that day was enough for both of us.

We got to a fishing hole and right away Nathan caught a big Northern Pike. He fought with it for what seemed like 20 minutes and finally he landed it. He was so proud. I took pictures. It must have weighed close to 10 pounds. After I took the photo, he said “miigwetch” to the Northern and calmly let it go back in the water. As he was washing his hands I told him he did a good job and that I was proud of him to let it go. He said, “let him go make babies” we laughed. And that was the last time I went fishing with my son.

Nathan

Tatibanhanaqwet Edward Nathan White, Bizhew Dodem, Bezhig Midewin, was 23 years old, a non – drinker, and never did drugs, in fact he hated them and would discourage his friends from doing them. He was a Midewin person. Me and the people initiated him the previous year in our lodge. Right away he wanted to learn the Midewin songs, When the water drum was first brought to where he was sitting, he motioned for me to go help him sing, I started a song for him and as I heard his voice get louder and louder I stepped away, back to my chair. After he was done he came and gave me tobbacco and said to me, “I closed my eyes while I was singing and thought you were still there, but when I was done you were sitting back here” I laughed and told him he didn’t need my help and I gave him a teaching about singing. I said to him ‘when you sing, it is between you, the song, the drum and creator.’

When we travelled to the ceremonies in my truck he would push his cell phone recorder to my face and ask me to sing Midewin songs, which I gladly did. That was how he learned. At one ceremony I asked him to sing 8 songs without stopping. After he was done, sweat pouring out of his forehead and tired from singing, he had the greatest look of accomplishment in him. The people were so proud of what he had just did, They all got up to shake his hand to acknowledge him. He was a great singer with a beautiful voice.

I visited my cousin Andy White head drum keeper of the Whitefish Bay Singers, which I am one of the original members, and he agreed that the following summer Nathan would join them as they toured the pow wow circuit. When I told Nathan what Andy had said, Nathan was thrilled.

Back in his home community of Onigaming, Nathan helped many of his friends. He counseled them about their drinking and drug addictions. Nathan volunteered at almost every community event including being the arena director at their annual traditional pow wow. He was a good role model.

Nathan worked in housing in his community, and he saved his money to buy himself a car. January 2012 he had saved enough money to get himself a nice second hand Chevy Impala, a sporty looking sleek black car. It was the greatest moment in his life. He kept slapping his hands together and saying” YES!” all the way home. Everyone was happy for him. He would drive his mom to the store and drive his little nieces and nephews around the Rez.

Nathan helped me to build my home, a 2 story house with a 2 car garage, we hauled gravel by wheel barrow for the driveway and he brushed the entire area with an axe. I still remember our coffee breaks and lunch breaks, he would get me to talk about his grandfather and grandmother and what life was like in their time. I told him many stories. Generally how survival was the main thing, and how difficult life was in that time period.

I went without hydro or running water for almost ten years at my place, because it cost money to bring in lines and a well. But I believe now those were the best times. No computer, TV or a cell phone. If anyone was looking for me they would simply just drive in to see me.

And it was during those times that Nathan and I grew really close as father and son. I had no funding from my band to build my house, we just scoured the garbage dumps for building material or friends would offer a used window or chimney.

In February 2012, I went away for the week end, I asked him to take care of my house while I was away. I was to have arrived home on the Monday night but I came upon a snow storm and had to stop at a motel, Nathan texted me about 9:30 that night and I texted him that I was going to stay at a motel for the night, his last text to me that night was, “I love you dad”. I did not think twice why he would text like that as I always told my kids I love them and they always tell me that.

I arrived home. My house is a long way from the road. Police had blocked off the the driveway. They told me not to go in. I pushed past them, I would have beaten them up if I had to. Nobody could stop me. I ran down the driveway. I saw Nathan’s car. Then I saw a body covered in the snow right close to where his car was parked. I approached cautiously, wiped the snow away from his face and right away recognized him, my son!!!

I remember calling my brother Tommy and the rest is like a dream, a nightmare. I don’t really remember what happened after that. Its all a blurr.

Of course his mother and my daughters and sons were all tortured as well. Nathan was the shining light in our family.  WHY?!  WHY?!  WHY?! We just didn’t understand. WHY?!!!  There were no warning signs, except a couple days before, his mother noticed he was very depressed and withdrawn. I told her I would speak to him when I got back. Not in a million years did anyone suspect he would do that. We had heard he was on Champix to quit smoking, but that he had gotten off of it a week or so before. It was so sudden, so unexpected, so shocking.  But I suppose suicide always is.

I became so enraged during his funeral I just didn’t want to live anymore. I blamed Creator. I hated Creator. I felt betrayed by my spirit helpers. Why hadn’t they warned me? I blamed myself.  Why didn’t I stay home that weekend?  I blamed his girlfriend. Why didn’t she stay with him that weekend?  I blamed everyone. I blamed anyone who knew him. I lashed out with words at people who loved him. The anger you feel doesn’t make sense. You don’t have reason or logic. You only have rage.

The People Who Helped

I thought I knew death. I thought I knew what grieving was because I have lost many people in my life including parents, siblings, nieces, nephews and life long friends. But let me tell you, there is nothing in this world, no grief at all, that can compare to the grief of losing a child. It is unlike any other grief and it never goes away.

One thing I appreciate about Anishinaabe people is as a community we come together at times like these. I feel sorry for families who lose children and have no one to help them.

My sisters organized people from the community who had lost children to come and speak to us. Every night of the wake and funeral, members of the community came and shared what they had been through.  Shared their coping strategies and their feelings.  It was through these teachings that I learned I am not alone, that my feelings of anger were normal. They spoke about being mad at Creator, about turning away from traditions and religion. They also said telling a person to ‘stay strong’ is maddening.  They told us it was okay to cry.  They told us ‘you don’t ever get over it, you learn to live with it.’

All this time I knew they had lost children.  But I never understood their grief until I lost my boy. Listening to the stories of the people closest to me really helped me. I’ve had to go into therapy and that has since helped me. I spend time with my grandkids, and my kids and that also helps me. And I’ve started a new project recording Elders in Treaty 3 to try to preserve the songs for future generations.  That is helping.

Today is the one-year anniversary of my son’s passing. I understand that this pain will never leave me.  I am still angry. But I’m learning to live with it. Part of me looks forward to that day very much when I will get to see my boy again. And in the mean time try to do some good for kids, myself, my community and for the future before its my turn to leave this earth.

It seems like tragedy in never ending in our communities.

I moved out east after we lost our boy. Because he took his life at my house, I couldn’t live there anymore. I live off-reserve in an northeastern Ontario town. There are hardly any Anishinaabe that live here and its strange after living my whole life on the rez.

One thing I notice is there aren’t never ending funerals and tragedies here like on the rez. Is it like this in other non-native towns?  I wonder how the neighbors around me would cope if the young people in this town were taking their lives every few months like they are in Treaty 3 communities? I wonder why my home community seems to be in a constant state of struggle, grief, and tragedies?

I don’t know any statistics about this. All I know is my life, and what I’ve seen. In my community my cousin also lost her son to suicide. My brother committed suicide. My nephew committed suicide. A few weeks ago two young people in neighboring communities took their lives. Looking back, at least a dozen or more of my day school buddies also committed suicide.

Why is this happening? If its not suicide, its diabetes or addictions. I am from Naotkamegwanning and Nathan and my girls and their mom live in Onigaming. In these two communities alone, its like every month or so we hear about someone passing away. Is it just me, or does that not seem like an unusual amount?

Anishinaabe are in a constant state of grief and recovery. We watch as our loved ones lose their limbs from diabetes before it eventually claims their life. We watch as the effects of residential schools eat away at people and their children and grandchildren in dysfunction and addiction. We watch as yet another young person takes their life. And then we cope. Constantly cope.

I know I will never “recover” from the loss of my son. Day by day, it doesn’t get easier. The nights continue to be especially hard. But I cope. I live for my children. And I record Elders.  Its all I can do.

I write this today in memory of my son “Tatibonhanaqwet”. Edward Nathan White. I love you my son.

Dad

Follow on Twitter: @alowhite1

Alo White (Mide Kiwenzie/Bizhew Dodem /Nanaan Mide) is respected for the knowledge he carries of Anishinaabe language culture, songs & spiritual ceremonies from his community of Naotkamegwanning First Nation (Treaty 3) in Northwestern Ontario.  He is currently working on a series of recordings under his label Alo White Recording Studios, recording Elders from the Treaty 3 area under the project titled “Preserving Anishinaabe Music.”

There is nothing that infuriates me more than injustice and corruption. And when corruption destroys the environment and, at the same time creates injustice, it enrages me.

Let’s start with corruption:

 The 1974 US Safe Drinking Water Act authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate underground injection wells (UIC program) in order to protect underground sources of drinking water. Congress amended the Act in 2005 to exclude hydraulic fracturing (an industrial process for recovering oil and natural gas) from coverage under the UIC program. This exclusion has been called the “Halliburton Loophole” after the company formerly led by former vice-president Dick Cheney. Halliburton is the world’s largest provider of hydraulic fracturing services.

Wyoming Ariel View
Google Maps: 42°27’14.07″N, 109°41’47.33″W

Dick Cheney moves through the revolving door of G. Bush senior’s administration to Halliburton CEO 1995-2000, then back to government to become Vice-President in G. Bush junior’s administration. While he’s v-p, he ensures that the Safe Drinking Water Act is amended in favour of Halliburton (thus the “Loophole”) and, therefore, injurious to Americans.

Fracking operations are poisoning aquifers, rivers, streams and wells all over the US and in the process destroying much of America’s clean drinking water. But, thanks to the “Loophole”, fracking companies like Halliburton are immune from responsibility.

This is just one example of the amoral, sleazy, unscrupulous, and unprincipled world of government corruption and its lock-step workings with corporate villainy.

Now you might be asking, what does any of that have to do with us in Canada? Let me explain….

Whether we like it or not, what happens in the U.S. is either happening already, or eventually will happen, in Canada. For example, if you listen to U.S. political discourse on Israel/Palestine, Iran, border security, militarization of police, drones, terrorism, cyber security, global warming and a whole host of other issues currently affecting us and the world, it will be only a matter of days before someone in Harper’s Conservative government will repeat, verbatim, what was said in the U.S.  That’s because American policies are essentially Canadian policies. And when it comes to oil and gas and the environment, things are no different.

On February 17, the Montreal Gazette reported that Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver, was told via an internal “memo” back in June of 2012 that oil sands tailings ponds are leaking and contaminating groundwater.  According to the Gazette: “Environment Canada describes groundwater contamination as a serious problem since aquifers can remain contaminated for decades or centuries, leaking into lakes, rivers or streams, while potentially creating costly water supply problems.”

This confirms what many have known for years: that the oil and gas industry is putting the future of fresh water all over North America at serious risk.

Last fall, the Energy Framework Initiative (EFI) (oil and gas industry) succeeded in having Canada’s environmental protections for land, water and air gutted by the Conservative government without debate or national input. Through the Access to Information Act, Greenpeace obtained a letter sent to Environment Minister, Peter Kent, by the EFI who requested those changes and which resulted in omnibus Bills C-38 and C-45 being forced through parliament.

So to re-cap: the Environment Minister received a request from the EFI to make changes to most of Canada’s environmental legislation – to which the government acquiesced…despite the Natural Resources Minister knowing since last June that oil sands tailings ponds were leaking toxic substances into groundwater.

“So, while knowing that Alberta’s groundwater was being poisoned, rather than enforcing environmental laws, the Harper government decimated them in favour of the oil and gas industry.”

Currently, tar sands releases as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each day as all the cars in Canada. It burns enough natural gas each day to heat 4 million homes. It uses 3 barrels of water to process 1 barrel of bitumen and releases the poisoned water from bitumen processing into tailings ponds. Some of the ponds are as large as lakes and litter the edge of the Athabasca River – part of the third largest watershed in the world. There appears to be little, if any, environmental safeguards in place when it comes to Alberta’s tar sands.

And if our own government does not sustain, apply and enforce environmental law, how can we expect foreign corporations to apply any, especially when (1) their Canadian operations, in most cases, are small holdings compared to their undertakings world wide; (2) what ever damage they do to our land, water and air only affects us, in the short term at least, and not them; and (3) they have no stake in Canada’s future?

Tar sands before and after
Source: http://www.briangordon.ca/2010/02/h2oil-a-story-of-money-versus-first-nations-people/

Fracking operations in Alberta have already destroyed farms and property values, and poisoned wells and aquifers. Alberta’s environment ministry, having succumbed to a full-scale sell out to the oil and gas industry, denies Albertans fair hearings of their claims against the companies responsible. These kinds of problems will only  exacerbate as more and more exploratory wells are drilled across Canada. (A February 18 report by Huffingtonpost.ca stated that a Newfoundland shale oil find by Shoal Point Energy is potentially huge, stating, “there will be 12 exploratory wells drilled (and)…the companies’ aim is to have a better idea of how much black gold can be coaxed out of the narrow stretch of rock….” And all this while “In Newfoundland, there’s actually no kind of regulatory structure in place yet to deal with fracking…”.)

Both the Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines are being pushed for, not just by the oil and gas companies that will profit by them, but by Prime Minister Stephen Harper; Environment Minister Peter Kent; Canada’s Ambassador to Washington Gary Doer; and the 22 Canadian consular offices in the US. They have become, then, full-time lobbyists for the oil and gas industry while our tax dollars pay their salaries and foot their bills.

This is corruption. And it goes on because of the perfect symbiosis between the powerful oil and gas lobby on both sides of the border and government officials drunk on a false sense of their own power. Having our environmental laws gutted in favour of tar sands, fracking, and pipelines is a clear indication of how much malfeasance and deception has permeated every aspect of the current government’s relationship with us and our country. And while industry, with government’s blessing, paints pretty pictures on their web sites of how great it’s all going to be for the environment, jobs, Indigenous people, everyone and everything, the barons of the fossil fuel industry – unimpeded by governments and indifferent to borders – continue to look for ever more ways to cut, dig, pump, slash, burn and exploit their way over every square inch of North America, leaving a broken environment, broken lives and a broken trust in their wake.

Now the injustice I mentioned….

“This past summer, an independent, peer-reviewed scientific study showed that toxic byproducts from the tar sands extraction industry are poisoning the Athabasca River, putting downstream First Nations communities and the fish they eat at risk. Health studies show these First Nations communities already have elevated rare cancers associated with exposure to such toxins.” David Suzuki & Faisal Moola. (The David Suzuki Foundation)

In 2008, children caught this double-mouthed mutated fish from a dock on Lake Athabasca in Fort Chipewyan.
Photo Credit; Ling Wang
(Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2008/08/18/chip-fish.html)

Indigenous people are bearing, and will continue to bear, the brunt of “dirty oil” extraction. The land, the water and the fish are being poisoned daily.  The health of Indigenous people, their children and grand children are looked upon by both Harper’s government and the oil and gas industry as nothing more than the collateral damage associated with the price of doing business.

Is it any wonder then that the Harper government is not only proceeding with legislation that erodes environmental protections, and at the very same time, is reducing the budgets of Aboriginal advocacy organizations, reducing funding to First Nations for things like housing, health care and education, and ramming through legislation to erode Treaty rights. As well as pushing for “private property rights.”

How quickly do you think it will take the oil and gas industry to swoop in to offer individuals ‘buy outs’ for their property? Entire communities could be wiped off the maps; providing no access for First Nations to the traditional territories that their ancestors have lived on for thousands of years.  Its happening in third world countries, and its happening here.

And this injustice will continue to multiply in direct proportion to ever more fracking wells becoming operational, ever more pipelines being approved, and ever more of the Boreal forest being destroyed by an ever expanding tar sands.

We need to stand up for each other. We need to stand up for all living things. We need to stand up for the planet. Our future depends on it. The environment is a life and death issue.

This is why the Idle No More movement must continue and all of us must march, flashmob, drum, write, sing, dance, protest, shout – and yes, blockade – until this unprecedented corruption and indefensible injustice are both brought to their knees.

Follow Judith on Twitter: @Everythingmatt

Judith Pierce Martin lives in Picton, Prince Edward County, ON. She is an outspoken advocate for democracy, civil liberties, justice, the environment and humanity. She is an avid reader of history and an avid follower of history in the making.

I had a vision. I kept it to myself for a while, then shared it in little moments on Facebook, on Twitter.

 But it’s time to share it, as undeveloped as it may be, I feel that it’s right. And there’s something in me that won’t allow me to stay silent about it any longer. Take it or leave it, I’m releasing it now.

In my vision I saw something new. Something like government but unlike it completely.  I saw true representation for The People of Turtle Island, starting right here in Kanata.

I saw three levels of governance: The Elders Circle; The Congress of Spokespeople; The Youth Assembly

I saw the Youth give the dreams and the vision: the hope and the energy.

I saw the Elders give the wisdom and perspective: the guidance and calm.

I saw the Congress of Spokespeople combine these things into action, carrying out the will of the people.

Where did they come from? They didn’t run for office or position, they were nominated by their regions, their communities. In fact, attempting to campaign for a position immediately disqualified the person.

They were asked to serve and they served. It was all volunteer, no money paid. They served for one year. There was equal representation by the sexes, whether one spirit or two-spirit.

Who was a member?  Anyone who claimed the smallest drop of Indigenous blood. No blood quantum discrimination. You could be 1/64th for all it mattered. But you had to claim it. Stand up and say, “Yes. I am one of The People.”

And you had to give precedence to Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Honouring, and Sharing. Ceremony and smudge, discussion rather than heated debate.

There were only three directions to follow:

• Promote the well being of the earth, water, sky
• Promote the well being of communities
• Promote education & peaceful relations

Anyone who went against these directions disqualified themselves from having a voice, as there were those who wanted to subvert the process, to act for other parties with special interests. The only special interest here was the Common Good.

This organization had no official powers, was not part of government, was separate from Indian Act governance. It had no funding. Not from Ottawa, not from Corporations. It was run through service. It made use of all our modern technologies.

And before it began there was a Large Assembly, a Gathering. At the Gathering the people voiced their thoughts, they spoke their concerns and hopes and cautions. They shared their visions.

A Document was conceived. It was a plan for the road ahead: a Seven Generations Path. It was made available for everyone physically, and digitally. A practical, spiritual document. It was painted on hide. It was made into songs. It was a gift for the people now, and the people to come.

It detailed the way we should walk forward in every aspect of life: Economic, Political, Financial, and so on. It showed a new way to think about Kanata and it’s relation to the world and All Our Relations.

That is what I saw and share with you today. Can it happen? Will it happen?

It must happen. In my vision it already existed, already thrived.

I ask that our leaders step forward and step up. I ask that those who know how to organize such matters devote some small part of your time to making it happen. There is no room for negativity here, no room for lateral violence, for hate, for anger. If those are the gifts you bring, perhaps you should reconsider your approach.

Bring only the best of you, the greatest version of you, the version of you that is becoming free from colonization and the culture of fear and blame.

You are standing on the precipice of a great change. Peace, organization, and a giving, healing spirit.

That’s our gift to everyone and to our generations to come and it starts here.

It starts now.

Light the flame.

Light the Fire.

Open yourself to your greatest possibility.

Are you ready?

Then bring forward your best and let the dreaming and the creation begin.

Hiy Hiy

Follow Aaron on Twitter @aaronpaquette

Aaron Paquette is one of Canada’s leading First Nations artists and the founder of Cree8 Success, a philosophy of injecting creativity into the practices and lives of youth, teachers and enterprise. Based in Edmonton, Alberta, Aaron has been creating art for the past 20 years. He apprenticed and has become both a Cathedral Stained Glass artist and a Goldsmith, influences of which can be seen in the line and structure of his paintings – displayed in various galleries throughout the country.  His work is frequently exhibited in galleries across Canada and he works as a guest curator for The Art Gallery of Alberta, St. Albert’s public Gallery: Profiles, and the McMullen Gallery at the University of Alberta Hospital. He currently has a traveling exhibit with the Art Gallery of Alberta called Halfbreed Mythology.

Silence is Not Our Mothertongue: Madwewewin, The First Taste of Sound.

There is this place called Silence that takes our women by their soft, browned hands and hides them in its long arms and holds them vehemently, wraps these women tightly so tightly and covers their mouths and eyes and feels their strong hearts beating against its dark submersion, its murky breath twining around their tongues, drowning all sounds silent. 

Let me curl into my childhood bed, press my dolls against the side of my face and inhale childhood thickly and drift back into yesterday’s scents and voices and memories. Find yesterday in today. Once, I sat sprawled against a bedcorner while someone from my church consumed my young body as I walked into silent dreamings of picking acorns from the long path behind my house and pulling the tops of each one of them and throwing them into my long, clear river that smelled like morning no matter which season or time of day. Nibi rolling the acorns away to a new shoreline. Anytime these things happened again I could escape back to this pathway so easily, drifting away from them at will, as simply as a dream or a solid door opening toward daylight. But there were never any sounds in these places. Only an underwater humming of pure, flat silence without echoes, without lulls, without a break in between or a parting of the water to ground me. At nights I would line the outside of the bed with my dolls and cover my face with their yarn hair, plastic skin under my fingerpads, their small black eyes watching me as I slept.

In creation we expand in the water, form features and eyes and fingers, elongate hourly into human form. Agonde. Floating we form, floating, agonde. The sounds of a mother whispering to her baby, her singing a dreamsong through the waters, through the taut stomachskin, the sounds of a mother’s laughter a trailway toward madwewewin. To the first taste of sound. In creation, we are reaching and turning and growing inside of the underwater humming, arching toward the sound of love, the sound of a voice we base dreams upon. Madwewein. We learn in the first waters how to hear.

My father had a voice that sounded like syrup. Stories piled up like books through our years. He left long trails against my mind, winding this way and that, and the stories are my inheritance. When we buried him, I carried his voice with me, placed them against my marrow, embedded them in the soft space of memory where I had him still, long after the nurse’s small white hand folded the thin eyelids over his still brown eyes. A memory of protection and strength, knowing that I was on my own now. Sometime later, maadaagami- the water swirled, and I was able to whisper myself out of the outer edge of silence. Was able to build long layers of sound wrung out of my own tongue somehow. We lived outside of these voices. My sisters and I walked forward, whispering to each other.  Mashkawadin.  It is frozen solid until it is warmed by ancient breaths, cracking open, ahki splitting one side to the other, the clear water flowing underneath.

When the world opened itself to me and I stepped through endazhi, that place, the blare of words a trumpet, concrete footsteps cracking, the lifepaths, the long walk forward, the stepping, we learned the prolonged pull out of silence. The pathway so incessant, the small whispered conversations, the people shaping people, the interchanged shorelines where ideas and visions might survive if we let it. I looked then to the waters. I saw the long bodies swaying beneath the waterline, the cusp of shore a page of memories, the edge of water a secret where strong voices lay flattened, silence holding them under as long as the hands didn’t reach too deeply.

Niibiikaa. There is a lot of water. Everywhere. Dimii. It is deep water. Endaso. So many voices laying in wait. Niibi. The water. Gaadoo. It hides these voices. Pulls it in its wrappings, lets them write underwater stories for the earth to read.  These women swimming stories like a scratch of a petroglyph’s rockdust settling against itself. We want to keep you here in safety, where they can’t find you, where the whole world’s careless words fall against the soil. Debinaak. The callous flinging of souls against a rockface, their stories scratching silently because it’s the only way to tell it. 

Many paths to silence seen in every mirror, crisscrossing over one another like piled limbs heaping against a stark white sky.  A blare of noon exposing the stitched lips and even though it is daylight, the people look over our heads, pretending that we might not be there, might not be taped shut and walking down the same streets. Nibbikaa. There is a lot of water and we are quickly sinking, the silence entering us in the schools when the teachers tell us that our own stories aren’t really happening. When we see our Grandmothers afraid to speak their own languages unless all doors are closed. When there are men who drive us home and think it’s okay to pin us down in the front seats and try to rip the buttons off our shirts.  When the other children laugh at our grassless front lawns with car parts and bikes and ski-doos leaning up against each other, the metal catching light and blinding us until our eyes tear and yet we never cry. We never cry. We never blink when we hear the words “Dirty Indians,” we don’t flinch when we see one of our own getting bullied for not living on the same city streets as the other good kids.  We just keep walking and smiling that hard plastic acquiescent smile. The same blank smile of my babydolls that got me through the thick nights of childhood dreaming.

And we are the loose buttons dangling tenuously on the shirt on the wrinkled and forgotten shirt, the hollow closet closing in. 

And now we are women. Walking through these paths. Choosing the ones we wish to step in, avoiding the ones we are told to accept.  Sometimes. We had half-loves, we had faltering minutes where we had to force our tongues to move to say those uncomfortable things that no one else at all wanted to hear. We had the big heavens shift and make us choose things that forced sound out of our mouths and pried words out of the silences that were more comfortable. But we also knew our grandmothers songs. We remembered her strong hands lifting us. We had her persistence threaded onto our spinewalls as tautly as the end knot of Creation. We are women. And because of this, we were compelled to speak, unless the silence held us as they do the still ones.  And this is ok, because some of us will speak for them. But for some of us, our tongues are loosened against a long shoreline, stretching as far as imagination can insist. These words that we have dancing against our lips are leaking a strong river overshore and we are wading here, finding solid ground, and deciding to stay. Some of like it here where we can entangle our grandmother’s spinewords and throat them with our own and speak our sounds which are so loud that the daylight doesn’t hurt our eyes anymore. Our voices are solid against ahki like the spirals of treetrunks, the eternity of sound stretching forward into a horizon filled with bodies stepping outward, a line of history marching, drumbeats stirring the waters like a large spoon. Maadaagami.  Lurid waters curving the whole world open, gathering.

When the Idle No More movement came I was speaking, my silence shrugged down my back, my tongue able to move along and beside many other women, youth and men who saw the need for chiseling spaces where our treaties are honoured and splayed open against settler abuses, where Indigenous women’s attacks are spoken about and acted against due necessity and justice. I have been writing and speaking for some time now and sometimes, because of this, our voices and need for justice are targeted and attacked.

Detail view of one of the pieces of hate mail.

As organizer of several Idle No More rallies and events in my home community of Garden River First Nation and the Bawating area, I received an envelope of hate mail containing my articles from local newspapers that expressed my feelings from an Indigenous standpoint on the Idle No More movement, which were cut out and had lewd pictures and writings, as well as a cut-out of Shawn Atleo, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. On these cut-outs were crude drawings of male sexual organs, horns, guns and semen erupting from the penises, as well as threats such as “Stay away from the SOO Lesley Belleau or else,” and “The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian,” as well as the words “Yum Yum” beside the penis. I contacted authorities and decided that such attacks were better off in the public eye in order to protect others and to create awareness. Also, it is important to let the perpetrators of such hate crimes to know that their actions are being monitored and does not create a bigger gap of silence for us as Indigenous people. This type of attack will never stop me from speaking, will not remove me from my rightful place of sound within ahki.

When we step outside of the gripping silence, the outer world becomes startled and sometimes angry, not seeing the workings for justice, but instead seeing a radical group of people attempting to speak a history that doesn’t make sense to some. It is radical to some people when we speak because the silence was so comfortable and easy and quiet, that the soft sounds of our voices creates a humming and drumming along the edges of people’s consciousness and awareness that is unwelcome and troublesome to the colonial comfort zone. But we should never stop because of other people’s anger or discomfort when we have a great work for the land, for the women, for our children’s futures, and for the entire worldscape of Indigenous people, some who are lulled by a comforting silence and others who are drumming sounds globally, the whole world inhaling these sounds as sure as a baby’s first suck in of air and exhale their very first taste of sound.

We must not let the hatred and misconceptions that others have within them silence our strong voices. Their hatred and racism is their problem, not our own, and we must continue speaking, acting, writing and moving to a greater change and justice for Indigenous people worldwide.  Silence is not our mothertongue. No amount of hatred, racism, sexism, misconceptions or stereotypes should act to bring us back to the false safety of silence. Our voices are being heard. And the unwinding from Silence’s strong hold, round and round, our hands entwined with others, was not so hard afterall. Let’s move and speak, from the first sound forward. Madwewewin.

Follow Lesley on Twitter: @LesleyBelleau

Lesley Belleau is an Anishnaabekwe writer from the Ojibwe nation of Ketegaunseebee Garden River First Nation, located outside of Bawating/Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.  She is a Ph.D student in the Indigenous Studies Department at Trent University, and is focusing on studying Indigenous literature.  Currently she is teaching Indigenous Literature at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie. Lesley enjoys writing fiction, essays and poetry and is the author of The Colour of Dried Bones, a collection of short fiction published by Kegedonce Press, as well as other publications both nationally and internationally. Lesley is currently awaiting the release of her second novel, Sweat, a full-length fiction novel, due to be launched in September, 2013. Currently, Lesley resides in Peterborough, Ontario, with her four young children. 

Growing up in the south it has taken me a long time to realize while graduating through various educational institutions, I was never really learning the way I was “suppose to,” but rather I was still learning from an Inuit understanding of education.

One of the main techniques of Inuit learning I’m quite pleased to say, is mimicry. We mimic the souls around us, to learn their rhythms, their motions, as means to resonate with them and better understand them.

This is a non-assimilative way of learning, as we do not break new things apart into our existing understanding of the world and categorize them, but we recognize the sovereignty of the souls we are trying to learn about. In doing so, resonance through mimicry allows us to integrate their understanding of the world into ourselves. Needless to say, I have always approached my institutions of education by trying to mimic them—I just never realized that others weren’t doing the same.

Although critics are quick to say that Idle No More is waning, I disagree. I would say that as Peoples we have reached a trail, a path, which many of us have not yet traversed well enough: decolonization. We are slowing, in order to break ourselves down and build ourselves back up. With our attention more on this there is less time for activities similar to everything that’s happened in the first months since December.  And because the media won’t be interested in broadcasting stories of the internal changes of peoples, this process we are in will be viewed as a waning movement by some.

As we begin this process of decolonizing ourselves, our initial areas of focus have been reclaiming our languages, our rituals, our political structures, and the traditional uses of our lands. This is rightly so, for it is these things we need strength in first. How we as sovereign nations will structure ourselves within the Canadian state and International contexts will hopefully come later.

Inuksuk
Art Installation
Daniel Nikpayuk

I have also been trying to understand Idle No More and the use of technology and social media in the context of decolonization. And like in all things in life, I approach my understanding of ‘technology’ as an individual Inuk from an Inuit worldview. Two old sayings from my people keep coming back to me:

 ”The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls.”

 ”The world is always changing, so long as we change together, we stay together.”

I reflect upon these sayings; I reflect upon all of my research on my own people; I reflect upon how my own parent Inuuk (Inuuk means two people) raised me, and my understanding is that the cosmos consists entirely of souls and relationships between souls; these relationships are always changing; these relationships themselves are souls.

Living among Southerners, I have observed that many of those who come from an agrarian cultural background tend to privilege the idea of “type” in their worldview. I suppose this makes sense, where on a farm or in a city one often stays on the same plot of land with the same animals and the same structures and the same “types” of things throughout long intervals of their lives. There is certain stability about it.

In the Arctic however there are many structures of water—in many shapes sizes and forms at many different temperatures—possessing the capacity to change rapidly to “types” you’ve never seen before, and by the time you’ve provided a name for that type it has by then changed again. Inuit do not privilege “types” of things, there’s not much point, rather we privilege Isuma, which is based on Iq (Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit), and Sila. We privilege relationships between things, we privilege “process.” For us, it is these, and these ways of thinking that do not change much over time and are worth giving new names to.

To emphasize this point in a slightly different way: an Inuk is thought to have three souls: Anirniq (breath), Tarniq (shadow), Atiq (name). An Inuk has three types of souls, and yet each of these souls is made up of souls, always changing. So it’s not to say we don’t use systems of typology, but rather we view them as conveniences more than truth.

The Story of the Shit Knife

If we were a people who privileged static typologies over dynamic processes we would never be able to perceive a piece of shit as a knife, they are two entirely different types of things. Fortunately for us, “everything is everything, unless it isn’t.”

Angakkuuniq in the Inuit worldview translates in English as “Shamanism” but it is far from a perfect translation. It is the best we have however.  For me, angakkuuniq is intimately related back to the community itself. For me, an angakkuq is a human manifestation of the boundary of the community—a community made up entirely of related ever-changing souls.

When I think of Idle No More and our use of social media and technology I find myself wondering about the ‘space’ itself where we all come together to interact, to shape messages, to give meaning within a community’s life cycles. This space is owned by the whole of the community, yet, at the same time, I feel it has an intimate connection to the angakkuit (shamans, woman and man). Why? Because the media space is not only where messages are made, but where potential messages are made, and the potential of the community is the boundary of the community. Of all the members of such an Inuit community, it is the angakkuit who best know such potential.

I look at the idea of a healthy community as something I’ve never known. I long for it simply because for me it is still only an idea, a distant dream. I ask: What is the context of a healthy community?

For all I’ve heard, from the elders and the women, it is the land. I think that maybe this is why, for as much as we try to get our elders into the classroom, they keep saying many things cannot be taught there. Is it because some things can only be taught in the context of the Land.

I have seen with my own eyes, that the women I surround myself with have a natural understanding of context, and of the context needed for a healthy community. A natural understanding I do not myself, as a male, possess, and am in awe. I think to myself then, I have much to learn from the women about being healthy. This among many other things I would humbly say is a woman’s power.

I ask myself: How do I recognize the signs of a healthy community? And for this I look to the men, the men who understand that signs and motions and processes cannot exist in the absence of context. These men have an intimate knowledge of motions that represent healthy community, of processes that represent healthy family.

With this realization, I look back at social media and the Idle No More movement, and I now begin to see it all as communities of souls. How best to respect the sovereignty of these souls? How best to ask for their help in contributing to my community?

How can a computer and something as elusive as the internet contain a community of souls? To that I answer, those who are unable to see it as such, are those same people who cannot recognize a piece of shit as a knife.

Daniel Nikpayuk

Follow Daniel on Twitter: @Daniel_Nikpayuk

Daniel Nikpayuk is a beneficiary of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from the University of Alberta. He is a life-long learner and is interested in all things culture-and-worldview. He is dedicated the the renewal of his language and culture through new uses of technological infrastructure.

When I was a little girl, we went high bush cranberry picking up off Highway 28. I might have been 7 or 8. It was a family day. My Mom and Dad, all us kids, my Kokum (Grandma) as well as my aunts and uncles, who weren’t really all that much older than me were there. To me the berries seemed impossibly high. It was hard work and we had to work in pairs. I would pull down the branch while one of my sisters or brother would pick the berries. We were plenty grumpy I remember because we couldn’t even eat the berries, they were so bitter off the vine. When you picked saskatoons or blue berries; at least you could snack all day!

I can’t remember exactly who found the dead squirrel. One of us did. It was all emaciated and gross. There were bones protruding from the fur. I remember my brother grabbing a stick and flipping it over and all the maggots were wiggling around all over underneath it. And then it happened: someone went to touch it.

“KKKKKIIIIIIYYYYYYAAAAAAMMMMMM!!!!” I sometimes try to find that memory…to be sure that it is the word she screamed running at us. Maybe it was another word. As I grow older; I doubt that it was the word but yet; my understanding of this word comes from a vision of my Kokum blazing a straight line at me yelling “Kiyam!”

What?!  We all asked in unison. She told us to ‘leave dead things alone‘ and ‘don’t pick up dead things.‘

Why? We all asked again. She told us that picking up dead things could ‘make us sick.’ She said, sometimes it could even kill us, but that the earth had a way of taking that sickness into itself and turning it into new life like the plants and berries we were picking. Then she shuffled us away from the squirrel and made us pick closer to where she was. So ever since then in my brain kiyam meant don’t pick it up.

photo credit: naturetales.blogspot.com

It wasn’t the only time my Kokum used the word kiyam. When I was around 10 or 11 we were living in a very small town. We weren’t bad kids. We were taught to respect our elders and our teachers. We did what we were supposed to do. But, despite that, we all had a very hard time.

I remember every day as being difficult for me in some way. From the type of clothes I wore, to the constant lice checks; I was bombarded with stereotypes and racial slurs. I remember being called a ‘squaw’, a ‘prairie nigger’, ‘dumb’, ‘ugly’…it just never let up. I wasn’t even out of elementary school yet when ended up getting diagnosed with an ulcer. I was sent to spend some time with my Memere and with my Grandma.

One day at my Kokum’s we were in her kitchen and she was teaching me to make blueberry perogies (meh, that’s another story!) Once she got me rolling out the dough and using a jar ring to start cutting the pastry into circles, she started asking me why I had been so sick that I hadn’t been going to school. She never quite seemed like the very wise person that she was, but even today when working with kids through some painful experiences I follow my Grandma’s lesson by putting them to work.

I tried to be vague with her about what was going on, but eventually she pulled everything out of me, one blueberry perogy at a time. I started to cry and she hugged me. “Dawny…kiyam.” And this is where I got really confused because to me kiyam meant don’t pick up the dead things.

She told me, Let it go.

I protested. Why should I be the one to let it go? They are the ones that are hurting me. Do I just let them get away with it?

She said, They don’t get away with it. That kind of mean always comes back on itself. Some time, some way, it will come back. You won’t have to do nothing but if you pick up that mean stuff and take it into you; it will start to work in you. You don’t want to be that kind of mean, do you?

No, Grandma.

Then let it go. Don’t keep their hate.

I know that my understanding of kiyam is different from many other people. I might be the only one who sees it like this because of a faulty set of memories with a dead squirrel, but this is how I see what my Kokum taught me. Just like we didn’t know what killed the squirrel; we do not know what the roots of the vengeful words are.

I have studied racism, colonialism, social Darwinism, eugenics, white privilege, psychology, sociology, spiritual warfare and have a really good idea but ultimately; it could just be human stupidity and ‘there ain’t no pill for stupid’.

The funny this is, that now when I find myself in uncomfortable situations where every ridiculous stereotype is being paraded out, I see dead squirrels. I know that they are throwing things at me because they are intending me to pick it up and throw it back. So I let it hit the floor. Even though the chance is remote that I could possibly get sick myself; I’m not going to risk it. I don’t pick it up.

photo credit: thedirtfloor.com

My Grandma taught me that if I pick that up, it could kill me. It could damage me intellectually. It could damage me emotionally. It could damage me spiritually and cause a physical illness as I try to process the poison thrown at me. Whatever their reasons: lack of knowledge, entrenched beliefs, privilege or internalized oppression – doesn’t really matter. The squirrel isn’t any less dead.

So as best as I can; I don’t pick it up. Every time I make the mistake and do, I recognize once again that my Grandma is right. These things cycle into themselves and become energy sinkholes. I’m the one left hurt and without energy, and so is the other person. Their opinion hasn’t changed and neither has mine. And there it is; the death of any opportunity for transformative dialogue.

So if I follow my Kokum’s lead, the smartest thing to do is to let it be. The Earth has a way of taking that negativity and transforming it into something beautiful in its own time. So if I don’t pick up this squirrel and I just let it be; eventually the process will bring out something truly better. Just leave it be – kiyam.

It’s not letting them off the hook. This is about trust.

When my teachers and elders stop talking to me, I recognize it sometimes means that I am not listening and I am so far off the mark that they have decided ‘kiyam.’ I must reconsider my words and actions. In short, they realize they cannot teach me if I’m not listening and they must let me go find out the truth on my own. And chances are I will come around to their way of seeing it…but it’s going to be a much more painful process.

The person throwing squirrels is going to be confronted by this process whether I go throw their squirrels back at them or not. So let them drop and instead plant a seed of truth and walk away just like all the best kokums and moshoms. The truth has more healing power and once planted; it will grow. Not in my time; but in nature’s time.

Follow Dawn on Twitter: @Cree8Dawn

Dawn Marie Marchand is Cold Lake First Nation; she is Cree and Metis. A student of the Boreal Forest Institute for the Indigenous Arts in Fort McMurray, Alberta, she has a unique perspective on mastery based instruction. Dawn Marie is an artist who uses the Circle of Courage™ (Reclaiming Youth International) and Art Integration as a way of engaging youth. She is an advocate for using the strengths of culture as a tool for accessing positive change in lives. She is a published author; has guest lectured at the University of Alberta on several occasions and is co-founder of Cree8 Success. Her artistic style honours the teachings of her mentors while expresses her own vision.

Violence is never simple; it is horrific and loaded with long-term devastating consequences. I know this from experience and have lived it up close and personal.

Imagine yourself standing on a highway as Canadian armed forces tanks roll towards you flanked by soldiers in full combat gear. Army helicopters hover above with men hanging out the sides; guns are pointed at you.

You watch as Warriors scream out in anger as the tanks roll closer and closer. Women are yelling at them to “get back!” and to us,  “stay calm!” Your heart is beating so fast, as your body tries to adapt to the adrenaline coursing through your veins. You wait, hold your breath, and listen for that sound, the gunshot that will start and end it all.

You are 14 years old, and your summer vacation has taken you to the middle of a war zone. You are scared, excited and not fully comprehending what is going on. The one thing do you know is, you are unarmed and those guns are pointed right at you. You suddenly understand completely that your life could end at any second, and you wait.

It is August 20, 1990, the Canadian forces have stormed right into the disputed land where a golf course is set to expand onto a traditional burial ground. The Oka standoff would last another 27 days. I would be witness to horrific acts of violence, psychological warfare and finally I would be stabbed in the chest, 2 cm away from my heart.

Memories from that summer have both inspired me to achieve and haunted me. As I write this, my hands begin to shake as I once again feel the adrenaline flooding into me, getting me ready to run or to fight.

Waneek Horn-Miller & her sister Kanietiio. This photo was taken 30 seconds after Waneek was stabbed in her chest. Credit: Associated Press

I am writing this as an open letter. It is a window to my soul and my experiences. It is for anyone who even hinting at violent action. In the post 9/11 world, the consequences of violent action have changed. There are new terrorism laws that have extreme implications for not only the perpetrators, but for all indigenous people across North America.

I am reminded of watching a heated discussion on the last days of the Oka Crisis that violent action is not the solution. Some of the men wanted to shoot it out, guns blazing and the women where arguing against it, telling them to keep a cool head.  It was the women’s role to remind them, that in the great law, it does not state that you fight till you die, but rather you fight till you win. After a long heated summer of provocation I understood the anger those men felt, and the attractiveness of a martyred death, but I was terrified watching as my life or death was being debated. In the end the debate for life and our future won out.

Witnessing that made me understand as an indigenous person we are part of a larger community and we do not exist in a vacuum. All we do as individuals in peace and violence has a huge impact on all of us.

These memories, my new role as a mother and my overwhelming love of all our children have infected me with a need to ensure no other 14 year old has to face that kind of trauma. I think violent action is not the solution, and I have made it a life’s mission to look for alternate ways of making change. Ones based on peace, cooperation and inspiration.

Over the last few months we have witnessed an awakening of both indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, inspired to stand up, speak out, and act.  The power of Idle No More comes from the fact that; it is open to all who lend their voices for change. The potent combination of flash mob round dances, social media and teach-ins, has created a new generation of politicized people. It has done this because the essence of these acts is to raise awareness and because it is peaceful. People from all walks of life are drawn together, have engaged in dialogue and are personally inspired because of the simple message- that the peaceful future of this country matters to all of us.

It is hard to miss the understandable undertone of anger and frustration; I feel this to my core. I feel anger at the incredibly damaging impact of genocidal policies like the Indian Act, intentional mis-education of the Canadian public and resulting racism. Rage at how they have ripped at the very fabric of our nations, communities and personal lives. It frustrates me that the most damaging legacy left is; many of our peoples’ lack of self worth. How many see themselves only important for their anger, and their lives only worthwhile if given up in a fight.

I remember a conversation I had with a reporter during Oka who asked me if I was ready to die. I said yes because if I died today, maybe my life would mean something. Looking back 23 years later, I think I have contributed more with my life than I would have with my death.

“The most revolutionary act we could do, is not visiting more violence on our communities, but rather to support our leaders in their fight by bringing the passion and power of Idle No More to the dismantling of the legacy of dysfunction, trauma and violence that plagues our communities.”

We will disempower our opposition by ending the lateral violence expressed on each other and finally unify our nations by acts of respect, love and peace.  If our ancestors could speak to us today, they would tell us that violent action will never be fully off the table, but for the sake of our children, it should never be the first option, but rather the absolute last.

Peace and Power to all My Relations.

- Waneek Horn-Miller

Follow Waneek on Twitter: @waneekhm

Waneek Horn-Miller (Mohawk) is an activist and Olympic Athlete. She has traveled across North America speaking about her experiences that took her from  the Oka Crisis to the Olympics.