Weekly Online Assignment and Reflection (Mar. 1-7)Boozhoo kina awiyaa/ greetings everyone,I am from a place called Aamjiwnaang (Sarnia) and just a few miles up the road is another place called Aazhoodena (Kettle Point/ Ipperwash). As a kid, we had a home in each place. I lived in Sarnia during the school year and Kettle Point/ Ipperwash in the summer. Where I am from, Native and non-Native peoples view their relationship to, opportunities in, and reciprocity with the Land differently. Historically this has caused conflict but does not need to. Holding fast to binary views has disrupted the beauty—the balance and harmony—that previously existed before colonization. This week we will look at how worldview shapes our engagement with the earth and how seeing different opportunities with the Land impacts our relationships with both the Land and with each other.1. ‘Mother Earth’. English is a trade language. In the Americas, before contact, we had a trade language that was used for communication between tribes; it is called ‘Plains Sign Language.’ This language is still used today, especially for our Elders who still only speak in our Native languages (there are still hundreds of Native languages spoken in the Americas). Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hllFyC8yOiE (5 min in length). A. Many of you have expressed to me that you are challenged to share your ideas on all that you are thinking in each lesson through a one-page reflection. I have put that limit because I want you to learn to be concise. I know it is a process to learn to do this well, but it is important as much of what shapes you through your worldview is pared down as you communicate with others from different worldviews. We must consider what is essential to convey as well as be aware of what has been lost or is yet to be told; this helps us both be in relevant conversation as well as understand why we must continue them to unfold meaning. After watching the video and the simple words they teach (and only 40 words of an entire language through this particular camp), what challenges might you experience expressing your complex thoughts to me using just this system (provide examples from the clip to support your response)? B. What challenges can you see with using trade languages to convey complex meaning between languages?C. This method was used also in the creation of treaties (international laws between nations). How would this impact that process?D. ‘Mother Earth’ is a word like this that has become oversimplified through translation. The concept of the life giving-force of the earth is known as Shkakimikwe in my language. It is considered to be a force related to what we think of as feminine as both are portals for bringing spirits from beyond to this plane of existence. Much of Shkakimikweis lost in translation. I want us to take a moment to put meaning back on this concept. When I think of my mother, I think of the person who biologically built my body from herself. I think of the one who provides care for me regardless of whether I deserve it or not. I think of someone who cleans up after me, but expects me to learn to do it for myself. I think of someone it would be absurd for you to offer to buy. I think of someone who has her own strong will and operates according to it and what is best for the complex system of family that she holds together. What are your thoughts on how you are related to your mother/ family and how that might help you frame your connection with Shkakimikwe/ ‘Mother Earth’ to live with her in a good way?2. Communicating across worldviews.Read AIT: Chapter 11 (p.133-139).A. What are your thoughts on this chapter in relation to what you answered in question 1 (provide examples from the chapter to support your ideas)?3. Complex and contested places. As I said above, I am from a place called Aamjiwnaang (Sarnia) and just a few miles up the road is another place called Aazhoodena (Kettle Point/ Ipperwash). These are places of the Land my being co-evolved with. Kettle Point is known for having large spherical rocks called Kettles (that are sacred to our people as we believe they are the eggs of Animikiikaa, the Thunderbird) as well as having one of the world’s most beautiful sunsets according to National Geographic. I never feel more alive than when I am home. I feel the Land in my blood and bones through the smells, sounds, wind, humidity, etc. However, when my brother was 5 and I was 8, the chemical companies located near us (both upwind and upstream from the reservation), started to create products that sickened the Land. Because we are part of the land my brother became sick as well. I did not become sick because the chemicals mostly impacted ‘Y’ chromosomes, so it made it so that boys were not born, if they were they became sick, and if they were sick the treatment they received sterilized them. To keep treaties in place, as you have learned, Native people need to keep their genetic ties to those ancestors who signed treat strong. Without boys, this is not possible. This tactic of making La
nd sick to indirectly eradicate a people is harder to detect, but is still very much genocide. I love the Land and the way it makes me feel, but I hate that it made my brother sick, forcing me to live away from my Land and my family as he recovered. I have a complex relationship with all of this that I am still healing from.A. I want you to watch both a video on the beauty I see when I am home: Sun setting at Ipperwash Beach, Ontario ( 2 min in length) as well as the way settler-colonial ideas of ‘progress’ have impacted us Canada indigenous group sues over pollution (3 min in length). What are your thoughts on these videos and the complexity it may hold for me as a ‘home’ (provide examples from BOTH videos to support your response)?B. I am telling you about my home to set you up to read about it in another way. Read: KettleAndStoneyPoint.PDF . I do not live under the assumption that anyone is inherently ‘bad’. I do believe that people have different ways of seeing things and are motivated in different ways. Additionally, f they do not try to see how others imagine the same scenario, conflict can arise. The Anishinaabeg pride themselves on living so gently with the Land that one cannot tell they actively tend to her and depend on her gifts. I think this may have been part of the reason the Land was taken by the government when they decided to build the training facility at Camp Ipperwash; that is, I think that, to the government, the Anishinaabeg weren’t ‘using it.’ When settler-colonial forces look at Land (that they believe is ‘inert’), they look for evidence on it of human interaction, things like fences, mowed areas, cut trees, walking paths, structures, etc. The Anishinaabeg don’t traditionally do things like that to places that gift them the Medicines they need to survive. The Anishinaabeg would see these things as ‘scars’ on the Land. This difference in viewing interactions with Land led to a binary contestation over who could use the Land ‘best’ rather than seeing how we must learn to compromise and share. I was away at college already when Dudley George was killed in this conflict, but when I am home I am filled with a new layer of sadness I must reconcile with the Land I love most in the world—the Land that courses through my being. What are your thoughts on this in relation to what you read about my home the article (provide examples from the article to support your ideas)?4. Ownership of the earth/ other beings.Many things in English that are not considered animate beings are considered animate in my Native language. This is true of many, if not all, Native languages. For example, in my language, birch tree, Wiigwaas,is conjugated as animate. This is because ‘animate’ things do or act. A birch tree does many things as a living being, including the generous act of gifting the Anishinaabeg much of what they need for survival. Read AIT: Chapter 16 (p.188-213). A. What are your thoughts on this chapter (provide examples from the article to support your ideas)?B. How does this relate to your previous responses in this lesson?5. Examples in context. Here are three examples of how Native people and non-Natives have disparate views of ‘Mother Earth’ and their relationship to her. Because they are seeing things through a binary lens of who is right and who is wrong, ‘contested places’ (places where interactions with and relation to Land cause conflict) have been created. Relationships between the people and the Land and between Natives and non-Natives have suffered. When these relationships are not healthy, neither are we. This is because we are of the earth; what we do to her eventually comes back to and impacts ourselves. Watch: https://docuseek2-com.ezproxy.lib.vt.edu/cart/product/117 (1 hour, 15min in length). Like last week, you need to be logged into your VT account because the video is streamed through the library.A. What are your thoughts on what is happening in the Lakota lands of the Black Hills (provide examples from the film to support your ideas)?B. What are your thoughts on what is happening in the Hopi lands of the Four Corners in Arizona (provide examples from the film to support your ideas)?C. What are your thoughts on what is happening in the Wintu lands of northern California (provide examples from the film to support your ideas)?D. I love rock climbing and snowboarding and live in a state that mostly depends on coal for electricity. Additionally, I am both Native and non-Native and from a contested place like those shown in the vignettes; that said, how might I uniquely be able to see both sides of each of these conflicts and hope that compromises that support sustainability optimally can be reached?E. What are your thoughts on these examples in relation to what you learned about the Western Shoshone last week as well as what you have thought about ‘Mother Earth’, Kettle Point and contested places, communicating across worldview, and ideas about ‘ownership’ of our life-giving force in this week’s lessonAnswer ever question like so1.a BC2.aBC