This piece is meant primarily for non-Indigenous people living on Indigenous lands. It is supposed to confront, while simultaneously comforting your uneasiness around land back and reparation conversations and actions. Please take your time in reading this, exploring where in your thoughts and body your discomfort shows up. Acknowledging and unpacking how it makes you feel is an important part of personal growth. Also this is only an opinion piece: recognizing the diversity of Indigenous teachings, governance and lived experiences means that Indigenous people will have different interpretations of this topic. "
When grandmothers and knowledge keepers say it, I tend to think it means more the stewardship and protection of mother earth. When Indigenous political leaders say it, it often means comprehensive land claims and self-governing agreements. No matter what meaning is attached, we as Indigenous nations have an urge to reconnect with our land in meaningful ways.
This is primarily about the First Nations of Turtle Island, but I believe the premise of it applies to all indigenous people harmed by colonialism worldwide. Simply apply this logic to the place where you are.
And it's a Very good starting point for understanding the concept of Landback. It has some ways you can start supporting Landback and even lists accounts to follow. Please click and read though it~
Don't look away from us. Don't ignore the Oklahoman queer community. Don't ignore the indigiqueer community. Don't forget Nex Benedict and the future they should have been entitled to.
Reminder that associating hair length with gender is not a culturally universal concept and that many indigenous folks in North America don’t cut their hair for cultural reasons that have nothing to do with gender.
Reminder that a native guy should be allowed to wear his hair in long braids without people calling it gender nonconformity or saying he’s breaking gender norms, because hair length has nothing to do with his gender norms.
Reminder that a queer native woman should be allowed to wear her hair long without being automatically read as femme presenting, that she can be butch with long hair, because long hair is not associated with femininity in her culture.
Reminder that many native folks cut their hair for solemn reasons, usually mourning, and remarking on it as a reflection of personal style or gender presentation can be deeply disrespectful. No, she didn’t just get a fierce butch haircut - she cut her hair because someone died. No, he didn’t cave to a gender conforming haircut - he cut his hair because someone died.
Reminder that this is not universally practiced by native folks and, like all cultural practices, some people are more strict in their adherence than others.
I'm Algonquin/Ojibwe and this is a spirit that comes from our teachings.
As a young child, the elders taught me to never even SPEAK its name, to not even sing its songs. When we sang a song about it during drumming group one year, we all got in trouble.
You do not spell the word or speak the word.
It's NOT a "cryptid" or a "spooky story" for white people to appropriate.
Its bearly spoken about in our own communities, and even then, only very carefully.
Again, not because its "creepy" but because its respected and something in our traditions that is not played around with; so its certainly not for non-ojibwe/algonquin people to speak about whatsoever. Period.
Biden creates a new national monument near the Grand Canyon - https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192622716/biden-national-monument-grand-canyon-arizona
The move protects lands that are sacred to indigenous peoples and permanently bans new uranium mining claims in the area. It covers nearly 1 million acres.
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"It will help protect lands that many tribes referred to as their eternal home, a place of healing and a source of spiritual sustenance," she said. "It will help ensure that indigenous peoples can continue to use these areas for religious ceremonies, hunting and gathering of plants, medicines and other materials, including some found nowhere else on earth. It will protect objects of historic and scientific importance for the benefit of tribes, the public and for future generations."
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The new national monument will be called Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument. According to the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition that drafted a proposal for the monument, "Baaj Nwaavjo" means "where tribes roam" in Havasupai, and "I'tah Kukveni" translates to "our ancestral footprints" in Hopi.
all land is sacred (and should be returned) but this is good news.
My family has gotten scammmed by white people from our bnk they want fuckin 3000 from us and theyr takin away the only thing keeping us afloat. and im telling you right now that bein poor on the rez is Not Great. So! donate to not let a native family go homeless! I am begging you.
Blood quantum is how much native blood you have in you and it needs to be a certain threshold to qualify you as a tribal member. Blood quantum varies from tribe to tribe.
It means my mom is a tribal member but because my dad is outside of my tribe... I don't have enough tribal blood to enroll. Neither does my daughter. Our "official" indigeneity ended with me.
My dad is still native tho. Just southern native. Others have two parents enrolled in separate tribes and can't enroll in either one despite being Full native because their parents were mixed with other tribes so they don't have enough blood of Any tribe to qualify.
And to what end are they doing this?
Under the treaties the US govt can lay no claim to native land. So how do they fix that? Get rid of the natives, of course.
And since they can't slaughter us in broad daylight anymore they did the next best thing. What the colonial government has ALWAYS done to us and other poc.
Made up a bunch of arbitrary laws to restrain and limit our power and numbers.
And this can't continue. We are the only race who needs to apply to be part of the community we were born into. The only race who needs to prove our blood.
And that's the thing: it's not even based on blood. Racist scientists defined who was a full-blooded native based on things like shoe size, head circumference, and skin pigment.
Not blood. And besides that it wasn't uncommon for outsiders to become part of a tribe!! You didn't need to be native by blood to be native! Blood quantum has made it IMPOSSIBLE for them to qualify and made it impossible for tribes to practice that long time aspect of our culture.
So please share this post. So many people legitimately think natives are extinct and even less are aware that we do more than just sit around drinking all day. Few people have good feelings about us and within that there are a few who actively help. Please be one of those few.
We need support and allies and for our voices to be heard. Please don't let this post just be me screaming into a void. We need people to know what blood quantum is, how archaic and harmful it is, and to help us spread awareness to people who otherwise would ignore us. Use your privilege.
okay some of yall are just ignoring natives at this point where is the outcry??? how loud do we have to scream? how many of us have to go missing or be found dead before you start screaming with us?
please sign the petition to let us keep our children! and educate yourself on the true history of turtle island: hint, you gotta talk to real natives to get the true story. history is written by the victors.
finally sharing my piece from the evening star zine! find out more about it's meaning and see other beautiful art in the @ntvzine!
i'm doing so to ask all of you to consider taking a moment to submit a comment to the army corps of engineers asking them to prevent the dakota access pipeline from crossing underneath lake oahe!!! comments end december 13th, and using the pre-fabbed letter that the standing rock tribe provides takes mere seconds of your time!! if you're feeling more charitable with your time, writing a unique comment helps immensely!
if you're seeing this after dec 13th - consider checking out the zine this comes from - all proceeds go to AISES, which is an organization that helps native americans in STEM (which includes conservation work!)