Indigenous ethnic groups of the United States and Canada
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Episode 16 - Part 1 - Bigfoot/Sasquatch Indigenous Wisdom Teachings - Issac Murdoch What- Taken from a Webinar previously recorded via Zoom on February 6th, 2025 Sasquatch, Sabe, Bigfoot – Known by Many Names Indigenous Wisdom Teachings Webinar Join us as we explore the mysteries of the land, water, and spiritual beings with esteemed Knowledge Holders: Who- Isaac Murdoch whose Ojibway name is Manzinapkinegego'anaabe Bombgiizhik is from the fish clan and is from Serpent River First Nation. Isaac grew up in the traditional setting of hunting, fishing and trapping. Many of these years were spent learning from Elders in the northern regions of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Isaac is well respected as a storyteller and traditional knowledge holder. For many years he has led various workshops and cultural camps that focuses on the transfer of knowledge to youth. Other areas of expertise include: traditional ojibway paint, imagery/symbolism, harvesting, medicine walks, & ceremonial knowledge, cultural camps, Anishinaabeg oral history, birch bark canoe making, birch bark scrolls, Youth & Elders workshops, etc. He has committed his life to the preservation of Anishinaabe cultural practices and has spent years learning directly from Elders. Music - Song: Escape, Composer: Sappheiros, Website: https:// open.spotify.com/artist/5ZVHXQZAIn9WJXvy6qn9K0 License: Creative Commons (BY 3.0) https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Indigenous Medicine Stories: Anishinaabe mshkiki nwii-dbaaddaan
This episode features Dr. Marlene Pierre and Jeordi Pierre of S.O.I.L. - The School for Indigenous Learning in Neebing, Ontario. Dr. Marlene Pierre is a respected Elder and community leader from Thunder Bay, deeply rooted in her Anishinaabe heritage. With decades of experience in education, healthcare, and cultural preservation, Dr. Pierre has dedicated her life to revitalizing Indigenous knowledge and traditions. Jeordi Pierre, son of Dr. Marlene Pierre, is a dedicated advocate for Indigenous education and cultural preservation. Raised in Thunder Bay, Jeordi has been immersed in the teachings of his Anishinaabe heritage from a young age. He co-founded the School of Indigenous Learning alongside his mother to ensure that future generations have access to the wisdom of their ancestors. The School of Indigenous Learning offers a cultural environment rooted in Anishinaabeg traditional knowledge and land-based survival skills, embracing the "old way" of life. It is a place where individuals can grow and learn from within, fostering empowerment, self-reliance, and self-confidence. By reconnecting with Mother Earth, who provides everything we need to survive, we can walk the path of a good life in harmony with nature. indlearning.ca amshealthcare.ca
In Episode 8 Tommy and Lawrence chat with the venerable James Delorme, VP of Community Development at Salish Elements. James is one of our most fun yet most insightful guests. He brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into helping us understand what is meant by an Indigenous lens on all things technology, collaboration, innovation, and co-operation. James also helps us think through what is at stake and what is meant by decolonization, and one of it's remedies: Indigenization. Thank you all for your patience during our prolonged absence. Tommy took some time to prioritize family and health, but we're back and more grateful than ever to be resuming our journey together. James is a wonderful fit for resuming our exploration of Digital Indigeneity so sit back, relax, and enjoy! Gila'kasla! Follow us on Twitter: Wtncast Follow your co-hosts: Tommy | Al | Lawrence A very special thanks to Compulsion Soundlabs for sharing their musical talent, which you are hearing as the intro and outro music in this series! Subscribe for updates Email: wtncast@gmail.com Follow us on Apple Music and Spotify Tommy and Al respectfully acknowledge that this show is recorded and produced on the traditional, unceded territories of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Chonnonton, and Lūnaapéewak peoples. London, Ontario, Canada is situated on their lands, a beautiful place that Tommy and Al are privileged to call home. Through this series, Tommy and Al aim to share their platform to create progressive, safe, and inclusive space to share the wisdoms, lessons, and experiences of Indigenous peoples from sea, to sea, to sea - in hopes of finding meaningful avenues to co-exist and function together online, in the spirit of love, courage, kindness, and reconciliation.
Michael Benarroch is joined by Professor Julienne Stroeve, a renowned climate change researcher. She is a professor in the University of Manitoba's Center for Earth Observation Science and a senior Canada 150 research chair in climate forcing of sea ice. Professor Stroeve has briefed US Vice President Al Gore, US congressional staff, and the World Economic Forum on her research.In this episode, Professor Stroeve stresses that changes are happening at a much faster rate than we have expected and urges governments to act now. For more information, visit the podcast's website. The episode features clips from: CNN, CBC and BBC. About the host:Michael Benarroch became President of the University of Manitoba on July 1, 2020. Throughout his career, Dr. Benarroch has demonstrated his lifelong dedication to transformative higher education and has made significant contributions to the fields of economics, research, and post-secondary administration. A passionate teacher and researcher, he has taught economics at Canadian universities since 1989. His career includes serving as Provost and Vice-President (Academic) at Toronto Metropolitan University (2017-2020), Dean of the I.H. Asper School of Business (2011-2017) and 21-years with the University of Winnipeg, where he was chair of the department of Economics (1999 - 2007). About the University of Manitoba:For more than 140 years, the University of Manitoba has delivered life-changing learning experiences for students, conducted world-class research and shared knowledge and discovery to shape our province, country and world. UM is western Canada's flagship university, Manitoba's only research-intensive university, is located on the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis.
Michael Benarroch is joined by Dr. Meghan Azad, Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of Manitoba with cross appointments in immunology and food and human nutritional sciences. Dr. Azad studies the science of breast milk and is one of the world's foremost experts on the wonderful substance.In this episode, they explore why breast milk matters to all of us, and explain how The Manitoba Interdisciplinary Lactation Centre (MILC) is at the forefront of human milk and infant feeding research.About the host:Michael Benarroch became President of the University of Manitoba on July 1, 2020. Throughout his career, Dr. Benarroch has demonstrated his lifelong dedication to transformative higher education and has made significant contributions to the fields of economics, research, and post-secondary administration. A passionate teacher and researcher, he has taught economics at Canadian universities since 1989. His career includes serving as Provost and Vice-President (Academic) at Toronto Metropolitan University (2017-2020), Dean of the I.H. Asper School of Business (2011-2017) and 21-years with the University of Winnipeg, where he was chair of the department of Economics (1999 - 2007).About the University of Manitoba:For more than 140 years, the University of Manitoba has delivered life-changing learning experiences for students, conducted world-class research and shared knowledge and discovery to shape our province, country and world. UM is western Canada's flagship university, Manitoba's only research-intensive university, is located on the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis.An Everything Podcasts production.
Indigenous Medicine Stories: Anishinaabe mshkiki nwii-dbaaddaan
This episode features Isaac Murdoch, also known by his Ojibwe name Manzinapkinegego'anaabe / Bombgiizhik, who hails from the Fish Clan and belongs to the Serpent River First Nation. Raised in the traditional lifestyle of hunting, fishing, and trapping, he dedicated many years to learning from Elders in the northern regions of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Isaac is highly regarded as a storyteller and custodian of traditional knowledge. Over the years, he has taken a leading role in organizing workshops and cultural camps, with a particular focus on passing down wisdom to the younger generation. His expertise extends to various areas, including traditional Ojibwe paint, imagery and symbolism, harvesting, medicine walks, ceremonial knowledge, cultural camps, Anishinaabeg oral history, birch bark canoe making, birch bark scrolls, and facilitating Youth & Elders workshops. Isaac has devoted his life to preserving Anishinaabe cultural practices, investing significant time in direct learning from Elders. https://isaacmurdoch.com/ www.amshealthcare.com
In this episode, Michael Benarroch speaks to Dr. Nazim Cicek whose big ideas are proving that it doesn't have to cost the earth to feed the world. He's a professor in the Department of Biosystems Engineering and Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Science. Michael and Nazim explore how research is advancing sustainable agriculture to address food shortages and the climate crisis.About the host:Michael Benarroch became President of the University of Manitoba on July 1, 2020. Throughout his career, Dr. Benarroch has demonstrated his lifelong dedication to transformative higher education and has made significant contributions to the fields of economics, research, and post-secondary administration. A passionate teacher and researcher, he has taught economics at Canadian universities since 1989. His career includes serving as Provost and Vice-President (Academic) at Toronto Metropolitan University (2017-2020), Dean of the I.H. Asper School of Business (2011-2017) and 21-years with the University of Winnipeg, where he was chair of the department of Economics (1999 - 2007). About the University of Manitoba:For more than 140 years, the University of Manitoba has delivered life-changing learning experiences for students, conducted world-class research and shared knowledge and discovery to shape our province, country and world. UM is western Canada's flagship university, Manitoba's only research-intensive university, is located on the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis.An Everything Podcasts production.
Michael Benarroch sits down with Dr. Joss Reimer, Chief Medical Officer for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and someone who not only led Manitoba's COVID-19 vaccine implementation task force but has worked tirelessly to end the stigma around mental illness. Together, they explore how Dr. Reimer's personal experiences have affected her work around mental health, and why we all need to create more supportive environments in the workplace. For more information, visit the podcast's website. Read Dr Joss Reimer's article ‘Running because of — not away from — depression' in the Winnipeg Free Press here. About the host:Michael Benarroch became President of the University of Manitoba on July 1, 2020. Throughout his career, Dr. Benarroch has demonstrated his lifelong dedication to transformative higher education and has made significant contributions to the fields of economics, research, and post-secondary administration. A passionate teacher and researcher, he has taught economics at Canadian universities since 1989. His career includes serving as Provost and Vice-President (Academic) at Toronto Metropolitan University (2017-2020), Dean of the I.H. Asper School of Business (2011-2017) and 21-years with the University of Winnipeg, where he was chair of the department of Economics (1999 - 2007). About the University of Manitoba:For more than 140 years, the University of Manitoba has delivered life-changing learning experiences for students, conducted world-class research and shared knowledge and discovery to shape our province, country and world. UM is western Canada's flagship university, Manitoba's only research-intensive university, is located on the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis.An Everything Podcasts production.
Now in his 60s, Louis Koszas remembers his time as a ward of the Children's Aid Society. In and out of many homes, Koszas reflects on some experiences that still affect him today. https://u-channel.ca/we-stand-together/ Over 130 residential schools operated in Canada. The first federal residential school began around 1883; the last closed in 1996. We Stand Together invites Indian residential school and day school survivors, 60's Scoop, and intergenerational survivors to share their truth. This project is an opportunity for those on their journeys of healing to share their experiences and perspectives so all can learn about the effects of residential and day schools and the challenges Indigenous communities still face. U Multicultural is located on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada through Canadian Heritage.
Circles for Reconciliation is an organization to establish trusting, meaningful relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Grace and Debbie from Circles share the fantastic work of the organization and what personal reconciliation looks like. https://u-channel.ca/we-stand-together/ Over 130 residential schools operated in Canada. The first federal residential school began around 1883; the last closed in 1996. We Stand Together invites Indian residential school and day school survivors, 60's Scoop, and intergenerational survivors to share their truth. This project is an opportunity for those on their journeys of healing to share their experiences and perspectives so all can learn about the effects of residential and day schools and the challenges Indigenous communities still face. U Multicultural is located on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada through Canadian Heritage.
Diandre Thomas-Hart, Young Woman Who Stands Among The Eagles, was given the Crane Clan and grew up in Winnipeg's North End. She has been urban her entire life. Hart's mother was a 60s Scoop survivor, and her father has many within his family who are survivors of the Indian residential school system. https://u-channel.ca/we-stand-together/ Over 130 residential schools operated in Canada. The first federal residential school began around 1883; the last closed in 1996. We Stand Together invites Indian residential school and day school survivors, 60's Scoop, and intergenerational survivors to share their truth. This project is an opportunity for those on their journeys of healing to share their experiences and perspectives so all can learn about the effects of residential and day schools and the challenges Indigenous communities still face. U Multicultural is located on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada through Canadian Heritage.
Gloria is an intergenerational survivor and a survivor of the 60s Scoop. Her late mother was a survivor of the Canadian Indian residential school system. Gloria experienced tremendous discrimination and racism growing up, experiencing it from the nuns who taught on the reserve and from classmates when she eventually moved to Winnipeg. https://u-channel.ca/we-stand-together/ Over 130 residential schools operated in Canada. The first federal residential school began around 1883; the last closed in 1996. We Stand Together invites Indian residential school and day school survivors, 60's Scoop, and intergenerational survivors to share their truth. This project is an opportunity for those on their journeys of healing to share their experiences and perspectives so all can learn about the effects of residential and day schools and the challenges Indigenous communities still face. U Multicultural is located on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada through Canadian Heritage.
Geraldine "Gramma" Shingoose is a residential school survivor who attended Muscowequan Residential School from 1962 to 1971. An Elder in her community, she has seen the effects of residential school, day school, the 60s Scoop, racism, and discrimination on the Indigenous peoples of Canada. https://u-channel.ca/we-stand-together/ Over 130 residential schools operated in Canada. The first federal residential school began around 1883; the last closed in 1996. We Stand Together invites Indian residential school and day school survivors, 60's Scoop, and intergenerational survivors to share their truth. This project is an opportunity for those on their journeys of healing to share their experiences and perspectives so all can learn about the effects of residential and day schools and the challenges Indigenous communities still face. U Multicultural is located on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada through Canadian Heritage.
Kelly Houle's family is from Sandy Bay First Nation, but she has lived in Winnipeg most of her life. Houle has had a difficult life, struggling with mental health and addictions after the abuse she experienced within the Canadian residential school System. https://u-channel.ca/we-stand-together/ Over 130 residential schools operated in Canada. The first federal residential school began around 1883; the last closed in 1996. We Stand Together invites Indian residential school and day school survivors, 60's Scoop, and intergenerational survivors to share their truth. This project is an opportunity for those on their journeys of healing to share their experiences and perspectives so all can learn about the effects of residential and day schools and the challenges Indigenous communities still face. U Multicultural is located on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada through Canadian Heritage.
In Episode 7 we speak to Melissa Giles-Hardy, owner, President, and CEO of ORIGIN - a company that design, develops, and delivers technology experiences to drive employment while also protecting and promoting culture for Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. It's no surprise that Melissa is recipient of multiple awards, including the 2021 RBC Innovative Company of the Year award, the Indigenomics Top 10 Business's To Watch in Canada, the 2019 Northern Ontario, Influential Women's Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and the Confederation College President's Award in 2019 - as well as a nominee for the 2019 Ontario Premier Award. As you can see, Melissa is not only a passionate innovator. She is also a passionate community member who is motivated to use technology, specifically Virtual Reality, to do many amazing things: to provide Indigenous youth in remote communities opportunities to learn about new jobs, to train Indigenous peoples to do new jobs or upskill in certain areas, and to also record, preserve, and create interactive VR-based media content that protects and promotes Indigenous cultural practices, learnings, and lessons. For example, using a VR headset to interact with Elders providing the viewer a language lesson. This is one of our favourite episodes. It is full of incredibly powerful insights and advice. We're honoured to have Melissa on the show. Gila'kasla! Follow us on Twitter: Wtncast Follow your co-hosts: Tommy | Al | Lawrence A very special thanks to Compulsion Soundlabs for sharing their musical talent, which you are hearing as the intro and outro music in this series! Subscribe for updates Email: wtncast@gmail.com Follow us on Apple Music and Spotify Tommy and Al respectfully acknowledge that this show is recorded and produced on the traditional, unceded territories of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Chonnonton, and Lūnaapéewak peoples. London, Ontario, Canada is situated on their lands, a beautiful place that Tommy and Al are privileged to call home. Through this series, Tommy and Al aim to share their platform to create progressive, safe, and inclusive space to share the wisdoms, lessons, and experiences of Indigenous peoples from sea, to sea, to sea - in hopes of finding meaningful avenues to co-exist and function together online, in the spirit of love, courage, kindness, and reconciliation.
Candice is back on the main feed, asking for help as she deconstructs the striking overlap between cult dynamics and colonial harm. Inspired by the work of BIPOC educators and anti-racism activists, she explores how social location factors into collective cult recovery. Then, artist, activist, and educator, Aleyah-Erin Lennon joins Candice for the first half of a two-part conversation that explores what it might mean, if we, as white women in the world were to take radical responsibility. Aleyah identifies as a second-generation diasporic Irish descendant and white settler Canadian who has lived her entire life in the territories of Anishinaabeg nations. She has been privileged to work alongside and learn from Indigenous communities across the Great Lakes region for the last 15 years in service to their ecological and educational visions. Together, Aleyah and Candice explore what unconscious colonial identities have in common with the cult mindset, picking apart what it might actually mean to break free from the cult of whiteness. Aleyah shares about her background and how a search for spiritual community inspired her to take up decolonizing identity work, and she cites the wisdom of Indigenous mentors who have generously offered their consent and support for this conversation. Decolonization is defined in the context of intergenerational healing on all sides of the colonial and racial divide. Aleyah shares how a threefold methodology of deep listening, critical self-reflection, and embodied action can guide us toward relational accountability. Aleyah shares how reclaiming a connection to her ancestral roots has been pivotal to her living activism and points to how we all might find a deeper sense of meaning and recovery as we grapple with where we're headed.Aleyah-Erin Lennon (she/her) is a scholar, speaker, poet and musician. Through an anti-colonial and trauma-informed lens, her focus is on healing the disconnection and abuses in the trilogy of our relationships to Self, Others, and Land. Created in partnership with Indigenous Elders, knowledge holders, and friends, her published work weaves diverse cultural narratives, story sharing, and poetry into a landscape of questions concerning our sense of identity and belonging.Referenced in this episode:White Privilege, Quantified - Joe PinskerMy Grandmother's Hands - Resmaa MenekamSacred Water Circle – Elder Dorothy TaylorNibi Emosaawdamajig – Dr. Elder Shirley WilliamsCircle of All Nations – Algonquin Elder Grandfather William Commanda-baSupport the showThe stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates.
Indigenous Medicine Stories: Anishinaabe mshkiki nwii-dbaaddaan
This episode is the second part, featuring Jim Dumont, also known as Onaubinisay, meaning Walks Above the Ground. Jim Dumont is an internationally renowned Elder, speaker and traditional knowledge keeper. He is known as the Gichi-aya'aag, the Elder of the Elders and the Eastern Doorway of The Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge. In 2011, Jim was awarded a Doctor of Sacred Letters, the first of its kind at the University of Sudbury for his work in establishing the Department of Native Studies and designing and delivering the Indigenous knowledge courses. In 2015, he received a Doctorate of Anishinaabeg philosophy from the Seventh Generation Institute, and the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium. In this podcast episode, Jim talks about the start of his journey and learning about Indigenous knowledge and his pioneering work in returning to our original ways. https://www.ams-inc.on.ca/ Indigenous Medicine Stories Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/2ztjj63h Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/ycx53d5z Amazon Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/4fdebkbb
Tom Cull joins Andrew to reconnect and talk about his new poetry collection, Kill Your Starlings. Andrew asks about elegies and IKEA. It's a good one! ----- Listen to more episodes of Page Fright here. Follow the podcast on Twitter here. ----- Tom Cull was born and raised in Huron County in Treaty 29 territory. He currently resides in London, Ontario, on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Attawandaron and Huron-Wendat peoples. Tom works at the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority and teaches creative writing at Western University. He was the Poet Laureate for the City of London from 2016-2018. Tom is the author of two books of poems: Kill Your Starlings (Gaspereau Press, 2023) and Bad Animals (Insomniac Press, 2018). His chapbook, What the Badger Said, was published in 2013 (Baseline Press). His work has appeared in several journals, and anthologies including This Magazine, The Rusty Toque, Long Con Magazine, The Windsor Review, The New Quarterly, The Dalhousie Review, and Undocumented: Great Lakes Poet Laureates on Social Justice (Michigan State UP). His work has also been included in group exhibitions through Embassy Cultural House, and GardenShip and State. Cull is the director of Antler River Rally (ARR), a grass roots environmental group he co-founded in 2012 with his partner Miriam Love. ARR works to protect and restore the Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River). ----- Andrew French is an author from North Vancouver, British Columbia. They have published two chapbooks, Poems for Different Yous (Rose Garden Press, 2021) and Do Not Discard Ashes (845Press, 2020). Andrew holds a BA in English from Huron University College at Western University and an MA in English from UBC. They write poems, book reviews, and host this very podcast.
Indigenous Medicine Stories: Anishinaabe mshkiki nwii-dbaaddaan
This episode features Jim Dumont, also known as Onaubinisay, meaning Walks Above the Ground. Jim Dumont is an internationally renowned Elder, speaker and traditional knowledge keeper. He is known as the Gichi-aya'aag, the Elder of the Elders and the Eastern Doorway of The Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge. In 2011, Jim was awarded a Doctor of Sacred Letters, the first of its kind at the University of Sudbury for his work in establishing the Department of Native Studies and designing and delivering the Indigenous knowledge courses. In 2015, he received a Doctorate of Anishinaabeg philosophy from the Seventh Generation Institute, and the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium. In this podcast episode, Jim talks about the start of his journey and learning about Indigenous knowledge and his pioneering work in returning to our original ways. https://www.ams-inc.on.ca/ Indigenous Medicine Stories Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/2ztjj63h Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/ycx53d5z Amazon Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/4fdebkbb
The myriad of indigenous communities in Canada share a painful history. But today, Canada's indigenous artists are using music, from rock to round dance, to interrogate still-felt horrors, to heal, and to share stories, culture and languages that were violently suppressed for decades. In Toronto, the traditional territory of the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and many other nations, we meet Jeremy Dutcher. His debut album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, is sung entirely in the language of his Wolastoq community, and is a mix of opera, pop melodies and piano. In the city of London, the traditional territory of peoples such as the Attawandaron and Anishinaabeg, Anishinaabe musician Adam Sturgeon puts healing at the forefront of his bands Status/Non-Status and Ombiigizi's artistic vision. Further west, in Winnipeg, lives composer Melody McKiver. They are an assistant professor of Indigenous Music at the University of Manitoba, where they are putting together courses to educate students on indigenous history, through the lens of music. They are a member of the Obishikokaang First Nation. Even further west, in the Treaty 6 territory of Alberta, lives Fawn Wood. A Plains Cree and Salish Tribes traditional singer, Fawn is one of the first female indigenous musicians to use a hand drum in her music. Producer: Sasha Edye-Lindner A Just Radio production for BBC World Service (Photo: GasS. Credit: Matthew Wiewel)
Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio ShowNative Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community. Derek Nicholas: Indigenous Fare for Future GenerationsLeah and Cole have a conversation with Derek Nicholas (Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe) about food sovereignty and Indigenous cooking. Derek shares his experiences as the Nutrition Program Coordinator at the Division of Indian Work in Minneapolis; his views on culturally, seasonally appropriate foods; and about the growing, multi-faceted Indigenous food community. Derek authored the book Eating with the Seasons, Anishinaabeg, Great Lakes Region and is planning to start a non-profit cultural camp to gather, grow and cook Indigenous foods and connect future generations to cultural traditions of all types. He's also the founder of Wiisinig LLC, a platform to showcase his food sovereignty work. Chi-Miigwech to Derek for sharing with us today! Find Wiisinig online: https://www.wiisinigllc.com/ Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota's Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/
In this episode I speak with author Wendy Makoons Geniusz about Anishinaabe botanical knowledge in terms of how colonization affects the Anishinaabeg botanical teachings. Makoons provides examples of how colonizers usurp indigenous botanical knowledge to continue to fuel their imperialistic efforts, even to current times. Also, learn about efforts currently taking place of indigenous people reclaiming botanical knowledge.
Follow Frankie on social media. She's on Instagram @frankieisswell and Twitter @frankieisswellAnd check out her podcasts! Read and Buried can be found on all finest podcatchers. And on Instagram @readandburiedpodcast and Twiiter @readburiedpodLabours of Hercule is now available on Apple Podcast and SpotifyOn Instagram @laboursofhercule and Twitter @laboursherculeIf you want to see the music I mentioned, go to michaelwboyce.com/geek4As always, you can follow me on Twitter @mwboyce and Instagram @mwboyce and follow my website michaelwboyce.com/geek4You can follow the podcast on Twitter @geek4pod and on Instagram @geek4podIf you liked the show, hit Subscribe and please consider leaving a 5 star review. The more reviews we have, the more we show up in searches. Somehow. I think magic. Or, tell a friend. Word of mouth is still an effective advertising tool. I respectfully acknowledge that I live in and work on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
If you want to see trailers for films Larry's worked on or mentioned in this episode, go to the Geek4 websiteA huge thank you to Adam Roche for connecting Larry and me! If you're interested in Larry's screenwriting classes and workshops, check out https://www.thewilsonworkshop.com. You couldn't learn from a better teacher. Follow me on Twitter @mwboyce and Instagram @mwboyce and follow my website michaelwboyce.com/geek4You can follow the podcast on Twitter @geek4pod and on Instagram @geek4podIf you liked the show, hit Subscribe and please consider leaving a 5 star review. The more reviews we have, the more we show up in searches. Somehow. I think magic. Or, tell a friend. Word of mouth is still an effective advertising tool. I respectfully acknowledge that I live in and work on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining much of their land in the Old Northwest—what's now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers of natural resources and buyers of trade goods, which made them key players in the political economy of plunder that drove white settlement and US development in the region. But, as Michael Witgen demonstrates in Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America (Omohundro Institute/UNC Press, 2021), the credit for Native persistence rested with the Anishinaabeg themselves. Outnumbering white settlers well into the nineteenth century, they leveraged their political savvy to advance a dual citizenship that enabled mixed-race tribal members to lay claim to a place in US civil society. Telling the stories of mixed-race traders and missionaries, tribal leaders and territorial governors, Witgen challenges our assumptions about the inevitability of US expansion. John Cable is assistant professor of history at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. He earned the Ph.D. in history at Florida State University in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining much of their land in the Old Northwest—what's now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers of natural resources and buyers of trade goods, which made them key players in the political economy of plunder that drove white settlement and US development in the region. But, as Michael Witgen demonstrates in Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America (Omohundro Institute/UNC Press, 2021), the credit for Native persistence rested with the Anishinaabeg themselves. Outnumbering white settlers well into the nineteenth century, they leveraged their political savvy to advance a dual citizenship that enabled mixed-race tribal members to lay claim to a place in US civil society. Telling the stories of mixed-race traders and missionaries, tribal leaders and territorial governors, Witgen challenges our assumptions about the inevitability of US expansion. John Cable is assistant professor of history at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. He earned the Ph.D. in history at Florida State University in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining much of their land in the Old Northwest—what's now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers of natural resources and buyers of trade goods, which made them key players in the political economy of plunder that drove white settlement and US development in the region. But, as Michael Witgen demonstrates in Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America (Omohundro Institute/UNC Press, 2021), the credit for Native persistence rested with the Anishinaabeg themselves. Outnumbering white settlers well into the nineteenth century, they leveraged their political savvy to advance a dual citizenship that enabled mixed-race tribal members to lay claim to a place in US civil society. Telling the stories of mixed-race traders and missionaries, tribal leaders and territorial governors, Witgen challenges our assumptions about the inevitability of US expansion. John Cable is assistant professor of history at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. He earned the Ph.D. in history at Florida State University in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/native-american-studies
Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining much of their land in the Old Northwest—what's now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers of natural resources and buyers of trade goods, which made them key players in the political economy of plunder that drove white settlement and US development in the region. But, as Michael Witgen demonstrates in Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America (Omohundro Institute/UNC Press, 2021), the credit for Native persistence rested with the Anishinaabeg themselves. Outnumbering white settlers well into the nineteenth century, they leveraged their political savvy to advance a dual citizenship that enabled mixed-race tribal members to lay claim to a place in US civil society. Telling the stories of mixed-race traders and missionaries, tribal leaders and territorial governors, Witgen challenges our assumptions about the inevitability of US expansion. John Cable is assistant professor of history at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. He earned the Ph.D. in history at Florida State University in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining much of their land in the Old Northwest—what's now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers of natural resources and buyers of trade goods, which made them key players in the political economy of plunder that drove white settlement and US development in the region. But, as Michael Witgen demonstrates in Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America (Omohundro Institute/UNC Press, 2021), the credit for Native persistence rested with the Anishinaabeg themselves. Outnumbering white settlers well into the nineteenth century, they leveraged their political savvy to advance a dual citizenship that enabled mixed-race tribal members to lay claim to a place in US civil society. Telling the stories of mixed-race traders and missionaries, tribal leaders and territorial governors, Witgen challenges our assumptions about the inevitability of US expansion. John Cable is assistant professor of history at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. He earned the Ph.D. in history at Florida State University in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining much of their land in the Old Northwest—what's now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers of natural resources and buyers of trade goods, which made them key players in the political economy of plunder that drove white settlement and US development in the region. But, as Michael Witgen demonstrates in Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America (Omohundro Institute/UNC Press, 2021), the credit for Native persistence rested with the Anishinaabeg themselves. Outnumbering white settlers well into the nineteenth century, they leveraged their political savvy to advance a dual citizenship that enabled mixed-race tribal members to lay claim to a place in US civil society. Telling the stories of mixed-race traders and missionaries, tribal leaders and territorial governors, Witgen challenges our assumptions about the inevitability of US expansion. John Cable is assistant professor of history at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. He earned the Ph.D. in history at Florida State University in 2020.
Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining much of their land in the Old Northwest—what's now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers of natural resources and buyers of trade goods, which made them key players in the political economy of plunder that drove white settlement and US development in the region. But, as Michael Witgen demonstrates in Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America (Omohundro Institute/UNC Press, 2021), the credit for Native persistence rested with the Anishinaabeg themselves. Outnumbering white settlers well into the nineteenth century, they leveraged their political savvy to advance a dual citizenship that enabled mixed-race tribal members to lay claim to a place in US civil society. Telling the stories of mixed-race traders and missionaries, tribal leaders and territorial governors, Witgen challenges our assumptions about the inevitability of US expansion. John Cable is assistant professor of history at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. He earned the Ph.D. in history at Florida State University in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining much of their land in the Old Northwest—what's now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers of natural resources and buyers of trade goods, which made them key players in the political economy of plunder that drove white settlement and US development in the region. But, as Michael Witgen demonstrates in Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America (Omohundro Institute/UNC Press, 2021), the credit for Native persistence rested with the Anishinaabeg themselves. Outnumbering white settlers well into the nineteenth century, they leveraged their political savvy to advance a dual citizenship that enabled mixed-race tribal members to lay claim to a place in US civil society. Telling the stories of mixed-race traders and missionaries, tribal leaders and territorial governors, Witgen challenges our assumptions about the inevitability of US expansion. John Cable is assistant professor of history at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. He earned the Ph.D. in history at Florida State University in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day
You can see some of the stuff Frankie talks about (tattoos, stolen Poirot beer and mug, the Poirot diorama at The Geek4 websiteYou can follow Frankie on social media at Instagram @frankieisswell and Twitter @frankieisswellAnd check out her podcasts! Read and Buriedon all fine podcatchers On Instagram @readandburiedpodcast and Twiiter @readburiedpodLabours of Hercule is coming soon to all the finest podcatchers On Instagram @laboursofhercule and Twitter @laboursherculeFollow me on Twitter @mwboyce and Instagram @mwboyce and follow my website michaelwboyce.com/geek4You can follow the podcast on Twitter @geek4pod and on Instagram @geek4podIf you liked the show, hit Subscribe and please consider leaving a 5 star review. The more reviews we have, the more we show up in searches. Somehow. I think magic. Or, tell a friend. Word of mouth is still an effective advertising tool. I respectfully acknowledge that I live in and work on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
You can follow Sally-Anne on Twitter @SA_Bedford; on Instagram at @sabedfordauthor; and on Facebook. She often posts delightful pictures of her animals. The Cure will be published in Fall 2022. Watch for it. You should also sign up for her Substack for her amazing newsletters. It's great. Follow me on Twitter @mwboyce and Instagram @mwboyce and follow my website michaelwboyce.com/geek4You can follow the podcast on Twitter @geek4pod and on Instagram @geek4podIf you liked the show, hit Subscribe and please consider leaving a 5 star review. The more reviews we have, the more we show up in searches. Somehow. I think magic. Or, tell a friend. Word of mouth is still an effective advertising tool. I respectfully acknowledge that I live in and work on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
Welcome to the pilot for the Gigashki'ewizimin podcast which in Ojibwe means “We can do things because of our power”. Gigashki'ewizimin celebrates Anishinaabeg identity - specifically Anishinaabemowin, land and law. In this first episode knowledge-keeper Elaine Fleming, of Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe member, shares the Anishinaabeg creation story and why it is important to Indigenous identity. Colonization disrupted the lives and the sharing of stories in many nations. Host and podcast creator Tamika-Jo Andy, chats with Elaine about how their stories were traditionally passed down and what is now being done to keep them safe. Gigashki'ewizimin was created and hosted by Tamika-Jo Andy, of Big Grassy River First Nation now living in Dakota and Ojiway Territory, Bemidji, Minnesota. It was created as part of the Good Influence Advanced Digital Storytelling and Podcast training program supporting emerging creatives and storytellers with story mentoring by Jolene Banning, of Makwa Creative. Subscribe to the Indigenous 150+ podcast for the next episode. If you enjoyed what you heard please rate the episode which helps it get recommended to others! To learn about Good Influence Films and Indigenous 150+ events: https://goodinfluencefilms.com/podsubscribe
A conversation with many of the artists who created Do You Remember?: playwright Joelle Peters, director Dawn Bird*, actors Nicole Akan, Sam Flamont, Kristin Friday, Liz Johnson, sound designer Tim Bratton, hosted by artistic director Stephen Waldschmidt. With original music by Darryl Dozlaw, Jordan Daniels, Marc Okihcihtaw and Donny Speidel. Gratefully created on Treaty 6 Territory and the traditional homeland of the Métis, and in Toronto, which has been the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat (there are many other First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples that call this place home). If you're listening for the first time, we encourage you to start from episode one. Subscribe or follow so you don't miss an episode. See artist bios, upcoming episodes, and support our work with a donation at https://burntthicket.com. Free to stream on demand on our website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, with English subtitles/closed captions available on our YouTube channel. Audience advisory: Content may not be suitable for children. One way to learn more: Take the Indigenous Canada online course from University of Alberta's Faculty of Native Studies (free, 12 weeks): https://www.coursera.org/learn/indigenous-canada We want to hear what you think – leave a comment on our social media or send your feedback though the widget on our website. Burnt Thicket Theatre is committed to creating spaces for diverse artists to be honest and open about their experiences and perspectives even when those views don't necessarily represent those of Burnt Thicket Theatre as an organization. We invite you as an audience member to lean in to hear those who are different from you, to be brave and to allow the space between all of us to be one of respect. This project is made possible by a Digital Now Grant from Canada Council for the Arts, and by our major sponsors Shercom Industries, SK Arts, and Creative Saskatchewan. *The participation of these Artists is arranged by permission of Canadian Actors' Equity Association under the provisions of the Dance Opera Theatre Policy (DOT), and under ACTRA's National COVID-19 Response Initiative.
Separated by life's forks in the road, childhood friends are reunited by grief. Old wounds strain the bonds they built in years past, despite their desire to reconnect. Sometimes to move forward, we must take a step back. Written by Joelle Peters directed by Dawn Bird* script & production dramaturgy by Yvette Nolan performed by: Nicole Akan (Mouse) Sam Flamont (Porkchop) Liz Johnson (Paula) Kristin Friday (Caroline) sound design, recording and audio production by Tim Bratton stage management by Stephen Waldschmidt original music by Darryl Dozlaw, Jordan Daniels, Marc Okihcihtaw and Donny Speidel image design by Brooklynn Bitner This script's development was also supported by the Indigenous Playwrights Nest at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Kenneth T. Williams, and the Pemmican Collective & Punctuate! Theatre Playwrights' Unit. Gratefully created on Treaty 6 Territory and the traditional homeland of the Métis; on Treaty 7 Territory; on Walpole Island First Nation (unceded territory of Bkejwanong, which translates to Where the Waters Divide), which is the traditional lands of the Three Fire Confederacy: the Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe); and in Toronto, which has been the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat (there are many other First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples that call this place home). If you're listening for the first time, we encourage you to start from episode one. Subscribe or follow so you don't miss an episode. See artist bios, upcoming episodes, and support our work with a donation at https://burntthicket.com. Free to stream on-demand on our website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, with English subtitles/closed captions available on our YouTube channel. Audience advisory: Content may not be suitable for children. One way to learn more: Watch Reservation Dogs, an Indigenous American teen comedy-drama TV series about life on and off reserve, created by Taika Wiatiti & Sterlin Harjo: https://www.disneyplus.com/series/reservation-dogs/17MVZHUGJFZw Or attend ‘Indigenous in the City,' a virtual and in-person symposium from NAIITS at Acadia University, NS, June 2-4, 2022: https://www.naiits.com/symposium2022 We want to hear what you think – leave a comment on our social media or send your feedback through the widget on our website. This project is made possible by a Digital Now Grant from Canada Council for the Arts and by our major sponsors Shercom Industries, SK Arts, and Creative Saskatchewan. *The participation of these Artists is arranged by permission of Canadian Actors' Equity Association under the provisions of the Dance Opera Theatre Policy (DOT), and under ACTRA's National COVID-19 Response Initiative.
Patty Krawec so I just finished reading The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein so then when I came across Hilding, came across Hilding a few weeks ago about Indigenous stargazing. Mi’kmaq astronomer and tell us about yourself and about Indigenous stargazing.Hilding Neilson Yeah, so I'm Hilding, I'm Mi’kmaq and settler from a group in Newfoundland. That's where my family's from the west coast of the island. Got my PhD at the University of Toronto in astrophysics, did some research back as a contract backdating astronomer, working in the Department of Astronomy, just next door to AW Peet. And I've been really interested in trying to bridge a lot of initiatives in astronomy that we don't really talk about that much, which is Indigenous knowledges. If I were to show you a textbook, you know, like a 500 page tome of astronomy knowledge from cosmology, the exoplanet, there'd be two pages on Indigenous knowledges. And we'd be sharing those two pages with Stonehenge, and New Grange in Ireland. And they'll be talking about perhaps the Mayan Astronomy, or maybe Hawai’ian navigators. And it will be spoken about as if we're past tense, as if Indigenous people don't exist. And then it will be like, “now on to the real science.” And, you know, a few years ago, I got to attend a national meeting of Canadian astronomers, and a Cree astronomer educator, Wilfer Buck, was presenting, and he gave a talk to the audience, discussing all these Cree stories, beautiful Cree stories. The Bear constellation with three dog constellation. And us seeing all this knowledge that we don't talk about in academic spaces. And I'm just sitting there wondering like, WTF is our knowledge? Where's Indigenous wisdom, Mi’kmaq knowledge? Where are the constellations? Why don't we talk about that? And so this sort of became of this giant rabbit hole that I've been going through trying to find different knowledges and Indigenous methodologies, and trying to create new space in academic astronomy for more Indigenous knowledges, though, granted, that mostly focused on the North American Carolinian peoples. There's just too much out there to try to do everything. And so hopefully now in the fall, we'll be launching our new course on Indigenous astronomy, that will be a senior level course talking of issues around colonization and astronomy, whether that's dealing with telescopes on Earth or going out to Mars, talking about knowledges, and then Indigenous methodologies. You know, how would an Indigenous, how would Indigenous peoples think about the concepts like the Drake Equation. Like we asked the question, how many advanced civilizations are there? And, noting that “advanced civilization” has its own problems with terminology, are there in our galaxy? And, you know, some dude named Frank Drake in the 1960s came up this whole way of kind of thinking about this through an equation. And all the assumptions presently require things like, what's intelligent life? How does life form? What is a civilization? And if we just step back and think back to, you know, how different Indigenous communities would think about these things and what does that mean? And there are ways of going through these kind of thought processes. One of the simple aspects of the Drake Equation is, you know, how long civilizations sort of last that can communicate. And Frank Drake, you know, was doing this during the Cold War. So, you know, the biggest fear was nuclear bombs. So he was suggesting maybe a century to 1000 years that's the length societies exist Now that we're in the era of climate change, probably, the same numbers apply. But, you know, I remember when seeing this meme a few years ago of “Canada- 150; Mi’kmaq- 13,000.” Patty Krawec: Right. Hilding Neilson: So you know, if Western civilization’s got about a century, perhaps Indigenous civilizations have 10s of 1000s of years.Hilding Neilson And you know, that's tens of thousands of years longer to exist. It means many more Indigenous type, or Indigenous life possibilities of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. So just thinking from an Indigenous perspective, using–and trying not to really be pan-Indigenous–But, you know, common methodologies that you can have so many more civilizations in our galaxy, if you think about it, through those lenses of different Indigenous nations relative to traditional western science. And we could probably play through this exercise through different elements in astronomy and physics. And I think this sort of helped create this critical lens, again, around how we talk about astronomy and astrophysics, because it's become so Eurocentric, so westernized, so much in this narrative of “Space Cowboys, Colonizing Mars, Planting a flag, Sending messages out to other worlds,” that were really embodied within the same colonial narrative in the last four or five centuries, that I think we're due now to actually start thinking about it from a from a broader context.Patty Krawec There were two things that Chanda talked about, and I kind of tweeted about it. Because one of the things that she mentions, is Euclidean, she's talking about Euclidean geometry, just you know, to bring it way down to super simple stuff. For all the non-physicists in the room. What she's talking about is that we're thinking in terms of, you know, Euclidean geometry is, you know, squares have a certain number of angles inside them. And triangles always add up to 180. But then, when we map that onto a curved space, that doesn't work, the triangle no longer adds up to 180. And yet, we live on a curved planet, underneath a curved sky. And we think in terms of these, you know, of these flat, you know, these these flat geometries, which got me thinking, you know, which got me thinking about the way colonisation worked, carving up the countries into these little squares to give away chunks of land. And they're carving up spaces that are curved, you know, they're carving rivers in half, and hills in half. And, you know, just because the lines match up, and they're mapping this grid and starting this, this disconnection, and we do that to the sky, we kind of chart it off in ways that aren't super helpful. I mean, they're helpful if you want to lay claim to it, if you want to, like you say, plant your flag in it, then it's very helpful to map it out that way. But in terms of relationship, in terms of understanding how things connect together, is not super helpful. So how does, I guess, how does the night sky change? When we look at it through Indigenous eyes?Hilding Neilson I think if we look at the night sky, and start the traditional Greco Roman, we have all these constellations defined by this International Astronomical Union. So ADA constellations. And this was done on, around the beginning of the 1900s, by a British guy, a German guy and a French guy. So it’s a bad joke already. And when this happened, they kind of, like you said, they carved it up. They used Greek stories, they made up and borrowed some constellations from different parts, particularly for the southern hemisphere, where they completely imported their own belief system into those constellations. But in doing so, they also sanitized a lot of the Greek and Roman stories. You know, there are Greek and Roman stories for Ursa Major, Ursa Minor and Cepheus, and all these different constellations. But when we did this mapping, which was solely for convenience for people with telescopes, who want to do the observing and had to know where to look, it became, turned into nothing. You know, it took all the, it took our connections away from it, from a European,in the European sense. And when that became transplanted over here, you know, the Mi’kmaq, where there's Ursa Major, the Mi’kmaq also have a bear constellation. The Cree have a Bear constellation. Lots of cultures in the world have bear constellations around what we would call the Big Dipper today. Patty Krawec: Really, we all looked at that and saw a bear.Hilding Neilson Many, yeah, to many, it's a bear and hunters.Patty Krawec: That’s neat.Hilding Neilson: A bear in a tail, sometimes bear and cubs. There's a lot of commonalities like that. And, but the problem is that this was designed solely to erase Indigenous cultures and Indigenous knowledges. And for me, like the Mi’kmaq, for many Indigenous peoples in what is today Canada, you know, what is in the sky, it's kind of a reflection of the land below; your knowledge is localized. And so if we basically say that constellation is Ursa Major, and your knowledge doesn't count, that's all about removing us, removing us from the land, just as much of that–maybe not as much as actually literally removing us from the land, but it's, it's part of that disconnection. And, and so that erasure is a part of the problem. And I think that, you know, for my own self, like, I didn't get to grow up within a community, you know, most people, most Mi’kmaq in Newfoundland, we were kind of away from most of the communities. Just where Newfoundland was. And in that respect, you know, how do we kind of understand those constellations? Yeah, I only know one or two Mi’kmaq constellations. I don't think I can name all 88 European constellations, but I can name a lot of them. I could probably name a few of the Cree constellations, thanks to, you know, listening to Wilfred Buck and reading his stories. And so trying to reclaim that knowledge is also kind of important, because that's part of our connection to the land. And you know, what, the constellations I see here, where I'm sitting in Toronto, or Tkaronto, are different than if I go to the far north, or if I go to the southern hemisphere. You know, if I go to Australia, the moon looks completely different. You know, for someone coming from Australia to here, the moon looks like it's upside down, and vice versa. And so the stories change, and our connection and our relations to these, to these special objects change. And that's, that's one of the unfortunate repercussions of the legacy of colonization with respect to the night sky. And then another thing, I think, relates to that, not just the constellations, but it's the light pollution.Patty Krawec Oh, yes.Hilding Neilson: So, you know, I like to joke, you know, I live in Toronto, if I step out onto my balcony, I might see five stars in the night. One of them might be on CBC TV. You know, they, they're just so few you can see. So you just lose that connection in this void of installedl light? Patty Krawec: Yes. Hilding Neilson: And how do we, you know, so I can't see the Milky Way, or what in Mi’kmaq would be a spirit road, which is also a spirit path for many other cultures, you know? So how do you connect to the ancestors, in that respect. all these things..Patty Krawec Really, that's actually a really interesting point. Then eventually, I'll let Kerry get a word in edgewise. She's just here smiling and nodding and taking it all in the way she does. Because that's something like when I think about language, right, there's something residential schools took from us. And then if, you know, so if, in your cosmology, you believe that you need to speak the language, or the spirits won't understand what you're saying, how do you show gratitude? They can't hear you. And then if you die, and you don't speak the language, then the spirits won't recognize you. And so removing language in that way, you know, kind of cuts us off. And then as you were talking about not being able to see the night sky, the, you know, the stars, are our ancestors, and after reading Chanda’s book, they are in a very real sense. You know, really, you know, they really are our ancestors, they really are our relatives, you know, in a very literal kind of way, you know, very material kind of way. But that light pollution, that also cuts us off from them, cuts us off from being able to see them in the way that our, you know, our ancestors walking this earth, saw and understood themselves to exist. You know, kind of beneath the sky in relation in relationship to the sky. So that's, yeah, she asks that in her book, like what would it take for our communities to see, to see the stars. What would it take? Reflecting on her own having to be driven outside of LA for a, you know, two, three hour drive to be able to see. What would it take for our children, you know, for our communities? What changes do we need to make for them to be able to see the night sky? We're going to the National Park in Nova Scotia this summer, and I found out that it's a dark sky preserve. So I had to rearrange our travel plans, so that we will be there during the new moon so well, there's no moon and there'll be no moon in the sky. I've never seen the stars like that. This is going to be amazing. Hilding Neilson: Yeah. Patty Krawec: And I'm 55. And I've, and there will be a whole night sky that I've never experienced, that my father had. My father did, from growing up in northern Ontario. Like, it's that, it's that tangible. It’s that recent. For a lot of us. Not for all of us, but for a lot of us.Hilding Neilson:Yeah, no, I mean, you know, I haven't been home to visit my family, since before the, these end times, COVID. And, you know, when going home and seeing the night sky and seeing what is essentially billions of lights over your head, it's completely transforming and different and far more reassuring. In my mind, it's like, it feels more like a blanket. And, you know, there's a greater universe, there's relations, you know, Western science did get it right when Carl Sagan said we are made, we are made of star stuff. Just like Cree people, we are star, you know, star people. You know, it's all true. And we have that connection when you're sitting in Toronto and just basking in that eerie orange glow. You know, I think we miss out on so much. And I think it also negatively impacts how we, how we understand things like astronomy, physics. Even from a Western sense, the great, the great astronomers in Europe or even in, you know, China and India. And, you know, if you only think about it from true, purely Indigenous North American sense, you know, everyone had that kind of perspective of the night sky, they could observe it. If they had the telescopes or lenses or instruments, they can see these things, learn to connect, and figure out how they want to connect with it. Whereas today, in Toronto, there's no way to connect to the night sky. Unless I want to use a computer and then log onto a planetarium software. That's sort of what I think that's sort of what our children have to deal with today is, it's easier to see the constellations through a computer software than it is to go outside.Patty Krawec Well, and even what they see is filtered right? Like I've got that Stargaze, that star map app on my phone. So because I don't, I can recognize the Big Dipper on a good night. Really I’m not very good at it.Hilding Neilson: I’m honestly not much better.Patty Krawec: But you know, I hold up my phone, and I can find it, I can find it that way. And I kind of map out “Oh, that's where this is. And that's where that is.” But they're all…They're not the Cree constellations. You know, they're not…they're not the Igbo, or Yoruba constellations. They're not the Anishinaabe constellations; they're not the way our ancestors would have seen the night sky. They're organized and collated in a way, you know, in a European way. And all those disconnected stories.Hilding Neilson: 28:04Our constellations aren't static, either. I mean, sometimes, you know, in Mi’kmaq, we have the story of the bear, and the bear changes throughout the year. You know, in the winter, the bear is on his back, as a spirit, and in the summer, it’s running across the land. Some of the constellations have different meanings at different times of the year, whereas the European constellations are static, kind of locked in forever, or as forever as they want it to be. So, you know, I think we've kind of missed out on a lot of dynamic aspects of these constellations that come from the motions of the Earth around the Sun, or the rotation of the earth. And motions of sky around us. And so so there's a lot, I think, a lot more depth in eliminating Indigenous constellations that we don't see. Relative to the European.Kerry Goring I, this conversation is… I'm loving so many points, there's so many things that you guys have touched that I've kind of been like, yeah, right. Um, what comes to mind for me when I think about it, is how, what you mentioned very early on, the idea of building of, of the erasure, you know, the way that when you were talking about that $500 500 Page textbook, that would just, you know, mention maybe two pages of the ancient ways or of Indigenous cultures showing up in those books. And what I find fascinating about that, is that we know that ancient cultures actually are, actually really had mapping and stargazing down to a science, down to a detailed finite way that they were building architecture and buildings to map and and offer that space up. And so it's kind of like a little tiny bit of a pet project, but I really enjoy talking about this from an ancient space. And what comes to mind for me is even these knowledges that weren't, or Europeans have suppressed or have not allowed, or colonization has suppressed and not allowed us to expand into. Take, for example, the Dogon tribe, which is an African tribe that existed and was kind of, was very much removed from, you know, civilization or from colonialism until the early 1900s. And I'm sure you can explain a lot more about this, but they knew about the constellation or the the star system, Sirius, sorry, they knew about Sirius B, was it? Was it that they found and could map Sirius B before Europeans even knew it existed, and they speak about it from their own ancient traditions, you know, it goes into a whole other realm, which I'm really into. But the idea that they were given the gifts from their, you know, from their gods that came down and told them how to map the star systems. And they had no modern day interactions to be able to have known that it existed, except for from some sort of knowledge that must have been ancient to them. And I think about when we talk about this, this idea of the erasure, how much of the truth of how the history of our planet, the history of our species, understanding the relationships that exists between us, the stars, space and the universe, are being affected, because we have been narrowed down and washed down into–what I love Patty, when you were talking about the idea of a two dimensional space–instead of knowing the curvature of our lands, and knowing the curvature of the skies? How much of us is not being met, or the truth of us is being so lost in those spaces?Hilding Neilson: Definitely true, I've heard the story of the Dogon, and to put it in context, Sirius A is one of the brightest stars in the night sky, and Sirius B is what's called a white dwarf star, which is really small, compact, and is essentially the dead remainder of a star that has lost most of its material. And so today, you can only really see Sirius B with the telescope. Now, I don't really know much about the Dogon story, because, as I understand, it came through from French anthropologists, and as soon as I hear the word anthropologist, I tend to tune out. But yeah, that is very possible, and very likely, they did know better, because it might have been a star bright enough to the human eye 10,000 years ago, or 20,000 years ago, or even 100,000 years ago. And there are stories like that that come up all the time. You know, there are stories of a Paiute story from the West Coast about how the North Star came to be. And it is a son of the chief who's climbing a mountain, loves climbing mountains. And he finds this really hard peak to climb. And he keeps going around in circles, circles, and circles trying to find a way up the mountain but it’s so hard. Eventually he finds an opening and goes through the cave, and climbs away to the top. But unfortunately, when he gets to the top, there was a, there was an avalanche and the cave closed and he's trapped on the mountain. And that story can literally be interpreted as procession of the star. Because our what we call the North Star today wasn't always the North Star. It had to go around and around around. And so we see these long time domains. And that's one of the things that's very valuable in astronomy. There are stories in Anishinaabe, about heartberry stars, which are red supergiants, that change brightness. And the same very similar stories are seen in different Indigenous Australian nations about these things. And a ton of Indigenous knowledge is carried so much time domain, that, you know, if I think, you know, if Western astronomers just sat down and listened, we would learn a lot about these knowledges and about the history of the universe. Because it was only a couple centuries ago where we were, where the popular dogma was that the astronomy or space was static, and that it was unchanging. But yeah, that wasn't part of, I think, the Indigenous way.Patty Krawec What's possible just to come back, you know, to what you had said about you know, when you hear anthropologist, you kind of, because yeah, I mean, they just they get so much wrong because they've got this particular lens that they're trying to jam the story into. So because then like the Anishinaabeg word for North actually means “goes home” and it contains, according to elders, it contains the idea of the glaciers going home, which meant we knew that they weren't always, you know, so during the last ice age, we knew that they had come from the north and gone back, which suggests knowledge of well over, you know, you know, 10-15,000 years because we didn't just know they were there, we knew where they'd come from, we knew that they went back. So it's the same, you know, with the star, maybe they knew it 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 years ago, their language contained the story of this star that is no longer visible, but it was back then. And so when the French anthropologist heard it, they're like, Oh, the stars have always looked like this. Therefore, these people couldn't have figured it out on their own. It must have been aliens telling them about it. Must have been… Hilding Neilson: Yeah Patty Krawec: couldn't have known it themselves, and yet, they did. so that's really, but I hadn't put those things together. That's really neat. So yeah, and we're. Yeah, so we had a question in the chat. So if you could, I don't even know what it means. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you answer that.Hilding Neilson: If we look at the Western constellation Orion, on one of the shoulders was a very red star called Betelgeuse. And this is a famous red supergiant that is near the end of its life. And when it finally dies, it's going to explode as a supernova. And it’s going to be so bright, we'll probably see during the day. Like it'd be, it could be about as bright as Venus. Patty Krawec: WowHilding Neilson: And so this is not the first star that has ever done this, blown up like that. And as opposed to being bright enough and close enough that we could see it. There have been other instances, around the year 1000, there was a star in what was called the Crab Nebula. In terms of Indigenous stories, I've only heard of one. And I can't confirm it, because the times that I was given in the story, don't line up with the astronomical knowledge, but it’s possible. So I was contacted by someone in Mi’kma’ki telling me about the Mi’kmaq flag. And the Mi’kmaq flag is a white flag with a cross and a star and a moon. And the person was telling me that the stars in the moon reflect a catastrophic, catastrophic event or timeframe, where people were struggling and there was starvation. But it was because there was a bright star in the sky that didn't belong there in a constellation that Europe called Cygnus. And he said, this was about 2000 years ago. I was very curious, because the fact that he took, the person told me the constellation, I'm like, I had to look this up. And there is a remnant of a star that was there, but that's, our best estimates’ that it exploded around 20,000 years ago. Now, I don't know, everybody tells time different, stories change. So maybe it's related. We know from more recently, there's a very popular one called the Crab Nebula, which is the explosion about 1000 years ago, that appears on historical records from around the world. It has been linked to the city Cahokia. in what is today Mississippi, I believe, which was a large Indigenous city there. I don't know how true that is. But people have tried to link the two events’ timescales. But as seen, seen a lot of Korean and Chinese texts, where they note that there's a new star in the sky. And so, but funnily enough, it never appeared in European texts that I'm aware of. It has happened, and I think we see these, these stories do occur. I'm not really familiar with too many of them. I'm trying to think if there's any, I can't think of any others off the top of my head. But, you know, even just a few years ago, or a few 100 years ago, you know, the heyday of Isaac Newton, and then, you know, that was a big deal for a lot of astronomers, was to find these new stars, supernovae and so like, you know, Kepler and Deacon Brian and these famous white scientists in Europe, spent time and found a few. Not aware of any stories, Indigenous stories that are being linked to these events. I'm sure they're there.patty krawec 39:16Yeah, yeah, we just need to listen to the stories and sometimes it's, it's the way we hear them. Right. Like, it's understanding like, remember, we talked with Del Lessin some time ago about they're basically rebuilding the Catawba language. And there was a story about oh, I think it was a rabbit. And it caught, you know, things caught on fire. And it, you know, and it sounded like just kind of this funny story about this rabbit dragging fire through a field. But what it actually contained was agricultural knowledge about agricultural burning. And there was a plant, a sunflower-type plant, that has an edible tuber and required…So the story contains all of this knowledge that they didn't initially recognize because of language loss because of culture loss, it just seemed like an interesting story.And so, you know, that now they understand is actually something that contains agriculture, you know, important agricultural knowledge, which then makes you go back and look at the other stories. What knowledge is in there, that we're not getting, because we've lost so much contact context? and like you had said about the Greek stories and stuff that are put up into the constellation, even those are stripped. You know, even in the process of colonizing the sky, they still stripped meaning from it, we don't even get good stories, we just get kind of these stripped-down, sanitized picture books. But the real story is there, like it's there. And in our stories, in our cosmology, we just need to…we just need to listen differently, and look at and look at them differently. And some of that is… how did you start shifting your lens? Because you talked about not not growing up surrounded, you know, by a Mi’kmaq community. How did you start shifting your lens?Hilding Neilson It really wasn't that long ago. You know, I'm fully trained in the Western system of astronomy. And I think really hit off when I had that interaction with Wilfred Buck, not seeing any Indigenous Knowledges. And then just diving into some of the great works, you know, the works, Murray Battista, Gregory cathead, all these great Indigenous science experts talking about all these different ideas and ways of thinking, and perspectives. And I always have to step back and be like, Whoa, what am I? Why am I doing? Why am I thinking about this question this way? Why am I thinking about stellar physics this way? Or quantum mechanics that way? You know, all these things are coming together. And you kind of have to question, I mean, it's really only been like the last four or five years where I've really been trying to relearn everything. And for the most part, I feel like I've done a whole other PhD.patty krawec 42:19So let's talk about quantum mechanics for a minute, because that's, or maybe longer, because that’ll take a minute just to explain what that is. Because I was reading Lawrence Gross, and he has this book called Anishinaabe Ways of Knowing and Being, and I have to get it out again, it's actually behind me on my bookshelf, because there's a chapter in there where he talks about how in the Anishinaabe worldview and way of thinking–and the Mi’kmaq and Anishinabeg are cousins. You know, we migrated east and I guess made relatives and came back. So we're, you know, we're cousins, but he says that our worldview is much closer to kind of a quantum mechanic way of understanding things. And I've read his chapter. I've read Chanda. It's still just outside my grasp. Hilding Neilson: YeahKerry Goring this is just a really, really smartpatty krawec Two people in the chat are like, Wow, I love quantum mechanics. So yeah, do it!Hilding Neilson Yeah, yeah. So quantum mechanics is one of those things I'm always afraid to talk about, because I don't understand quantum mechanics either. I suspect most people in physics and astronomy don't actually understand quantum mechanics, we just do the math and hope for the best.Patty Krawec AW says they are a quantum mechanic.Kerry Goring And that's interesting, because I had just listened… I'm laughing about that, because I had just listened to a talk with a physicist named Sean. What is Sean last name? Hilding Neilson: Sean Carroll?Kerry Goring: Sean Carroll. Yes. And he was talking about that. And I thought it was fascinating that physicists are more concerned with the application, is that a better way of putting it? Versus actually an overall grasp of what they're actually…what actually it is? And that was like mind blowing to me to know that it's, we just assume, there's like this assumption that this works. But nobody's really looked at what makes it work, if that makes…or we're looking at what makes it work, but not why it's there. Does that make sense? Sort of? I think?Hilding NeilsonI think it makes perfect sense. I think, I think we do focus a lot on the how it works, as opposed to why it’s doing what it's doing. And I think from very much this, astronomers’ perspective, which is quantum mechanics is something you try to do your best to approximate and not actually work with. You just try to work around it. We think so much from this classical Euclidean sense and quantum mechanics is completely counterintuitive to that. Whereas most Indigenous knowledges that are coming to grasp how everything is very much about relative, like how things relate between you and I. How I observe something is very different from how you observe something, and that both truths can be true. Whereas in the West, we think everything has to be an absolute truth, which defies quantum mechanics because quantum mechanics of the particle has some speed and some place, but you can't really tell which is which. And, and so a lot of these respects, I feel like Indigenous knowledges have an easier time with quantum mechanics, because I think Indigenous knowledge is a little more relaxed about not knowing things; it's okay that there are mysteries. Whereas in the West, having a mystery is the worst thing possible. You know, it, it has to be explainable, has to be reducible. It has to be objective, and, like, I have trouble with quantum mechanics. I listen to Sean Carroll, fairly regularly, you know, I love his, his writing and words, and he signed it as “many worlds theory,” where you get, where if you observe a quantum event, depending on how you observe it, the universe branches. And then like, are we literally increasing the number of universes to help us explain how we don't know something? And we kind of do that we, when we don't understand something locally, we tend to make things bigger. We don't, we don't understand evolution. So we make evolutionary changes smaller, over a longer time, time periods. It works. We don't understand cosmology? Make the universe older. Or you don't understand why cosmology works? So well, we just create a multiverse. You know, one of the explanations of how we're, that we can live in a universe that seems to work, is that there's lots of universes. And there's just so many of these things like that, I think, you know, my understanding of Indigenous people is, we live in a universe that works, where things are just perfect for us to exist, because we exist, it has to be that way. That's how we're related, that's how our relation with the universe. Whereas if you're in the West, you have the axiom that the universe doesn't care about us, that we, you know, the fact that we exist should just be a fluke. For the fact that we live in a universe that’s just right. Can't, doesn't make sense. And I have colleagues who get really stressed out by this question. And given, given to the point, they try to pull out their hair, which, given that no one’s had a haircut in a long time, might be useful. But they just struggle with this, and they don't like it. So sometimes they come up with the multiverse theory where we have, where we are in one universe in a bubble of others. And there are other reasons to expect the multiverse. AW Peet is much more of an expert on that than I am, for instance, I'd rather, I'd rather defer to them. But please let AW jump in. There's just so many of these things that I think Indigenous knowledges learn to accept, because it's part of being in relation. And our relationality is what makes, allows for these things to work. I think with quantum mechanics, it’s a little more difficult, because it's, we also accept there's a mystery, but there is fuzzy truth, when there's multiple truths that can can coexist at the same time. Whereas in the West, everything has to be objectively true. I do experiment, you do experiment, you should get the same answer. Yeah. And that objectivity doesn't quite work. Otherwise. Patty Krawec: Oh, okay.Hilding Neilson: but that's sort of the best I can come up with, by kind of b.s.ing a lot. You know, but Yeah, cuz I'm really speaking not in my best. Yeah.Kerry Goring I love that you, you know, took the attempt, and I think you did beautifully with it. I appreciate you, kind of, tackling it. Because I think what I love about that is it's almost from this layman's space with a plus, because you definitely know more than we do. But what I, when I think about this, and then we put it into the space of our Indigenous, and you know, my Afro-centric cultures, it does come from that acceptance, that mystery is real, and with that, offers the simplicity to be in relation with all of those spaces. And what I mean by “spaces” is the universe, the stars, the earth, how we stand on the earth, the relationship that we have with, you know, the animals on our planes, all of those things have an interconnected sense that is wrapped in the mystery. And so, when we, like, I totally believe in the scientific, scientific method and I, you know, I understand that being a space that we have as a template to work from, but I do sometimes think that that part of it, the idea of the acceptance, that some of it is still to be revealed. And being okay in that is lacking in the way that we exist. And so what happens with that is that it's exactly that idea of disregarding, you know, or just pretending that that mystery isn't valuable.Patty Krawec I had a, I remember when I was in science in grade nine, our science teacher, because it was the only year that I had to take science. We had a teacher who had, we were going over the criteria for life. And I think there's six, I don't remember what they are. Anyway, so we had, we had, there were six criteria for life. And he asked us, you know, you know, he's kind of running us through it, do plants meet it? does this person meet it? Does this, the rocks meet the criteria? And you know, we kind of go through it, And we're like, Nope, they don't. And he asked us again, are you sure? And we're like, oh, is this a trick question? You know, and so we went through them again, and we're like, nope, rocks are not alive. They don't meet the criteria. And he says, Well, what if they just do this too slow? And we can't measure it? What if they do this, and you know, we just don't have the capacity to see it? Like, he wasn't trying to tell us that rocks were alive. He was trying to tell us to keep those questions open. That what we, because he says science is one long chain of “we thought we knew that and we turned out to be wrong.” So maybe our criteria is wrong. And we always need to be open, you know, to thinking and questioning.And he's the only science teacher that I came across was like that. Because I think like you said, they have this idea that there's fixed knowledge. And I wonder, I wonder if some of that comes down to European thinkers emerging in a place where everybody had the same basic cosmology, right? Like, the, all three Abrahamic religions existed. And you know, in Europe, the Jews and the Muslims were not treated very well. But they had the same fundamental cosmology, the same creation story, the same flood narrative. Whereas here, we're all bumping up against each other with our trading relationships and our treaties and stuff. And we don't have the same cosmologies. You know, the Anishinaabeg and the Haudenosaunee lived, you know, very close to each other in lots of spaces. And we have some similarities, but some significant differences in terms of how we understand the world. And the Anishinaabeg and the Lakota are also kind of right up against each other. And we have significantly different cosmologies in terms of…like, there's a lot of similarities about how we see the world, but our cosmology, like our religions, you know, to use that word, are very different. And yet we learned to accept that it was not a big deal. So I kind of wonder if some of that, because now I'm reading, a pastor friend of mine, has recommended this book, shoot, what's it called? Hebrew, The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics. And she's writing all about how the Bible is full of language about the world being alive, of trees, of the personhood of creation, and a very Indigenous, like, what I would think of as a very Anishinaabeg way of thinking of, the trees are people, the stars are people, the rivers are people, that this stuff is woven through. Because she says that when we talk about it, like it's a metaphor, we're not… like, you know, “the trees clap with joy.” And we're not saying that the trees have hands, but we're saying that they're expressing joy, that when the Hebrew people came back to the land, the land was happy, that the land had the capacity to care. And that's been completely stripped, like that's not present anywhere in any Christian theology that I have heard. So that's been completely stripped from the text and this is kind of my quest right now, about how these things got stripped. Because it got stripped from the way we understand the sky so…I don't even remember where I was going with that.Kerry Goring I’m just loving it though.patty krawec They had created this kind of monolithic belief system that didn't allow for that kind of relationality whereas here on Turtle Island, or whatever we want to call it, we were constantly bumping up against other ways of thinking about things and had…we're just okay with it. Like that's just the Lakota are weird, but that's who they are.Kerry Goring It's okay to be like that, you know, that sense of acceptance, right? It's that sense of being in acceptance for all of it that I think is, is what you're bringing front and center. And just even taking in what you're saying there, Patty, I think it's quite brilliant, really interesting book, that's got to go down in the check of that one.Hilding Neilson That me too, that sounds very…very interesting.Kerry Goring That's very interesting. Um, however, what, what also comes to me when I think about that, is this sense that we have here that with that stripping, it was, it was what afforded this whole system, the colonial space that we exist in, to be even created. And this disconnection that we are experiencing with the Earth and the land, I just want my, my breath was just really heavy earlier today, because I was reading an article, I think it was in USA Today. And they were talking about, they want to move from saying climate change into using the terminology climate emergency. Because of the carbon that's in the earth, in the atmosphere, we're moving in major, major ways that is getting scary. They know that the Antarctic, the sheets, the ice sheets in the Antarctic, are going to hit the sea very soon. And it's just a really scary dynamic. And personally, I have family, you know, in St. Vincent right now, where there is a, the volcano is going off, and I'm getting live, you know, real live. You know, just talking to my people's real live experience of what that kind of space is. And so when I think about how we have existed and disconnected, the answers for me are coming from when we are doing and having conversations like this, of course, but really deep diving into this exploration of how we relate. How do we come back? How do we figure out those pieces that have been taken out and put back in? So you know, when I hear that you're doing this work, Hilding, that, to me is like, it's invaluable. How do we create this space now?Hilding Neilson Yeah, this is very interesting. Without the discussion, last semester was popped my mind is Mars. So NASA just .. this most recent mission Mars called Perseverance, you know, a little toy car going around the surface of Mars, going out of the first helicopter launch on Mars. And there are lots of robots on Mars, and maybe in 20 years, there will be people. And hopefully, those people will not be led by Elon Musk. But, you know, but it does raise a lot of questions in the meantime, which is, how alive is Mars? We don't know of anything alive on Mars within our current definition. We're pretty sure nothing comes above the surface. We haven't really explored the subsurface of Mars. There could be life. Maybe single, probably single single cell life. Life is there, probably there. And even if it isn't, do we have rights to impact that? What are the rights of Mars? I mean, you know, there's a great comic. That's the earth in a hospital bed. And another planet is a doctor saying, “Oops, you have humans?” Do we really have a right to infect Mars with more humans? Or do we have that same right to the moon? How do we do that? How do we talk about coloni-? You know? Because we do, we literally talk about Mars as colonization. Patty Krawec:Yes Hilding Neilson: We have movies of Matt Damon on Mars and we send billions of dollars rescuing rescuing a dumb white dude. Yeah, and fully full disclosure. I'm also a dumb white dude. So you know, how do we talk about Mars? From an Anishinaabeg perspective? What would an Anishinabeg, what would the Haudenosaunee, what would a Mi’kmaq or Inuit mission to Mars look like? How do we engage and interact with Mars? You know, do we? What gifts do you offer Mars? If we visit, what are we allowed to take away from Mars? And we need, really need to have that conversation because right now the conversation is basically a Western novel. And we, the word frontier gets used a lot. Or colonizing, you know, they've sort of avoided colonization for the word exploration. But it's pretty much a dog whistle when it's basically going to be Elon Musk, or another rich dude sending people there to do space mining. Because, you know, capitalism. And how we face these things, I think very much because in this play of environmental ethics, as you mentioned, how we relate, how we want to be intentionally related with Mars, because I mean, humans, if the human mission to Mars has the same kind of history as on Earth, and last century of climate change, we're probably not going to leave it, do anything good on Mars.Patty Krawec We're not going to leave better than we found it.Hilding Neilson No. And I mean, there are people who talk about dropping asteroids on Mars with the sole purpose of heating it up, blowing it up and creating an atmosphere, so that we can terraform it. I mean, that's sort of what people really dream about is terraforming Mars. And I think we can look around North America and various other parts of the world and see terraforming from, you know, when Europeans killed the bison and introduced wheat and cattle to the prairie, or how we terraform north, at different parts of the world. Doesn't quite work as well as when we look at how various Indigenous communities sort of lived in concerts, where you know, Haudenosaunee, and their farming practices, pastoral farming out east, you know, the way we treat hunts, and all these things. And so we need to have a, we definitely need to have this space open for more Indigenous, whether it's Indigenous from North America, Afro-Indigenous, Australian Indigenous, specific, everywhere in this conversation. And to be honest, if I'm going to fly on a rocket from the Earth to Mars, over 200 days, the person I probably want to ask about is someone who can actually navigate the Pacific using nothing but their hand, as opposed to say NASA who, sent Matt Damon to Mars. There's so much expertise in Indigenous communities for doing these things that we don't even think about. At least in the Western, from NASA or the Canadian Space Agency, necessarily. And so we should be having this conversation. And we should be having that we really need that space, if this is what we want to do. If not, if we not we're basically going to leave space exploration and going to the moon and basically passing NASA satellites to people like Elon Musk. And if it's not obvious, I kind of really dislike that guy.patty krawec Well, just like when we were talking about the skyKerry Goring: How did we guess? Patty Krawec: And, you know, it's not just cluttered from light below. Thanks to Elon Musk, it's cluttered from, it's now cluttered, you know, from things he's putting up there. And, you know, it's causing problems and he doesn't care because that's not, that's not his, that's not the frame that he thinks within.Hilding Neilson If light pollution erases our stories, those satellites are rewriting them. Patty Krawec: Yes. Hilding Neilson: And why does he get to do that?Kerry Goring Love that. And I think that is so powerful. I never, like, I've had these thoughts. So hearing you speak it and really, you know, bringing that into the light, love that. I'm really relating, it resonates deeply because I agree with you. And for me, the other piece to that is this idea that we discard the earth, this idea that we have raped her, you know, The Earth has been raped and pillaged very much like, guess what, you know, every colonial story that we know. And now we're about to just move on. And so it speaks to me about this push in the way that we are human. And how we are showing up in our humanness. So I, and without the interjection, without that conversation being had, and I don't know if it's happening en mass yet, but without those conversations, we are destined to repeat itHilding Neilson Absolutely, I mean, you know, if Amazon, Jeff Bezos , if these people are driving the conversation, you know, they're just, they're just the mercantile colonialists. There's no difference in Elon Musk and Samuel de Champlain. And the worst part about Samuel de Champlain, is he had his life saved by Indigenous people cuz he went .. and be cured of scurvy and he just thanked God, as opposed to the, you know, people? Patty Krawec: Yeah. Hilding Neilson: And this is what we’re facing again. Yeah, we're facing this again. It’s this, the same story, just being retold on a whole new scale. And people are, conversations are starting to be had. I think there’re developments in terms of international law with things called Artemis Accords, which are related primarily to going to the moon and lunar exploration. But the biggest thing there is about preserving sites on the moon of astronomical significance or human significance. So, you know, where they planted the flag on the moon, that might be a national park, or lunar National Park. But that doesn't stop anybody from moving up there. And, you know, drawing a smiley face on the face of the moon.patty krawec And national parks…Kerry Goring What, what does that even mean?patty krawec 1:05:58Right, because they create this idea of wilderness and nature that takes people out of it. And it preserves it, like, for what? You know, so it's just, why are we like this? Why are we like this? where to think about what kinds of humans. I just wrote an essay for Rampant Magazine, where we're like, what kind of people do we want to be? What kind of ancestors, you know? As we get thinking about, you know, thinking about the stars, you know, looking up at the stars, and knowing that those are our ancestors and knowing that we're going to be ancestors, we're going to be star stuff, you know. So what kind of ancestors do we want to be to the worlds that come after us? Because we're, you know, worlds came before us, worlds will come after us, what kind of ancestors do we want to be? What do we want to leave? What kind of footsteps do we want to leave? And stories and possibilities? And we got to think about that stuff. As opposed to? Well, they are, they are thinking about that kind of stuff. They're just not coming to the same conclusions that we would want them to.Kerry Goring What big? How big is that? Like? What we're talking about? I'm really interested in those, in the conversations. How big is that movement? Is it? Is it growing? Like, is there an understanding that, wait a minute, we're creating the possibility of lunar parks on the moon like that, that makes me…I'm laughing, but I'm horrified all in the same breath. Are those conversations coming up in real ways, like in “Wait a minute. Hello, hello, hello,” type thoughts? Because we are hearing more about the explorations happening. And, and do we have somebody tempering it? Is that something?Hilding Neilson I don't think we really have a very strong conversation around space ethics. It's growing, largely because that's the only direction it can possibly go. It's harder to have fewer, fewer than zero people talking about it. So there's things that are starting to happen slowly in the astronomy community, but it's very limited. I think astronomy, my colleagues really kind of learned something about this from Elon Musk, when he put up the satellites and it interfered with telescopes on our, you know, because when the satellites cross upon the telescope, you just got all these streaks on your images. And they, and there were people who freaked out and accused Elon Musk of colonization, and not consulting and all this other language that we were ignoring from Native Hawaiians talking about the 30 meter telescope on Mauna Kea. And this is a project in Hawai’i to build a very big telescope on top of the mountain, where many Native Hawaiians said, “No, we're good.” And many of my colleagues were turned, kind of, were very against the Hawaiian response, using phrases like “science versus religion,” “progress versus history.” And then they used the same language as many of the Indigenous peoples were using to talk about Elon Musk. And I'm not sure they, some of them, I don't think quite got that hypocrisy. But I think a lot of people started to see that there has to be a greater discussion of voice because no matter, no matter what's happening, you know, at some point, your voice is not, might not be the one that gets heard. And then you pay the price. And so I think some of this is becoming more and more important, you know, particularly as space becomes the playground for the very, very ridiculously, uber rich.Patty Krawec Well, this has been super interesting.I’m super interested in, you know, get in, getting more into, kind of, what quantum mechanics… just because, like what you had said about the relationality of it, and how that, you know, and how that has implications for how we understand how we work within the world, and how we relate to things. So I'm really interested in kind of going, going in that direction. I don't know, man, I read this physics book. And it was super interesting. And nobody saw that coming.Kerry Goring 1:11:45Did you watch Ant Man? Have you watched Ant Man?Patty Krawec 1:11:49No! It’s probably one of the few MC films that I haven't watchedKerry Goring 1:11:53Watch Ant Man. It will, it's a very, it was what? Okay, not really, but a little bit of what really sparked my interest in wanting to know more about quantum physics, was Ant Man. So that's also, maybe that's something we can all chat about too the next time you’re on.Patty Lrawec 1:12:13Well, I’ll watch Ant ManHilding Neilson Also, go back and rewatch End Game. All the time travel stuff is basically Sean Carroll's interpretation of quantum mechanics.patty krawec Really. Okay that I have seen, that I have seen. Okay, AW’s putting Ant Man on their watch list.Hilding Neilson It’s a good heist movie.Kerry Goring It was a great movie. It's one of my favorites for this, from that world so…thank you, Hilding!Thank you, Hilding! I appreciate you man. This was a great talk. And also please let's, let's do this again. Got my mind working. Definitely got my mind working. And I appreciate you.patty krawec Thank you so much. Hilding Neilson: Thank you! Patty Krawec: It's super interesting. Alright, bye byeHilding Neilson: Take care.You can find more about Hilding and his work on his website And thankyou to Nick for the transcription!! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit medicinefortheresistance.substack.com
The hope is that this effort will allow all Spartans, students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members to shape future physical investments in support of our teaching, research, and outreach mission. Guided by the university's strategic plan, this planning process provides an opportunity to advance equity, bolster community health, and enhance support systems for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors through the physical environment of MSU's land and facilities.The resulting framework plan will provide the university with a roadmap to guide MSU's future campus composition for the next generation. Barbara Kranz is assistant provost for Institutional Space Planning and Management, and Stephen Troost is a campus planner in Infrastructure Planning and Facilities. They're leading this project.“The plan is rooted in the university's strategic plan,” Troost says. “That is where we get guidance from. The second tenet is it's a decision-making tool, and it's really guided by overarching timeless planning principles that help us look at every project moving through the system and how it supports the vision for the campus. Third, it's a flexible framework, and that's an important concept to remember. It guides the highest and best use of our land and our facilities. It doesn't dictate growth. It doesn't say things will happen, but it stays flexible because one thing we know for certain in higher education is we will always have changing dynamics to deal with. The fourth tenet is it enhances safety, and it does that through the optimal organization of campus systems and operations. The final tenet deals with process. I really think that sometimes the process is more important than the product. Campus plans allow the entire Spartan Nation to give voice to what they think the campus of the future should be. Everyone's passionate about campus.”“If we think about our DEI plan and the strategic plan and the values within them, how do we think about and incorporate those principles from those plans and think about community engagement, social engagement, transportation mobility, social mobility, health and wellness, and a whole range of things,” asks Kranz? How do we leverage our campus? We have a beautiful campus. We hope to retain the arboretum around teaching and learning, but it also contributes to health and wellness, both mental and physical. MSU is very interested in weaving the role of the arts in and across both, not only our curriculum, but research and everyday activity of our students, faculty, staff, and students. There's a whole component around sustainability in the plan, too. That's not just buildings, but financial sustainability and evolving cultural changes for all of us coming to campus.”Input and feedback from Spartan Nation are being sought. Details on how to share your views are at campusplan.msu.edu. “Where's your special place? Where are places you think need to be fixed? What's your route through campus? Are there areas of concern that you want to make sure get addressed in the plan? And we're looking to get quite a bit of input from faculty, staff, students, and alumni, as well as community members who come here as visitors,' continues Troost. “We want to understand how we can enhance the physical campus of composition through that map on the My Campus website. It'll be open through April 22nd, and then there will be opportunities throughout the planning process to go to that website, campusplan.msu.edu, and offer your input or ideas on things that you're hearing or seeing. We'll also have some extensive town hall meetings coming up in the fall when folks are back on campus and have a chance to settle down and get into the new semester. And then we'll be able to look at some of those scenarios and alternatives and get input on what people think about those.”“The plan is a 10 to 20+ year look ahead,” Kranz says. “Whatever we build and develop will be here for many generations. If staff and faculty are here three days a week, for example, what kinds of engagements are important to have to both build community and relationships within the work environment to accomplish our work and to be efficient and supportive? How do we be thoughtful about that to make sure our students experience our topnotch university, and our faculty staff are supported as well so that we have a vibrant and sustainable community.”“Through the listening sessions we've conducted to date, Barb and I are hearing that the value-added proposition of why you'd come back to campuses is that people want to collaborate,” says Troost. “Now, you can do your work from home. And there are aspects of that that are fine. But when people do come to campus, they want to have small seminar rooms and open atrium spaces for a cup of coffee, just areas where they can get together and collaborate. There are a lot of ways you can learn, and you can continually learn throughout your life, but you come to campus to be with people. And that's why we have campuses. And that's the most important aspect to me. The elephant in the room is how we blend that hybrid work, teaching, learning, research environment with the very high touch environment we need when we're on campus.“The key to the plan is its flexibility. The plan will not tell us where we're going because the beauty of higher education is that top research institutions are continually evolving and changing, and we're a land grant or a world grant if you will. And so, we're constantly evolving and looking at what it is we can be doing as the state's institution. And that's going to continually give us challenges in the future for how we grow and how we develop the campus. That flexible framework gives us the guiding principles of what we want it to be. And then as every project folds into it, we continually assess how it can expand upon and allow for successful completion of those planning principles.”“We have MSU Extension and AgBioResearch,” says Kranz. “We have over 20,000 acres across the state, and we're in every county in the state. While a big piece of the plan focuses on the physical assets in East Lansing, we are all over Michigan. We're national and international, too. How do we plan going forward to acknowledge all of that?”“I would add, too, that one of the things to remember is we often go back to maybe the 2020 plan 20 years ago, or we go back to the founding of the institution in 1855. But our legacy goes farther back than that. We occupy ancestral ends of the Anishinaabeg and the three tribes. We need to remember those decisions when we make land-use decisions,“ concludes Troost. MSU Today airs Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 5 a.m. on WKAR News/Talk and Sundays at 8 p.m. on 760 WJR. Find “MSU Today with Russ White” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your shows.
You're free to track Mike down on social media. Follow me on Twitter @mwboyce and Instagram @mwboyce and follow my website michaelwboyce.com/geek4You can follow the podcast on Twitter @geek4pod and on Instagram @geek4podIf you liked the show, hit Subscribe and please consider leaving a 5 star review. The more reviews we have, the more we show up in searches. Somehow. I think magic. Or, tell a friend. Word of mouth is still an effective advertising tool. I respectfully acknowledge that I live in and work on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
On this episode I'm joined by podcaster, author, actor, and producer Tom Salinsky. My listeners may know Tom as the co-creator and co-host of Best Pick Podcast along with previous Geek4 guest Jessica Regan and (hopefully future guest) John Dorney. Tom joined me to talk about his love for the films of Billy Wilder, who is also one of my favourite directors. Over the course of our conversation, we cover many aspects of a wide variety of Wilder classics and not-so-classics, including The Apartment (1960), Double Indemnity (1944), Some Like It Hot (1959), One, Two Three (1961), and The Emperor Waltz (1953). We also talk about Tom's #TrekaDay project, which you can follow on Twitter, the vulnerability of showing people movies you love, and even speculate about the next actor to play James Bond. You can follow up Tom's up on Twitter @tomsalinsky (and follow his #TrekaDay) or read his reviews at http://tomsalinsky.co.uk/blog/Check out Best Pick Podcast at https://bestpickpod.com or on the podcatcher of your choice. Tom, Jessica, and John's book, Best Pick: A Journey through Film History and the Academy Awards, is available now from Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon Canada or, better yet, from your local bookseller!!!!Follow me on Twitter @mwboyce and Instagram @mwboyce and follow my website michaelwboyce.com/geek4You can follow the podcast on Twitter @geek4pod and on Instagram @geek4podIf you liked the show, hit Subscribe and please consider leaving a 5 star review. The more reviews we have, the more we show up in searches. Somehow. I think magic. Or, tell a friend. Word of mouth is still an effective advertising tool. I respectfully acknowledge that I live in and work on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
ou may know Adam Roche from his excellent podcasts about classic movies - The Secret History of Hollywood and House of Hammer, but he has a "creepy obsession" with Old Time Radio. In fact, he credits discovering Old TIme Radio as the starting point for all he does now. We talk about those radio shows that put on audio adaptations of Hollywood films (Screen Guild Theatre, Screen Directors Theatre, and The Lux Radio Theatre) often with the stars of the films or unique alternate castings (Adam tells me about a radio version of Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt with Cary Grant as Uncle Charley!). We talk about the detective shows, the dramas, and the sitcoms. And we manage to cover a bit of classic movies as well.You can keep up with Adam and his many projects on that new fangled internet! https://www.attaboyclarence.comTwitter: @Audiojoe, @moviehistories, @attaboyc, @HouseHammerPodInstagram: @orpheusblack @secrethistoryhollywood, @househammerpodSupport him on PatreonYou can follow me on Twitter @mwboyce and Instagram @mwboyce and follow my website michaelwboyce.comYou can follow the podcast on Twitter @geek4pod and on Instagram @geek4podIf you like the show, please consider leaving a 5 star review. The more reviews we have, the more we show up in searches. Or, tell a friend. Word of mouth is still an effective advertising tool. I respectfully acknowledge that I live in and work on Treaty One Territory , the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
Episode Notes The legendary monster of Algonquian lore, the Windigo (or Wendigo), regularly appears in popular culture, but how well is it represented? What is the Windigo? Samantha and Aaron dive into the legend of the Windigo, explore actual Windigo cases, and then put television and comic books to task. Who passes and who fails? What do we lose when the monster is removed from its cultural context? Find out in this week's episode of Great Lakes Lore! The Windigo's MO- 1:39 Cannibalism!- 5:52 Jack Fiddler the Windigo Hunter- 8:47 The Swift Runner Case- 12:37 The Windigo and Canadian Law- 14:52 L'Espagnol- 17:57 Midway Break- 20:26 Algernon Blackwood- 27:32 Native American Legends in Pop Culture- 29:55 X-Files and the Manitou- 32:56 Hulk Smash Windigo!- 39:02 Charmed- 41:46 Supernatural- 43:22 Windigo Psychosis- 49:25 Wrap-Up- 53:20 Jack Fiddler Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer "Cannibals and Colonizers: An Analysis of the Wendigo in Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine" by Elaine Tousignant from The University of San Francisco "The Windigo Psychosis: Psychodynamic, Cultural, and Social Factors in Aberrant Behavior" by Thomas H. Hay "The Windigo in the Material World" by Robert R. Brightman in Ethnohistory 35, no. 4 (1988): 337–79. Gitchi Bitobig, Grand Marais: Early Accounts of the Anishinaabeg and the North Shore Fur Trade by Timothy Cochrane Nazare, Joe. “The Horror! The Horror? The Appropriation, and Reclamation, of Native American Mythology.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 11, no. 1 (41) (2000): 24–51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43308417. DeSanti, Brady. Journal of Religion & Popular Culture, Fall 2015, Vol. 27 Issue 3, p186-201 Evans, Catherine L. “Heart of Ice: Indigenous Defendants and Colonial Law in the Canadian North-West.” Law and History Review 36, no. 2 (2018): 199–234. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26564583. Visit our website and follow us on... Instagram Facebook Twitter Youtube Like the show and want more? Subscribe to our Patreon! Great Lakes Lore is produced by Cheeso Media.
Black and Indigenous SolidaritiesWith Robert WarriorPatty: So we're here with Robert Warrior. And so funny story, Kerry, I'm reading this book Crossing Waters Crossing Worlds by Tiya Miles. It was for Aambe book club, History a couple of months ago back in February, and I can't and, as happens a lot of times, you know, when I'm reading books or essays, I always think “is that person on Twitter, I got to find them,” you know. And so I'm going along, and I see Oh, Robert Warrior, and I'm really enjoying this essay. And so I log on to Twitter with the intention of seeing if I can find Robert Warrior. And in my notifications is like, Robert Warrior just followed you. *laughter* No way, I was just about to look for you. So that's Yeah. So there's a nice, nice, nice little bit of synergy there. I don't know what I might have been going off on on Twitter that got your attention, butRobert:I think it was on I mean, I think it was on Afro Indigenous issues or something like that.. That's a bit identity in general, I can't remember.Patty: But that was something that, I mean, really, thanks. You know, this is this is why relationships are important, right? You know, because it's relationship that I have with Kerry, and then, you know, and other, you know, and other people that I'm getting to know, you know, just really how important these conversations are between our communities, and recognizing that our communities are not discrete categories, either.Robert:Great points,Patty:Not only are people in the Black diaspora Indigenous in their own right, in other ways. But people who are Indigenous to here also had relationships with Black people.Robert:Exactly, surePatty:Also, you know, so we're, we're relatives in all kinds of ways. And, and, you know, one of the points that Tiya made when we talked with, you know, when, when she was on, Aambe, on the book club, was how there's gaps in gaps in our stories, and the story in our own stories. I mean, we all about what passes for mainstream education and the gaps that exist there, and how we're just not present. I just went off on a Twitter thread about Grapes of Wrath. And, you know, and how Steinbeck almost gets it, so close to understanding connection to land, you know, but where are the Indigenous people? On whose land, they're living? Oh, we're dead, like the snakes.Robert:Wow. Right.Patty:You know, so I go off on that relationship to land because like, we know that we're not in white literature in white education, but we're also missing from each other's stories. That was the point that Tiya made was, you know, in Black Studies, there's gaps where Native people should be. And then Native studies, there's gaps where Black people should be.Robert:Right, right. Well, I mean, I think that's a terrific point. And I think that I mean, so much this this conversation in general this topic I think, requires a lot of a lot of grace on the part of the people who are having the conversation, a lot of compassion for why people don't know the things they don't know. And and that people can only start where they start from and and we're trying to make the conversation better, we're not trying to have a perfect conversation right off the bat.And so it but they can be really difficult and Tiya is such a genius and such a wonderful person, such an amazing scholar, but also just an amazing writer. And how she has she's able to, to in her first book and Ties That Bind, tell the story of this one little family and illustrate through through Shoe Boots and Lucy, that story that is just so powerful. You know, it's not very often that I cry in in when I'm reading a book but you know, When, when, when Lucy at the end of it is freed. Finally, when she's a very old woman, you know, I just, I just cried because I just it just the weight of her of her servitude had weighed on me through the whole thing, you know, and the way that she had to persevere through all of that. And then to say, oh, it couldn't have mattered that much, which is what people always want to say, right? But of course it did. Of course, it did. You know, she even if even if she'd had 15 minutes left to live, she still want to prefer freedom for those 15 minutes, you know, than not.And but I do think that that being able to enter into a conversation where there's not a lot of rules, at the start, where there's not a lot of, of saying the only way that you can be part of this is if you will make sure that you do enough of this or enough that. I mean, you I guess I want to assume that a good author, a smart author will say, I hadn't thought about that, you know, the next time I do a story like this, I want to think more about that. And and that that can make that that we're trying to move forward. And we're trying to make the stories better. It doesn't be it doesn't make things excusable, that are inexcusable. But it does, I think it does offer a way into a circle of conversation that I think can be much more powerful.Patty: Mm hmm. Well, I know, I'm working on a book myself, I'm my editor, you know, we were going, you know, going through the first half of it, and I'm talking about Indigenous experience. But I can't exclude, like Black experience as part of that. Right, you know, part of a colonial, you know, it's part of a colonial project, it happened, you know, in tandem and intersecting it all kinds of ways and, and acted differently in some ways, you know, and you get at that in, you know, in your essay that you contributed to this book, about why we reacted differently, you know, in sometimes supporting the residential schools. You know, you kind of get at, where's our WB DuBois? You know, and so she said, You really need to have Black eyes on this, because you're talking about Black experience. So you need to have Black eyes on this, you know, as part of, you know, your posse of people that are reading it ahead of time. And so I was like, okay, so I shipped it off to Kerry and Kerry had some feedback for me.And I was like, okay, that's not what I meant. But you know, why, if that's the way it's being heard, and that matters, because communicating something if it's not going to be heard, or if it's going to unintentionally cause harm, like that's not. And I think these conversations with Kerry, have been really helpful for me as a human being, not just because we're friends. But just really helpful to me as a human being, because these are, these can be hard conversations. And I sometimes I say things that aren't right, because we're all raised in this soup. Having the grace to be able to share with each other and kind of go on like, sometimes Kerry, and I'll go. But that's, I don't know, like, I hope that we've created this space where we can have these conversations and that they're, they're hard, but they’re also a lot of fun.Kerry: Absolutely I and I agree, I'm listening to both of you and recognizing the uniqueness of what we are creating even just the facet of having this kind of a conversation. It's creating the safe spaces to fill in those gaps. You know, when I look at I was thinking, the other day, I'm reading a book called Lose Your mother. Lose Your Mother is all about a woman, um a professor in the US, who is tracking back her history to to Ghana and going back through the Gold Coast and and her experience of what it is to go home.And it's interesting because her experience of going home left her feeling much more of a stranger in that space. You know, we and why I think it's important to this conversation is what it got me thinking about is how when we don't get to really draw our tapestries really create our own stories and tell our own stories, it's left to get skewed, it's left to be romanticized in ways that may not be the actual reality. And we leave out some of those integral pieces that create the fullness of what our stories would be.So for Sadaiya in that book, she was talking about how she was received in Ghana, after a while, you know, she was, um, she came back with the idea that she would have been welcomed home and The Ghanian people would have been like, yes, you know, sister, you know, and, in fact, what they kind of saw her as the privileged American, and not understanding the experience of what it was to have that ancestor move through the Middle Passage and what was endured in North America. And it struck me, because I know that I've romanticized one of my, my bucket list things is to go to the Gold Coast, and to really, you know, go to see some of the slave forts. And that thought, to me of being lonely in the space that very, you know, most often might have been the launching spot for where my ancestor left was, it was sobering.And it brings back the idea that the stories that we tell each other, or we tell ourselves may not be in, contextualized in the right way, if that makes sense. And that, the the, the truth is to be able to hear the different voices as we move through that, and how those relationships really connect together to form the truth of who we are how we stand in this hear and now.So I I'm, I think you're right, it's, it's very important that we create these dialogues that we can tap into those pieces of the story, like, when I was reading, um, you know, your book, there were some pieces of tendrils of, of family or relatives that were formed from, you know, tribes coming together with Black folk that I did not know. And, and that to me, oh, like, Well, hey, because I've seen some pictures, where you see some Black people in regalia, and you know, wearing wearing tribal feathers and stuff. And it's never made sense to me, 100%. And that picture was opened up simply from us being able to read, or me hearing it coming from you. And so to me, these forces in ways are integral, it's integral to get a fuller picture of how things exist, and how we sit in the structure of our world.Robert:And it seems like to me, I really appreciate all that, Kerry, I think this is really powerful. And it seems to me that, that recognizing that the conversation happens in places of pain is just so crucial. And that that's one of the reasons why people shut gates on each other, and why they create a kind of a gatekeeping, of who's allowed into this conversation space, that is my life. And, and this is why I'm accepting and this and and, again, I always want to call people out when they're being inexcusable in their behavior. And at the same time, I want to try to, I want to try to lead with compassion and trying to find a way to say, Can I get you to open that gate? Could I get you to think about, because the person on the other side is trying to open theirs right now. And until they're both open, and this is what I mean,I think this I love your podcast already. Because, because it because it's about friendship. And I think that friendship requires this kind of this kind of vulnerability, right? And this kind of saying, I want to open myself to you in a way that allows you to see me and, you know, I'm pretty flawed. And so, but these flaws, that's part of what friendship is, you know, it's like saying, I'm overlooking your flaws. I'm not even seeing them anymore, because we're friends, we've moved past that point, right. And so the, the powerful conversations that can take place as you build that foundation of friendship is built on trust, and it's built on trust that, that we don't have to write each other off because we make mistakes, because we say the wrong thing.And, you know, but I think one of the things you're seeing that it's I think that it's still largely unimagined and that we lack imagination and having the conversation about the different kinds of indigeneity that that we're talking about in this conversation, and that there are so many versions of indigeneity that go through it. I know that that native people in the US and in Canada and North America tend to, I mean, we're so fortunate to have communities that are intact we can go to, not everybody belongs to one of those communities, which is really important to say, right? A lot of people are incredibly disconnected from those things. But the fact that they exist, the fact that they're over there somewhere, that someone is really tightly connected to that sort of, of reality is, is powerful.And of course, of course, those things exist in Africa as well, right? For African descended people. But the but the, the separation is, is so severe, right? I mean, in terms of distance, in time, and in geography, that, that it that it creates a different existential reality for people who are having to think it through. But on the other side of that is that connection to indigeneity, as well, and so for. And so it's unpredictable, right, and the way that these things intertwine with each other, usually through the process of love. And oftentimes just through people getting together to survive in the kinds of situations you're talking about.Not always I think we romanticize things, if we think it's always that way. But, you know, I think I think of New England and how, how, at the time, when Native men were leaving New England to become whalers, African, African descended men were moving to New England as free Blacks, and were working in the same households that native women were in that this is where we really see the start of a lot of the Native New England families that are mixed between African and Native. And they came together that they didn't, you know, they, they, for the heterosexual people there, they didn't have other people and they turned to each other, they found in each other the sort of intimacy and the sort of being able to share a life with somebody that was really deep and meaningful for them.And that this is, we see this now, you know, in, in the people that we meet. But being able to account for and not having to have made sense of them right off the bat, there's different forms of indigeneity that are in play. My I mean, I'm really fortunate coming from a family that is very deeply connected to who we are as Osage. And I'm able to, although that wasn't always true, just in the individual kind of end of my family, with my dad and others, but, but I've been able to connect with that. And you know, and I can dance and I can be a part of our traditions in a way that's really powerful part of our social life our political life. And, you know, I felt so fortunate about that. For other people that, you know, that that's not true in the same way.But I think that, that, that I still at this point in my life, in spite of that good fortune, my own indigeneity as an Osage person eludes me at times. It catches me, it catches me unexpected, I learn new things, I find new connections. And so for me to expect that someone else is going to have figured their ties to indigeneity out seems a bit unfair to me, you know, at best, you know, and and so I think that, that, that can create the possibility of, of connection.Patty: Well, and then you add to that, so we had those kinds of relationships. But some of our tribes were also slaveholders. And, you know, you can say all kinds of stuff. I read somewhere you know, about us not, you know, that. Okay, how did I, how did I put this, you know, this slavery is never, you know, it's it's never a good thing, but that a lot of native slave owners weren't as bad. And oh yes. Yes, I said that. I said that on Twitter. knocked over was a moment where I was like, wow, I'm really, really sorry, that was a huge misstep. You know, I clearly missread something and everybody who jumped on me was absolutely, absolutely correct in that, you know, because, you know, and I actually got a couple of book recommendations out of it. They said “you need to read these books,” and I did. I did and we were jerks. Well, the Anishinaabeg weren't one of the slave owning nations. But you know, so we had those kinds of relationships too.Robert:Right.Patty:And then we're seeing the ripples of that with, you know, with what's happening with the freedmen?Robert:Absolutely,Patty:You know, and you know, and I wouldn't shut up about that with dead Holland's nomination because, yes, she's great, but but look at this legislation she sponsored, she has to do better, she has to recognize she is now in a position of some serious power. And look at this legislation she sponsored this is terrible anti Black legislation. And she needs to you know, she needs to do better. She's under the guise of Kerry, I don't know if you're familiar with the legislation I'm talking about. But under the guise of I think it was native sovereignty. She had co-sponsored legislation that would allow to try to determine its own citizenship, knowing that what they were going to do was strip Freedmen of their rights of their rights to citizenship and basically creating Jim Crow type situation for tribal citizenship. Is that correct? Robert?Robert:So I'm going to rely on your I mean, I’m new on that. But you know, I think that on those situations, I mean, these things are incredibly difficult politically to figure out and the policies behind them. In the end, I just, I mean, one of the things I've always said is, is, especially for Cherokee people, that whatever freedom you have to do something like you're describing to disenfranchise people, that you committed to not do that, too many of whom are your blood relations, even if they're not on your tribal roles, that when you do that, you really do have to open yourself up to the kinds of criticism, you can't just go hide from that critique. And if that critique ends up, alienating, you know, members of Congress who no longer want to send you the kind of funding that you have to say, why are we funding these folks? Yeah, of course, we recognize their freedom. But should we be? Should we be encouraging that through, you know, through the funding that we provide? And, and I think that that has to at least be an open question. It's one that can be debated, but I just don't think that people should just get a free pass.Patty: Well, we're to hide behind sovereignty. Right,Robert:Right. Exactly.Patty:The South tried that argument. It didn't work. They fought a whole war about it. Don't get too well. And we talked with Azie Dungey about the Pamunkey tribe, which she's connected to. And, you know, the laws that were on that were still on their books about, you know, if you're Black, you can't inherit what you can't be a tribal member have land or something. And it had to do with protecting their own land. But the rules that required them to do that required is really the wrong word. But kind of boxed them into that corner 100 some odd years ago, don't exist anymore. So why are you still disallowing these members? Why did you set your membership criteria based on when that law was still legally enforceable? Like? That's not very nice. Yeah, so our relationship is complicated. And we need to be able to me that's the book that I had held up the Crossing Waters Crossing Worlds, that conference, you wrote the afterword for it, talking about the conference. It got heated,Robert:I did, and it really did. I mean, it was a wild ride. I mean, I'm so glad that it happened. It was hard to watch at times. And at the very end, I mean, it, you know, it there was a great idea that that Tiya had to use that time when she was when she was a fellow at Dartmouth to bring people together, Eating Out of the Same Pot. And you know, and let's, let's come together and let's talk and it and just saw that it was really a volatile kind of situation for everybody who was there. And that, that I think it was because of of how painful these histories are for people. And that, that, that I also think that there's a lot of dismissiveness in, in, in all of these groups in both of these groups, especially,I mean, the main two groups that were at this conference, or whether it's really I would say four groups of people were there. There were Native scholars who do Native studies. There were African American scholars who primarily were there who do African American studies, but also the relationship to Native American studies. And then there were white scholars who were there who mostly did Native studies, who knew a lot about these things like [intelligible] really wonderful person and, you know, great scholar. And then there were there were there were Afro Native people there, there were Black Indian people there. And and that was part of the mix that really made things made things more, more tense at times, because there were people who had skin in the game literally, right?The and I think that that really taught me being a part of that gathering really made me see that, along with getting Black eyes into this conversation, it's also really important to have Afro Native eyes, in Afro Native Voices in that conversation that it said that there's a that there's a different state that people have, when they've embraced that identity. And they're putting themselves forward into the conversation in that way. That because that, that, that the Afro Native people at that particular meeting made, made, made, some of the Native American people uncomfortable, made some of the white people uncomfortable, and many of the Black people were uncomfortable too they hadn't really spent a lot of time around people who were so forward in, in identifying as Afro Native, they knew people like this existed, they probably have relatives who, you know, say, hey, you know, we're like that too, right.But it was a bit it was really, it was really, it really said something about where we are in all of this. And I don't know that we've come that far, either. And at the end, I mean, it was really I mean, it was so it was hard to watch at the end, because people, there was nothing resolved, we had a big session at the very end of it. And we tried to come together to say, this is what we've learned. But really, there was just a lot of bad feeling. And it's really hard to leave something like that when there's so bad feeling in the room.And I mean that the thing that I always remember about that there had been a group of people from Dartmouth who wanted to sing Amazing Grace in a bunch of different native languages. And they tried to do this at the very end, it was, you know, would have been a really beautiful thing. But everybody was just feeling so terrible at that point. It was just it didn't feel like there was any grace, amazing are not in the room at that point. You know, we just really were kind of feeling like, there's so much to do here. There's so much, you know, that remains undone that, that that we don't know how to do this.You know, we can't be kind of cold blooded scholars who just disinterestedly come into this conversation. There isn't a place of being disinterested here, we really have to see everybody's made to feel by this topic in some way. And and we have to own our own position within it. I've certainly seen that, you know, I we brought up the Freedmen issue. And, you know, thankfully, it's progressed, I think, in many ways, although I'd say there's so much more work to do on it still. But at least you know, the, the current leadership with the Cherokees has, has embraced has embraced the idea that moving forward is the best way with this and to just follow the treaty follow the law and and to move to move on. And so that to stop this process of trying to stop people from being able to vote and the Win I wrote about, I wrote about that issue when it was still pretty hot.And I wrote an essay that was the most widely read essay on news from Indian country for about three years, called Cherokees flee the moral high ground, saying and it just really set out I just think the Cherokees are wrong. You know, I'm not Cherokee, but I'm gonna say they're wrong. In what they're doing. It's just morally wrong. And, you know, I have people in my own community in the Osage community, including relatives who basically said, you know, we don't agree with you, right. And the Wii was really saying, we, we Osages, just don't believe the way you do, Robert. And, you know, and luckily, I was mature enough by that point that I said, to myself, at least, I know one Osage who does. And I'm going to hold on to that, you know, so I don't I'm not going to have somebody tell me Osages don't believe that because there's one right here who does?And I didn't ask for permission from everybody to write anything I've ever written. No claim it could be something that somebody else agrees with. I this is me, you know, and I wrote that I wrote that and I anytime I take a stand like that, whether it's saying I think that I guess on the on the issues of same sex marriage that have come up for the Navajo people, for the Cherokees, and for my own Osage people, we had our own version of that. And I took a stand against them. Because I thought it was right. And I think that that's such an important thing to do.I have to say that one, one person I learned that from was my philosophy teacher, Cornell West, who is just, you know, one of my philosophical heroes, and I had him as a teacher, when I was at Yale back in the 1980s. When I was teaching at Stanford in the 1990s, Cornell came and gave a, a big talk for like, 1000s of students, and then he did a smaller presentation for, for a bunch of us, like 20 of us. And it was so great to be in the same room with him again, hearing him hearing that, that, you know, hearing his voice and just hearing how he talks, and he's so inclusive, and so wonderful. And I know a lot of people disagree with him. And I do too, sometimes. But just as a figure as a moral figure, I just think he's so considerable.As somebody asked a question as a student of color, with this 15 minute long question. I remember, in my mind, I'm sure it was more like two. But the question was, well, what do you do when you when you're trying to make changes, but you know the change you're trying to make, isn't going to happen. And that, that, even though you're fighting for it, you just already know that the end of this is going to be you're going to be defeated, and you're going, you know that the thing you're trying to get, you're not going to be able to get and so you use all this energy to try to get it but then you don't get it. What do you do? How do you figure out when's the right time to fight for these things? And, you know, this is at Stanford was a very powerful institution, right? And in Silicon Valley, where everybody's just worried about money and worried about success. And it was just so great to hear Cornel West, his turn to that person and say, well, sister, sometimes you do things just because it's right. You just do it, because it's right. Yeah, that's it. Right. I hadn't heard that kind of moral clarity in so long, right? You say, I don't have to make up my mind based on some really complicated calculus that says, do I? Do I take this position or that position? And so I don't know, I think it's right. I'm gonna I'm gonna say it.Patty: Is this the right, you know, we get so caught up in thinking strategically, right? And that's where this question was coming from is, you know, what's the point of being right, of speaking up, if it's not a good strategic moment, if it's not going to gain the kind of traction, that it needs to go anywhere? And, you know, when you were asking that about, you know, when do you know when you know, when it's the right time to bring it up? And in my mind, I thought, when you know, it's the right thing. That's when it's the right moment. Because when you know, it's the right thing, then sitting on it and not speaking up, becomes the wrong thing. You know, because now I know better. So now that I know better. Why wouldn't I speak up?And of course, I don't speak up because it's scary. I will say things on Twitter, that I don't always say on Facebook, not that what because my Facebook friends are different, right? Like, it's a completely different crowd. You know, and I know a lot of people feel this way Twitter is my chosen family. Facebook are the people I have to see at Thanksgiving.Kerry: And she says that with love.Patty: But I think what I've gotten much better at and I'm in some of it really is the podcast. Because Kerry and I just keep putting ourselves out there week after week. And then people listen to it. You know, they listen to us, as both, you know, learning in real time. You know, but so but there's things I will talk about a lot of times mostly like about religion or something I don't know, because the people I go to church with are on Facebook, but I'm getting much better at kind of the crossover at saying the things where there might be some social consequences. In my day to day life.Kerry: Yeah, I love this. I love that that you are bringing that up. It resonates with me so deeply. Oh, my goodness, Patty, because I have been in this space, I think over the last, you know, two or three weeks where I'm having to come into stepping into my power in that way. Where it's recognizing that the voice that I have I I'm I'm in the realization that I don't necessarily speak on it. Um, as largely as I would like to and when I'm starting to examine the whys behind that, I think it is because there's still that part of me that's looking for the acceptance or that or that, you know, not wanting to upset necessarily the different flows, or the different cliques of people that exist in my life. And with that being said, it's, it's coming to a point where I'm feeling not whole in who I am. So that, you know that stepping out is just what it's got to be because I'm I just, you know, it's I'm too compartmentalize, and it's not working very well.So hearing you say that really resonates, really helps me know that, that that emergence, I almost feel like it's like a growth I'm doing, I'm rebirthing in some ways,I’m wilding is the word I like to use. But it helps me know that I'm not alone in that journey. And I take that almost with with looking at how we, as Indigenous and Black people are forming relationships are looking at relationships,You know, when you mentioned the conference, and there being so much, you know, drama and trauma that sits in the air, I am, I celebrate it in some certain way. And in parts of that, because it's when we go through that kind of really feeling into it, I think a lot of times we do come at it from a strategy or we come at it from you know, the history, but we're not looking at what all of that brought into the room. And there needs to be a space to release some of that trauma, some of that pain, because it's a collective pain, what no matter what the perspective is, we all have come out of the direct response of this colonial capitalist system. And until we afford ourselves that space, the right to really feel into what the effects have been, then, and only then can we, I think fuse the other piece of it, which is to heal. To really be effective, you have to be able to offer some healing up so that you can process what the next phases of this game are going to be.And you can't do that without getting mad at each other, or having those tough conversations that will create that forum, that space to go. So now what i Okay, yeah, I don't like what you say. But maybe there's something there. And I so, I really think those are the things that we have to continue to do is, is get in the room, close the door, hopefully it can be soundproof a little bit and just hash it out, hash it out and see each other, see each other as we move through me.Patty: Robert, you had made a comment at the end of this essay, and I was just I was just rereading it the you were you were a Lone Wolf and Dubois For a New Century. At the very end of it, you as you say it will help us perhaps, work through the way we see ourselves in the way we exist in this world. Perhaps such work will help us re ask the question, what does it feel like to be a problem? Because that comes from the Dubois that comes from Dubois, right? I'm remembering this correctly. Can you talk about that a little bit about why you went looking at DuBois. And yeah, I love that essay. By the way, it was really interesting.Robert:Thanks very much, thanks. You know, I like so many things that had to do with the conference I had been invited to, to present at the 100 100th anniversary. There was a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Souls of Black Folk at the University of Wisconsin, that scholar, Caribbean American Scholar Nelly McKay put together. , And this thing was just, I mean, an incredible All Star lineup of people, especially of African American scholars, Nel painter, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. David Levering Lewis, who wrote the great WB Dubois biography, the two volume biography of DuBois. Lots of other people too. Vijay Prashad, and I were invited to be the panel that was about people other than Black people. And he had just written his wonderful book, The Souls of Brown Folk. And. And so we did this panel together. And I wrote this essay for it. And what was interesting to me that one of the first the first question I got is, why didn't you talk about the train journey of Dubois through the South, when he talks about, you know, looking at the land of the Creeks, and looking at it that this, and I, you know, I kind of thought about that, I thought, well, that's probably more elegant. And as the person asked that, that, I probably should have done that I probably should have made this kind of more elegant kind of thing. But I also wanted to bring these two difficult things that don't really fit together, together into what I wanted to say about a Native American perspective on DuBois. I wanted to say, what was going on at this exact same time, you know, what was the Native world in, in 1902 1902, when When Souls of Black Folk came out? Or maybe it's 1903. But it's right there at the turn of the, you know, the turn of the 20th century. And that, that I guess, I mean, some of this had was probably a little bit of an exorcism to, along with, along with Cornel West, I had other Black mentors, James Cone who invented Black Theology of liberation was my doctoral advisor, wonderful, wonderful, very influential person, the academicPatty: Quite the academic ancestry.Robert:Right. And, and somebody's not as well known, but who was at Union Theological Seminary, when I was there as well, James M Washington, who Coretta Scott King brought down to the King Center, flew him down for a meeting, and she said, I want you to put together the essential writings of my husband, you know, and he did that. He’s this amazing African American church historian, you know, and, and he gave me, he just, he freed me intellectually from myself, you know, he taught me how to take myself seriously, as a student. And in a seminar, I just remember that. I remember, I put my hands down on a table. And I started talking to him like this, you know, I thought, What am I doing, you know, and I can't I can't do this, but he was okay.You know, he knew he already knew I had all of these things inside that are that I was trying to, and I was trying to cleverly pull them out of myself, you know, I tried to find some sort of safe, safe way of getting these things kind of blown out my ears and blown out, you know, other parts of me, when, in fact, they just needed to work through my brain and through my heart, and now, you know, and out my fingers in my writing, and, you know, the things that I said and, and like I say, I was felt as though Jim Washington, freed me from myself, from my own from my own conceits. In so many powerful ways.I learned so many other things as well from from James Cone. And it also allowed me to be a part of this company, of his graduate students who were from around the world. Many of them were from Africa, other African American students, and, and I was the Native American student in that in that group. And, and I just, you know, and I felt a kind of camaraderie, intellectual camaraderie in that group that was really, really wonderful and really powerful. And I think that, that around that time was when I was really figuring out what that legacy meant for me, because I always wanted, I always wanted the the Native intellectual tradition to be different. I wanted to have that Dubois figure, you know, that we could look to and to say, I want that person who does that thing that Dubois does kind of pulls everything together, and does this amazing, comprehensive look at the entire world.And, and I eventually just had to say to myself, we got what we got. And guess what, you know, the one thing that we have, it goes back to this thing of having these intact places and communities and political bodies and political people. You know, I always knew that, that that this is a little bit complicated, but it may be really helpful to the conversation.Let's say that I love the way in the African American in the history of Black thought, than African American thought. You always had these two dynamics going on, you know, at the same time, you had Malcolm and Martin and you Have you know you have DuBois but you also have Washington? Washington, Booker T. Right. But yeah, and are later Garvey too, right. And so you have these, you have these, these, this dialectic, and this historical dialectic, that's just really wonderful. And of course, you have an entire hidden world within that as well, that is all the other voices you don't see. But that the, the dialectic is always there showing me different things.And I was frustrated, because I couldn't find the other side of that dialectic in the Native tradition and the Native tradition of written thought. And I wanted it to be there, I wanted to see that more. And it was, I could see that in some places, but it seemed like our impulse in the world of Native thought was to try to come up with “The Position” with “The Native Way of Thinking About Things.” And, and I was never satisfied with that. And so I had this thing called discourse envy, I wanted to. And you know, the thoughts are greener, the grass is greener on the other side of this, this fence. Right? And that, that and, because the thing I realized early on, as I said, you know, we don't have that same kind of dialectic. But those other points of view do exist are out there. And there, you have to, they're, they're more, they're happening in the local places.They're happening in, in a world of,of the people who are, it's not just traditional knowledge, which is, I think, one of the in this, this could make some people want to turn off what I'm saying and that, I mean, that's fine with me if they do, but to say, it's not just the that I said to myself a little bit later, there's two kinds of subaltern thought within the native world. There's a subaltern thought, which is the subaltern are the people who are unseeable to the, the regular world, they just can't see that there's this layer of experience within peasant life, or within Native American life or Black life, you know, that, that there are two kinds of subaltern just in general, I mean, there's probably 50 kinds, but the two kinds, I could really want to highlight that you could see people who had held on to those kinds of traditional knowledge about healing, about how to how to live with each other, social relations, and the people had this, this kind of intact sense of those of those traditions.But there was another kind of subaltern too, which was the voice of the destitute, the voice of the people who were, who were poorer than the poor, who are, you know, the most starving of the starving the people who just were so far beyond the reach of the things that were supposed to make their lives, work and make their lives better. And that there was without romanticizing the position, there's a kind of knowledge that comes out of that, that sometimes it's sometimes it's imbued with that sense of, of Indigenous tradition, but sometimes not. Sometimes it's just imbued, as it is so often in Black thought with just, how do you start from this place of living in a world that says, you're nothing, that gives you nothing? And then how do you make something out of that?And I knew that, that that kind of thought exists out in the native world, too. It often associates itself with that traditional knowledge with that kind of prestige of that, you know, of that Indigenous knowledge, because it's smart. You know, I mean, people like that are smart, and they know that people who are in those positions have answers. I think that's been really theorized so beautifully by by Leanne Simpson, in her book, As We've Always Done, and I think she does a really great job of getting at a lot of those thingsBut that essay about Lone Wolf, I think, and the boys too, instead of being able to find this worldwide gigantic figure like Dubois that I had to say, while the gigantic figure was the gigantic figure for the Kiowas. And he was he was going to be this enormous national figure for the Kiowas. But he may not be a big, enormous national or international figure. In the same way DuBois is because this context is different and his his struggles are different, who he's who he's trying to reach out. to then be a part of that's also different, too, and to say, let's settle into this intellectual space, this tradition that I'm a part of, and stop looking over my shoulder, stop looking over the horizon, you know, and to just settle into it and to learn the beauty of it.And to see, what does it take, if you're somebody like, like Lone Wolf, who, you know, doesn't have the benefits of education, the benefits of just knowing where the levers of power are? How do you figure out how to get all the way to the Supreme Court with with with a case like that? Even Even, even if it's not successful? But that you figure out how do you fight? How do you how do you take what you have a fight with it, and to fight back? Right.I still, you know, I still want people to aspire to that, to that gargantuan sense of intellect that Dubois brings into, you know, what I see when I see my African American brothers and sisters in the academy, and then African American writing and other forms of African American thought, who are in that line of that DuBoisian line? You know, I marvel at it, you know, and I say, What a great gift that the world gave, that the African American world gave to everybody, the boys, but especially to the African American world, you know, to set this, this kind of example, and again, not to say that DuBois was perfect, or that you know, that he was just this ideal kind of person in all ways. But intellectually, it's just breathtaking, you know? And yeah, and I guess that was that was, I think, I guess the part that still lives on and that is to say, I really want to hold on to that idea of the intellect as being so crucial to how do we get how do we get from here to where we're going? I’m bringing mine along with me, I'm bringing my intellect along with me. And I don't want to I don't want to fetishize it, I don't want to make it the only thing I have, but I'm bringing it along, because it's helped me so many times. And it's helped other people, other people's intellects have helped them so many times.Patty: And it's important, right, because we, we don't … I just read Dale Turner's book, This is Not a Peace Pipe. And he talks about that he talks about the you know, the, the need for “word warriors”, you know, people that know the language that know how to navigate the legal system, they know how to navigate the intellect, you know, the, the international stage and know how to, I mean, when when I did social, when I did social work, so much of what I did was, you know, was act as almost as an interpreter, you know, for people to be able to access the system, because if you can use you know, if you want to access a certain mental health program, you have to hit the key words, you know, you have to be able to identify the things that get you into their mandate because you might meet their criteria, but unless you can, unless you can articulate it, you don't and you won't get the service and so that was a lot of what I did was that kind of interpretation. And so I think that's what Dale is talking about, is you know, we need these word warriors because they can be those interpreters and get us putting our putting our needs and thoughts in ways that will be heard on the global stageAnd I think Art Manuel was really good at that. From a Canadian standpoint, in terms of you know, we're not gonna deal with Canada we're gonna go straight to the World Trade Organization. “We’re nations dammit, we're gonna act like nations” you know, so that he was really good at bringing you know bringing things in and communicating it in a way that the people whose hands on the levers of power knew how knew how to do. So that's really really important you know, but then like he said, we also need that other thread those traditional people because otherwise what are we fighting for? What are we accessing those halls of power for?Robert:RightPatty:Not you know if it if it's just to set up another you know, just cut it just another capitalist society where we're the landowners instead of the white people. What's the point? That's not that's that that's not that's not going to save anybody that's not going to help anybody. So oh, we're just going to transfer land ownership. That's not a that's not what land back is for that? Do I want you know, do I want to transfer over ownership. Yes. Do I want it to end there? No, that's not that that's not what's going to fix this. So yeah, we need we need both of those traditions. But I think your what was neat was, as you were talking about that, yeah, like when you see that in Black history, you know, you've got like that yin and yang constantly. Both sides talking and making their cases. And then the power is in that, that friction between them. And what emerges and you know, and so often what we hear in Indian country, you know, you start disagreeing, like you had said, you know, being the only Osage you know, they'll say, don't think that. Well, I know one that does. You know, we're told so often we need to speak with a unified voice, we need to agree we need to agree. And we don't. Disagreement is ok. That's where the important stuff happens.Kerry: Yeah, I find this so interesting to listen to because it one last night it interestingly enough, I was on tick tock, and tick tock has these fascinating little blips of information that you can pull in, and I was actually got on a tic toc. stream or hashtag, where they were playing Malcolm X, they were playing Martin Luther King, they were going into Patrice Lumbaba, um, all of the great African orders that have spoken and held our struggle from here to Africa. And it was fascinating to feel the passion and the power of all of those voices. And what I was left with as I was watching, you know, you go down a tick tock hole, let me tell you tick tock is one of the most addicting things you can get on. And I think after about three hours of it, what I was left with was the power of the voices. But that the sense that because we were, they were so different, or we couldn't connect them, and what power it would have been if that connection could be made.And so for me to hear both of you speak about the, the other side of that maybe where that, you know, when the voice is too unified, it may not necessarily or is one voice only, it may not have all of the the flow and color of that maybe right is an interesting perspective for me, because I know that one of the things that comes from our school of Black people is that we can't unify, we can't get it together, we you know, our scatteredness, and this is what is not allowing us the whole idea of the fist instead of the fingers, you know, whatever analogy you want to use. So I what comes to mind, for me is the sense of the balance between all of these sides,You know, we talk a lot on this podcast, Patty, about the different medicines, the different approaches to be able to create the change that we all want to see. And it for me, it's once again, being in appreciation for all of it, getting everybody at a round table, and allowing for a safety space, a space of safety so that every voice can be heard. And then maybe I don't know if it's picking out the best pieces of it. But I, or holding the space for all of it. So that we can bring about change. Because as you as you mentioned, we don't want the same picture that we have now. It's to to evolve it in a way that's going to suit everybody and be relatives. I love that idea. When you say relatives, it just brings me joy, to know that we can all be relative.Patty:We are all related.Robert:So I think an important concept in that for me is it's in the title for today solidarity. And that, you know that there's a there's a time for talking, there's a time for solidarity, and sometimes I hear people say, Why are you talking about that? We don't have a dog in that fight. You know, I mean, I hear that a lot. And And I'll say, I don't, that's not how I do things. I don't really think about them in that way. Of course, I have a course I have a stake in that. You know, because what's going on there something that needs to be addressed. And so I'm addressed that. I didn't I don't calculate things that way. And I don't think we should, and that that, that.That solidarity is such an important thing. And I think that at best it does grow out of relationships that are already that already exists. It's so much easier. Those relationships already exist. This, sometimes it doesn't sometimes you have to go stand with people. And that's where you start a friendship is by standing with them. And, and you stand with people without asking a lot of questions, you make up your mind to go stand with them, and then you got to go stand with them. And if you need to leave, then you leave. But you don't you don't say, Now, can we do this another way? Or could we? Could we change our goals a little bit here? It's like, no, no, no, you're you're standing in solidarity. If you can't do that, then stop standing, you know. But that, that, that's hard in and of itself, you know, and it can be hard for people to do. But it's also really important. But I think it's strengthened by the quality of conversations that happen. Before and after.I think that sometimes people these days are always looking for easy resolution. And they don't realize that part of solidarity is getting together afterwards and saying, what worked about that? What didn't? I had some questions about what went down over there? I wasn't going to slow things down in the moment. But could you kind of clue me in? What was that, you know, I got to pick up a bad vibe from that person. What was that all about? Do you know?And just to, you know, and one of the things that always is remarkable to me that amongst activists, people, people who really go out and put themselves on the line, it's not usually very hard for, for Black people and Native people to get together to stand with each other. You know, I mean, one of the one of the first things that Black Lives Matters did was to really stand with Native people, you know, other than doing things with and for Black people very specifically, were able to embrace the idea that, that even though Native people are a very small population, in comparison, that they got problems with cops too. Right, and that it's a really violent world out there for Native people, really dangerous place for, you know, for our people to and, and that was no trouble for people inside of that people who were the real activists, they understand that they get itKerry: And are used to being on the front line.Robert:And as an academic, I'm always having to remember that to say, sometimes people on the inside of, you know, the cloistered walls of academia can can have more trouble than then just people around the street people in the street kind of know what's going on. And, and stance and it going back to what Patty said earlier, you know how scary it can be to figure out how am I going to get up there? But am I going to say how am I going to do this right? But you know, the payoff of that is just when you get up there, just how how good it feels. You know, if you know something is right in your heart, and you go and you stand up for it. I was you know, I feel for people that have never done that, you know, who who can't bring themselves to do it not out of pity. But I mean, it's just because you don't know how good it can feel that you've done something. You've done something to make the world a little bit different. You don't have to win, win or lose that day. You’ve already won.Patty: No, that's Whoa, yeah, you give me some really good things to think about. I so appreciate your time.Robert:For sure. Well, you're welcome.Patty:Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for this.Kerry: Thank you, Robert. I definitely got to follow you back. I think this talk was amazing, really enlightened. Mind that by night, I appreciate it.Robert:Thank you very much for having me.Patty: Bye byeRobert: See ya’ll Later. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit medicinefortheresistance.substack.com
Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western HemisphereWith Dr. Paulette SteevesPatty KrawecWe're here with Dr. Paulette Steves.Josh Manitowabi made a remark that the Anishinaabe word Giiwedin contains the idea of going home. And that what it was referring to was the glaciers, that the glaciers were going home. And this is knowledge that's contained with elders. And he gave me you know, reference to a couple of books where elders are, you know, talked about this, in the Cree have a similar word. I think it's a kiiwedin rather than with the G. And I was just so captured by this idea that our language contained knowledge, not only of the glaciers, but the fact that they hadn't always been there. And then I encountered somebody was talking on Twitter was talking about talking about Paulette’s book, Dr. Steeves Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere kind of expands on that hugely on Indigenous presence, not just 5000 years ago, or 10,000 years ago. Like, like your dissertation. You know, it's more than 100,000 years ago,Kerry: we love it so muchPatty: that’s an extremely long time. And I was just like, when I saw that this book existed, I was like, this needs to be in my and I rewrote part of the beginning of my book based on it. I was like, I need to get this book into my book. Because it is a story of beginnings, right? I don't focus on that. But creation stories ground us, they say so much about what we believe about ourselves.Dr Paulette Steeves:And that's, that's important. That language you Giiwedin, because that tells us that the people were here, before the glaciers came, right. And they were here when the glaciers went home. And white faculty, white archaeologists don't know our language, don't value our language, and don't understand that not just Indigenous history, but World History is held in those languages. So that's really, really an important point about the language.Patty: And then I came across it in your book, I came across more examples of that, right, where you talk about Thunderbirds and the terratorns, and the story of the Osage have, and then they went and found all these bones. And it's like, wow, it's like, if you talk to the people, maybe you could learn something.Paulette:Right. But archaeologists typically for decades forever wouldn't talk to Native American or First Nations people, because they didn't give their knowledge any value. And because their academic capital was built on our history, our artifacts, and how the archaeologists told the story. So, they owned it, they own the artifacts, if they talk to us, they were terrified, oh we might have to give them something back and acknowledge them, that is slowly beginning to change. But, you know, I worked in field archaeology a lot in the US and archaeologists were supposed to by their agreements, consult with tribes, and they didn't, and none of the archaeologists on the crew had a clue, even whose land they were on. So it was really sad. I learned a lot about how devastating archaeology can be to Indigenous history from working in field archaeology for I don’t know, six years in the US. And seeing that, you know, how terrified archaeologists were that, you know, the Indians were going to take everything back and, and they wouldn't own it. And that was their academic capital.So in an upcoming coming, grant, I have some collaborators and one of them is going to talk about the capitalism of history and how that is controlled by non-Indigenous archaeologists. And so there's a lot of points that people don't think about. They don't realize it's not just archaeology and history, capitalism is involved in a big way. The nation state is involved in controlling that story, because they stole all the land based on Oh, it's a terra nullius. nobody's using it, we can have it. Right. And so when we show that's not so it makes it unsafe for the nation state. But I mean, I got an email yesterday from an archaeologist that um, his wife is Colombian. And they went down to Bogota. And he talked to a lot of archaeologists there. And they don't even discuss what we call pre Holocene or pre 10,000 year before present sites because of the pressure from archaeologists in the US to deny it. And not to acknowledge that these these ancient Pleistocene sites exist. So a lot of the field of archaeology has ignored this timeframe for Indigenous people, because it's dangerous to go there. Because archaeologists in the US say soKerry:I'm fascinated with the world of archaeology and and the, the sense the knowing that we, as people who are Indigenous to the land, people who have existed beforehand, people who have been colonized in this space in time, I think we have an innate understanding that that existence began beyond what we are allowed to claim. And then, you know, the truths of those existence are scattered all over the world, you know, that were they there's these artifacts that show up, that can't be carbon dated within the timeframe that suits the world archaeological space that exists right now.And you mentioned something that brought up two questions for me, one being that, you know, you mentioned the capitalism, the capitalist kind of system that exists around archeology, as it exists now. And that brought to mind also how the colonial system managed to take the wealth out of our, you know, our peoples, and turned it into their ownership, their, you know, history, and also, my understandings or studies of things has always shown up that for, for the origins of white folks like that understanding of what it is to be white, you know, whatever we're going to use that they they that understanding isn't found everywhere, like it normally comes from, you know, people who have color involved in the spaces, and then somehow they show up, like we are older. We are older forms of existence, or older species that existed. And I find that an interesting space, like for you does that. Do you think that's one of the things that fuels this colonial way of being? Is that sense of wanting to know where they come from? Do you know what I mean?Paulette:Yeah, no, in, in a lot of the things that I've studied, I've really come to understand how archaeology is a child of colonization. And so if you go back into early archeology in the Americas, you'll see that Aleš Hrdlička was sort of a self trained archaeologist, he trained as a physician. But, he was extremely racist. And he claimed that the Indians had only been here 3000 years. And the thing is, if you if you look at what's required in archaeology, to make claims, and to write histories, you have to have data, you have to have evidence, you have to have science. And he was basing this on one graveyard he'd done up in Alaska. He wasn't even looking at, you know, all of the evidence from all of the continents. And he went to his grave denying that we been here for more than 3000 years.So it was actually an African American, freeman, a Black man in Texas who was working as a cowboy that found the site that broke that barrier and prove that we've been here at least 10,000 years. He found this site with these huge bones and realized they had to be extinct animals because they were way too big. And he told his story. And his story got to Jessie Figgins at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. And in 1927, he went out and started excavating this area in Texas, and actually found what they call a Clovis point in the ribs of an extinct bison. And he had to fight for a few years and have people come and see it. Nobody would believe them because everyone believes Aleš Hrdlička, right. This white or white guy who was racist. And eventually that was accepted and they're like, Okay, so the Indians have been here at least 10,000 years. Right, but it's been stuck there since the 19, late 1920s. And all this evidence has surfaced are our ancestors left us their stories in the land to tell us of their time here. They left it on the rocks with rock art. They, they've held it in their oral traditions. Archaeologists have traditionally ignored all of that. But since I've started publishing and writing more or listening, and they're stepping out of that box, so there was there's a huge fear in archaeology, it's it's been said that if you talk about sites or published on sites that are older than then 11 or 12,000 years, that's academic suicide. Right? The violence that violence against archaeologists that found older sites that's not scientific, that's not academic, that's racist..Kerry:Mm hmm Could you tell us some of the stories tell us what, what, what the ancestors know and what was left in the rock art?Paulette:Oh, there's, there's so much in the rock art, it's immense. So I just had my students completed database of rock art sites whose location was known and made public. And we have, I think, over 2000 sites, there's another 1500 that are held within another database, and their their locations aren’t public. So I won't publish on those. But what that tells us is that, you know, those rock art sites are like mnemonic pegs. So I have heard that one person worked with elders in the Yukon, and they wouldn't tell certain stories. But if you took them back to a rock, or a certain area, they would sit down and start telling the story because the rock held that story. Right.So they have an amazing, amazing, very rich oral tradition of history. And when you hear, like, they have words in their language, that mean, the glaciers went home, you know, they were here, then. And that's anywhere from 8000 to 12,000 years ago. So you know that people have been here for such a long time. Archaeology sites, they left stone tools, they left bone tools, they left their history of butchering mammals, they left botanical plants and medicines. And they left us those stories. It's up to us to retell those stories. Tom Delahaye, is an archaeologist who worked on a site in Chile. And he was trained like all archaeologists are trained to, you know, people were never here before 12,000 years or 11,200 years, when his site, Monte Verde data to 12,500 years, there was so much evidence there, he couldn't deny it. You know, there was meat, there was seaweed, there was medicine, there was botanicals, there was tools, it was in a peat bog. So that means the oxygen couldn't get in, everything was just really well preserved. He lost his funding, and he had to fight to get it back. That's how violent it is. So nobody would believe him. They hadn't been to the site or, you know, experience his data. But they just said, Oh, no, you're wrong, because people haven't been here. And he had to fight for years to get that site accepted. Now, he now has another area close to there that dates to over 30,000 years. But he, you know, he had he lost all of his funding, and he had to fight to get it back.And that's not right. We're supposed to be archeologists. We're supposed to study the history of humans, right? We're not supposed to deny it and say it doesn't exist before we even look. But that is the case for the Americas unfortunately.Kerry:And I I'm I'm, I'm really like hearing this, because I also know that that seems to have been something that happened even when we study Africa, and my understandings of you know, how they've carbon dated, you know, the Sphinx, there's been arguments in and around, that the Sphinx has existed for far longer than the 5000 years that they've dated it, give or take, you know, they mean that some people believe it's actually 25,000 years old, depending on how you carbon dated it. And I'm so curious to understand, you know, you mentioned it being archaeology, archaeological suicide. Why? What do you think is that that, you know, rigid buffer that is hit that space? Why?Paulette:Racism? So So you look at it, the nation state controls history, and so whoever controls the past controls the present, right. So if we are very infantile in time compared to global human history, we are the babies right? And so we're not evolved. We're not anything, we're dehumanized. So Vine Deloria Jr. talked about this and Vine Deloria Jr. has a quote and it was somebody thing like, you know, until we are equated with human history on a global scale in in ancient time, we will not have full humanity. So he knew that there were oral traditions and stories and evidence of being here much earlier. And he knew that like, the first archaeologists like Aleš Hrdlička said, We'd only been here 3000 years. So we're newcomers.So if you look at a lot of archaeological textbooks, or you hear archaeologists talk, they talk about the Indigenous people of the Americas being Asians from Asia, right? So totally disenfranchise us from our identity of being Indigenous to the Americas. Pardon me, Asia did not exist. Neither did an Asian culture 10 or 12,000 years ago, we are not Asians from Asia, we are Indigenous to these continents. And we have been for a very long time. But they teach. They they preach and teach this worldview that disenfranchises us from the land. Why? Whey all live on the land that the colonizing government stole, you know, through a genocide and intentional genocide, of putting they put rewards on Indian scalps, you'll get 50 bucks for a woman and 500 for a chief. Those were lost. So people were intentionally killing Indians. If people thought that Indians were human, you know, and it had been an established, you know, advanced culture, they wouldn't have been out there shooting them for 50 bucks.So so this started back, you know, what, when America started the dehumanization, and linking us to nature, not to culture, right, and it's taken over 100 years for people to realize, oh, they did have very advanced cultures, they have some of the earliest areas of agriculture, they have more Indigenous languages in the Americas than the whole rest of the world put together. Right, that really all humanizes us. And archaea, a few archaeologists have spoken out and said that, you know, archaeologists understand the importance of the past to people, and the importance of human, you know, history to humanizing people in a certain area.So our history was built in colonization, to dehumanize us, and we're rewriting that history. And that's important because that frames people's worldviews, and when you push back against that, and you inform their worldviews, and you give them all this new knowledge, they're going to see us different, right? They're going to vote different policies are going to be different. Land Claims are going to be different. We're still in a place where we're very dehumanized, and we're starting to reclaim that, and make it public. And people are just starting to understand it. It's like, all these settler people are scratching their heads going really holy. I didn't know that. Right? Like, people don't know. And so they just believe what they're taught.But one of the first things I teach students is to think critically, I mean, don't believe what's in that book, study it, find out for yourself, you have the skill to do that to become informed. And you see people and events in an entirely different way.Patty:Mm hmm. Your book it, you make a couple of interesting points that I've been, I mean, you talk about evidence is not found, because it's not looked for, you know, because they've got a particular story, you know, that they want to tell. And, you know, and we talk about different peoples being, you know, Asiatic or Caucasoid, or whatever. And, and these are modern, you know, these are modern racial categories, people who existed 12,000 years ago, 30,000 years ago, 40,000 years ago, they weren't any of those things. We're taking contemporary ideas, and imposing them. Like when we talk about how humanity started in Africa. Africa didn't exist 100,000 years ago. Africa is a very recent invention, that has a lot of colonial baggage attached to it, you know, and you look at kind of, I remember going to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and you see, you know, that poster of the evolution of mankind. And that start, he starts dark and hunched over and then becomes of white, he starts Black and becomes white.Paulette:There's this term called agnotology, which is the intentional teaching of ignorance, and the hiding of facts and data, right. So, US and Canadian education is based on agnotology. It's not so much what you're taught is what you're not taught. Right.So I asked all my classes this Where did humans begin? Africa. Okay. And what did humans evolve from. Well, primates and where did did primates evolve? Africa. No, the earliest primates in the world are from Wyoming. Right? 47% of the earliest proto primates are from Wyoming and Saskatchewan. So if primates as Nova has a little video that shows our earliest ancestors were did everybody first evolve? North America, North America, Hello. People aren't taught that I have a book chapter out there on that also.And that's really a great example of how agnotology is used. They don't teach students that the earliest primates are from the Americas. Right? And that's intentional, because that would make North America important. Imagine if people thought that it that everybody evolved from the earliest primates from North America, right? Could we say we have been here forever? Yes. Hello, of course. And it's scientific data to show it so. Agnotology unfortunately still plays a huge role in how students are taught, and so does racism and bias. I had to teach from one textbook. As a graduate student, you know, we have teach the professor's class and the textbook was talking about what is an artifact and these two authors said, Well, an artifact can be a beautiful 20,000 year old spearpoint from France. Or it could be an indistinguishable flake some weary Indian chucked out in the Mississippi cornfield 1500 years ago. So what kind of worldview are you framing? Beautiful ancient things come from Europe, but some weary Indian chucked out an indistinguishable flak? Why would you even say thatPatty:You weren't here 15,000 years ago, how did you know, he was tired?Paulette:And so I take that book, every chance I get. And I brought it up to the professor. And I said, do you understand how dehumanizing and wrong this is? He was really embarrassed, because he hadn't realized how bad that wasn't, he's been using that textbook for a while. Right? So first year, students, this is what they're taught.Patty:Right? And that becomes foundational, to how they, how they think their perspective. Alexis Shotwell does some really nice writing in her book, Knowing Otherwise about our implicit knowledge, you know, things that we know, but we don't articulate, you know, like the way our hands know how to do things. We don't have to think through how you know how to do stuff, our hands just know what to do. And, you know, we feel and, you know, and we have, we just know some things, and that it's this kind of stuff that that forms the basis of that, that, you know, nobody has to tell them that Indigenous people are, you know, backwards. And you know, less than and all of that they just know,Paulette:It’s normalized violence against Indigenous people. And that plays into how people frame and vote for and create policies for land claims for clean water, for human rights, right, for funding, for schooling, for everything, you know, and so people just normalize that we're worth less, because we're less human. So let's fund their schools like at only two thirds of what we fund, settler white schools, right? This, these are the kinds of things that play into it. And I'm kind of beginning to push the envelope further.So if we look at Northern Asia, we know that there were early hominids there 2.4 million years ago. So there's archaeology sites there where we know that Homo erectus or homo sapiens were home erectus like 2.1 million years ago at one site. We know there are sites in Siberia that date from 24,000 to 340,000 years. So why then, wouldn’t it have early humans? Because they follow animals, they follow herds of animals, because that's their sustenance, their food, right? Why would they have stopped there? If they already walked 14,000 kilometers from Africa? to Asia?Kerry:Why wouldn’t they just go ahead.Paulette:Why would they just stop? Oh, no, we can't cross there. Yeah, no, that doesn't. That's an anomaly. That does not make sense. So I'm now looking to start a new body of research where we'll actually look at what was the Paleo environment in Northern Asia and in northern North America, like at specific points in time, so we know, between glaciers, there was a land connection, and the entire land in the North was like a subtropical forest. So there was plenty of food we know because we know that mammals were coming and going. So camelid camels arose in the Americas. They had to migrate across there to get to the rest of the world. As did saber toothed cats, and and primates, right? So if they're all going from the west to the east, and humans are over there in the east, you know, when mammals are migrating back and forth, why would the humans stop? Right? Right? Like it doesn't make any sense.So I'm starting to build this new body of evidence and knowledge to show that it has never been impossible. From the earliest times we see, you know, 2.1 or 2.4 million years in Northern Asia, it was never impossible for mammals or humans to have come to North America, there's no way you can convince anybody really, if you're looking at the facts that they waited in, you know, 2 million years to do that. They were there the whole time. No.Patty:And you make sorry, you make a really good point about Australia that I just kind of want want to bring up because they accept presence, you know, human presence in Australia much further back then they accept human presence in North America. And they also accept ocean travel. We always walked. We always walk, we had to wait for the snow to clear and we walked. But in Australia, they could take boats. So why couldn't we take boats? You know, like, and I thought that was a really, I thought those were some really good points, because I never thought about that.Paulette:Like, yeah, well, they don't teach you. They don't teach you didn't think about that at all right? You're not supposed to. But Crete, it was in Ireland that you always needed some form of water transport to get to. And there's sites on Crete that date to over 100,000 years. So we know that early humans were using forms of water transport to cross open bodies of water over 100,000 years ago. Well, now they're trying to say all the earliest, yeah, the earliest people in North America came 15,000 years ago, and they used boats and went along the ice. No, you know, we have points in Eastern Canada, one that was dredged up from the continental shelf that dates to over 22,000 years, that are exactly the same as points found in the area we know today as France that date to that same time. And people are like, Oh, no, that's impossible. Why? During times of glaciers, the water was less the oceans were sucked up in the glaciers. And that made the land crossing much more viable. And if you talk to a lot of Inuit people today, and you ask them, also, would you have any issues going, you know, a few 1000 miles across snow and ice? No, we do it every day. We do it all the time. That's our way of life right, people were accustomed to crossing through glacial areas. Awesome. Right?Kerry:I love what you're saying so much, because a part of what I've always felt, when you when you take a look at the the history of the world, is how much it's kept fragmented. And yet, just like people, you know, like, I always feel this even with history, just how segmented we you know, the colonial system will take pieces of, and yet it doesn't take into accountability, that flow that ebb and flow that we as human beings just naturally have. Also, our relationship with the land, you know, we've had to live on Mother Earth forever. And, you know, wherever we, wherever she throws at us, we've had to adjust. And so I always find it fascinating that, um, you know, one of the beautiful things about the the human species is our ability to, you know, to innovate and to create, so why wouldn't we be able to adapt, create and innovate to move with whatever the environmental, geographical areas are presenting for us, like, why would that not be possible? And I agree with you, if you're really bringing forward for me, the sense of how the colonial system even used archaeology as a tendril to keep us controlled and in bay and to lessen the humanity of, you know, Indigenous peoples from all over the world.Paulette:Yeah, archaeology is the handmaiden to the nation state and they only produce stories that the nation state would approve of that made it safe for the nation state. Right. And it's like when you look at areas in in Mexico and in Central America, and they call people in Mestitzo and Latino, those are names. That's how you erase Indigenous identity. Right? Those people now are learning to speak out and reclaim their Indigenous identities. You know, they're not Mestitzo, they're not Latino. They're Indigenous communities had names had identities. But the nation state and archaeologists assisted them in this erases many Indigenous identities as they can, if you read a lot of archaeological stories oh the people disappeared, or there was a huge community there were 1000s, or they mysteriously disappeared, people don’t mysteriously disappear. They move, right, they migrate. Whoa. So when we,Patty:we, we traveled in the American Southwest a number of years ago, we went to Mesa Verde, beautiful site, we were we'd gone to go look at the cliff dwellings and our guide was the Navajo Ute, man. And, you know, he's showing us around, and he's showing us this one Cliff dwelling, and he says, you know, people lived here 1000, you know, 1000 years ago. And, you know, and he's going on about how they vanished. And it was so mysterious, and everybody's just really soaking this up, right, this great mystery of Where did these people go? Civilization that just vanished. And then he breaks character and says, Have you ever been to Detroit? people move. Yeah.Paulette:I did a I did an article on Mesa Verde. And got to go there and experience it. And yeah, people move, floods come droughts happen, people pick up and move, they don't mysteriously disappear. But that's how archaeologists erase us. And so what one of the kind of unspoken goals of archaeology is to cleave connections between ancient sites and ancient people and contemporary people, right. So they won't let anybody reclaim human remains older than 2000 or 2500 years because you can't prove they're yours?Well, you know what? as an undergraduate, the Quapaw tribe came and asked me if I could help them. So they were trying to reclaim over 500 ancestors, from their very well known towns, Quapaw towns that were along the western side of the Mississippi River. Right, so archaeologists know, these are Quapaw towns, they know the remains came from that area. But they were using a loophole in the Native American Graves Repatriation Act to not return those remains to the Quapaw. And there were a lot of elders that were maybe in their last years, and they would just be in tears when I met with them, they really wanted to rebury their ancestors. So I was only an undergraduate student, we didn't have a DNA lab there. But when they asked me, I realized we could do this. And I got one of the top DNA labs in the US to work with me. And we extracted a Quapaw DNA from a couple of elders, so we had something to match to those ancient remains. When I announced that I was successful in getting modern Quapaw DNA, then museums pretty much immediately gave the 500 ancestors back to the Quapaw. And two weeks after that results, they were re-buried. So the museums and universities knew that these human remains were Quapaw. And they knew they'd be really embarrassed if I brought it out and proved that they were withholding them. You know, and I showed that they were linked through DNA.So one thing I learned from that is that we can use those tools, those scientific tools to support communities, right. And that was kind of a turning point, I was headed for med school. And that was a turning point that headed me to archeology instead.Kerry:Thank you for sharing that. I think that's so important and riveting, because I know that the African continent, so many of the countries in Africa are starting to, you know, knock on some of those museum doors, and are claiming back their ancient artifacts as well. And it's been so interesting to hear like the Smithsonian, for example. My understanding is they have 1000s and 1000s. of stolen, you know, goods, merchandise artifacts, you know, ancient tribal, you know, heirlooms that they have taken and they're just sitting in boxes in a warehouse somewhere. And what came to mind even is the remains of you know, Sarah, Sarah Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, that African woman who they had encapsulated all of her human remains and it took them what's it 19 It was in the 90s, I think before they actually returned her back to her native land. And so, once again, I did not realize there could you explain a little bit you caught me there. Explain a little bit about this. This, you know, loophole legislation that exists where any you can't claim remains that are 2500 years older, then could you can you speak a little bit about thatPaulette:You have a lot of archaeologists who are very vested in those policies. And so it's it's, there's a there's a law in the States came in in 1990, I think called NAGPRA, Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. So that required archaeologists, museums, to create lists of everything they own, including the Smithsonian, all these museums, everything right. And to to put make those lists public so that if Indigenous communities wanted to reclaim human remains, or affiliated spiritual artifacts, they could start that process. So as soon as that law came in, a lot of archaeologists in museums that are looking for loopholes to deny that right, so like I said, that was capital, they were sitting on millions and millions and millions of dollars of capital that got 1000s and 1000s, and 1000s of archaeologists their degrees. Right. And they did not want to give it back.Oh, my God, there was some a hateful, hateful talk going on, in the Society for American archaeology. Right. And they were supposed to have this done within I think it was 10 years. And you know, we're, we're couple decades past when they were supposed to have it done. And there's a lot of them are still denying returning artifacts and, and ceremonial, sacred artifacts and human remains, because that's their capital. So, tribes pushed for that law, we wouldn't have that law, a lot of tribes hadn't pushed for it, and example of how they treated us differently. There was a road being built in an area of the northeastern United States, and they hit a bunch of burials, they hit a historic burial site. And they took all the remains from that the settler remains and the African American remains were re buried in a new cemetery. The Native Americans were sent to a museum. And that really, really angered some Native Americans. And they began to push for laws, so that our, our ancestors, our artifacts, our remains were treated the same as everybody else's.So there is that law in place. It does have loopholes that people try to use. And communities like the Quapaw said, you know, what, watch us, we're gonna, we're going to take care of this. And then they came and found me I was only an undergrad student at the time, I had to quickly learn a lot. I had to apply for grant for an honors thesis. But we were successful in doing that. And I got to work with the Quapaw NAGPRA Office for two years. So I got a lot of training in that area, seeing what they faced. And that ended up having to be the mediator in meetings between the museums and the tribe because there was so much aggression coming from, from the museums, right.PattyThere was another highway that was built in California that found a bunch of bones.Paulette:Every highway they build there finds bones.Patty Krawec 38:31The one, was there were Mastodon bones ..Paulette:That's the Cerutti site. It was called the Highway 54 site. So when in California, highway five goes up the coast of highway 15, goes up the interior and goes around and coastal mountains. And just north of San Diego, they wanted to join those two highways, they wanted to make a connector highway. So when they cleared that it wasn't that long ago, it wasn't 15 or 20 miles I forget, it wasn't that long of a highway, but they found over 114 archaeological sites. And one of the sites they found they hit this big mammoth tusk and it was standing straight up and down. So the archaeologist had them stop. The specialist came in and started looking at this area and they said, these bones are not disarticulated like they should be. So if this mammoth had died, his bones would kind of be scattered here and there but they weren't. There was two femur heads over here, there was a tusk vertically straight up and down on the ground. There were signs of what we call spiral fracturing.So mammoth bone is so big that even an ancient short faced bear couldn't bite it and break it right. The only way to break a mammoth femur would have been to take a big boulder and smash it. So we know that early people liked the marrow. They like the bone for making tools in the marrow was highly nutritious, right? So we know that there is a body of science that shows how people broke the bone and that bone when it's broken by humans, fractures spirally. And we can tell by looking at the bone if it was broken when the animal was alive or when he just died, or if it was broken later. So is it a green break when he you know when he's living? Or is it a later break?So Um Dr. Steve Holen, who was the head archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He retired, I actually got to do my fieldwork with him on Pleistocene sites in the Great Plains. So I worked on mammoth sites with camelid bone, rhinoceros bone, like just amazing, amazing sites. So Dr. Holen, and another team of scientists that, you know, a huge team of scientists, they knew that if they claimed that this site was a human site, and they thought at the time that was over 200,000 years old, that they would just laughed out of the business, they just be slaughtered. So they waited they that was beautifully curated at the Museum of Man in San Diego. And they waited till technology and dating got to a place that could not be questioned. And then they had those bones dated, and they dated to over 130,000 years. So they finally published that. So I studied that for my dissertation, that collection from that site, they published on this in 2017. And there was an immediate firestorm of ridicule, immediately. But they were absolutely convinced this was human workmanship on this bone. The site was not in an area where the water didn't put those boulders or bones there, it was not in the water at what we call fluvial area.Some archaeologists have supported them. So that's like, within that area. We have some other sites. Louis Leakey, who was the famous paleontologist from Africa, right found a lot of the earliest humans, the man knows what he's doing when he's looking at stone tools and bones. He came in and worked on the Calico site, just north of that area in southern California. He said that site was over 200,000 years old. What did the archaeologists in America say? Oh, he's just a crazy old man who's cheating on his wife. Right? Immediately start bad mouthing him, calling him a crazy old man. Because he said this site was over 200,000 years old, I believe him.Right, there's a few other archaeologists that believe him, south of that area in central Mexico, around this reservoir, there have been four or five sites that have been dated to over 200,000 years. So we have what we call a regional area with not one site, but a bunch of sites that date between 100,000 and over 200,000 years. And but you know, if you talk about them, you're just crazy. When when I first got a hold of Dr. Holen, and I was asking him about older sites, he said, Don't tell anybody what you're studying, they're just gonna call you crazy. But you know, if it's gonna be your dissertation, you kind of got to talk about it. So I actually after initially talking to him, and he told me about 10 sites, I started reading about those sites. And every time you read a paper, you find about another site or another site. Well, in two weeks, I had over 500 sites, and I went, you know what, this is insane. The whole story, the whole Clovis first story is based on conjecture, every piece of it now has been proven to be wrong, incorrect, and not based on scientific data.People were here way before, way before, if you got people, I worked on the [intelligible] site in Nebraska, that dates to 22,000 years before present. If people were here, 22,000 years ago, you got to back up and go, How long before that did they have to get here? And then you start seeing all these other sites that date to 5060 100,000 years? That makes sense, right? We see a pattern, but saying that people got here 12,000 years ago, and in 500 years, they went all the way from Alaska to the southern tip of South America and east to west to the Amazon. No, humans didn't move that fast. They would have needed jets. HelloPatty Krawec 44:08And then there's also the matter of the languages that you brought up, it takes time for languages to evolve and split and become new languages. You know, I've read you know, The Horse, The Wheel and Language, which is you know, fascinating story about the Steppes and the development of the horse and wheel and language. You know, and he, they talk about how much time it takes just to branch off and evolve.Paulette[unintelligible] said it takes minimally 6000 years, even within the same family tree for a new language in that family tree to be, it takes 6000 years, right? So if you look at the Americas, and we've only been here 12,000 years, we should have the smallest number of languages. There shouldn't be very few, right? I think Europe only has between four and nine, depending on who you talk to, but the Americas, California alone has 15 different language families, the Americas has about 180 to 320 language families in the world more than anywhere in the world, that tells you that people had to be here longer than anywhere else in the world. So maybe there's something in that science of timing languages or whatever that is. Right. But when you look at a continental area, hemispheric area that has more languages than the rest of the world put together, you got to realize people been there a very long time for those languages to develop. Students are not taught that either.Patty:Or not taught put those things together. Right.. You know, I just I want to switch gears a little bit because I'm just mindful of the time. You coined a phrase in your book that you know, as an Anishinaabeg person just fascinated me and I wanted, pyro epistemology, Could you talk about that? Because that was just so such an interesting idea, particularly to me, because we have eight fires, right?Paulette:Yeah, well, that came to me in graduate school. So I've been reading about the seven fires, and you know, how we're coming into the aid fire. And, and I know, because I've done this, I learned how to do when I was younger, and we use fire to clean land. Right, so So forest areas get really choked up, they get a lot of underbrush, and the new baby trees, you know, can't get up and get the sunlight. So, Indigenous people to keep the land healthy would do controlled burns, right, they would cleanse the land, and that allows that new life, good life to grow and to come up and to get the sun. And somehow it just hit me that this is what we need to do with all of these horrifying, dehumanizing discussions and books, we need to burn them. Right. And we need to make space for new discussions of Indigenous people to come up and grow up in academia, that will really bring a healthy life and healthy thoughts to people.So epistemology is how we learn the truth or how we learn what we learn. So I thought, we need to fire epistemology, we need to clean the academic landscape of all these dehumanizing talks, all of this settler, white Eurocentric view of Indigenous people, we need Indigenous people and their informed peers to rewrite our histories. And those histories need to be informed by Indigenous knowledge or traditions. You know, stories in the land, rock art sites, there's so much beautiful, beautiful data that that could be recorded.The problem for most non Indigenous scholars is that our languages and our stories are very, very advanced. They're very intricate, they're far too advanced for those white scholars to understand, nevermind that they don't understand the language, right? They cannot understand how we spoke in metaphors. If I told you, oh, there's a black and brown deer over there. In 10 days, you're gonna forget it. If I told you. There's this amazing four legged creature with this beautiful coat that is red and brown and silver and white. And I colored this story with all these metaphors, you would never forget it. And that those are oral, I get goosebumps. Those are oral traditions, right? They were, their language and thought and the power of their intelligence was so much greater, that you can't give that story to a non Indigenous scholar because they would never be able to decipher it or understand it.It's hard for me I had to translate stories from another language I had to translate from another language for my, my PhD. And so when I did a masters, I found these articles that were written in French, the French men were going down the Mississippi River and they wrote that they were afraid that the Indian stories would be lost because they were all being killed. So they stayed long enough to write some of their stories and they took them back to France. And they stayed there in a museum for over 100 and something years. I just got lucky and found where they had just been digitized and put online and I chose one. It was difficult for me. It was easy to translate the French but then I had to sit with those words. And go what is the story they were telling me and the story was it was a man who was teaching his daughters proper safe, ethical protocols for where they I lived at the time. But I realized, you know, it's this difficult for me. And I have to really dig deep into my spirit and listen to their voices. How could someone who's not Indigenous do that? They can't, right?Kerry:Oh, there this is such a juicy, amazing conversation I really, oh, oh, Paulette, you are just making my soul sing. I really enjoy, when, you know, we get guests on which all of our guests are, but that can just break this down into that soul place. And that's what I feel like you're doing when you are, are telling us and giving us this knowledge. It's it's literally about shattering the fabric of what we have created, or what the colonial system has said we must be. And so are you finding that it's starting to you know, are the cracks real? Are we, are you beginning to chip away? And feeling that ripple effect of chips are getting, the chunks are getting a little bit bigger?Paulette:Yeah. And and I'm starting to see now that more archaeologists are reaching out to me with their stories about older sites and how they've been denied. And they're getting bolder and braver. They're feeling safer now in publishing on sites that are older than 12,000 years. So we're starting that fire, right. And every time I write something, I'm just flicking my bic and just lighting that fire. Because the only way we're going to re humanize our history and revive and reclaim our history is to burn that history that this group of white people said we had to have. Right.And and that begs the question, Who has the right to tell history? Who owns the right to tell the story for someone else? Nobody. The people who own that history, have the right to tell their history. And they don't have to tell it in the way that you say, right. And, you know, people that know me, were really afraid Dr. Holen was terrified for the critique I'd face when my book came out. There hasn't been one peep of critique, not one. I have gotten really good feedback. Archaeologists like Ruth Graham, she actually worked in the field for decades. And she did publish on older sites. She got a hold of me through a friend last week so that she can make sure she attends my seminar with the Peabody tomorrow, right? Archaeologists are now talking, I've gotten emails that people are just thanking me for telling the truth, because it makes the field a safer place for them. Right?I'm sure they will come a point when some really angry archaeologists who, actually you see them at conferences, and you bring the subject up and they get screaming and shaking, they get really angry, you know, and I'm just like, what's your issue? This is what we're, we're archaeologists, right. But when it comes to the Americas, they want that to stay in a box, if you look at the rest of the world, human history in the last 20 years has completely changed because of the work that people have doing, because tech technology supports it. And we should not expect that it won't change just because it's our homeland and territories, of course, it's going to change.And you know, they found a new site off of Vancouver Island that dates to over 14,000 years. They're publishing on it. So now I'm seeing more and more people publishing and publicly discussing on older sites since I started talking about this and writing about it in 2015, right when I got my PhD. And so I think we're starting to see cracks, I think people are starting to open their mind. And they're reading my book and going this makes sense. So in my book, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere, I reclaim over 120,000 years of our history, and I do it using those Western tools and the Indigenous tools. I use archaeology, I use science, I use data collection, I use oral traditions, you know, I understand, I use mammalian evolution, mammilian migrations I use paleo environmentalism, I use paleo geography. And I show that people being here before 100,000 years make sense. People not getting here to 12,000 years it makes no sense at all. It never has. And I have people saying that to me that you know, I always said that and never really made sense. But I didn't know how, you know, well now, you know, get my book and you know how to make it make sense that we've been here much longer.Patty Krawec 55:10Mm hmm.So what is the best place for people to buy your book? I just there was a question in the chat.Paulette:Yeah. So people can buy my book from the publisher, University of Nebraska Press, any of the bookstores, it's available on pretty much every bookstore online, Amazon, Walmart, you know, every every bookstore has my book available. It's in production, audio version is in production, I can't wait to hear it. I want to hear the voice who, a professional voice person. Yeah, and then if other people are interested, I'm starting to think now to where we need to get it done on some other languages, you know, like Spanish, and maybe some Asian languages and Middle Eastern languages, because archaeology is a global field. And Human Evolution is a global field. And, and I do believe that North America has a very good place in human evolution, specifically, since we know that the earliest primates were from the Americas. And so if we look at that, and we go, Well, how did they find out to the rest of the world? And when were people coming and going? And you know, they Yes, yes, early humans evolved in Africa. But they left there look, they were in Northern Asia over 2 million years ago. So hello.They wander? Yeah. It's, it's a global thing. And so North America plays a part in that. You know, it's it's important. And people in countries are very proud people in Africa are very proud that humans evolved there. People in you know, Germany and other areas are very proud of what's their earliest archaeology site? What's the earliest tools, right? Why should North America be left out of that? Because we do have a history based on Indigenous knowledge and archaeological knowledge that goes back over probably 200,000 years, at least, if not earlier, people haven't looked for it. They weren't supposed to look for it. It was very dangerous to look for it. It was dangerous to discuss it. The few people that did left some very valuable clues for me that a lot of early sites were very, very deep. And so I'm starting to think now where would we look for early sites? Where have they previously been found? There was a skullcap found in South America that had heavy heavy brow ridges that looked really like a Neanderthal brow ridges would look right. Of course, that disappeared, but not before they were pictures, and a discussion of it published.KerrySo really, do you know when that was, when was that published? You know how long itPaulette:was a long, long time ago? Okay. Long, long time ago. Yeah, it wasn't recent. So we need to look at, you know, gather all that evidence, gather all those pieces and start really looking at those sites, with an open mind with a very open mind as to the science of the data. And not with this constraint that a bunch of all white archaeologists in the Americas put that is not even supported by any data or science.Kerry:Wow, I am, I am absolutely riveted. I would love like, we always say this, but I'd love to have you come back on and to go a little bit deeper in because for what's coming up for me as even I was reading a study, or an article recently that was talking about the Amazon. And as they're doing, you know, the, the burning of the Amazon and clearing the land, they're actually doing I think it's I'm not sure what the technique is, but they're offering UV or they're doing infrared, that LIDAR that's scanning, and they're realizing that there might be older civilizations that were actually overgrown by the forests. And so there's a whole worldsWhat I think I love so much about you Paulette and the work that you're doing is that you're you're literally just you know, you're taking a sledgehammer to this idea of the history of the world. And I believe it anchoring for those of us who have been so displaced in the story. It gives us an opportunity to reclaim this truth, to to recreate I loved when you said, you know, who decides who creates history? I think that is such a powerful thing, because what you're doing is allowing us this truth to question what we've been told as the narrative and decide what pieces of it we're going to choose, if any at all. And I think it's so important that we continue these conversations that we keep the digging, the digging going, that we offer ourselves the spaces of truth. I'm just so impressed. with what you've done your workPaulette:The more people that will discuss it and realize the absurdity that people were only here 12,000 years ago, the more we open up the possibility. So to do work to do archaeological, you need funding. Can you imagine applying for grant to excavate a site that might be 80 to 120,000 years old, they just, they're crazy, right? We have to normalize that discussion. And so I'm really hoping I'm doing that for the next generation of archaeologists, that they'll be able to be funded. And I, you know, in the back of my mind, I just see this big field of have young archaeologists coming out and looking at the 100,000 year old sites in the Americas, because now it's acceptable, and they can get funded.And so we really need to normalize this discussion and to show how absurd that the archaeological story of people, Clovis first people, that's another thing, right? They said the Clovis first people, right? So I found a book. If you look in a library and you find cultural books, you got the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, the Cherokee, the Clovis people, the Clovis people were never a people except in the wildest imagination of archaeological mind. There is nowhere in the world, a cultural group, the size of a hemisphere, cultural groups are small. So they so they frame that also to erase the diversity of early Indigenous people. Right? So there's so much that we need to normalize that I like what you said, I kind of think I'm like, I'm like the bull in the china shop of archaeology. And I'm just kicking the hell out of itKerry:I love it. Oh, yes.Patty:And I particularly like even the title of your book, the Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere, because that's something that we have talked about quite a bit on this podcast is the way the word Indigenous is used, particularly in Canada, to refer very specifically to this place Indigenous people live in North America.Paulette:That's, that was an intentional bit of humor on my part. So, us Indians, we have a way of silently kind of getting back in a humorous way and other people. So when I was a grad student, I had this great title decolonizing Indigenous history. And I talked about it and I used it in papers and a professor before I graduated, used that title for her all white scholar book, right? And I'm like, well, there goes my title. And so I thought about it for a while. And you know, there's always been a denial that that there ever was an Indigenous Paleolithic. So that's their big, it never exist, it never existed. So I'm like, How do I poke those guys? How do I poke those people that deny it? I call it the Indigenous Paleolithic of the western hemisphere. So paleo is not our word. That's not how we recognize our history. But I needed to have, you know, I wanted to have a strong title that really pushed back against that racism, that there was never an Indigenous Paleolithic. And I'm like, watch me. Indigenous Paleolithic. That's my humor, like, watching me. Getting back at angry old archaeologists.Kerry Goring 1:03:19Right, I enjoy you so much, Paula, you are just exactly what we what we talk about on this show. It is that Reclamation, you have stood up in your way. And just created true medicine, like this is true medicine that feeds the soul of I think I Indigenous people, absolutely. But as somebody who is an ally, as a person of color, who's also, you know, can can understand this idea of the displacement, you fed my soul as well, because I knew that as I followed, you know, Black archaeologists and same ideas, they're saying the exact same thing and our voices have not been able to shine through and be heard. So to hear that you have managed to, you know, be the bull in the china shop, and you're definitely breaking some teacups, and getting to sip tea at this one. I think it is fabulous. And I really love that we got a chance to have this conversation. And let me tell you, I just bought your book, as we've been speaking is it is definitely going to be here. I can't wait to read it.Paulette:It is it is medicine to reclaim your history right and reclaim your right to rewrite and retell your history and to tell the truth, that is a part of healing and reconciliation. So briefly, I'll tell you, I met with an elder in 1988 in Lillooet British Columbia where I grew up. And then I was going through a very difficult time separating single parents, three kids, blah, blah, blah. And he said, This is training. He said, the elders have talked about you. And we understand that you have a job to do in the future. That's gonna be really, really hard a lot harder than this. Well, at the time, there was a single parent, three kids greater education. 26 cents and a truck, what could possibly be harder, I had no clue. But his words went to my heart. And I never forgot what he said. And coming close to my graduation, I realized, Oh, my God, this is what he meant. I just have to rewrite World History. Okay, I think, right. But he said creator raised me for this from the time I was born. And that's a whole nother story. But he was right. I'm fiercely independent. I didn't know any other way as a child. That was how I survived. And that was how I had to be in grad school. Because I faced a lot of racism, people tried to push me out in so many ways, professors, students, I faced a lot of more aggressive racism in grad school than I faced anywhere in my life, I had to be fiercely independent and strong and think for myself. And so you know, my elder was right. And they knew they knew I had this job to do. And they were right, it was much harder. But I got it done. And it's not done. Now, I'm going past the 130,000 years and saying, why couldn't we have been here, just as long as people were in Northern Asia.Kerry:I love it. I love it, that you are a force to be reckoned with. And I'm here, I am here for all of it. Definitely, I'm glad that you got a chance to tell us about your book, tell us where they can find you. Anybody who wants to because I also need to definitely be following you.Paulette:People can look me up Paulette Steeves, I'm on Facebook, I have a Research website online, I'm on Twitter, you can find me at Algoma University paulette.steeves@algomau.ca, you can email me My book, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere is in all online bookstores. And so I'm starting to get more of a I'm trying to keep up to having a social media presence like I'm in a few places, but I'm so busy with writing and doing everything else. And I still have to teach. I am a Canada Research Chair. That's a very kind of prestigious position here in Canada where I get a huge chunk of funding for five years. And I only have to teach two courses a year. That gives me more time for writing and research. So I like I say I'm starting to work on that second piece of this. And I have three, four book chapters that will be coming out next year and two the following year one, one on Vine Deloria Jr. So that's probably the nicest comment I've gotten from someone who read my book, another archaeologist and an Indigenous archaeologist who said I write in the vein of Vine Deloria Jr. and I was just like, Oh, my life is made I can finish now. Patty:Well, I mean, I'm what I really, I think what what I didn't, what I didn't expect, but it didn't surprise me at all was your ferocity regarding the nation state and colonial and capitalism's investment in the way that the story is currently being told. Because I mean, that's I mean, that's practically every conversation Kerry and I have is. Why is this terrible thing happening? Well, the nation state and it’s investment in capitalism.Paulette:Yeah, it took a long time to pull that together. But there's a lot of really good published discussions within Archaeologists from Latin America, South America and other ones that are more open minded. They realize the politics of the past and how it plays into the present and how it disenfranchises you know, Indigenous people, they take all of our artifacts, and they put them in a museum and they remove them from their cultural place and their cultural stories. And they give them new stories that are safe for the nation state. Oh, look what we found because they disappeared. Hello, we're right over here. Hello.Patty:We didn't take care of them that keeping the eye we didn't say anything so that they can take care of them for us keep them say yes, because we don't know how to do that.Paulette:yeah. Oh my god. Yeah, a lot of you know, I owe a debt to a lot of really good scholars that have discussed that and talked about that. And, and it's really important for students and people to understand that that kind of control has been over us forever. And we need to reclaim our right to tell our own stories in our own way. And, you know, be able to have them thank thank you to the University of Nebraska Press. They asked me for this book, like almost immediately when they heard about my research and my dissertation, and they waited a long time. There's a lot of data. And because it was, might face severe scrutiny and critique, I had to be so careful that there was no mistakes anywhere. And, you know, I finally just sat down and said, the Indigenous way is to tell a story. So I'm going to start telling this story. And it took me from 2015 Till this year to do that. SoPatty:well, I am so glad that it came across my Twitter feed. And then really surprised when I went looking for you that you are already following me. So I'm so glad that you came across my Twitter feed, we've got a couple of more really neat conversations in this vein coming up. We're going to be talking with Dr. Keolu Fox, we're actually we're taking a break. Next week, we're not going to be here, I'm out of town. But then, so but then the week after we're gonna be talking with Dr. Keolu Fox about how the land is our ancestor. He's a genomic researcher. So it's going to touch on some of the things that you brought up regarding genomics and our and our place here. And then we've got Dr. Deondre Smiles, who's going to be talking with us about Indigenous geographies? So again, you know, some of this, you know, kind of some of the things that you talked about more into our present. So this is kind of a really neat trilogy.Paulette:Yeah, I just worked with Deondre as a collaborator on on some research I'm doing because he's a sort of just graduated as a junior faculty, and I've met him before. And you know, what the genetics of geneticists say that, you know, we're all Asians, and we're related to Asian, they have less than 1/10 of 1% of the data that would say what, you know who we really are and how we're all related. They can't even say that. Yeah, right. I called the Max Planck lab, and I emailed a guy and I said, is it still? Do they still have less than 1/10? Of 1%? Yes. They don't have the data. So they can't make those stupid, crazy. claimsPatty:yeah, so I'm pretty excited to talk with Dr. Fox Because he's really a different, a different, a much different way of talking about and thinking about genomics.Kerry:Yeah, I was gonna say, What a delicious space guys for as we turn history, anatomy, you know, you name it, we're gonna be turning it on its head. Yeah. And I'm here for all of it. I hope you all will be too.Paulette:Thank you for having me.1:13:06Thank you for having me.Kerry:I really would love for us to maybe get everybody back on. Wouldn't it be interestingPatty:panel would be fun. Having all three of you at the same time. Something to think about for the news of the day plan for the new year. Get our January going?Paulette:Wow, what a good start to the new year. That would bePatty:amazing. All right. Just put all three in a room and see what happens. Right. Right. So thank you guys so much. Thank you for listening. We did have some people in the chat. So that was fun today. Um, I will talk to you guys later. Right. Thanks. Bye. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit medicinefortheresistance.substack.com
In this episode, host Caleb Musgrave describes the lifeways and food sources of the Anishinaabeg in the springtime. Along with this, he discusses the controversies surrounding spearfishing, with his own insights as an Indigenous Spearer.
Boozhoo! Hello!An introduction to our family. Ozaawaa Giizhigo Ginew & Mshkogaabwid Kwe speak in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway) and English to explain our families journey as we raise our children in Anishinaabemowin as Second Language Learners. Get to know us as we share times we have spent learning the language we which found enjoyable and fun in this episode! Join us on our journey as we discuss resources, tips, advice, stories, triumphs, dissapointments, realities, laughs and guests as we walk on this road to Anishinaabemowin fluency. Chi-Miigwech! Thank you so much!Follow us on Instagram @oursound.enweyingWhat is Anishinaabemowin? The 'Ojibway' language, known as Anishinaabemowin (ah-nish-in-nah-bay-mo-win) is the language of the Anishinaabeg. The original peoples of Turtle Island (otherwise known as North America) The language is currently at risk of being lost due to colonization but with the efforts of elders/speakers, ancestors, spirit and community we hope to revitalize it and give it back to our children. This is our families dedication and story of how we will try and manifest this in our lifetime. linktr.ee/enweying.oursoundMany people have reached out to ask where they can donate or support revitalization efforts. This link leads to our Link Tree which has a Patreon as well as "Buy me a Coffee" where you can donate to our families cause and initiatives we do to support learning in the home and across our communities. Miigwech
We have a special bonus episode featuring Winter Kill by J. Drew Lanham. Poet, teacher, birder and conservationist J. Drew Lanham is author of The Home Place—Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature (Milkweed Editions). This episode includes Hoyt Schemerhorn by Aorta. Music by Christopher Cerrone, Performed by Vicky Chow.The Great Northern has partnered with On Being with Krista Tippett for her interview with J. Drew Lanham. That podcast episode is released Thursday Jan 28 with a radio broadcast on Sunday, January 31. More information here.Cultural Acknowledgment "I have written and attempted to speak with veracity and reverence, the words and language of First Nations and Indigenous Peoples. I am not indigenous nor First Nations, but am deeply grateful to the Anishinaabeg and Ojibwe People, and all First Nations and Indigenous Peoples, acknowledging their presence in lands that I have known, and hope one day to know."-J. Drew Lanham
Gelek spoke with artist, educator, friend and troublemaker Susan Blight to get her take on the best films and music to come out of an impossibly bewildering and isolating year. The episode begins with Susan's participation in Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto [03:00], what films mean to her and her top five selections [9:45], the Michelle Latimer issue [37:00], and finally, Susan's connection to music and her top five records, plus song of the year [46:00]Episode NotesIndigenous Fashion Week Toronto [03:00]Susan's connection to the world of cinema [9:45]First film pick: Time [13:40]maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore [16:00]PLUCK [18:00]POSSESSOR [24:00]êmîcêtôcêt: Many Bloodlines [27:00]Honorary mention: Mandalorian [28:30]The importance of supporting Indigenous artists [34:10]The Michelle Latimer controversy [37:00]What music means to Susan [46:00]First album: It Was Good Until It Wasn't - Kehlani [48:20]Featuring Ty Dolla $ign - Ty Dolla $ign [51:05]Shore - Fleet Foxes [55:15]City on Lock - City Girls [57:00]BLAME IT ON BABY (DELUXE) - DaBaby [58:15]Song of the year: Laugh Now Cry Later (feat. Lil Durk) [64:40]Close [66:54]BioSusan Blight (Anishinaabe, Couchiching First Nation) is an interdisciplinary artist working with public art, site-specific intervention, photography, film and social practice. Her solo and collaborative work engages questions of personal and cultural identity and its relationship to space. She is a PhD student in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto and her dissertation examines Anishinaabeg geographies of resistance. In August 2019, Susan joined OCAD University as Delaney Chair in Indigenous Visual Culture and as Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and School of Interdisciplinary Studies.TwitterWebsiteLinksimagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts FestivalIndigenous Fashion Week TorontoSovereign ScreenLanguage and the Land This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit agoodrefugee.substack.com
In this episode, Caleb discusses the upcoming autumn, from an Anishinaabeg lens. From an indigenous perspective, of harvesting, and preparing for the cold months of Winter, this episode will help shed light on what is available to eat, and what to get ready for the snow.