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[Rolland Nadjiwon]

Heather...please feel free...it is an honor for you to ask...megwetch.

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wahjeh
rolland nadjiwon



Heather Souter wrote:
> Taanshi, hello....
>
> Rolland, your words are very powerful!  Thank-you!  (I hope you will 
> allow me to quote you....)
>
>
> I am presently trying to work out my dissertation proposal and am 
> struggling with issues of identity, relation to land and language for 
> our people.  Many in positions of power focus on genealogical 
> connection and acceptance in a "community" as the most important 
> markers of who we are.  However, as indigenous peoples we did not come 
> to be except through our relationship with the land and the practices 
> that are based on that relationship.  Our languages express that 
> relationship in their processes/structures/content....   The land is 
> the place from which our languages spring forth and through our 
> connection/symbiosis with (and/or impact on) the land  and then 
> develop, change and--in many important ways--help reproduce the 
> relationships many of our Elders enjoy and our ancestors before them.  
> I see the need to speak our languages, to practice the ways of our 
> ancestors and to renew our relationship with the land while 
> incorporating---when and where appropriate for our collective survival 
> as distinct peoples-- the new technologies of the modern/digital age.  
> How do we promote co-present learning from/with Elders and other 
> knowledge keepers as well as best use digital technologies to promote 
> the maintenance/stabilization/revitalization/renewal of our languages 
> and communication practices? Can we do both?  Are they mutually 
> exclusive?  How do digital technologies affect our relationship with 
> the land and with the others (the plants, the animals, etc.) who 
> inhabit it with us?  How does digital technology--especially computer 
> mediated communication--effect our relationships in our emplaced human 
> communities?  With Elders, family and friends who live near us?  Does 
> digital technology promote the decontextualization of our 
> relationships and therefore fundamentally change them and who we are 
> as peoples?  Is there a way to balance the present-day "need" for 
> digital technology with our need to be co-present with with others in 
> order to maintain a sense of who we are as Indigenous peoples?  I have 
> so many questions and no answers....
>
> Thanks for listening....
> Eekoshi pitamaa.  That is all for now.
> Heather
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Rolland Nadjiwon <mikinakn at shaw.ca 
> <mailto:mikinakn at shaw.ca>> wrote:
>
>     Thanks Jim...this one has been rattling around Indian country for
>     a few days. I paid attention at first but the discussion itself is
>     paradoxical, so if you read it 30 years ago, it is still the same
>     oroboro... Some of the discussions along the lines of cultural
>     alchemy are infuriating. Marriage does not threaten culture but
>     what you do with culture after you marry can. It is one thing to
>     take a foreign item and integrate it attaching our own cultural
>     meaning. It is entirely something else when we take in a foreign
>     item and bring with it its foreign cultural meaning...one is
>     integration the other is assimilation. These are two very distinct
>     and subtle processes. We can have any kind of blood that will keep
>     us living but if that living is not the daily activities of our
>     people/relatives which keep the living memories of our ancestors,
>     culturally we have become something different. Blood be
>     damned...it will not give the knowledge of where our people hunt,
>     how they hunt, what the hunting medicine/rituals are, what
>     medicines to use where, or the ancient knowledge of our own
>     cosmology. All that is only possible though relatives and
>     ancestors. What can a narrative, a recording, a video, a map tell
>     us of how we relate to the 'little people' in ritual and prayer.
>
>     Most of the language is gone from the communities where I now
>     live, my mother's people. Few people remember the traditional
>     geography of this place and the names that tell you what it is all
>     about. Young people now go to places with snow machines, ATVs,
>     four x fours and run rampant over places made sacred by the
>     generations of our ancestors repeatedly and repeatedly doing
>     offerings and ceremonies far beyond a single memory of that place.
>     Without that knowledge there is not even the knowledge of
>     violation by unknowingly urinating or defecating on a sacred spot
>     where our people made prayer and talked with the spirits.
>
>     And now we are going to discuss the age old  blood quantum, no
>     longer because of the colonizers, but to identify amongst our own
>     people to determine who qualifies for the largest payout.... In my
>     opinion, I will stop here as I see this discussion having no
>     solution...unless, of course, someone else can please post one.
>
>     -------
>     wahjeh
>     rolland nadjiwon
>
>      
>>
>>
>>       Oregon family at heart of sticky issue: Does intermarriage
>>       threaten Native American culture?
>>
>>
>>             By Richard Cockle, The Oregonian
>>             <http://connect.oregonlive.com/user/dcockle/index.html>
>>
>>
>>               November 06, 2009, 5:10PM
>>
>
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