No Stories are Real but They are All True

            On Monday morning I memorized another eight verses of “Le bras méchanique” (The Mechanical Arm) by Serge Gainsbourg.

I weighed 88.8 kilos before breakfast.

I tried to listen to a bit more of the online lecture but in twenty minutes I only got from the 20 minute mark of a 34 minute video to 22.

I had the rest of the broccoli I’d steamed last night in a salad with cucumber, tomato, avocado, green onion, parsley, dill and a the rest of my raspberry dressing.

After an hour and three-quarters siesta I logged onto the Indigenous Studies course site to try to listen to the last fifteen minutes of one lecture and the one hour long final one. I didn’t expect to have a good connection and was already considering taking my laptop outside to sit on the sidewalk in front of the café again. But amazingly I had had pretty much steady wifi for both lectures and even had to stop it and go back a bit to catch stuff I missed. I was finished in an hour and a half.

I did my course assessment and gave bad reviews of both the instructor and my TA. It was the most scathing critique of a course I've ever given.

           

            Part B of “Rename, Reclaim, Reoccupy”:

            He says renaming is in a way a type of colonization. Only in a metaphorical way.

            Indigenous people reasserting their identity through reciprocal relationship with traditional places. The offer to co-name a place comes from colonizer to accepting the older history of the place.

            There was a lot of anger towards Indigenous people two weeks ago and the media turned comments off.

            Assertion of rights is newer. When asking government to honour treaties Indigenous people are viewed as having a special relationship to the governments of Canada, the crown and the US. It is seen as unfair.

            How we look at treaty language is important.

            UNDRIP is important because Canada, US, Australia and New Zealand did not sign at first. But they voted no for legal reasons and not because they disagreed with the declaration. They didn’t want to put themselves at a disadvantage in court later on during treaty negotiations.

            Gomer is not a good writer and he makes grammatically incorrect shortcuts in Tarzan talk for his slides.

            It was so noisy out on the street that I couldn’t hear my laptop very well.

            On social media there were calls to violence against protesters. The rhetoric is centuries old.

            Under whose authority are the stories told? The two perspectives of Little Big Horn. Textual material about the military resolving conflicts and ignoring the Indigenous side. One needs a cultural context to understand that the dancing and singing after Little Big Horn was not in victory but mourning.

            Signs are moved to a less visible place to de-emphasize what looks bad.

            He went to the Boyd-Parker massacre site in Grade Seven. Indigenous villages were destroyed and two men were tortured. They intended to wipe the Iroquois from the Earth. Now there are signs up with no prominent Indigenous side. The Indigenous perspective is on a sign on the other side of the rock where few people go.

            Is the inherent name enough?

            There is a history of connection so when Indigenous people know the name why not change it back to original?

            Squaw peak, New Mexico. He said “S” word Peak although he said “Squaw” in part A.

            Sirens, traffic, streetcars.

            First Indigenous woman to die in terror attack.

            Authorities say the name has become morphed in myth and so it can’t be changed.

            Not many people out but lots of vehicles.

            If we are co-existing why ignore the Indigenous perspective?

            Changes take root like a plant. I guess he means if one changes the name then other changes will follow. I’m not sure if there’s any guarantee of that.

            At his old institution in Hooterville it used to be called Iroquois Studies but they fought for 25 years to change it to Haudenosaunee Studies.

            The Six Nations have six languages and each has a different name for the same places. Sometimes if they move they will take the name with them. The Haudenosaunee moved to another place with a spring and gave it the same name. So how is that different then?

            There is already a London, England and so why is there a London. Ontario? They draw from the authenticity of the old world to remake into the old world ideal. Return to a place of long ago.

            What about land acknowledgements? Does anyone really think about what they mean? Would all nations with their different histories agree?

            The Dish with One Spoon became a trading place.

            Naming is a powerful tool of colonization and the maintenance of long standing cultural relationships.

            Places can have more than one name.

            There are special locations around North America that are sacred because their energies and cultures are collectively understood by many nations. These areas are where people set aside their differences because they find strength there. An example is The Badlands for the Lakota, the Cheyenne and the Arapaho. The nation of the United States however saw it as a place to exploit for gold, which was a treaty violation.

            A Mohawk man was brought to trial in Canada and insisted on being tried in the Mohawk language. He said that he was being tried in Mohawk territory and so his language should be spoken. Mohawk speakers were brought in.

            Conquest is rejected on treaty language.

            White says he is new here in Toronto and there are new customs for him to learn but he is still Haudenosaunee. He always declares his nationality to be Mohawk at the border. It would be too complex to tell customs he is Haudenosaunee because it is not written on any of his identification cards. When he came to live in Canada he was classified as a new settler. He does not consider himself an expatriate of the United States. He has roots on both sides because he is Haudenosaunee and because of the 1794 Jay treaty. More about himself, that the Mohawks recognize him but the Seneca don’t entirely, boo hoo. Nobody owned the land and all that used it had a responsibility to the land, each other and future generations.

            He says the names of Toronto Streets honour Eurocentric models. Most of the names are actually after people with connections to Canada.

            There are no reservations in Canada in provinces that don’t have roads named “Colonization Road”.

            Who are the naming experts in languages?

            When Goner was a grad student he worked in a state park near Buffalo. He was returning a library book when someone commented on his shirt with the lake name on it, “Canandaigua". They argued about how it was pronounced. The Mohawks have a different pronunciation than the Seneca. He says the name refers to apple blossoms turning the fields white. They would have to have been crab apples if the name is that old, since any other kind of apples didn't come to western New York until the 18th Century.

            If we don’t know the proper names for places, who are the experts? Is it important?

            I moved on to listen to and make notes on the final lecture, which was about Vanessa Watts’s essay on Indigenous Place and Thought and Agency Amongst Humans and Non-Humans.

            We were supposed to have had a course review on March 30.

            Watts is looking at the subject through two lenses, as an Indigenous person and an Indigenous woman.

            Most Indigenous thought interweaves action, thinking, understanding and knowledge. She emphasizes agency and inclusivity of  female and animal. While western thought, philosophy, theology and culture gives agency only to humans. The idea that only humans think and have reason and that humans stand at the pinnacle, outside of the natural world.
            Well, certainly animals have some degree of reason in relation to their immediate environments but they don’t have the complex levels of reason that is built upon the having language. Animals can’t think about thinking.

This results in a culture clash. Western thinking results in economies of extraction.

Because of coronavirus western people on social media are worried. He says so0me other cultural groups see this time as linked with the natural world. Native social media says this is a chance for the Earth to heal. Pollution is dropping because factories are closed and fewer planes are flying.

At the end of the extinction game when man is all that is left what will have been won?

For Indigenous people women and the land sit at key points. Women are more muted in the west. Among the Haudenosaunee women collectively owned the clearings and men the forests. In the west men owned everything. They did not become the land but rather took from it. Is that the most effective for a reciprocal relationship with the natural world?

We know where we come from. We miss everyday connections to place.

There were treaties to balance the homeland.

Mythologizing Indigenous stories separates Indigenous people from the natural world and allows for colonialism. He objects to calling stories “myths".

The west’s creation stories are the big bang, Genesis or creative design somewhere in between. Indigenous understanding has reciprocity in ceremonies of thanksgiving to renew the world. Things recur. The first robin and flowers budding are signs of spring showing that the world continues.

Indigenous people say that everything had original instructions for our benefit. Living in natural cycles we have abundant life. Hunters, fishers and maplers watch the cycles.

If one looks at the west the natural world and childbirth are punishments for the original sin of partaking of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Pandora’s box is similar with a punishment for curiosity. There are Indigenous versions of this as well.

The west presents its stories as untouchably true.

The Indigenous stories are not myths. Bits and pieces of stories are interwoven through many nations. There are common Anishnaabe, Cherokee and Plains tales.

In the west the thinking is all put together. Someone is trying to find the original source of some Indigenous stories, and presumes that someone started them. It’s problematic to think that oral history relies on human memory.

The creator placed thoughts into seeds and those seeds created the first woman.

Skywoman from Skyworld came down to Waterworld and needed to find a way to live there.

Gambling for the seeds of creation.

If we dismiss the stories as mythology we miss the patterns.

First of all to call the stories myths is not a dismissal. It allows for the metaphorical unpacking of the stories.

In Haudenosaunee creation stories specific things are planted by the creator or Flint. Creator or Sapling creates something and then creates something else to balance it. Sapling created berries so that when humans arrived each could eat one berry and be contented. But his twin brother Flint thought that would be too easy and so he put thorns on the vines so pickers would have to work. Then something else is created to also eat the berries so that there will be balance.

Invasive species result from a lack of balance. The emerald ash borer may decimate the Indigenous basket industry. Overpopulation is another imbalance that can result in famine and dying off.

Before colonization one could drink from Lake Ontario and eat the fish.

The two world views clash on creation. Thought, power of imagery, human renewal is rooted in place.

He considers Rochester home but in school it was Buffalo, then Oswego and now Toronto. Because it’s all about him. He says that all these locations around Lake Ontario and Lake Erie are part of the traditional lands of his ancestors. Women took the umbilical cords of their babies and buried them to root in the place. Place and thought cannot be separated. I don’t see why not. One often thinks without thinking of place.

Colonists connected to places and became part of the landscape but did not reciprocate. Colonization removes Indigenous reminders of home. Not always. Lots of place names in Canada are Indigenous, including Canada, Ontario, Toronto and Spadina.

Settlers came in and rather than finding new ways they remade the new into the old.

The conceptual framework of the pre-colonial mind is healthy mindedness that has been altered but overlaid. He says colonial thinking is unhealthy mindedness. Good and evil are western ideas whereas healthy and unhealthy mindedness are Indigenous ideas. What’s the difference? Is evil not unhealthy?

Some Indigenous people are trying to return to the pre-colonial diet. Chicken and pork are not precolonial but venison and bison are safe. He says he likes cheeseburgers too much to give them up.

Watts cosmologizes and declares that the stories actually happened. He once believed that as well. He thinks Skywoman is part of creation but that she is not physically real. The story of creation is about recovering the grief of Skywoman’s experience of an ecological disaster.

The west says there can only be on truth but he says all can be right. That sounds like lazy thinking to me.

Colonization is about delegitimatizing Indigenous knowledge through purposeful and ignorant misrepresentation of Indigenous cosmologies. Actually colonization is about forming and settling in colonies. If colonists did something bad to Indigenous people it had nothing to do inherently with being colonists. It had to do with being assholes.

Stories are systems of knowledge. Movies are sometimes an extension of books and books are an extension of creative thinking. Many films are based on true stories.

Knowledge is erased in mythologizing Indigenous cosmologies. The opposite is actually true. The people that starve themselves of the truths presented in the Bible and other myths are those that believe the stories are literally true.

He’s been around the world but feels most comfortable in Dish with one spoon area.

Healthy mindedness comes from well-balanced living.

He is agnostic but believes in the spiritual forces of the natural world.

We discovered that he does not hold our attention.

Creation can be connected to the same place. He had a garden back in Hooterville but might plant one in pots so he can be connected in Toronto.

Stories a primitive mind can understand. Indigenous people maintained these relationships. Spirit goes into place. Thought which determines agency with creation, which becomes societies extensions and obligation to communicate back to spirit. All of this is interwoven. Indigenous scholars expanded a circular system expanding exponentially constructed epistemologically sidesteps for removal of the point of abscess that doesn’t come back to the beginning. Gobbledeegook.

The west think in linear time and history is recorded. God altered specific moments.

People in sporting events sometimes thank god. Does god really care if their team wins?

Indigenous thinking is about cycles of nature in a pattern.

Versions of the Haudenosaunee creation story say that once humans had populated the worlds then clans came as a way to identify kin relationships like seeds that were planted and became akin to one another. Humans were allowed to take root and populate the back of the turtle but they forgot their original instructions. So the creator had to come back to reinstall four ceremonies, re-instruct and break the people back up into clans.  Each clan has duties learned from a specific animal. Medicines come from the bear clan because they learn about them from watching bears. Settlers assume that all Indigenous people are interchangeable.

People have different gifts. Some students write essay, some prefer tests and some prefer learning by talking.

The danger of overlaying western interpretations on Indigenous philosophical frameworks is flawed because they don’t understand that one comes from experience. There was divine intervention in both systems. Indigenous knowledge is not faith based but based on experience. He has faith that is true. When enough people see the same thing they see a pattern of the natural world. That is how to establish relationship and reciprocity with that relationship. Pragmatic lived experience. Indigenous versus community.

The best student may be considered to be the one with the highest GPA but there is also the shared experience of common learning.

The west assumes that animals and plants behave without reason but during the Australian fires animals rescued other animals that were not of their species. He's referring to a social media post about wombats that Greenpeace reposted but later deleted because it was unsubstantiated. Apparently wombats are extremely short sighted and wouldn’t be able to shepherd other animals into their burrows as was claimed. Gomer just believes anything that supports what he believes. What a scientist! It's more likely that other animals just took shelter in the wombat tunnels on their own.

Animals and plants are more knowledgeable than we think. Animals were put here first to serve as our guides and to remind us when we forget our obligations to the natural world.

The west sees the natural world as something to be conquered.

Does the natural world fear death? Is death part of life to begin with? Do humans fear death? Each animal comprehends death differently. Dogs go off by themselves because they know it is the end. Do we think in the same way? Animals do fight to live but death is part of the cycle of life.

The Skywoman is a botanist braiding sweet grass. There is a story of a discussion between Skywoman and an enlightened botanist. The land bears the scars of that meeting. Eve is told she got the short end of the stick. Place is feminine.

Clashes of world views.

In the end he called Skywoman “Skywalker”.

I steamed a bunch of asparagus and had it in a salad with tomato, cucumber, avocado, dill, parsley and green onion. I have a lot of mustard squeeze containers that still contain mustard but not enough to squeeze. I used one to make mustard dressing with vinegar, olive oil, garlic, salt pepper, honey and dill. It turned out pretty good. I ate while watching two episodes of Noggin the Nog.

The first was the end of the first set of stories about Noggin travelling north to ask Nooka of the Nooks to be his queen. They are married and the giant bird Graculas flies back to the Land of the Nogs to let everyone know that Noggin has married and can now legitimately become the king rather than his evil Uncle Nogbad the Bad. But when Graculas returns to Nog he is captured by Nogbad and put in a dungeon. The six week pass and Nogbad goes to declare himself king. Graculas speaks to a robin that comes to his cell window and gives him one of his green feathers to take to Noggin’s mother to show that he is in Nog. Although the robin cannot speak Brunhilda learns from sign language that Graculas is in Nogbad’s dungeon. She sends her guards to rescue him and then banishes Nogbad from the kingdom. The story doesn’t explain how Nogbad could take the throne anyway since there is no indication that he is married.

The next story I watched is the first of a second set. A Scottish sounding man named Ronf from the Hot Water Valley comes to Noggin to ask for his help. He says that in his land a giant dragon is terrorizing his people and trampling their crops. They will starve unless something is done. Noggin agrees to go with Ronf to fight the dragon.