By Claudia A. Fox Tree
Sketch by Claudia A. Fox Tree
Before doing a land acknowledgement, please read this piece by Debbie Reese, "Are You Planning to do a Land Acknowledgement."
Listen to some Indigenous land acknowledgements.
Tribal Land Acknowledgement - When I do a tribal land acknowledgement, I vary it each time, depending on where I am and what is going on in the community or news. My nation is not from this area, so I still have a lot of learning to do! It's really important for each of us to do our own research and then, if it makes sense, talk about the process. As Indigenous people gain more power and recognition, they are contacting organizations who are then updating their maps and resources. Once we learn more, we can do better.
Here are some resources:
WHAT?
WHY (& WHAT)?
WHERE?
Native Land App (It's a starting point. Input Your Address to find the original people on the land, it's updating all the time so check back frequently)
Tribal Nations Maps, a source of hard copy maps that identify the traditional lands of Tribes in North and South America and the Caribbean
Smithsonian's digital archive of treaties made between the United States and Indigenous Tribes.
IT'S NOT ENOUGH
Then make it your own and challenge others to go on their own journey.
Here's one of mine:
(After a Taino-Arawak greeting and acknowledgment of ancestry).
These
are the ancestral homelands and traditional territories of indigenous
people who are still here, fighting for human rights, land, and survival
of their culture. We need to continue to build our own relationships with these communities in the context of a
desire for healing and solidarity. This country would not exist in its
modern form if it were not for the free enslaved labor of African and
Indigenous people. It would not be what it is without the past and present contributions
of its indigenous people. For example: trading and hunting paths
became highways, engineered crops become part of the triangular
trade system that built the economy, and political confederacy systems became the
model for a representative democracy. I want to honor the legacy and lives of the people
who have been taking care of this land for thousands of years.
I challenge us all to un-erase First Nations People by naming the Indigenous people of every place in the U.S we are talking about when we mention a location. For example, when we say where we are born, where we went to school, and where we traveled. This includes naming nations as we study U.S. history, citing authors of novels and where they are from, and the list goes on.
So, for example, one summer I spent time in the land of the Northern Cheyenne, Crow, Mound Builders, and Choctaw. You may know these locations as Wyoming, Montana, and Missouri. Today, I want to acknowledge that my nation is from the Caribbean, but I have grown up here and been embraced by the tribal nations of this land which include the Massachusett, Wampanoag, and Nipmuc, among others. Many nations have traveled through this land, but the Massachusett have always been here, specially in this place they called Shawmut and you call Boston.
Because
I now live on another tribal nation’s land, I want to thank them. I am
currently speaking to you from land that was a Praying village named
Shawshin, and the region is commonly known today for the Shawsheen
River. The originally caretakers are the Pennacook confederacy/ and
currently it is the Wamesit descendants. They were the first to make
homes, raise families, plant gardens, find medicine, and many other firsts that go unrecognized.
I would also like to acknowledge that the violence perpetrated on the original caretakers, which has continued to this day, now includes many groups, including people who were taken from their own lands in Africa. I stand in solidarity with the fundamental belief that Black Lives Matter and also ask that we all utilize whatever privilege we have to serve all those who continue to be at the margins and deserve their full human dignity.
I know an acknowledgement of tribal lands will never make up for the destruction perpetrated towards the original people of this land who were once 100% of this country’s population and have been reduced to 2% through many means, including physical and cultural genocide. I challenge listeners to discover the Indigenous history of the place where you are living.
Seneko Kakona - Abundant blessings
updated June 26, 2020
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/INCORP/Native/reservations.gif
