Walking to Stop Bill-C23 and Bill-C31: Fair Elections Act and Indian Act Amendments

Walking to Stop Bill-C23 and Bill-C31: Fair Elections Act and Indian Act Amendments

Let me finish this by saying that every so-called Kanatian citizen has the right to vote for their villain, I do not deny them that; however, if you will away my cultural norms with your ignorance and your arrogance takes over for the issue, then watch out, for a storm is coming. Now let me begin with my present journey. We embarked down the highway located on Cowichan Lands to disembark colonial politics and colonial governments; these are quickly becoming some words that I am coming to understand as “typical” in my adult age: colonization and corruption. I find that I am never home, rarely do I just sit, and be, or simply do nothing and enjoy that nothing, and we are always on a journey as per my families usual “abnormalities” whilst rising above occupation. Honestly though, in the reality of an Indigenous person’s daily regiment, many fill rooms and drum, sing, dance, or embark on canoe journeys, paddling to reach a distant shore to conduct a practice once sought for by millions and many more are marching down a highway, a street, or a mall: this is without a doubt the best therapy to stray further away from capitalism.

We are a culture removed, a wandering half searching for the other to grab hold and say “Everything has gone to shit, so let’s do this together”. We are a society lost, though never really forgotten. Many of our roots are still hidden within the lands we march down and are awaiting for us to unearth the strong desire in our hearts to find home. We are headed towards uncertainty and I truly believe that is what salvages and soothes a heavy mind when faced against corrupt levels of government: Indian reservations or otherwise. So-called Kanata has destroyed, altered, and allocated capitalism to overrun the lands and now they wish to overrun the political realm of “fair, democratic politics”, if you can call voting under occupation fair or democratic to begin with. A mass wide march is sure to be in the works to further suppress these two political federal/provincial bills that dabble in the blood of depravity.

Personally, I have only voted once last year and once another time about ten years ago and I did not feel “satisfied” either time about my voting experience since I do not follow colonial or band politics much anyway. Regardless of my socialist “everything must be divided equally” attitude, bill C-23 or the “Fair Elections Act”, and bill-C31, or “The Indian Act”, are both pieces of so-called “just law” and are amendments being questioned here in so-called Kanata. This is why a small group have gathered to march in solidarity to create rust in the movements of the government and seize them from altering colonial law towards Indian peoples; we are marching to find common ground and gain a common speed to further decolonize. Working together as a family under occupation is rather fragile as we each decolonize and attempt to rekindle with rebuilding our Indigenous sovereignty to be on ancestral homelands comfortably.

My life is heavily politicized, for I survived cultural genocide and I no longer speak my language: my language is broken and therefore I am partially colonized. I now read papers, and social media, each venues of support are places where I am watching a corrupt government looking to further make my family and their wellbeing less than human, lesser of the fact, of an Indian. I realize that I am speaking to controversy as I arise past my ancestor’s occupation and my very own stresses of critical judgement on my Native soul. I understand that a people cannot remove me easily from the lands of my ancestors and I know this is not possible. The problem is, the so-called government of Kanata creates racially biased and bullshit colonial laws and even though I am under their eye suddenly, I live with their scrutiny to when I can and what I must do: disappear. I will not go quietly.

Politics may go on even if I attempt to forget how or why I am colonized or that the lands are heavily colonized, I will then merely protest and write some more. I will continue to create until white society hears the plea of millions to stop pipelines, to stop tanker traffic, to shut down the tar sands, to remove Stephen Harper from office, to remove corrupt provincially working prime ministers from taking monies from industry. Yes, we are offsetting and off-putting a problem that lives in front of our own two eyes and we then stuck with the whispering friendly lies in the dark and created him as an ally instead of befriending the light that offers a harsh truth to that Dark Age. I have said before, I have heard a question asked, “Is this a good time to be Indian”? I have kept my reply the same, “No-not really”; instead, I suggested that this is a powerful time to be Indigenous.

We make our cries heard by singing and drumming loudly in the belly of consumerism: the malls. We march on parliament lawns, we march on legislature lawns, and we are silenced further. So we only raise our voices even louder! Bill C-23, “Fair Elections Act”, and Bill C-31, “the Indian Act” (one of the most racist documents known) means parliamentary laws are being forced for amendments: these corrupt methods of fascist governing have to be removed, it has to be against the charter of rights and freedoms or is at the least, an act of war against Indigenous peoples and so-called Kanatian citizens looking to vote and change the system and take out Stephen Harper from office…removing him from his royal golden throne: time to flush out the wound of corruption and regain our sovereign rights as Indigenous peoples.

“I watched on from my car, carrying supplies of food and water, following the nine walkers that showed up April 26^th 2014, and I witnessed something insightful: The “Lone Warrior”; she was walking with purity. Armed with only her drum, a cedar weaved hat, and a song in her heart to continue on the message of truth…”

Statement and Poetry: A Great Writing Combo

Whenever Someone Asks Me: How Are You So Against Tar Sands, Pipelines and Tankers?

Tar sands and then buying gasoline rips apart the fabrics of my Indian identity. I am anti-tar sands production of oily sand mining due to the realities of colonial law…a backwards law that proclaims oil mining is “king” and its industrial machine then concludes, controls, and commands on why its grain of tar infested sand is best to be moving said oily sands through derelict pipes filled to the brim with a cocktail of chemicals to do so, unstable trains bound for derailment seen daily, unsafe tankers wandering through unpredictable waters with a resume of wrecks and untimely enough, oil lined sand is only a capitalist’s wet dream to be selling dirty, sandy oil to every country save so-called Kanata, yet all this dirty, sandy oil is an Indian’s greatest nightmare for dirty, sandy oil will always ruin the lands, rivers, streams and waters…I stand against the idea because tar sands mining will always ruin our Mother Earth: This is not how I was raised to treat Women of Power.

 

Poem 1

“Atmospherically Divided”

 

Blood seeps into rivers

Ashes of the ancestors blow

Freely like the wind moving

Into the valley and around the mind

 

Flood the plains

The coast became mountains

The island was free and given light

This new sight brought us into view

 

Sung with prayer

Creator made rain

Filling a puddle

Washing away her pain

 

Sight through new light

Fog, flog, and bog: colonial law – –

Where is the door

To escape a societal norm

 

Rivers flow as an immortal rage

Death has already taken her down

Forests suddenly became a town

Madness, sadness, a drain

 

Forward we go through pipes

Pain, strain, as culture rides this drain

Frustration grips my brain

I cannot easily flee this train

 

Capitalistic progression – –

Suppression captures all

Corporate orders filled

Lands silently killed

 

We speak loudly

Greed shall blame Eco-terrorists

Silently spoken no more

We must salvage the Earth’s core

 

Words bore a path

Indians and their wrath

Guarding knowledge of old

Messages told through the ages

 

Pages reached stubborn ears

Pushing through the years

I found a culture ripped

At the foundation

 

Is a village of people?

Fighting to preserve a way

No government has a say

To ancient times

 

Speaking truth to those living in vanity

Rhymes will salvage my sanity

Oceans passing into mortals breathe

Unrest, unrestricted, unrestrained

 

Poem 2

“Gutter”

Dud

Mud

Cud

 

Fluid

Druid

Threw it

 

Raw

Crude

Rude – –

Dude!

 

Indian

Native

Might

 

White

Right

Naïve

 

Plight

Fight

Sight

 

Mad

Fad

Sad

 

Fake

Cake

Fuck

Sake

 

Remake

New

Renew

Old

 

Bold

Color

Cold

Story

 

Expansion

Empire

Expire

Yesterday

 

Test

To

Clean

Up

 

An

Old

Mess

Made

 

Reborn

In

Ancestral

Form

 

We

Will

Rise

Again

 

Standing

On

The

Wall

 

Governmental

Depressions

Form

Words

 

Movements

Built

For

Peace

 

Indian

Nations

Living

Atop

Colonial

Occupation

 

Ending

Chaos

Is

The

Goal

 

We

Still

Have

A

Very

 

Long

Way

To

Go

The Start of a Storm: Ending Ferry Service along the Salish Coast

The Start of a Storm: Ending Ferry Service along the Salish Coast

They stole our canoes and killed off our cultures and made us Indians solely dependent on their white systems and white structures of travel. We are sovereign peoples and now held captive; told to get on lands reserved especially for us from a law that is not our own to begin with. White society then forced us into the enslavement of the ferry service industry. The ferry service anywhere on this island has squandered and exploited our Native ancestor’s methods of travel all in the name of capitalism. Consumerism plays a tricky hand here, if I need to wander off the island and head for the mainland, or head for my territory, the “Big Canoe” is my only viable option.  

The area of the island that concerns me most in terms of ferry service is so-called “Kuper/Thetis” Islands. I may not live on Pune’laxutth’ Territory. I was not given that honour to do so. Colonization has brought many things and damaged many peoples. The matter of “Kuper Island” remains a touchy and albeit difficult topic for me to extend on. Because more than a thousand Native kids were brought into western conformity at the hands of white culture; thereby bringing with them an altercation of a sacred collective mind, such places of Indian peoples thriving pre-dating colonial law.

I carry some historical references, many of which include the Kuper Island Indian Residential School and the rightful placement and village of my peoples. The sight of the Chemainus sawmill is the original sight of the Pune’lauxutth village that was destroyed at the hand of a modified British and post-colonial law: “You are the Heathen and these are the Godless lands, hence forth, you are both now ours and considered the dependants under the Crown of the Queen of England”.

I still ask myself, “What does ferry service mean to the Native islanders along this coast?” I theorize how a canoe may help us in these demanding methods of who drives the most sustainable what.

At the same time of my struggle for how I travel, ferry service could’ve been a unique concept (capitalism taints the act of kindness), yet today many places can be accessed (although our cultural protocols are shattered) and many in-landers have never experienced travel via a giant 60 ton monster comprised of metal, teeth and a belly we park in. We await and travel along the sea in a new age method to get somewhere, anywhere really.

The BC Ferry Corporation has claimed ownership along a body of water my Indian ancestors once traveled by way of a wooden and dugout canoe; with some paddles and tough pullers, the oceans mass was literally our road way to get to that somewhere and land anywhere.

Protocol is a vital role and plays an important part to both the olden and modern day Coastal Salish customs. Suddenly, without that protocol, and one met with a language barrier, the British sails hit the shores and my Ancestors did not realize the dangers ahead of us: big box stores, mediocre health coverage, racism, stigma, racialized stereotypes, language removal, cultural genocide and mass ecocide.

I cannot speak in a white age, a foggy drive along a highway in a comatose state where I must stay and am left to be speechless for no one person wishes to hear my screams: To hear the screams of many suffering, an Indian day survived to be merely torn down in what feels only like minutes, in the days when the white race conquered, the light dimmed on the lands forever. Due to our Indian and now colonial ties, I find myself taking desperate measures in the way I write, approaching a barrier and saying sentences like “white privilege and white snobbery is real” in a rather unique way for my writing styles.

Moreover, I find these times of mine to be more of Indian methods of saying “fuck you, I’m going this way”, and I am finding out how the ideals of white ownership to be a bit of a “cluster fuck” that we Native peoples are (to the untrained eye) otherwise, in a white legitimacy and censorship age, unwilling or unable to take back our ancestors Native lands and regrow the Indian villages that predated the BC Ferry Corporation and their colonial laws.

I purpose to you-you being the reader, may come to see this (this being my life and my developing writing career) as radical approaches to a different take on anarchy-anarchy is what this is defined as for many: disobeying the law, and ruling without governments; even this is incorrect for me and is more of a description to be a system “without a ruler”.

I seek a leader, to lead others towards healing, which is now a colonial Chief’s job, the elected official knows not of cultural direction for he learned a chunk of culture inside an institution the white man created out of thin air, a Hereditary Chief acknowledges this as truth, and I pray for that much. Without the ferries, where will we all be? Swimming to the islands? Jumping in and hoping for the best? Shall we all start taking off in canoes and kayaks like the Indians of lore? I understand that bringing down a tree in ceremony and carving out a canoe, for me at least, is impossible for the knowledge is passed on through a family that was severed from each other.

I am asking that we expand our minds and collectively, creatively, to work against BC Ferries in a unique way. Make the world listen to the corruption and draw out the government, then they will have no choice but to stop the expansion of the pipelines, tanker traffic and tar sands extraction. You read that right; I fucking said that, just like many are saying this to be truth. I believe this truth, as do others, having theorized, the reason BC Ferries has done this is they have simply been bought out from industry by the very dirty sands filled with oil we are all filling our gas tanks with. Even still, the islands and territories have been sickly strewn, left floating in an ocean of ruins, in the name of progress for the industrialized civility we find ourselves in. I wish to add that our biggest political prisoner, a lady no one wishes to acknowledge, is the colonial possession of Mother Earth’s natural resources. Holy places where our Indigenous Ancestors built, created, and kept clean and sustainable for over a span of tens of thousands of years predating white law, white culture, and white practices: a societal pressure thought up to destroy, to alter, and to maim the Indian population and their Heathenistic insight to stay the lands as Creator made them, as Mother Earth kept them and as we travelled sustainably, white dominion found a way to turn canoes and kayaks into sport and for profit. So I ask you, who is really in control?

Indigenous Methods of Teachings: My Familial Politics vs. the Westernized World

Indigenous Methods of Teachings: My Familial Politics vs. the Westernized World

My Auntie did not exploit my young Indian mind to the truths about genocide, ecocide, cultural and language removal, Indian Act, racism, Residential Schools and Indian hospitals or hatred, she in fact did not have to open my mind to these truths: white settlers had that responsibility well before her time; what does she do though? In the simplest context, breaking it down some, she stood up for the people, for the women and for the land and now I do the same. I note that to follow in my Auntie’s footsteps is an honour and not a burden.

The knowledge we have is incredible and cannot be willed away from greed so easily. I think that our very survival proves that and our desire to learn the culture all over again shows the strength hidden deep within all of us. The difficult thing in my life to overcome is the balance between the customs of my Indian relatives to the East and those of my cultural customs of Salish Indians from the West Coast: protocol I feel is being tested perhaps. I hear the word “treaty” and cringe for the politics of the Native world is something I have always been running away from. The main reason, for the better part, the lands here in so-called British Columbia are un-ceded or stolen really. On so-called Vancouver Island, or “Home” as my Auntie calls these lands, there is one treaty I have attempted to learn about: The “Douglas Treaties”; a treaty that for the most part, covers ownership by white peoples over the islands now separated and given individual white names much like my Ancestors and much like myself.

I faced this fate of fear from those around me, those raising me, having been raised by my Auntie, she showed me what was happening to our culture, to our language, to our Elders, and the stories. We faced white ridicule for she wished to help Indian peoples instead of ignoring them, ignoring that our culture is seemingly slipping away from us. My Uncle, one of many, is facing this same plight and pain within his family, even still, I told him some words of hope for I am a testament of sorts and told him that “just like I have seen you both, you show your daughter and do not force this on her, this life is difficult but the truth has to be known. He continued to talk to me abut a struggle that someone is putting his teachings down, an adult is putting his young daughter down and told me to keep telling those around me now, “So I’ll do my best”. I said to him. I further realized “I have witnessed you be parents, and remain (to) your sovereign practices, which of course are difficult in a colonial world”. I discovered that I have faced many ignorant obstacles from all sorts of people, though I was young and mostly sheltered from their words, my Auntie continued to show me what the world has done to our people. She wished me to know the truth that cannot be otherwise learned within white history classes teaching whatever they conjure up. Like a tasteless soup, we eat it and honour the food before us but do not wish to criticize their efforts. Being polite as we go, and I have become tired of this method of educating the world of what so-called Kanata has done to Indian peoples. I recognize many in my family are unlearning the colonial processes, know that this is a struggle, know that you are not alone, speaking is “dangerous” in these white ruled times-times turn into days, hours and minutes as a world of sovereign peoples heal and open up and speak out about Indigenous issues. I told an Uncle of mine, one of many, he lives on the mainland, I told him to teach his daughter to always speak out, and she does this, she writes her own music, sings her own music, her truth is her own and that cannot be stolen out of the face of Indigenous ignorance, nor from anyone.

I am just slowly learning about “band politics”, honestly, this is a colonial practice and severely crippled by the colonial mentality and I told him “how we have lost so much, in terms of helping our people”. I have been doing advocacy and public speaking for about ten years now, I have learned to reach out, I told him that “I am glad you did too”. I am telling myself as I type to him that “I have a long way to go, but doing what I can”; explaining further to my Uncle to “always vent, pray, and look forward”. I pray that he knows he does much for his family and for the community. I said to him, “You do lots for your daughter, just know that, you do not ‘exploit’ her, she wishes to talk or sing about the environment, about the culture, and some hard facts and the amazing thing, you both (meaning mom and dad) let her”. I honoured my words further to my Uncle that this, “Just upsets me, Indian peoples are met to guide each other not suppress one another”. I further added to a conversation we had late into the night: “I think if there was ever a lesson about suppression is that we can talk about what is bothering us, or even who is bothering us. Let us rejoice the fact that we are alive, that we all have a place in this world. Being alive today is demanding, even more so for Native peoples (that) thrived past genocide, remained dormant and awakened with such thunder, the voice of oppression could no longer be heard across the lands.”

I am suddenly finding myself starring into a muddy puddle, when the water ripples, I am reflecting back on a type of behavior that remains extremely disrespectful here on the Salish territories. I soon and personally feel that this is the right time to remind people this not Cree land. Without name bashing, I am only doing this to honour my family, and to also, well, continue on with this well thought out blurb that Elders on the Salish Coast wish to hear the youth speak: angry, or happy; healing does take shapes of many forms. I also am stating that you put down my family on our ancestors lands, and know that shit is about to go down: poetically and peacefully. Hul’qumi’num peoples live these lands, waters and rivers. Protocol and conduct must be taken seriously on Hul’qumi’num lands, your Elder age means not disrespecting this youth singing her truths. Salish culture is about showing and teaching from a perspective long thought to be primitive to the white world: without force and without fear. Mostly though, without indoctrination of religious or otherwise godly like beliefs.

I am from an area that white settlers re-named an area to be so-called “Chemainus”: my ancestor’s home territory; I am saddened to leave the area as I sit, parked by the water but I will return soon enough. Even though I make this promise, being Indian is painful, rather heart breaking to see the glow of lights shimmer in an area that is to remain the territory of a village slaughtered at the hands of settler’s progression to eradicate the Indian population from their lands and homes. A “foresting” company has now claimed wrongful placement here. Lands once thrived by my family for thousands of years is now a memory held only by a few…now including a string of many to which I’ve slowly started to knit over time, creating a blanket to wrap up my pain with warmth and comfort…these are my families stories and these are my modern day approaches to the oral tradition…I’ve not simply thrown them away, I’ve just adapted them ever so slightly, I pray someone is listening to them.

“¡Ya basta!”-Enough is Enough: Finding My Strengths to Creatively Resist Colonial Occupation

“¡Ya basta!” – Enough is Enough: Finding My Strengths to Creatively Resist Colonial Occupation

The Zapatistas have built a system of sovereignty that is beyond a doubt inspirational. Learning about the Zapatistas remains difficult, however, since I am outside their territories, and residing within mine, there is a common goal we all share though: defeating occupation through creative resistance. I still uphold my own responsibilities to learn about the struggles of many Indigenous peoples throughout these lands. A pinnacle role into how people decided to take back their lands, creating a movement of peace and create a movement of unity built without the propaganda of the colonial mind. Tonight I learned of how the Zapatistas have a taxing system, a governance, polices to govern themselves accordingly with the lands, loan interest rates at just 2% tells you they are not out for profit, they are in it to help the people. The Zapatistas have an economy, growing to prosper, working with the lands and the people in a non-corrupt communal based systems and structures.

The Zapatistas teach me plenty, even from this short workshop that guided the audience into their methods of resistance, movement and compassion all means I wish to keep doing what I do best: decolonize my mind. Having been born into a sovereign nationality means understanding that my ancestors and sovereign duties are still heavily corrupted by white propaganda, and is sickly covered up with two words: “Indigenous” and “rights”; we do not have rights, we have some procured rights but in place of rights in my theories, we have responsibilities to each other, to our clan Mothers, to our Elders, to the people, to the matriarchs, to the Chiefs, most importantly though, is our responsibilities to stay the lands and to protect the animals. However, much of these governing practices and systems have all but disappeared or are all but dead. The Zapatistas show me that these types of movements thrive with positive intentions by outweighing the negative impact of a colonial system. Honouring the fact that we all make mistakes and these mistakes can teach us that we each can beautifully grow from those mistakes and adapt ourselves ever further.

I learned that the Zapatistas are being presently invaded upon daily by an outside force in what is now called “Mexico”. Mexico’s military and para-military attacks happen I am sure almost daily: why are they a threat to Mexico? I am sure one reason of many is that the Zapatistas have created autonomist municipalities. Though there is one thing that sticks with me: they have their own educational and instructional practices. Within those walls, unlike the westernized and white world, they then teach children history that is not colonial and not a lie, one that is truthful and keeps the children in their villages more educated about neo-colonialism and everything in between about the Indigenous struggles. Teaching them also about movements from outside so-called Mexico and educating from the right side of the historical contexts to keep them engaged to what is reality and what is not.

Showing the unification is within the facts of how we are struggling together. Zapatistas, like almost any Indigenous based movement I have been involved in, and the ones I have watched on non-biased media (Indigenous sectors of news telling), to ones where I have been a guest on like I was at the Unis’tot’en territorial style of “teach-in” about their imposed attack on their sovereign lands, something industry calls “pipelines” of flowing wealth. I went as an extended family member and guest on their territory to learn, to listen, and to observe how living on the lands is done in an Indigenous based practice. The type of movements I have watched, read about, or attended will always inspire me to live continually as a sovereign person-a sovereign person struggling to find my Indian culture that was robbed from, stolen from me, make shifted into something else, bacterized into concepts of white rules, that I am acclaimed to be an “anarchist” but I am like I said: born into a sovereign nation; struggling everyday while I drive my car to work, or to my local campus, or a gathering, or a protest, or the Treaty Eight Healing Walk. All the while knowing, I am yelling at the Tar Sands, driving my car, watching myself attempt to find sustainable solutions of travel.

I remain ever humble because I attended the presentation of the Zapatistas divinity, their pure intentions to keep their nation strong and untainted from colonial forces. Indeed, this is a pinnacle time, a pinnacle moment to be seen as a “Heathen, Indian, Native, Aboriginal, Indigenous” peoples in the moments of white peoples dominion, when even to date the infamous “they” still seek the destruction of what the Anishinabe call “Turtle Island” from their creation legends. I do and can accept this term fully and easily, for I, as my ancestors before me, do not see this as so-called “North Amerika”. My ancestors do not see this as “Amerika” period: we have and always will carry our boundaries and territories gifted to us not as “right” but as a responsibility; a duty to keep these lands “clean” and devout from outside forces like industry, corporate and colonial rule; just as those Indigenous ancestors before us did leave these lands clean and devout both in life, and in death. Something that the Zapatistas do as well, daily, continually, we watch them struggle; although, I am on the outside of their struggles, their world, for I live in an entirely different country, political systems and governing structures, I still feel as if we are close neighbours. I recognize that my ancestors ocean can easily take me there, “similar tides”, if you will, a common goal in the struggle to be sovereign on our own lands in a white or otherwise colour biased system of a propaganda controlled type world: we are terrorists protecting the innocent as sovereign peoples; movements done with peace, love, and honesty is shear “terror” on our war against capitalism, no doubt in my mind at all. We are undeniably neighbours for the plain we share is one of a common good in the fight for Indigenous unification and the justification of raising a voice for our own nationality to be human, to be connected to the lands of Mother Earth. The movements enact our strive to say and scream “Enough is Enough” so many times, a spark ignites a fire spread vast and wide, unity becomes our common song, unity becomes the strength that unites us as a “one voice movement” to remain sovereign now and also in death.

Loss of Tone and Pitch: Recreating Sacredness to Drum, to Sing, and to Dance

I always wondered what a deer skin drum felt like as a child, I always day dreamed about an Indian canoe a community came together to build. The community came together? Such a novelty found by the standards of the westernized and white world to date. The first time I held a drum, however, I cried, the first time I made a noise on one with sacred intentions, my soul soared to a height I thought to be long dead to my colonized voice and third eye. A connection to a religion that was slaughtered, murdered at the hands of white progression to crush and mould and bend the lands to white man’s imagery; upholding a virtue of white Christianity to dominate and convert the Heathens to their so-called doctrine of discovery.

Methods and foundations planted to be of universal truth that we clearly do not understand nor belong on our lands-lands of Mother Earth. Lands and areas otherwise thought to be empty and free of anyone let alone my Native ancestors. Thousands of Natives that thrived for tens of thousands of years in family run politics, practices of family taught languages, creative venues of artistic display to honour the animals, musical styles created for multiple reasons from travel to gathering to eat together, and governance that was run differently throughout the villages and continent. Yet these things were all worked carefully with the same intentions in mind: keeping the lands run from Natures Law and not that of man’s law.

When we danced together, we are raising praise to the sun, the moon and the harvest. Many other reasons sparked our interest, like to sing for a marriage, or even for fighting off invaders of our territories and boundaries kept to hunt, to fish and to gather food. The drum is also made from two sacred properties: wood and animal skin; the story keeps to the same of how deeply sacred an animal skin drum really is to Indigenous peoples.

Protocol exists in everything, what we do together, when to drum, when to sing, how to drum, how to sing, how to act around each other and how to not act around each, how we enter another’s lands and boundaries of a neighbouring tribe, how we treat them and how we honour the fact that we must tread lightly and honour the struggle we actually each face together. Not alone, being alone is never possible but this concept of “together” I speak of, even though we are apart, even though we have different territories, politics, artistic expressions, ways of drumming, dancing, sovereignty, familial teachings, there remains in our bond is that of our struggle: this shall be the form of unification we seek.

So I am slowly finding a recent discovery within myself, by concluding that drumming and singing powwow music and now listening to Skwxwú7mesh drum music breaks my heart knowing the disconnection of the Indian songs that lives within me yet remains silent when I wish to sing aloud. From my actions of silence, I feel torn apart from the stolen drum I once held with pride, a drum once held by an Indian woman who was sought out by a higher power to be my grandmother that now remains a lady I will never know. In the name of colonization and spreading a disease among First Nation tribes to be white, to sing white, and to praise in a white manner….and this drum is now and forever seemingly gone from me.

I suppose I am only now coming to terms with these losses five months later because I am stubborn and held on for dear life, thinking these two items will find me; though I do carry on the hope for the return of my cedar head band and my deer skinned drum, I feel our parting journey is a design I cannot obviously control. I come to learn of how I must then force myself to mourn the loss of a sacred item made to create religious noise to honour life and an item made for me that was only recently gifted to me, is something I was only beginning to understand the meaning of wearing cedar on my crown.

I took a vow of silence to not sing but each Thursday night I am filled with Indian pride to be invited to sit around a learning style drum, to have that ability to sing along around the powwow drum without judgement of my tone, of my pitch and now as I slowly ease back into singing these Skwxwú7mesh and other Coastal Salish songs in the deep tone and my pitch is recreated, mostly I sing to myself or in my car as I drive. Even still, my soul remains heavily attached to those items and soon shatters when I hear Indian music; although, I pray for strength and guidance to be forgiven for my misdeeds to loose such sacredness and nobility. Religious items once sought for total removal by a government still oppressing a nation of peoples to this day.

Except this is an Indian system created for thousands of years, I watch today as the prevalence over tyranny of 149 years of white confederacy and 500 years of oppression and wrongful white occupation becomes my story, becomes my voice and becomes my struggle. I watch as the Indian governance around me is still made proudly from Native sovereignty and Natures Law, something that cannot be simply depressed or willed away without a fight, without due cause and without retaliation.

My voice will be strong and I will continue to sing and praise Creator in how I see fit. No matter the loss or heartbreak gifted so scornfully from so-called Kanata, no matter the loss or heartbreak of racism or suppression to keep my Indian voice at bay. Indeed, I will sing (don’t ask me to dance though) until I will the strength to then work continually against land and mind corruption that thought the removal of my family linage, a method meant to the removal of our heritage once and for all. Indeed, I will sing and keep singing; even in death the world will know and remember the strength found in my song, in my voice and in my struggle.

Drums, Feathers, Smudge and Prayer: “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Kanata

The audience was asked to write to their political prisoners. The “infamous raid” on peaceful protesters in so-called “Kanata”, though and in all reality, these are Indian lands. Mi’kmaq Warriors visited my Ancestors territory of the Coastal Salish peoples and spoke some real truths about their arrests, their struggles, their histories of self-identity under occupation. In light of their story, I wrote this letter for their two warriors, political prisoners here in so-called Kanata. Soon enough, I mailed the letters today (February 11, 2014). Peace be with the warriors held captive wrongfully for the crime of nothing but being born a proud Indian, arrested for a crime lived to uphold and honour their Ancestors way of life and all Indigenous land defenders throughout the world…\O/

 

Drums, Feathers, Smudge and Prayer: “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Kanata

Even for what appears as a minor infraction, a minor stop from the police, the police are the police wherever you are, wherever you go, there they are. So I got this text message whilst I was sitting in a coffee shop in so called “Victoria” the other day, from a friend, knowing a family coming to speak from Mi’kmaq Territory, a family reaching on and about injustice on their lands, was actually pulled over by the police (a police state is where I reside in, “not the welcome we were hoping for”, was the other half of the message, I agree) and when I had figured this fascist state could sink no lower, I created anger around me and figured, “where do I go from here”? Some words I once swore by but something that has otherwise eluded my mind: A cavity to disappear into in times of grievance; “honour the people, the lands, the vision”, my dreams have told me. Hear the story of a noble people visiting us from their home territory and yet, are quickly pulled over for something minor. I repent and write; honouring the fact that they traveled so humbly, for the lands, travelling far to share a message, spreading hope like a vaccine, a cure for the rest of us recognizing the corrupt and unjust system we find ourselves in. “I am not surprised”. I said. “We live in a capitalistic society and s/he who speaks out against the state is the ‘enemy’. I decided from the actions from Oka, to Mi’kmaq warrior times, to any unjust situation defacing Indian peoples as savages, means we live in this police state, indeed, we find ourselves in a racist union”. I said to myself.

I concluded in a realm within myself, realizing the devastation that we Indian peoples witness the brutality of this Kanatian state daily. I watched the devastation on the corporate news channels, on the Indigenous media sectors depicting the peaceful nature of Mi’kmaq warriors: drums and feathers, smudge and smudge bowls are now ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Kanata. I watched as a strong nation stood up for their religious beliefs to guard Mother Earth. In a world I built around myself, an understanding is created about the lands: She gives us life, so what would you do to stand in the way of industry, standing in the way of corporatization of Native lands, standing in the way of Tar sands mining extraction, standing in the way of mineral mining; all of this is happening daily here on the island and all over Indian country, so what will you do when that day comes to stand up and say, no more?

As a young Indian child, reading about Indian peoples in picture books, I always wondered what a warrior’s job was; the understanding is usually swept up behind war: blood, death and decay. The people to the East of my Ancestors are carrying the weight of knowledge that a warrior is someone defending something that appears to be primitive in the westernized and white world: the lands, the trees, the air, the crows, the sun; everything becomes about profit, even though I understand why, I have yet to fully understand the workings of capitalism and the economy of Kanata: is about consumerism. Corporate media drives the image by striking fear and recognizing we live around a police state, a fascist state. Big, fat, wealthy bankers control the environment of the urbanized world. I speak and talk about living in a different world, a different time, a different era whilst being ridiculed how I drive my car, put down from the face of white privileged peoples. I dream instead of where my people have gone, where has my canoe gone.

My family linage, you see, we the Henry family of what white folk call “Vancouver Island” is a land where my Native linage was and is one of the eight founding families on the Island here tens of thousands of years before white contact. My Auntie said to me that I am almost the last reaming survivor from the genocide dealt by Kanata. Due to white oppression, my three uncles and my mother are alive but keep away from the culture; my Grandmother has long since passed into the spirit world yet taught the language beyond the grasp of Residential Schools that thought to remove us. I am one of two that attempt to capture our Indian culture, our Indian language and rekindle with the Ancestors of lore: Stories that have now escaped my partially colonized tongue. I am stubborn for I believe my language is meant to be passed on from my Grandparents: people I have never known. I believe this knowledge is meant to be passed down generationally. I feel that I carry some knowledge of my culture that I feel I should not carry; although, my Elders tell me that the white culture creates disturbance within us and this fear attempts to its best to beat us down physically, spiritually and emotionally. The insights I carry of my self-identity and the Elders in my dreams will further tell me that “white men cannot remove our blood”. My cultural instincts, values and morals live within my blood and within me, they live within my mind, my heart and within the voice and words I share and speak.

I am Hul’qumi’num, an entire race of people that lived around the concept of unification for the greater good of one mind, of continual survival and to keep the lands as holy and as scared as we can, as we must. I am survivor of genocide and nearly the last remaining of royal descendants of my ancestors, a species of people once thought to be wiped out and made room for the white world to dominate. The theories I keep, they are my own, they are about wishing to live together, in a big house, thriving to live together: there are those that think community is not possible, that living with five people let alone 100 people like my Ancestor did for tens of thousands of years, is difficult; living as one, the governing system was run by one for the voice of all (like a modern day lawyer in a sense).

I was once confused myself, strived to be white, no matter how hard I truly tried to run from my culture, I am an Indian and an Indian I shall remain even in death. What the Mi’kmaq Warriors are teaching my Indian soul is that culture throughout Indian country is thriving. Small differences do not divide us, they unite us. The struggles become a signification in our fight to preserve Indian culture throughout these Native Lands, throughout Turtle Island. Do not let this system get you down, keep fighting and keep praying, pray within yourself, you must hold on. I was incarcerated in provincial level jail but not for being a warrior, for being a drug addict, this is not an easy thing to go through but I support you all. Being a third generation survivor of the Indian Act, Residential Schools and Indian Hospitals, 1960s scoops, to the foster care placements of myself, is the insightful virtue that I hope to spread throughout my community that rekindling with culture is who we are as a people, we are human.

We believe as Hul’qumi’num peoples that we descend from animals, on my home territory I am of the Eagle clan, crest, or teachings, and where my Grandmother, Dorothy “Tootie” Henry’s territory starts, we are from the Spe’eth, the Bear clan, crest or teachings. We are descendants of animals so we continue to a practice to see the lands as sacred, for our animal Ancestors forged for vegetation, for sustenance, just like in the Ancestral forms we took as humans. Prayer was conducted for just about anything that we did, when we feasted, drummed, pulled a canoe, danced, honoured the lands, hunted, fished and gathered, we prayed together. To say that we are “Heathens” for we appear as “Godless” is redundant because we are deeply religious in our own right, we are indeed a very spiritual people.

In light of the up rise, I honour my Indian Mothers and Fathers, Brothers and Sisters, Aunties and Uncles, Nieces and Nephews to the East of my Western religions of Hul’qumi’num Ancestors. Your lands are sacred, your lands provide life, and you show me that, you show the world that by standing up; you are tired from corporate and industry raping the lands of Mother Earth for nothing but the benefit of white men. We watch as their lucrativeness is found by seeing areas they claim to own, lands seen by white men as a commodity rather than a gift to be cherished. Your warrior women and men are strong, know that they cannot remove the Indian within you, our will as Indian peoples is much stronger and they are unable to remove us from the lands of our Mother. A life survived from cultural loss, genocide, racism, torture, ridicule, language removal…in the end of this long note, I say we are and shall be one thing: Alive.