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Notes

Indigeneity 101

Header image: One of 12 signs from the Native Hosts collection by Edgar Heap of Birds – Photo: Michael R. Barrick
Page name, from: Musqueam 101 https://www.musqueam.bc.ca/our-story/educational-resources/musqueam-101/
See also: Lynda Gray’s First Nations 101

This page is where I keep some of my notes on the learning I am doing around where I am, here in Vancouver, and who I am in relation to the Indigenous people of these lands.

New Course: Indigenous Learning Pathways
https://indigenousinitiatives.ctlt.ubc.ca/programming/ilp/

(July 18, 2022) Pope describes Canada trip as ‘penitential pilgrimage‘
https://slmedia.org/blog/pope-describes-canada-trip-as-penitential-pilgrimage

  • “And now I am about to embark on a penitential pilgrimage, which I hope, with God’s grace, will contribute to the journey of healing and reconciliation already undertaken,” the pope said.

(Oct 29, 2024) AI guru and Nobel winner Geoffrey Hinton donates half of prize money to clean-water charity for Indigenous peoples
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-ai-guru-and-nobel-winner-geoffrey-hinton-donates-half-of-prize-money

  • donated [$350,000] of the monetary award to Water First, a Canadian charity that partners with Indigenous communities to address drinking water challenges.
  • Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to end long-term boil-water advisories on First Nations reserves within five years when first elected in 2015. There were 105 such advisories when he took office. Today, there are 32 advisories, according to Indigenous Services Canada.

Last week, I heard about the Salish Wool Dog
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_Wool_Dog  [h/t, once again, to Mr. Caverly]

  • The Salish Wool Dog, also known as the Comox dog or Clallam Indian Dog,is an extinct breed of white, long-haired, Spitz-type dog that was developed and bred by the Coast Salish peoples of what is now Washington state and British Columbia for textile production
  • The small, long-haired wool dog and the coyote-like village dogs were deliberately maintained as separate populations. The dogs were kept in packs of about 12 to 20 animals, and fed primarily raw and cooked salmon. To keep the breed true to type and the preferred white color, Salish Wool Dogs were confined on islands and in gated caves.

I also learned about
Xwelítem Siyáya: Allyship and Reconciliation Buildingv
https://www.ufv.ca/peace-and-reconciliation/allyship-building-program/

  • This program seeks to help build people’s capacity for reconciliation-building by teaching the importance of authentic allyship and providing skills for building relationships between colonial settlers and Indigenous communities here in the Fraser Valley and beyond.

(Sept 24, 2024) UBCIC Calls for Immediate, Concrete Action to Remove First Nations’ Barriers to Accessing Information
https://www.ubcic.bc.ca/ubcic_calls_for_immediate_concrete_action_to_remove_first_nations_barriers_to_accessing_information

  • (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil Waututh)/ Vancouver, B.C. – September 24, 2024) The Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) calls on the federal government to take immediate and definitive steps to remove barriers for First Nations needing access to government-held records for the purpose of validating historical claims.
  • [lots more detail therein]

(Sept 20, 2024) Health data collected from Indigenous Peoples in Canada has a dark history. One Indigenous company is turning that around
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/health-data-collected-from-indigenous-peoples-in-canada-has-a-dark-history-one-indigenous-company-is-turning-that-around-1.7044920

  • This week, at a ceremony in Victoria, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) issued a formal apology for its role, and the role of the medical profession, in harms to Indigenous Peoples – including the unethical collection and misuse of health data that has contributed to ongoing mistrust of the health system and avoidance of care.
  • Sommerfeld is the CEO of Mustimuhw Information, named for a Coast Salish word for “all of the people” or “all my relations.”

Owned and operated by Cowichan Tribes on Vancouver Island, the software company develops medical records systems that are built on a foundation of Indigenous traditions and values, allowing health providers working in First Nations communities to capture data informed by their cultural practices, ways of communicating and culturally guided care environments.

  • But sharing health data effectively does not diminish the strength that comes from Indigenous people stewarding that data. Dr. Ryan Giroux, a Métis general pediatrician in Toronto, sees data sovereignty as “a natural extension of self-determination and self-governance.” This autonomy, he says, “shifts the power imbalance Indigenous people have felt within the health-care system.”

Making space for Indigenous data governance, he says, is a tangible step towards the decolonization of health care, for individuals as well as Indigenous communities as a whole.

  • a framework for success based on four principles – the ownership, control, access and possession of information, or OCAP.

(Sept 29, 2024) Rustad wants B.C. Indigenous rights law repealed. Chief sees that as 40-year setback
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/rustad-wants-b-c-indigenous-rights-law-repealed-chief-sees-that-as-40-year-setback-1.7056306

  • Rustad said in a statement on the Conservatives’ website last February, that the UN declaration, known as UNDRIP, was “established for conditions in other countries — not Canada.”
    • [In 2019] Rustad threw his support behind the legislation as a member of the Official Opposition B.C. Liberal Party

Irish Symbols, for consideration: the harp and the shamrock
Louis Riel 1870 Provisional Government Flag
cf.
“Under the Crown” https://kieranfor.de/2024/04/08/under-the-crown/

William Bernard O’Donoghue
https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/o_donoghue_william_bernard_10E.html

(Jan 7, 1998) Statement of Reconciliation: Learning from the Past [h/t to Robin for pointing to this]
https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/statement_of_reconciliation_learning_from_the_past/

  • Indian Affair’s Minister Jane Stewart’s statement of reconciliation to Canada’s aboriginal people, delivered at a ceremony in Ottawa January 7, 1998

(Jan 7, 1998) Gathering Strength — Canada’s Aboriginal Action Plan

The Bottom line? We must work together to make life better for Aboriginal people.

(Sept 21, 2024) UBC Faculty of Education Homecoming 2024
  • Went on the Indigenous Art Walk on campus. Lynne Tomlinson did a great job as guide and I learned some more about the Indigenous Art that is dispersed across campus.
  • As a bonus, Larry Kuehn was also on the tour so I was able to connect with him and chat as we walked along the tour.

More:

KF: house / totem / welcome

Sept 20, 2024: Saw this in the foyer of Alpha when I dropped Nicholle off at work

Thunderbird; owl; bear; frog
Inukshuk; butterfly?; Métis flag infinity loop / Möbius strip

Etuaptmumk ~ Two-Eyed Seeing [h/t to Robin]
www.integrativescience.ca/Principles/TwoEyedSeeing/

to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing, and from the other eye with the strengths of Western knowledges and ways of knowing … and learning to use both these eyes together, for the benefit of all.

“When you force people to abandon their ways of knowing, their ways of seeing the world, you literally destroy their spirit and once that spirit is destroyed it is very, very difficult to embrace anything – academically or through sports or through arts or through anything – because that person is never complete. But to create a complete picture of a person, their spirit, their physical being, their emotions, and their intellectual being … all have to be intact and work in a very harmonious way.”

Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall

Re: ‘Seven Generations’: “Frequently, this mainstream usage does not agree with the way the concept is understood by Mi’kmaw Elders.“

Jun 19, 2019) skʷit̕ᶿəc (Blackbird by the Beatles sung in hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓)

I’d also like to share a video of a bunch of Irish kids singing in Irish; it makes me so happy to see this YouTube Channel and how happy and engaged the kids look.

To review…
Wilson, J., & Nelson-Moody, A. (2019). Looking back to the potlatch as a guide to truth, reconciliation, and transformative learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2019 (157), 43–57. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20329

Research is ‘me’ search and when we as teachers work with dehumanized human beings we use the symbolism of
g  ́ax̌ in’ ́akv (home) to support positive, agentic self-concept as a waypoint for re-establishing their power to be whole, joyful, and innovative. We have come to know doing the work of transformative praxis requires teachers to incorporate the transformational learning equation when planning course outcomes: Validation + Inspiration = Transformation. Liberation curriculum starts by validating an individual’s humanity, purpose, and necessity in the world in relation to those around them.

(Aug 26, 2024) BC Illegally Collected Personal Info Tied to the Wet’suwet’en Conflict
https://thetyee.ca/News/2024/08/26/BC-Illegally-Collected-Personal-Info-Wetsuweten/
  • B.C. says it violated its own privacy laws when it gathered personal information from Coastal GasLink about “various individuals” involved in a high-profile conflict over the controversial pipeline project.

B.C.’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act states that personal information must be collected directly from the individual. While the act provides exceptions, the province did not suggest that any applied in this case.

  • While the information was sensitive enough to prevent public disclosure, it was not sensitive enough to trigger legislation that requires the government to notify people affected by a privacy breach, a spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Citizens’ Services wrote in an email to The Tyee.
  • The province’s failure to notify people affected by the breach while also saying that the information is too sensitive to release is a “have your cake and eat it too” argument, says Matt Malone, an associate law professor at Thompson Rivers University whose research focuses on privacy and access to information.
  • “The government’s actions can be perceived as prioritizing its own interests over the rights of individuals,” he said. “It strikes me as cynical and disingenuous by the government to be using privacy arguments in this way.”
  • Malone said this breach was “unique” because privacy concerns usually focus on information leaks rather than improper collection.
(Aug 31, 2024) Choctaw Nation unveils ‘eternal’ sculpture dedicated to Ireland
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/0831/1467661-choctaw-ireland-sculpture/

(June 18, 2017) Irish honor Choctaw Nation with “Kindred Spirits” sculpture
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/state/2017/06/18/irish-honor-choctaw-nation-with-kindred-spirits-sculpture/60592881007/

For more on this relationship, see:

Choctaw and Irish History
https://www.choctawnation.com/about/history/irish-connection/

(Aug 05, 2024) Terry Glavin: B.C. doesn’t need to atone for its origins
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/b-c-doesnt-need-to-atone-for-its-origins

There’s an extremely questionable narrative being pushed in this piece; I plan on discussing this with those who know more that I do about this history and coming back to comment on this.
In the meantime, it was interesting to learn:

  • Victoria can still claim the second-oldest Chinatown in North America
  • Congregation Emanu-El on Victoria’s Blanshard Street is the oldest continuously-occupied synagogue in Canada (1863)
    • When Lumley Franklin was elected mayor of Victoria in 1865, he became the first Jewish mayor in North America.
    • In 1871, the year B.C. joined Confederation, Victoria voters sent Wharf Street merchant Henry Nathan to Ottawa. He was Canada’s first Jewish member of Parliament.

For review:

  • [Far from being about stealing Indigenous land, B.C. was established in order to protect Indigenous people from heavily-armed American marauders and to secure to the Indigenous people of the Fraser River all the rights of British subjects.] 🤔
  • [Most of B.C. remains without benefit of treaty even now.]
(July 26, 2024) Canada owes First Nations billions after making ‘mockery’ of treaty deal, top court rules
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/26/canada-payment-first-nations-indigenous-treaty-deal
  • An “egregious” refusal by successive Canadian governments to honor a key treaty signed with Indigenous nations made a “mockery” of the deal and deprived generations of fair compensation for their resources, Canada’s top court has ruled.

(July 25, 2024) Can a lake become a person in law? A B.C. First Nation wants to find out
https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/can-a-lake-become-a-person-in-law-a-b-c-first-nation-wants-to-find-out/

  • For the band, it became an opportunity to follow the lead of Indigenous Peoples in other countries who have successfully bestowed legal rights on nature to help stave off unwanted development.
  • “We are at the very beginning stages of our work and the legal personhood is another legal tool in the colonial toolbox,” she said in a telephone interview with APTN News.

Louie, D. W. (2024). Barriers to Engaging with Reconciliation in Canadian Education: Confusing Colonial and Western Knowledge. Canadian Journal of Education Revue Canadienne De l’éducation, 47(2), 466–491. https://doi.org/10.53967/cje-rce.6325

  • By first establishing accessible and shared definitions of reconciliation and colonization, common misconceptions and predictable pitfalls in Indigenous movements can be resolved. By attending to the confusion of terms the circle can be expanded ever so slightly to welcome more allies into the movement. Intentionally deceptive narratives position the work of reconciliation, or any social justice movement, as being anti-White and divisive.

In the pursuit of equity and healing, it is essential to maintain the core values of care and dignity in methods of emancipation and resist succumbing to colonial tactics of delegitimizing any knowledge system, even those of our oppressors…The aim of decolonizing projects is not to embody colonizing tactics and become the colonizer. \

  • I want to emphasize that my scholarship is founded on anti-oppressive approaches and not diversity-based interventions.
    • Ahmed (2006) contends that diversity-based approaches are often associated with ideas of equality, whereas anti-oppression requires interrogating our own collusion with systems and acts of oppression.
  • St. Denis (2011) challenges multiculturalism by claiming it does not address racism in our society and that Indigenous people are not simply just one amongst a myriad of cultures in the Canadian context.
  • ➡ 470

(June 28, 2024) Canadian woman gets three years’ jail in first ever sentencing for a ‘Pretendian’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/28/canadian-woman-sentenced-inuit-benefit-fraud

  • A Canadian woman who fraudulently claimed her daughters were Inuit has been sentenced to three years in jail, in what is believed to be the first ever custodial sentence for a “Pretendian”.
  • Karima Manji, whose daughters accessed more than C$150,000 in benefits intended for Inuit, was sentenced on Thursday, after pleading guilty to fraud in February.

(June 18, 2024) Indigenous data stewardship stands against extractivist AI
https://www.arts.ubc.ca/news/indigenous-data-stewardship-stands-against-extractivist-ai/ (via Tremonti)

Dr. David Gaertner, Associate Professor, Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies, and Associate Member of English Language and Literatures, argues how Indigenous practices of data stewardship, that for centuries have protected data sovereignty and cultural integrity, can help counter the settler desire for ‘AI magic’ that perpetuates harm and exploitation.

  • The extractive nature of AI, fuelled by ingesting massive amounts of online text, mirrors and amplifies colonial extractivism. It commodifies data and knowledge without consent, recognition, or compensation,…
  • By utilizing wampum belts to record histories, alliances, and political relations, Indigenous communities engaged in practices of data stewardship and hypertextuality long before these concepts were formalized in the digital age.
    • The maintenance of these records through community memory and performance highlights a dynamic and interactive approach to information storage and retrieval outside of the established Western practices.
  •  The emergence of reports detailing how the internet is currently cannibalizing itself and generating new AI content from existing AI material, also known as the “dead internet theory”, further amplifies these concerns.

KF: wampum belts as coding

  • (June 28, 2010) Lost Knowledge: Ropes and Knots 
    https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/06/lost-knowledge-ropes-and-knots/
    • Here, you can see rope/cord framed as hardware and knots framed as software. Seen this way, ropework is a form of coding where the knot(s) is programmed into the rope/cord to fulfill a specific output/outcome. 
    • From my (admittedly) basic understanding of Wampum (and as with a Qiupiu) a similar framing could be used to illustrate the technological advancement of pre-digital data storage and retrieval. 

Watch: (Jan 14, 2015) Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science: Dr. Gregory Cajete Talk

NOTES

  • not to “explain away”, but “finding ways to resonate”
  • Axiology: the study of values and value judgements
    • The two major subdivisions of axiology are aesthetics and ethics
  • Epistemology: theory of knowledge; how you come to know what you know
  • Logic
  • Process

Native science is a metaphor for Native knowledge. Is it the stories of the world that include creative ways for living and participating in relationship with the world through processes for “seeking, life, relationship, and meaning.

11:59 Therefore, becoming open to the natural world with all one’s senses, body, mind, and spirit is the goal of Native Science.

  • Resonance is the goal; Resonating self with self; self with community; with natural world; with the cosmos
    • CF Pinar’s “attunement”

13:15 The metaphoric mind or “nature” mind has been evolving in human beings for over three million years with its greatest evolution occurring 70k years ago in the Paleolithic era

  • Native science works with the rational and the metaphoric mind simultaneously. Its process is tied to creativity, perception, image, physical sensing, and intuition

Trumpish 🤣@16:59

  • (23:15) Orientation: Semi-Cardinal Directions
  • 24:45 Solstices and equinox cf. Newgrange

(June 3, 2024) The violent criminals who suddenly identify as Indigenous once in prison
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/robert-jago-the-violent-criminals-who-suddenly-identify-as-indigenous-once-in-prison

  • When I put this problem to the Deputy Commissioner for Indigenous Corrections back in February, they replied that they refused to verify claims to Indigenous identity on general principle, saying: “Self-identification is based on an offender’s expression of their identity … As with any other designated group member (persons who self-identify as being of a visible minority group or a person with a disability), there is no expectation of proof. If an inmate identifies as Indigenous, he or she is considered Indigenous. CSC does not monitor or verify this information.”

∞

(July 16, 2009) Josiah Wilson, the Indian Act, hereditary governance and blood quantum?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/josiah-wilson-indian-act-hereditary-governance-1.3668636

  • Josiah Wilson, was born in Haiti, and adopted by Don Wilson, from Heiltsuk First Nation.
    • Josiah says he is Heiltsuk because, ‘I have a native dad, I have a status card and I’ve been accepted by the community.’
  • What, or who, defines someone as Indigenous — is it the hereditary system, the Indian Act, a blood test?
  • Lots of overlap here in my thinking on Self-identification: On Irishness

(2024) Trutch Street ➡ šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm (Musqueamview  xʷməθkʷəy̓əm)

  • We were at Musqueam [xʷməθkʷəy̓əm] on Sept 30, 2022 for the renaming ceremony.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1d2cfod/is_the_city_ever_going_to_actually_change_trutch/

(May 28, 2024) Ontario First Nation legislator makes history at Queen’s Park
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mpp-sol-mamakwa-oji-cree-ontario-legislature-1.7216763

  • Ontario’s legislature had not previously allowed interpreting and transcribing a language other than English and French.
  • The legislature brought in interpreters to translate Mamakwa’s words in real time. Mamakwa’s words will also be represented in syllabics, an Indigenous writing system, in Hansard, the official record of proceedings at Queen’s Park.

(May 28, 2024: Charles Menzies) ‘On Stolen Land’ – ‘Occupation is a Crime’
https://menziesubcbog.substack.com/p/on-stolen-land-occupation-is-a-crime

  • Settler colonialism – a process with population replacement as the primary goal
    • [The term] obscures the social differentiation among so-called settlers
  • In isolation ‘settler’ implies or denotes a purposefulness on the part of the settler that may not, in fact, exist. Political and economic refugees may have no choice but to flee. Indentured and enslaved ‘Settler’s’ were robbed of their agency to choose. Even those who ostensibly chose to immigrate may have done so under conditions that left little effective choice. Many waves of settlement were, in fact, the outcome of people forced to flee turmoil, war, and prejudice in a homeland that may well have ejected them. In this context, the act of settling is less a purpose and more an outcome. Yet the analytic framing of ‘settler colonialism’ assumes settlement as the driving purpose.
    • Those who were instrumental in setting the colonial agenda, those already in possession of capital and prestige in their homelands, might more aptly be called ‘settlers’, as they both had the choice and the means to make good on their choices. These are the people, the social class, who benefit from displacement and resettlement of people.

(May 16, 2024) The Ontological Resonance of Doctrine of Discovery in Education with Dr. Shannon Leddy

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights asks, of The Doctrine of Discovery:

Kent Monkman, The Scream, 2017
  • How might rescinding the Doctrine affect the government’s relationship with Indigenous peoples?
  • What old colonial ideas and racist stereotypes continue to influence us in Canada today?
  • Where and how did you learn about the history of colonization in Canada?

Shannon spoke of papal bulls, documents that “provided religious authority for Christian empires to invade and subjugate non‐Christian lands, peoples and sovereign nations, impose Christianity on these populations, and claim their resources. These papal bulls were written at a time when European empires were embarking on widescale colonial expansion.” (source)

Kent Monkman, Iron Horse, 2015
  • In 1155, Pope Adrian IV, the only Englishman to have served in that office, issued the bull Laudabiliter that purports to grant the right to the Angevin King Henry II of England to invade and govern Ireland “to reveal the truth of the Christian faith to peoples still untaught and barbarous, and to root out the weeds of vice from the Lord’s field.”
    • These bulls were not use only to “Christianize”: Christians of the “wrong sort” were subject to the same sort of bull where an ideology was fabricated to justify colonization, subjugation, and domination: this Dominion remains in many places, both in the ongoing geo-political sense, but also in the settler-colonial legacy of intergenerational trauma and cultural genocide.
https://nativenorthwest.com/posters/

Revisiting the land-bridge theory

(Jan 09, 2018: Angela Sterritt) B.C. Indigenous people react to the resurfacing of 2 migration theories https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-indigenous-communities-react-to-the-resurfacing-of-two-migration-theories-1.4479632

  • Bering Strait theory: Migration across a land bridge spanning the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska
  • The Solutrean hypothesis: people from Europe may have been among the earliest settlers of the Americas.
(Jan 11, 2019) Did the first North Americans cross the Atlantic on an ice bridge? | The Nature of Things


  • Oscar Dennis…a Tahltan language conservationist…thinks the journey from Asia took place — but with watercraft rather than on foot. Dennis even asserts that origin stories are illustrations of the journey. 
  • Haida elder Woodrow Morrison believes migration was possible, but that people would have gone both ways through various corridors and land masses throughout the world.
    • But some elders dispute that migration happened at all.

McGhee, R. (1989). Who Owns Prehistory? The Bering Land Bridge Dilemma. Canadian Journal of Archaeology / Journal Canadien d’Archéologie, 13, 13–20. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41102821

  • THE USES OF ARCHAEOLOGY
    • Archaeology as “a handmaiden of colonialism
  • THE BERING STRAIT DILEMMA
    • The Asiatic origin of New World peoples is a theory which is as close to dogma as scientific archaeology allows. It is a theory, however, which is forcefully and almost unanimously rejected by native
    • …such an interpretation of their past implies that they are “just another group of immigrants” to this country, and diminishes their claim to a distinct and valuable cultural
  • WHO OWNS PREHISTORY?
    • A Canadian museum director who recently visited New Zealand reports that prehistoric archaeology in that country has practically ceased because of Maori opposition
      • “The Māori lived in New Zealand for over 300 years before European settlers arrived”
    • It is argued that archaeological theories regarding the Indian past deprive theological beliefs, resulting in a lack of pride in the value of their cultural heritage, and contributing to a cultural malaise which leads directly to economic and social problems
    • [The danger of] “proprietary history”, in which a single group or organization can exclude all others from researching or interpreting an historical topic.
  • SHARING THE PAST
    • (in Canadian law, as in the British law from which it derives, the “dawn of legal memory” is defined as the year A.D. 1168)

(May 5, 2024) A B.C. First Nation’s 3-year effort to change a city’s name
https://www.todayinbc.com/news/a-bc-first-nations-3-year-effort-to-change-a-citys-name-7353966

  • Powell River is named after Israel Wood Powell. Born in Ontario in 1836, he was appointed as the superintendent of B.C.’s newly formed Department of Indian Affairs in 1872.
    • For the next 17 years, he pursued “policies aimed at assimilating Indigenous peoples into settler Canadian society,”
  • It’s now been three years since Tla’amin Nation’s efforts first began, and there’s not much to show for it in a way of tangible change

(May 2, 2024: Charles Menzies) First Nations people and campus ceremonies https://charlesmenzies.substack.com/p/first-nations-people-and-campus-ceremonies

  • …complexities to affirming cultural practices when such practices might be at odds with each other.
  • Smudging, the ceremonial burning of a plant and then bathing in the smoke, is not Indigenous to coastal BC
    • At the same time the effects of colonialism has dispersed and shifted our communities…ceremonies like smudging, that originated away from the coast, have come here and have for many First Nations people become an important aspect of one’s spirituality and cultural practice.

UBC has had a mixed approach to the ceremony of smudging. When I was first hired at UBC (in the mid 1990s) I heard of issues with campus security interrupting smudging ceremonies. Colleagues for whom this was an important issue worked hard to get a protocol in place that would permit indoor smudging. For many years a sort of cultural detente persisted. This seems to have changed.

  • It would appear that while there is indeed no university level policy, some kind of draft statement/guideline/policy has been working it’s way through the system. At the opperational levels of the university this ‘policy’ is being applied as though it is a rule.

(April 30, 2024) How Workplace Diversity Fails Indigenous Employees [Michelle Cyca]
https://thewalrus.ca/how-workplace-diversity-fails-indigenous-employees/

https://twitter.com/michellecyca/status/1785261610728345803
  • CIBC uses Our Children’s Medicine to “Indigenize the employment processes”
    • “Our Children’s Medicine was founded by Josh Hellyer (the grandson of former defence minister Paul Hellyer), once a TV and film producer, a self-published author, and a mental health advocate. Hellyer is not Indigenous, but his Instagram bio reads ‘Indigenous ally.'”
  • “decolonization” and “Indigenization”: The two terms are often used interchangeably, though, in short, the former refers to removing colonial influences from a system while the latter refers to incorporating Indigenous elements into a system

Even prisons, where the proportion of Indigenous inmates has risen by 32 percent in the past decade, have gotten on board with Indigenization: in December, without any apparent irony, the Canadian government congratulated itself on a correctional facility for Indigenous inmates constructed in the shape of a soaring eagle.

For context, see https://www.canada.ca/en/public-services-procurement/corporate/stories/indigenous-programs.html
About the author, Michelle Cyca https://thenarwhal.ca/author/michelle-cyca/
  • 2015 – Truth and Reconciliation Commission – 94 Calls to Action
  • …how Indigenization is seen as a service that can be subcontracted out with minimal oversight or attention. The resulting efforts are tokenizing, clumsy, and shallow. 
  • the transformation demanded by the TRC has been usurped by generic, symbolic expressions of solidarity that treat hundreds of nations and peoples across the country as a monolith. 
    • There have been exceptions: in 2017, Vancouver International Airport signed a thirty-year agreement with the Musqueam Indian Band, which includes revenue sharing, employment, and educational opportunities and protections for environmental and archeological resources. 

“What tends to happen is that reconciliation becomes exploitation,” says the Yellowhead Institute report’s co-author Eva Jewell, “where Indigenous peoples are expected to either fix the institutions they’re working in, or orient themselves to the powers that be and reconcile with the Canadian state. So we’re asked to fit into the box of the institution, and then once we’re included, the institution [feels it has become] diverse and equal.

(April 19, 2024) I learned about the UBC Former Youth in Care program last week and followed that link to the link below.

(March 29, 2019) ‘No act of reconciliation is too small,’ says B.C. advanced education minister https://www.clearwatertimes.com/news/no-act-of-reconciliation-is-too-small-says-b-c-advanced-education-minister-5712493

  • … post-secondary tuition fees were waived as part of a provincial program launched in 2017. The program requires B.C.’s 25 public post-secondary schools to offer free schooling to students aged 19 to 26 who spent at least two years in care.
  • Growing up in care makes it difficult, for many reasons, to access post-secondary education. These children move often and only one-third of them graduate high school with a Dogwood diploma by the time they turn 19.
  • For Indigenous children, the situation is worse. Even if they aren’t in care, they’re less likely to graduate than non-aboriginal kids — 69.6 per cent compared with 86.5 per cent — and if they are in care, they’re less likely to access post-care income support as an adult.
    • The majority of children in care in B.C. are Indigenous — 63.5 per cent — even though Indigenous people make up just four per cent of the provincial population.

“When you look at the impact of residential schools and the intergenerational impact when kids were taken out of their families, the communities are still recovering. …[E]ducation was unfortunately the method that was used to destroy the culture and break down those families, but it’s also going to be the way to lift them back up” 

William Litchfield, associate vice-president, university relations, at VIU
  • B.C.’s Minister of Advanced Education Melanie Mark is Indigenous and she grew up in government care, living in two foster homes and later in the care of a relative. She is B.C.’s first female First Nations MLA and cabinet minister.
  • VIU — with nearly 100 students on tuition waivers — has more Indigenous students than any other university in B.C. 

(Jun 26, 2023) B.C. university [KPU] waives tuition for students from local First Nations. Will other schools follow? https://www.timescolonist.com/bc-news/bc-university-waives-tuition-for-students-from-local-first-nations-will-other-schools-follow-7194240

(Mar 14, 2023) B.C. lifts age limit on free tuition for those who were once in care
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/free-tuition-age-limit-1.6778680

As a result of the above: (May 2, 2024) Melanie Mark: Provincial Tuition Waiver Program
https://kieranfor.de/2024/05/02/melanie-mark/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-haida-gwaii-title-agreement-1.7173601

(Apr 14, 2024) ‘We were born knowing this is ours’: B.C. signs deal recognizing Haida Nation title over Haida Gwaii
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-haida-gwaii-title-agreement-1.7173601

  • The province says the “Rising Tide” title agreement is a “first-of-its-kind” deal negotiated between the NDP government and the nation, shifting “ownership and jurisdiction of land from the Crown to the Haida Nation in Crown law.”
https://fipa.bc.ca/

(April 7, 2024) I joined the board of the BC Freedom of Information Association last December. It’s a great organisation; if you haven’t already, please check them out.
I’m just out of our annual Board retreat where, among many other things, I learned of the Tsawwassen First Nation Freedom of Information and Privacy Act (2009/2017) which aims to

to provide Tsawwassen Members and other “qualifying persons” with access to information in the custody and control of a Tsawwassen Institution (defined as Tsawwassen Government, and any body, board or commission it may establish); and to mandate the protection of personal information that is collected by a Tsawwassen Institution.

FINAL_Summary_Freedom_of_Information_and_Protection_of_Privacy_Act_2013.10.21.pdf (tsawwassenfirstnation.com)

I’m connecting the above to my interest in privacy and identity, as well as my ongoing learning within education; In this case, I think specifically of the First Peoples Principles of Learning and how these might inform practices of data collection, retention, storage, destruction, and use: the issue of the Nation’s consent being key.

Vanner, C. et al (2024). Teaching about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People: Implications for Canadian Educators. Canadian Journal of Education. https://doi.org/10.53967/cje-rce.5883

RQ: How can teachers enhance the critical consciousness of Canadian young people about MMIWG2S?

  • showcasing the experiences of eight teachers already teaching about MMIWG2S, the recommendations of 11 adolescent Indigenous girl activists [Treaty 6 Métis], and the guidance provided in the Their Voices Will Guide Us teaching and learning guide, published alongside the National Inquiry’s final report

Indigenous women and girls are 12 times more likely to go missing or be murdered than other women in Canada.

  • Following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)’s report on residential schools in Canada, education about residential schools expanded substantially to hold a central position in many provincial curricula
    • The National Inquiry’s report has not garnered the same attention in education.
  • Participant self-identified as “Muslim” for ethnicity cf. White, Métis, European & North African
  • The National Inquiry classifies this violence as genocide [KF cf. “acts of genocide“] because of its linkages to centuries of colonial policies that targeted Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, culminating in their dehumanization and dramatically higher exposure to violence
  • Clark (2016) calls for violence to be understood within a complex web of social forces, emphasizing the resistance and resilience of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people so that their stories are not only of victimhood [more on this]
    • calls for “desire-centred research,” which centres on “the hope, the visions, the wisdom of lived lives and communities. Desire is involved with the not yet and, at times, the not anymore”
KF @ Burnaby Mountain May 2, 2023; Project by Tech Ed & Art Ed teachers [Der]
  • Battiste’s (2013) concept of decolonizing education
  • School systems have to disrupt settler innocence narratives by showing Canada as “a settler colonial state where Indigenous peoples continue to face systemic discrimination”
  • the importance of educators’ critical self-reflection on their positionality and implication in the issues they are teaching about before they can support their students to do the same.

Tuck and Yang’s (2012) critique of settler educators who falsely claim to be decolonizing education classifies this practice as a settler move to innocence, defined as “strategies or positionings that attempt to relieve the settler of feelings of guilt or responsibility without giving up land or power or privilege”

I would absolutely expect non-Indigenous educators to acknowledge their privilege, to learn about colonial history, to not have White guilt about it, to work through that because it’s not about you. It’s about how can we give an explanation so young people can feel that their lives are empowered and they can be proud that they are Indigenous youth.

Marie, the only Indigenous (Michif) teacher participant

(Mar 28, 2024) Ontario moves to allow use of Indigenous languages in legislature https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/28/ontario-indigenous-languages-legislature-canada

  • moved to amend a standing order that previously required lawmakers to use either English or French. Following a vote, that order now allows for an “Indigenous language spoken in Canada” to be used when addressing the speaker or chamber.
  • Sol Mamakwa, a member of the New Democratic party who represents the Kiiwetinoong electoral district, recalled being punished for speaking Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin) in his youth.
The Métis flag
See also, https://kieranfor.de/2023/03/29/mobius-musings/

(Mar 21, 2024) Two men swapped at birth – one Indigenous, one white – finally get apology
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/21/richard-beauvais-eddy-ambrose-switched-birth-responsibility-apology

  • Richard Beauvais, 68, believed he was Indigenous. Eddy Ambrose, who shares the same birthday, always understood that he was of Ukrainian descent
  • The painful saga, which embodies the damaging effects of Canada’s colonial policies, also highlights the fragile nature of identity and the complex meaning of family.
  • The case marks the third known such mistake in the province of Manitoba.

(Mar 17, 2024) Toronto researchers help uncover Ontario First Nations’ donations to Irish Famine relief fund https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-first-nations-irish-famine-donations-1.7143918

Famine by Rowan Gillespie located in Dublin’s City Centre, depicts people walking towards the harbour, to be carried away by ships
  • In the summer of 1847, Toronto gave refuge to 38,000 Irish famine victims — at a time when Toronto’s population was only 20,000.
  • The part of this history that is virtually unknown is the contribution to the relief fund from Indigenous communities in Canada.

“At least 15 bands answered the call and requested that donations be deducted from their government annuities, added to the fund, and then sent to ‘our suffering fellow subjects and Christian brethren in Ireland and Scotland,” according to Mark McGowan’s research. McGowan is a professor of history at the University of Toronto and has spent time going through the archival documents.

  • McGowan says the documents show Mohawks, Haudenosaunee of the Six Nations, Chippewa, Delaware, Wyandotte, and Mississauga peoples had donated £115, an amount equivalent to $12,426 today.
  • With further donations from the Saugeen, Ojibwa of Lake Huron, and Moravian Ojibwa, the total Indigenous gift to the relief fund was £165, or $17,978 in today’s Canadian currency. Some of these contributions came from Indigenous communities in Quebec.

(Mar 12, 2024) Indigenous language program sees bright future in permanent home
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/squamish-nation-language-kitsilano-schoolhouse-1.7142031

  • Immersive program for babies and toddlers an example of reconciliation, parent says
  • The Henry Hudson building in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood was set to be demolished by the Vancouver School Board to make way for a new elementary school, until the Squamish Nation saved it in the eleventh hour.
    • After a journey across the Burrard Inlet on a barge in August, the schoolhouse was renovated, with education for little ones in mind

(December 8, 2023) Louis Riel Act receives Royal Assent, becomes law
https://www.mmf.mb.ca/news/louis-riel-act-receives-royal-assent-becomes-law

  • Louis Riel finally recognized as the first Premier of Manitoba.
https://www.mmf.mb.ca/

➡ see Stones/Balancing: Jock Langlois (Red River Metis)
https://indigenizinglearning.educ.ubc.ca/stones-balancing/

(September 30, 2022) Musqueam gifts new name to City of Vancouver to replace Trutch Street https://www.musqueam.bc.ca/renaming-ceremony-vancouver-trutch-street/

  • Nicholle and I were on this Musqueam Indian Reserve on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation for this renaming ceremony.
  • AFAIK, the signposts for Trutch street have still not been changed (Mar 2024)

╬

(Mar 17, 2017) Should non-Indigenous Canadians learn Indigenous languages? (CBC)

See: UBC First Nations and Endangered Languages Program https://fnel.arts.ubc.ca

╬

(Dec 16, 2016) ‘Who is Jimmy Gwich?’: the story behind my radio sign-off [Duncan McCue]
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/blog/who-is-jimmy-gwich-the-story-behind-my-radio-sign-off-1.3901020

  • In Anishinaabemowin, “miigwech” means “thank you.”
    • Adding “chi” makes it literally “big thank you.

Canada’s Indigenous roots are also reflected in hundreds of place names, such as Kamloops (from the Shuswap “Tk’emlups,” meaning “where the rivers meet”), Manitoba (from the Cree “manito-wapâw” meaning “the strait of the spirit”), or Canada itself (from the word meaning “village” or “settlement” in St. Lawrence Iroquoian tongue).

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/blog/who-is-jimmy-gwich-the-story-behind-my-radio-sign-off-1.3901020

[34] years since Elijah Harper said ‘no’ to the Meech Lake Accord
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/25-years-since-elijah-harper-said-no-to-the-meech-lake-accord-1.3110439

  • Learned about this from Brian Ennis at BCIT (Mar 2024)


Indigenous Storywork

HANDS BACK … HANDS FORWARD https://indigenousstorywork.com/elders-teachings/

  • …teaching of the late Dr. Vincent Stogan, Tsimilano, our dear Elder from Musqueam. Tsimilano taught us that Hands back… Hands forward guides us to reach back and learn from those that have gone before us, and then reach forward to pass on the teachings to those that are coming after us.

➡ @Alex: this is the Irish storyteller I mentioned: Eddie Lenihan. I saw him in action once, sitting by the fire in an old pub, the lights dimmed, the crowd hushed. It was magical.

(Aug 8, 2022) What is a land acknowledgement?
https://students.ubc.ca/ubclife/what-land-acknowledgement

UBC-Guidelines-Musqueam_July-2019
POINTS TO NOTE:
a. Acknowledging territory is a way of honouring and showing respect to the Musqueam, who have long inhabited this land. This does not need to be done at every meeting and gathering at UBC but should be done when it is meaningful or appropriate to do so.

c. The host or Emcee is the only person who needs to acknowledge Musqueam. It is not necessary for any other speaker to do so (although it is appropriate for another aboriginal speaker to do so, should they wish)

  • This ⬆ is what comes to mind during land acknowledgements that sometimes seem forced/preformative
  • One kind of land acknowledgement is to drive the speed limit [50] when passing this ⬆ entrance to Musqueam Indian Reserve, which is only a very small part of their traditional territory.
    • How many folks have blasted past this place on their way to/from UBC, after giving/hearing a spoken land acknowledgement at the beginning of a gathering?  I like to slow down, drive the limit, and intentionally think about the land I am on and the displacement of its Indigenous inhabitants. It “costs” me a few seconds, but really it connects me to the place as I think about how the UBC and the UEL (“one of the ‘jewels’ of Metro Vancouver“) came to be.

My personal land acknowledgement:

  • 𝗜’𝗺 𝗷𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗨𝗕𝗖 𝗣𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗱, 𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗰𝗰𝘂𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲. I am an uninvited guest on this land. I am originally from the West of Ireland. My people’s history is one involving the occupation of our land and the loss of our native language and important parts of our culture. I have a responsibility to make myself aware of the story of this land and the peoples that have lived and learned on/from it for millennia. I invite you to share some of your learning with me so that we can better understand how to show our respect and honour our responsibilities to this land and to those who have long held it in responsible stewardship.

Updated August 2024, in prep for new academic year.

𝐖𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝗨𝗕𝗖 𝗣𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗱, 𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗰𝗰𝘂𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲. I am an uninvited guest on this land. I am originally from the West of Ireland. My people’s history is one involving the occupation of our land and the loss of our native language and important parts of our culture. I became a Canadian Citizen in December 2023 meaning that I now have a responsibility to make myself more aware of the story of this land and the peoples that have lived and learned on/from it for millennia. Over the coming months, I invite you to share some of your learning with me so that we can better understand how to show our respect and honour our connection to this land and to those who have long held it in responsible stewardship.

∞

Archive: https://archive.is/dImDw; https://archive.is/GTaTG