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mike: Again, this is our last presentation of the day. Awâsis is a Michif (Oji-Cree Métis)
spoken word artist, writer, and community organizer currently helping to cultivate resistance to Enbridge Line 9; the tar sands pipeline
that runs through Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, and Michif territories in so-called
Ontario. My apologies again. So, Awâsis, you are free to take to it away.
Awâsis: Alright, Boozhoo Sâkihitowin Awâsis dishinikawshon, peyakoskan tapasinahikatew
mêkwan sakâw michif otipêyimisowak, pi li clan carré. Deshkan Ziibiing niwiiken,
pi mon famee, Ongiara wikiiwuk. So I just introduced myself in my language, the Michif language,
and my Métis name is Sâkihitowin Awâsis, or Awâsis. My English, or GST name,
is Cortney. I currently live in Antler River, or London, Ontario. I am from Niagara. I wanted
to say thank you to the organizers and everyone listening in from all over the place. It's
an honour to be speaking to you today. michael, I really loved your Line 9 sign in the back,
that's great. So, just to start as you can probably see here,
with the image in front of us, I just wanted to give a brief overview of colonization
and the impacts this has on indigenous ways of being, so we are all kind of on the same page.
So the symbol there, you see of the circle
with the four quadrants. I don't know how familiar people are with that symbol, but
it's the medicine wheel - one of them - and it's used as a healing tool. So, this isn't
traditional to all indigenous nations. This particular one is for the Nishnabe. You see
it in different nations used with different colors, and like I said, some nations don't
use it at all but have picked it up as a healing tool, because we are all part of this circle. It represents
many different things: different spirit animals, times of year, the seasons, passing of time,
the four sacred medicines. We are going to look at it today as the passing of time, so starting
in the top right corner we have: Pre Contact, what we had prior to colonization. Women had
a respective role in our communities, they are the backbones of our families and nations.
The spiritual foundation, the core to Native beliefs, which I will expand on more later.
We had strong, healthy families. Everyone had respected roles in our community, balanced
roles between women, men and Two-Spirits. Women were seen as life givers, the centre
of our nations, we hear that a lot. The main teachers in preparing youth for the future survival.
So upon contact, what happened? We had the
residential school system and the reserve system, were developed under the Indian Act.
This really destroyed our family structures, our spiritual beliefs, languages, cultures.
These children were literally stolen off their front lawns and forced to go to these schools.
Many died at the schools from malnourishment, many died trying to run away back to their
families. Within these schools was the systemic denial of our languages and our cultures.
It was an intentional act of cultural genocide, and through the imposition of a patriarchal
system, our women lost respect, basically. This was part of our disruption of the spiritual
foundations of our family and the denial of our traditional roles in our communities.
Like I said, European values really imposed a male dominated society on us.
So we can see what that looks like, I just made a little flowchart here: So really, the
hierarchy that was imposed on us, put European men at the top, followed by European women,
Native men, Native women and then Two-Spirits. So this was not traditional to us at all.
I highlighted the European men there, at the top, because really the society that was formed
upon contact centered around not only the narratives of European men, but the resources
and rights of European men as well. Everyone gained, well women and Two-Spirits, gained
access to the wage labour force and property by what was seen as fulfilling, or becoming
basically full humans, in reflection of European men and what that means. So, back to this:
After this hierarchy was established on this land, we saw it actually imposed on and enforced
in our communities. So those male-dominated values broke down our traditional family structures.
We see this with the high levels of violence in our communities - so over 800 missing
and murdered indigenous women, and high levels of *** abuse. And really, the Indian Act
facilitated all this, the dispossession of our people, as well as the theft of our land.
And I just want to stress that that Act is still in place today, and it is really an
apartheid system to have a complete set of legislature that applies to a certain group
of people based on ethnicity. So I'll get back to the future later, but
basically what I wanted to drive home there is that this process of colonization imposed
ways of being and governance on us that wasn't traditional. As well, one of the impacts of
colonization that kind of stems from the residential school system was the "60's scoop", where
tens of thousands of children in the 60's, 70's, through to the 80s, native children,
were taken from their families and put in white homes, again just furthering this colonial
agenda of assimilation and genocide. And this continues today, we are starting to hear it
called the 'Millennium Scoop', and really, the number of children, native children, in
institutionalized care today actually exceeds the amount of children that were in residential
schools at the height of that system. So that is very, very alarming.
So what we saw with this colonial process is a process of dehumanization and dispiriting,
stripping us of our spiritual beliefs. And this Indian Act system, residential school
system, is in my opinion the same colonial system that oppresses animals and the Earth today.
So this is how this violence against indigenous families and nations is linked
to violence against animals and the Earth. So I want to explore this connection a little more,
really in terms of captivity, because it might be a surprise to some people that
during early reservation times, native people actually were restricted to leave the reserve.
We actually needed a permit, so that is what I just brought up here. So this one says James
Smith, who was actually a chief, is permitted to leave the reserve to go to Battleford just
to visit his daughter. It is as simple as that. You will see these as well with the
reason being to hunt big game or anything else. So as you can imagine, if you are captive
on a reserve, that may not even be on your traditional territories due to dispossession,
not only may you not be familiar with the local food system, but you also don't have
access to your traditional food sources due to being confined in a limited land base like
that.
So, I don't know how familiar people are with the term environmental racism, but basically
it means that some bodies and people are valued more than others. Indigenous people and people
of colour disproportionately face health impacts and pollutants in their environment, that
kind of thing. Essentially, they are denied the right to live healthy, long and meaningful
lives. Just a little stat: in Canada the rates of disease among First Nations and Inuit groups
are 5 times higher than the country's average, and so that just illustrates how disproportionate
that is. So in a lot of ways I have not heard this term before, and I could be just making
it up, but I feel there is also a kind of environmental speciesism going on in a similar
way. For instance, in the area of the tar sands, we don't expect European or white people
to be there, but it is perfectly acceptable for First Nations and wildlife to be living
on the front line like that. So I am just trying to broaden that term to also include
animal beings. So just to connect the captivity on reserves, during early times there, to
this disconnect from traditional food systems, when we were no longer able to leave or move
on our territories to access food, we were given by the colonial state what has become
known as the five white gifts. So these were resources brought to indigenous nations by
the settler nation and it consisted of sugar, salt, flour, milk and lard. So they're all
white. So even foods that are thought of as traditional to our cultures today, are a product
of these five white gifts, because we were denied access to any other foods for so long,
or very few. For example, bannock, fried white bread, that you see that at a lot of pow-wows
and that kind of thing, is made of these gifts that are not traditional to our cultures at
all. So, this diet really extends the oppression of native people, and has resulted in many
serious health impacts, such as increasing obesity, diabetes, gallstones.
But this type of colonization that imposes colonial food systems on us actually continues
today. In many areas, because of this environment racism, we can no longer harvest the food
medicines or eat animals in the area because of overwhelming levels of pollutants. We have
eroded and completely destroyed the relationship and ability to connect to the natural world
in a meaningful way. So for example of a neighboring nation, where I live right now, Aamjiwnaang
First Nation. They are surrounded on 3 sides but what is known as Chemical Valley, so intense
petro-chemical industry, it's absolutely disgusting and I cannot stress that enough. But there
was recently a study done in the area, where cedar, one of the four sacred medicines on
that medicine wheel there, actually can't be used for ceremonies anymore due to the
high mercury levels. And that just tears my heart apart. Our ancestors would definitely
not know what to do, they would not even recognize the environment, I don't think. So, when environments
are destroyed or contaminated, this affects the food that it can provide obviously. And
like I alluded to before, environmental destruction in this way is a consequence of Western society's
detachment from our food and medicine systems. But I think it also detaches animals from
their food systems in a lot of ways. So, captivity, like a farm for instance, operates in the
same way that a reserve did, early on. So there is an elder who facilitates the moon
ceremonies I go to, Elva Jamieson, she is of the Cayuga nation and I have heard her
tell the story a few times now, but she basically explains that -- using cows as an example
-- that when they are held captive in an area, they don't have the ability or the choice
to eat what is medicine for them because they are restricted. So what ends up happening,
when they don't have the freedom to move where they like and find those medicines for themselves,
they also experience increased sickness much like what we've have seen through colonial
history with indigenous peoples. Intern, when people eat those animals they are, in turn,
harming themselves and it's just moving up the food chain. So, not only have humans,
but all animals, have all lost our direct relationship with the world around us and
are really given a false choice. So, what I wanted to do with this presentation
is really provide reasons to expand the scope of animal rights mobilizing to an anti colonial
framework, so that it includes understanding of the different kinds of relationships and
responsibilities and is basically strengthened by that. So, what do I mean by a narrow animal
rights framework? Basically, one that is focused on 'rights' as something that can be given
to animals as opposed to originating from them, and is solely focused on that and doesn't
include how we are connected to our environment and each other. Some risks, I think, of narrow
animal rights framework is that I don't think an animal can really truly be liberated and
lead a meaningful life in a toxic environment. It prevents them from thriving, much like
it does humans. And when the scope of animal rights is so narrow, it really can invisibilize
or override the environmental and health concerns of humans. So an example that some of you
might be familiar with, is of the cultural appropriation involved in eating quinoa. So
quinoa has actually been long a long harvested by indigenous people in southern countries,
specifically Bolivia. It's only been very recently, maybe in the last five years, that
it has grown in intense popularity in the western world. So what we need to be aware
of is because of the popularity, Bolivians can actually no longer afford this grain due
to the rising places here. When I reflect on this, I think about how important wild
rice, minomin, is in our ceremonies here and how quinoa likely has a similar role in the
spiritual life with those in the South. There are a few things that really bug me about
this: not only is that mass demand resulting in, what was diverse type of quinoa, it's
turning that into a quinoa mono-culture, which have a whole set of impacts on the environment
and the animals. But the lack of access for indigenous peoples to this traditional food
is also due to the fact that the modern, or western diets, is easily pushed on them. As
I sort of went over with the 5 white gifts here, this has devastating impacts on health.
So I think that an animal rights framework, or vegetarian-vegan ethics, that is rooted
in an anti-colonial framework would be able to respond to this issue that arises in our
developing of ethical diets in a meaningful way. If we had a response, the same responsibility,
to humans and indigenous peoples as we strive to have with animals, we would recognize that
we need to use or eat things that are upholding those responsibilities. So other responsibilities
that I believe I have to other life forms: they really portray animals as our family
in traditional understanding. They are our brothers and sisters, our and relatives, and women are the
centre of our nation. As you can see that is in stark contrast to the hierarchy, I had up
before - you can just picture that animals would probably even be below Two-Spirits on that list.
The way that a lot of our traditional understandings operate, is instead of a linear hierarchy
like this we all are a part of the circle. Another responsibility that we have is with
all of our actions, every day, to be thinking about seven generations before us and also after us.
So how and what our ancestors did inform our actions today, as well as what we can
do for the future generations. One way that we can do this is by gathering and eating
only what's needed and acting to protect that food biodiversity. Another responsibility
for taking the life of an animal, we are supposed to ask the animal's consent and really
thank the spirit of the animal for sacrificing its life for us, as food, by laying down tobacco.
So, of course this relationship dynamic is open to the possibility of the animal refusing,
so this is because animals - like humans - have inherent rights. So my inherent right
includes the meaning of my spirit name and responsibilities that that entails; the responsibilities
of my clan, the Carré clan, which is to take care of the river and the waterways; as well as
my nation (I did'nt say this earlier but when I introduced myself in my language Otipemisiwak,
which is what the Michif call ourselves, actually means "the people who govern themselves"),
so a large responsibility of our nation is to uphold that traditional governance structure.
But just like indigenous peoples' inherent rights, animals' inherent rights were really eroded
and even lost as a result of colonization. But human and animal life is actually on the continuum,
spiritually and physically, which frames humans and other animals as having personhood and
self determination - which goes back to the idea of their ability to consent to being eaten or not.
So animals have independent life, their own purpose, their own relationships with
the Great Spirit and the take home is: they are not made for food, they are not a resource.
Again, they are our family. The animal consent is required. So overfishing, overhunting, captivity,
industrial farming, wholesale destruction of habitat, certainly gives animals a reason
to refuse to sacrifice themselves and these conditions do not fulfill our responsibilities
as people of the Earth to protect the land and ecological relations. But animals can refuse to be
sacrificed in certain ways, and given the state of the world, I feel like this is happening
more and more. That being said, I do believe that animals can still agree to be sacrificed
if approached in respectful ways. Our ancestors did use animals in ceremonies and continue
to do so, however, these animals were not exploited or oppressed but honored through song and
ceremony. We were not eating meat three meals a day, you know? Group hunting could be half a dozen
to a dozen people that would really only be taking home a deer or two. I know a lot of
people are going to disagree with this and I am prepared for that. But I think that it is important for
decolonization and indigenous resurgence to have an important role in movements for animal
liberation. It really transforms how we see our responsibilities as settlers, as indigenous
people, as mixed people, to each other and the Earth. And upholding treaty relations
as well, which I could totally go on another whole rant, but I think I'm already over time.
I just wanted to stress moving forward, that we are all part of that medicine wheel, dependent
upon each other like all living beings are. We are all responsible for helping each other
on our healing journey, which is a transformative process that intertwines human and animal liberation
and in order to survive we need to reconnect with nature in this intimate
way that's focused on dependence, not domination. In a lot of ways, animal rights activists
can risk reproducing colonial power dynamics in their organizing. For instance, instead of
protesting the tarsands, or pipeline projects that will accommodate their expansion, some
activists take the time and energy to protest traditional Haudenosauneeau or indigenous
hunts. So, I just wanted to clarify a little bit, these hunts aren't about population control.
It's not about the hunters servicing the environment by killing animals. The hunters
see themselves as receiving a service from that deer, which have given their consent,
to support their traditional values and ways of life, that were sustainable and healthy
and provided nourishment for our spirits prior to colonization. In this way, animal rights
organizing can actually be used as a tactic for maintaining white supremacy, when spiritual
protocols and cultural values concerning our relationship with the animals, such as tobacco
offerings and asking for consent, are deemed subordinate or inferior to the values of the
activists or vegans. So it can provide a reason for vegans or vegetarians to feel they are
superior to others based on their cultural belief. So... that is obviously a continuum
from a colonial agenda that imposes values on people, even if our ways of knowing have
been historically more ethical.
So I just wanted to end, I guess, with suggesting some strategies
for building a more united movement: sometimes it is a strength of a movement for
indigenous people to take the lead, but as with the quinoa example, don't appropriate
indigenous knowledge. Obviously there's been an increase in scientist and health professionals
in the western world, kind of discovering all the health benefits of quinoa. This was
the indigenous knowledge and we need to recognize the original caretakers of that plant that
enable us to have access to it today, and be more respectful of the preservation and
resurgence of the indigenous traditions that depend upon those foods. Similarly, don't
underestimate the worth and value of other people's knowledge, even if it is not completely compatible
with yours, because you do want to be mindful of not furthering colonial violence on people.
So what, I guess, I suggest for the take home is try to become more aware of the colonial history
where you live. It is often extremely complicated. Land acknowledgments in the area where I live are very
complicated because the Attawandaron were completely killed off, the Wendat-Huron
were then dispossessed. Currently there's three neighboring nations to the city. So,
this can inform our daily life and organizing in endless ways, and can really be an empowering
thing for other people, especially indigenous people, for you to take that time to educate yourself.
It really can empower you as well, to really re-create how you relate to the world around you
and other people and animal beings by embodying these responsibilities. So, I
wanted to thank you for listening today and I look forward to your questions and comments.
(Reading question) "Re: animal rights
movement protesting native communities hunting and using animals. Have you seen any
actions or strategies that have been successful in expressing solidarity between/among these groups?"
No, I haven't. That doesn't mean they don't exist. I'd be really interested in seeing
or supporting that solidarity work happening. Basically, I grew up really close to Six Nations.
I'm not Haudenosauneeau, but we have a really good relationship with all the people there.
My brother plays on the Six Nations lacrosse team and so most recently, the Shorthills
hunt that Haudenosauneeau citizens take part in, the Shorthills are really close to where
I grew up and was very openly protested. There were articles flying all over the place,
even with me not being there, I see them come up online. So I think that really that was the motivation
for me wanting to touch on that - it hit so close to home. That being said, I didn't recognize anyone
participating in those protests so I didn't initiate dialogue at all, but I think that is a really important
dialogue and I'm interested ... if you have any strategies that have been successful in doing that.
Like I kind of touched on in my presentation, what kind of bugs me about the debate was
that the justification that was being presented in the mainstream for why these hunters should
be allowed to participate in the hunt was "population control". Like they are servicing
the park and they are servicing the ecosystem there by participating in the hunt, and that is just
so in opposition to our traditional ways of being, that it did really bug me that that's the way
the justification was being framed as opposed to saying denying these treaty rights and
these aboriginal rights as part of a colonial system that dehumanizes and subjugates indigenous people.
So I guess that is all the commenting I really have on the debate.
I have met people who are indigenous, who are vegan, and who still wear regalia
with animal parts in it, maybe earrings with hide or something in them that has been gifted to them.
For me personally, I don't eat meat in my daily life, but if I was visiting a community, and
someone had personally hunted an animal and made a stew out of it and offered me food, I believe I would be respectful to accept it.
I think I have another question here: Okay,
"Are there any resources that have inspired you or resources to continue to learn about this issue?"
mike: So Awâsis, with that question we're right at the end here so I am just wondering with that question about resources,
are you able to provide anything for people to keep up with yourself and then anything with
Stop Line 9 as well, or anything like that? Awâsis: Oh yeah. Yeah, I don't have it off the top of my head,
I'm wondering if I could make a little list and then send it to you michael?
mike: Yeah and you could post it on the Facebook event page too for people to learn more about it.
Awâsis: Okay, yeah. I just wanted to really quickly, sorry, factory farms - not consent. No, definitely not.
mike: Thank you Awâsis for presenting, that was really great. It was great having you right at the end too
to wrap that up with, a lot of those lessons about the medicine wheel and the circle.
It is a good way to wrap up a lot of the conversations we've been having throughout the day. Thank you again. Awâsis: No problem.