MIINI GIIZIS,
Blueberry Moon 2020
ᓃᐙᒃ ᒦᓇᐙ
ᓈᓂᒥᑕᓇ ᐊᔑᓃᔥ
LVNDBVCK@gmail.com | (419) 540 8589
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| (with minor edits) |
BIISKAABIYANG
July 4th is a
symbolic colonizer ritual that weaponizes the land into a nation
state for settlers to celebrate the triumph of white supremacy. The
“freedom” celebrated on this day by millions of people, is a
formal representation of genocide and slavery by colonists. The
celebration of American independence on July 4th, signifies the
ongoing oppression of African Diasporic Peoples and Indigenous
Peoples of North America through a continuing legacy of stolen land
and stolen labor. This settler society on occupied Turtle Island
continues these traditions of violence and oppression to this day.
In other words,
we will not lose our way.We will not disgrace the honor of our ancestors. Let us honor our relationships with the
sacred land and not colonial infrastructures & holidays rooted in
white supremacy.
MIINI GIIZIS
This action of The
Waawiiyaatanong Resurgence is taking place during the blueberry moon.
During this blueberry moon, the blueberries are at their sweetest. We
also receive a beautiful amount of medicine from the thunderbirds
moments after the recent summer solstice; as the thunder and
lightning of summer storms herald us into the second half of the year
with great changes.
In the sacred spirit
of the story, it is said that when a young boy becomes a man he gets
thunder in his voice after a blueberry becomes stuck in his throat,
and this thunder medicine brings great depth and importance to his
voice.
The Anishinaabe,
sacred beings of the lands, and the diasporic Africans, sacred beings
stolen from their land, will join together in solidarity to form
spiritual bonds through ceremony to heal the land and exchange
ancestral knowledge. Our ceremony today has three intentions:
Our first intention
is to acknowledge the land and honor the spirits of the people who
have been destroyed by colonialism and its consequences. We seek to
uplift forgiveness with the spirits for not honoring our native ways
and falling into the traps of assimilation and erasure. We would also
bring clarity to a traumatic past, re-establish connection with the
land, and ask for guidance for the future.
Secondly, we seek to
acknowledge the African diaspora by uplifting and honoring Black life
stolen by the colonial institutions. The displacement and enslavement
of African people to work this land, is disrespectful to the land and
its people. We therefore ask for healing for Black lives as they face
their own ongoing battle with the colonizers. We honor Black lives as
our relatives, acknowledging and helping to release the trauma the
colonial structures have imposed on Black lives. Our struggles are
intertwined.
We uplift prayers to
our white accomplices and community members who likewise seek to
destabilize colonial power and uplift indigenous resurgence.
MISI-ZAAGA’IGANI
ANISHINAABEG ZIIBAASKA`IGANAGOODAYAN
The jingle dress was
created by the Ojibwe people of The Mille Lacs Band of Anishinaabe
during the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. It came as a dream to a
father who’s daughter was ill with the virus. His dream revealed
the new dress and dance that had the power to heal. When the dresses
were made, they were given to four women to perform the dance. When
the little girl heard the tinkling of the jingles, she became
stronger. During the big drum ceremony she was dancing again.
The healing aspect
of the dance is carried through the sounds that the metal jingles
make as the dancer moves. We started making jingle dresses here as
soon as we lit the sacred fire, IshKode Meshkikwin, on May 30th,
2020. Our women & 2 spirits dance in these dresses to cleanse the
land of energies brought to it by colonial rule and oppression. July
4th is the right moment to perform this cleansing ceremony because of
its symbolism to the colonizers. We chose to cleanse the land at
Campus Martius, due to its history of use for colonial power and its
current ongoing symbol of gentrification, as known as settler
colonialism. Our purpose is to cleanse this land to prepare it for
the Anishinaabe, relative indigenous communities, and local
communities to thrive on it again without being haunted by poisonous
colonial legacies.
WAAWIIYAATANONG
RESURGENCE
In what is commonly
referred to as Detroit, Anishinaabe math & science knowledge
unveils the language and the knowledge of the land here,
Waawiiyaatanong, where the land bends with the water.
Since May 30, 2020,
IshKode & The Aadizookaan have helped build and host the base for
The Waawiiyaatanong Resurgence. This is ground zero for the
Anishinaabe and other nation relatives to gather in Detroit and have
access to a sacred fire to support Native ancestral technology, Black
Life, and the ANCIENT FUTURE.
The goal of our
resurgence is to create political and social paradigm shifts that
will divert power away from the colonial patriarchy, and to an
indigenous matriarchy headed by women and two-spirited people. We
demand a halt to the continuous step of colonization by reinstituting
indigenous names for the land, re-indigenizing traditional knowledge
systems, and reestablishing sacred relationships with the land.
Colonialism flourished on a diet of stolen land and stolen labor.
Reviving the relationship to the land breaks the bonds of colonial
power.
Waawiiyaatanong
Resurgence is a movement rooted in Anishinaabe Meshkikiwiin;
uplifting original native organizing structures and protocols that
honor the sacred relationships to the land and creation. Ways to
think of this work is Language, Land, & Legend:
The original
LANGUAGE of the land, people, and creation of the Anishinaabe has had
its existence threatened by the violent history of settler
colonialism on Turtle Island. Restoring the language includes
renaming and replacing violent colonial words, organizing our
understanding of the passage of time around the moon cycle, and
sharing knowledge of medicine and the land. If the language dies the
people die. Restoring the language and sharing it with everyone
supports native lifeways and ways of being, and shares the original
connection with how people live their lives. The land speaks to
Indigneous peoples differently because our creation stories have to
do with the land. Working with the language in all types of ways
revitalizes it, and therefore revitalizes the people and the land.
The LAND provides us
with food, shelter, medicine, and self defense. Therefore, the land
is a member of our community and not something to exploit. The land
defends us and allows us to grow and develop and care for traditions.
Without the land, we would be dead.
Our relationship
with the land is extremely important. Part of our work is shifting
our relationship with the land back to Indigenous lifeways. Our goal
is to share community education about the land we live on as if it is
a part of our community or our family, in order to shift the paradigm
of how we relate to the land.
The land,
furthermore, is our mother and has been exploited and abused. This
exploitation and abuse has therefore leaked out to the women in our
community. The patriarchy is a colonial construct. Women, who move
with the moon, must lead us in repairing our relationship with the
land. Empowering women & 2 spirits in leadership directly defies
the patriarchy.
When we speak about
“LEGEND” as a tool for the resurgence, we refer to the sacred
spirit of the story. Through telling our story, we give voice to our
experiences and generational trauma at the hands of the colonizers.
The art being created, including poetry, music, food, visual arts,
etc, are all legendary pieces of the resurgence. This is how we
celebrate. We are living the legend at the moment and we celebrate
our growth as we grow.
Celebrating creativity and creation allows us to share with each other in a way that’s uplifting and educational for the community. Legends provide us with political education, documentation, and synthesis of information. People have used legends for thousands of years as tools of education, in order to be passed down to future generations. This is exactly what we’re doing here.
Celebrating creativity and creation allows us to share with each other in a way that’s uplifting and educational for the community. Legends provide us with political education, documentation, and synthesis of information. People have used legends for thousands of years as tools of education, in order to be passed down to future generations. This is exactly what we’re doing here.