Indigenous Voices, Part 9: Native American Perspectives on Human Dignity

Episode Topic: Native American Perspectives on Human Dignity 

Grasp the profound essence of human connection as indigenous leaders challenge existing paradigms. Shifting our focus to lived indigenous wisdom allows us to move past mere academic theory and into a space where knowledge is a living, relational force. When we listen to the voices of those whose dignity has been historically contested by the very institutions hosting the dialogue, the impact is not merely intellectual; it becomes a profound, restorative encounter that challenges our baseline assumptions about how we relate to one another and the earth. 

Featured Speakers:

• Ashlee Bird, University of Notre Dame
• Charles W. Powell, KHS, University of Notre Dame
• Jefferson Ballew IV, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi
• Abigail Ginzburgh '22 MGA, National Immigrant Justice Center
• Mikaela Murphy ’22

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/c84a00.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Indigenous Voices.

Thanks for listening! The ThinkND Podcast is brought to you by ThinkND, the University of Notre Dame's online learning community. We connect you with videos, podcasts, articles, courses, and other resources to inspire minds and spark conversations on topics that matter to you — everything from faith and politics, to science, technology, and your career.

• Learn more about ThinkND and register for upcoming live events at think.nd.edu.
• Join our LinkedIn community for updates, episode clips, and more.

Transcript

Welcome

1 0:04

On behalf of the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion and our co-sponsors, the Nanovic Institution for European Studies and the Department of American Studies, good afternoon. I'm Charles Powell, and welcome to this panel on Native American perspectives on human dignity. As some of you know, integral human development is a holistic model, a holistic model of human flourishing that has been articulated in Catholic social teaching and resonates in multiple religious, humanistic, and philosophical traditions worldwide. In the Keough School of Global Affairs, we believe that studying different traditions can shed new light on the cross-disciplinary approach to human dignity, which proposes solutions that consider the whole person. In that spirit, today's panelists will explore some of the following questions. First of all, what perspectives do Native American traditions bring to the notion of integral human development? Secondly, how might such traditions help us understand human dignity? And finally, given past injustices, how can we work together to build more inclusive societies that advances the flourishing of all peoples? Our panel will explore these and of course, other important questions. And just a moment ago, I heard Abigail, who will be moderating, tell them, "Don't hold back. Uh, share what is in your mind and on your heart to share." So we welcome that. The Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion is dedicated to the study of religion around the world and serves as a center of public deliberation and education through research, through teaching, through outreach, and through interaction with religious communities and the public worldwide. We invite you to follow us at ansari.nd.edu. In the fall, we will continue this series that explores the integral human development of additional faith traditions. So this really is just the beginning. This is our second panel on this very important topic. This past year, I've had the pleasure of working with Abigail Ginsberg in organizing these panels on IHD as well as monthly IHD colloquiums. Abigail, as some of you know, is a Master of Global Affairs student who is set to graduate very soon, this year. So congratulations. She has served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kosovo. In Kosovo, she taught English and organized workshops and camps focused on critical thinking skills and women's empowerment. Prior to that adventure, Abigail volunteered with Utah's Refugee Education Training Center through AmeriCorps. She has a BA in Russian and Eastern European studies from the University of Chicago and is fluent in Russian and Serbian. Moreover, Abigail is the recipient of a Coca-Cola Global Affairs Fellowship. Abigail, thank you for your time. Thank you for your knowledge, your humor, uh, your conviction, your compassion, as well as your talent, uh, that you have shared with us at the Ansari Institute. And thank you for the good work you have done and for the good work that you will most certainly continue to do, not only as a student this, this next month, month and a half, but then as a pr- practitioner of global affairs. Abigail will be moderating our panel today, but before, uh, Abigail begins the moderation, I turn the microphone over to Jefferson Bello, who is with the Potawatomi Band, and he will give the land acknowledgement

Speaker 3 4:23

Benton Harbor indeed. Hello this day. My name is Jefferson Blue. I come from the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi of the Bear Clan. Uh, my spirit name is Bear Paw, and I'm very happy to be here, and I'm the head man of my family, Ogimaa Sawa. As we are here today on the lands of both the Anishinaabek, of the Potawatomi, Peoria, Chicago, Illinois, Miami, as well as the Haudenosaunee, the Delaware, the Leni Lenape, the Wyandot, this is a huge intersection of Indigenous peoples. But more importantly, what I want to bring acknowledgement to is, is not the land of my ancestors, but of land that is currently administrated by this institution. This institution is calling for integral human behavior discussions. It is because of this institution that my ancestors and my people have to find human dignity once again. So as we are talking about where and how human dignity is restored, remember that institutions such as this removed our children from us in the past, in the boarding school era. This institution was very, very instrumental in doing that, calling us savages, calling us heathens. Where is the dignity? Where is the one that has always judged us, not with us, but against us? And so as we acknowledge these lands of my ancestors, specifically my family, Potawatoami Sawa, these are our backyards. This was our responsibility, from Websters Hills in Hartford, Michigan, to the south bend of the St. Joseph River. This, and all the way into the Wabash, into the Ohio River Valley, the Great Lakes Basin, is where the great, great Anishinaabek Confederacy, from the brotherhood of three, presiding over thirty-eight separate nations prior to the European arrival, and their ancestors being of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Bodewadmi.

Speaker 4 6:28

Thank you so much for that. Charles already gave me a very nice introduction. Thank you. It's been wonderful working with you as well. and we're going to hand it over to our panelists to introduce themselves, and then we'll get started with questions

Speaker 5 6:42

Osiyo. Dagwado Mikayla Murphy. Diige gun Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Ale ayo tsalagi. Um, hello, my name is Mikayla Murphy. I am from Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and I am a member of the Cherokee Nation. I am a senior here at Notre Dame studying American study- studying American studies, and I have a minor in Russian.

Speaker 6 7:06

Uh, Ashley Hope Bird. Hello, my friends. Good to see you. My name is Ashley Hope Bird. I'm an Abenaki woman, and I'm originally from the Middle Place, uh, the Champlain Valley of Vermont

Speaker 3 7:23

I'm very, uh, humbled and honored to be sitting with a panel of women. as our Indigenous practices prior to European arrival, this would have been only a place of women to talk about legislation, about healing, about, how we would move our community, uh, and, and restore that dignity. so I'm very much out of place and very much honored to be with these women. as, as we understand, uh, uh, again, my name is Jefferson Ballew of the Bear Clan. I have been in this area for, um, many, many years. I've had the opportunity to be invited by the University of Notre Dame to talk about very difficult discussions, to talk about Indigenous ideals, to celebrate, uh, accomplishments made by the collegiate students that are of Indigenous, uh, backgrounds at this institution, to celebrate their journey to arrival as well, to enlightenment. and so again, as we, uh, get a chance to introduce ourselves, uh, I'm an individual who is both an activist in food sovereignty, uh, an activist in cultural and, uh, spiritual remediation and reparations. Uh, and so we hope to have this opportunity to honor family, clan, and nation at this day. Thank you.

Speaker 4 8:36

Fabulous.

Relational Worldviews and Dignity

Speaker 4 8:37

So now that we have our incredible panelists introduced to the audience, we're gonna start with some questions. Um, there's gonna be three questions, and then we're gonna turn into audience questions. So as you think of things to ask, write them down, raise your hand, I'll call on you. so first question, considering the bit of introduction that we got to integral human development, this conception of dignity, human dignity for each person and for the whole person, um, what are components or aspects of your particular traditions, that, that interact with those ideas? How would they approach concepts of human dignity and the whole or integral integrated human? Who wants to go first?

Speaker 6 9:21

also completely forgot to say that I have a PhD in Native American studies, and I'm a professor in the American studies department, but that's, like, not relevant information. Um, so m- many indigenous communities in the United States and the world over have what is referred to as relational worldviews, and this centers relationship. It centers connections between people, between people and land, between people and animals, land and animals, all of these things. and a part of that relationship, uh, relational worldview, there's something really wonderful called respectful individualism, and that allows for individual people to flourish and be their best selves with the knowledge that they are doing so with their community and their relationships in mind, and they are doing those things in support of the people, places, animals, beings around them to, to give back, to contribute in a positive manner to those relationships, not just for their own personal benefit.

Speaker 5 10:28

Yeah. Um, and kind of just building off of that, I think within my own experiences, something that I found very valuable and shaping to myself was the care that my community puts on raising children, and the ways that raising children is supposed to be based in community, everyone contributing to raising a child and allowing them to flourish and allowing them to build their own identity. and it comes with the individualization of yourself because you're supposed to better yourself to be a better role model, to help show other Indigenous children that they have something to aspire to, and that you're showing them a good path. And I think within my own community, the, the importance we place on teaching children our language and doing immersion schools where they speak nothing but Cherokee, really helps them solidify their identity and their culture while also going through a, a typical school experience. so that they're gaining Western knowledge and they're gaining the footing to continue in a Western civilized world, but at the same time, holding onto the very important parts of their culture and language, and just kind of shaping the way that the community grows by focusing on children

Speaker 3 11:51

Within our spiritual teachings, and we consider spirituality and religion two separate ideals. One is control of man and one is how you give acceptance and gratitude to the creator When we're born, we're born into a family, uh, we're born into a clan, and we're born into a nation. Many of us up here used our language to introduce our spirit to you. Uh, so we have spirit names. Uh, our, our, our name gives us that guidance. It gives us that, that place within your community. As the bear's paw, I am the one who opens the door for all creation to come into that eastern door. As that bear's paw is laid down, we follow that bear's paw. Everything that we can eat, everything that the bear eats and drinks, we can eat. So there's this relationship, like they were explaining. We have this symbiotic relationship, not only with our, our own selves, but with every part of creation, and we understand that through our family, through our clan, and through our nation, we only inherit accountability and responsibility. We do not inherit titles. We do not inherit lands. We are accountable and responsible for the well-being of our surroundings. Remember, w- this is our mother that is out there. The idea of land ownership takes away every dignified amongst any of these women and any woman that exists. How are you going to say that you own your mother? All of you right now are homeowners. Go and call your mom and say, "I own you," and see what happens. I'd love to watch. YouTube it. It'd be great experience. TikTok it. but the understanding of dignity comes from where you come from, and that all things are sacred. In our creation story, all of these animals, the winged ones, the crawlers, the wind, the water, the trees, were all created for one purpose: to nourish us, not for us to have dominion over. We do not have dominion over our mother, and we do not have dominion over our children. We have accountabilities and responsibilities, and this is where that dignity comes from. This is where the healing comes from, our rites of passage. For example, we have a, a, a rite of passage from when the child leaves the mother's breast, and that first spoon is used to feed them, a sign of independence and separation from that, and then that spoon turns into a teether. That foo- that spoon later is used during their menst fast or their first nocturnal emissions fast. These are ex- uh, signifying indicators that our children are ready to give life. And instead of making it dirty and, and sexual, we're talking about procreating. That's the whole intention of our lives. So these children know at the early ages when they start that, that their intention is to be sacred, to be life-givers, to be a part of this. And then they're put out into creation to let creation take care of them for four days and four nights. Sometimes it's, especially in contemporary times, they're taken care of better By being left out there away from society, away from parents, away from aunties and uncles, where we reconnect and we find that dignity and the ability to survive, the ability to thrive in a situation by ourselves, and knowing that I cannot live without my community, but my community will survive without me.

Speaker 4 15:17

So building off of, several things that you mentioned, I'm curious, in your own, experiences, what are some of the values that have really helped you in your pursuit of digne- human dignity or justice? Like, what are the things that drive you? For example, from my own Jewish traditions, this c- the concepts of, like, tikkun olam, like repairing the world, have been something that really pushed me. Uh, what are things that kind of give you that strength as you move forward?

Speaker 3 15:50

Thank

Speaker 2 15:51

you.

Speaker 3 15:54

One of the, um, very first concepts that I started to learn, a, a little bit of back history. I grew up in Los Angeles, California, receiving food boxes of cheese, coffee, flour, and sugar from the University of Notre Dame when I lived in the San Fernando Valley. And part of that was because of our agreement with Father Baden and Father Soren that we would receive education, that we would receive food during the wintertime because of our gift of this land to the institution. And so there's a lot of back history with that even. And so growing up out there, I had no idea that I was alive. I was in a cement jungle. I didn't understand that I was Native American, and was told so by the schools, uh, when the Los Angeles Unified School District reversed their segregation policy in 1986. Wow, 20 years later, right? Wonderful. And because I was their Indian, I didn't have to go into the inner-city schools. So as I came back and started to learn about my spirituality and culture, there's this concept of seven generations. Everything that we do today, I will affect seven generations ahead of me. And so around 140 years from now, what we say and do today will either positively or negatively affect how your families, how your communities, how your nations will interact with us. Just as the same, even though you may not follow that, we will review that and know the knowledges for the seven generations that we've had to deal with you. More importantly, anything that I do today should never disrespect the seven generations behind me, and everything that I do should be in full knowledge and awareness of what they did. Even though my relations, the Pokagans band, gave up their right to be Indian to stay here in Michigan I can never judge that, or else we would not be here at this particular time. Never place yourself and judge anybody for the things that they did during the annihilation and genocide era of the United States in, in the canonization of America. The problem with America is Christianity, and the problem with Christianity is America. You cannot build a nation on the back of blood and think that you can survive and, and have these truths that are completely and totally forgotten. The epidemic in America is amnesia, not racism. It's amnesia. You forget from hour to hour, from day to day. Uh, just as a small brief, uh, we were at Burger King this afternoon just to get... We got here a little early, wanted to get a soda and some ice and a little burger. I walk in, and there's this inundation and indoctrination of Do- of, of Father Soren in Burger King. Wow. And if you really knew the relationship that we had with Father Soren and Father Baden in that first cabin that was here, and the ancestors that still reside in St. Mary's Lake, not on their own volition, by the way. So w- we understand that what we do today will intentionally affect 140 years from now, not only tomorrow, but with specific intention. So when we speak as indigenous peoples, we have to be careful of what we say and how we say it because you're not just judging me. 565 indigenous nations reside in this one sovereign, and yet we have no seat on the UN. We have no voice in this world. Pseudo sovereignty. Sovereignty is what they allow us. Freedom is what they allow us. And as you look at this panel, we all look very different. This is what indigenous communities look like. I'm Black, Indian, German, and French. Can you tell? Welcome

Creation Stories Service and Care

Speaker 6 19:56

I think something from my particular community and my particular, you know, faith system and worldview that I, I derive a lot of inspiration and, like, how I understand the world is our creation story. And in our understanding of the creation of the world, Gitinyuwas, the creator, made the earth and the plants and the animal people, and then kinda looked at it and was like, "That's not done," and decided to make people. And he first made us out of stone. We were the rock people, and we were hard and unfeeling, and we crushed the things around us, and were not in good relationship with those things. And this infuriated the creator. This is not what he wanted. So he shook the earth until we broke and fell apart, and he tried again. And this time he made us from the ash tree, and we breathed life into the world, and we were soft, and we were able to bend and give to those things around us and be in good relationship with them. And so that's what I want to be in the world, is to know that I was created to be in service to others, to be in good relationship with everything around me. That's the whole point. and so that's what I try to do, is to use whatever strengths it might be that I have to be in service to those around me, to not be a rock person, to be an ash tree, to bend, to give, to breathe, and to, to, um, to, you know, embody that good relationship.

Speaker 5 21:32

I don't know how to follow that. Um, yeah, I, I think I grew up knowing that my place in the world was to help others, was to improve the lives of others. and I know that a lot of that is the community-based living of indigenous people, that we're all living in community with each other. Um, and I think with that, I've come to appreciate, caring for everyone and not just my particular community. And I think about how the Cherokee Nation funds a lot of programs in Oklahoma that aren't necessarily for indigenous people. the, the money that they put into schools and into roads and into shelters that aren't specifically for Cherokee people, or they're not specifically for indigenous people. It's for everyone, um, because our commitment isn't just to people who look like us or people who are from the same place as us, but our commitment is to the world. It is to all of creation. It is, it is to just continue bettering the world for everyone and not drawing up borders on who deserves help and who doesn't. And I think that just has always kind of driven what I do and how I plan on living my life in service to others and in service to the earth and to animals and to everything, because that is how we're meant to live. We are-- We, we have a duty to care for the earth and to care for creation. It is an obligation, and it's not something that exists just for certain people or for certain demographics

Speaker 4 23:16

I have one more question, and then we'll get to audience questions. so building once again, um, you've talked about values that are really important to you. You talked about your relationships with indigeneity and your identities and how that shapes your worldview. can you share positive and/or negative, examples like how IH- of IHD in action, in relationship to your, indigenous communities, Native American communities, identities, lives? Also, you can, like, take a minute to think if you want to

Speaker 6 23:50

just something like very one, one kind of simple thing from my community and then another like more complicated thing. So we have something called, Seventh Harvest, which is a community-based food shelf that anybody who hunts, fishes, grows things, or wants to donate, you know, canned, boxed food. It's a food shelf that just serves the community. That's what it's for. and you know, not that our community... So my community is only state recognized, not federally recognized for so many fun reasons. so that doesn't mean we don't get like g- government funding. So this, all of this effort is from the community itself to, to give back, um, you know, to the rest. And it's, it's just like a core value, just something the community was immediately like, "We gotta do this to make sure everybody's taken care of." and a- another thing is, you know, when we talk about kind of integral human development and this, this like dignity for the individual and for everyone, kind of talking about these things like recognition and sovereignty, and Jefferson made the point that like sovereignty is a myth in a lot of ways because a lot of Native academics will say like, "Are you really sovereign if that sovereignty is only afforded to you by recognition from someone else?" That's a, that's a huge problem, and, and that's a huge problem with my community and state recognition. and the reason that we've been denied federal recognition in the past when we have applied is because one of the tenets of federal recognition is that you have to ha- be able to demonstrate an established, consistent presence of your community. Um, in Vermont, the eugenics movement was alive and well until the late, late 1960s, and only did voluntary sterilization become voluntary in the 1980s. and our last ins- asylum in Vermont was only closed down in 2011, and that's only because Hurricane Irene did so much damage to it that it wasn't worth restoring financially. so because of, you know, involuntarily-- involuntary sterilization of, Abenaki people in the late 1930s in Vermont, and the risk of being institutionalized simply for being who you are or not speaking English or things like this, and it would have affected a, a variety of people, the chronically ill, physically or mentally handicapped people, orphans, like, the- they were all subject to these types of things. our communities went underground, and we stopped practicing our religions, and we stopped speaking our languages, and we stopped being Abenaki at all because it was a risk to your safety and your health and your community to do so. so for example, my father was raised Catholic, had to go to church. It's what you do. You don't talk about being Abenaki. This is how you stay safe. His father never went with him because he was like, "I'm not going, but you guys need to go." and so I'm doing something with my comm- community right now to try to give us this dignity. We're trying to make, a virtual museum to demonstrate our presence. We are a community. We have been here. The first thing when you come to Vermont that you sh- see should not be murals of Samuel de Champlain. It should be us. we are not even afforded that dignity. Our names are not on road signs or major land markers. They're trying to do things like this. Just in the last year, we finally got the acknowledgement of, like, eh, maybe Abenaki people shouldn't have to pay for hunting and fishing licenses. It's tiny things like that that afford us dignity that, that we have been here forever. We are still here. and something as simple as acknowledging our presence, is crucial in, in these larger battles for different kinds of dignity, like federal recognition and things like that, that will provide healthcare and all different kinds of things to people in our communities.

Speaker 3 27:41

This is a, a big one.

Sovereignty Self Governance and Accountability

Speaker 3 27:43

indige- indigeneity, what does that mean? How do you indigenize your own self? First, when we, we, we look at the word sovereignty and the definitions of being a sovereign, of course, everyone only ever sees the first definition, absolute rule. No one ever pays attention to the second one, self-governor. Whoa, that's a big concept. Can you govern your own self? Can you do everything for your own self? Can you govern your emotions? Can you govern your land? Can you govern your children? Can you govern your assets? Can you govern that? Are you capable of that? And that's what we're trying to make everybody is capable instead of culpable. Now, if, if you're capable of doing this and living within our mother, there are lots of indigenous movements to recognize ecological kin, people who have a relationship with our mother. But if you don't have that relationship with our mother, then we probably don't have a lot of time because we're tired of the abuse, we're tired of the rape culture of America to our women, to our earth, and we're tired to the stories that you feed us, these institutions of, of religion and spiritual r- uh, reclamation. Uh, we were-- we are in the situations that we are in because of these institutions. Here in, in our specific area, the reason why the Potawatomi are even allowed to be back as a state recognized or are federally reaffirmed, we're reaffirmed, we're not recognized. We are not a federally recognized tribe under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1939. We are recognized by the Michigan and Indiana legislature and reaffirmed by Congress. So our local communities, including Notre Dame, could also reaffirm our sovereignty if you would do simply one thing. There's a city just down the road across the border. It's called the City of Four Flags. Anybody know those four flags? Are they just colored flags because there's boats there? Where's the boats? No, there's a history of what four flags flew there. Spain, Britain, France, and America. If you wanna give us dignity, put my tribe's flag up there. You guys carry it in your hallways over here. Be the institution of healing and demand that not only this institution fly our flag and have a day of recognition for all indigenous peoples, whether it be the Abenaki, or we refer to them as the Leni Lenape, our original ancestors. This is my great great great great great great great great grandma here. I-- Thirty-three thousand one hundred and forty-two years ago, uh, we left the East Coast on a great migration to come here to the Mushagamie, or the place where the food grows upon the water. But we left them. The Great Law of Peace wasn't established yet, and we were out looking for our own dignity, our own purpose, our own reason to be here. See, we made a, a deal with our Mother, the Earth, when we were given our spirit inside. We said that once, once you feed and nourish us our entire life and give us everything that we would need as a mother would give her children, then we promise, we promise to you that we will give ourselves back. Our burial practices are very, very specific and very spiritual. The Christianized vault and entombment and embalmment of our bodies is not allowing us, as indigenous people, to have our freedom of spirituality and the freedoms to go back, and more importantly, not the freedoms, but the contract that we have with our mother. Our bodies are not going back to the earth and replenishing her. She is sick. She is needing that. There is a process. If the trees, the standing ones, our great standing ones, weren't here, neither would we. We breathe their exhale, they breathe ours. If I grab you by the ankles and shake you, your hair is the roots and limbs and arms. Our lungs are shaped just like them. What happens to them will happen to us, just as what happens to our mother will happen to us. Where dignity comes from is being able to understand that as I stand here completely fallible as a human being, or especially as the male gender, I'm still sacred because I choose to be so, and because, more importantly, because the Creator said I was And it's up to me to be that teacher of what to be and how to be sacred. And that's where the dignity comes from. That's where the healing comes from. But first and foremost, there has to be an acceptance of responsibility and accountability on behalf of institutions like this, our government. For example, the town of Dowagiac, where my nation is, Dowagiac, Michigan, just a hop, skip, and a jump, in 1994 had to rescind a city ordinance stating no more than three non-related Native Americans can gather in one place at one time. 1994, not 1894, not 1794, 1994. When we were federally reaffirmed, the city had to say, "Oh, oh wait, they're a federal entity. We gotta remove this ordinance to say they can't gather." But they did not do that in Indianapolis. Five or more Indians in Indianapolis is inciting a riot unless you have a permit to gather there. So Indiana, uh, there's no Indians in Indiana. They've all been removed. And remember what Indiana did when those good Christian women who had the pomposity to stand up to those generals marching those human beings down the road, which were our relations during the Indian removal era of 1830 to 1850, the trail of death specifically for the Potawatomi. When those women came out to give food and blankets and shoes to those who were marching in December with no shoes, little children, no blankets, no food, they were shot and killed for aiding and abetting the enemy Talk about removing dignity of any human life. No one would ever help us because then they would be shot and killed. So their life, of course, is way more important than our lives as we're being cattled down the middle of Middleton, Indiana, down the middle of New Carlisle, Indiana, down the middle of St. or So- South Bend, Indiana. So the dignity needs to come from your institutions. It's born in us, and it will die in us. But until you, as the major societies that are out there, who control thought through church, through business, through law, through policy, through education, K through 12 and higher education, until these kinds of things are not only admitted to in the past, but also now given the opportunity to release our indigenous peoples from the churches so that they no longer feel guilty. My grandmother died at ninety-two years old and gave me the family pipe within the last fifteen minutes of her life and damned me to hell with her last breath because I'm a Day One and not Catholic. But she knew the importance of passing on that family pipe, and she was still going to damn her grandchild for doing such a traditional thing. This is what the church has done to families. And I laughed at her. I laughed at my ninety-two-year-old grandma dying. "You're gonna be so pissed off, Grandma, when I get up there and I tell you, 'I told you so.'" And we're dancing, and we're singing, and all of this other has been a lie. A huge lie. When your creation stories are incestual, when your prophet story is based upon the rape culture of America, God didn't ask M- Mary for permission to put Jesus in there, nor did he ask Joseph, her husband. Where is the dignity? Where is the morality? Where is the sacredness of our women? Where is the sacredness of our governance? Our governance is a joke in America. It's disgusting and vile. Dignity? Dignity comes from example, and there are no examples in our political structures for us indigenous women, let alone us men. So this opportunity is not only ours to express that we are dignified, we are sacred, and we are united. Will you please come and join this adventure with us? Miigwech.

Education and Legal Sovereignty Examples

Speaker 5 36:44

I'm gonna build off of something that Jefferson just said, regarding sovereignty as being self-governing, self-sustaining. Um, it makes me think back to when I was in high school, and I went to a BIE-funded school. So Bureau of Indian Education, um, funds my high school. Every student is Native American, and, the money is kind of funneled through the Cherokee Nation into the school. I remember, I don't remember what year it was, but it was when Obama closed the government for, like, a month or two, um A long time ago, um, my high school didn't have paper towels because we couldn't afford to buy more because the BIE money stopped. I remember the heating got shut off because they couldn't afford to run the heating anymore. food options were next to nothing in the cafeteria because we couldn't afford to buy more food, because without the BIE, we didn't have money to run the school. And I think it just shows that from the government's perspective, they don't care about awarding high school students like the dignity of having paper towels in their bathroom. And the Cherokee Nation can't do that on their own because of the ways that the govern- the governing system has been set up, that the Cherokee Nation doesn't have money to put into education because it is supposed to come from the Bureau of Indian Education. And it's really hard to feel like you're prepared to enter into this world when you're coming from a high school that can't afford paper towels without some sort of government assistance. and I think about that a lot, of how unprepared I was to enter Notre Dame from my high school. It didn't matter that I was the best at my high school because my high school wasn't up to the standards that most high schools are in America. And it's because we can't afford better, or if we could afford better, there's no one who wants to teach there. There's no one who wants to take a lower pay grade to teach Native children. all of this is because of the ways that we have been forced to run education, and the ways that we have been forced to rely on the government for so long that it is hard now to separate ourselves from that. and recently in Oklahoma, the McGirt decision, um, established that tribal nations have control over their citizens in terms of the law, so state police no longer can persecute or prosecute the, yeah, whatever, um, uh, the, a Native American. So any crime that involves someone who is a member of, I think five different tribes in Oklahoma have, were affected by the McGirt decision, but they have final say over what happens to their tribal members. and it took this long before it made sense to people that maybe Native people should govern their own people and not- state police or anyone else. Um, and for a while, the Cherokee Nation has had a law where a Cherokee citizen doesn't have to speak to a police officer unless a tribal cop is present. And so if you get pulled over by a state patrol, you can say, "I don't wanna speak to you until I have a tribal officer present with me, for our safety." And, you know, that's not a law that's necessarily recognized by state governments. It's not a law that's recognized by federal governments. It's a Cherokee law that, for its own citizens. And I think that just says so much that the sovereignty to set your own laws isn't even recognized by the government. It, it might as well not exist. When you talk to a state police officer, it is something that the Cherokee Nation has excited for us, but we can't actually use it, outside of maybe Tahlequah, which is the capital city of Cher- of the Cherokee Nation. So, yeah, it's just, it's really obvious that for Indigenous people, dignity hasn't been awarded to us from a larger presence, and it is something that we are just struggling to find for ourselves and to build for ourselves and to build for future generations because the government right now isn't recognizing it.

Speaker 3 41:23

We are coming out of what's called Sizbakwotan, a time of making sugar, our maple syrup time. About four weeks ago, my wife and I, we made the national news. Uh, our, uh, sugar bush was raided by 14 police officers in tactical gear and AR-15s and a helicopter over us. We had an MOU with the city of Detroit. We had an MOU with the, uh, uh, River Rouge, for Friends of the River Rouge. We had our burn permit and our camping permit. Uh, and, and so when, uh, a, quote-unquote, "routine helicopter flyover the, the Friends of River Rouge reported an out-of-control bonfire in the middle of the forest that has four inches of ice and three inches of snow in the middle of a floodplain, so it's really gonna just catch on fire everywhere." The only people who showed up was 14 tactical units in Special Forces gear, not the fire department, not anybody to show up to put out the fire. Why? For one, again, like I mentioned, we had all of our permits. We had all of our contracts. The fire department knew we were out there. They didn't respond. Even when we follow the law to the letter They changed the alphabet. They changed the ink. They changed the writing utensil. They changed the paper. We didn't make any of those syllabics, nor did we make any of that vernacular, and nor would we ever pollute our mother to make the paper in which we write this garbage and lie upon. So even when we are in the right and we do exactly what we're supposed to do... Oh, by the way, on the backside of our harvesting area where we are harvesting maple syrup, sap, excuse me, was the Fraternal Order of Police's shooting range that they would have to shut down for the three weeks that we're there so they don't shoot our women and children that are out in the woods as well. And when that helicopter came in and those other officers came in, uh, unfortunately, I was the oldest individual in the woods with them, and all of us were twenties and thirties and little kids that were running around, and, and they were all very scared and very traumatized. Their dignity, their humanity, their trust, their safety, their sanctuary was taken that day. So even when we do everything that the process tells us to do, we still don't have safety and/or sovereignty. We only will have that when our outside communities... Please remember that there's only five point two million of us. We only make up two percent of the population of the United States. When there's a voting process on TV, remember down at the bottom it says plus or minus three percent margin of error. That's where we sit right there. Right there. We did make a difference as something else this past election year, so we're, we're making our progress. Uh, so we encourage all of you something elses to come on around. Join this ride of, of humanity and bringing back sacredness again. Thank you.

Speaker 4 44:35

Okay, so it's question and answer time. As I mentioned earlier, I'm gonna alternate between questions from here and then some questions I wrote down from people who submitted stuff ahead of time. So do we have a question from the in-person audience?

1 44:55

Just a few questions. First of all, can you contextualize the feather that you're holding? Secondly, I'm wondering when you speak of creation rocks and the ash tree, is this, are you metaphorically speaking? Do you believe that this was actually taking place? And then third, what do you think is the most existential threat to your culture and identity today?

Speaker 2 45:19

Hmm. Start. Yeah, start

Speaker 3 45:22

with that. Sure. So we are told of our story of how our eagle interceded upon us. All of our spiritual and religions, religions have the stories of the great floods and how humans were so bad and disrespectful that the creator flooded the world. We have those same stories, and there was a time when humanity had once again left that path and become so bad that the creator was going to flood the world again, and the eagle flew between what we call diba, the crack of night and day, and he gave his life to go and challenge the creator. And as the story goes, he told the creator, "It's only the two-leggeds, and this is what we have in common, not color, two legs. The two-leggeds are once again being destructive. Who are our predecessors as the two-leggeds? T. rex, velociraptors, two-leggeds." It's within our own self that we have to find the sacredness. And when we carry our eagle feathers, we're carrying them so that we speak truth, so that we are standing before you. We cannot lie to you. We cannot tell stories and fib when we are holding our sacred objects. There is two things that reign supreme above all things, and that's Murphy's Law and karma whatever culture you're gonna-- in whatever language you wanna put it in. So our, our feather represents, in that center going down the middle, that's the good road that we all walk, that quill, that hard road that we can feel under our feet. Sometimes we can be too good and do things in such a manner that we have removed ourselves from the mainstream of society, and we have putting ourselves above them. Or sometimes we can go so bad to be that negative and be that teacher of what not to be. But it's our choice as a human to do this, and it is also our choice at any given time to come back to that road that our feet are familiar with and not be judged for being human. So that's what our teachings are behind our feathers. Do not judge me for being fallible. The Creator made me perfectly flawed for you. Our biggest threat has always been and will continue to be white males who think they have power and reign over the earth and women

Speaker 6 47:52

one quick kind of addition to the idea of like being fallible and how we were made. So in my spiritual tradition, and this is true of many indigenous traditions, so I can obviously cannot speak for communities I'm not part of, we don't... everyone goes to the afterlife. Wherever it is, whatever form it takes, everybody goes. There's no ticket to ride. Like it does-- It's not based on what I have done here. I should be a good person here because I should be a good person to those around me, and to make this a place for those that are gonna come after me in seven generations, like Jefferson Smith said. it doesn't matter what I do here. I'm going to go on to the next place, everybody's going to. So being fallible is just fine because we're people, and we all are. it's not going to prevent me from going anywhere else, but it is going to affect how my community sees me and how I see myself and how I exist in the world, and that's why you should be a good person.

Creation Story Meanings

Speaker 6 48:55

so, but this question about the rocks and the ash trees. so I think you could give a variety of answers to that. There's so many different creation stories around the world and so many different faith systems, and the people who participate in those faith systems all have varying relationships with them, right? there are some Christians who literally believe that women were made from the rib of Adam, which is fine. There are some people who are like, "This is maybe like a metaphor for relationships." and you can talk about patriarchy, but whatever. Um, but you know, there are some Abenaki people who literally believe we are made from stone and ash tree. there are some people who think of this as a metaphor. I think everybody's relationship with their faith system and their creation story is going to be inherently different just based on maybe your family and how you lived your life and your education and all those kinds of things. For me personally, you know, when we talk about the creation story, originally it was like the animal people, and at that time they could walk and t-- like, we could talk to them. We all spoke the same language. It's not the case anymore. Our world has changed, right? Our relationships have changed. Our physical beings have changed. But I'm still made of the same things as the ash tree and the stone. When I die, my body's gonna go back and be the same as where all those things have come from. So to me, we're not any different. Maybe I am the ash tree, maybe I'm the stone, maybe I'm a little bit of everything. It's all comes from the same place in my mind. But to me, the importance of that is the lesson about choosing to be the ash tree and not the stone

Speaker 5 50:27

And I guess I'll touch on the last question. I think personally, from what I've seen, the biggest existential threat to, like, Indigenous people and their culture is the loss of language and the loss of oral tradition. because for a good period of history, Indigenous children weren't allowed to speak their language, and so they forgot it. They couldn't speak it with their families anymore. and so much knowledge was lost to that. or in cases like with the Abenaki where, it wasn't safe to be Native, it wasn't safe to know your language, and so you just forgot it or you just chose not to use it. and with that, just you lose so much knowledge. and I think a lot about my great-grandmother, um, who passed when I was seven. I was so young that I didn't know to appreciate what she could teach me. and like, sh- she knew traditional medicine, and she knew a lot of spiritual things that I'll never get to know now because she, she passed, and I was too young to know that I should be learning from her. and I think that also has a big role in, like, colonization, that it didn't seem important to me because I was learning the important stuff at school. but yeah, I just think the more we lose language and the more we lose touch to the people who know all of the things that have been lost, that just takes away so much knowledge and information about, like, our creation stories, our, any of our stories, our spiritual ceremonies just lost because you can't learn from people who don't remember. and I think that's why language revitalization has been such a strong push in the last few years is because Native speakers or first language speakers are dying, and with that is so much information. And so teaching children to speak the language and teaching young adults to speak the language means that we can learn from those first speakers and who know things that we can't understand in English that are only understood in our language. Um, and I think that the more we push in America, like English is, like English is the American language, everyone in America should speak English, like you're just losing out on so much information from Indigenous people because some of our knowledge can't be passed through in English. Some of it is meant to be in our language, and that is how it is understood, and we can't understand it now. Or words that have lost definition, like translations, having a word and just not knowing what it means. Like talaqua doesn't- No one knows what that word means. We know it's Cherokee, but we don't know what it means. Um, it is just a Cherokee word and, it's sad to think that that knowledge has just been lost because of years and years of colonization that you can't undo

Speaker 6 53:38

and just kind of briefly responding to the question about, like, what's kind of the most inherent threat to Native American communities and cultures and, like, our dignity, and there's been a lot said here about the United States government. And I think some people kind of think, "Well, you're just trying to make the government the boogeyman 'cause it's the boogeyman for everybody." That's true, but it's in a, in a unique way for Indigenous peoples. So what Mikayla's talking about, the funding for her school, has anybody ever heard the stereotype of, like, Native Americans don't pay taxes? Yes. Okay. First of all, patently untrue. that stereotype comes from if your community lives on a government reservation, you do not pay property taxes. That is because you don't own it. It is held in trust by the United States government, and they could go like that and decide it doesn't belong to you anymore or you don't get to live there anymore. That's terrifying that millions of people could just be excommunicated from where they live if the United States government wanted to. That's why it's so scary. That's why, you know, things like Standing Rock, Obama could have said, "You, nope, you can't," because there is a treaty in place that gives those people rights to that land. But if he did that, it would set a legal precedent to ratify and reaffirm every other treaty that has been broken with Indigenous peoples in the history of the United States. so not affording that dignity is, has historically been common practice for the United States government. and, like, talking about, you know, the weaponization of the United States military and police forces, during the occupation of Wounded Knee, which was 200 mostly unarmed Indigenous people, the military force that showed up was the largest mobilization of military force on United States soil since the Civil War. That's wild because that is who we were being portrayed to be in the media, as savages who were occupying this. And they even released this story about that, the protesters had, um, taken hostages, uh, this elderly couple. What actually was the case, and there's recorded footage of these people saying this, was this elderly couple chose not to leave because they said, "We're the only thing stopping them from opening fire on these people if they know we're in here." So that's some examples of the reality of these situations and why that is such a scary relationship and such a complicated relationship be- there is no d- there cannot be dignity when, nations and entities are not being able to, have a relationship on any kind of equal footing at all. That's just not possible for dignity to be afforded to someone that you don't see as an equal, and the United States government does not see indigenous nations as equals, and that is a huge problem.

Speaker 2 56:30

Just as a point of reference, all of those military forces weren't just military. Specifically, Indiana sent 11 branches of their police department, militarized, militarized vehicles and funding to DAPL. So it wasn't just the military. Again, we are a police state and our police are militarized. And so when we get them together with these feathers, the troop ones can set two of eyes. Even when we were raided in Detroit, they said, "Where are your spiritual items? We haven't seen any of these spiritual items." Well, I was holding a, a sacred pipe that was black and shiny in nature and would look like a s- well, if you smiled right away, you knew exactly where I was going, right? If Thunder said, "Officer,

Notre Dame Actions

Speaker 2 57:20

look." 98% sure I would not be here, so.

Speaker 7 57:26

Oh no, I was just gonna take from the microphone for the online audience. Thank

Speaker 4 57:30

you. so online audience question, kind of building off of the, threats that are faced and also a lot of comments about, the way Notre Dame has perpetuated and, like, been the center of part of these, threats. So integral human development is rooted in Catholic social teaching, and it is part of the ethic of Notre Dame. So what are things, as both professor, student, community, um, that you can see Notre Dame administration, Notre Dame students, Notre Dame faculty doing to kind of promote and support that dignity?

Speaker 3 58:12

I was, uh, introduced to this panelist style, uh, with Confronting Whiteness at the University of Notre Dame. That was one of the first, honored panelist positions that I've had. and, and so o-one of the things that, that, that I have come up with, uh, with talking with my community and the spiritual people, uh, that, that we're really having difficulties in our own community. If you know anything about the Potawatomi of the St. Joseph River Valley, we're known as the Catholic Potawatomi of the St. Joseph River Valley. So we have always had our relationship to this church. In 1827 Treaty of Chicago and 1880 Indian Removal Act, there was a clause that stated, "No one or family will be removed based upon your creed." You have to go back into history. What did creed mean in that time? Creed meant your religious affiliation. So if we were religiously affiliated with, then we were not removed from, and that's the unique position that we, as the Potawatomi of this area, we gave up our dignity, we gave up our identity, and became tax-paying citizens of Michigan in order to not be taken out to Kansas, Oklahoma, or Wisconsin. And in doing that, we came up with three ideas that the university specifically could do. First and foremost, admit your complicity in the past atrocities of ca-canonizing our Indigenous people and what that did to us. Secondly, please allow our Indigenous people of your parishions to walk away from your church for a period of time to find out if Indigenous spirituality is even okay with those individuals. Like my grandmother dying on her deathbed and giving me the family pipe, she never participated in any ceremonial activities because she's not allowed to have two gods, correct? And if you pay your homage to Gitch Manitou, the great spirit or the great mystery, and not the G-O-D, then she's going to hell. She's not even allowed to... That's how dogmatized and canonized she was. She wasn't even allowed to think about what her grandchildren and her children are revisiting and reliving as, as spiritual people. Secondly As part of that releasing of them from them, if they decide that they want to come back to the church, that indigenous spirituality is not for them, please, please allow them back. Please be kind, be non-judgmental, and allow. Thirdly, and the most importantly, because this is what has been removed from us all as spiritual people, we need a place to pray. Because every time we show up to pray with our drums and our feathers, we're met with mechanized vehicles, rubberized bullets, attack dogs as, as, as recent as DAPL, as recent as, um, I work with the Black Lives Matter group here in South Bend, and we have had different protests and rallies where individuals have been run over by vehicles and harmed, and nobody is ever charged. there's actually legislation that if you're in a v- in a road during a protest, that there is no legal action if you are actually harmed by another vehicle during that time. So they can literally run into our crowds as indigenous protesters, and nobody would be charged from it because there's state laws that say they can. So when we talk about laws, where's the morality? Who are those laws for? Who are they protecting, and who are they serving? That's why I continue to say, yes, apathy is one of the biggest threats by our own people for our spirituality and language, but our continuous threat is the two percent males who control everything of this world. Until we acknowledge and accept that, we won't be able to move forward. And finally, as a first, as the final thing, as my own little gut punch, please acknowledge Jesus as a per- person of color

Speaker 6 1:02:30

for me as Native faculty, so I started in August, and to my knowledge, I am the first ever, like, Native studies faculty who has been hired here with the intention of teaching Native American studies. So we should do more of that, is my opinion. The students are asking for it, and also just in terms of, m-more of us allows for us just simply to do more. Like, I do not have the time and bandwidth and emotional bandwidth to be there for every single one of my Indigenous students. Like, as much as I desperately want to, one person cannot do all of that. and I also like, you know, all of the panels and stuff being asked to speak on, which I'm always, always happy to do. There's this lovely thing that academically, protect your time as a junior academic. Like, okay, but if I don't do it, who's going to? And then my students aren't gonna see anyone. So we need more of us. There just needs to be more of us for more support, more ability to educate, more presence for, you know, the broader Notre Dame community and for our Native students. and dang, guys, put the Potawatomi flag up all year round. It was, for years we fought. It was finally up for Indigenous People's Day today, and they took it down the day after. it hurts no one to put it up there. It doesn't hurt anybody. so I think simple things like that and, I mean, I could say more things about, like, I personally think it should be Indigenous People's Day and not Columbus Day. I know that's, like, whatever, but at least giving Indigenous students a space on that day to do something. I-if the official recognition is not going to be changed, at least providing a space, at least having, you know, a university-funded something and leaving the flag up. Like, simple little things to acknowledge presence and give visibility means so much.

Speaker 3 1:04:22

One last thing.

Powwow And Campus Truth

Speaker 3 1:04:23

From nineteen eighty-eight to nineteen ninety-one, the University of Notre Dame hosted three mini powwows through the Upward Bound program that was specifically for l-low-income poverty, children within the South Bend area. We would love to have our celebration here back. We would love for the opportunity for our Native student organization to have that ability to honor the people of this area and come back and dance on my uncle's property. This is my uncle's land. This is where we, we came from. So again, from nineteen eighty-nine to nineteen ninety-one, Upward Bound program sponsored three mini powwows. You guys have done it before. You can do it again

Speaker 5 1:05:09

And I have a couple things to say, you know, as a student, um, here, as an Indigenous student in particular. Um, first, the powwow thing, um, we have been pushing Mason, like, has been pushing to have a powwow for the entire five years that I've been here. I'm a fifth year, um, and we've been pushing for a powwow. Um, this year we were given a date and said, "Okay, on this day you can have a powwow," and then nothing else. and it was kind of up to us as students to organize an entire powwow in four or five months, which is impossible. It-- you, you can't, it, it's impossible. So we had to kind of say, "Well, never mind then. Like, thanks for giving us the date and the venue, but-"

Speaker 2 1:05:53

Next time, call.

Speaker 5 1:05:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:05:54

It's possible.

Speaker 5 1:05:56

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:05:56

It's possible. I wanna

Speaker 5 1:06:00

throw-- I'll let Lisa Mason know because, um, we were kind of all scrambling. We were just like, "Okay, there's a date, and we're just supposed to do this on our own." Uh, and it didn't work. so I think like first, like kinda maybe helping us a little bit or, like, at least giving us a direction, or telling us before they book a date and venue, um, which is what happened. They booked it and they're like, "Here you go. Here's your powwow." so first, like helping us, And second, I think Notre Dame could stop lying when they tell the story about how the university was founded. because I, I know the story that I was told was that Father Sorin, you know, he walked his however many miles he walked, and he got here, and it was this perfect, pristine, untouched land that was perfect for a university because there was no one else here, and it was close to God or whatever, you know? But, you know, like being told-- we-- when the university tells its story, they don't talk about the Potawatomi. They don't say, "Oh, the Potawatomi allowed us to stay here and allowed us to build a school under these conditions." They just say, "He found this perfect lake, and it was beautiful and untouched." and I remember my first year Moreau class, we had a lesson in the Log Chapel. And inside the Log Chapel, there is a mural of some Native people, um, sitting for, like, a service. And in this, the person who was, uh, like, giving the tour of the Log Chapel told us, "Yeah, and the Natives were so happy that, like, they were here. They were just, like, so excited to have Catholicism. You know, that's all they ever wanted, and we brought it to them." and it was just kind of story-- it was the same story about how happy the Natives were that people had taken their land. and the thing is, is I know that the students believe that story because they're being told that by people that they trust. I had been to a Pokagon powwow, maybe a week before. and I was the butt of so many jokes because they could tell I went to Notre Dame. And I mean, it was, it was fun. It was-- it was-- they were funny Native-- it was Native humor, but it w- like, you know, like joking about me being a traitor or me, like, turning back on my culture because I went to Notre Dame, and it was, like, the colonizer school. And so it was, like, sitting in that Log Chapel just hearing, "Oh, and the, the Pokagon Band just, like, welcomed them with open arms." And I'm like, "Is that really what happened? Because it doesn't feel that way to me." So I think just, like, the first step is for Notre Dame to stop lying. And it's not even that they're not acknowledging it. They're just flat out making up a new story so that their story looks good, and so it doesn't look like what it is. and then the flag, yeah, like I-- we worked for years to get that flag for one day. and we've also asked for it to be flown at, uh, football games. We've asked for land acknowledgments at football games. They don't do those things. we're lucky if we get a land acknowledgment at smaller events. Um, and it is usually only the events that are for Indigenous people, um There's just so much that Notre Dame could do and that they're not doing, and it's, it's really disappointing, um, when you go to school here for so long and you are part of what, part of a group who is actively trying to get these things and then just kind of being told no, or, "Okay, well, here's your flag for one day. Be grateful." but nothing really ever changes, and it's because they just keep lying to us about everything

Speaker 4 1:09:37

In-person audience question? Uh-huh.

Speaker 7 1:09:42

Yeah. Thank you. Actually, I have-- they keep giving me the microphone 'cause I have questions from online, but I still wanna introduce myself. I'm the executive director of the Ansary Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, and, uh, we're deeply grateful, for your presence, for each of your, stories, your, your voices, and it also made me a lit- it made me a little bit nervous. I'm a Muslim at a Catholic university, you know, participating in this venture for global engagement with religion There was a time when Muslims and Catholics were at war, civilizational enemies. But this, you know, just my presence here, I think is an indication that things al- don't always have to be the way they've been, that things change. And a lot has been said here. We're gonna-- We're processing it, uh, but this is not just a panel that, you know, is an event that we tick off. We're about engagement, and we wanna deepen the engagement. So just to you, Jefferson, and Professor Ashley, you know, I hope that we can continue this conversation and work together to bring about some of the-- to, to, to further the conversation. And I think the first step in that is to listen. Um, so we're grateful, um, for your presence here. So just wanted to say that, and let me now, if I can off... You know, there are three questions from online. Uh, let me just say them all, and then you can take whichever ones you'd like, uh, because I know we're about fi- fifteen minutes, to closing. So one question is, from Mary Beth Redmond, and she just thanks, thanks us for making this available on Zoom. And her question is that the State of Vermont legislature is close to, is close to approving a truth and reconciliation commission for, um, BIPOC, Black Indigenous peoples of color. And so what advice can you offer for these kinds of statewide initiatives? It's a big question, but that was one. And then there's two more. One was a practical question, is someone mentioned, uh, the, uh, food shelf, and so what was the name of that again, and how can they help? And the third question was about a panel that was, or a conference that was held last week, at Notre Dame on abuse in the Catholic Church. And, the conference specifically addressed abuse of Native boarding schools in the United States and Canada. So the questioner is noting that there was an absence of Native American voices in that conversation, and that may have been an oversight. he says that, um, it's troubling that the voices were excluded, but maybe they weren't excluded. It may have just been an oversight. So if you have a comment on that, uh, please feel free to comment. And I wanna add that the conference was held by the Cushwa Center, but also, uh, American Studies and Professor Ashley from American Studies, and American Studies also co-sponsored to-today's program. So they are interested in advancing this conversation. Thank you.

Truth Reconciliation Limits

Speaker 6 1:13:14

Yeah, Vermont. so yeah, truth and reconciliation movements are, they sound so good, right? Canada did one in what? 2015, I think. still just a plague of missing and murdered indigenous women. So truth and reconciliation, what does that mean? Telling the truth is incredibly important. You have to know where you came from to know where you are in order to know where we need to go. so that's great, but it can't just be lip service. It can't just be words. It can't just be saying an apology. Like, you have to actually do something to make it count, to change the current landscape and change it for the future. So I am very interested in what Vermont is going to do to make that happen, um, because our previous state motto has basically been that, indigenous peoples were never here, so it's not a problem. Um, that, that's like a thing. Like, historians are like, "No, no, just like the Yankees came and it was great." so I- I'm very interested to see what will actually happen with that. Vermont has, um, a, an issue with race across the board. I like to joke and say it's where they make white people. Um, um, you know, a, a lot of Vermonters will tell you, like, "I love, I love Vermont. I love my home and it's my traditional territories." I l- I do love Vermont, and I think the vast majority of Vermonters, whoever they may be, are very well-intentioned, kind people. But a lot of Vermonters kind of have... I don't know that this will be effective because a lot of Vermonters have the, like, colorblind view in that they're like, "Well, there's no racism in Vermont." And I'm like, "Guys, there, there's just no one for you to be racist at. Like, that's all it is. That doesn't mean racism doesn't exist. That doesn't mean we, uh, we don't need to have those conversations." So I'm curious to see what this is gonna look like. I'm really hoping it's going to result in, like, actual change in terms of what we teach in our elementary schools and high schools. putting s- Abenaki place names in places. giving the community, you know, a bigger voice in, like, its decisions across the state, things like that. so I'm, I'm hoping it will result in, like, actual tangible change. but truth and reconciliation movements in the past have not been great at that. So that, that terminology scares me because of what its predecessors have looked like. it's Seventh, uh, Seventh Harvest. If you go to the Nulhegan Band Abenaki website, there is a whole page about it. So yeah

Speaker 3 1:15:54

truth and reconciliation. Uh, I was invited to a Mennonite church right outside of New Carlisle, Indiana, and they invited me because they wanted to hear some of the Potawatomi history. But more importantly, they wanted to announce that they are the first of their kind in the area who is anti-doctrine of discovery. So if you are aware of the doctrine of discovery, Ferdinand and Isabelle said, "Hey, go on out there and, and claim everything in the name of God, gold, and glory," as long as they're uncivilized. If they're civilized, you can't do these things to them. But if, if they're civilized, then, then, then you have to leave them alone. So they wanted to make sure that we were uncivilized. So all of these truths, this truth and reconciliation movement is, is very, very scary. I, I think the only other word that's scarier is civilized or civilization for indigenous peoples because that means that our society was torn down and built upon by the conqueror. Now we are being civilized by their definition, not our definition. And so, uh, I, I think that a way for churches to show that they really want to go back to understanding what it means to have service to human beings need to start to do this type of movement, to stand up against the systems that they themselves were not only created in and/or for, and now stand up for the rights of. Remember, there's a very important responsibility that comes when you become an ecclesiastical organization. If you're not familiar with this, the important part of that is you become a sanctuary Crickets. Crickets. Sanctuary means, so like people like us, when it was illegal to be Indian in Indiana and Michigan, and when the Underground Railroad was happening, and you know the Underground Railroad paths, you know what those were? Those were the Potawatomi removal runaway trails. So that's why you have so many Black and Potawatomi communities that run along I-94. Every single Underground Railroad community crosses a Potawatomi community. My great-grandmother, Eva Mae Matisse, is half Black and half Potawatomi. Her children were removed because she refused to speak English, even though her mother, my great-great-grandmother, was an English teacher in the schools. and, and by the way, way before Notre Dame came here, are, are any of you familiar with the Casey Indian Mission Church in Niles, Michigan? That was the very first boarding school that was placed here. But because it wasn't Catholic, they were run out of town. So right there over by Madeline Bertrand Cemetery is where the first Indian boarding school was placed by the federal government in conjunction with the Baptist missionary. So our Indians around this area have been facing assimilation for a long time. Uh, and so there, there are different stories about how actually Father Badin and Father Sorin acquired this land through taxes. And they say it was legal because Pokagon, when he died, he no longer had heir to the land, and because of American land entitlement, his wife could not hold in possession that land, nor could his children. So then in some type of saving grace, Peter Pokagon tried to save what little bit he could and make the relationship with Father Badin and Sorin. And that's where that first cabin comes from, is his family, our family, working to build that for them because we were promised, we were told, "The archdiocese is sending food, is sending clothes, is sending help. If you help us, we will help you." So one thing that Notre Dame could do is to reinstate that Pokagon promise, even if you believe as an administrator it was just two guys sitting around a fire BS-ing. That's how business was done back then. And we need to remember those things, that this relationship of, "Oh, well, yeah, the Catholic Church, the Catholic institution, we, we have this model of social justice." You better. You have been some of the most atrocious and committed some of the most atrocious crimes against humanity. Children. Children. So when we talk about this journey back to truth and reconciliation, whose truth and who are we reconciling and who is leading this discussion? And if it's a bunch of men, don't believe it. It all has to be done by us. So again, I am kind of contrary to that belief that there are very few of us who get out and speak, who will put themselves out and say, "Men are vile, disgusting creatures and shouldn't do anything but protect and serve

Speaker 4 1:21:21

We have three minutes.

Closing

Speaker 4 1:21:23

So, one option is I can ask a question. The other option is if anything else has come up that you guys wanna comment on, then you can take three minutes to comment on that. I'll ask.

Speaker 6 1:21:36

It's not like a three-minute worthy of speaking, but I think all the things that we've kind of said here, a huge part to, like, having this conversation is allyship. if we're talking about indigenous peoples being denied dignity and not being given the opportunity to have equal relationships, uh, conversations where we're actually heard, if you have the power to give your voice and engage in those kinds of things, you should do it, and that's about human dignity and advocating for the flourishing of the individual and everyone around you. Like, if that's a value, then be an ally to those who need you

Speaker 3 1:22:19

I would just want to echo that about being that ally, being that effort of change, not a force of change, but an effort, putting in that effort. I know at times I may sound very harsh against the church and against Christians, the sons of Abraham and sons of Muhammad. For 30,000 years, we have existed in this land without strife and conflict like other spiritualities and religions have. When we talk about when they, the Europeans came here We sent our women to negotiate with them. But what happened prior to when this happened is when those ships came into the, to the Hudson Bay, when they came into the St. Clair River, and they released their ballasts. This is one thing that a lot of people forget, what's called virgin shore epidemics. When they released all of that sewage and filth in their ships into our fresh water systems, our women and our children every morning go with their copple and, copper and clay vessels and sing songs and gather the water because they are life-givers. They're the ones who carry water and seeds with inside of them. They were the first to be struck with sickness. So when the Jesuits finally made their way in here about the 1614, our communities were decimated by the millions. Our population had been eradicated by at least one-third, if not one-half, by Ebola, by syphilis, gonorrhea, by E. coli, all of that filth that was released into our freshwater systems. This is a fact that many forget. And so when all of these affluent Jesuits and affluent people came in and wanted to negotiate and compromise and take from us, we were in great grief. Our women were sick and dying. Our children were sick and dying. And us men, we are not political leaders. We are the orators. We are the ones who say what they tell us to say. My wife, my aunties, my grandmother, my daughters, those tell me what I am to say. If I were to say what I wanted to say, you would never let me up here. I say what my people tell me to say, because my personal view is much harsher than what my people's view is. And so remember that we are trying, and historically we have sat down with your ancestors at these tables and said with feather and quill in hand and letter to pit print, "This is our negotiation. This is our communication, and this is our compromise." By law of the United States of America, Black and Native American people own the land of this nation. They are in contractual devoid and defunct of every single treaty that the United States has ever made, and they are in void in the Reparations Act. So by contractual law and litigation that rules America, if they would live up to the law of their own law, live up to their letters of their own law, they would be contractually defunct and not allowed to own the property because they have not been contractually void.

Speaker 4 1:25:48

It is 1:30, and so with great sadness I have to close the panel. Thank you both and all for coming and speaking. this has been an incredible panel. I'm incredibly honored that you agreed to come. Um, talk to them, follow them. There's a lot of really interesting information on Potawatomi, tribe culture history that you can find in 30 seconds on Google. and come to the next panel next semester. Don't know what it's gonna be, but it'll be fun. There's more food, there's more drinks. Please take some. Have a lovely day.