Defending Mother Earth from The Doctrine of Christian Discovery #NoKings

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello and welcome to the Mapping the Doctrine of
Discovery podcast.
The producers of this podcastwould like to acknowledge with
respect the Onondaga Nationfirekeepers of the Haudenosaunee
, the indigenous peoples onwhose ancestral lands Syracuse
University now stands.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Anytime we gather, we put our minds together, kindly
and respectfully, as one, andgive a great gratitude to all
the people who are able to behere.
And so we let it be that way inour minds.
And then we direct our thoughtsas one again to our Mother, the
Earth, who's carrying on herresponsibilities, the great
responsibilities to provide forus as we walk about in peace and

(00:58):
contentment.
And so we kindly andrespectfully put our minds
together as one and give a greatgratitude to our mother, who's
still carrying on her originalinstructions to provide for us.
And so we let it be that way inour minds and we direct our
thoughts to the plant life, themedicines that were put here,

(01:20):
and we encourage everybody'smind to be as one with gratitude
that the medicines and theplants and the berries.
When I say that, I cut it short, some speakers can do the
kanohenyo, the Thanksgivingaddress, for 45 minutes to an
hour, sometimes longer, withouttranslation, and so what they'll

(01:43):
incorporate is the smalldetails of the responsibilities
that each that is spoken of has,that was given in their
original instructions, and thebirds, the seeds, the plant life
, the roots and their connectionto the earth, to our mother
earth, as we have that sameconnection and the waters that's

(02:03):
needed.
And sometimes the speakers willgo on to the songs that the
birds sing and the words thatthey speak that bring peace to
us when we listen to them.
And when we listen to them it'snot just yeah, I heard the
birds this morning, I listenedto them this morning, to what

(02:23):
they have to say for this day.
They know already, they're upearly and they know already, and
so they also have theresponsibility of moving seeds
around from different berrybushes you got blackberry bushes
so that we can all enjoy it andtheir songs and their words and
their stories that they haveand their journeys they can see,

(02:47):
like the eagle sees, and we getinto that about the leaders of
all the animals.
The leaders of the fruits andthe berries is the strawberry is
the leader of them, and theleaders of the food sources is
the three sisters, the corns,the beans in the squash are the

(03:08):
leaders of the food sustenances.
The animals the four-legged isthe deer, and I get into the
Thanksgiving of all theirresponsibilities that we know
that are still carrying on is infine detail, and so when we cut
cross lights, we just, we justmention the deer as the leader

(03:29):
or the strawberry as the leader.
We don't get into the ceremonialaspects of it, as some speakers
will at certain times, and sowhen you go in, the leader of
the winged animals is the eagleand you get into the description
of what the eagle's vision isand how he was placed on top of
the great tree of peace and howthe great tree of peace is and

(03:52):
the winds that come, the windsthat are circulating throughout,
that give us breath, fresh,pure air.
To breathe also strengthens theroots of the forest, which
strengthens our bond with theforest, to our mother, the earth
, and so, cutting it short, youlose a lot, you miss out on a

(04:17):
lot.
So anything that is left outand anything that you can add to
it, keep it in your own mindand in your own heart to have
gratitude for, in your own mindand in your own heart, to have
gratitude for in your own way.
And so then, we carry on to theThunder Beings, the Thunder
Beings who come from the West,and they and we know that they

(04:37):
can carry a powerful, they havea great strength, they have
strength enough to uproot trees,and we're reminded of that,
that we have no control of theelements and the duties that
they have, although we canalways show our gratitude that
they're carrying the waters whenthey bring the waters, and to

(04:59):
bring gentle winds when theycome through.
We ask them that to be gentle,because we know their strength
can be powerful.
And so we kindly andrespectfully put our minds
together as one and give a greatgratitude to all the things
that was planted and all thethings that was put down here
for us, so that we, in our turnto walk about on Mother Earth,

(05:21):
can be in peace and contentment.
And so we'll let it be that wayin our minds, and we direct our
thoughts to the son, our elderbrother, the son who carries on
each and every day, without failhis responsibility to help warm
the Earth, to warm our bodies,warm our Mother Earth, so that
she can carry on her duties too,in the balance of providing for

(05:44):
us.
And as she provides for us.
We provide gratitude back eachand every day, as well as the
responsibilities of the son,each and every day, without fail
.
And so it's a reminder to us tohave that gratitude without
fail, each and every day forwhat's put here for us.

(06:06):
And then we direct our thoughtsto our Grandmother Moon, who
carries the great responsibility, and she has the authority or
the original instruction, toprovide the way the currents
flow, the way the water flowshere on Mother Earth.

(06:27):
She watches over Mother Earth,as a grandmother would, and she
also has the greatresponsibility of the flow of
water that each and every onewas in for nine months before we
even took a breath, and soshe's in control of the future
generations to come.
The face is yet to come.

(06:48):
The future is in theresponsibility of our
grandmother, the moon, who stillcarries on that responsibility.
So, in working with the starsall the many, many stars that
are there to guide us at night,to guide us and direct us into
certain times of the years, ofour ceremonies and certain times
, destinations that we travel,they can guide us in the

(07:11):
direction in the proper way.
And so we kindly andrespectfully bundle all that
gratitude together of one mindand share it with all the Sky
Beans who are carrying on theirwork.
And we direct our thoughts nowto a message that we received

(07:31):
from Skanya Dayo Skanya Dayo,handsome Lake he's called in
English and he was a messengerthat these new, different ways
of people's lives will be cominginto our house and that they're
coming in in great numbers andthey're coming in to stay, and

(07:57):
so that is telling us how thatwe can live with them and keep
our own ways, in which we do,but to include them in our
thoughts because they're in ourhouse, and so we kindly,
respectfully and there's many,there's what?
Four, six days of that message.

(08:18):
So, to just put it in that wegive thanksgiving to Skunyatayo
it's.
But to just put it in that wegive thanksgiving to Skunyatayo,
it's almost like putting a dotover an eye of the whole book,
because there's so much in thatmessage.
There's prophecies in therethat we've seen, which I'm sure

(08:38):
Oren has seen, many more than Ihave, and prophecies that come
true.
And so there's prophecies,there's warnings and there's
encouragements to live in peaceand harmony.
And the main part for us tolive in peace and harmony is to
carry on who we are, with thegratitude that was given to us

(09:00):
with the original instructionsand that we do was given to us
with the original instructionsand that we do.
And so we give great gratitudefor a reminder of that message
to carry on the gratitude.
So we let it be that way in ourminds.
Then we direct our thoughts toCreator, creator, who has put
down here and planted all ofwhat we need to be at peace and

(09:25):
contentment, and so he set downhere a way to share the love
that he had put in to us asbeings, so that we can be at
peace amongst ourselves to sharewith others.
And so that is still in ourminds, still going on on a

(09:48):
smaller scale than we all wouldhope for, but it's still going
on amongst us, and so, therefore, we share great gratitude that
it was gifted to us in that way,and so we let it be that way in
our minds.
And so that's a shorttranslation of Kanohenyo

(10:11):
Thanksgiving address.
It's not a prayer.
We're not pleading for anything.
The only part in there that weacknowledge some sort of that
direction would be with thewinds to be gentle as they come
through our villages, because weknow their strength.

(10:32):
And so we carry this on.
Whether the meetings are small,gatherings are small or large,
whether it's a clan meeting,council meeting, ceremonial, and
, like I said, some speakerswill take you right into it,

(10:52):
wrap you right in as one withtheir words and find detail of
all the responsibilities.
And so when you look at theresponsibilities that was given
to us with the originalinstructions of humans, the
details of environmental justiceare in there, they're all in

(11:18):
there.
It talks about the balance, thebalance Oren mentioned.
Sometimes he's told us aboutthe wolves being put back into
the Yellowstone and what theydid for the whole forest.
That's all in there too.
If you want to look at it thatway, you do get these people

(11:39):
that do research as you find thesmall print they call it.
So when you look at the KanoHanyu and our instructions to
our Mother Earth and to ourbeings plant labiens, animal
beings, to all our beings it'sin there if you go, do the
research and study and payattention.

(12:00):
And so when you talk aboutenvironmental justice, it begins
with gratitude and so to sharethat gratitude it's we hear
before what Orrin mentioned.
I like to quote Orrin becausehe's got such sharp quotes, got

(12:23):
such sharp quotes.
He talks about his young ageand how many people are
populating the Earth.
And he talks about today andhow many people 8 billion people
, something like that and hesays how do you instruct 8
billion people to theirresponsibility to Mother Earth,

(12:47):
eight billion people to theirresponsibility to Mother Earth?
And that still question isstill to be answered.
But when I heard the question Ithought it's in our teachings,
it's already in there, it's inthe Thanksgiving address.
It talks about the children'sfaces yet to come and our
responsibility to look out forthem.
It talks about the decisionsyou make are of gratitude and so

(13:10):
we're always constantlyreminded of the decisions that
you make today as individuals,as a council, as a community,
are to no way negatively affectseven generations coming.
So the instructions are inthere.
The answer is in there.
It's just how do you get it outto eight billion people?

(13:32):
And to this day, this day's howthis world works is around the
dollar sign.
And the ones with no money areseldom listened to, seldom heard
.
That's why you got so manyhomeless people here, them

(13:54):
homeless people.
If you listen to them, they'remore close to the earth than the
one who gets off their pavementinto their rubber-tired car and
going into their houses.
Never touch the earth.
Go in a building, apartment,building, elevator they never
touch the earth.
But they're the ones who wantyou to listen to them.

(14:18):
They have no real connection tothe Mother Earth.
Now, if you go to thesehomeless people and the poor
people, the ones with theirhands in the dirt, they know
that feeling.
They have that connection aswell as the forest.
They're the ones who feel it.

(14:38):
You talk to the indigenouscommunities and populations
anywhere in the world.
Those are the ones you'll getthe answers from.
They're the ones who arebarefoot on earth, their hands
are in the soil, they're theclosest to their mother, yet to
survive and share gratitude.
So they don't listen to thenewscast, they don't listen to

(14:59):
Wall Street and the Dow Jones,and all of that because it
doesn't affect whatresponsibility they have today
to provide for their futuregenerations.
So when you look at the damlike that big dam they just took
up in Klamath River, and yousee the reports of how it's

(15:21):
recovered, because those fishwere able to swim over that rock
that their ancestors fish usedto swim under and over and later
eggs.
So when you follow nature'soriginal instructions, like we
do the best that we can, that'swhat's going to make this world

(15:46):
survive and for futuregenerations to come.
And so when you turn close thecurtain just a little bit and
start drilling over here andpumping oil across the river
upstream, just because you can'tsee it, that doesn't mean it's
not going to cause damage,because they're not made forever

(16:07):
, like everything else,temporary.
We're only here for a shorttime and our responsibilities
are to look out and make surethat what we do here, that what
we leave when we're done here,is better or just as how you
found it when you were here, forfuture generations.

(16:28):
It's each and every one of ourresponsibilities and that's in
our teachings, and so that's theshort version of the opening
and it's just another shortreminder that our teachings have
.
We're survivors.
We're going through it againtoday, just putting it back in

(16:52):
survival mode with the attackson all our surroundings.
And so you know, if we cansurvive genocide a couple times
in our history, then we canprobably survive another
genocide.
That's the attempts that arecoming on us, which are, from
what I understand, thefinancials.

(17:14):
In today's day and age, we'renot living off the earth as well
as we should be and conductingour own food source as
individual homesteaders,individual nations and
communities.
So it's a reminder to uswhoever's in charge of your food

(17:39):
source is basically in chargeof you and your survival.
That has to change back to ourown responsibilities as
individuals, as families, as aclan, as a family, as a nation.
It has to go back that way.
It has to start with the family.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
Yeah, I thought it was important for you to hear
our perspective.
You're in our perspective,you're in our country and
combine that, combine yourmission and understand that when
you come into Indian country,right across the country, they

(18:23):
have very much the same what youjust heard.
We know all about liferelationship and, as you can see
, it's a responsibility.
As you know, you carryresponsibility, and so we

(18:45):
maintain this in our longhouse.
We are not Christians, but thisis what we follow and this is
what you will find almost rightacross the country.
The Christian doctrine that wascome over here on the Nina the

(19:10):
Pinta and the Santa Maria, yeah,left a hard mark on us, a hard
mark, and we're, as he said,we're survivors.
We're still here and we stillkeep that word.
Our longhouse ceremonies arelong and they follow basically

(19:35):
what our opening words are, andwe're instructed that we start
every meeting with those words,big or small, you know and start
that and since you're in thespirituality business, you

(19:56):
should have some comprehensionof what we think about that and
how we understand that.
And so we have, as you heard,we have a responsibility for
future generations.

(20:17):
We have to maintain what wehave as good as we can, so that
those faces that are looking upfrom the earth in each layer
waiting its time that they havewhat we have today.
That's a responsibility and alot of people today imagine A

(20:45):
lot of people today we survivedPretty close, got wiped out
almost, but we survived thatfirst, and now we see that the
situation in the world today isvery tenuous.

(21:09):
We have changed the system thatwe live in Over a long period
of time.
We've changed that system,we've affected it and you can't
fix it.

(21:31):
It's beyond your fixing.
You've changed it and thechange is not good and we're
beginning to see that.
Now we talk, as you heard,seven generations, and those
generations are the fulllifetime, not that short cut.

(21:55):
Twenty years you talk about,that's childhood.
Twenty years, so the fullgeneration, seven times.
That's what we're looking atand we remind our people to have
that long vision to protectthose coming generations and all

(22:15):
the life.
And he went through.
We're not just responsible tohuman beings, we're responsible
to all life.
We went through that litany,all the fish, all the animals,
everything, right down to thegrass.
We're responsible.

(22:38):
In my lifetime you know I'mpretty old now I've seen a lot
of changes, really amazingchanges.
I grew up in a horse and buggy.
Yeah, 1930's, a long time ago,it was just changing.

(23:06):
At that time Cars were justcoming.
There was one car on the Dagaterritory and everybody walked,
everybody planted.
When we went to the store webought bulk stuff.

(23:27):
The stores not look what yousee today.
Back there in the day therewere bushels and you bought
things in bulk and then you wentback and you made your food
with it.
It lasts a long time that way.
It's quite different today, andso I thought that, since you are

(23:53):
in the business of spirituality, so to speak, you should have
Native people and understandthat.
We've been here a long time, along time, and we have
instructions.

(24:13):
When we have these biggatherings of Native people
around the country, they alwaysask an elder, or something like
how Jake spoke, to open themeeting, and whoever speaks
speaks in their language, and ifit's Lakota or Cheyenne or Nez

(24:38):
Perce, many, many languages here, it doesn't matter, because we
know what they're saying,because it's always the same.
So one man can stand or onewoman can stand and speak for
everybody, because our minds arethe same, and that goes to

(25:01):
Central America and SouthAmerica.
I understand that, and so, inyour mission, you're young
people and you're traveling.
Now you're learning, and one ofthe major instructions that we

(25:26):
receive, number one instructionis respect, respect for yourself
and respect for whoever you'respeaking to, and respect for the
earth and respect foreverything.
That's a law.
That's a law, that's a law, andif you carry that law, life is

(25:51):
good, life is good.
So respect, and then the otherone that we have is sharing.
We share, share everythingequally.
So when your ideas ofcapitalism came over here and

(26:14):
hooray for me and to hell witheverybody.
Not a good idea as far as we'reconcerned.
It might be a good idea for theindividual who has all the
money now, but what about therest?
What about the rest of thepeople?

(26:35):
So you are in a mission andyou're going to be traveling,
and so I thought it would behelpful for you to have some
idea of some of the peopleyou're going to be talking to
and understand that they knoweverything that you're just

(26:57):
heard, probably more, and so themission, your mission is—well,
I don't know if I were to be inyour shoes, how I would approach

(27:19):
that, you know, but I justwanted you to have some
comprehension of the Nativepeople of this country and
probably pretty much around theworld, because when we meet with
other Native people in Europeand so forth, pretty much the
same and pretty much the samewith all people, not just Native

(27:44):
people, everybody.
Life is the same, you know.
Nothing is different, you know.
I think it's important toenlarge your perspective in that
direction.
It will help you, when you cometo other nations, to understand

(28:05):
that there's elders sittingthere that know a lot, and we've
always been taught to berespectful respectful to the
speaker, so when someone in ourconfederation is standing, no

(28:26):
one interrupts them.
So we stand when we speak andthey listen, and so I think this
meeting here is what I'msharing, and it would be

(28:48):
interesting to me and some ofour people here to hear some of
your thoughts and what yourmission is, that's do.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (29:14):
So I'd like to welcome everyone to the Scano
Center.
My name's Phil Arnold I think Iknow everyone anyway and I was
the founding director of theScano Center.
I wanted to just take a minuteat the beginning or kind of one
of the beginnings of this eventto acknowledge the life and work

(29:37):
of Sally Rocheway.
She it's maybe not too much tosay that we wouldn't have been
able to create the center, andthis is exactly what we wanted
to create the center to do is tohave indigenous and settler
colonial people put it that waycoming together and trying to

(30:02):
work out maybe a possible future.
So we're looking at the pastbut we're looking at the future,
and that was really a kind ofspirit of Sally's work that I
hope we can continue.
She had just finished amanuscript called Survival is
Indigenous that I don't know thestatus of right now, but I

(30:27):
would love to see it published.
I she was also working onanother one.
She was working on at leastthree to two or three books.
So that's where my mind goes,because part of what we're doing
here and many of you alreadyknow this is trying to carry the

(30:48):
work further in terms of moreresearch, more writing and
generate more resources that wecan use in the class or
classroom.
Resources that we can use inthe class or classroom.

(31:10):
So we're here to talk about thedoctrine of Christian discovery
, the Jesuits and Laudato Si,and we have experts in the room
on many of these topics, but thewhole context of this is
defending Mother Earth.
That's the subtitle of thepanel here.

(31:32):
You know the work on thedoctrine of discovery I feel has
been going on for a long time,but in many ways it's just kind
of beginning, because the morewe're looking at archival work
in old texts and documents, themore we tend to know and
appreciate, if I can put it thisway and I don't want to offend

(31:55):
anyone but how Christianity wasbuilt.
So we're meeting to get today,this sparse crowd because of the
no about democratic principleshave eroded.
For myself, for our family,this is not very surprising.

(32:41):
This is not very surprisingbecause what we've always felt
is that we need to investigatethe origins of these pernicious
problems, which go backmillennia.
It didn't happen the day beforeyesterday, it didn't happen in
the 24 election, it happenedmillennia ago.

(33:02):
So, you know, academics arecontinuously looking at the
origins of Christianity, theorigins, and it was frankly
built and created to supportkings, to justify the divine
right of kings Caesars, if youlike, even at the very beginning

(33:22):
.
So when we think about theorigins of the doctrine of
Christian discovery, where theyliterally come in with the
documents that say if Christiansenter the lands of
non-Christian people, thoselands, their bodies and all
their worldly possessionsautomatically are deeded to the

(33:45):
sponsoring king, the pope, etc.
Those legal formulations in the15th century didn't come out of
nowhere either, right, they goback.
Now.
You know there is and, as Isaid, there's continual
conversations about this amongacademics.
There's continual conversationsabout this among academics,

(34:07):
biblical studies people andother historians, medieval
historians and others who aretrying to reinterpret many of
these texts that have beenlooked and worked over many
times.
So you know, the colonial, thecolonists, came in with the idea

(34:32):
of empire, with the idea ofdivine kingship.
I want to personalize this alittle bit, because Sandy and I
have been traveling all over theworld doing genealogical work,
and this is something thatactually Jake has put me onto
way back many decades ago,because he said how is it that

(34:54):
you come to be here?
How is it that we all come tobe here?
What is our story?
What's our legacy?
It ends up that I had sixancestors on the Mayflower, one
of which was William Bradford,and if you know anything about

(35:14):
the pilgrims he was a big deal.
I've got a cousin here in theback here.
So we've been around for over400 years in this territory I
could go on, but I'm not goingto and the things you discover

(35:36):
are amazing.
But after 400 years, does thatmean we're indigenous?
No, absolutely not.
So what are we talking abouthere?
It's not about being in a placefor a long time.
It's about having andinhabiting a kind of worldview,

(35:56):
right?
So you know, what we're givingtoday by Jake and Oren and the
Onondaga Nation is a world viewthat is at odds with the world
that was created by the doctrineof Christian discovery.
And we're just inhabiting kindof the late, you know the later,

(36:22):
period of what is the logicalconclusion of colonialism, right
?
So the doctrine of discovery isnot something that is just old,
it's kind of precise in a way.
In a way it's very precisehistorically.
We can look at it, we can studyit, but then it also is

(36:46):
everywhere.
And Donald Trump is probablythe logical conclusion of the
doctrine of discovery.
It's not a surprise, thelogical conclusion of the
doctrine of discovery.
It's not a surprise.
And the democratic principlesthat we hear ringing in people's
, you know, speeches andeverything have to include the

(37:10):
natural world, have to.
The democratic principles ofthe Haudenosaunee that came out
of this lake, that inspired thefounding fathers and the
founding mothers of the women'smovement, was not just for human
beings, it was for all beings.
So what the founding fatherstook up as their mantle for

(37:33):
democracy was just like a smallbit of what the Haudenosaunee
were constantly trying tocommunicate from 1613 all the
way to the present.
So what's ironic?
I'll give you an example ofwhat we're talking about.

(37:56):
What we're doing is that theJesuits were here, only a few
steps from here.
They built a fort, they came in1656, and they were forced out
in 1658.
It was a failed mission, andyet that has been celebrated in
Syracuse.

(38:16):
It's really just a minor blipon the historical screen, and
yet that has been celebratedover and over and for over 100
years here.
So, the.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Jesuits were here.

Speaker 5 (38:30):
What did they come to do?
They came to convert, and thatmeant forcibly get the Onondagas
to submit to the King of Franceand the Pope.
They wanted to create anotherkind of peasant class in the

(38:52):
Americas.
They came with a deed for 600square miles to Onondaga Lake
when they arrived and the ironyis, all through the 17th century
, the Jesuits in the Jesuitrelations are describing the
Haudenosaunee and other nativegroups that they encounter, and

(39:16):
they're saying things like thewomen have have feel like they
have control of their own bodies, okay, as if it were outrageous
.
Okay they're saying things likeyou know, the men listen to the
women.
Can you imagine that?
Saying things like you know,the men listen to the women.

(39:37):
Can you imagine that?
And that's where we discover youknow, that the ideas and all
the principles of theHaudenosaunee and other native
confederacies are making inroadsinto the minds of Europeans.

(39:59):
And it's through this kind ofnegative analysis, almost like
looking through a negative right, that you can see that.
And we have a Fulbright scholarhere who can't make it today,
but she's gone through all 74volumes of the Jesuit relations
over the last six months and haskind of unpacked all of these

(40:24):
kind of aha moments of theJesuits and what that leads to
is that the French, for example,start to get the idea oh, maybe
freedom isn't just submittingto a monarch or submitting to a

(40:47):
priest or a pope.
You have kind of the origins ofnot only democracy but the
enlightenment that are embeddedin those Jesuit relations, but
always in the kind of a strangekind of flip side way.
Just another book called theDawn of Everything that came out

(41:08):
probably five years agoactually talks about how Native
people developed wholephilosophical systems, how they
developed scientific analysisand the women's liberation
movement in Europe Out of thislake.

(41:32):
Out of this lake.
So you know the script is beingflipped, but it's, and that's
maybe the good news, but the badnews is that we need to
continually look to foundationalissues, I think, and Doctrine
of Discovery in the Jesuits, andyou know, Laudato Si, I was

(41:57):
looking at Christi in thatcontext you know, this idea that
the church now wants toapproach the whole issue of
environmental healing.
I want to just say somethingelse too, because then I'm going
to have Jake take it.
But the Jesuits were here andthey describe their time here,

(42:22):
which was about 18 months, andthat's also in the Jesuit
relations.
But as early I mean going backat least 150 years ago or more
there's another story, theOnondaga, of that encounter, and
so you have the text of theJesuit relations that recounts

(42:43):
that story.
but we also have a wampum beltthat recounts this story.
This is a copy of a wampum beltthat I think is Six Nations
maybe, and I've heard Oren tellthis story before, but it's a
story.
It's an old story that I'veread in other documents, at the

(43:07):
Anadar's Oracle Association, forexample.
But this is the belt thatrecounts a very different
perspective on what the Jesuitswere trying to do and so by
comparing the Jesuit relationswith the wampum belt, you can

(43:29):
kind of arrive at anotherversion of what actually
happened.
And we know something intenselynegative happened between the
Onondaga and the Jesuits,because there has not been a
Catholic church on OnondagaNation territory ever, right.
So it was a failed mission inso many ways, right.

(43:53):
But you know, in this work, inthis doctrine of discovery work,
we reach out to everybody,because there are many
Christians who are trying torepair this history and even
their own tradition, right, Eventheir own religious tradition
in many ways.
So this is the kind of workthat I'm really devoted to and

(44:20):
I'm glad that we're able to havethis meeting today.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
Okay, I just wanted to, jake, just hold this up.
This is our Confederacy Belt ofUnion.
Starting from the east is theMohawks, the Oneidas, the
Onondagas, the Cayugas and theSenecas, and later came the
Tascaroras, made of six, butthis is the original.

(44:47):
And in the center here ofOnondaga is the Great Tree of
Peace.
And if you look at the orlisten to the history, they talk
about the fierce Iroquois, thekillers.
They cause a lot of names, youknow, but in reality this is who

(45:11):
we are peace.
We tried and we tried and wetried to maintain that.
And during the 400 years theHaudenosaunee were prominent
there.
They said we had at least 85nations under our wing and our

(45:33):
influences all the way down toMississippi, down to Georgia,
across and up that section.
But that was our influence.
We didn't control or we didn'trule, we supported the people in
there.
But in the center is the greattree of peace and that's the

(45:54):
foundation of our confederationpeace, equity for the people and
union.
The strength of the fivenations come together, great
union based on peace.
And now today it's starting tocome back around.

(46:15):
Now, people like yourselfsitting here talking about this
business Because it's important,as you know, world peace is the
only solution there is towhat's going on, nothing else.
And that's our mission, beenour mission all this time.
So we really, you know, welcomeyou here for this opportunity

(46:41):
to exchange some of our thoughts, and so you understand.
But the missionaries that yousent over here, well, they were
over here early, long, long ago.
They were like a spearhead.
They came in and everythingelse followed them in, and we

(47:01):
were almost eliminated.
They were almost—but wesurvived.
So we're still here and theissue is still here, and this
belt is really still here, andit should be in the minds of all
human beings.
World peace is the onlysolution, nothing else.

(47:24):
And so I'm glad that youbrought the belt.
But we have many belts likethis.
This is a thousand years old,this idea, at least a thousand.
It could be two, we don't know.

(47:46):
But foundational thinking, andof course, the principle is
always spiritual unity,spiritual law prevails all the
time, every time, everywhere,every day.
You are not going to changethat.
That's the law, that's nature,that's nature, and the only

(48:16):
thing that can happen, you know,is that we eliminate ourselves.
You know, human beings are likefleas on the dog.
Do all our little wiggling here, but the dog is pretty big, and
so that's where we have to becareful.
We don't want him to shake, sothat's where we have to be
careful, we don't want him toshake.

(48:36):
So that's where we are and Ithink your mission, or your
travels, broaden your experienceand get perspectives and
understand that the indigenouspeople of the western hemisphere
are very old, very, very old,with a lot of perspective, and I

(49:01):
think that if the white peoplenever came over here and we were
always here we would.
But anyway, that's just some ofmy thoughts, so I'd like to hear

(49:23):
some response or perspectivefrom you.

Speaker 7 (49:28):
Hi everybody, Thank you for coming on this strange
but precedented day in longhistory and thank you to the
Onondaga Nation for having ushere and for you amazing,
generous hosts and knowledgekeepers for welcoming us in,
because my settler colonialJesuit academic ilk have not

(49:55):
always been good to thetraditions and knowledge of
those who've come long before.
So thank you.
It's an honor and I'm humbledand it feels like a privilege.
So I would prefer to sit andlisten to many others all day,

(50:25):
many others all day.
But this work that began as myown professional work in many
ways has also in the last sixmonths taken root with Kim
Carfor, who's here fromUniversity of San Francisco and
who does amazing work thatshe'll tell us about, and then
expanding to Phil and Sandy,whose incredible work here, and
also connecting with settlercolonial university institutions

(50:47):
.
Phil, your book, the Urgency ofIndigenous Values, is one that I
teach at Fordham with mystudents, and Chip Callahan,
who's here from Gonzaga, hasbeen a conversation partner and
we've been working on a projecton religion in extractive zones

(51:07):
and how that has lookedhistorically and how that
continues looking in the presentmode.
But my name is I forgot thatDetails.
Okay, so my name is Christianaor Christy Zenner.
I am coming to you mostapproximately from the New York

(51:29):
area.
I teach at Fordham University,which is on Lenape lands.
At Fordham University, which ison Lenape lands, in an area of
which many of us know thehistory in shorter spans and one
of the streams that brought meto this work, this, what is my

(51:50):
mission or what is the story ofhow on earth did I get here is
through Waters.
And as someone who was born inthe west of this country and
grew up in the states known asCalifornia and Colorado in the
current geopolitical formation,I was very attuned to Waters'
absences and how valued it waseconomically and politically and

(52:14):
contested and fast-forwarding alot of years.
I realized that among myacademic passions and teaching
passions and learning passionswas this question of what sort
of thing is water and who getsto decide and what are the
values that should guide and doguide different kinds of

(52:37):
societies in different places,so that we can learn better
about how to be in relation withone another and the waters that
flow.
And so, anyway, I won't getinto all the academic details,
but I ended up getting hired atFordham.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
So I did my.

Speaker 7 (52:54):
PhD in religious studies.
There was one chapter in thatdissertation which was on
valuing water.
The one chapter in thedissertation was on Catholic
social teaching and the way thatwhat I saw then this is like
2008, 9, 10, I graduated in 2011with my PhD the way that I saw
that the Catholic Church was,somewhat surprisingly to me,

(53:15):
turning to questions of ecologyNot yet I wrote down what you
said, phil environmental healing.
I don't know that the church isabout that yet, but we'll see.
And so I wrote this one chapterand I said you know, it's
interesting.
I think there's this turntowards ecology going on in
Catholic social teaching, andwater seems to be something that

(53:37):
the Pope, at least, isconcerned about.
Okay, so I published a bookabout that in order to get
tenure.
So there's pragmatism in mystory too.
And then Pope Francis waselected in 2013.
And he signaled very early onthat he wanted to be attuned to

(53:59):
creation and to poverty.
2015,.
He writes this document.
It's called an encyclical, it'sin the form of a letter.
It's very authoritative statusas texts go in a text-obsessed
tradition like Catholicism, andit was about ecology understood

(54:21):
as relations between, which are,of course, in Catholicism,
hierarchical between God andhumans, and then humans in each
other and humans in the naturalworld, and because I was in a
theology, science and ethicsposition at a Jesuit university
and had written this book thatexplained some of these

(54:43):
trajectories of the CatholicChurch's turn to ecology, I was
swept up into thisinterpretation of Laudato Si.
Being part of that has beenreally interesting Not easy.
It's a curious thing to be in aJesuit theology department and

(55:05):
to be seen as a feministtheologian who represents the
tradition, when I don'trepresent the tradition and I
don't understand myself as atheologian, but I do understand
myself as a feminist and to tryto walk that line of what is the
good that may be said here andwhat are the histories we have

(55:26):
to take account of and theproblematic frameworks that are
being put forward in thisdocument, and how do we talk
about those as scholars andpowerful white settler people in
the world who go to Davos andmake policy decisions and all of
that.

(55:46):
So there have been a couple ofreally big worries that I have
about that document and the waythat it participates in and
reveals a lot about Catholicthought and these won't come as
surprises to certainly not to myesteemed elders at this table,

(56:11):
but probably not to anyone hereeither and that's the question
of Christian triumphalism andhistories of settler,
colonialism and domination,related questions of hierarchies
of gender male over female butalso hierarchies between spirit

(56:36):
and matter, hierarchies betweenknowledge systems and ways of
knowing Western so-called overindigenous.
And then has become abundantlyclear this turn to indigenous
values that Pope Francis wroteabout in Laudato Si.

(56:56):
So he, bill McKibben, climateactivist, wrote in 2015 in the
New York Review of Books thePope's turn to indigenous values
is quite remarkable, coming,you know, given that this is an

(57:18):
institution that have first setout to colonize the world.
So everything, everythingdepends on the heart in which
that is written and the spiritof openness and accountability
and repair that actions goforward in.

(57:40):
But the way that those claimsare articulated has always given
me a lot of pause, because it'swithin a Christian theological
framework and there is roomgiven to the very real fact that

(58:02):
indigenous communities knowtheir lands and what constitutes
well-being best and needdecision-making authority.
And yet there's still anarrowing of focus on indigenous
traditions and theirrelationship with God, like the
language of God, the creator, inthe singular Christian form is
still used.
So my worry is the CatholicChurch once again using the

(58:26):
language of enculturation andopenness but replicating the
same dangers, this time in anecological moment.
And so the last thing I'll sayis that the work of Phil and
Sandy and so many others hasbeen really powerful to me as a
way to recognize the depth ofthe doctrine of discovery and

(58:50):
how that shows up in La Ratossie, that these histories have not
been sufficiently recognized,you know, despite many movements
by indigenous peoples worldwideto have them recognized.
And when, somewhat recently,the Catholic Church said oh
right, let us say a few wordsabout the doctrine of discovery.

(59:10):
It was simply to distanceitself from it, which is not
ownership or accountability orrepair.
And so that's part of why I'mhere is to because I find myself
curiously emplaced in thisJesuit context to try to learn

(59:34):
what best practices would looklike, what little I can do in
the positionality that I have asa professor and a writer and a
conversation partner and learner, and to try to honor the fact

(59:55):
that learning and healing do notget to be easily achieved with
the swipe of a pen, of someonepowerful, no matter how people.
His title.
That's me.
So thanks for having us.
There were other things that Ihad very thoroughly thought out

(01:00:16):
to say, but you know, life islong and so are conversations.
So thanks, kim.
Would you like to?
Or Sandy or Chip?

Speaker 6 (01:00:51):
what do you think?
That's fine, I'm Kim.
I Kim Carpore.
I come from the Bay Area rightnow.
So I was born and raised inMichigan and I find that my
heart and my soul and my rootsare very much in Michigan and so
when I came in here and I sawthe map that included the lower

(01:01:18):
peninsula of Michigan, which iswhere I'm from, I always say,
where are you on the map?
I'm right here.
And so I was born and raised inPort Huron, on Lake Huron, so
where Lake Huron kind of getsreally skinny and then it gets a
little bit wider, and so thatvery skinny part there was a

(01:01:40):
bridge and so I grew up it wasabout a five minute drive and I
would just.
My favorite place to be was tolook at the Blue Water Bridge
and the water was so blue and itwas so strange to me that I
could see Canada.
It didn't make any sense to me.

(01:02:00):
How can I live in America andbe an American citizen and then
look and see Canada and the airwe breathe is obviously the same
and the water that we touch isthe same is obviously the same
and the water that we touch isthe same, but yet we live in
such different laws, right, likeOren talks about law and the

(01:02:24):
law of Mother Earth.
And so I guess from a young ageI thought about well, who gets
to choose laws and why are theythe established norms that we
exist by?
And it seems very top-down likesomebody decided this and then
we all, as people of the earth,just this is how we relate to

(01:02:48):
each other and this is how werelate to the land, and those
are different based upon whatsomeone chooses.
So I think that's where I camefrom and that's how I started
thinking about the differencesbetween the laws of man and the
laws of humans versus the lawsof nature.

(01:03:11):
And so I got a degree inpsychology at the University of
Michigan, because I was obsessedthinking about what makes
people tick, why do peoplebehave in the way they do?
I was so curious about whatcaused wars and why are these

(01:03:32):
people nice to each other, causewars and why are these people
nice to each other.
And so then after that, I endedup getting a job.
My first job after college wasa wilderness therapy program.
So I went from university tothen living close to nature

(01:03:53):
where we backpacked.
We did two weeks on, two weeksin the wilderness and two weeks
off, doing whatever I wanted,and I didn't have a home on my
off time.
And so I felt that living inthat rhythm really deconstructed
what I would consider the lawsof humans or the laws of land,

(01:04:17):
because I didn't look at mywatch right, like father time
and mother earth, which seemedso the way these dualistic laws,
which were very normalized insociety or civilization, were
deconstructed when I just livedand taught in the wilderness and
what we did was okay, we got toeat, we got to make sure that

(01:04:41):
okay, is everybody, okay, are wehiking to the next place?
Right?
And so I think my body startedto feel into those rhythms,
right?
So the winter, the days wereshort, and so we went to bed at
4 pm and then we got up at 6 amand when your body, when my body
, was attuned to those rhythms,I could no longer go back to the

(01:05:04):
structures of humans or man, orsociety, or university in the
same way, and so now I feel like, okay, so why would you get a
PhD?
I you know.
Back to Oren, your question whatis your mission?
That really struck me at mycore, especially because the
connotations of the word missionare very historically traumatic

(01:05:34):
for, for indigenous peoples,right, the missions of Jesuits
and Catholics, and forcingeverybody to live in this human
realm, right?
Um.
So I was like, oh, I don't wantto talk.
What is your mission?
I didn't come here.
I even, I think someone calledme an expert.
I'm like, I don't feel like anexpert.

(01:05:57):
I'm not an expert in anythingbut my mission.
I think last night I thought,going back to what was I talking
about before?

Speaker 7 (01:06:08):
Why get a PhD?

Speaker 6 (01:06:10):
Oh yeah, thank you.
Yeah, why get a PhD?
I think a lot about, and I cannever remember who quoted this
Adrienne Rich or Audre Lorde?
But she says this is thecolonizer's language.
Yet I need it to talk to you.
And so I thought, okay, if Ican kind of force myself back

(01:06:31):
into that the laws of man thenmaybe I can communicate to
people that there's another way.
And so I'm here.
I never really know what thatlooks like, but I think that's

(01:06:52):
my mission.
And so, to be a little bit morespecific in terms of why am I
here at the Scano Center, I'mreally interested in thinking
about building coalitions ofmutual support.
I don't know what that lookslike, but once again, with this

(01:07:13):
leading, with this idea ofprotecting Mother Earth, and to
kind of go back to what you saidor in yeah, of course I don't
have anything to teach you.
That's ridiculous.
I didn't want to get out of myseat because I don't even feel
like.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
I want to be up here speaking.

Speaker 6 (01:07:32):
I know the power of words.
I'm not here to teach anything.
I feel like I want to be uphere speaking.
I know the power of words.
I'm not here to teach anything,but I do want to use my mind
and my labor and my body and myservices.
I don't like the word body inthe connotations of the
feminists, like using your bodyfor something, but I want to use
what I have to offer this worldto do good work right.

(01:07:56):
And I think that's a bigquestion what does it mean to do
good work?
Coming from a settler, colonialperspective, I want to learn.
I want to stay in my lane, butI also want to know what can I

(01:08:25):
do from my positionality tobring this story to bring to
develop material relationships,something right?
What can that look like for thefuture?
So I think I had planned totalk about the feminist movement
and how it relates to thedoctrine of Christian discovery.
But these are the words that Ihave for now and I really thanks

(01:08:53):
for listening and I really do.
I want to honor Sally RocheWagner.
That was very I was veryshocked to hear that this
morning, but I want to honor her, her life and her legacy as
well.
Yeah, Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:09:15):
I would like to add that these two men here, adok,
over here, raise your hand, adok, sitting there, and Jake, these
are iron workers.
They put up your buildings inthose big cities.
80 stories, 90 stories.
These guys right here, they putup your buildings in those big

(01:09:35):
cities, thank you.
Eighty stories, ninety stories.
It was these guys right hereand around the bridges, and all
of that.
A lot of our men did that job,started with the Mohawks.
You know the bridge up thereand there was good money in it,
so they went.
So they can tell you a wholelot of stories here.

(01:09:59):
And I spent some years in NewYork myself, on Madison Avenue.
I worked in advertising.
So you ain't going to tell meanything about this.
We have a broad perspectivehere, and I came back here and

(01:10:20):
I'm working with the nation andI got to be a teacher, a
professor, at the University ofBuffalo for 37 years too as well
.
So we've been around.
There's a broad perspectivehere and appreciate the fact

(01:10:40):
that you're traveling andlearning.
This is all you learn, you know, absorb that and travel, and
not much known about Nativepeople here.
This lake right here.
You're on this lake here.
That's the first place ofdemocracy here.
So our first meeting was held,peacemaker, nobody knows for

(01:11:06):
sure how many years ago, but along time ago, way before our
white brothers came across thewater.
Very old, our white brotherscame across the water very old.
But right here on this lakestarted the Haudenosaunee.
So that was the.
That was the birthplace ofdemocracy as we know it today.

(01:11:26):
Pretty much I had to learn thatI didn't know much, you know, I
was just a kid running aroundthe woods, onondaga, hunting,
fishing, not for fun, forsurvival.

(01:12:03):
Onondaga Nation is the number—orthe consul fire for the Six
Nations.
We have the big meetings wehave here at Onondaga, at the
and half of our people in Canadaas well, way back in Montreal,
you know, and Ontario, and wehave people all the way to

(01:12:30):
Oklahoma, and so we have a broadperspective and a broad part of
the early history of travel andmoving.
I'll come way over there, youknow All of that is a story.
But here in Onondaga, this isthe story of the great peace and

(01:12:55):
the great peacemaker and thislake you're right on it.
You're right where it started,right here, right on this lake,
here and it's interesting enoughthat that's the most polluted
pot of water in the countryright here, also Interesting.

(01:13:16):
It's very sacred and we hadthe—fortunate to have a lot of
good leaders and teachers in ourfamily and and our nation.
And Adark's mother was one ofour great leaders and she made

(01:13:42):
an odd statement one time, anoffhand remark here, about this.
She says what they callOnondaga Lake here.
She says that wasn't our namefor it.
She says Our name for it meanswhere the leaves touch the water
.
That's the name of that lake.

(01:14:05):
But our brothers, whitebrothers, came here.
They called it Onondaga becausethat's where we are and we've
been here a long time.
But you will find, you know, ifyou go back and you start
looking in the history and startlooking at the, there are
history books with all the oldnames, with the Indian names on

(01:14:27):
it Very interesting, because thenames are not.
The names are descriptive, theyjust tell what it is and what
it's doing.
Because the names are not.
The names are descriptive, theyjust tell what it is and what
it's doing.
There's a lot of it in yourhistory.
You have it in your books butyou've got to go dig it out.

(01:14:55):
I didn't know that because whenI became well, your system is an
amazing system I had to quitschool in the seventh grade, you
know, first because I didn'tlike the teachers, they didn't
like me either, and we had comefrom the reservation school in
the sixth grade and then we camedown to the school in downtown

(01:15:20):
sort of, and that was a lot oftrouble and I had to go hunting
anyway for the family.
I couldn't be going to schoolevery day, I had to hunt for a
living.
Actually, and you're talkingabout 1930, 35, 37, 40.

(01:15:40):
Ammunition was hard to come bybecause there was a war going on
, very difficult, very difficult.
So if you had three shells inyour pocket, you better come
back with three somethingbecause you couldn't afford to
miss.
So if you had three shells inyour pocket, you better come
back with three somethingbecause you couldn't afford to
miss A very different time.
So I grew up doing that.

(01:16:03):
The war years, and this countryand our people always adapt to
everything.
You know, as best as we can wekeep our system, keep it strong,
hard still.
We're probably the last of thetraditional leadership.

(01:16:27):
Still most of them, 99% of theIndian nations, are under the
Bureau of Indian Affairs or, inCanada, the Department of Indian
Affairs.
That's where they get theirmoney, that's where their orders

(01:16:49):
come from here at Larnedaga.
No, this is the chief's here.
He spent a long time in thechief's council, so we're
probably the last traditionalgovernment still in charge of
land right here.
And then, of course, when youcome into the Onondaga territory

(01:17:12):
and you should go down and getlunch at our—we have a
restaurant down there calledFire Keepers in Skippin.
Everybody goes there.
Anyway, I have to travel on toour next event today so I can't

(01:17:37):
stay around too much longer, butI appreciate your visit and
your mission.
You know to learn it'simportant.
Very hard to learn anythingabout Native people because they

(01:18:04):
don't teach about us.
If you look and you try to findthe history of the Onondagas,
we're still tipping over wagontrains and we're still cutting
down wires and so forth, andthat's a long history about that
.
Why?
And the first boarding schools?

(01:18:24):
They weren't boarding schools.
They weren't boarding schools.
They were institutions,mind-changing institutions that
took our children.
Institutions, mind changinginstitutions, took our children.
And if you look at the picturesof those one very famous school

(01:18:45):
here in Pennsylvania of allthose kids sitting there, all in
their hair is cut and they'reall in uniform and there must be
300 of them sitting there andlook carefully at every one of
them and not one of them issmiling Not one, you know.

(01:19:09):
And kids are always laughing.
Kids are always Not one smile.
You know that was captives.
They were captured, they weretaken from their families and
some never got back.
So those schools, so-calledschools were brainwashing

(01:19:30):
institutions.
And there were quite a few ofthem, a lot in Canada, a lot in
the US.
So that part of history youwon't find in your history book
and it's not taught.
But we know it very wellbecause we're the recipients of

(01:19:52):
it and we're also the survivors.
So I do appreciate the factthat you're traveling and you're
coming to hear these storiesvery directly.
You're not going to get abetter direct story than what's
sitting right here, becausewe've been fighting this thing
for a long time.
We were the first ones who tooka group over to Switzerland,

(01:20:20):
got out of the box in 1977.
We got out of the box and wetook our argument to the
international world.
Yeah, it's been that way eversince.
In 1923 there was a chief, aCayuga chief, canada side, and

(01:20:53):
he took the argument over toSwitzerland and he tried to get
into the League of Nations andthey wouldn't allow him to speak
there because he was speakingagainst Canada in 1923.

(01:21:16):
His name was Descahe.
That's a chief's title, aCayuga chief, and we have a
chief today with that titlebecause we passed these titles
down and Descahe is still around.
But at that time that was thesky.
And when we went to Geneva in77, I was one of the people who

(01:21:44):
put that together and we gotover there with no money, but we
got there and we were headedfor the.
You know, it was not the Leagueof Nations now, it was different
, the United Nations, and wewere going to get a voice there

(01:22:05):
and we didn't carry a USpassport.
We made our own passport.
We made our own passport.
That's what we traveled on in1977, our own passport Because

(01:22:35):
you have to maintain yourintegrity and documents they
call treaties.
So you can't be an Americancitizen and have a treaty with
yourself.
So we maintain our integrityhere as Anadarka Nation, the
Haudenosaunee, independent,sovereign, and we still travel

(01:22:59):
on our own passports.
And not easy, it's not easy.
There's a lot of passportstories that are amazing, but
anyway we do.
We try hard, you know, and it'scoming around now, people

(01:23:20):
coming back, but suddenly hereyou are talking to us and for a
long, long time we were kind ofover there.
So survival time for humanity iswhat it is and that's very real
and it's here right now.

(01:23:42):
And you think, if you look atthe weather, watch the weather
around the United States andthen watch how the heat's moving
and make note of that, that andnotice next year is going to be
much hotter.
It's a compound effect.

(01:24:03):
It's on its way.
We've affected it.
It's not going to get betterbecause We've got two major wars
going on right now.
When I should be sitting downtalking about the future of
humanity, we've got two big warsgoing on.

(01:24:25):
So leadership is not there.
It's got to be local, it's gotto be like yourself.
You've got to do the leading,you've got to speak up.
The people have got to speak up.
We're pushing our existence asa species.

(01:24:48):
We're a lot closer than peoplethink and they're not watching
that.
They're involved in politicsand they should be really
talking about survival as aspecies.
And that's this great tree ofpeace there.
That's it right.

(01:25:08):
The only solution to all thisis peace, and that's not the
absence of war.
I mean real peace, because whenthe peacemaker brought our
people together and he put thattree, he says he uprooted the
tree.
He said throw your weapons ofwar in there, so the waters will

(01:25:31):
take them away.
So I meant really put yourweapons down.
That's a long time ago the goodinstructions, and it's not over
, but we're pushing.
We're really pushing people outof their way.

(01:25:55):
But you're not going to be ableto ignore the heat next year.
No matter what, no matter whatyour politics are, it's going to
get hot and it's going to gethot faster.
So it's a common cause.
We're human beings, you know.
We're not black, white, red orgreen.
We're human beings.
We're not black, white, red orgreen.
We're human beings.

(01:26:15):
We're relatives and, as Ialways say, we can exchange
blood and you can't get closerthan that.
I don't care what color you are.
If you're dying there, you'renot going to ask what kind of
blood you're getting in atransfusion.
That's common.
So we have to get back to thatunderstanding.
Ask what kind of blood you'regetting in a transfusion, that's

(01:26:39):
common.
So we have to get back to thatunderstanding of family, human
family, and then the foundationof that family is peace.
That's principle, basic, downto earth, ground principle.

(01:27:01):
So I appreciate your interestin your presence here.
I hope we can have addedsomething to the discussion
that's going on and I have to goto the next one, so I've got to
leave right now.

Speaker 1 (01:27:19):
So I thank you for your presence do you need help
catching up on today's topic ordo you want to learn more about
the resources mentioned?
If so, please check our websiteat
podcastdoctrineofdiscoveryorgfor more information and, if you
like this episode, review it onApple, spotify or wherever you
listen to podcasts atpodcastdoctrineofdiscoveryorg
for more information and, if youlike this episode, review it on
Apple, spotify or wherever youlisten to podcasts.

Speaker 9 (01:27:43):
And now back to the conversation.
Okay, hello, Thank you everyone.
My name is Chip Callahan.
I teach in religious studies atGonzaga University in St Ann
Washington, a long way away, andI first got to Gonzaga in about
2018, I guess, is when Istarted there.
I had come there from theUniversity of Missouri, where

(01:28:04):
Phil also taught well before Igot there, and I'm trying to
think how I can make this makesense.
So there's a lot of reasons whyI went up to Gonzaga, but I
didn't go there initially toteach at Gonzaga.
I went to Spokane for anotherreason and ended up being hired
because they needed someone toteach a Native American

(01:28:27):
religions class, and that's notreally what I do and I have
issues with the whole languageof Native American religions.
But I had taken courses with aMescalero Apache woman named
Ines Talamantes at University ofCalifornia, santa Barbara, and
she had, you know, opened myeyes to different ways of doing

(01:28:48):
class.
Right, she would take us forwalks on the beach I mean, it
was Santa Barbara and say thisis your learning and I thought,
oh, wow, okay.
And then.
So, therefore, I had also beensort of teaching some Native
American religion courses atUniversity of Missouri, which
was an interesting department ofreligious studies because from
its founding they insisted onteaching Asian religions,

(01:29:09):
western religions and indigenousreligions.
They say these all three arefoundational to thinking about
religion, and rather thancalling it religion, I always
talk about thinking aboutreligion.
What does that even mean, right?
So, anyway, I end up up therein Spokane and there's someone

(01:29:31):
there who knows that I can teachthis class, so they hire me to
teach this class.
One of the first things I saythe class, but it was four
sections of the class, so it wasfour classes of that.
And one of the first things Idid was I realized Gonzaga has a
, an office of tribal relations,and so I and and they that
operates out of a house thatthey call the native house.

(01:29:51):
That is where you, where NativeAmerican students, hang out.
And I thought, well, if I'mgoing to be teaching this
material, as a white guy, I needto at least go check in and say
hello.
And I was told that I was thefirst person from the department
to have come over there andsaid hello and I thought this is
not.

(01:30:11):
This is strange, but I'm goinggonna try to work on cultivating
this relationship.
Let me also say that when I wasin Missouri, missouri has no
currently has no federallyrecognized tribes in the state,
which is not to say there wereno native people there, but,
yeah, those tribes have beenmoved away, so to be also to be

(01:30:33):
in eastern Washington, wherethere are I can't even think
offhand right now, but manyreservations within an hour's
drive of Spokane.
There's just a very differentkind of sense of place and sense
of relationship between nativepeople and settlers,

(01:30:55):
relationship between Nativepeople and settlers.
So these things sort of startedto come together and I thought
you can't.
You know, I'm teaching NativeAmerican religions or whatever
that is in a place that is.
A lot of my students wereSpokane, colville, Coeur d'Alene
, kootenai, all these differenttribes around that area, and I'm

(01:31:21):
teaching this in a.
Jesuit school and I had nevertaught it at a Jesuit school.
I'm not Catholic and inteaching this history I'm
thinking this is kind of areally explosive combination
here.
Potentially, but nobody sort ofit didn't click for that so.
I start talking to WendyThompson a whole lot.

(01:31:43):
She's the director of theOffice of Tribal Relations.
I have since come to find out,just like yesterday maybe I was
looking up how many Jesuitschools have offices of tribal
relations and, at leastaccording to Google AI, it just
kept coming back with Gonzaga.

Speaker 4 (01:31:57):
So I don't think others do I've never heard of it
.

Speaker 9 (01:32:00):
So I mean the whole way I was then picturing.
So Jesuit schools, jesuituniversities, operate under this
idea of what they call Ignatianpedagogy, a sort of way of
teaching that was created byIgnatius, the founder of the
Jesuits, and it emphasizes sortof starting in place, where you

(01:32:25):
are and where the students are,and having the material relate
to the students, having thestudents reflect on the material
and think how does this pertainto me?
You're not just learning stuff,you're trying to think about,
reflect on what does this haveto do with me?
And so I thought, well, toteach in a pedagogical, in a
nation Jesuit pedagogical mannerat a Jesuit school in this

(01:32:48):
place.
We need to think about how didthis institution come to be in
this place?
And that means getting toreally dig into this idea that
the whole question of settlercolonialism is one carried out
by Jesuits, among other people.
And so we at that institutionare part of that history.

(01:33:09):
If you go to school at a Jesuitschool, you can't just say
that's something that happenedsomewhere else, to someone else
by someone else.
You're part of this institution.
The fact that you found aneducation in this place, at this
school, means you're part ofthat history.
So we need to reflect on that.
So that's one piece ofsomething I want to think about.

(01:33:30):
Another is this, so I starttalking to Wendy Thompson, the
director of the Office of TribalRelations, a whole lot about
she's thinking through what isthat?
What is that title?
What is the Office of TribalRelations?
What are we supposed to bedoing?
And she thought there's sort oftwo directions that goes.
One is how does this universityrelate to these tribal

(01:33:52):
communities?
What can we do for you?
What do you want from us?
And the other is making helpingstudents, native students, feel
at home right, feel like theyare not alienated at the
university.
And she said, she said often.
She said and I'm not sure insome days why we're doing that,

(01:34:13):
but that's just something wewant to do.
And so we started talking a lotabout how the problem, so to
speak, is not so much and thisis coming back to these issues
of environments and ecology andstuff I'll come to that in just
a second but part of the problemwith all of this in recognizing
indigenous history, somethingOren was saying.

(01:34:35):
nobody knows about Haudenosaunee, nobody knows about Onondaga in
this history.
Over the years teaching thisstuff at Gonzaga, it just comes
home to me every semester nobodyknows any of this.
Even the students who thinkthey know something about this
know nothing about this BecauseAmericans, non-native Americans,

(01:34:56):
don't know anything about thisbecause we don't teach it.
And those who think they knowsomething about it know all
kinds of romanticized, strangeideas, especially when they're
in a class called NativeAmerican religions and they
think all kinds of crazy stuffand so I'm going to put that
story aside for just a sec.
Also, at Gonzaga, we havesomething called the Institute

(01:35:19):
on Climate Water and theEnvironment, which started in
2018, I think it's a reallywell-funded institute that
studies those things the climateand water and the environment
and does a lot of stuff locallyfor working on that.

(01:35:39):
So, as students and communitymembers and faculty working on
projects like I remember arecent one was, they measured
the temperature in verydifferent places around Spokane,
the city of Spokane, and maybenot surprisingly found that
places that don't have a lot oftrees in their urban spaces are
a lot hotter than the placeswhere you know people live that

(01:36:02):
have lawns and trees and stufflike that.
And so correlating on a map youknow income levels and poverty
with heat indexes and greeneryand the fact that you fact that,
why are there so many poorerpeople getting hotter and sicker
in the summers, etc.
And then trying to do somethingabout that Planting more trees,
having air conditioners andfans Really good, practical

(01:36:24):
stuff.
But maybe I can connect this bysaying just this past year I
had a student in a class who wasan environmental studies major,
who we read something.
Apparently I learned this afterthe fact, but we read something
in class about from a.

(01:36:45):
I'm not sure who wrote it, buta native scholar wrote something
about sustainability andrelations between human and
other than human beings in aplace that he said made him
understand sustainability muchdeeper and in a different way
than he had.
And I thought this is anenvironmental studies major who

(01:37:06):
does stuff with the ClimateInstitute and somehow he wasn't
making the connections that thisone thing that he read made
everything click and I startedto think all of these have
something to do with each other.
The Jesuit school in Spokane,the Jesuits to think about.

(01:37:27):
What are the Jesuits doing inSpokane we have to think about.
We had Phil and Sandy out lastfall to talk about the doctrine
of Christian discovery.
You need to understand thedoctrine of discovery to think
about, to understand why wereall these Christians coming to
this place in the first placeand, as they were coming, also
trying to undermine existingways of knowing and relating to

(01:37:48):
the land and replace that withways of knowing and relating to
land and to people.
That has caused the climatecrisis that we have today.
And now you have back to whatChristie was saying, the Pope,
the former Pope writing aboutrecovering indigenous knowledge
to help save the earth and theclimate.
This is coming from the sameinstitution that undermined all

(01:38:10):
that right.
And so, to bring all this backto speaking to the Office of
Tribal Relations, we werethinking about how do we pull
this stuff together.
These are one story, thedoctrine of Christian discovery
the Jesuits in this place.
The displacement of nativepeople and the climate change

(01:38:34):
are all kind of one relatedstory and people are wanting to
somehow they see that it's onestory and they're saying let's
like the Pope was saying, let'scare for the environment and
let's learn from indigenousknowledge, but the problem is
that nobody knows anything.
No, non-Native people know thesestories, but the problem is

(01:38:55):
that nobody knows anything.
No, non-native people knowthese stories.
So, even at a place likeGonzaga that has tribal
communities all around it, has alot of native students at the
school, has an office of tribalrelations and has a mission
statement all about social andenvironmental justice and has a
climate justice center, ifnowhere else on earth, that

(01:39:16):
place should be a place that cantake as its mission to try to
begin to undo some of this.
As a non-native professormyself, I'm sitting here
thinking I'm not the one topropose the solutions here,
right, but what we ended uptalking about a lot is that

(01:39:39):
there's sort of two sides tothis issue.
One is how does this historyrelate to Native communities and
what Native communities wantout of this history, or to
reconcile with, or whatever,this history?
But then the other side of itis that the non-Native people,

(01:40:00):
who all have this white guiltand want to solve these problems
, right, they all say, oh, weneed to do something, we need to
do something, but they can't dosomething meaningful until they
step back and learn thishistory.
So I think one thing I mean soan issue for me and for my and
the students I teach that keepcoming up is they all want to do

(01:40:20):
something and they all seethese interconnections, but they
also don't know what they'retalking about.
And the question then is alwayswhat can we do?
What as white people?
What's our role?
What can we do?
And they all want to like runoff and help people.
But I think that one thing thatwe want to really begin to
recognize and emphasize as westart to work through these

(01:40:41):
issues is that white people needto educate white people about
this history, not just whathappened, not just give them a
book of historical facts and notjust give them a book of
historical facts, but reallythrough.
I mean, one thing that I thinkreligious studies and theology
for you guys maybe allows us todo is to approach that history
through not just a history ofeconomics or a history of

(01:41:05):
politics or a history of socialdevelopment, but through the
lens of how that whole processof colonization based on the
lens of how that whole processof colonization based on the
doctrine of discovery is also aprocess of trying to replace a
way of being in the world andunderstanding the world through
certain kinds of relations withanother one.

(01:41:29):
And it's not just that we canjust do what we're doing and
then say, oh, but we can takethese ideas from over there.
But to recognize the wholenessof these different and I say
different.
I don't just want to make itsound like a binary, because
obviously the other thing thathas to happen to understand this
is that colonization is and wasa process that is shared across

(01:41:53):
the landscape of the Americasand yet it always happened in
particular ways, in particularplaces.
So as we, as Jesuits, recognizeour well, we're not Jesuits as
we who are employed by Jesuitinstitutions right and therefore
have some kind of relationship.
We're paid, at the very least,by Jesuits.

(01:42:14):
If we are going to try to thinkabout the doctrine of discovery
and legato si, and what does itmean to care for the earth and
to somehow say that this hassome kind of relationship to
indigenous ways of knowing?
I think each of theseindividual Jesuit institutions

(01:42:38):
needs to figure out their ownhistory and their own
relationship to their place, tohow they got to that place and
to their way of displacingnative peoples, and then figure
that out for themselves.
And then we all need to cometogether and so there's this on
the one hand, this big pictureof colonization at Jesuit
institutions, and also there arethese specific histories, and

(01:43:03):
then we all need to make that apart of how we're teaching our
students.
I mean that this is not justsomething that happened, but you
are part of this history, notin the abstract, but you're
getting a degree from a placethat exists in this place
because of this history, andwe're teaching you in a way that
has been used to displace otherways of knowing, and so how can

(01:43:24):
we begin to?
One thing that they talk aboutat Jesuit institutions is how
you is what they call formation,how you form students.
Right, but how can part of yourJesuit formation, your
formation of your identity,include the fact that you are
not of this place originally andthere are people that are of
this place originally andfinding ways to make that a

(01:43:50):
recognized piece of ourunderstanding of who we are and
where we are?
So that's a long way around,maybe.
Just to say, when we're talkingabout these, issues I think that
part of it needs to be therecognition that Jesuit
institutions have a particularresponsibility to teach this
history in ways that connectthem to the place and the

(01:44:13):
original peoples of the placeand be a part of that, not just
tell it as like that's nice, butwe're part of the displacement,
definitely.
And how do we replace that?

Speaker 8 (01:44:23):
And that's your identity, being displaced.
Yeah.
And yeah, it's a real conundrum.
It is Because you're in theinstitution that has severed you
from this special relationshipto the earth.
The full intention was to comeand sever indigenous people from
their identity with the earth,and so how does an institution

(01:44:49):
heal when the institution is theproblem?
Phil and I talk about that allthe time.
How can you find the solutionthere?

Speaker 1 (01:45:00):
Jake in the.

Speaker 8 (01:45:01):
Thanksgiving address is talking about the birds.
We're not just listening to thebirds singing.
We're listening to the birdsbecause they have something to
tell us.
That's the missing link,because in educational
institutions you're taught toknow and you get your degree and
you're the expert and you'resupposed to be conveying all

(01:45:24):
this on other people.
But a Haudenosaunee identity isbuilt in this relationship
which I was trying to show inthe tour.
You know, sky Woman Falls.
It's the natural beings thatsave her and place her upon
turtles' back and she wouldnever have existed had they not
reached out to save her life.

(01:45:45):
And then, establishing the clansystems, jigong, as I say,
takes the women to the forestand, following the peacemaker's
instructions, they don't justsay, oh, I think I'll be, you
know, a deer clan.
No, he said, you will followinstructions and specific beings
will present themselves to you.

(01:46:06):
So where in you know theeducation, the colonial
education, are we supposed torelease, knowing everything he's
back?

Speaker 3 (01:46:20):
I don't see it.

Speaker 4 (01:46:24):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:46:27):
I don't think he brought it in.

Speaker 8 (01:46:29):
So how are we supposed to release this hold of
?
Being an expert and learn andlisten.
And that's going to be reallyhard to do in a Christian
institution.

Speaker 9 (01:46:45):
And one thing we found in Gonzaga is when
everybody has ideas about whatwe can do for the tribes.

Speaker 8 (01:46:52):
How about yourselves?

Speaker 9 (01:46:53):
you know Exactly and when you ask at least where I am
and I think it's going to bedifferent in different places,
but where I am, if you,apparently, because I haven't
asked, but Wendy talks to thetribes all the time.
What do they want?
And what they want is a placethat has knowledge, like Gonzaga
.
They would like it to turnattention to things like

(01:47:16):
language revitalization.
Absolutely.

Speaker 6 (01:47:19):
And food sovereignty Right.

Speaker 9 (01:47:21):
And so to turn.

Speaker 8 (01:47:22):
What you can do, it's to empower these traditional
practices among nativecommunities, because another
thing that Jesuits and colonistsdid was supplant this
hierarchical structure so thatthe people running these Indian
nations all over the country areunder this guise of a hierarchy

(01:47:45):
government which is notindigenous to any of these
territories.
So a lot of the Native peoplethere are also lost because
they're not practicing theirtraditions.
That's why it's so powerfulhere at Onondaga, because they
didn't go through that.
They had churches on theirterritories, they had that iron

(01:48:07):
fist silencing them, but theywere able to sustain their
traditions.
I don't know how they did it,but they did it.
And these people exist all overthe country, but they have no
voice like Biana and Daga do.
I've said enough.
You can talk, jake.
I'll go pour myself more coffee.

Speaker 3 (01:48:30):
We'll see where we know.
Earlier today we heard ofputting the pen to the paper.
You said so.
When you talk about theinstitutions that are teaching,
they're reading somebody else'spen to the paper and what was on
their mind, and so you've gotto remember.

(01:48:54):
They have to jot down whattheir superiors are expecting
them to write and reasoning.
What they're doing is correct,they're doing is correct.

(01:49:17):
So their literature that allthese scholars are learning
today, like the Jesuit missions,you follow that back to the
doctrine of discovery, andsomewhere's in there there's
some honest writers that toldhow it is and what they saw.

(01:49:37):
Those ones are mostlyunpublished, just like the
Sullivan Clinton campaign of1779, the journals of the
soldiers, the militia.
Only a certain few were chosento be published, and that's the
ones that degrade us as a people.
And so the ones that weren'twere usually burned, and in our

(01:50:01):
oral teachings, those nice guysthat were in it, they didn't
want to be in that militia.
Now, my gram she was born in1880s and I remember her very

(01:50:23):
well.
Of course the ADOC remembersgram Edith and she told what her
grandmother told in exactly thespot that we hid.
So if you can imagine what'scoming up in the next couple
weeks is this Fourth of Julycelebration and if you're

(01:50:45):
sitting anywhere in the country,you're going to hear boom, boom
, boom, boom, boom, all as boom,boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,

(01:51:05):
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,boom, boom, boom.
As we watched our villages getburned out and our crops.
They had a mission, scorchedEarth Campaign and some of the

(01:51:26):
stories that weren't published,that were told were of women
holding their babies and beingstripped from their arms and
whipped against a tree by theirbaby's ankles and thrown at the
mother's feet to say this iswhat you're going to live with

(01:51:50):
if you stay.
So our advice to you is toleave, and a lot of our people
left.
The other part about it wasthat Bible to accept that Bible
so that these people will acceptyou.
Otherwise, you're going to beliving in pain like that baby,

(01:52:13):
living in pain like that baby.
When you talk about the ironfist, you hear about the iron
fist.
These stories go untold becauseour people are in pain to hear
it again.
And we can't share that withthe non-natives because we'll

(01:52:36):
get more of that pain from them.
And so when you hear that term,the truth hurts.
It certainly does, it certainlydoes.
And so when you talk aboutstaying in your own lane, you
mention that we talked aboutstaying in your own lane.

(01:52:56):
You mention that we talkedabout that in 1613.
We got a stay in your own lanetreaty with you guys.
There's your lane, Stay in it.
There's our lane.
It represents the canoe and thevessel, the boat and your

(01:53:19):
religion.
Your way, your ceremonies, yourlaws stay in your vessel.
Ours will stay in ours.
And we agree to travel theriver of life side by each.
Not to enforce ours onto anyone.

(01:53:40):
You're not to enforce yoursonto us.
Violations there's a lot ofviolations that occur.
There's a lot of violationslike that one out there.
We got treaties afterwards withthe colonizers and there's a

(01:54:02):
lot of misinterpreted writings,Because you also got to remember
that there's a barrier oflanguage understandings.
The interpreters wereChristians, the interpreters.
They were told at the verybeginning that the way to get to

(01:54:26):
the indigenous people's landsis through their language, and I
was told that linguist wasdeveloped here in America, in
Massachusetts, for that verypurpose.
You've got to understand whatthey talk about in order to take

(01:54:51):
their land, At the same timepassing a law that Massachusetts
claimed all the way over to thewest coast it was theirs.
I don't know if they everrescinded that law.
That law was passed in a pub Ofcourse it was yeah, right.

(01:55:11):
And so when you look at thedestruction, you know you guys
are scholars, academics, and youunderstand his story.
I had a hard time in schoolmyself when Oren mentioned that
he went to 7th grade.
I got him.
I went to 8th grade, I got himby a year.

(01:55:33):
And I didn't get along with myteachers either, especially
social studies, because I'd gohome to do my homework.
So they didn't hold me backagain and I'd ask my uncle and
my mom why are you guys teachingus this and they're teaching us

(01:55:57):
this and they're not the same?
And uncle said well, my ma saidfirst she said break that word
in half.
That's his story.
That's not necessarily how ithappened, but that's his story.

(01:56:19):
And if you want to pass in hisclass then you got to understand
his story, but if you want tosurvive as Onondaga then you
better listen to his.
And she pointed at her brother,my uncle.
So I closed that book and Istarted talking to uncle and I

(01:56:46):
was a little bit different thanother people, my age, my friends
, my brothers.
I got eight brothers and threesisters and three that were
taken in, adopted.
It wasn't adoption, but theyalways slept with us and ate

(01:57:11):
with us, did chores with us, soI guess you can call it an
adoption.
One of them was a white guy,billy Donathan.
You remember him?
Yeah, billy, my ma took him in.

(01:57:32):
He was orphaned and he lived upon Onondaga Hill and there's a
dirt road that used to go toOnondaga Hill that I lived on
and my father friended him andso he stayed with us.
He was my older brother's age.
He stayed and hung out with usuntil dark and walking back.

(01:57:54):
He stayed hung out with usuntil dark and walking back up
the hill about a three-mile walk.
And one day this taxi driverthat used to be down in the
nation, paul Beckman it was dark, so they hired him to take that

(01:58:15):
boy home and he got home andwhen he was there the house was
empty and there was a box withhis stuff in it and a note that
said you like the Indians somuch.
Go live with them.
So he did.
He lived with us till he died.
I mean, he went on his own oncehe became an adult.

(01:58:37):
But we took him in and underthose teachings are is he must
have followed the white roots ofpeace to get to us, and the
white roots of peace is in thegreat law.
When the great tree of peacewas planted, as you heard Oren
mention that, the tree wasuprooted and all the weapons of

(01:59:00):
war were buried and to be washedoff by the waters under the
ground so that our nextgenerations don't see these
weapons of war.
They're not just knives andtomahawks and bows and arrows.
Weapons of war, it's darkthinking, sharp words.
That's what starts wars.

(01:59:22):
Right A gun don't start a war.
It's those dark emotions thattrigger you to get somebody else
mad or upset.
And so those are all buried too.
And on top of it the root, thetree, is placed back over that

(01:59:42):
uprooted hole where all theweapons of war are buried and
the white roots are expanded inall directions.
Anybody can follow them rootsto seek shelter under the laws
of the great law of peace.
And so that's what my eldersthought this little white boy

(02:00:02):
was doing, because we heard thatbefore anybody that was
sometimes called captiveSettlers children are kidnapped
in the woods and raised asIndians.

(02:00:24):
Hardly any of them wanted to goback.
They never wanted to go back totheir own people, they wanted
to stay.
The Louisiana Purchase is a bigexample of that.
The French did the same thing.
The French was in control ofthat right According to their
laws, their man-made up laws.

(02:00:46):
When it came time for theFrench to fight for that, their
own people said, no, we're not,but these are good people, and
they created their own culturedown there.
And since they didn't have nosupport of the Frenchmen on the
lands, then they had to sell it,which wasn't even their right
to sell, but they did anyways.

(02:01:09):
And so when you talk about thegreat love, peace, it connects
to every single thing in life.

Speaker 1 (02:01:18):
It connects to all things in life, even war.

Speaker 3 (02:01:23):
It talks about wars.
It talks about sharp words.
The sharp words that hurtfeelings, that cause wars, are
buried, so future generationsdon't have to see that buried.
So future generations don'thave to see that.
And so when the missionariesstart coming into our area, this
is what we remember.
But it was our kids.

(02:01:44):
It was a young, I don't knowhow many winters old.
He was 11 winters maybe.
I think we don't count theyears, we count the winters.
How old are you?
Even to ask you how old you are, don't you still say how many

(02:02:09):
winters have you seen?
And sometimes you tellSometimes we might have had no
snow that winter.
So you're still 39.
Everybody's 39.
There was a pause and this guywas in that mission, st Marie Le

(02:02:33):
Moynes, wherever it was, notfar from here, just up, less
than thousand yards away, and heheard something under his foot
and he went and told his peoplethat that floor sounds different
under that carpet or that rugthey had, sleeping pad or

(02:02:57):
sleeping rug they had.
And so they.
He was instructed to go findout what made it sound different
.
Because they were skeptical ofthese mission missionaries,
because the first thing theysaid was they got paper to your
land.
Right, they had a documentsaying this is all ours now, but

(02:03:19):
we'll work with you Telling usthat.
Well, anyways, they foundweapons under there, guns and
rum.
Rum or whiskey, one or theother, I don't know.
There was a taste of who we didtrade with by.

(02:03:42):
Either it was with the Frenchfor the rum or the English for
the taste.
So it became a war between themon supplying us the drink we
preferred after we got a tasteof it.
This is what we heard from ouroral teachings, and we're told

(02:04:07):
that either one of them are nogood and it burns your guts, and
they must have meant your liverbecause it causes cirrhosis.
So our people knew that wayback then that they call it fire
water.
It burns your insides out.

(02:04:30):
And so, anyways, as far as themissionaries go and what you
were talking about and how toteach that I'm going and what
you were talking about and howto teach that you can't really
instruct someone to say, readthis book, this book, this book,
all those books, and you becomea teacher yourself.

(02:04:50):
You have to teach by exampleand in the case of the
Christians, it would bereturning the land without
question to who it belongs to.
Then you'll get your answers toa better environment.
Return the land immediately,without question.

(02:05:17):
No, you have to become a priestin order to accept this land or
any of that kind of stuff.
Because that's what they'resaying.
The higher-ups got more landand got more control of it.
We'll turn it all back over,right to the people, right to

(02:05:40):
the people of the land, startingright here.
Pull the strings, write paperwhat do you call that?
Pen to the paper To initiatethe United States laws to
automatically turn over landback to the indigenous peoples,
because it was the Christianswho helped formate the laws,

(02:06:01):
even to this day, to do just thedamage that we're talking about
.
And so if you want to starthealing, you start with where it
started, taking the land.
So give it back.
Make the laws happen to give itback, get the money available
to pass the laws to get it back.
Then you're going to see somehealing start taking effect,

(02:06:22):
just like on the Klamath Riverand what the salmon are doing
and what the bears are doing andthe berries and all that,
everything we just talked about.
Right, environmental justice iscoming to show its face by
returning that.

(02:06:44):
So when you look at the body ofwater and you feel the presence
of the water just for a moment,feel that You're surrounded in
sacred water.
You don't know the outside worldyet, you haven't even taken a

(02:07:05):
breath yet, but you can feel thewater and the water breaks and
you take your breath.
In itself is a sacred time,sacredness of it.
And so when you talk about thesacredness of water and then you

(02:07:30):
talk about constructing a dam,that's like taking the
indigenous people out of theirhouse and putting them on a
reservation in the water, in alake or a reservoir.
You're damming up, you'restopping natural flow.
You're stopping it, you're notkilling it.
We're still here.

(02:07:52):
The waters are still going overthat dam.
They're trying to have controlof all natural life, including
indigenous people.
So if you want to do the rightthing, then put your pen to the
paper and make a law to givethis land right back to the
indigenous peoples all acrossthe country and start the

(02:08:14):
healing process right there forthe environment, and then keep
all your religions and all yourfancy dancing and all your
whiskey and rum in your boatRight and sail away.

Speaker 8 (02:08:41):
There's more to the story, that's great, that's a
good place to end.
I think, yeah, I think so.
Perfect wrap-up.

Speaker 1 (02:08:55):
The producers of this podcast were Adam T Brett and
Jordan Lawn Cologne.
Our intro and outro is socialdancing music by Oris Edwards
and Regis Cook.
This podcast is funded incollaboration with the Henry
Luce Foundation, SyracuseUniversity and Hendrix Chapel
and the Indigenous ValuesInitiative.
If you like this episode,please check out our website and

(02:09:16):
make sure to subscribe.

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