#58 - Raising a Wisdom Baby: Indigenous Knowledge That Won't Let You Sleep - Guest: Miranda Rowland - Tribal Research Specialist: The Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Aaron Brien (00:00):
How do you say um?
How do you say um?
Oh shoot, they asked me theother day.
My nephew asked me.
Yeah, he said how do you saythat in Salish?
What is it?
You know what?
I don't know what just happenedEagle how do you say eagle?
Which kind?

(00:21):
Uh, let's just say a goldeneagle.

Shandin Pete (00:25):
Malkanoops.

Oh, how about a baldy Pakalakai?
He just made that up.

Yeah, yeah he can get away with a lot of things,

(01:02):
like I said.
Just make it sound realguttural.
He can get away with a lot ofthings, like I said.

Just make it sound real guttural and poppy.
How do you say it?
Is there a word for the bigdrum?

The big drum.
No, I mean, it's just a made-upword, you know.

Or you know not, a hand drum yeah.

It's just like a bigger version of a drum.
Pumine is the drum, but I thinkit's like kutunpumine or
kutlpumine, just meaning abigger drum.

Well, you said it was a made-up word.

I thought that was interesting.
Well, not made.
I mean, I guess, descriptive ofit visually rather than aren't?

aren't all words made up?
Well, I guess, but are they?

from divine prompting, yeah yeah now, legend
would have it that, um, thenative americans learned their
language from, uh, listening tonature, the babbling of a, of a

(02:18):
stream uh, oh, I've heard.

I actually heard this one with the salish people
I'm just making this up.

I never heard it, so tell me more.

I heard it.
How do you say water in SalishSawalk?
Yeah, I heard that one time.

Oh, really, there's some crazy stuff
happening that's sort ofstraying from the things that I
remember, the things that I Igrew up knowing like I don't
know.
It kind of almost seems likepeople are just kind of filling
in the holes with, uh, I don'tknow if I'd say I I can't

(03:02):
confirm or deny that they'remade up but, it appears as if
some things are given somewhatof liberty to come up with some
things that sound, might soundright.
I don't know.
I don't know, though, I can'tsay for sure, but you know, you

(03:28):
get that feeling.
You get that feeling thatsomething just doesn't seem
right.

Uh, yeah actually, yeah, that leads us to uh,
that's a good segue to no what Iwant to talk about, but we're
not there yet no, no no, don'tsay segue choose a different
word transition.
Why can't I say you can saysegue.

I just I don't I say segue or listen, segue
piggyback or listen SegwayPiggyback, echo, none of those.

Not on this podcast .

Not on this podcast.

Miranda Rowland (04:12):
Uh-uh, no I want to piggyback on your
thought there.
I want to piggyback on yourthought.

Is it Bush League?
Is it Bush?

League no, no, no.

Hey, Miranda, you got to use the camera so we can
see facial expressions.

I'm just I'm just kind of hacking on.
Uh, you know you're in ameeting and somebody you know,
the usual, oh, it's a good segueto then then change the topic
or I'm going to piggyback off ofthat comment that, um, j
mentioned.
And then they say something.
You know, I'm just picking onpeople in meetings because I

(04:51):
choose not to use those terms.
Yeah.
Segway.

Piggyback.
Echo Segway sounds like a Creeword.

Segway Segway.

Yeah, I think it is Only me, do I?

Check case Segway Sama.
Yeah.
I think, it is a.
Cree word.

That sounded real, sounded legit.
Yeah, I think it is a Cree word.
That sounded real, soundedlegit.
Yeah, segwe semano makotaMakota.
Segwe semano makota.

Song Narrator (05:45):
You're making stuff up now hey, I want to, I
want to.

I want to show you something.
I want you to listen some.
I don't know if I showed youthis before, but I'm gonna, um,
I want you to listen.
Uh, let's see.
Yeah, I want you to listen tothis.
This is an old recording,really old.
Well, I don't know about old,it's old and comparative.

(06:11):
Let's see here you ready?
I'm going to have to do alittle scrubbing because I don't
think I'm in the right spot.

That's an interesting choice of words, I
know scrubbing.

yeah, Can you?
Hear that.
Thanks, Sid.

Now Sid's going to get some of our singers
together so that you can hearhow we do some of the Flathead
songs.
Okay, hear that.
I won't name the songs theywill sing, because if you don't
recognize them, then the namesare better left unsaid.
You hear that.
Actually, the reason for makingthese recordings is so that you
can give us comments andpointers on how to improve them.

(06:48):
Okay, I doubt that we will everput any of your singers out of
business, but we do hope that wecan be a credit to them and
bring an appreciation of theflathead music to people in this
part of the country.
So as lou tiller would say okayspin day.
So as Lou.

Tiller would say okay, spent day, okay, here it
comes, here it comes.

(07:59):
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha.
I nailed it.

All right, let's hear it, let's hear it, let's
hear it.
Uh, well, for one, they'resinging on the beat.
Okay, yes, so we'll go ahead.
We'll go ahead and get that out, let's critique, let's critique
singing on the beat huh yeah umare these?
Are these non-native folks?

I don't know what do you think.
I'm curious your opinion.
Now this is probably recordedin the 50s, maybe, or maybe late
40s, I don't know.
It's bad, it is bad, it'shorrible man did you recognize

(08:54):
the song?

it's that round bustle tune or whatever they
call that.
What is that called?
Prairie chicken the chickendance, prairie chicken dance?
Yeah, what did you think?
What is that called PrairieChicken the Chicken Dance Show,
the Prairie Chicken Dance?
Yeah.

What did you think, miranda?
I know it sounded interesting,I'm just giving a little bit of
Chipmunk-ish.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Chipmunk.
Yeah.

Yes, chipmunk war dance songs.
Yeah, yes, chick.

Chipmunk War Dance songs.
So this is.

I did enjoy your guys's dance moves, though, you
know, only paid Patreon sponsorsget to see those dance moves.
Now if you're a Patreon sponsor, you can, you can.
You can become one for aslittle as $2 a month, which is a
really minor contribution.
If you think about your dailyexpenses, it's about one-eighth

(09:56):
of a Starbucks latte.

Right $2 for this amount of knowledge is the
bargain by or the amount ofknowledge is the bargain buy or
the costco of knowledge get thisby the bulk man and cheap and
cheap.

Hey, there's some other good ones on this, but I'm
not going to play it.

That was awesome man.

So yeah, so this come off of these reel-to-reels
I got and it's a recording thatwas sent to Louis Nine Pipe.
And somehow it ended up in thehands of Larry Parker and
apparently this is a.
You know them dance troops likeI think they're like Boy Scout,

(10:49):
or you know they're like littleIndian hobbyists, you know.

Yeah, camp Winnemucca, or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, camp Rainalot, yeah, Camp Raina.
Yes, rain and snow camp campcamp alluvial fan whoa, whoa,

(11:20):
human, straight, geomorphic wayto go.
Man, I'm proud of you.
Alluvial fan, try it.
Yeah, yeah, anyway, um, uh,yeah, hobbyist group from uh,
cleveland and um, uh, I guessthey met I don't know the full
story.
I tried to.
I tried to reach out to one ofthese folks on the recording

(11:43):
years ago to maybe they give methe backstory, but I never
reached.
I could never get a holdanybody.
But yeah, they sing a bunch ofsongs on there, some old
flathead songs, some old.
You know, just like you knowhow hobbies start, they'll sing
anything.
You know some stomp dance andall kinds of stuff, but yeah,

(12:03):
you know it is what it is yeahbut pretty standard, and I I bet
you, since that time nothinghas really changed, like you
could probably find a group likethat today yeah, you could.

You could.
Unfortunately, too, there'snative people who sing like that
.

Now, I said it I said it you said it well, yeah,
I mean there's a history to that, though a long complicated
history.
But I don't know if we'retalking.
You wanted to segue, so I'mgonna let you segue, segue,
segue so my fake, our fake kreelanguage, yeah, yeah, um, we're

(13:01):
sounding like these people onthe tape, probably to kree.
They're like oh my god, listento this well uh, I don't okay,
so here's.

Here's what.
I had an eventful week, right,bubbly.
Hey, miranda, we tried those,didn't we?
What?
What we gotta get?
Got to work on Miranda'spodcast voice, like you got to
project into the microphone.

Yeah, sit up a little bit.
Get your back off the wall,that'll make you sleepy.

Oh, shrug your shoulders a bit Shrug your
shoulders a little bit oh, thereit is, there it is.

What is this?
Open the diaphragm, yeah, openthe thoracic cavity.

Well, show me where the Where's the diaphragm
Show me where the diaphragms are, your thoracic?
Cavity.

Your thoracic cavity.

Push, push, push, like right below the rib, the
boss rib yeah, just get it likeyou're taking that energy ball
so so here's what.

So here's what happened here's what happened?

Let's hear it.

Let's break it down .
I'm not going to name any namesor anything.
So we invited Miranda on thepodcast today because she's an
active scholar, nativeresearcher and scholar right, as
opposed to like me.
I'm not doing any research, I'mjust talking shit on a podcast

(14:49):
all the time.

Okay, okay, well, I mean yeah, I beg to differ,
but yeah let's go.

But we're always talking me and miranda are
always talking about her, herresearch are like, so it's kind
of like re-igniting this, likethe academic part of me, okay.
So we talk a lot about her workand like what she's doing and
that part.
We can talk about that partlater.

(15:19):
But anyway, she's taking acourse and in this particular
course, a speaker was invited.
She recorded it, so we listenedto it and I was triggered, okay
, I was triggered by thisrecording, okay, and what it was
?
Oh, go ahead, go ahead.

Let's get a little background first, man, what?

Well, we'll let her , we'll let her yeah.

Tell us what you're studying.
For anonymity reasons, youdon't have to tell us where I
don't know.
Do we do that?
Should you sign?

a waiver you share whatever it is you want to share
, but it's up to you, but yourresearch topic at least, at the
very least.

Yeah, and we'll let you review this and if you
don't know anything on this oryou can opt out, that's informed
consent, right?
You?

guys are freaking me out.

Okay.
All right.

Well first of all, we want to be concerned with
your safety.

So if you do feel like any sort of we can refer
you to tribal health we got anumber for you to call if at any
moment do you feel triggered or?

no longer.

I need a magnet with that information on it if
anytime you feel pregnant or uhpregnant with knowledge, that is
pregnant knowledge uh with uh,wisdom with child.

(17:03):
I believe it's called a wisdomchild if you feel like you're
birthing a wisdom child yeah I'min the second, I'm in the
second trimester of my wisdomchild.

Okay, you're on.

You're on, Miranda .

Yeah, whatever you took out of all that go
Introduce yourself.
I was going to say something.

No, that was it.
I just went off into some weirdrant.

You're good, go .
Okay.
So my name's miranda roland.
Now, wait a minute, I'm gonnastop you right there.

What I don't want to act wait, wait, intro.
We don't do that here.
You don't have the talking thespirit stick the spirit stick is
not present.

I actually actually an indigenous research method.
It's called the medicine stick.

Oh yeah, oh yeah well, you know it comes in
varieties depending on whichnation you are representing the.

Some use a stone In which you feel comfortable.

And some use a scone.
Okay, okay, all right, allright, okay, I'm owning it down.
Okay, go ahead, you just saywho you are wherever you want,
in the way you are accustomed,in the manner of your tribal
people.
No, I'm just kidding.

Okay, go ahead.
I was.
I I started it and then yousaid no, academic I know but I
feel like that.
Um, so I'm from lodge grass.
Um grew up there here and there.
But if you ask aaron, he saysI'm not from lodge grass oh no,
no you, it's a joke, she's fromlodge grass I'm from lodge grass

(19:07):
, but I didn't grow up thereyeah
okay, um, yeah, so I go to msubozeman, um, I'm in the earth
sciences department, um, I amresearching the fire history,
the fire and vegetation historyof Axolotl's Twin Lake.

(19:28):
My research goes back 12,000years, which is pretty cool.
So I'm doing a reconstructionof fire events over that amount
of time, yeah, and looking atchanges in vegetation.
Okay, yeah, and looking atchanges in vegetation.
Ok, so with that I started kindof thinking about how natives

(19:52):
use fire, right Like with theburning aspect of it, and just
kind of started delving intothat.
So I guess that's kind of how Igot.
You know, I was used toresearching like using
scientific method, and you knoweverything that I had learned in
junior high, high school,college, you know.
And then I started looking atcultural burning and figured out

(20:19):
that I don't know how to dothat.

You personally, you know you personally have
never started a cultural burn.
You've never been to a 49?
.

No, well, I had one time with my mom.

You've never helped start a fire at a 49?
, because that's kind ofcultural burning, I think.
Anyway, okay.

Does Crow Fair count?
I'm kidding.

Do you start a grass fire at crow?

fireworks, fireworks, fireworks fireworks
fireworks, yeah, fireworks,roman candles roman candle?
I don't know if that counts,keep going anyway.
So the actual research of likedoing archive research and
talking to people and you know,I guess, kind of gathering data

(21:13):
that way information, I realizedright away that I was super
unfamiliar with it.
You know even though you know Iwent a little bit corn, it, you
know, even though you know Iwent a little bit corn, um, yeah
and just.
But it really reminded me oflike when I did talk to people,
just like how normalconversations go, when you visit

(21:33):
with them about things and youtry to pick their brains and
kind of.

You know, I guess it was unfamiliar territory yeah
to me yeah yeah okay so I gotit so yeah, I don't know, so um
oh no go ahead.
So you're, uh, you're, going,you're trying to achieve a
master's or a phd.

(21:58):
Did I miss that?
A master's?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Okay, master's no, no, yeah,I'm in my master's, I'm in my
master's program master'sprogram msu, which, which is,
which is an ecology right.

The overall thing would be ecology or what?
What would the degree?

say earth science would be first it'll say earth
science yeah so I'm in the earthscience department, but it okay
it's like paleoecology okay soI, so I see, um well, I mean,
there's a number of things totalk about right there that you
just said, some things that areyeah so, yeah, go ahead.

Well, that's the.
So we talk a lot right we?
Talk a lot about it, especiallylike landscapes, the crow
relationship to land, like wevisited a lot about this stuff,
and then also just indigenousresearch method in general, the

(22:58):
whole idea of like how to usetribal knowledge and what that
looks like tribal knowledge andand what that looks like, yeah,
and because we talk so muchshe's, I'd like to think that,
like, she's starting tounderstand the way I think.
Right, yeah, miranda yeah, Ithink so okay, so, so, um, yeah,

(23:21):
anyway, that led us, herstudies, led her to a certain
course, which is what led tothis, to these events of today,
which is what triggered me and Iwent on this like scoping
mission where we both of us did,where we were calling people

(23:41):
and you were one of them, wherewe were asking this question.
But we'll let you finish.
I'll let you finish.
Let me finish.
Yeah, yeah, you were talking.

I interrupted you no, no, no, I'm just trying to
get, I'm just trying to get theflow, because I was going to go
off on something else, but Iforgot there was a trigger.
Yeah, there was a trigger well,now I want to know what well,
no, you know, I I wanted to talkabout archival research, in
particular data, and inparticular how that gets

(24:15):
utilized both in academics andout of academics.
But I think that's a differentconversation, because the
important one is this, but no, Idon't know though no, it is, I
think it is.
Oh, okay, it might cross over,but let's talk about the trigger
okay, because this is them.
Well, keep well, miranda, keepset this up for us and and
remember you don't have to saypeople's names or anything, but

(24:39):
just kind of set set this wholething up well, I think this is
going to be a familiar narrativethat I think a lot of I'm
guessing that a lot of nativescholars not a native uh
graduate students encounter, soI want to hear it well yeah, I
guess that was kind of too yeah

well, okay.
So I, that's what I thought tooright, because, like, if
there's anything that youencounter, like in anything that
you do and in this instanceit's grad school, right, but um,
I, I think about that and, likeyou know, asking aaron about it
, you know, like I talked to myfamily and I talked to my dad.

(25:21):
You know my dad, you dad, youknow, got his, did a
dissertation, okay, and hestudied the Northern Cheyenne
tribe.
So when I have questions aboutacademic things, you know I like
to pick people's brains, youknow, yeah.
So in this instance, you know,I just we have presenters that

(25:46):
come in and talk, you know,about different subjects, and we
had a presenter come in and youknow she was talking about
culture.
You know, like traditionalpractices, just, you know food
systems, stuff, like that, right, like how you know.
Yeah.
How natives had used the buffalobefore, you know and whatnot,

(26:10):
okay, and I, I don't know it.
Just it kind of didn't sit thatwell with me because it didn't
feel like there was a lot ofdepth in it.
It felt kind of.
I felt like it could have beenbetter, you know yeah and it it
kind of hit home for me because,like you know, these are native

(26:32):
people that we look up to andwho are examples for us, you
know, as we're moving throughgrad school.
You know, yeah, and I justthought I felt like that was
kind of triggering for me, youknow, cause, like I come from
the reservation, you know, wentto school there, you know, and I
feel like I'd like to think I'mgrounded in it.

(26:52):
You know, come home a lot.
Um and it just, it just makes mewonder, like about like other
natives and academics and likehow they deal with those types
of things.
Or have they run into thosetypes of things?
Yeah, where you see a spectrumof people where you know they're

(27:13):
, either you know they have alot of like, I feel like a lot
of knowledge, or they're activein their communities.
They participate in culturalevents, versus not at all and
not really being in touch withthem and I feel like it's
important.

(27:33):
I feel like it's important tolike be with your communities.
You know, I feel like itgrounds you and kind of gives
you like a.
It's part of your sense of self.
I feel like right you know, Idon't know, so I'm trying to
start it.
I don't know.

Aaron is like if you have thoughts about that or
well, no, no, um, okay, I do, Ido, but okay well, let me, let
me just back up.

Let me just back up for one second, okay, okay,
so we can get this, so we canfollow along.
So there's a course and therewas a speaker in the course that
talking about, in summary,indian things, indian things in
it oh yeah it made youuncomfortable yeah or it didn't,

(28:19):
something didn't seem right.
Something didn't seem rightyeah and this person, yeah, is
apparently also a native personyeah okay, all right, okay, go
ahead and so.
And what they were sayingapparently lacked some depth

(28:40):
yeah yeah, yeah, okay, I got alot to say about that.

Yeah, go ahead oh yeah, go ahead no, no, you go
ahead then we'll let aaron goahead because he's getting ready
.

He's loading up his mic.
He's getting ready.
No, yeah, no, you go it's acanadian standoff.
Oh no, no you go.

Yeah, yeah, and I mean like a lot of the things
I feel like that I've kind ofencountered, like in my research
, you know dealing with, likeyou know talking about Western
knowledge versus traditionalknowledge and traditional
ecological knowledge, like Ifeel like I've run into those
terms quite a bit in my just inthese past two years, you know,

(29:31):
oh yeah, and so I mean it'sinteresting to hear like other
people talk about it, you know,and I feel like I'm pretty like
I'm pretty receptive to likepeople's points of views you
know, because I'm always tryingto add, like my knowledge base,
you know especially from othernative scholars.
Yeah, like my knowledge base,you know, especially from other
Native scholars.

Yeah, okay.
So let's hear it, aaron,because you were just about to
break something down for me,because I have some questions
and I have some answers and Ihave some experiences that I
want to add to this, but let'shear it before I go off.

Well, I want to rewind a little bit to earlier
in the year.
Okay, let's rewind.
Um miranda had some guestscoming to um crow to spend the
day in the archives with her.
Okay so, but prior to visit, Iwas very opinionated Like I was.

(30:28):
I was pretty opinionated, right.

Meaning you didn't agree or you had a concern.

Probably both.
I think both Didn't think theyought to be there and was
concerned why they were there.
Yeah, and it wasn't.
It wasn't because they were,they were, their intentions were
bad.
Okay, I see this happen a lotwith, like native scholars,
where they're they're bombardedby their non-native mentors, by

(31:09):
their non-native mentors, soit's typically not other
scholars, it's not other liketheir cohort, it's it's actually
like the professors and theyeah, the lead researchers and
things.
they kind of bombard nativestudents and and I think I even
used the term hijack.
They hijacked their researchand for whatever reason this
happens, I don't know why, andso I had was encouraging her to

(31:29):
like be really aware of that,but because of our, because of
my approach isn't always gentle,right, okay, and I and I'm, and
I'm working on it, okay.

So you're a bit crass, that's what you're saying
we.
You're a bit crass, we got intoit.
That's what you're saying.

We got we got into an argument.
We got into an argument like,like straight up and down, like
six o'clock.
We got into an argument oh, inthe morning or the evening
because that's makes a hugedifference.
It was like all day I think no,I'm just kidding um, I think,
um I, I know, I mean know.

Did the dishes get done.

Yeah, the dishes.
Oh, that's a good argument,those goddamn dishes.
That's a good argument when thedishes get done.

Yeah, okay, yeah.

Okay, keep going.
I mean I, so I know now, I knownow that my approach Wasn't
great, but I was like Reallylike staunch and like the way I
was thinking about it, yeah, andand I great, but I was like
really like staunch and like theway I was thinking about it,
yeah, and you know so, so, oh,having had that disagreement,
okay, yeah, I'm just laying thegroundwork for, for this, so so,
so, keep in mind, we talk aboutthis stuff all the time.

(32:38):
We talk about culture, we talkabout research, we talk about
academics.
Yeah, um, she, she listens tothe podcast.
So it's also like that.
Sometimes we just talk aboutthe podcast, whatever, so it's,
it's always a topic, yeah, it'sfun, I have a lot of fun with it
.
So so, keep in mind, I'm alwayslike critiquing, yeah, this

(33:04):
certain people's approach tostudying Native people.
I'm a bigger critic of our ownpeople.
Okay.
I think I'm actually reallyaware of Native researchers that
are doing what I think is badwork, okay.

(33:25):
And so she tells me she's goingto have this guest native
researchers that are doing whatI think is bad work, okay.
And so she tells me that she'sgoing to have this guest, so,
and you can jump in anytime.

Miranda, I'm here for the ride.
No, I'm kidding.
I'm getting the other sideright now.

Yeah, so she says I recorded her.
After this lecture is over, Irecorded her, so we'll have to
listen to it Wait.

disclaimer.
I record all my presentationsso that I can go back and listen
to them.
Yeah.

Okay.
Anyway.
Yeah, okay, okay.

All right, okay , yeah, okay, anyway, yeah, yeah
, okay, okay, all right okay, um.

So anyway, we got this little trip planned we got
this little trip, so we're going, we're going on this trip, okay
, got it, okay, so we listenedto it.
So we're like listening to itand I get, man, I get like.
I think I remember there wasthe eight minute mark and I was
like I stopped it and I hadthings to say, so then we could

(34:32):
continue to watch it.
Keep in mind it took it's a 5055 minute lecture that took us a
day and a half or a whole dayto listen to, like, because I
kept stopping it and then andthen it was nice, because then
miranda starts saying stuff.
She's like, yeah, like, so,she's like, so I could kind of

(34:53):
see this like, like, almost likethere's a certain level of,
like, academic confidence that'scoming out, like trusting her
opinion, so she's saying it.
So we're driving, which we'relike we're, we're doing a
podcast without recording, right, okay, yeah, so, so, so this,
this is, this is all.

(35:14):
After the day before we, we werepart of these events in bozeman
that basically fell apart.
These events had fallen apartfor another reason, so, but it
was again, it was like fringednative people, native people on
the fringes, native people whoare practitioners, non-native

(35:35):
researchers and academics tryingto interact with those circles.
Right, okay, so her, so thishappened on friday.
This happened on friday, sothese are like three different
so my brain's already like I'mgetting lost you.

That's easy to do but okay, let me let me just
back you up there.
Let me, let me tell you what Ihear, then you can start back
from where you're at all right,so you're debriefing about a,
about a guest speaker in a classright.

Yeah, the class was on like monday, okay, and you
were also and you're alsoreturning from an On this past
Friday yeah, that had a certaintype of indigenous or native
people that were saying certainthings.

(36:35):
No.

No, I mean, that's where I got lost.

There was no talking at this event.
There was supposed to be thisunveiling of this mural, this uh
mural, basically a mural thatwas dedicated to the tribes and
a plant that signifies theirpeople, right, but it fell apart
, oh okay the person that wasrunning.
The event calls me, says it gotshut down.
They don't want to do it.

(36:59):
They're saying we're notworking with tribes directly,
when in fact she was workingdirectly with the official
representative of tribes.
She was working withpreservation officers, right,
yeah, and so that's how I got in.
So anyway, out of support,miranda and I still went to
their coffee.
They had a coffee hour onfriday, okay, which was supposed

(37:20):
to be this big unveiling eventanyway, yeah, so they still kind
of did like a soft unveiling,but we went okay which, which
anyway.
So that plays a little bit intomy attitude.

That's what I was okay, okay, okay, okay, I'm
connecting it.

So then, friday okay, yeah, so friday.
So friday night, saturday,we're gonna go on this little
road trip and that's when sheplays the recording.
Okay, so keep in mind I stillhave this like befuddled
frustration from the day before.

Okay, right yeah, you're riding with a bit of a
grudge yeah, I would say, yeah,I would say yeah no, not much.

It's not like I was sitting around grinding my
teeth A small grumble.
Well, my major frustration is Iwent there wanting to get mad at
white people and I didn't, so Iwas like I ended up being nice.

The rage didn't have an outlet.

Yep.
So then I had to find itsomewhere else, so she plays
this recording, okay, and thenI'm immediately triggered.
Okay, but that's all fine andwell.
This is how you play into this,and this is how Miranda plays
into this.

Okay, so this is going to bring it all together.
I'm ready.

Here we go.
This will bring it all together.
This will bring it all together.
So we had the Friday eventthing, her lecture, all this
stuff.
We listened to the recording.
Yeah, meanwhile, you had sentme a paper you recently finished
, correct, and you're publishing.
Or it's being published rightnow or it is published.
It is published, correct, it ispublished, so just for fun.

(39:04):
Miranda said I can't rememberwho said it, if it was me or her
, but we decided to do a littlepreview on your paper.
Yeah, because you wanted tocritique it.
In all honesty, I wanted tofind something to talk shit to
Shandina about.
Yeah, yeah yeah.

Of course, and you should.

If I'm writing garbage, you should tell me it
ended up, okay, I ended upobserving something that I
thought was pretty remarkable,okay, and I've never gotten to
see, and I don't know if I'llever see so Miranda's reading
the paper Read your abstract,which, by the way, was great.

(39:50):
And so we're going through this, yeah, and and again we press
pause and we talk like we say,oh, see what he's saying, right
there, all right.
And then she makes comments.
Right, she says things likethis is this, is what it should
be like.
I want to read more stuff likethis.
So then we keep going.
Then it's like that's exactlyright, you know, like we're just

(40:12):
in agreement, yeah, yeah, andthen um and then it you ever
have those moments where, likeit just changes, things change,
the mood changes, everythingchanges.
But I'll let her tell that part, because I'll let her decide
how much she wants to say, orwhatever.

(40:34):
But um, this led me to thisquestion of these moments, like
who has these moments?
Yeah what do you remember whenyou had these moments?
But anyway, go ahead, miranda,I'll let you take over okay.

So we were reading the paper right and I'm
going through and I'm like, okay, here's the abstract, you know,
here's the intro.
We're going through and I seenthe the figure right, you had
the figure in there.
Um, and so we're reading paperand then I get through the
abstract and I'm like this islike, and excuse my french, but
I'm like this is badass, youknow and like and that's, you

(41:13):
know, aaron was agreeing.
And then we're reading throughit and you're like, dissecting
as you're going, and I can seethe parallel between your paper
and I can see see it in, like inmy own tribe right and you know
, I'm Crow and Northern Cheyenneand I can see what you're
describing.
You know you're talking aboutrelationships between humans and

(41:36):
plants, or natives and plants,and and I think in there you
even say what did he say inthere, aaron, remember we were
reading it and he was likeyou're, you're um about the
romanticism?
No, about them being separateabout the plant.

(41:59):
Oh, yeah humans being separate,does that thing about and like
you say it in there, you're veryexplicit about it and like you
know, as you're going through,and I you say it in there,
you're very explicit about itand, like you know, as you're
going through and I'm reading it, and it's like interesting it's
, you know, it's engaging, youknow, and it's and I can see the
way you describe those in thatpaper, like the relationships

(42:20):
and whatnot, and how you'retalking is like I can see that
same structure within our tribe.
You know, yeah, and I'm likethis feels real.
This feels like real researchand the quality of it is there,
like it's, you know, it's legit.
And then I was telling aaronand I was like this is what it

(42:44):
should be like, like this iswhat I should be reading more of
, like where do I get more ofthis?
You know, because I've run intosources where they're like you
know I don't know how todescribe if it's superficial or
like romanticizes being NativeAmerican or being enrolled in a
tribe and playing into thosegeneralizations or those

(43:07):
stereotypes you know, and ittook, you know, going through
research these past couple ofyears and then talking to Aaron
about everything, trying tounderstand it like indigenous
research methods.
He talks about it so much andI'm like try to absorb it like
what he's talking about yeah andthen I had this presentation

(43:32):
where I felt like it just couldhave been better.
I feel like it's romanticizedbeing being native and then, I
read your paper and I wastalking to aaron about it and it
just like clicked where.
I was like holy cow, just thequality of the research and the
difference in the research wasjust.
I was, I don't know it was justthere.

(43:54):
So it was a little bit like anepiphany for me and I just
thought, like that's somethingthat I need to do with my
research is I need to be moreassertive, you know, and have
like more confidence in myselfto do it.
Yeah, if that makes sense, yeah, it does.

Yeah, yeah, it certainly does.
And, um, I think this is a Idon't know if it seems like a
common issue that I've seenrepeated over and over, probably
since I was in school, andAaron probably has the same
experience but the sort of thebody of native scholarship is

(44:41):
sort of lacking and it followsthe thing that you said there's
a lack of depth.
You, you said there's a lack ofdepth.
You know there's a lack ofdepth.
I don't know how many thingsI've read about indigenous,
about native american, whatever,and but it does, it doesn't.
It doesn't lay out in practicalterms what those things mean,

(45:02):
like you can.
There's, there's three popularwords like native epistemology,
native ontology and nativeaxiology.
You hear people use those wordsall the time, both native and
non-native, but they don't say,they don't follow the path to
what, how that's operationalizedand how it works.

(45:23):
So it becomes this really broadgeneral thing and it's usually,
uh, has a little hashtag likeall things are related, natives
are holistic, everything'sconnected, um, everything's got
a spirit.
But there's there's this huge,huge black hole of well, what

(45:45):
does that mean?
And I think, when, when we saythose things like if I told
aaron about, oh yeah, thisthing's got spirit and him, and
I will know what that means.
When we say that in english, westarted, we have an agreeance
already because we have verysimilar, uh, life experience and
understanding of things.
But when we say that tonon-Indian people, they don't

(46:08):
know what we mean and we don'thave necessarily the time, or
maybe we don't even have theEnglish construct, to illustrate
what that means.
Um, as we understand ittogether, it's, it's a term that
that they call um likehermeneutical injustice, where

(46:33):
you're not dumb, you just don'thave the tools to say to another
person of another world viewthe kind of things that you
understand, understand, justdon't have them.
So you yeah, you, I and aaron,we we come from maybe one or two
or three generations that haveengaged in this type of

(46:54):
educational structure.
That's it, man, like mygrandparents were.
My grandparents didn't speakenglish.
They didn't go to school then,none of that.
So when we say spirit, thespirit of the rock, I mean, how
can we say it anymore outside ofan indigenous understanding, a

(47:17):
native understanding that wouldmake people understand?
we just don't, we don't have thethings like people, like like
non-native people can referenceoh, plato and the great
philosophers understood this,this, and that they can
reference this long history ofwritten material that helps them
and other people to understandwhat the heck they're talking
about.
So the lack of depth, I think,is because of that.

(47:41):
We're just, but it didn't.
It does not serve us anypurpose, nor has it long enough
a time passed to where we'vecommitted those things to some
sort of form of communicationthat other people can understand
.
That's one thing, number one.
So that paper I wrote Can yousay that word again.

(48:02):
Which one?

I feel like this is the learning.

Oh, the hermeneutical Go ahead, go ahead
.
Let's hear Aaron say it Her,her, her.

Herma.

Hematoma.

Hermodive Hermotype .
It's not a tumor.

Oh, is that Arnold ?
It's not a duma.
What was that arnold?
It's not a duma.
No, it's not a duma.
Say the word hermeneuticalinjustice, I don't know.
Yes, hermeneutical.
Hermeneutical yeah, it's part ofa larger part of a phenomenon

(48:45):
called epistemic injustice.
This is not, this is not me,this is just things I read.
You know, I'm not, I don't, I'mnot expert in these things, I
just know of these things, butthey seem to describe this
phenomenon pretty well.
You're, you're learned, learned, I'm learned.
I know how to skim just enougharticles that I can pick these

(49:06):
things up.
Okay, go ahead.

I'm curious to know what number two is.
You said number one, so what'snumber two?
Oh, okay.

I'll go down the list.

Let's go down the list.
Yeah, go down.
I want to go down the list.

Here's the things I heard, and so let me back up
then, because I want to finishmy diatribe on lack of depth.
Up then, because I want tofinish my my diatribe on lack of
depth.
So some of the lack of depthalso comes from and I don't want
to use the word man, I don'twant to use it because it's sad,
I don't like talking about it.

(49:38):
You know, a lot of our parentsand grandparents got shipped off
to the boarding schools.
Right, yeah, that happened.
And then, if they survive thatand they come back and they lost
this connection with theirparents and their grandparents,

(49:58):
and then they get old, and thenthey have all these young, eager
, native adults and young peopleasking them for knowledge and
wisdom.
It's like that Powell Highway,remember.
Everybody's always coming hereasking for some good old Indian
wisdom.
Well, I ain't got none,remember that.

Yeah, that was a lame deer.
Yeah, yeah.

Well.
So it seems like this thinghappens a lot, right, and the
human ego is very fragile.
I know that because I'm a human, my ego is somewhat fragile,
but we mitigate that fragile egothrough norms and customs that
help us to maintain a certaindegree of honesty, so we can say

(50:47):
what we know, how much we know,and what we don't know, and how
much we don't know, and be okaywith it.
Well, you can only imaginethese older people, you know,
look, being looked up by, to allthese people being put on a
pedestal as being, you know, thewise elders.
You know, the popularscholarship does that too.

(51:11):
It says these elders, you know,they use the word elder first
of all.
They have all this wisdom andknowledge.
So what are they going to do?
You know they're like man, Iguess you know.
Then they're sort of a their,their ego.
I don't know if this iscompletely true.
It's just like a theory their,their, their egos become

(51:32):
compromised.
So when they get asked aboutsomething, sometimes they're
going to make things up orthey're going to maybe sort of
glorify or, um, magnifysomething to appease the
questioning that they're getting.
So they don't look like theydon't know, because that's a
hard pill to swallow for someoneto say I don't know, for

(51:54):
certain people to say I don'tknow.
That's a tough one.
So often you get things thatlack depth but also that don't
feel right or don't seem right,but also that don't feel right
or don't seem right, like a lotof these things we hear.
You know, we're a relative ofthe plant, we're a relative, and
you fill in the blank.

(52:14):
We've popular scholarship hassort of adopted that idea that
everything indigenous under thesun is a relative to us.
We're a relative to the bison,relative to data, relative to
whatever.
But that really cheapens thetrue relationship that we have
with those things.

(52:35):
We can't be related to allthese darn things.
You know we, we're barely arelative to our own self.
In that sense we don't reallytreat each other very well as
humans.
So lack of depth leads to lackof inaccuracy as well.
So you lose that deep, complexidea that follows along with all

(52:58):
these things.
I'm still on number one.
You want to hear more.

I want go ahead miranda, yeah, anybody, I mean
me, me and him talk all the timeyeah, I mean, I think that's, I
agree, you know, I think thatand we we talked about that like

(53:24):
how it's almost, and it's evena conversation that I had with
my dad.
You know where you talk aboutpeople that are like in an
academic setting, kind of youknow, promoted or put on a
pedestal kind of like how yousaid, and you know, and I feel
like ego is part of that.

(53:45):
you know it kind of feeds intothat you know, and I think you
can almost get lost in it, youknow oh, yeah, oh yeah that's.

It's really um.
The word is seductive.
I don't want to use the wordbecause it sounds weird oh, it
is imagine.
Just yeah, imagine standing infront of 50 people that are just
looking at you in awe becauseof the things you're saying.
There's a lot of temptation tomake stuff up or to appease what

(54:20):
you think they ought to hear.

Yeah, and the justification is that you're
using real knowledge, but youmight embellish it or you might
alter it or you might enhance Idon't want to say like sometimes
people don't lie, but their egoallows them leeway and a
certain liberties that normallywouldn't be there with among

(54:43):
their own people, right, yeah?
yeah my issue with academics andthis ego feeding is that it's
allowed people who are and Iwant to make sure I say this
there's nothing wrong withlearning your culture later in
life that's not what I mean.
And there's nothing wrong withbeing a descendant of a tribe

(55:05):
and showing some sort of tributeto that bloodline.
You have right.
But I feel like academics,universities have become the
NICU for the culturallyimpoverished.

The what the NICU?
What is a NICU?
Culturally impoverished?
The?
What?
Like the mic you what does?

that make you what's a mic?

you nick nick nick, nick, n, n, I c k, nick.
Yeah, like for babies a nick.
You, what the heck is a nickICU?
Nicu, nicu, I've never heard ofthat.
Yeah, nicu, what is it Forbabies?
Like in hospitals.

Is it like a pacifier?

No, it's for like babies who are struggling, and
they keep them in ICU.

Intensive care.

Intensive care for babies.

Like a neonatal intensive care unit.

Unit NICU.
I got it Okay.

NICU.
Keep going.
Keep going.
All right, I want the listenersto follow along.

The NICU.
They've become this for latecultural learners.
For late cultural learners,it's because the we allow that
we allow people to excel tooquickly.
Like in native country, like inme, if I wanted to be a certain

(56:41):
way.
If I go to crow, there's stepsI have to follow, regardless of
what my degree is said,regardless of what my position,
even with my tribal government,says, there's rules.
There's rules that I have tofollow and regardless of what
people say, just like we'retalking about saying in the past
episode that there's ahierarchy there is a hierarchy,

(57:01):
there is there's rules to follow.
Yes.
And every time you go veer inand out of those rules you're
put in check Immediately put incheck, immediately put in check.
Yeah, some of sometimes theserules aren't necessarily a
cultural thing, but they're a.
They're a um, a pace thing.
Yeah, your pace is too fast, sothey'll check you.

(57:24):
Hey, slow down, yeah you knowand that can be done in many
ways.
That could be like saying, likesaying we're just not going to
give you that right or that wayor that whatever it is right,
yeah, so slow down.
That's your cue from yourcommunity to check yourself, and
so, as long as your communityor your tribe is always the

(57:47):
audience, it's always the rubricand how you're going to do your
work yeah you never reallyactually experience that thing
we're talking about becauseyou're in a constant state of
peer review yeah, yes and it'sconstantly.
what I see in academics isthey've allowed people on the

(58:11):
fringes of culture to now becomethe voices of the cultures.
Yeah, which is dangerous to mebecause these are people,
because I would consider myselfa fairly cultural person.
Okay.
But in terms of knowledge andpractice, I don't have it all.
All, yeah, I don't know reallythat much.

(58:34):
So if, if I go to a talk or alecture and I'm listening to
somebody talk and I'm like Iknow myself, I know that I'm
really not in a position to talkabout certain things, yeah, but
now this person is, I know it'sfake, because if I'm not there
yet and I'm talking to thesource and I'm living in the

(58:58):
source, and if I'm not there,there's no way that you six, 700
miles away from your communityand you just found out that
you're native, or you just foundout that you have some ancestry
, found out that you're native,or you just found out that you
have some ancestry.
There's no way you're going tolearn those nuances and the
amount of time.
But you're up here talkingabout them, yeah, and you're

(59:18):
talking about them.
You could talk about them towhite people, that doesn't
bother me.
You're talking about them toyoung native scholars and you're
going to impact the way they dotheir work, the way they think,
and it's going to manipulatethem in a way that can be
dangerous, not for theiracademic work but for their

(59:39):
actual intellectual growth yeah,yeah, does that make sense it
does that.

That brings me to my second point, which is this
the thing you said there's aspectrum of scholars, and we've
talked about this before.
And the same thing that yousaid all the spectrum of
indigenous scholars, nativescholars.
Yeah, I mean some people justdidn't have it the way others

(01:00:10):
did, some people just didn'thave it the way others did.
But the important thing is whatyou said is that if there is a
methodology, if there is aconstruct that keeps us from

(01:00:30):
telling lies or embellishing, ifyou're not connected
authentically, I mean you caneven go one more step because
you can say, oh yeah, I'mconnected to my community, but
which part of that community?
Because even within thatcommunity you can have a lot of
variance as to what might be theactual norm of that community.

(01:00:52):
You know, you know what I mean,that's, that's present too, and
so so just imagine, just evenjust in this little, just these
two little examples that wetalked about are the thing you
said and that I said and mirandasaid just imagine universities
trying to hire people.
Without all that understanding,without all that, you can get

(01:01:16):
away with so much man and I feellike that's why they stay in
that too yeah they get hired andthen they stay.

Aaron Brien (01:01:24):
That that's why you have these like 20, 30, 40 year
old legacy people in theseacademics.
But when you go to things athome or when you even go to
basic functions, they're notthere they're not there.

Shandin Pete (01:01:38):
No.

And that doesn't mean again, that doesn't mean
people can't know things, peopleknow things, people have
knowledge, yeah.
But again, it's how thatknowledge is attained, how it's
used and who that knowledge isfor.
Yeah.
I always go back to.
I'm not a bridge to divide guy.

(01:01:59):
It doesn't bother me if whitepeople don't understand me.
That's not my audience.
Those are for different people.
Now, and if in my journey orwhatever journey in my good path
, remember she kept saying thatbranda, or uh, your good trail
yeah yeah good if in your goodtrail you find resilience.

(01:02:24):
Yeah, of course, decolonize theway you think oh yeah, I'm just
kidding.
I mean, if you're doing aninfomercial now, yeah, if white
people learn something from whatI say right on, but that at no
point are they truly ever myreal audience yeah I'm not.

(01:02:48):
I don't do the work I do forthem yeah if they benefit from
it, then right on, I'm notagainst that yeah, but I've
never I, I, I'm really awareyeah that of that and it's
always playing into my decisionmaking and yeah, and miranda's

(01:03:08):
seen that with me firsthand,right and sometimes yeah it can
be annoying, yeah, so yeah, yeah, man yeah well

Miranda Rowland (01:03:23):
if I can kind of add on to that, like talking
about your audience and whatnot,you know.
So when I did my archiveresearch which was, which was my
first try, my first attempt,right, yeah, like the first time
I had ever gone and done it um,and you know, when we had our
disagreement about it and Iwasn't super sure, like on my

(01:03:44):
direction with it.
Yet, you know, just startingreally broad, just going through
the archives, just figuring outwhat way I was going to take my
research really, because that'swhere the crow um stories are,
that's where all their sourcesare you know.
So I'm sitting there doing thisresearch, you know, and it took

(01:04:06):
me a while to like realize that,like I'm dealing with, like
knowledge about crows, that Ifeel like it should be respected
, you know, and I kind of feltlike I needed to kind of get a
grasp on what I was doing beforeI tried to do any real research
on it.
Like where?
Like exactly that, who is myaudience?
Where is this data gonna go?

(01:04:28):
you know, and we had decidedthat my data would live in the
archives.
You know when I were to writeabout it.
And wanting to treat thatknowledge with enough respect,
because it's not just meresearching it, it's not just
for me.
You know, this belongs to ourentire tribe, you know, and
being conscientious of that andhaving the self-awareness that,

(01:04:50):
like I, have to mind what I'mdoing while I'm out there doing
this research, if that makessense, you know yeah, I think it
does.

It does in.
Um.
Uh, aaron, you said it bestbecause there's this and you
know, and I know, there's thisinternal sort of guard you have
in your head all the timebecause you're thinking about
not necessarily any.
I don't know.
When you say that tribe, itmeans something and it probably

(01:05:28):
doesn't mean the same thing toeveryone.
That means some and it probablydoesn't mean the same thing to
everyone and I oftentimes Iavoid even saying this is for
the tribe.
I often say, well, this is forthe people that it matters, or
or my advisors, or the people,my community, versus the tribe.
Because nowadays when we talkabout tribe it's I don't think

(01:05:50):
maybe maybe I'm wrong in this,but it doesn't seem like it was
in the past where there's sortof a maybe a more cohesive unit,
because tribe now is there'stribal government, there's these
different pockets andcommunities, there's tribal
leaders, there's tribal culturalpeople there's tribal units

(01:06:13):
that have nothing to do withculture, tribal shenanigans.

Tribal shenanigans, yeah, yeah, tomfoolery and
shenanigans, yeah sometomfoolery.
You're right though.

Yeah.
So when I was writing thislittle piece that was my thought
I said this is who I want toread this.
And it wasn't.
It wasn't anybody back in myhome, because I know they might
not ever read this because it'sin the academic journal.
It's written in a way that's, Idon't know, not for the common

(01:06:45):
person, it's like for academics,but this was for indigenous
academics for the everydaynative scholar to pick up and
read and say, okay, I agree or Idisagree, or I agree, but this,
this and this or I disagree,because this is where you're
wrong.
It was written to sort to sortof put this idea that I have

(01:07:06):
about things out there in in away, that's gu and you could put
anything in there.
It could be human-plantrelationship, it could be data
sovereignty, it could beindigenous knowledge for science
, it could be indigenousknowledge for social work and
you can find the same pattern ofthis paper in any one of those

(01:07:27):
where there's a misunderstanding.
Yeah, go ahead.

Well, remember, one of the things things not to
harp on old stuff, but that wasone of our biggest deals was
like we could, we can, inresearch method.
To me, indigenous researchmethod was right away, it was
really clear that it was atheory, like a theory mass it
was, it was a, it was a thoughtmasked as a theory.

(01:07:52):
Right, it's just, it was thisphilosophy, this kind of
superficial philosophy.
Yeah, we saw that right awaylike, yeah, I remember you and I
talked about it.
This was years ago and we'relike this is this is not real,
okay.
But then we, we, we startedworking on things and we said I
remember having thisconversation with you and this

(01:08:12):
got brought up that this could,actually we could create a
method that would work for allof these fields.
Yeah.
I remember that, regardless ofwhat you're talking about, it's
pretty simple, because theapplication of native knowledge
on a subject, there's a way todo it, and we were getting to

(01:08:34):
the point where we were actuallywriting that down and your
papers.
Once we started reading yourpaper, because of the things we
had talked about, the thingsthat we started doing doing, I
could see where you were goingyeah I seen what you were
setting up and I was like thisto me, because that's the way

(01:08:57):
the native mind works, and itwas cool, because I'm not
claiming, I'm not trying toclaim your paper, but what
happens that?

that approach as a co-author.

Sorry, yeah, I need , I need to, I need to brush up
on my cv.
It was like it was likewatching science, like a real
science, a testable hypothesis.
Sure, miranda was reading thepaper, but it you use very large
words in there.

(01:09:31):
Yeah.
Like you're very articulate.
Okay.
That's not even like the.
That's not what was impressive.
Yeah, what was impressive wasthat your paper made sense to a
native scholar that didn't knowthe method.
Right, that doesn't know themethod, she doesn't know Miranda

(01:09:55):
, doesn't know the way Shandeenthinks.
Right.
Right, but because she has somegrounding and being Crow and
Crow landscape.
Yeah.
The way you were writing, Icould see it making sense to her
.
You're talking about Salishplants.
We're not Salish, right, but itmade sense.

(01:10:16):
Yeah, and that was to me.
What I seen was the moment thatthis made sense.
What I seen last week didn't.
Yeah.
And that's the thing that waslike.
I was so into.
I was like I wonder who elsehad that moment.
I want to know that moment.

(01:10:37):
I want to like not in the senseof like tell me about the
moment you found inspiration,like I really didn't want to
know what triggered it in theirbrain.
Yeah.
Like what made it click insidetheir brain, like what was it?
You know, like what you mean,did it?

(01:10:57):
What, what click, make whatclick like when I watched it,
when I watched her reading it,there was a click oh, okay, that
change yeah, yeah, yeah whilewe were talking, I was sitting
right next to her and I'm likewell, what was it?
I want to know exactly when ithappened.
And then I want to find outother native scholars who
experienced that.

(01:11:17):
Yeah, that thing.
Yeah, I don't know how to askthat, though.
I don't.

I don't because I attempted to ask a few people
and I don't know go ahead Idon't either, because Because I
tried to talk Well, I feel likemy dad had an idea about it.
I talked to my sister you know,aaron, and I don't know how to
explain that Like that moment ofit where I read it and I was

(01:11:46):
like holy cow, it just I don'tknow, I don't even know how to
talk about it.
But it's funny because we wentto the store after that and I
was like holy cow, like it, justI don't know, I don't even know
how to talk about it.
But it's funny because we wentto the store after that and I
was walking around Winco andthen Aaron was like are you okay
?
And I was like no.

I'm not okay.
I'm not okay.
I'm not okay.
It was awesome.
I was all excited.
She was like bummed out andkind of like going through this,
whatever, and I was likeexcited because I finally seen
it.
The stuff we talk about, yeah,every time, we record, yeah,
stuff that led to this podcast,the questions we asked yeah

(01:12:25):
years and years and years, thetimes we sat at the drum and
visited about stuff, sat at thetable, visited all of it was
just conversations between youand me yeah and yeah, your paper
is the result of your brain.
But that made sense to me.
I was like, yeah, of coursesean dean's gonna write like
that.
I've never seen anyone thatactually like changed.

(01:12:50):
You know, I've never seen itthe exact moment, you know it's
hard to explain.
Even now I guess I realize likenow it's easy to explain to
Amanda because she was sittingthere yeah, I get it.

I get what you're saying, like the I don't think
you do I had this.
No, I had the same realization,I think where, where?
Yeah, let's hear about it wellit's.
It's like when you yeah, I wantto hear it it's like when I
don't know, you know, pick, pickus, pick a sport.
And let's say, I got reallyinto baseball and and I bought a

(01:13:30):
bat and I thought, man, thisbat's awesome, you know, it's a
really good bat, and I used it.
And when it wore out I bought abat of the same brand, same
company, and I used this bat andthen somebody comes along and
says, hey, why don't you try mybat?
And then you try that bat andyou realize you've been batting

(01:13:51):
with garbage for 20 years.
You're like, I've been loyal tothis brand and this is garbage,
this is a garbage bat.
And this guy has just comealong and showed me this other
bat and now I can hit I don'tknow X amount of yards further.
It's like that, when you havethose moments where you, where

(01:14:12):
you had a, something that youthought was pretty normal, you
thought you were going along,and then you get this
realization, you get kind ofdepressed.
You have this depressionbecause you think I yeah uh-huh

I guess that reminded me of like thinking
about it, you know, because likegoing through school and trying
to figure out how to doeverything you know.
Yeah.
And like, and I was tellingAaron, I said there's, there was
just something there that Ijust kind of bothered me.
Yeah Kind of bothered me, likethe whole time I was kind of I

(01:14:49):
felt like I was churning, youknow, churning milk into butter,
just like trying to figure itout, and I think that
realization hit this is what.
This is what I've been lookingfor.
Yeah, this is what I should bedoing or aiming for in my own
research.

Yeah and it yeah yeah, I went through that.
I could feel it.

I didn't know what it was.
Yeah.

Well, and to add to that I think that's where the
disappointment lies is becauseit's a realization and knowing
that you can only get that fromyour people and not from a
university.
Yeah, because the way Sean Deanthinks doesn't come from,
doesn't come from the university.
I think what academics hasgiven people like Sean Dean or

(01:15:36):
myself, or even you, is like theability to write, like you
learn a different lexicon, like,yeah, you, you might have a
different audience to test whatyou're doing.
Or like hash out your, your,your circle changes a little bit
, your network changes, but thecore of it, the way you think,
the way you're approaching theresearch you're doing, are like
hash out your, your, your circlechanges a little bit, your
network changes, but the core ofit, the way you think, the way
you're approaching the researchyou're doing, that doesn't come
from the university.

(01:15:57):
And remember you even saidMiranda, you said I realized now
that if I'm going to do thisresearch and I can't remember it
was the cultural burning right.

Yeah, yeah, I was like I like.

I yeah, that's what I said.

I said, I realized now that if I'm going
to do this research, then it hasto be at home.

Yeah, because, that's yeah and that makes sense
.
After that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So what I was going to relatewas I had this realization in
grad school.

What, what?
No, I want to hear this.
This is the whole thing Iwanted to hear.

Yeah.
So in grad school, I mean Iwasn't aiming to Well, no, I
guess I was.
I mean I wasn't aiming to well,no, I guess I was.
I guess I was aiming to Iwouldn't say revolutionize what

(01:17:06):
I thought indigenous or nativescience was, but I wanted to
make a contribution in a certainway and I seen my peers around
me utilizing what they claimedas indigenous methodologies and
you know, I just felt like I wasnot, I couldn't do what they
were doing because it didn'tfeel right.
Something felt wrong about it.
It and um, I I think mostlybecause because of this idea

(01:17:37):
that, um, this idea that hasbeen sort of driven into
indigenous scholarship, is thatwhat we do is unique, different
and, on top of all that, oftenbilled as better than anything,
better than Western science.
And that is uncomfortable forme because I've never been

(01:17:57):
raised to try to think what I dois above anybody or better than
anybody.
Just, that's just the way thatmy mom raised me.
No, you're not, and she didn'thave to say these things, it's
just the her demeanor wastransferred to me and sort of it
always felt uncomfortable whenyou like look no not even that

(01:18:17):
she didn't have to do that.
It's just it's just growing upwith her knowing how she treated
other people.
Now she treated situations, itjust just naturally copied that.
And so, even today, when I hearmy fellow colleagues like
pointing the finger at academics, the university, western

(01:18:40):
science, as being all thesehorrible, bad things and of
course there is, of coursethere's been things that were
bad, of course, things that werebad, of course but to say that
what we know and what we, whatwe are thought are, and our
thoughts are this one levelhigher, I think, is that's
that's really problematic,because and that's that tells me

(01:19:02):
that there's something wrongwith the ego if that's the thing
that we're going to adopt.
And that's what I sort of seen,in a way, when I was navigating
through grad school and thenfinally I thought it just
doesn't seem right and I madethe decision to say I'm just
going to jump through the hoop,I'm going to finish this.
I'm not going to dress it up asindigenous research, I'm not

(01:19:25):
going to dress it up as anything.
I'm going to solve this verypractical problem, if I can,
without bringing in the medicinewheel or the seven grandmother
teachings or anything but what Idid use.
What I did use was this diagramthat I had drew up that seemed

(01:19:46):
to illustrate sort of a theoryof knowledge that made sense,
that relied on the things thatwe believe in, how we validate
knowledge and where we seek oursources of power or inspiration,
if you will.
I used that and I didn't relyon any of the cultural tropes of
today of holism,non-reductivism, relationality,

(01:20:11):
none of that.
I just I'm just gonna approachthis very practical problem and,
um, it felt more authentic andreal.
I didn't have to dress thingsup, even though it seems like
that's kind of what was wantedof me I'd like to see that, the

(01:20:31):
diagram that you're talkingabout.

I'd like to see that.
Oh yeah, but like the, the wayyou describe that, like going
through grad school, like evenin undergrad, you know, kind of
just feeling almost like youdon't fit in or it's not, you
know, not supernatural, notsupernatural, but not natural,
yeah.
Yeah.

For me anyway you know.

I just want to clarify that.

Yeah, yeah, not supernatural.

And I don't know if that like segues into
like imposter syndrome orwhatnot, but you know, like so,
like when I go through thesethings, I wonder what other
Native scholars are goingthrough that too.
You know what are they runninginto and like how are they
dealing?

with these things.

I wonder what other native scholars are going
through that too.
You know what are they runninginto and like, how are they
dealing with these things?
Yeah, you know, so it's, it'sgood to hear like your account
with it and to just kind of knowthat you can come through, that
you know and you can?

there is the light at the end of the tunnel, you
know there is and and it, and itrelies on um figuring out where
your idea of authenticity comesfrom.
It's not going to come fromit's not.
I mean it can come from manysources.
I'm not going to say it's notgoing to come from a book, but
we read a lot of things thatdon't make sense to help us make

(01:21:47):
sense of a lot of things.
We'll encounter more thingsthat feel wrong than feel right.
I think those are things thathelp guide us into what we do.
But in relation to that, likethat division that's always
drawn between Western science,indigenous science or white

(01:22:08):
people and Indian people, youknow, in my experience, you're
coming to find out we're we'remore alike than we are different
, and the things that reallymake us different are the things
that we think are not alike, orthe things that we find are
different are the things that wedisagree on.
That didn't make no sense.

(01:22:29):
That didn't make no sense.
Holy shit, I'm going off, we'regonna, but I'm trying to make
did you did, you did you use itup, did you use?
no, no, no, no I got a pointhere.
I got a point here because allright, because this is the other
thing.
This is the thing, this is thevery that, one of the confusing
things that happened um, notonly this division, but this,

(01:22:52):
this super generalization thatall indigenous people, tribes,
were all different and unique,implying that even some people
say this well, there can't bejust one indigenous methodology
because we're all so different.
You know 500 different uniquenew nations.

(01:23:12):
We're all different and I'mlike I don't know if that's
entirely true and I don't feellike it is, simply because of
the fact that so I wrote thispaper and you get it.
Aaron gets it.
There gonna be other peoplethat are gonna get it too.
They're gonna be some otherpeople that get it and they're
gonna get mad because theydidn't want to get it.
Like, I don't agree with this,but they're going to get it.
They're going to get it.

(01:23:33):
They're not just going to readit and say, oh wow, cool paper
about indigenous things.
It's going to evoke a reaction.
So I think tribal people acrossturtle island, no, double
people across north americawe're more similar.
We're more similar than we'vebeen fed to believe, and the

(01:23:54):
first part of this paper that Iwrote by indian yeah, that we're
being fed that by non-indians.
The first part of this paper Iwrote was really long and but I
had to cut it out because itjust.
It was just.
I went past my word limit, butit was making that case that
what I'm saying seems like itapplies to all these groups.

(01:24:15):
I don't know, but that's whatit seems like.

Well, it definitely seems like it applies to more
groups than it does not apply.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe it's hard to make the casethat it's completely universal,
but it's not as divided as wewere led to believe.

(01:24:38):
Right, I think there's basicpremises that Native people
follow, especially in NorthAmerica.
You know, I'm also one of theseguys too that's really getting
tired of like the whole world.
We're like all indigenouspeople around the world.
It's it's like well, let's justcool our jets here.
Yeah, let's just focus on wherewe're.

(01:24:58):
Yeah, yeah, take a time out.
Let's take a time out.
We're starting to claim theuniverse and all this stuff.
It's, it's just getting.
It's getting bad.
But it was nice to read yourpaper because I I'm not I
wouldn't say I'm in the inacademics like I used to be.

(01:25:18):
I'm always questioning things,though, and I'm always looking
into things, so it was nice tolike just read.
Well, I didn't even read.
I was driving to listen to likecommon sense writing in right
in native research, because Ihad to clean the palette after

(01:25:40):
what I had listened to.
Yeah, I, yeah, I'm gettingtired, okay, of these people.
I'm gonna say this because thisis part of this topic today.
The catalyst for these momentsof realization that Native
scholars are having aretypically born out of bad

(01:26:03):
research.
Yeah, bad work done.
These aren't coming becausethey read the.
I have a Dream speech.
They're not happening.
They're happening because theyhad a run-in with a bad scholar
and I don't mean bad like thismean person, but shallow work,

(01:26:24):
superficial work, buzzword,trendy work and these things
that are feeding yeah into the,into these popular narratives.
They're not asking questionsthat are deep.
They're not asking questionsthat are meaningful and relevant
.
They're not questioningthemselves.
They don't question themselvesat all.
They're just talking aboutbuffalo and the red road and

(01:26:47):
resilience and fucking ribbonskirts and it's just like out of
hand and it's just like in thisparticular like lecture that
Miranda played, I think I heardIndigenous ways of knowing.
I heard that phrase Indigenousways of knowing 300 damn times.

(01:27:07):
And it was like, but yet we werenever presented with indigenous
ways of knowing yeah justtalked about it what did I tell
you what did?
how did I describe it?
I said it's like she just hungaround outside of an event and
never went in.
She's went into the doorway,kind of came out.
She, yeah, hung out in theparking lot.

(01:27:28):
She like looked in the windows,she did all this stuff, this
lady, and she never, actually,freaking, gave us anything.
And I started gettingfrustrated and I'm turning to
Miranda and I'm like this isfrustrating.

This is really frustrating to me because what,
what, Well, I was just thinkingwe stopped somewhere and
thinking we got back.
We got, we stopped somewhereand then we got back in the car
and I was like, should I play it?
And then you got mad.

You were like, well , if you want to make me mad
yeah, it was like a bad drug,like I wanted to hear more of it
, but I was going to be pissedoff the whole time.

He's there driving like Cruella on 101
Dalmatians.
Taking it out on the engine.
Yeah Well, we don't have tobeat this.

We don't have to beat this subject up anymore,
but I was fascinated today by amoment that I seen that I wish
more Native scholars would bereally aware of when they have
these moments, and I think it'snot often too that we have
somebody that's willing to talkabout it, because young scholars
, their brains aren't developed,you know, and it's like so the,

(01:28:58):
the willingness like dissecttheir own emotions is not there
you know so yeah um yeah yeah, Iappreciated it.
It was fun.
I had a lot of fun with it.
It consumed a large part of myday.
Cool yeah.

I know I was trying to digest it and he kept
asking me and he was smilingreally big and I was like man
shut up.

Shut up.

I was like I don't even know what that was.

Oh man.
Well, I don't have nothing elsewe've been recording for how
long now?

um two hour and a half, hour and a half yeah, yeah
, that's probably good I youknow, there's a lot of issues, a
lot of issues, and I think, thethe more it's not just it's not
not just in academics, it's allover the place.
You know, it's in communitieswhere people get elevated

(01:30:00):
because of what they think theyought to say and those who think
they ought to say it like whatthey say.
So then they get, they get putin front of the crowd to say, um
, the things they need to say,which are a little bit off base
sometimes.
But you know, sincerity,sincerity is, is a, it's there

(01:30:21):
was a, there was a virtue uh, Iguess you could call like a
source virtue, right?
So being a good, having a goodsource virtue, means that you
knew what was right, you knewwhat was honest, so that the
people who could hear it youknow that they were privileged

(01:30:43):
to hear what you had to saybecause you were sincere,
because you told the truth.
Sincere because you told thetruth.
And for the truth to bereconciled, it needs to be

(01:31:05):
agreed upon, and right now we're.
I don't think we agree uponthings, but it's not checked
enough in academia becauseeveryone's a bit too fragile to
take that critique Very true,and we should end on Miranda's
dad's quote.

Yeah, what did your dad tell you?

Oh, I thought that was pretty cool.
He said some people seek tospeak the truth.
He said wise people seek tofind it.

Yep, I agree.
Boom, I thought that was prettycool.
Boom dropped the mic.
Well, cool man.
Well, thanks for coming on.
Thanks for, uh um, puttingyourself in a compromising
position, fragile.

Yeah well, thank you for having me.

Yeah.

Fragile state yeah.

We caught Aaron when he was pregnant with ideas.

It's a wisdom child.
What kind of baby did you have?

A wisdom?
Oh yeah, a wisdom baby.
A have A wisdom baby?
Oh yeah, a wisdom baby.

A wisdom baby.
Say it like that bastard Wisdombaby.

You can keep your money.
Let me have your money Let me,have you baby.

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#58 - Raising a Wisdom Baby: Indigenous Knowledge That Won't Let You Sleep - Guest: Miranda Rowland

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#58 - Raising a Wisdom Baby: Indigenous Knowledge That Won't Let You Sleep - Guest: Miranda Rowland