Decolonization Series: Storytelling as Connection
By Lauren Ballesteros, Organizer | Reading time: 4.5 minutes
Clare Apana- Maui Group Executive Committee member
On September 23, a special all day event called “Stories and Songs of the People” was held at the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College campus. It was an enriching opportunity to learn from twenty-two Knowledge Keepers from all over the globe that gathered as a part of a growing international effort to transform relations and build solidarity. These annual gatherings are a part of the InterNātional Indigenous Initiative for Transformative Collaboration (INITC) efforts to build a deeper understanding of how to work together to reach genuine understanding and acceptance of each other, with intention, moving beyond mere understandings of tolerance.
After protocol was held, Maui Group Excom member Clare Apana offered a beautiful opening speech which grounded the entire day in the shared goal of mutual learning and building relationships rooted in common values. Clare emphasized the strength and wisdom found in Indigenous peoples whose cultural diversity allows us to join our collective voices, Indigenous and allies, to witness one another’s perspectives and be stronger in our collective and individual work to protect resources and future.
Johnnie from INITC on his diagram to transform relationships.
The first presentation of the day was from Johnnie of International NITC who has been convening Stories and Songs events for over a decade. His core message shared the importance of journeying to move from allies to friends to relatives in amongst and between Original Nations and Peoples and non-Original Peoples. To do so requires our courage, our hearts, our minds and spirit. Johnnie reminded us all of the fundamental value of learning to live and work with one another if we are to begin the healing process from centuries of colonization; which fractured our relations.
A snapshot of presentations and wisdom shared throughout the day*
Chief Arvol and Paula Looking Horse during lunch break talking with public participants.
“World Prayer Day:” Chief Arvol and Paula Looking Horse, of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nations, shared how from childhood they are taught the sacredness of life and dreams. They’ve dedicated their lives to educating the world on the Indigenous perspective on what has happened in Turtle Island (America.). Paula is a renowned singer and dancer and began organizing World Peace and Prayer/ Honor Sacred Sites Day in 1996. She shared how the annual solstice event came to be and her journey traveling the world to teach others about the importance of prayer to bring healing to Mother Earth. Every year a new sacred site is chosen to unite peoples of places, learn from one another, through a message from sacred ceremonies to unite spiritually, each in our own ways of beliefs in the Creator. Chief Arvol also shared his activism to rectify a long-standing injustice by restoring the original indigenous name "Bear Lodge" to the iconic geological formation currently known as "Devils Tower" in Wyoming. You can help by signing the petition!
Flyer passed out at the event, reminding us of the need to have holistic and just energy solutions.
Lakota Fighting Uranium Mining in Black Creek Hills: Few places on Earth rival the stark beauty of the Black Hills (He Sapa) of South Dakota. Part of the vast, traditional homelands of the Lakota People granted by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, a territory was never willingly ceded by us to the United States. Lakota tribal leaders and elders were presented on their long history with colonial forces. A 10,600-acre uranium mine proposed to be built in Black Hills. The Dewey-Burdock mine would suck up as much as 8,500 gallons of groundwater per minute from the Inyan Kara aquifer to extract as much as 10 million pounds of ore in total. Lakota leaders are trying to get more legal support since the project violates both the 1868 U.S.-Lakota treaty and federal environmental laws by failing to take into account the sacred nature of the site. If the mine is built, burial grounds would be destroyed and the region’s waters permanently tainted.
“The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking The Domination Code” by Stephen Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is the co-founder and director of the Indigenous Law Institute, and author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. He introduced his documentary based on thirty years of research on the first Christian peoples to locate lands inhabited by non-Christians i.e Indigenous Peoples who were labeled as “heathens” across the globe. Christian people claimed the right to assert a right of domination on the basis of religiously premised arguments like Manifest Destiny and the Doctrine of Discovery. The film also sheds light on the U.S Supreme Court Case, Johnson v. M’Intosh, where the Supreme Court held that the federal government has the exclusive right to negotiate the transfer of land from Indigenous tribes. The Court further determined that American Indian tribes did not own the land that is now the United States before or after the arrival of European settlers, but instead had a "title of occupancy." This decision led to the legal justification for the federal government’s genocide of Original Nations and Peoples and take land without just compensation. Theologian Luis Rivera-Pagán, who is interviewed in the film, points out that an accurate history must account for the theological and religious justifications for claims of domination over the original nations and peoples which are embedded in the creation of the United States of America.
Protecting Women and The Inca Condor and Eagle Prophecy: There were two men from Nicaragua who spoke of the Inca prophecies that reference this age as an awakening- when the eagle of the North and the condor of the South fly together, the Earth awakens. The eagles of the North cannot be free without the condors of the South. Their message was the importance of protecting the women to honor creation, those who brought us for first moments of life and joy. They relate it to their protection of sacred soil and how ultimately, we are all native, because the word native comes from nature. We are all parts of Mother nature. She is inside us, and we are inside her. We depend totally on the Earth, the Sun, and the Water as we do our mothers.
Special performance from Taboo (Filipino, Indigenous from Black Eyed Peas. Taboo shared his journey as a Chicano and Native American, feeling insecure in his identity for many years but now sees it as his mission to heal that connection.
Kānaka Maoli panel discuss the importance of historical context in understanding present day fights to protect cultural and natural resources.
It is through our stories that we celebrate our relationships with all creation, and as Original Nations/Peoples believe it is a celebration of our relatives. Deconstructing colonial frameworks begins with us, our language, our open hearts, that’s where transformation is made possible and happens together through witnessing one another’s experiences and resilience to honor traditional and contemporary knowledge of Indigenous voices. There will be a 2024 Stories and Songs event held, you can sign up for an email list to stay in the know here.
*Author was not able to attend the entire day’s events due to travel obligations. What is shared is only a small portion of the many powerful presentations and performances of the day!