A Gathering Basket- Issue 10

A Gathering Basket FROM THE I-COLLECTIVE A MULTI-MEDIA COOK BOOK

ISSUE 10

Violence Against the Land IS Violence Aga

When we look at what makes us Indigenous to this land it can best be described relationship to all of the relatives that inhabit it. Where white western teachings e humans are the “apex predator” our knowledge systems reflect our place in the obligation to create balance and not as a predator to land, water, or our relatives

There is hardly a Reserve or Reservation that doesn’t suffer the consequence of at the hands of these “apex predators'' and the belief systems handed down by pushing for the extermination of Indigenous peoples. To quote L. Frank Baum, a Wizard of Oz, just prior to the Wounded Knee Massacre. “The Whites, by the law justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indian annihilation?” This sentiment has echoed into the present as the U.S. governmen corporations continue to perform acts of cultural genocide against us through e Indigenous lands.

Looking toward the very pinnacle of offenders we find ourselves looking at the U military. The Department of Defense (doublespeak for Department of War) is the producer of toxic pollution with 1,855 military facilities producing 11,000 toxic h country, many of which are former calvary bases turned military bases, being in Native Nations.

ainst Its People

d by our express that ecosystem as an s that exist within it.

this destruction their forefathers author of The w of conquest, by of the frontier ns. Why not nt and transnational extraction on

United States e nation’s largest hot spots across the close proximity to

A couple examples of this are the Western Shoshone in so-called Nevada, considered to be the most bombed nation on the planet, where the military has detonated approximately 928 atomic bombs without any prior warning to the people of the consequences of nuclear fallout. To quote Ian Zabarte of the Western Shoshone, “When the fallout came down, it killed the delicate flora and fauna, creating these huge vulnerabilities across thousands of square miles of Shoshone territory. The pine trees we use for food and heating were exposed, the plants we use for food and medicine were exposed, the animals we use for food were exposed. We were exposed.” Can you imagine?

Tied into the previous example is the U.S. Atomic Energy Commision (AEC) and their 1957 Plowshare program which under the guise of “peaceful” uses of nuclear weapons took radioactive materials from the Western Shoshone test site and secretly buried it in and around the Inupiat Village of Point Hope to study the effects of radiation exposure on humans and land, a project that the villagers didn’t learn of until over 40 years later.

Another massive example of this is in the 4 Corners Region of the U.S. where there are 63 abandoned uranium mines affecting the health, water, and land of the Pueblo, Ute, and Navajo Tribes. These circumstances of ecocide have limited, and in many cases eliminated, the people's ability to grow or gather traditional medicines without the possibility of introducing deadly toxins into both the harvester and the patient. For plant based people, with many facets of their cosmologies directly interwoven with plant relatives, these losses continue to destroy everything from language to ceremony as they disappear, ensuring another movement towards erasure.

We open in this way not to create an air of foreboding but simply to set the stage. While all of the previously stated is an everyday lived reality for Indigenous people, here and the world over, we still maintain the frontlines of resistance from the Ute Mountain Ute community of White Mesa and their battle against the White Mesa Uranium Mill where, “when the owners of the White Mesa Mill quietly changed their business plan, the mill became a commercial dumping ground for low-level radioactive wastes from contaminated sites across America and the world. Now, over 700 million pounds of toxic wastes simmer in the mill’s massive waste pits”, on to the White Earth Tribe filing a lawsuit against oil and gas giant Enbridge on behalf of Manoomin (wild rice) to protect its water and land rights, effectively giving voice to the voiceless, and to the San Carlos Apache Tribe’s battle for the

sacred Chich’il Bildagoteel (Oak Flats), a historical gathering place of Chich’il (acorn), where in 2014 multinational mining companies BHP and Rio Tinto secured a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act, one that was a must pass bill, that overturned Oak Flats protected status and forcing a land trade with these companies. And these few instances are just a fraction of the responses across NDN Country.

As you can see the protection of Indigenous Food and

Medicine Ways are prominent in this resistance and alongside these large scale battles are countless individual ones. The I-Collective’s elder and mentor, Twila Cassadore, for instance comes from the San Carlos Apache Tribe, a community that in the 1960’s was sprayed with the chemical weapon Agent Orange, the same weapon used against the Vietnamese and U.S. soldiers, under the guise of salt cedar mitigation and leading to extreme rates of cancers and deformities. Twila has shared in conversation about this happening and its current effects on health and traditional land practices. While she has been working on the preservation of Apache traditional medicine and foods for 25 years, accumulating knowledge from elders of the four Western Apache Tribes at White Mountain,Tonto, Camp Verde,and San Carlos this curse in her community has always loomed large. Even with this truth her commitment has led to the cataloging of over 200 plant relatives, learning programs for youth and community, and recognition through both television appearances, numerous articles, and being featured in the film Gather. For her these ways are lineal, a part of the fabric she is woven from, and the legacy she will bless the future with regardless of the continued assault on her people.

On a recent visit to the Keweenaw Bay Indian C Peninsula of Michigan, a few of our members w wide effort to heal violence against the land ca 1902-1919 the Mass Mill dumped over 6 billio byproduct of copper mining consisting of bio heavy metals, into Gichigami (Lake Superior) c biologically toxic sediment. It is estimated that 850 years to heal!!! It was with this knowledge began to emerge as a community project to sa that are home to their wild rice beds, cranberr relatives. By creating a 6-10” soil cap seeded w the stamp sands in place the project was phys the following years the Zaagkii (“that which co involving KBIC youth in planting 26,000 native butterfly habitats within the site which today h an ongoing legacy of how a community can h

And of course we cannot leave this story witho hospitality of the KBIC community! With the g by this restoration site of Sweetgrass, Rosehip Staghorn Sumac, and Milkweed seed kits, to h population, along with literature on the projec the community we can take away not just thes means to re-Indigenize and participate in crea

Now after that whirlwind of colonial violence, a would a recipe look like for this issue? We foun repeatedly and came to the conclusion that th bigger than any of the previous issues. This re can’t be measured in cups, ounces, or tablesp to preheat your oven to or coals to get fired up is desecrated; the water, land, and people. So our recipe this month is simply this…REFLECT around you, what is your place in its healing an recipe are you?

Community (KBIC), in the Upper were able to see what a community an look like. Between the years on pounds of stamp sands, a toxic ologically unsafe levels of copper and creating 80+ years of accumulated t this “legacy pollution” would take e that the Sand Point Restoration Site ave their coastal Mashkiig (wetlands) ry bogs, wildlife habitat, and plant with plants to help stabilize and hold sically started between 2006-2007. In omes from the earth”) Project began e plants and building dozens of has a trail system with fitness paths and heal.

out recognizing the graciousness and gifts offered from the lands protected ps, Hawthorn berries, Elderberry, help protect the Monarch butterfly ct and a booklet on traditional teas by se gifts but a living example of what it ation of balance.

and some of the responses to it, what nd ourselves asking this question his recipe was representing something ecipe can’t be confined to a kitchen. It poons. There is no proper temperature p. The food and medicine we see here o in reverence to this ongoing genocide TION. When you look at the ecosystem nd nourishment? What part of the

Gratitudes:

Twila Cassadore Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Ute Mountain Ute Tribe White Mesa Community San Carlos Apache Tribe

A GATHERING BASKET STAFF Written Content Curator, Image Curator, Creative Director, Video Curator, Program Manager,

THIS PUBLICATION IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE FOLLOWING SUPPORTERS AND SPONSORS:

M. Karlos Baca Britt Reed Trennie Collins Quentin Glabus Kristina Stanle,