Importance of Land: Chowanoke

By Christian D. Mountain, Chowanoke Warrior Chief

As Indigenous people, we understand that life comes from the earth and that earth can naturally achieve a perfect balance without us. We also understand that we, too, came from the earth, and thus we call the earth, Mother. She nurtures us and provides bountiful resources that we need in order to survive.

Consequently, if we take care of earth, then earth takes care of us. On the other hand, if we over-extract resources from earth, destroy the earth’s covering, and disregard its cleanliness, our actions will cause great pain to earth and as a result to us. We have seen this happen over the last several years where man has held little regard for taking care of earth. As a result, we are now seeing the consequences of catastrophic climate events, a reflection of earth’s pain. Due to man’s activities, earth’s rivers are no longer clean, and many of its lands have been turned into deserts.

Mother Earth needs its Indigenous people to restore balance back to earth.

We understand as earthlings, our bodies emulate Mother Earth. Our care and understanding of the earth is an innate force within us. If others would only understand and respect this, then our rivers would be cleaner, man would not extract earth’s resources at a rate greater than earth’s ability to replenish itself, man would not waste earth’s resources, the soil would live again, and many wonderful species that provided balance to earth would once again return. We respect the territorial boundaries of the lands where the Creator has placed each of us on to live. Yet, we all have a responsibility to care for the land. Although we make up less than 5 percent of earth’s population, we have fought hard to preserve the earth knowing that 85 percent of earth’s biodiversity is found on Indigenous lands. Though we are small now in numbers, we will continue to fight for Mother Earth, because how we treat her affects every living being.