adminIts been rough putting all my thinks I been thinking about our trip / speaking tour this past few weeks in a way I am happy with…. So here is an unrelated post
Yesterday on our Ancestral Pride facebook page we posted this VIDEO of two Kakawin (video credit Sam Adams) that came and visited our village of Maaqtusiis, my son Chico who is 10 and his friends seen them and they chased / followed them from beach to beach to beach! I am at home laid up with a sprained toe (long story) and such a huge feeling filled me, a feeling fit to bursting out of me in tears, love, joy, pain, rage, and FIGHT! This, this is what we are protecting, what we are holding close, this is why we do what we do. We love our lands, our ocean, our water, our food, our old growth rainforest, our mountains, our fresh salty air. It is ours, it is the last of the west, and it is the most precious thing to me. Imagining my sons strong legs running, his hair lifting in the winter wind, his breathless unfettered free love in pursuit of this connection to our relative the Kakawin and his compulsion to follow them as long as he could slays me in the most motherly protector way! I imagine how our ancestors as children would feel the same freedom, innocence, and happy freedom to run the beaches and say hello to our relatives in the ocean, air, and on the land. I imagine his great grandchildren, and I am terrified, scared of how and what will be the legacy colonialism, industrial profiteering, and the greed that luxuries foster will leave them. Will they be free to run the beaches too? Will there be a beach? Will there be Kakawin? For these children, it is my duty to be a ancestor who didnt back down, to be an ancestor who fought, and to hold the line so they could exist.
We have a saying in our language “Hishak ish tsawak” We are all one ~ Connected. I am no different from this ocean, her waters are my life blood, I am the tree, the fern, the sand, the salmon, the kakawin. There is nothing to distinguish me from my land and my water I am nothing without it, and everything with it. I am nourished by the bounty and I give back as I am able to sustain our way of life upon these lands and to ensure continuity so our childrens children will inherently have healthy happy dynamic relations with our Halhoolthlee as a whole. Hishak ish tsawak is responsibility, it is work, it is dedication, and it is humbleness, there is no room for ego in our struggle for the land and water because without her, our earth mother we would die, and rapidly the armies of the canadian corporations are skinning our mountains alive, they are drilling giant holes in her living skin and deep into her tissue, and they are sucking her precious life fluids dry, all in the pursuit of energy and money. Colonialism has separated us violently from our selves, it has ripped us from the umbilicus right from the womb of our mother and our culture and we are left, bloodied and wounded, desperately trying to patch up the gaping wound, stuffing everything of ourselves back in so we can live to survive another day.
Rapidly the end of this sick colonial civilization is coming to an end, we can feel relief in knowing that settler colonialism and all it has wrought on the planet will not survive much longer because it is a society based on finite resources, but the real work to be done is to ensure that those of us who are awake and aware are ready and have the tools necessary to survive, and to ensure that our neighbours are preparing as well. Out of what seems to be such a dire situation, there is hope, there is spirit, there is earth herself and there is US.
Sometimes we question, why we do what we do, to what purpose do we serve? As far as we can serve the purpose of giving to our village anything we have to offer that is in service of healing and nurturing. SO much has been taken away in such a little time we are scared, overwhelmed, oppressed, depressed, apathetic as a people and we must needs remember the very basics of our lives as Ku us people: WATER – LAND! We must remember to be good neighbours and we must celebrate our progress, at every stage. We have to be loving and forgiving to those we are working with, but we have to be uncompromising in our stance; INDIGENOUS LAWS OF THE LAND! We have a system of governance that has worked for thousands upon thousands of years, that has sustained life, and has sustained water, and land, healthily! This is what we need to survive again, our governance system as Ku us people!
Fish farms, logging, settler society, and the illegally occupying military force called canada in general are harming and destroying what is left of our natural habitat for profit, these so called modern comforts we rely on to live our daily lives are destroying the environment,the waters both fresh and salt, the territories, we are struggling to save. A battle with so many fronts, creating a culture of resistance that is in direct opposition to colonial govts and capitalism, and civilization is KEY. We must unify without losing ourselves, we must work together to carve our sovereign spaces out and hold them strong at all means necessary ! We must kick out fish farms, we must stop the logging, we must stop relying on imported foods, we HAVE to stop buying into kkkanada literally, and be strong in our numbers and our conviction, be firm in our belief that kkkanada is the enemy and is a lie and start working as the people on repairing our relationship to our lands and waters and each others! Fuck colonialism, we refuse to let it win! Fuck their false laws, and their armed henchmen! Power is needed to be directed and given life to the struggle, to resistance
Today I came across a video on someone’s page, this video it is from a settler POV but it includes indigenous narrative and is well worth the watch for the bulk of information it packs in about the dangers of fish farms, great job! and it gives one heart to fight for our right as Ku us to fight to protect our wild salmon and other ocean life… it shows our good friends and fellow salmon warriors Don Staniford, and Elly Edwards in it!
The first one, the two kakawin playing, that is the one that strikes a chord in me so deep it resonates between me and my ancestors and the future! THIS IS WHAT IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR, DYING FOR, CRYING FOR, AND LOVING FOR! A love story, my heart, and my spirit in a 2 minute window into magic, creation, and what it really means to be Ku us!
NO COMPROMISE, NO SURRENDER, NO BACKING DOWN! THIS IS OUR WATER, OUR LAND AND WE WILL PROTECT IT BY ANY AND ALL MEANS NECESSARY!
XHOPAKELXHIT ~ ANCESTRAL PRIDE
please leave a comment and let us know if you watched the video and what you thought of it