#Indigenous Flow

[paulpingminho]

[centralflowsource]

“my body not yours”

photo credit: treehouse media - joshua franzos

[andrumedus]

Joy Harjo, In Mad Love and War; “Eagle Poem”

[rebeccathenaturalist]

If you aren't following the news here in the Pacific Northwest, this is a very, very big deal. Our native salmon numbers have been plummeting over the past century and change. First it was due to overfishing by commercial canneries, then the dams went in and slowed the rivers down and blocked the salmons' migratory paths. More recently climate change is warming the water even more than the slower river flows have, and salmon can easily die of overheating in temperatures we would consider comfortable.

Removing the dams will allow the Klamath River and its tributaries to return to their natural states, making them more hospitable to salmon and other native wildlife (the reservoirs created by the dams were full of non-native fish stocked there over the years.) Not only will this help the salmon thrive, but it makes the entire ecosystem in the region more resilient. The nutrients that salmon bring back from their years in the ocean, stored within their flesh and bones, works its way through the surrounding forest and can be traced in plants several miles from the river.

This is also a victory for the Yurok, Karuk, and other indigenous people who have relied on the Klamath for many generations. The salmon aren't just a crucial source of food, but also deeply ingrained in indigenous cultures. It's a small step toward righting one of the many wrongs that indigenous people in the Americas have suffered for centuries.

[moniquill]

Here is a brief summary of what is happening in Wikipedia right now:

In the last few years (3-4 years) the WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which was originally created to improve the quality and coverage of native issues and native articles on wikipedia, has been hijacked by a small number of users with an extremist agenda. They have been working diligently over the last few years to change the definition of both what it means to be an Indigenous American and even what it means to be state and federally recognized.

The four or five key players (Mainly Editor Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, ARoseWolf, (now retired editor CorbieVreccan, Netherzone and Oncamera) who are part of the “Native American Articles Improvement Project” started implementing these changes slowly, but they started pursuing their goals aggressively after November 2023, when state-recognized tribes retained their voting rights in NCAI. Essentially, after the movement to delegitimize state-recognized tribes failed officially, the key players doubled down on altering and controlling the flow of information about Native Americans through Wikipedia.

The talk page of Lily Gladstone’s article has a relevant discussion here. Initially, the leaders of the WikiProject removed any reference to her being a “Native American Actress” and instead had her as “Self-identifying as Blackfoot” and “Self-identifying as Nez Perce” because her blood quantum was too low to be enrolled in either tribe.

You can see some of the discussion here:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lily_Gladstone

Eventually they relented and changed her category to being “Of Nez Perce Descent” but you can see in the discussion that they are referring to an article that these editors (Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, and CorbieVreccan) themselves appeared to have mostly written and revised:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_identity_in_the_United_States

This statement is very much at odds with even the government’s description, as seen below;

The DOJ Office of Tribal Justice Office on their webpage “Frequently Asked Questions About Native American”, question “Who is an American Indian or Alaskan Native” states:

“As a general principle, an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a Tribe and/or the United States. No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person's identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine eligibility for programs and services. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership.”

In addition, “List” pages have been created on Wikipedia for federally and state recognized tribes. The Wikipedia “List” page for state-recognized tribes is inaccurate in its interpretation of state recognition and not supported by expert reliable sources--(1) Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law 2012 edition, (2) NCSL.org current stand on state recognition (not the archived list from 2017 which NCSL no longer supports), (3) Koenig & Stein’s paper “Federalism and the State Recognition of Native American Tribes: a survey of state-recognized tribes and state recognition processes across the United States” (both 2008 & updated 2013 in book “ Recognition, sovereignty struggles, and indigenous rights in the United States: A sourcebook”)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-recognized_tribes_in_the_United_States

State-recognized tribes who have received recognition through less formal but acceptable means have been moved from the Wikipedia list page on state-recognized tribes to the Wikipedia list page of unrecognized or self-identifying organizations.

The Wiki page "List of organizations that self-identify as Native American tribes", in particular, is being used to purposely defame legitimate Native American individuals who are members of the tribes/Native communities that are on this list. 

By the parameters set up on Wikipedia, only the colonizer’s governments can acknowledge who is Native American through either federal recognition or state recognition. If an individual is not a member of a federally or state-recognized tribe, then it is determined that they cannot be Native American and are, instead, considered “self-identifying” or only “a descendant of ...” (example Lily Gladstone). As a result, Native individuals are currently being tagged as “self-identifying” and their names are put on “list” pages that strongly imply they are “pretend” Indians.

These editors have indicated that they would like “self-identification” to be the default setting for any people who they deem do not fit within the parameters that they themselves created within Wikipedia.

Moreof, these editors are admin and senior editors within the Wikiproject Indigenous Peoples of North America, and are being called in specifically to weigh on Native Identity, and any project involving any Indigenous Group.

Any attempt to correct misinformation, add information, or change any of these articles is often met with being blocked, reported for various offenses, or reported for having a Conflict of Interest, whether or not that is actually applicable. They have use this strategically in many different pages for many different individuals and groups within the scope of their Wikiprojects.

While changing things in Wikipedia does not change the truth, it is a way to control how most people take in information, and thus they hope to manipulate the narrative to better suit their goals.

This is quick and messy but:

Here is a link to the google document with the other state recognized tribes (Including yours) that were edited by these editors. This is an incomplete list so far that only goes back to September 2023 but I am going to add to it. If you can add to your own part of this list, and send your complaints and information to the arbitrator committee (the email is below) with the involved editors, this will help our case.

The  more tribes who complain, and the more Wikipedia editors complain, the better our case will be. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YNDEjLTrrZ_mMIRCVxtvt69FwCYpJWKs71lBhWa5a9M/edit?usp=sharing

The place to make complaints on Wikipedia is oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org , and

arbcom-enwikimedia.org . It is most helpful to have an editing account on Wikipedia, because Yuchitown and the others will try to defend themselves using Wikipedia methodology and make anyone who confronts them look like the aggressor (see the other tribes who tried to fight back on Wikipedia I found).

The more people and tribes make complaints the more likely it is that this will work and we can rid ourselves of these monsters.

Some of the tribes I have spoken to are taking legal action against these editors. Any groups affected by their policies should also reach out to the news to make knowledge of this more widespread.

Thank you

- quoted with permission from an email sent by an associate of my tribe. Message me for their email address if you'd like to reach out to them.

[reasonsforhope]

The Klamath River’s salmon population has declined due to myriad factors, but the biggest culprit is believed to be a series of dams built along the river from 1918 to 1962, cutting off fish migration routes.

Now, after decades of Indigenous advocacy, four of the structures are being demolished as part of the largest dam removal project in United States history. In November, crews finished removing the first of the four dams as part of a push to restore 644 kilometres (400 miles) of fish habitat.

“Dam removal is the largest single step that we can take to restore the Klamath River ecosystem,” [Barry McCovey, a member of the Yurok Tribe and director of tribal fisheries,] told Al Jazeera. “We’re going to see benefits to the ecosystem and then, in turn, to the fishery for decades and decades to come.” ...

A ‘watershed moment’

Four years later, [after a catastrophic fish die-off in 2002,] in 2006, the licence for the hydroelectric dams expired. That created an opportunity, according to Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC), a nonprofit founded to oversee the dam removals.

Standards for protecting fisheries had increased since the initial license was issued, and the utility company responsible for the dams faced a choice. It could either upgrade the dams at an economic loss or enter into a settlement agreement that would allow it to operate the dams until they could be demolished.

“A big driver was the economics — knowing that they would have to modify these facilities to bring them up to modern environmental standards,” Bransom explained. “And the economics just didn’t pencil out.”

The utility company chose the settlement. In 2016, the KRRC was created to work with the state governments of California and Oregon to demolish the dams.

Final approval for the deal came in 2022, in what Bransom remembers as a “watershed moment”.

Regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted unanimously to tear down the dams, citing the benefit to the environment as well as to Indigenous tribes...

Tears of joy

Destruction of the first dam — the smallest, known as Copco 2 — began in June, with heavy machinery like excavators tearing down its concrete walls.

[Amy Cordalis, a Yurok Tribe member, fisherwoman and lawyer for the tribe,] was present for the start of the destruction. Bransom had invited her and fellow KRRC board members to visit the bend in the Klamath River where Copco 2 was being removed. She remembers taking his hand as they walked along a gravel ridge towards the water, a vein of blue nestled amid rolling hills.

“And then, there it was,” Cordalis said. “Or there it wasn’t. The dam was gone.”

For the first time in a century, water flowed freely through that area of the river. Cordalis felt like she was seeing her homelands restored.

Tears of joy began to roll down her cheeks. “I just cried so hard because it was so beautiful.”

The experience was also “profound” for Bransom. “It really was literally a jolt of energy that flowed through us,” he said, calling the visit “perhaps one of the most touching, most moving moments in my entire life”.

Demolition on Copco 2 was completed in November, with work starting on the other three dams. The entire project is scheduled to wrap in late 2024.

[A resilient river]

But experts like McCovey say major hurdles remain to restoring the river’s historic salmon population.

Climate change is warming the water. Wildfires and flash floods are contaminating the river with debris. And tiny particles from rubber vehicle tires are washing off roadways and into waterways, where their chemicals can kill fish within hours.

McCovey, however, is optimistic that the dam demolitions will help the river become more resilient.

“Dam removal is one of the best things we can do to help the Klamath basin be ready to handle climate change,” McCovey explained. He added that the river’s uninterrupted flow will also help flush out sediment and improve water quality.

The removal project is not the solution to all the river’s woes, but McCovey believes it’s a start — a step towards rebuilding the reciprocal relationship between the waterway and the Indigenous people who rely on it.

“We do a little bit of work, and then we start to see more salmon, and then maybe we get to eat more salmon, and that starts to help our people heal a little bit,” McCovey said. “And once we start healing, then we’re in a place where we can start to help the ecosystem a little bit more.”"

-via Al Jazeera, December 4, 2023

[fairuzfan]

AMAZING article about what it means to participate in anti-Zionism work both online and in person.

If your anti-zionism does not in any way acknowledge that it is a way of thought and practice led by and for Palestinians, then you need to reevaluate your "anti-zionism" label.

Some passages that felt especially relevant to tumblr:

If we accept, as those with even the most rudimentary understanding of history do, that zionism is an ongoing process of settler-colonialism, then the undoing of zionism requires anti-zionism, which should be understood as a process of decolonisation. Anti-zionism as a decolonial ideology then becomes rightly situated as an indigenous liberation movement. The resulting implication is two-fold. First, decolonial organising requires that we extract ourselves from the limitations of existing structures of power and knowledge and imagine a new, just world. Second, this understanding clarifies that the caretakers of anti-zionist thought are indigenous communities resisting colonial erasure, and it is from this analysis that the strategies, modes, and goals of decolonial praxis should flow. In simpler terms: Palestinians committed to decolonisation, not Western-based NGOs, are the primary authors of anti-zionist thought. We write this as a Palestinian and a Palestinian-American who live and work in Palestine, and have seen the impact of so-called ‘Western values’ and how the centring of the ‘human rights’ paradigm disrupts real decolonial efforts in Palestine and abroad. This is carried out in favour of maintaining the status quo and gaining proximity to power, using our slogans emptied of Palestinian historical analysis.

Anti-zionist organising is not a new notion, but until now the use of the term in organising circles has been mired with misunderstandings, vague definitions, or minimised outright. Some have incorrectly described anti-zionism as amounting to activities or thought limited to critiques of the present Israeli government – this is a dangerous misrepresentation. Understanding anti-zionism as decolonisation requires the articulation of a political movement with material, articulated goals: the restitution of ancestral territories and upholding the inviolable principle of indigenous repatriation and through the right of return, coupled with the deconstruction of zionist structures and the reconstitution of governing frameworks that are conceived, directed, and implemented by Palestinians.  Anti-zionism illuminates the necessity to return power to the indigenous community and the need for frameworks of justice and accountability for the settler communities that have waged a bloody, unrelenting hundred-year war on the people of Palestine. It means that anti-zionism is much more than a slogan. 

[...]

While our collective imaginations have not fully articulated what a liberated and decolonised Palestine looks like, the rough contours have been laid out repeatedly. Ask any Palestinian refugee displaced from Haifa, the lands of Sheikh Muwannis, or Deir Yassin – they will tell that a decolonised Palestine is, at a minimum, the right of Palestinians’ return to an autonomous political unit from the river to the sea. When self-proclaimed ‘anti-zionists’ use rhetoric like ‘Israel-Palestine’ – or worse, ‘Palestine-Israel’ – we wonder: where do you think ‘Israel’ exists? On which land does it lay, if not Palestine? This is nothing more than an attempt to legitimise a colonial state; the name you are looking for is Palestine – no hyphen required. At a minimum, anti-zionist formations should cut out language that forces upon Palestinians and non-Palestinian allies the violence of colonial theft. 

[...]

The common choice to centre the Oslo Accords, international humanitarian law, and the human rights paradigm over socio-historical Palestinian realities not only limits our analysis and political interventions; it restricts our imagination of what kind of future Palestinians deserve, sidelining questions of decolonization to convince us that it is the new, bad settlers in the West Bank who are the source of violence. Legitimate settlers, who reside within the bounds of Palestinian geographies stolen in 1948 like Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, are different within this narrative. Like Breaking the Silence, they can be enlightened by learning the error of colonial violence carried out in service of the bad settlers. They can supposedly even be our solidarity partners – all without having to sacrifice a crumb of colonial privilege or denounce pre-1967 zionist violence in any of its cruel manifestations. As a result of this course of thought, solidarity organisations often showcase particular Israelis – those who renounce state violence in service of the bad settlers and their ongoing colonisation of the West Bank – in roles as professionals and peacemakers, positioning them on an equal intellectual, moral, or class footing with Palestinians. There is no recognition of the inherent imbalance of power between these Israelis and the Palestinians they purport to be in solidarity with – stripping away their settler status. The settler is taken out of the historical-political context which afforded them privileged status on stolen land, and is given the power to delineate the Palestinian experience. This is part of the historical occlusion of the zionist narrative, overlooking the context of settler-colonialism to read the settler as an individual, and omitting their class status as a settler. 

It is essential to note that Palestinians have never rejected Jewish indigeneity in Palestine. However, the liberation movement has differentiated between zionist settlers and Jewish natives. Palestinians have established a clear and rational framework for this distinction, like in the Thawabet, the National Charter of Palestine from 1968. Article 6 states, ‘The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.’ When individuals misread ‘decolonisation’ as ‘the mass killing or expulsion of Jews,’ it is often a reflection of their own entanglement in colonialism or a result of zionist propaganda. Perpetuating this rhetoric is a deliberate misinterpretation of Palestinian thought, which has maintained this position over a century of indigenous organising.  Even after 100 years of enduring ethnic cleansing, whole communities bombed and entire family lines erased, Palestinians have never, as a collective, called for the mass killing of Jews or Israelis. Anti-zionism cannot shy away from employing the historical-political definitions of ‘settler’ and ‘indigenous’ in their discourse to confront ahistorical readings of Palestinian decolonial thought and zionist propaganda. 

[...]

In the context of the United States, the most threatening zionist institutions are the entrenched political parties which function to maintain the status quo of the American empire, not Hillel groups on university campuses or even Christian zionist churches. While the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) engage in forms of violence that suppress Palestinian liberation and must not be minimised, it is crucial to recognise that the most consequential institutions in the context of settler-colonialism are not exclusively Jewish in their orientation or representation: the Republican and Democratic Party in the United States do arguably more to manufacture public consent for the slaughtering of Palestinians than the ADL and AIPAC combined. Even the Progressive Caucus and the majority of ‘The Squad’ are guilty of this.

Leila Shomali and Lara Kilani

[spacelazarwolf]

a year ago, i was celebrating simchat torah when my rabbi interrupted the services to let us know there had been an attack on israel. we didn’t know how bad yet, but we prayed everything would be alright. the rest of the service went on as planned, but there was a chill in the air, like we knew something had changed. something big. but we didn’t quite understand it yet.

a year ago, i watched people i’d followed for years celebrate a gruesome massacre of over a thousand human beings before we even really knew what had happened. i watched anons pour into my inbox, demanding i condemn israel even though israel hadn’t even retaliated yet.

a year ago, i talked to my nonna on facetime for her birthday. she was in her 90s and wasn’t as present anymore, and i could barely focus because my thoughts were thousands of miles away. i promised her i’d call her the next day but my next day became scrolling past horrific photos and videos i didn’t want to see, posts celebrating the attacks, posts telling people that if they didn’t celebrate the attacks that they were bad people. she died two weeks later and the same people sharing the posts celebrating the massacre sent me messages telling me it was good my nonna was dead, or extremely crude and disgusting messages about what they wanted to do to her dead body because she was “probably a zionist.”

a year ago, i worked at a synagogue that started getting dozens of calls and emails from people, across the spectrum from neo nazis to evangelical christians to radical leftists saying the most horrific things, telling us it was our fault, that we had to do something, that it was on us. we were responsible. an anon told me i was a zionist because i had a zionist language on my blog (hebrew) and worked at a zionist institution (synagogue).

a year ago, i started losing friends one by one after many of them started to share posts justifying or celebrating the massacre or memes created by neo nazis, some of which didn’t even bother to sub out “jews” for “zionists” but they shared them anyway. i was pushed out of an activist group after months of begging them to stop using antisemitic language because i had the audacity to tell a white gentile in the group not to say racist things about a black indigenous jew behind her back, and said gentile told me he didn’t have to listen to me and that he could “claim” the holocaust too because his ancestors were from eastern europe.

a year ago, i watched in real time as the world i thought i knew, the world in which jews had a future and safety in the united states, crumbled day after day. people that previously went out of their way to take care of me and support me decided that because i didn’t feel comfortable marching alongside pictures of hitler i must be a zionist and therefore no longer belonged. the person processing my government aid didn’t want to approve me because i worked for a synagogue part time and argued that the synagogue should just pay me more because “they can afford it.” my synagogue, which has been involved in social justice since its founding several decades ago, along with its rabbis who have been just as involved, were abandoned by the communities they had put their blood, sweat, and tears into advocating for when they had the audacity to grieve for the dead of october 7th.

a year ago, i learned the hard way that we are not special in this time. antisemitism is a river that has ebbed and flowed for thousands of years, and i felt like a fool for thinking a dam could be built overnight.

a lot of people say that every day of this year for them has been october 7th, but for me every day has been october 8th. the day after the initial shock, when reality started to sink in. the realization that all the people who had shared “happy rosh hashanah” posts or complimented my kippah or pretended to care about harry potter goblins were quickly dropping the facade. that my token minority card had expired and now having a jew in their group didn’t look diverse, it looked “sympathetic toward israel.” every day has been a painful reminder that no one else is grieving like we are, and a large number of those people are angry that we are grieving. they don’t understand that we’re not just grieving the lives lost and the hostages. we’re grieving for the world we thought we knew, a world where we might have a chance to thrive like we did in the golden age of spain. but those golden years are ending. and that is one of the things we are grieving.

a lot of people also say that they wish they could go back to who they were on october 6th, but i don’t. i’m glad the illusion was shattered, that i can see more clearly who will stand with jews even if they face backlash, who will challenge their antisemitic biases and do the hard work to unlearn them, and who did not have to be asked twice to share literal nazi rhetoric if it meant feeling like a hero. i’m glad the masks are coming off because it means you can’t gaslight us anymore and tell us it’s all in our heads. we can see you for exactly who you are now. and we will not let you break us.

i don’t want to be living forever in october. i don’t want the blissful ignorance of october 6th, but i also don’t want the bitter anger of october 8th. i want to stand up for what i believe in, to celebrate my culture and my people, and no amount of intimidation or harassment will keep me from loving my jewishness. you have shown me i can no longer live in october 6th, but i refuse to let you keep me in october 8th.

[togglesbloggle]

We're in the early hype cycle for Civ 7, which is all well and good- Civ is Civ, it's gonna be amazing and completely destroy large chunks of global productivity for a while. They're doing an unusually good job of targeting me in particular this time- the "build something you believe in" ad copy is one of those sentiments that has root access to my brain.

But anyway, sifting through the pre-release details has me thinking again about the... I guess you'd call it a 4x game still, but the game that part of me always wishes Civ was. I think a lot of people probably have a sort of personal 'Civ Prime' in their heads, actually, the secret changes they'd make if it was 'their' game. My own Civ Prime goes like this:

Actually-existing Civ always takes the stance that cultures create persons; you build a settler, send it off to some promising river valley, and plonk down a town. The glorious leader then directs the citizens to harvest and cultivate the fertile land around them, and surpluses of food allow the population to grow.

As a corollary, the map in actually-existing Civ starts out nearly empty; aside from a few barbarian camps and city states (or in Civ 7, the 'independent settlements'), the area outside your borders is in a pristine state of nature. And that's all well and good for game purposes, but in "my" Civ I'd reverse this entirely: civilization, not as some supra-human entity that creates and defines humans, but as a narrative that structures their identities and guides their values.

Consider a hex map of the usual sort, but the yields per tile are the local surplus, that is, the amount that tax collectors can extract from the people indigenous to that location without killing them. You begin play at the dawn of agriculture, as a leader/stationary bandit with enough military support and personal legitimacy to enforce those taxes, funnel the surplus towards a centralized urban center, and direct it towards military, priest, or artisan classes. Every hex is a conquest in miniature; at least at first, the size of your territory is directly downstream of your military strength.

That strength is tracked as "Might" or some such civ-wide stat, initially a strict function of how much wealth (that is, grain) that you feed in to it. This represents loosely organized, loyal bravi who are in your employ; they go to hexes you designate, dominate the locals, and render a tile 'productive'. In times of crisis, you can- very temporarily- initiate a levy to make these become traditional army units (and indeed this is the only source of such units, at first). As long as these exist, they are tremendously destructive to any hex they're on, friendly or otherwise, acting as a natural disaster that damages future tile yields for several turns; if every tile around them is already so damaged, they disband automatically. And of course these 'crystalized' forms of Might reduce the 'liquid' Might you have to control tiles, so lengthy wars will also see borders destabilize because you can no longer enforce order in the outer hexes.

But of course military strength isn't the only priority; grain (and later, currency, etc.) sent to the Artisan class allows you to slowly build permanent structures, which have their own bonuses as you'd expect. It's a time-horizon question; investment in Might is a larger immediate bonus, including higher revenues, but wealth spent on infrastructure accumulates.

This is also how you seed new urban areas: Artisans can build things like fortresses, temples, etc. (depending on the initial bonuses that you want) on rural hexes that are distant from existing cities, with tribute from hexes always flowing to the nearest such seed. That wealth in turn supports the new military, industrial, and cultural classes centered on that hex. This can also happen automatically in neutral territories; wherever there are large volumes of unclaimed surplus, NPC urban centers are liable to form at random and begin acting as your opponents.

You can also invest in "Culture," which in the early days generally means a priest caste. And this is where I get a bit clever.

Culture is an umbrella for anything that counts as "an idea", everything from religious formation, to technology, to philosophical ideas and organizing ideologies. There's a base track, mostly 'pure idea' stuff like mysticism and foundational concepts like writing and lawmaking; throw in a few unique ones for your chosen Civ identity (Egyptians get something about handling river flooding, whatever). And every point invested in Might and Artisan classes also helps unlock new ideas to be researched here; once you open those up, they can be researched here with Culture points. All contain some kind of advantage; new types of army units to levvy, new structures to build, higher yields or new types of resources to extract from the map- the usual.

The trick with culture unlocks is, they're not bonuses for you only. Ideas appear in the urban hex where they're researched, but they spread to adjacent hexes at some fixed rate, hopping from tile to tile and stopped only by uninhabited regions like mountain ranges or extreme deserts that don't have a high enough population- and following trade networks from city to city especially quickly. For example, "irrigation" would be an idea that greatly increases grain surpluses in every hex near a river, both for your territory and for neutral or even enemy hexes as it spreads.

As compensation, whenever your ideas spread to a hex, you gain a slowly-decaying bonus on that space called authority, which means that you require less military force to extract its surplus, and it's easier for you to contest the tile against another sovereign. This attenuates with distance from the originating point, but if you're investing in Culture at a good clip, the hexes immediately around your urban centers will be very cheap or even free to extract wealth from. If you're really booking it, hexes will spontaneously submit to you without ever being formally dominated. This creates an "imperial core" dynamic as the game matures, with your military might being concentrated in the provinces, and allows you to extend your reach much further than you otherwise would, extract wealth accordingly, and push yourself in to a virtuous feedback loop / golden age where you snowball outwards with both territorial gains and rapid intellectual progress.

The double-secret trick here is that authority decays; spreading ideas to a tile can only secure its loyalty for so long before they become the 'new normal'. With proper tuning, every civ's "golden age" period would last for a while, but then when it inevitably reached natural barriers or other obstacles, this would reverse into a death spiral. Absent further expansion, authority would begin decaying faster than it was gained, first in the outer provinces; military expansion would give way to managing a cascade of discontent and rebellions, which would further weaken the imperial core- and so on, unto dissolution.

The triple-secret trick is this: rural hexes are just hexes, but when a fully fledged city rebels against the sovereign empire, the player can declare the rebel city to be the 'true inheritor' of their legacy, and jump ship. In other words, you can take either side in a civil war. This switch triggers the legacy empire to become a more passive computer-controlled entity, and gives the emergent civilization a slew of cheap new ideas to promote, rapidly building their own authority- which of course has particular bonuses against their former overlords. Humankind and Civ 7 both implement an "Ages" system to simulate the rise and fall of civilizations over time, but this has the virtue of being a more organic/emergent property. Instead of artificially converting every Roman city in to the HRE in one fell swoop, the HRE emerges from the rotting carcass of Rome at a single point and carves out its own sovereignty by the sword.

And now you face an interesting dilemma while you play: authoritarian social policies like suppressing foreign ideas can secure the longevity of your empire for centuries longer than it might otherwise last, but you know that sooner or later, the empire you're now controlling will be your immediate opponent during a new phase of expansion. Permissive social policies and liberal attitudes to trade and ideas will make that rebirth go further, faster, than it otherwise would. So do you defend the power you have now? Or do you make yourself vulnerable to your own future?

[fatehbaz]

Headline by: Ryan Burns. “Ground Has Been Broken on Klamath River Restoration, the World’s Largest-Ever Dam-Removal Project.” Lost Coast Outpost. 23 March 2023.

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The world’s largest dam removal in history is slated for 2023. Led by Indigenous tribes in partnership with organizations, lawyers, scientists and activists, the project will remove four dams, clearing the way for the lower Klamath River to flow freely for the first time in more than a century.

Headline and italicized text excerpt by: Malia Russ. “The Science of Saving Salmon as Klamath Dams Come Down.” UC Davis - Blogs - Climate. 24 February 2023.

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Headline by: Jackson Guilfoil. “Klamath dam removals, habitat restoration, begins.” The Mercury News. 25 March 2023.

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Headline by: Kale Williams. “‘The salmon are coming home’: Work begins on Klamath River dam removal.” KGW8. 27 March 2023.

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Iron Gate is a sinuous, skinny reservoir tucked into the folds of the Siskiyou Mountains. Draining it will expose about 900 acres of wet mud. “It’s our job to make sure it’s revegetated. We want that to be revegetated with a healthy native plant ecosystem,” says Joshua Chenoweth, Senior Riparian Ecologist for the Yurok Tribe who is leading the replanting effort. [...] Last fall, they seeded the strip with a mix of native grasses and flowering plants; now, they’re installing young shrubs and trees: buckbrush, serviceberry, and Oregon ash, along with the Klamath plum. Collectively, these plants will create a “wall of green,” taking up space that would have otherwise been overrun by non-native plants [...]. The revegetation of the Klamath River has been called the largest river restoration project in American history. Collecting, propagating, and growing enough seeds and plants to populate the reservoir footprints -- approximately 2,200 acres in all -- is a staggering task. [...] Their planting design includes 96 different species: culturally significant plants like yampah and lomatium, important pollinator species like milkweed, and tens of thousands of oak trees. [...] What will a restored, wild Klamath River look like? Imagine it. Stand at the Wanaka Springs boat launch and picture Iron Gate reservoir drained. The river has found its channel at the base of its original canyon. Willows flank the banks. Much of the reservoir footprint is flush with upland vegetation -- oak copses; thickets of buckbrush and Klamath plum; blooming rose and lupine.

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Headline, images, captions, screenshot, and italicized text excerpt from: Juliet Grable. “After the dams: Restoring the Klamath River will take billions of native seeds.” Jefferson Public Radio. 13 March 2023.

[nigmos]

Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.

It was upon this massive base of racism that the prejudice toward the nonwhite was readily built, and found rapid growth. This long-standing racist ideology has corrupted and diminished our democratic ideals. It is this tangled web of prejudice from which many Americans now seek to liberate themselves, without realizing how deeply it has been woven into their consciousness.

Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

[centralflowsource]

Roxanne for “The Good Witch Creative” SHINE event | 23.11.04

source: Eureka Studios Pgh & Shannon Chavez of The Good Witch Creative

[whencyclopedia]

Meroë

Meroe was a wealthy metropolis of the ancient kingdom of Kush in what is today the Republic of Sudan. It was the later capital of the Kingdom of Kush (c. 1069 BCE to c. 350 CE) after the earlier capital of Napata was sacked c. 590 BCE. Prior to that date, Meroe had been an important administrative centre.

The city was located at the crossroads of major trade routes and flourished from c. 750 BCE to 350 CE. Meroe is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. As no one yet has been able to decipher the Meroitic script, very little can be said for certain on how Meroe grew to become the wondrous city written about by Herodotus circa 430 BCE, but it is known that the city was so famous for its wealth in ancient times that Cambyses II of the Persian Achaemenid Empire mounted an expedition to capture it. The expedition faltered long before reaching the city owing to the difficult and inhospitable terrain of the desert (and, according to some claims, may never have been mounted at all). Still, the persistence of the story of Cambyses' expedition suggests the great fame of Meroe as a wealthy metropolis.

The city was also known as the Island of Meroe as the waters flowing around it made it appear so. It is referenced in the biblical Book of Genesis (10:6) as Aethiopia, a name applied to the region south of Egypt in antiquity meaning "place of the burnt-faces". Although there is evidence of overgrazing and overuse of the land, which caused considerable problems, Meroe thrived until it was sacked by an Aksumite king c. 330 CE and declined steadily afterwards.

Egyptian Influence & King Ergamenes

While there was a settlement at Meroe as early as 890 BCE (the oldest tomb discovered there, that of 'Lord A', dates from that year), the city flourished at its height between c. 750 BCE and 350 CE. The Kingdom of Kush, founded with its capital at Napata, was ruled by Kushites (called "Nubians" by the Egyptians) who, early on, continued Egyptian practices and customs and, though they were depicted in art as distinctly Kushite, called themselves by Egyptian titles. The historian Marc Van De Mieroop writes:

Meroitic culture shows much Egyptian influence, always mixed with local ideas. Many temples housed cults to Egyptian gods like Amun (called Amani) and Isis, but indigenous deities received royal patronage as well. A very prominent Nubian god was the lion-deity Apedemak, a god of war whose popularity increased substantially in this period. Local gods were often associated with Egyptian ones: in Lower Nubia, Mandulis, for example, was considered to be Horus's son. Hybridity is also visible in the arts and in royal ideology. For example, kings of Meroe were represented in monumental images on temples in Egyptian fashion but with local elements, such as garments, crowns, and weapons. (338).

In time, however, these practices gave way to indigenous customs and the Egyptian hieroglyphs were replaced by a new system of writing known as Meroitic. The break from Egyptian culture is explained by the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus who writes that in the time before the reign of King Ergamenes (295-275 BCE), it had been the custom for the high priests of the Egyptian god Amun at Napata to decide who became king and to set the duration of the king's reign.

As the health of the king was tied to the fertility of the land, the priests had the power to determine if the sitting king was no longer fit to rule. If they deemed him unfit, they would send a message to the king, understood to be from the god Amun himself, advising him that the time of his rule on earth was completed and that he must die. The kings had always obeyed the divine orders and had taken their own lives for the supposed good of the people. However, Diodorus continues:

who had received instruction in Greek philosophy, was the first to disdain this command. With the determination worthy of a king he came with an armed force to the forbidden place where the golden temple of the Aithiopians was situated and slaughtered all the priests, abolished this tradition, and instituted practices at his own discretion.

The archaeologist George A. Reisner, who excavated the cities of Meroe and Napata, has famously questioned Diodorus' account calling it "very dubious" and claiming that the Ergamenes story was a national myth which Diodorus accepted as historical truth. Since there is no ancient evidence contradicting Diodorus, however, and since there was clearly a significant cultural break between Meroe and Egypt with Ergamenes' reign, most scholars today accept the account of Diodorus as either certain or something close to actual events.

Continue reading...

[serpentface]

SEVEN FACES OF GOD: AN OVERVIEW

In the dogma of the Wardi faith, God is regarded as one being whose spirit occupies and flows through the world in seven aspects, referred to as its Faces. This is reckoned to be much in the same capacity that blood carries the living spirit throughout parts of the body, sustaining it and allowing for its continued function.

These Faces are not always wholly distinct, nor are their spheres entirely separated, nor wholly representative of God's totality. From a theological perspective, they are means of translating aspects of the totality of God in ways most vital to right practice, imperfectly categorizing how God's spirit interacts with the world. In common practice, the Faces are often effectively treated as seven gods (or more, given that each has dozens of additional epithets describing more specific roles).

Orthopraxy is FAR more important than orthodoxy to this religion, so it matters little if the everyday person sees God as one, or one-as-seven, or seven, or a hundred, or among many gods. What matters most (and VERY critically), is that people perform right practices and necessary rites to sustain the connection of Its spirit throughout the world and the spiritual health of the individual.

Each Face is almost always represented in animal form (in large part an echo of indigenous Wardi religious practices prior to the first Burri colonization, many of which involved animal worship within a broader animistic worldview). These animals all have representation in major constellations along the ecliptic and form the most auspicious signs in the Wardi zodiac.

The Seven Faces of God, as commonly depicted in iconography:

Mitlamache, the Lunar Face of God

Almost always depicted as a bull aurochs (occasionally as a buffalo or other wild bovid), with three pairs of crescent shaped horns cupping a moon motif, usually having a prominent erection (not shown here due to tumblr not letting me post it). It is sometimes depicted with dual-sexed traits and the addition of an udder (or sometimes humanoid breasts upon the chest).

Though several faces have integral fertility connections, Mitlamache is chief in this respect, a holistic representation of fertility of the land, plants, animals, and people. This is the face that looks upon fertility, the moons, cosmic cycles, blood, the act of sacrifice, and divine cycle of death/sacrifice and rebirth. The temples of Mitlamache are the only ones in which people can enter while menstruating (seen as a spiritually impure state), as It encourages the cycle to continue onward and Its blessings can remove the associated impurities.

This is most akin to the form God took in the act of creation, where it lifted the foundations of the world from the sea and inseminated the waters to create the first humans. After Its sacrifice at the hands of Its children, this is the body that was divided to give shape to the world. Its horns were thrown up into the sky to become the three moons.

Inyamache, the Solar Face of God

Usually depicted as a bull khait in mid-stride. Varies between hornless or horned, but almost always has the motif of the solar halo around its head.

This is the Face that looks upon the sun, lightning and wildfires, the dry seasons, the desert and other wild places, khait, mounted warriors, sporting and war games, male fertility, sexuality and libido. It has connections to agriculture as the solar Face and as the balancing opposite of Anaemache (the Face of the rains).

Ganmache, the Ox Face of God

Depicted as a native domestic cattle (with a fatty hump and dewlap, lyrate horns), usually as a castrated oxen bearing a yoke, though sometimes as a cow with udders. Sometimes depicted as a plow khait instead.

This is the face that looks upon year-round agriculture, laborers, herdsmen and their livestock, grain, the home, the hearth, the family and the domestic sphere.

Kusomache, the Serpent Face of God.

Depicted as a two headed serpent, usually a cobra (regarded as sacred) or a viper (when representing Kusomache as the royal emblem).

This is the Face that looks upon the outer cosmos, stars, magic, the deep mysteries, protection from evil spirits, death, and the passage into the afterlife. It has additional associations as the emblem of royalty, evoked for the protection of the Usoma (a king, or emperor in the contemporary) and the royal family.

Anaemache, the River Face of God.

Usually depicted as the reed duck in flight, returning in its seasonal migration alongside the rains. It often is depicted carrying a water lily in its beak, or a tail resembling the lily motif.

This is the Face that looks upon rain, the wet seaon, freshwater, rivers, seasonal flooding, seasonal agriculture, fertility of plants and earth, and female fertility.

Pelennaumache, the Ocean Face of God.

It is usually depicted as a composite animal, combining traits of a skimmer gull and an albatross, as seen passing overhead in flight. It is a rare example of a Face that is given human attributes on a more than occasional basis, sometimes depicted with the head of a woman (or represented with the skimmer-woman motif).

This is the face that looks upon the ocean, the sea trade, mercantilism, storms, winds, luck and fortune, the infliction and deflection of curses, natural disasters. It is often associated with foreigners.

Odomache, the lion face of God.

Always depicted as a lion, most often a maned lioness. The inclusion of teats has a dual function of practically identifying the lion as female, and evoking an impression of maternal nurturing (both as a divine mother to the people, and in its more niche role as a protective spirit of children).

This is the face that looks upon war and military might, rightful bloodshed and destruction of enemies, humankind, and in the contemporary is identified as uniquely representative of and sustaining to the Wardi Empire. It is the only Face known to incarnate into a human, a vital part of the greater flow of God's spirit that ensures the wellbeing of Its lands and people. Odomache is also regarded as a protector of children.

[dailyoverview]

The Merowe Dam, built along the Nile River in Sudan, is the largest hydroelectric project in Africa. River diversion began in 2004, with construction finishing in 2009. Upon completion, the dam doubled Sudan’s electricity supply. As the dam backed up and expanded the flow of the river into a reservoir, the surface area of the Nile increased roughly 270 square miles (699 square kilometers) and displaced 70,000 indigenous people who relied on the land for farming. Because of the warm climate in the region, combined with this increase in surface area, the reservoir is now experiencing evaporation losses of 396.3 billion gallons (1.5 billion cubic meters) of water every year, roughly 8 percent of the water allocated to Sudan from the 1959 Nile Waters Treaty.

18.668889°, 32.050278°

Source imagery: NASA / Google Timelapse

[reality-detective]

🔄Quantum Healing🔄

Quantum healing is a journey that connects your mind, body, and soul to the limitless potential of the universe. It is based on the idea that all possibilities already exist within the Quantum Field, a vast, unseen web of energy where your thoughts, emotions, and intentions shape your reality. Rather than treating symptoms, quantum healing addresses the root causes of imbalance, creating transformation on all levels: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

✨How Does It Work?✨

Your body is not just a collection of cells; it is an energetic system deeply influenced by your thoughts and emotions. Negative patterns or unresolved emotions create energetic blockages, which can manifest as physical or emotional discomfort. Quantum healing uses focused intention, mindfulness, and energy practices to release these blockages and restore harmony.

When you align your thoughts and emotions with higher frequencies such as love, gratitude, and wholeness, you activate your body’s natural ability to heal. Every cell becomes a vessel for transformation, guided by the energy you embody.

✨Healing Beyond the Physical✨

Quantum healing goes far beyond addressing physical ailments. It is a journey of the soul. By working with the Quantum Field, you can access deeper layers of healing, such as releasing limiting beliefs, processing unresolved emotions, and reprogramming your subconscious mind. It reconnects you with your divine essence, reminding you that you are more than your physical body. You are an energetic being with infinite potential.

✨How to Begin Your Journey✨

1️⃣Cultivate awareness: Observe your thoughts and emotions. Identify patterns that may no longer serve you.

2️⃣Set intentions: Visualize the reality you wish to create. Align your energy with love, peace, and gratitude.

3️⃣Use energy practices: Meditate, practice Reiki, or work with visualization to connect with the Quantum Field.

4️⃣Trust the process: Healing unfolds naturally as you release resistance and align with the flow of the universe.

✨

Hair: More than just aesthetics - the wisdom of indigenous traditions

Indigenous cultures see hair as a physical extension of our thoughts and a sign of our connection between body and mind. Each hair represents ourselves, and hairstyles carry symbolic meanings:

Middle parting represents clarity of thought

Braid symbolizes the unity of heart and mind

Hair down shows self-confidence

Updo means determination

Hair is also a kind of "antenna" for animals and plants, absorbing solar energy and conducting life energy (prana) through the body. After cutting the hair, it takes three years for the "antenna" at the ends of the hair to fully regenerate.

Historical meanings:

Long hair was considered a sign of strength and wisdom in many cultures. Tyrannical systems often cut the hair of conquered people as a sign of submission and powerlessness. Hair styling among indigenous peoples symbolized their cultural values, stage of life and social position.

Health influences:

Hair that reaches its natural length produces phosphorus, calcium and vitamin D, which strengthen memory and physical energy. Yogis recommend washing hair every 72 hours and using a wooden comb to help circulate energy in the body.

Conclusion:

Hair has a spiritual and energetic function that goes far beyond fashion. It stores memories and supports us on our journey through life.🤔