#Indigenous issues

[twicethebetterworse]

IMPORTANT IMPORTANT

THE TREATY PRINCIPLES BILL IS BEING PRESENTED TO THE HOUSE TOMORROW!!!!!!!

EDIT: Here's a link with more info on the Bill and it's contents and breaches!

This matters to EVERYONE in our country! If you're Māori this is about our LITERAL existence, if you're Pākehā, tauiwi, tangata Tiriti this concerns you because Tiriti is what gives you the privilege of existing on this whenua! The Waitangi Tribunal has already said this Bill will be the biggest Waitangi breach ever. YOU have a responsibility to do something.

ACT, our coalition government, and the Ministry of Justice have been intentionally keeping this bill under the wraps. Mad mihi to the MoJ analyst who leaked that draft though (I'm sure they got sacked if not massive repercussions).

What we know so far is that Te Pāti Māori, Green Party, and Labour WILL NOT be voting for this and that ACT, NZ First, and National WILL be voting for this tomorrow. NZ First and National have said that they WILL NOT support this Bill after its first reading so it will go to Select Committee and then die at first reading.

National and NZ First have said they'll only support this Bill to first reading (thankfully) but there is always the chance of closed door promises & favours and we still need to advocate for this disgusting bill to die.

I'll post more about submissions when they open for Select Committee but I'm happy to help answer questions or help with that and the process.

But the racist idiots to email and drill in that you DO NOT want this Bill are...

ACT MPs

1. David Seymour (Email: David.Seymour@parliament.govt.nz ) (the one bigoted brain cell behind this bill)

2. Brooke Van Velden (Brooke.Vanvelden@parliament.govt.nz)

3. Nicole McKee (Nicole.McKee@parliament.govt.z)

4. Todd Stephenson (Todd.Stephenson@parliament.govt.nz)

5. Andrew Hoggard (Andrew.Hoggard@parliament.govt.nz)

6. Karen Chhour (Karen.Chhour@parliament.govt.nz)

7. Mark Cameron (Mark.Cameron@parliament.govt.nz)

8. Simon Court (Simon.Court@parliament.govt.nz)

9. Parmjeet Parmat (Parmjeet.Parmat@parliament.govt.nz)

10. Laura Trask (Laura.Trask@parliament.govt.nz)

11. Cameron Luxton (Cameron.Luxton@parliament.govt.nz)

AND

- Prime Minister Christopher Luxon (Christopher.Luxon@parliament.govt.nz)

- Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters (Winston.Peters@parliament.govt.nz)

If you're able to participate with any part of the hīkoi please do and please be safe!!!!

Toitū te Tiriti! Ake ake ake!

[reasonsforhope]

"The Yurok will be the first Tribal nation to co-manage land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed on Tuesday [March 19, 2024] by the tribe, Redwood national and state parks, and the non-profit Save the Redwoods League, according to news reports.

The Yurok tribe has seen a wave of successes in recent years, successfully campaigning for the removal of a series of dams on the Klamath River, where salmon once ran up to their territory, and with the signing of a new memorandum of understanding, the Yurok are set to reclaim more of what was theirs.

Save the Redwoods League bought a property containing these remarkable trees in 2013, and began working with the tribe to restore it, planting 50,000 native plants in the process. The location was within lands the Yurok once owned but were taken during the Gold Rush period.

Centuries passed, and by the time it was purchased it had been used as a lumber operation for 50 years, and the nearby Prairie Creek where the Yurok once harvested salmon had been buried.

Currently located on the fringe of Redwoods National and State Parks which receive over 1 million visitors every year and is a UNESCO Natural Heritage Site, the property has been renamed ‘O Rew, a Yurok word for the area.

“Today we acknowledge and celebrate the opportunity to return Indigenous guardianship to ‘O Rew and reimagine how millions of visitors from around the world experience the redwoods,” said Sam Hodder, president and CEO of Save the Redwoods League.

Having restored Prarie Creek and filled it with chinook and coho salmon, red-legged frogs, northwestern salamanders, waterfowl, and other species, the tribe has said they will build a traditional village site to showcase their culture, including redwood-plank huts, a sweat house, and a museum to contain many of the tribal artifacts they’ve recovered from museum collections.

Believing the giant trees sacred, they only use fallen trees to build their lodges.

“As the original stewards of this land, we look forward to working together with the Redwood national and state parks to manage it,” said Rosie Clayburn, the tribe’s cultural resources director.

It will add an additional mile of trails to the park system, and connect them with popular redwood groves as well as new interactive exhibits.

“This is a first-of-its-kind arrangement, where Tribal land is co-stewarded with a national park as its gateway to millions of visitors. This action will deepen the relationship between Tribes and the National Park Service,” said Redwoods National Park Superintendent Steve Mietz, adding that it would “heal the land while healing the relationships among all the people who inhabit this magnificent forest.”"

-via Good News Network, March 25, 2024

[rebeccathenaturalist]

For those following the Chinook Indian Nation's work toward regaining federal recognition, this is an important endorsement. I posted a while back about a petition for the state of Washington to give the now-closed Naselle Youth Camp to the Chinook. The NYC is on unceded Chinook land, and specifically the portion of land the Chinook asked to retain almost two centuries ago as part of an unfulfilled treaty with the U.S. government.

A state task force formed to determine the fate of the NYC has officially recommended the NYC be given to the Chinook Indian Nation. Not only would this put the facility into the hands of people who will make excellent use of it, but the Chinook have also stated their intention to restore the on-site wastewater treatment facility and salmon hatchery. The former would additionally be a boon to the entirety of Pacific County, which currently ships its wastewater all the way to Centralia, WA, over 100 miles away from southern portions of the county.

If the NYC is indeed given to the Chinook, this will be an important statement that can be used to pressure the U.S. government to restore their federal recognition. To find out ways you can help the Chinook in this effort, please visit ChinookJustice.org.

[idiotsandwich777]

JD Vance called us "the enemy". Spread the word.

[acti-veg]

According to one analysis of wool production in Australia, by far the world’s top exporter, the wool required to make one knit sweater is responsible for 27 times more greenhouse gases than a comparable Australian cotton sweater, and requires 247 times more land. Sheep farming threatens native species around the world, from koalas in Australia to sage grouse in the US.

Domesticated sheep in the American West have, as my colleague Paige Vega has reported, been implicated in mass die-offs of their wild cousins, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, through the spread of the lethal pathogen Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae.

Ruminant farming’s hunger for land has made it a prime engine for colonial expansion around the world; we see this in Brazil, for example, where cattle ranching is driving illegal seizures of Indigenous land. Sheep brought by colonists to Australia “immediately trampled and destroyed all of the native yams and edible vegetables that Aboriginal people had.

The land that Aboriginal people never ceded was taken for pastoral practices,” said Emma Hakansson, the Australia-based founding director of Collective Fashion Justice, which advocates for what she calls a “total ethics” fashion system: one that’s fair to people, animals, and the planet. “Animal-derived materials in particular are a focus for us because it’s in those supply chains that all three of those groups are consistently harmed.”

[van-goghs-smoking-skull]

2023 is such an interesting year for Burning Man. 70,000 (depending on the source, otherwise it's 'tens of thousands') people are stranded, finding out that deserts and rain are messy af. Environmental activists from Europe protested Burning Man, but were removed by Tribal Police due to trespassing on Piute land and disrupting traffic on the Rez. The protestors were trashing the place and while it's unsure as to whether they were going to start a fire (NOT a great time for fires, considering how dry it had been - brush fires spread like crazy with that much dry creosote everywhere), but they did not bring water.

It's like Mother Nature said she's sick of everyone's shit, and Paiutes said they are sick of white people making a mess on their land and fucking up their traffic flow to protest other white people damaging the environment at Black Rock.

[olowan-waphiya]

What is NIBSDA?

NIBSDA was conceptualized to serve as a national digital platform and digital repository for boarding school archival collections throughout the United States. As part of truth-telling, access to boarding school records for survivors and descendants is paramount to understanding this history and its consequences on Tribal Nations. Through cultivating historical insights, NIBSDA supports community-led healing initiatives throughout American Indian and Alaska Native Nations towards restored Indigenous cultural sovereignty.

⚠ In negotiating these pursuits, you may encounter content that can trigger secondary trauma or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); we encourage individuals to prepare themselves prior to engaging with these collections and to seek counseling or healing if you experience any stress related to boarding school history.   Indigenous peoples are warned that NIBSDA may lead to other external resources that contain images, names, and references to deceased persons. For more information, please see Content Warning. ⚠

[neuroticboyfriend]

the genocide of palestine is a mass disabling event. if you said this about COVID, you need to be saying it now, too. you cannot only care when there are dead. you must care about the living - the suffering and the disabled, too.

this is one of the most grave examples of what disabled activists mean when we say that our suffering does not mean we do not deserve to live. giving voice to suffering and uplifting those speaking on it does not mean disabled people should not exist.

from the river to the sea, palestine will be free. and so will all her disabled people. they will live - even the dead will live on in the survivors. we must do everything in our power for there to be as many survivors as possible.

[hayyytommy]

Native land in native hands

[butch-reidentified]

extremely important piece on the complexity and difficulty of trying to get the public to give a shit about protecting Native spaces, practices, cultures, etc. without compromising the privacy and boundaries of said communities

[noctivagantpodcast]

I Live On Stolen Land

Consider donating to one of these wonderful charities dedicated to preserving the cultures, livelihoods, rights, and dignity of Indigenous peoples.

First Nations Development Institute. Information taken from their 'Our Programs' page: Grantmaker dedicated to addressing financial inequality and its many, many negative impacts. In additional to financial aid, FNDI provides job training and participates in policy-making and advocacy, often focusing on environmental concerns, food insecurity, and tribal sovereignty. Some examples of current projects include "Fortifying Our Forests" AKA restoring and protecting sacred land in partnership with the Forest Service, Native Language Immersion Initiative AKA ensuring the survival of Native languages, and Native Farm To School AKA connecting Native youth with traditional means of growing and harvesting food.

Native American Rights Fund A registered non-profit that provides legal representation in matters of Native interest, be that a single individual or an entire tribe. Since their inception, they have won cases that made critical contributions to the advancement of Native rights in the United States. Their efforts have helped uphold tribal sovereignty, compelled museums, universities, and other institutions to return the remains of Native ancestors, and protected the voting rights of pretty much everyone.

Redhawk Native American Arts Council This organization's primary focus is on the preservation of Native American arts through educational programs. We can also thank them for granting scholarships to Native students seeking higher education, and for running a youth program which aims to help Urban Indigenous youth connect with their heritage through the arts.

Seventh Generation Fund A "fiscal sponsor" for smaller community groups that are run by and for Native tribes/individuals, with the focus of preserving heritage and defending tribal sovereignty, as well as continued survival post-genocide. One example of their work is the Flicker Fund, a disaster fund dedicated to supporting Indigenous communities during times of crisis, be that a pandemic, extreme weather, or a severe drought. Another is the Traditions Bearers Fellowship, which provides financial support to tribal community members who carry on pre-colonization traditions.

Quiluete Move To Higher Ground Stephanie Meyer committed a serious of egregious acts of cultural appropriation and exploitation, and made a very large fortune off a very real tribe. This very real tribe now finds themselves living in a tsunami zone and unable to afford a move to a safer area. As of 2022, the move of the Tribal School, the most important phase, is complete, but there's much more work to be done.

Indigenous Women Rising Abortion Fund A fund to provide Native individuals and family access to abortion care, menstrual hygiene supplies, and midwifery. Here are two separate articles verifying their status as the ONLY indigenous specific (and Indigenous led) abortion fund. For more information on how the destruction of Roe V Wade has negatively impacted Indigenous women, look here and here.

South Dakota Historical Society Foundation So, this isn't a Native led or Native specific organization, but, they work closely with Indigenous communities in South Dakota to preserve their heritage alongside the state's history. I recently had a lovely conversation with one of their representatives about the Ghost Shirt their society is sheltering until such a time as the tribe it rightfully belongs to can house it safely. Article about the shirt's repatriation with some cool info on the shirt's history is here.

[reasonsforhope]

For years, the people of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation watched over their waters and waited. They had spent nearly two decades working with Canada’s federal government to negotiate protections for Kitasu Bay, an area off the coast of British Columbia that was vulnerable to overfishing.

But the discussions never seemed to go anywhere. First, they broke down over pushback from the fishing industry, then over a planned oil tanker route directly through Kitasoo/Xai’xais waters.

“We were getting really frustrated with the federal government. They kept jumping onboard and then pulling out,” says Douglas Neasloss, the chief councillor and resource stewardship director of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation. “Meanwhile, we’d been involved in marine planning for 20 years – and we still had no protected areas.”

Instead, the nation watched as commercial overfishing decimated the fish populations its people had relied on for thousands of years.

Nestled on the west coast of Swindle Island, approximately 500km north of Vancouver, Kitasu Bay is home to a rich array of marine life: urchins and abalone populate the intertidal pools, salmon swim in the streams and halibut take shelter in the deep waters. In March, herring return to spawn in the eelgrass meadows and kelp forests, nourishing humpback whales, eagles, wolves and bears.

“Kitasu Bay is the most important area for the community – that’s where we get all of our food,” Neasloss says. “It’s one of the last areas where you still get a decent spawn of herring.”

So in December 2021, when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans withdrew from discussions once again, the nation decided to act. “My community basically said, ‘We’re tired of waiting. Let’s take it upon ourselves to do something about it,’” Neasloss says.

What they did was unilaterally declare the creation of a new marine protected area (MPA). In June 2022, the nation set aside 33.5 sq km near Laredo Sound as the new Gitdisdzu Lugyeks (Kitasu Bay) MPA – closing the waters of the bay to commercial and sport fishing.

It is a largely unprecedented move. While other marine protected areas in Canada fall under the protection of the federal government through the Oceans Act, Kitasu Bay is the first to be declared under Indigenous law, under the jurisdiction and authority of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation.

Pictured: "In some ways, I hope someone challenges us" … the Kitasoo/Xai’xais stewardship authority.

Although they did not wait for government approval, the Kitasoo did consult extensively: the declaration was accompanied by a draft management plan, finalised in October after three months of consultation with industry and community stakeholders. But the government did not provide feedback during that period, according to Neasloss, beyond an acknowledgment that it had received the plan...

Approximately 95% of British Columbia is unceded: most First Nations in the province of British Columbia never signed treaties giving up ownership of their lands and waters to the crown. This puts them in a unique position to assert their rights and title, according to Neasloss, who hopes other First Nations will be inspired to take a similarly proactive approach to conservation...

Collaboration remains the goal, and Neasloss points to a landmark agreement between the Haida nation and the government in 1988 to partner in conserving the Gwaii Haanas archipelago, despite both parties asserting their sovereignty over it. A similar deal was made in 2010 for the region’s 3,400 sq km Gwaii Haanas national marine conservation area.

“They found a way to work together, which is pretty exciting,” says Neasloss. “And I think there may be more Indigenous protected areas that are overlaid with something else.”

-via The Guardian, 5/3/23

[doddsmountain]

Some white folk are trying to say that recognizing Campbell River's indigenous place names goes against "popular opinion". This is just racist rhetoric.

[little-desi-historian]

A Day to Listen & Every Child Matters

I'll share more on this on September 30th, but I just thought I'd share this here. This is for Canada but the issues the speakers bring up are relevant to the United States as well, perhaps more so because Canada at least pretends to be 'nice' about it (which is fallacy but even so...).

Tagging: @decolonize-the-everything and @nickysfacts in the hope this reaches more people and cause I think they'd appreciate the observations the speakers make, I am not Indigenous and I do not presume to speak for them, please kindly don't take this post out of context, dear people of the internet.

[lutravurr]

can we talk about how normalized it is, particularly on twitter, to doxx native people to 'check if theyre really native' because that shit is really fucked up we live in an epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous fems and children and you bitches are doxxing people to see if theyre 'claimed by their community' if they are pretendians that sucks but dont fucking doxx people especially because if youre wrong you put a hate crime target on their back

[irawhiti]

kia ora! i would like to suggest the coining of a term that would hopefully help a large demographic of mostly-forgotten-about māori to connect with each other and share our experiences to feel less alone, congregate around a concept regardless of country of origin and upbringing, and organise as activists.

i politely ask as many people to spread this as possible to help indigenous people organise with each other and to get the largest amount of interactions possible.

anyway, with all that being said,

i would like to coin the term "ngāti rangiātea" for māori who do not know their iwi to use.

this is based on the well known whakataukī/proverb, "i will never be lost, for i am a seed which was sown from rangiātea." i chose this whakataukī due to the spiritual significance of rangiātea as a place in māori culture, as well as to emphasise that no matter how it feels, we are not lost, we can find ourselves in each other, we can experience strength and self-realisation, and that we will exist with mana and without whakamā as rightful tangata whenua.

i've put my reasoning, personal experiences shaping my viewpoints on the matter, and various statistics under the cut to make this post reblog-friendly and i would suggest fellow māori read it regardless of whether or not they know their iwi. i also ask for the opinions of other māori, ESPECIALLY AND SPECIFICALLY other māori who do not know their iwi. in fact, i politely ask māori to share this with their whānau and people in general to share this with māori they know, especially any they know who do not know their iwi. a wide reach is what i am going for to get the largest amount of voices, critiques, and opinions on the topic and to avoid this from just becoming a very small thing that stays in an online echo-chamber.

to begin, the 2018 aotearoan census shows that, of the 775,836 people identifying as māori in aotearoa, roughly 17% are unable to identify their iwi in the census. this has gone up by 1% since 2006, showing that we are a considerably stable percentage of people. along with this, there are more than 170,000 māori living in australia and, while there are no solid statistics, there are an estimated 8,000 māori living in the UK, 3,500 in the US, 2,500 in canada, and 8,000 in other countries where there's no option for māori or any polynesians on the census.

this number adds up to 967,816 total māori and while there's no census in these countries asking for your iwi, i would go as far as to assume that there's a larger number of diaspora māori who are no longer able to identify their iwi than there are in aotearoa. of course, this is just speculation based on my lived experiences and conversations with other diaspora māori, however even assuming that it's the exact same amount globally, 17%, this is roughly 164,532 māori worldwide who do not know their iwi. nearly one in five māori do not know their iwi.

regardless of the specific statistics, the hard fact here is that there is a large percentage of māori who are unsure of their iwi for whatever reason. it's extremely easy to feel unsure of yourself, lost, disconnected, and uncomfortable speaking on issues regarding te ao māori when you're unsure of your iwi (or your hapū, whānau, waka, or anything else, but there is heavy emphasis on the iwi) and it's very easy for whakamā to take hold, especially when many māori who can recite their whakapapa aren't very polite or understanding about your situation to say the least.

and there are a lot of those people.

unfortunately, i've spoken to many māori who are of the opinion that not knowing your iwi due to colonialism, assimilation, forced disconnection, etc. means that you should not, cannot, call yourself māori. this is a disgusting viewpoint to have and in my opinion it spits on the fundamental concepts of māori culture and worldviews. thankfully this is a small yet vocal group of people, but even so, they add to the collective experience that makes it extremely difficult to navigate a world while full of whakamā and internalised racism. it can feel like there's no space for you, no term you can use, nobody you can relate to, no mana you can claim, nothing. when you cannot recite your whakapapa, it can feel like there's a part of you that's fundamentally missing.

as well as this, even when people mean well, when you are in this situation, you're usually told to just do some genealogy work, do some research, ask your family what they know. sometimes, these steps are simply not possible. other times, we've already done everything suggested over and over and over again. we're generally told "oh, that sucks, but one day you'll find out, keep looking!" in response to our lack of iwi. sure, they mean well, but i have never once been told anything along the lines of "that's okay, some things are lost to time through no fault of your own. don't beat yourself up over something your whānau had to hide to survive, what you do now to uphold your family's mana, what you do know about your whānau, and who you ultimately become is more important than what you no longer know."

and why? why is it seen as shameful to say matter-of-factly that i don't know my iwi? i'm not looking for comfort, i'm not looking to be told that, aww, there there, i'll find it eventually. i'm stating a fact. i do not need pity, i need my mana and voice to be respected.

this concept is what i want to emphasise by coining ngāti rangiātea. some things are lost to time, but we aren't. our loss of knowledge does not mean that we are unworthy of being māori, that we are unworthy of basic human respect. it does not mean that we have lost everything that our whānau knows. it is a scar, a reminder of what colonisation took from us, yes, but we cannot allow it to continue to be an open bleeding wound. we will not be lost to time and we should not bow our heads and act like we do not exist, that we're inconvenient, that we damage the "image" that māori have. in fact, we are an important aspect of māori culture and ignoring our existence does harm to everybody.

and of course we can't speak on some topics regarding te ao māori. this seems to be a topic that comes up frequently as a strawman. yes, there are some topics that would be irresponsible to speak on when we have no experience with them. this doesn't mean we can't speak on anything. having a collective identity, an "iwi" to congregate around even just politically, would help us speak on topics that we are more qualified to speak on than māori with knowledge of their iwi (yes, those topics exist, shockingly.)

we will never be lost, for we are a seed sown in rangiātea.

by identifying as ngāti rangiātea, i wish to emphasise that it's important to accept that sometimes, someone just won't be able to find every piece of information. loss of family knowledge is literally one of the primary goals of forced assimilation! we all went through it as colonised peoples, why must we continue to attach shame to those of us who were forced to obfuscate our history to keep our children alive? it's not a personal flaw, it's not a dirty secret, it's a fact of life that must not continue to be kept quiet out of shame, and the sooner we can focus on healing this subsection of our community, the stronger māori as a whole will become.

so, this is why i'd like to coin a term for māori who are unsure of their iwi. this is what i intend to achieve by giving us a name, our own "iwi" to congregate around, to identify ourselves as. instead of hanging my head and saying "i'm not sure what my iwi is, i'm sorry", instead of feeling inclined to beg like a dog to be treated with respect, i would like to look people in the eye and tell them that i am ngāti rangiātea. i would like this label to be synonymous with strength and not shame, that i refuse to let my whakamā swallow me, that i am just as worthy of calling myself māori as anyone else, that there are many others in my iwi (or lack thereof). i would like other people to have that as well and i would like those like me to feel less lost when all they've been told is "well, you'll learn your iwi eventually!" as if that's going to help someone feel better if they can't find their iwi.

and even if a person finds their iwi eventually, it's absolutely disgraceful that people are treated that they're not allowed to access many basic parts of te ao māori until they discover something they are not even 100% destined to find. i think that this view contributes to a lot of people who eventually find their iwi becoming unnecessarily arrogant towards those who truly cannot find this information, that they're just not putting enough effort in. if a person finds their iwi after identifying as ngāti rangiātea, they are fully welcome to continue to identify as this political label along with the iwi they now know they belong to as i wish for it to be a term that describes your experiences, your upbringing, and your community. you don't suddenly lose your whānau or your lived experience when you discover your whakapapa.

finally, this hopefully goes without saying, but ngāti rangiātea is not meant to function as a real existing iwi does. the term will hopefully be used as a way to identify yourself and other people and organise but i don't expect nor do i want this to be treated like a coordinated iwi. i expect and hope for this to be a decentralised way of identifying and experiencing community to make it easier to organise as a people. think of this the way the terms ngāti kangaru, ngāti rānara, ngāti tūmatauenga etc. are used.

-----

so, the tl;dr is that i feel like coining a name for a phenomenon that nearly one in five of all māori experience in quiet shame, to make it easier for us to congregate and find each other, speak on our experiences, organise as activists, feel less lost, and ultimately give us the ability to regain our mana as a community with shared goals and experiences. i have spoken to many māori who feel this way and my suggestion for this term is ngāti rangiātea, to show homage to the well known whakataukī, "i will never be lost, for i am a seed sown from rangiātea", to give us a community to work with, and to give us an "iwi" to list when asked instead of fumbling for words and feeling whakamā.

i would like to take the emphasis off of constantly looking to the future for what you may or may not even find with this identity. we are not broken, we are not lost, for we are seeds sown in ngāti rangiātea.

tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa, and if you got this far, thank you for reading.