How are you going to honor Indigenous People tomorrow?

Tomorrow is Indigenous People's Day. Here are a few suggestions on how you might want to honor it and them.

Native American Cultural Corridor, Minneapolis

Photo by J. Harrington

• You could visit the American Indian Cultural Corridor along Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis


• You could order a book or two, or Native Arts, from Birchbark Books. Recently, we've been reading When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry by Joy Harjo (Editor) and recommend it highly.


• If you're near Duluth, you could look at the items available at Indigenous First Art and Gift Shop [curbside pickup only]


• Online, there's a bdote memory map you could visit; and / or,


• the Native Land web site with its page on Territory Acknowledgement 


• If you're into local foods, you could order The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen cook book or sign up to learn about and support the North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems—NATIFS

It's highly likely we may have more to suggest on this topic between now and late next month, when it's time to celebrate Thanksgiving.

The Theft Outright

By Heid E. Erdrich

     after Frost

We were the land's before we were.

Or the land was ours before you were a land.

Or this land was our land, it was not your land.

We were the land before we were people,

loamy roamers rising, so the stories go,

or formed of clay, spit into with breath reeking soul—

What's America, but the legend of Rock 'n' Roll?

Red rocks, blood clots bearing boys, blood sands

swimming being from women's hands, we originate,

originally, spontaneous as hemorrhage.

Un-possessing of what we still are possessed by,

possessed by what we now no more possess.

We were the land before we were people,

dreamy sunbeams where sun don't shine, so the stories go,

or pulled up a hole, clawing past ants and roots—

Dineh in documentaries scoff DNA evidence off.

They landed late, but canyons spoke them home.

Nomadic Turkish horse tribes they don't know.

What's America, but the legend of Stop 'n' Go?

Could be cousins, left on the land bridge,

contrary to popular belief, that was a two-way toll.

In any case we'd claim them, give them some place to stay.

Such as we were we gave most things outright

(the deed of the theft was many deeds and leases and claim stakes

and tenure disputes and moved plat markers stolen still today . . .)

We were the land before we were a people,

earthdivers, her darling mudpuppies, so the stories go,

or emerging, fully forming from flesh of earth—

The land, not the least vaguely, realizing in all four directions,

still storied, art-filled, fully enhanced.

Such as she is, such as she wills us to become.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.