Are you up for the journey?
I’m a white-bred red-blooded fair-skinned Indian
Here to offer you my caffeine-fuelled response to the hegemonic discourse
The colonized, educated, know-it-all, patronizing, positivist discourse
Learned in English since I was less than six, how to write the right way
Not the Red way
I never learned to speak my language
Instead I followed all the rules, every day at school
Graduated, convocated, relegated
To the right path, the White path, the well-read road
Not The Red Road
Then I stopped to listen
To the old ways with a new voice
Compromised, criticized and dissected by the scholars of a new millennium
Inspired by the grandfathers, ancestors, grandmothers
Here for community, for our people: Indigenous, Metis, Inuit, Tribal, First Nations, Aboriginal
Status, Non-status, doesn’t matter…Even white-bred fair-skinned Indians
Even Bill C-3 – don’t get me started
I’m half Cree, don’t need no paper to tell me who I am, where I come from
Who’s my father, my relations and why it matters anyway
I’ll tell you why
Because I look around and all I see
Is destruction: oil spills, suicides, pesticides, nuclear reactors – making messes, claiming lives, no respect for our relations
I can only stand to hear the sound bites and the little bits
But there’s hope rising up from within us
We hold the fire[1]
Education, in a new way: the old ways with a new voice
Keep on learning, keep on teaching, keep on searching
In a good way, with a purpose,
“Self-determined definitions of what is real and what is valuable”[2]:
The Sacred Tree[3],
Medicine, Circle, Oral Histories and Stories
Told to us by the grandfathers, ancestors, grandmothers, Elders
Community, Ceremony, Family, Language[4]
Spiritual, Emotional, Intellectual and Physical[5]
There are some issues to consider well
Listen carefully: to your inner voice, and the cosmos
Consider Family, Community, All My Relations
Self-determination. [6]
Creation.
Celebration.
Revitalization.
Rehabilitation. [7]
Education.
With this new discourse, we’ll plot our own course: for survival, revival and for our children.
All the yesterdays and tomorrows join together to tell us.
If you listen you’ll hear the whispers in the circle[8]
And ask yourself one question: “Am I up for the journey?” [9]
References: [1] King, Cecil (1989), cited in Ermine, Willie. (1995). Aboriginal epistemology. In Battiste, Marie and Barman, Jean (Eds) First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle Unfolds, pp. 101-112. Vancouver: UBC Press. “The Indians have fire…. It is our responsibility to preserve the flame for humanity and at the moment it is too weak to be shared but if we all are still and respect the flame it will grow and thrive in the caring hands of those who hold it” (p. 111). [2] Brant Castellano, Marlene. (2004): Quotation on page 102: “Fundamental to the exercise of self-determination is the right of peoples to construct knowledge in accordance with self-determined definitions of what is real and what is valuable.” [3] Brown, L., Lane, P., Bopp., M. & Bopp, J. (1984). The Sacred Tree. Lethbridge, AB: Four Winds International. [4] Brant Castellano, Marlene. (2004): Ethical codes within Aboriginal groups are well-developed, diverse, and may be transmitted through language (stories, songs), family, community and ceremony. In any discussion of research ethics, these distinctive ethical codes must be considered. [5] Brown, L., et al. (1984). [6] Brant Castellano, Marlene. (2004): Knowledge and research are inextricably linked to self-determination for Indigenous peoples around the world. [7] Brant Castellano, Marlene. (2004): “applied research, going on spontaneously and autonomously in Aboriginal communities and organizations, is demonstrating that when learning, healing or rehabilitating is aligned with traditional ethics and values, it takes on astounding energy. The leaves of a tree, connected to their vital source, display health and vigour” (p. 112) [8] Tababodong, Rebecca, cited in Baker, Emerance (2008). Locating ourselves in the place of creation: The academy as Kitsu’lt melkiko’tin. Canadian Woman Studies, 26, p. 15 [9] Kovach, Margaret. (2009). Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations and Contexts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (quote from page 38) Hambler, 2011, Unpublished poem, shared on Facebook May 2, 2011 (https://www.facebook.com/notes/patty-hambler/are-you-up-for-the-journey/10150180182733676)