After watching Audrey Siegl’s community engaged learning talk about her connection to water, and the Indigenous lands that we live on, I found myself intrigued by many things she talked about. I found it empowering but also sad when Audrey emphasized how the work she does is not something that is political but it is for the purpose of survival. I find it extremely saddening and unfair that an individual or a group of people have to put so much effort into where they came from and their heritage just so that their legacy and stories and history can live on. It makes me question what would it be like if I had to do as much work and fight extremely hard like Audrey does just to say that I’m Canadian? I imagine that many people would be in an extreme uproar if that was something they had to do everyday simply just to have their ancestry and identity live on, but because it involves Indigenous peoples it’s simply okay so push it aside and say it doesn’t matter as much? Another impactful thing Audrey talked about during her presentation was that the term Musqueam is a political accommodation for her ancestors and all Indigenous peoples. The government is simply just putting a name to the stolen lands that they took, just to make the Indigenous peoples feel valued, but does this mean they are really fully paying tribute to their lands? What’s interesting to me that they would never consider changing the name of cities like Vancouver or Toronto to the original names it had, because that would feel to them as if their identity would be taken away, but what makes it okay to take away the identity of the Indigenous peoples and remove the names of territories they had? Another important part of the land we live on is the water that is integrated within it. I found Audrey’s perspective on water to be fascinating as it’s not only seen as something on the earth and around all of us, but it is used for directions and used within human life. Audrey explained how her ancestors never used the terms north, south, east, west, but instead used upstream, downstream, and beside the river. That shows to me that water is not just something for basic survival, or some small aspect of life, but indeed it is the central pillar of life. Audrey really highlights the importance of water in our lives, and that is it not just something to push aside and not focus on the vitality of it.
Hi Kendell, great insights here! Something new I learned from the talk was the point that you references about Musqueam as a politically-affiliated name for Indigenous peoples — I think it’s really important to acknowledge this here, especially your point about taking away identity by changing the name of Indigenous territories.
I was really interested to hear the different parts of Audrey’s talk that stood out to you. I thought what she said about naming — and about some of the naming in her language (like instead of North/South, being oriented to the river) was really important too.