QUESTION THE COLONIZER

"In ancient times and even today in canoe journeys, and community resistance building gatherings, there exists Protocols where visiting peoples have shown who they are in relation to asking permission to enter the Traditional Lands from the Traditional Chiefs and Matriarchs of the hosting lands." (Free Prior and Informed Consent Protocol, unistotencamp.com)

Unistoten Free, Prior and Informed Consent Protocol




“Whenever visitors came to our villages they stopped at the edge of the woods, it was our women who went to great them and assessed whether it was safe for our women and children to let them in to the village.” -Jan Kahehti:io Longboat (From "Well Living House")



QUESTION THE COLONIZER

At a gathering at Kanata last year, Jan Kahehti:io Longboat spoke about this Protocol, directing it to the non-native "allies" gathered there. I was there and heard her speak. I heard her words, from my own understanding, to mean physically, psychologically, spiritually and relationally STOP AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS and would like to share some of my own thoughts.

WE as people, and as women, we are at the hearts and centers of our villages: psychologically, spiritually and relationally. WE HOLD THE CENTER, and we hold it for our children, and for generations coming behind us, because our ancestors held it for us.
Defending our responsibilities means standing up to people who seek to gain power by taking our responsibilities from us by force or coercion. We defend ourselves by keeping them at the edge of the woods. But looking around, it appears, physically, that colonization is in control and we could say "What's the point in telling them to get back to the edge of the woods when they've already sacked the village?"

BUT our Lives are not just physical, we have Minds, Hearts, and Spirits, and within these are everything we need, the seeds of resistance, strength, and empowerment, language, thought, action, movement, rebirth, re-membering: "Freedom is not dead but sleeps at the root" and freedom as a physical process comes by way of freeing our Minds, Hearts and Spirits, as a means of defense and growth, with all our Relations.

So how do we defend ourselves from people who seek to gain power and profit by keeping us down in ways that are hard to identify because they may not just be physical? How do we psychologically defend ourselves from academics who want into our heads to prove theories which advance their academic careers? How do we defend ourselves relationally from white people who want us around to accessorize their guilt? Or want into our pants to boost their exotic delusions and justify their racism? How do we defend ourselves spiritually from wannabe-shamans who steal songs and ceremonies and sell them for cash, or who show up at ceremonies or gatherings uninvited?

How do we defend against white messiahs who buy 40 acres of prime real estate down the road from the Rez, call it "Edge of the Woods Farm" and just keep plowing through the village psychologically, relationally and spiritually, using traditional Protocol and wampum to jockey for positions of power?

These are questions which speak to our Minds, Hearts and Spirits, all deeply interconnected with our Bodies, Land, Water and Air. If we are afraid to ask them, it is not a sign of weakness, but a sign to ask Spirit to help us voice them to those we confront.

This Wet’suwet’en statement from Unis’tot’en helped me get a picture in my mind of how to QUESTION THE COLONIZER. MIIGWETCH to the writer(s) and thinker(s) who came up with it, even though it may not have been written with that in mind, but that is how it helped me, and here is the part that was most helpful:

 "To outline this upon everyone’s arrival (Prior), they will be participants in a Free Prior and Informed Consent Protocol where they will introduce themselves fully (Informed) to the Unis’tot’en, and ask permission (Consent) to enter their lands to discuss their part in resistance building as well as offer skills or committments to the camp and beyond. This will be conducted on the Unis’tot’en boundary of their territory and will not seek to diminish the responsibilities the Unis’tot’en have toward their future generations (Free) and will also cost them nothing. This is a living breathing assertion of the Traditional Laws of the Wet’suwet’en. This is not new. Traditional Laws were asserted via protocols like this on the lands for thousands of years."