Me Tomorrow: Indigenous Views on the Future

By Drew Hayden Taylor

First Nations, Métis and Inuit artists, activists, educators and writers, youth and elders come together to envision Indigenous futures in Canada and around the world.

Discussing everything from language renewal to sci-fi, this collection is a powerful and important expression of imagination rooted in social critique, cultural experience, traditional knowledge, activism and the multifaceted experiences of Indigenous people on Turtle Island.

In Me Tomorrow…

• Darrel J. McLeod, Cree author from Treaty-8 territory in Northern Alberta, blends the four elements of the Indigenous cosmovision with the four directions of the medicine wheel to create a prayer for the power, strength and resilience of Indigenous peoples.
• Autumn Peltier, Anishinaabe water-rights activist, tells the origin story of her present and future career in advocacy—and how the nine months she spent in her mother’s womb formed her first water teaching. When the water breaks, like snow melting in the spring, new life comes.
• Lee Maracle, acclaimed Stó:lō Nation author and educator, reflects on cultural revival—imagining a future a century from now in which Indigenous people are more united than ever before.

Other essayists include Cyndy and Makwa Baskin, Norma Dunning, Shalan Joudry, Shelley Knott-Fife, Tracie Léost, Stephanie Peltier, Romeo Saganash, Drew Hayden Taylor and Raymond Yakeleya.

For readers who want to imagine the future, and to cultivate a better one, Me Tomorrow is a journey through the visions generously offered by a diverse group of Indigenous thinkers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
• Release date: Oct 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781771622950

Book preview

Me Tomorrow: Indigenous Views on the Future, compiled and edited by Drew Hatden Taylor. Illustration of a face using Indigenous motifs. Four paddle-like elements extend from the face directly up, down, left and right, with with smaller paddles extending diagonally between them. Around the face as sveral lines and dots resembling a computer chip.

Me Tomorrow

Compiled and edited by

Drew Hayden Taylor

Me Tomorrow

An unravelling of linear time—indigenous futurisms seek not only to imagine Indigenous life years into the future, but to contest chronological colonial visions of time—a deconstruction, an envisioning, a summoning—Me Tomorrow constellates knowledge and invites discursive becoming, Transforming the now so as to reveal what has been and what is to come.

Indigenous Views on the Future

Douglas & McIntyre

Introduction and this collection © 2021 by Drew Hayden Taylor

Individual essays © 2021 by Darrel J. McLeod, Cyndy and Minadoo Makwa Baskin, Norma Dunning, Romeo Saganash, Autumn Peltier, shalan joudry, Clarence Louie, Shelley Knott Fife, Raymond Yakeleya, Amos Key Jr., Tracie Léost and Lee Maracle

1 2 3 4 5 — 25 24 23 22 21

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, [e-mail].

Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park,

BC

,

V

0

N

2

H

0

www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Front cover art by Jordanna George

Cover design by Anna Comfort O’Keeffe and Shed Simas / Onça Design

Typesetting by Shed Simas / Onça Design

Printed and bound in Canada

100

%

recycled paper content

Douglas and McIntyre acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the

BC

Arts Council.

Supported by the Government of Canada Supported by the Canada Council of the Arts Supported by the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Me tomorrow : Indigenous views on the future / compiled and edited by Drew Hayden Taylor.

Names: Taylor, Drew Hayden, 1962- editor.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210276037 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210277106 |

ISBN

9781771622943 (softcover) |

ISBN

9781771622950 (

EPUB

)

Subjects:

LCSH

: Indigenous peoples—Canada. |

LCSH

: Indigenous peoples—Canada—Social life and customs. |

LCSH

: Indigenous peoples—Canada—Social conditions. |

LCSH

: Future, The.

Classification:

LCC

E

78.

C

2

M

4 2021 |

DDC

305.897/071—dc23

Contents

Introduction

About the Cover Art

Me Tomorrow—Paint It Red

Darrel J. McLeod

Our Future Is Young, Educated and Relational

Minadoo Makwa Baskin

Dr. Cyndy Baskin

Future We In-U-Wee

Dr. Norma Dunning

No Reconciliation in the Absence of Truth and Justice

Romeo Saganash

In the Blink of an Eye

Autumn Peltier

A’tukwewinu’k (storytellers)

shalan joudry

Seventh-Generational Thinking—

Fact or Fiction?

Clarence Louie

Our Education Tomorrow

Shelley Knott Fife

Don’t Give Up!

Raymond Yakeleya

Strangers in a Not So Strange Land

Drew Hayden Taylor

Me Tomorrow: The Journey Begins . . .

Tae:howęhs, aka Amos Key Jr. A Royal Mohawk

Waanishkow (Rising)

Tracie Léost

We Appear to Have Fallen on Dark Times

Lee Maracle

About the Contributors

Introduction

These are changing times.

For the first time, robins are appearing in the Arctic. Indigenous languages, once on the verge of disappearing, are now being strengthened via apps on cell phones. There’s even been an Indigenous astronaut.

Once thought of as the disappearing Indians, it’s comforting to know we haven’t quite disappeared. In fact, we are more visible and vibrant than ever. More interestingly, we have adapted to pretty much everything the dominant culture has thrown at us and, even better, persevered.

Welcome to the fourth in the Me series, a collection of books exploring various aspects of Indigenous life. In past volumes we’ve delved into the concepts of humour, sexuality and how our heritage inspires and encourages our art forms. That was the past; now we’re going in the other direction.

Me Tomorrow is a foray into what the future might hold. Within these covers are essays by individuals who are talking loudly and proudly about our future. There’s frequently this impression that Indigenous people are always looking backward, at what we are trying to get back or reclaim. This book turns that lens around. The contributors are looking at where we will be—or should be—in the near future. You, the reader, will get a sense of pride as you read the contents of this book, and possibly wonder where you might fit into that future.

Coming from the Four Directions, our Elders, academics, youth, artists, politicians et al. have something to say. Perspectives range from politics, to environment, to education, to so many more. Our world is a complex one and what’s in this book is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

As the saying goes, you cannot know where you are going without understanding where you’ve been. So the people who have envisioned the future have filtered their understanding through journeys their Ancestors have already made. That’s what makes this book so cool.

With that said, I hope you will find these experiences, these stories, these hopes, as fascinating as I have. I am so honoured to have gathered these knowledgeable people together.

Tomorrow starts today.

Drew Hayden Taylor

Curve Lake First Nation

March 2021

About the Cover Art

Motherboard is a nod to how Indigenous people’s relationship to the land and water is not merely a historical notion but a connection that persists in the present and will be sustained far into the future. This connection, much like Indigenous Peoples themselves, has survived and adapted through centuries of colonialism, industrialization and countless other forms of change. This piece represents that adaptation. It is a look at the blending of traditional motifs with contemporary aesthetics, as well as adding an Indigenous perspective to typically Eurocentric subgenres of science fiction. It is a look toward daunting possible futures while holding on to the meaningful values that our people have learned from the land and from our Ancestors.

Jordanna George, artist

Tsleil-Waututh Territory, Vancouver Area

April 2021

Me Tomorrow—Paint It Red

Darrel J. McLeod

Writer, Educator

&

Activist

The future of humankind lies waiting for those who will come to understand their lives and take up responsibilities to all living things. Who will listen to the trees, the animals and birds, the voices of the places of the land? As the long-forgotten peoples of respective continents rise and begin to reclaim their ancient heritage, they will discover the meaning of the land of their ancestors. That is when the invaders of the North American continent will finally discover that for this land, God is red.

—Vine Deloria Jr., God Is Red

This wisdom from Vine Deloria Jr. parallels almost exactly the wisdom my mother, Bertha Dora Cardinal, passed on to me repeatedly in the wee hours (ironically, while inebriated) with respect to dealing with a world that she viewed as increasingly hostile to the culture and future of our people, Nehiyawak. In a careful and astute way, Mother instilled in me a méfiance of Western religion and world views, and of the increasingly dominant and repressive culture of Canada.

Mother planted the seeds of distrust, apprehension and fearlessness, fomenting in me an urgent desire to spurn a world view that had been forced upon us, so that as an adult I could rediscover our Nehiyaw cosmovision. Fortunately for me, those seeds took root early in my life and over the last four decades my ruminations have led me to the thinking captured in this essay (which represents my first attempt at articulating it). I’ve blended the four elements of the Indigenous cosmovision with the four directions of the medicine wheel.

Earth

Spiritual

Mother Earth—the Pachamama—is everything to Indigenous Peoples. She does not belong to us; rather, we belong to her, and how our relationship with her evolves will determine our future. Over generations, the acculturation by dominating forces has eroded our direct and innate connection with Mother Earth to the point that many of us find ourselves quite removed, literally and/or figuratively, from our place of origin, sometimes feeling like we’re in a true physical exile or simply forced to live and strive somewhere else, away, for the sake of survival and expediency. Increasingly, Indigenous people will re-establish the connection with our places of origin, our original birthplaces—the land, water, air and fire there—and make our presence known. We will ensure that our cosmovision is known to our youth, and they, in turn, strengthened and emboldened, will change the world—for the better.

Physical

Western political entities have asserted ownership of lands, territories and entire continents through a process that in modern times would be seen as bullying and aggression: the dispossession of lands through physical domination, starvation and the imposition of a foreign legal tradition, including a system of registration of land titles that has come to be sacrosanct in modern societies. But the original basis of land title in the Western world is farcical: a king, queen or some other aristocrat, through an instrument of their own design, declared lands, territories or entire continents unoccupied and then asserted ownership of them. Subsequently, he or she, as a benevolent despot, would grant a secondary type of ownership to his or her loyal subjects in the form of a lesser title, the most common of which is fee simple title. It’s time for a complete repudiation of this entrenched system of land ownership.

In Canada and other so-called commonwealth countries, we must reject and put on its ear this legal tradition that runs completely counter to Indigenous principles. Even in Indigenous societies where leaders—chiefs or caciques—were allowed to accumulate wealth or assert a type of large-scale ownership over lands and resources, it was all within a system of shared trust, where wealth was regularly redistributed.

Since time immemorial, the earth has provided us with all that we need to flourish as Indigenous people and live long and healthy lives. Young Indigenous scientists are exploring elements of our traditional diet that are missing in the present day and are bringing back traditional food sources that will help us to combat conditions like diabetes, obesity and mental illness. Not only do we need to avoid foods with a high glycemic index, for example, but we also need to reincorporate healing foods like wild berries (such as cranberries and salal in North America) and the perennial sunflower, apparently known in Cree as askipaw or skibwan, but now referred to as the Jerusalem artichoke, which is high in protein and potassium, helps with insulin production and lowers cholesterol levels (of course, tribes in parts of the world other than North America will have their own traditional foods, which kept them healthy and strong but may have been abandoned in favour of the foods of a colonizing force).

In addition to nutrition, the earth also provides us with medicines we need to maintain and enhance our physical and spiritual well-being. Indigenous Peoples all over the world have ancient knowledge of the plant and animal parts used in these medicines. The resurgence we’re seeing in the use of our medicines will continue and expand, as will the borrowing of this important part of our culture by the mainstream. Indigenous scholars and leaders will demand recognition of the contribution Indigenous Peoples have made to modern technology and will hopefully use both legal and moral persuasion to convince corporate players like Big Pharma to provide retroactive profit-sharing for the Indigenous knowledge they’ve turned into products that have generated huge profits for them. Prime examples are digitalis and yew bark.

Intellectual

Every Indigenous culture has a story about the origin of their race. As time moves on, we will repudiate the mythology of Adam and Eve in favour of our own creation stories. Our young people are already debunking the Christian doctrine of original sin and we will continue to do so until we have removed ourselves from the trappings of imposed religion. This repudiation will include the complete refusal, for once and for all, of the notion that we migrated to our territories. For certain there was movement and migration prior to colonization of Indigenous societies, but we didn’t come from another continent—none of our creation stories say that, and as we take back the thinking on this matter from anthropologists and other theorists, we will be even stronger in our connection with the lands with which we are inextricably linked.

Fortunately, there are examples of the restoration and recognition of this fundamental connection between Indigenous Peoples and the Pachamama. The most recent powerful example I’m aware of is the Roger Williams case, won by the Tsilhqot’in in the Supreme Court of Canada. This is the first case where a First Nation won clear title to their territory, where title actually means the Tsilhqot’in have outright ownership—the use and administration of a great portion of the lands that constitute their traditional territory, rather than the simple usufructuary rights typically attributed to Aboriginal title. This new reality of the Tsilhqot’in represents a type of de facto Indigenous sovereignty for the Tsilhqot’in within Canada. Since European contact, Tsilhqot’in leaders have been steadfast in their relationship with Mother Earth—the land where their people originated—and they were meticulous in documenting and maintaining this tight connection. This fact has paid off tremendously, against all odds.

North of the 60th parallel in Canada, both the Sahtú Dene and the Inuit of Nunavut have maintained their powerful relationship with their territories as well and, as a result, now exert meaningful, true sovereignty over their lands and territories. These trail-blazing nations are setting examples for the future, a future where everything has to be on the table in negotiation or other methods of asserting Indigenous rights with existing state governments, including, for example, the numbered treaties in Canada, which have never been fully implemented.

Emotional

There has been a crisis of suicide among Indigenous youth around the world, in some places more than others. In Canada, the Indigenous suicide rate is known to be much higher than that of the general population. When I worked with Indigenous people in Argentina and other countries, I was shocked and saddened to learn that they have the same issue. I believe this is happening because of the incredible erosion of our culture, languages and sovereignty, starting with the false assertions, mentioned earlier, that we came from someplace else, and that we too are subject to a creation myth we cannot relate to. As we take back the thinking on this and strengthen our cultures and restore our cosmovision, our youth will become stronger and triumphant and will astonish society with their accomplishments in the arts and sciences, as well as in life overall.

We are and always have been earthy people—never in denial or ashamed of our humanity, our physical bodies or sexuality. Gender diversity and variations in sexual orientation were viewed as normal, and in most Indigenous cultures those who were non-binary in their sexuality were given a place of honour and particular roles in society. Mainstream society (at least in North America) is slowly getting back to this, as are Indigenous societies, largely thanks to our youth, who are not simply expanding the thinking in this area but rather are blowing it up altogether. We will bring our leaders onside with the traditional views and practices in this regard and will drive progress in this area in mainstream society.

My last thought in this section will be a bit controversial for some readers. Indigenous people who have remained strongly connected to their territories often have a darker complexion than other Indigenous people—possibly because there has been less intermarriage or mixing of their genes with European settlers. My experience has been that these people suffer more discrimination than Indigenous people who have a lighter complexion. I’ve observed that these proud carriers of Indigenous culture and languages experience discrimination even at the hands of other Indigenous people, and this must stop. In the next couple of decades, the Indigenous population, writ large, will begin to honour and even revere our relations who have always remained close to Mother Earth and who, as a result of this and other factors, may have a darker complexion.

Air—Wind

Spiritual

Imagine my surprise when the Mapuche people