The teacher began the class by giving her name, the name of the original lands of her ancestral people (Poland, Ukraine, Croatia), the names of her teachers, and her preferred pronoun.
I appreciated this way opening the class—by naming her lineage, sharing her origin story, and letting us know how she would like to be identified. It felt progressive and rooted, and I was here for it.
But what she said next created a profound shift in my body...
I currently live on the unceded ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Clackamas, and Kalapuya Tualatin people at the confluence of the waters of the Columbia and Willamette, also called Portland.
Oof. Those words felt different and important and a bit unsettling.
This woman was acknowledging something I knew but had never really allowed myself to fully feel the impact of.
Her ancestors (and my own) are not of this land we claim as home now.
In fact, it is highly likely that her ancestors (and my own) forcibly took the land away from the people who were here first. And here we were, sitting in our well-warmed and plumbed homes built on earth that contains the bones of the original ancestors of this place.
My first honest thought was, “Ouchie! I don’t want to feel this pain of colonization. Let’s try to forget about this ok?”
My second thought was, “Crap! I don’t know whose tribal lands I currently occupy. I must find that out. I don’t want to fall back asleep on this.”
All it took was a quick consult with Grandmother Google to find out the names of the indigenous tribe that lived on the land I call home.
They are the Coast Miwok.
They hunted salmon in the springtime and harvested seaweed and acorns.
Coyote is their ancestor.
Their native language is no longer spoken.
Now, when I begin my gatherings or courses, I make sure to weave in honoring of these people and their land.
I name them. I name the mountain I live under that still provides the water I drink. I acknowledge that I am but a guest here.
You may be reading this and be wondering whose ancestral lands you live on.
I invite you to listen to that wonder and follow through to find out.
Something I’ve also noticed is that the shame or discomfort in decolonization work can create a block to simply getting your researcher hat on and finding out these truths of our past.
You may feel hesitant to name the land you are on because the reasons their people no longer claim it as their own are often violent and deeply sad. It may feel weird to acknowledge a truth where it feels like you shouldn’t be there, and yet there you are.
But as my friend Darla Antoine says, we can heal the pain of what our ancestors did. We can make cultural reparations. We are alive here and now with so many privileges our ancestors didn’t have.
One of the ways you can start is knowing whose land you are on. It can be the first step to really belonging where you are.
So I’m going to make this easier for you.
A sister in The Creative Sisterhood (shout out to Sarah Shotts!) found this amazing resource for finding out what tribal territory you live on called Native Land.
It is one of the most comprehensive resources I have found and is committed to continuously updating it as more information becomes available (because history is always written by the victors, it is often skewed or biased).
But I invite you to keep going from there.
Look into your local tribes. Where are the descendants of their ancestors today? How can you support them in thriving today? How are their traditions being preserved and how can you support them without colonizing?
I’d love to hear from you.
Who are the original ancestors of the land you currently live on? Let’s honor them in the comments below by writing their names.
Pin it for later:
the Abenaki/Abenaquis as part of the Wabanaki Confederacy, also called Essex, Vermont.
Beautiful, thank you Jessica.
Apsaalooké (Crow)
Métis
Niitsítapi (Blackfoot)
Salish Kootenai (Flathead)
I live on the edge of the prairie and foothills of the Rocky Mountains in a river valley at the confluence of The Sun and Missouri rivers. I wish I knew the non-English placenames. The longest buffalo jump in North America is in this area, as well as an enormous aquifer called Giant Springs. This was a gathering place where tribes laid their differences aside to work the Buffalo hunt together every year. The jump was called, Ulm Piskun for a long time but it is now the First Peoples Buffalo Jump. Montana has seven sovereign Indian Nations and native culture is all around us. The Métis group that is in my region are called, The Little Shell. They are a band of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) who were off on a hunting party one hundred years ago when federal agents were assigning reservation land to tribes and they were not included. They are sometimes called the Landless Indians of Montana.To this day they are fighting for federal recognition and they are closer than ever to attaining it. Many members of the Little Shell live in my city, in my neighborhood. Poverty and addiction have caused extreme, intergenerational hardship for so many First People here. Efforts to reclaim language and traditional ways over the last several decades have been very successful,but the fight for justice is far from over. As I said native culture is a big part of Montana culture and it is celebrated widely, but we have a long way to go towards reconciling what we as colonizers have taken from these indigenous groups.
Thank you for the exercise, Becca! This is such an important thing for the descendants of colonizers to become educated about.
Oh Erin, thank you for sharing all that you have about the native peoples of your land. I have learned so much and my heart aches for the Landless Anishinaabe who have been fighting for so long to return to their land.
Hello Erin,
Thank you for sharing this information! I think it’s so awesome that you know a lot about where you reside.
This resource is EVERYTHING, thank you. Since you’ve been talking about the Coastal Miwok, I’ve been wondering.
I live on the Uta lands of the Tabeguache, Muache, Capote, Weeminuchi, Yampa, Grand River and Uintah bands.
Beautiful, Iris! Thank you for doing this alongside me.
Becca,
Thank you for this. I noticed the first time that you used it and was immediately intrigued, so here I go. My name is Sarah, my ancestors came from Ireland, Scotland, England, the Iberian Peninsula, and many other lands. I currently live on the lands of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people, specifically the lands of the Seneca, at a major crossroads that were built upon their trails and travel paths.
Thank you, Sarah. I honor you and the lands of the people you have named here.
Very good points. I’m in Somerset, England….I think the Kingdom/Queendom of Dumnonia extended over the area I live in, so Celts and the Pre-Celtic-Speaking People (British natives who interbred over a time…). Before this, the Severn Estuary (Gloucestershire) so again the Celts (there’s a lovely shrine in Lydney), and before that Skye, in Scotland (well, off the coast, actually), so the Picts and the Gaels.
Becca,
I appreciate all of your blog posts, and I admire your eagerness to learn new things everyday.
My name is Brooklyvon Descheny, and I am Navajo (Diné). I currently reside on the lands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne and Ute tribes in Colorado.
I currently work at the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, CO, and we’re linked with the National Indian Law Library. I found out about the Native Land app last week, actually, and I noticed that it gives a list of which treaties were signed in specific areas. If anyone is interested, they could search the NILL website to go in depth with treaty details. Just thought I’d point that out.
One of my coworkers informed me that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has a similar map on their website.
Orlando, Florida originally the Seminole Indian Tribe that fought off the US government. No peace treaty was ever signed although after the wars, they were left to live in the swamp in poverty.
In Australia we have ‘welcome to country’ which is acknowledging the traditional owners of the land before an event or meeting or any gathering of people. Big events relating to government or council have a local indigenous person do it.
I currently live on Birripi land.
My ancestors come from England, Ireland, and the Iberian peninsula. I live west of the Allegheny Mountains at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers where they join to form the Ohio. This area is now called Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but was previously the home of the Haudenosauneega (Iroquois) and the Osage. Thanks for this… I am curious to learn more.
I live in Agnes Water, near Eurimbula Central Coast Queensland, Australia. I live on the Gooran Gooran mobs land which means sandy loam. They lived in off the coast made bread from the local screw palm fruit, collected oysters and fished. Very few of the mob live here, they say the land is cursed. When white man moved in, those that survived were rounded up and forcibly moved and separated from their kin and placed in missionary camps or enslaved. Many of the original peoples of this land still have no idea where or who their mob is, for these actions that were played out in the past I’m deeply Sorry. My ancestors come from England, Scotland, France and Scandinavia I’m working with my ancestors and finding my roots.