October 28, 2024
“For all of us, becoming indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist, best selling author, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation
Háawak [“haaw-ke”]. Hello, from THE Kumeyaay land now called Grauer School.
Last Monday, October 14, 2024, was Indigenous Peoples Day, formerly only Columbus Day. Plus, in 1990, President George H.W. Bush declared November as National American Indian Heritage Month. I have a question I want to leave you with today about this observance.
We still celebrate some aspects of Columbus’s 1492 voyage: his courage, his big vision, and his Italian heritage (however disputed). We can accept that he could never have had the consciousness that we have developed today and that his actions must be understood within the context of his time, without imposing modern judgments on past figures.
Five hundred years ago, most people did not fully grasp the integrity and value of other cultures, often embracing ethnocentrism: stick to your own kind, our God is better than yours, our truth is the only truth. All cultures, however ‘civilized,’ tend to think this way to some degree—none are completely innocent. Even many Native American tribes referred to themselves as ‘the real people.’ The key idea is that historical relativism applies to all sides in nearly any historical conflict, reminding us that no culture is immune from these tendencies. We still see this kind of relativism between groups today. When we are not at our best, it even surfaces on our own campus, where students sometimes form cliques. Clique behavior, at its core, mirrors ethnocentrism, just on a smaller scale.
Of course, the human mind is capable of so much more, and developing student and teacher capability to gain a wider, more inclusive perspective is the essential work of a school. There is much to honor and to “learn by discovery.”
Since so many among the explorers, Native Americans, and colonialists all were ethnocentric, and since we are all still struggling with this limitation in our consciousness, it has become ultimately almost impossible to celebrate even the greatest voyagers and voyages without honoring the people whose cultures they sometimes destroyed. Those were indigenous cultures, often perfectly adapted TO THEIR ecosystems, that were destroyed.
Their indigenous practices had enormous value we are still studying, ripe for discovery and greater understanding. It is an ugly thing to think that when we learn from indigenous peoples and lands, and when we honor their ceremony, it is “cultural appropriation” or some kind of fraud or thievery. Just as our earliest ancestors learned from the earth in our constant, human diaspora, learning well from the indigenous is the greatest respect we can possibly show them, and show the earth. As long as we express that respect and gratitude.
So there is something indigenous about every one of us, if we can discover it. Simple and profound ideas like re-conceiving the whole idea of “trash”—reusing, recycling, composting, and a reliance on organic (non-plastic) material—can make us more indigenous. Situating our students in circles rather than rows for discussions and projects removes hierarchies and invites sharing and storytelling—we are in a community. Listening to the wise counsel of our elders, who we welcome on campus helps strengthen our sense of purpose and community.
The discovery is that we all came from somewhere. I like to think that we can, in time, become indigenous here, or at least appreciate the indigeneity of the land where we’ve settled. Here on our own school land, by devoting ourselves to a sustainable school culture and this land we’ve nurtured, we can connect with what is indigenous in all of us, in the case of my school, slowly adapting over decades to the natural bowl where our school rests.
Understanding and respecting our land might be the best way to celebrate this holiday. Here is what’s indigenous: the scrub oaks that host 80 species in a micro-ecosystem, the white sage that grows at the edges of our school yard and was used for millennia to purify, the deerweed that fertilizes our soil, and the cactus that bears fruit and provides medicine.
Transcending the pros and cons we have with Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s Day, we commit to creating a sustainable ecosystem on our land, and we welcome all we can on that land, though we have a long way to go. Our land is where we celebrate but, perhaps, what we are celebrating, too.
For the benefit of Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Month, we pause year round to show respect to the Native Nations who, for thousands of years and today, steward the lands, air and waters we know and enjoy in our part of the world. Today we do this stewarding on our campus and so we must study the old ways of sustainability. At school, we gather daily not only on Grauer School land, but on former Kumeyaay land, and on whatever it was before that.
We now hold the land deed; we will never know its true origin, but we will always share this heritage. Native Americans have provided leadership in many efforts to protect and restore the earth, and this will continue to inspire us. We wish to express our respect for Indigenous communities and commit to learning sustainable ways as we thoughtfully engage in loving our planet—setting aside our personal and ethnocentric concerns, our daily ‘needs,’ and giving thanks to the land, as they have always done.
Indians lived mainly in concert with their ecosystems. These indigenous have also watched for five centuries on our continent, which they call Turtle Island, as people have come from other lands to destroy that culture or to be takers more than givers.
We as a school can listen and learn how to be more indigenous in studying not only land but culture and all its ceremony.
Cultures can become extinct. In the U.S., in one of the cruelest actions I know, for well over 100 years native kids were literally forced into distant boarding schools for their entire education, where they could be whipped (and oftentimes killed) for speaking anything other than the King’s English. And while back home all their native stories and skills decayed, and their cultures and languages were starving. Now, here in California, Native communities are working to revitalize their own languages and to get over the trauma of “reeducation.”
They are not alone. The history of humankind is filled with subjugation and genocide and no ethnicity has been immune. So, on Indigenous Day, let us study the history and evolution of the expanding human consciousness, our mental blueprint driving us, slowly and sometimes painfully, towards deeper connection and wider compassion.
Studying our own native or indigenous language and ways adds creativity and self-awareness, and hopefully self-esteem. I have seen native languages and ecological practices being taught on various Indian reservations, but also in Ireland, the Middle East, Central America, Korea and around the world. I have shared news of indigenous language revitalization to most of our foreign language teachers. I want these to be studied as a part of our foreign language curricula: native languages are at risk just like plant and animal species. The long-billed woodpecker and the native languages have both faced extinctions.
The Native American Marie Wilcox, who died two years ago, said before she died, “My dream is to hear the family talking to each other and talking to me in Wukchumni.”
My dream is to see the land that our school rests on lush with native plants that belong here and that our students and teachers study; to see our land grow crops and orchards and flowers and indigenous plants that enable our students and teachers to understand what this land means. To be proud when we have Kumeyaay visitors on campus, as their ancestors were here long before ours were. To nurture this land as it nurtures us every day. To become more indigenous on our school land, and to do so in ceremony regularly, if that is possible.
And one more dream: to find a way to make peace with having a school that lies directly on the El Camino Real, The Royal Road that was laid out as 21 missions were built to indoctrinate and enslave the Native Americans. For this, our school keeps a replica mission bell in a high place on campus, so we will never forget that we, as humans, all share a dark side.
I am what is called a white man; one of multi-ethnic, mixed cultural heritage whose ancestors all immigrated from Europe and experienced genocides and slavery. I am aware of no group which has not suffered abuses from dominant cultures. Maybe some of my ancestors were on other sides, as well, but I don’t know much. I want to go forward. I want to live on our campus as though my life depended upon it. I want to know my campus neighbors more intimately: the plants, the four-leggeds, the ancestors, the people. Can I become indigenous, or live more that way? It could take a while!
To start, becoming indigenous to a place would mean cultivating a deep, sensitive understanding of our environment—our campus—and recognizing the reciprocal relationship between our actions and its influence on us. It’s about rediscovering awareness of how we shape the land and how the land, in turn, shapes us. Our school land speaks to us. The Kumeyaay were masters at hearing bird songs and in singing those songs. They got messages from eagles, and from red-tailed hawks we still see overhead on our campus every day. They cleansed with white sage. They had sophisticated growing practices which fed them but kept the land balanced and productive. What’s more, no matter who we are, we all had indigenous ancestors.
Now I wonder: What ancestral messages am I receiving and observing from our campus that have been here long before me and will remain long after I’m gone? What can we agree to celebrate in the next 500 years? I wonder if, more essential than who we are celebrating, is simply the fact that, as humans, we are exercising these beautiful minds together—transcending barriers through wondrous, sublime imagining, thinking, creating, loving, dancing, and celebrating. Happy Indigenous People’s Day!
You may also be interested in reading more articles written by Stuart Grauer for Intrepid Ed News.
