All quotes from
Lynn's book
Humans are pitiful
in that we are most dependent on the other orders of Creation [elements,
plants, animals].
Like an iceberg,
most of who we are as human beings resides beneath the surface; our
subconscious self is so much larger than what we think it is.
The word
"debwewin" translates to "a personal truth that is rooted in
one's heart", and "Gdebwe na?" is a truth question that
translates to "Are you speaking from the heart?", inferring a broader
understanding of knowledge that involves the heart. Said another way, the question "Gdebwe
na?" is a cultural mechanism that ensures that knowledge spoken is not
merely mind, or intellectual, knowledge; it is a question that ensures that
knowledge is also heartfelt.
Within the Moon
Ceremony we sing four songs: the Welcoming Song, the Water Song, the Kokomis
(Grandmother) Song, and the Miigwetch (Thank You) Song.
Women retain their
clan affiliation and responsibilities after they marry, rather than becoming an
appendage of their husbands.
Broadly speaking,
Indigenous knowledge is the knowledge that predates heteropatriarchy, sexism,
racism, ableism, industrialization, capitalism, corporate power, and
materialism.
Hegemonic power,
where personal agency is shaped and manipulated and we become complicit in our
own domination -- there appears to be a little bit of choice…. We need to keep
in mind that the better the oppressor, the more we will think we are free.
Canadians need to
remember that humans are foremost children of the earth rather than children of
nation-states.
Needed are songs
that will remind us that water was here first, that it is an older sibling
without whom we are unable to live.
Indigenous knowledge
is non-linear, situated, wholistic, experiential, introspective, moral,
emotional, rational, complex, unfolding, personal, and foremost a relationship.
We need to remember
the human spirit is in two places at the same time -- both inside and outside
-- and that Canada will never stop impinging on those two places as long as its
goal remains the control, oppression, and spiritual death of Indigenous people.
