contains live and active cultures

Two-Spirit geek from the Great Lakes. Otaachimow: historian and storyteller. Cats, history, indigeneity, languages, fandom. If you arrived here via a broken link, check here. My writing can be found here on wordpress.

[sofriel-archive]

wīnipēk

[sofriel-archive]

MOVING / NEW BLOG

Hello! I’ve sunk into bad blogging habits again (aka posting every single thing that comes to mind) so I’m moving accounts to start fresh. This blog will remain intact at sofriel-archive, though. 

All future blogging will be located at sofriel (most things) and namingoflights (fandom). If you want to keep up with me, please follow me over there! 

[sofriel-archive]

MOVING / NEW BLOG

Hello! I've sunk into bad blogging habits again (aka posting every single thing that comes to mind) so I'm moving accounts to start fresh. This blog will remain intact at sofriel-archive, though. 

All future blogging will be located at sofriel (most things) and namingoflights (fandom). If you want to keep up with me, please follow me over there! 

[sofriel-archive]

Does this mean you don't want us following you unless you follow us first?

No no! Even if I don't follow you now please go ahead and follow me at the new blog. 

[sofriel-archive]

Okay. Okay. I'm gonna do the thing. I'm gonna make a new blog. This one will become sofriel-archive. If you see "sofriel followed you" and you still want to see me on your dashboard, follow me back because it will be a new account. Not sure what the fandom blog will be called yet but I will figure it out. 

[sofriel-archive]

asldfkwefaghf I feel like I need to do another reassessment of how I use tumblr. Because I'm not super happy about how my blog is, and I'm even a bit :/ about my dash, too. 

It's just that I don't really know what I want. I swing back and forth between wanting to have a nice neat blog about significant things like nita or johan...but then I'm like I wanna blog about every fandom thing I see and every single random thought in my brain. 

Hm. Maybe I should try to make a nice neat blog, and then have a free-for-all fandom sideblog? But only fandom, everything else has to be monitored for the main blog. 

I don't know what to dooooooo

[black-australia]

The Sapphires (move adaptation) performing “Today I Started Loving You Again”

[eveningstarwoman-deactivated202]

I love this movie so much ;___;

[sofriel-archive]

gonna go rewatch this now

[eveningstarwoman-deactivated202]

all i’m going to say on this whole -ndn tumblr- debacle is that what’s most infuriating and hurtful about people who fake is that when they’re done being angry internet indian warriors, they get to step away from the computer and step out of a hostile world and that’s the end of it.

my life often feels like some ridiculous rez girl soap opera lol, me and my friends are always dealing with loved ones and boyfriends and baby daddies in and out of prison, addicted to drugs or alcohol, getting into fights, etc etc etc

i mean it is not just hipsters in headdresses and sports mascots. this is something i’ve been saying for a long time and it makes me angry that the same people i’m indicting are the ones who will reblog shit like that. 

i mean i’m angry about having to choose between raising my kids in a school that will teach their language and culture, and raising them in a home that has clean tap water. i’m angry that every single one of my close girl friends from the rez has been raped, most of them multiple times. i’m angry that there are museums that know more about my own ancestors than i do. i’m angry that there is a tourist attraction with the shattered skull of my great grandmother’s seven year old son in a cardboard box in the back room. i’m angry that i listen to hours of testimony of horrific sex trafficking and predatory rape of native women knowing that there is absolutely nothing anyone can do for them, bc the law is not on their side. i’m angry about my relationships that have failed bc i fell in love with an alcoholic, with a drug dealer on his third strike, with a boy that carries so much weight from intergenerational trauma and domestic abuse and ptsd from being sent to a federal prison as a juvenile that he can’t see his own self worth enough to be able to love anyone. i’m angry i’m always hearing stories about one guy or another being sent to jail or being stupid enough to go on the run. i’m angry about the lack of opportunity, the lack of mental health services, the lack of knowledge or compassion or interest when it comes to the laws and policies that hurt our communities. i’m angry about the disproportionately high rates of depression, suicide, substance abuse. diabetes, tuberculosis, and other preventable diseases like hepatitis. i’m angry about the time i went partying with friends and when my friend war whooped in the parking lot, a white girl yelled at him to cut it out with that indian shit. i’m angry about the doctor that asked me if i’m indian when i told her cancer, tuberculosis, reproductive problems, and depression run in my family. i’m angry that in order to get my education, i had to move to a town that has less than 1% population people who understand my culture and where i come from and where i’m going. i’m angry that when the native women’s association showed up to the take back the night event hosted by the ywca, we were told there was no time for us to talk about the violence we experience but that we were volunteered to pick the garbage up after the event. i’m angry that multiple friends of mine have woken up by the side of the road, bleeding out of their heads, after being jumped by white guys. 

i’m angry that when i talk about all these things it feels like it’s screaming to an empty room, and it puts me in a position to be invalidated, silenced, ignored, berated, and humiliated by others (tell me why i wasn’t “too ghetto for grad school” until i started talking about how lots of native communities don’t have clean water in class). i’m angry that there are people who pretend to speak for my anger like they know what it’s like to carry all this on their shoulders and in their minds and hearts and spirits every hour of every day.

THAT is what all these -internet warriors- are missing when they pretend to experience a struggle they obviously have no clue about. so no, reblogging a post about the redskins or lana del rey does not make you an indian.

[summerrrz]

[provocatoria-deactivated2015072]

Damn, Monday. 

[sofriel-archive]

I feel like I've waited my whole life for this quote.

[sofriel-archive]

Let me rephrase to make myself clearer.

STOP TREATING BLACK FOLKS CLAIMING INDIAN ANCESTRY THE SAME AS WHITE FOLKS DOING IT. 

STOP acting like the BIA and their list of federally recognized tribes is the be-all-end-all determiner of who is a real Indian. Yes, some state-recognized tribes are white people making shit up. That doesn't mean they all are. And besides, did we forget termination? Do people magically go from frauds to real Indians when their tribe gets recognized?

STOP acting like indigenous identity and history is the same throughout the entire continent. 

Stay safe from people lying about their background, but don't bulldoze over the complicated nature of being indigenous in the Americas in the process.

[sagwaaaaa]

Just be real about who you are. If you can’t find info but know it’s there, say that. If you don’t have access to info, say that. If you are disconnected for any reason but know you are one of us, say that. It’s okay. You’ll meet people who are ignorant or hateful, but by being upfront you’ll also meet people who will accept you and help in any way they can. I know that this is something believed by everyone else I talk to on here or I wouldn’t want to talk to them.

[apihtawikosisan-deactivated2014]

Welcome to real natives

Our first question is always, where are you from, who are you related to.

If you tried crying about those questions, you’d be side-eyed forever.

[pedagogyoftheunimpressed-deacti]

tan’si nitotemwak, 

My name is Samantha, and I’m Metis.  Originally, my family comes from a small community in Northern Saskatchewan called Ile-a-la-Crosse, but in our language it’s called Sakitawak, which translates to “where the rivers meet”.  We’re Morins (my kokum’s maiden name is Morin)  I grew up in the small part of Northeastern BC covered by Treaty 8, which is traditional Dunne-za and Cree territory.   

[sofriel-archive]

Kai, from northeast Wisconsin, Metis. My family history is complicated and confused, because my grandmother was put in foster care at age three, but we're Metis from the Red River settlement and metis/Odawa from the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians. Family names are Larocque, Laplante, Landry, and Dion. I was raised Polish-American and Metis but didn't have much community outside of my grandma's extended family until I was 14 when I started to contact Metis folks in Canada. I'm fairly proficient in Michif which I learned mostly from Grace Zoldy of Camperville, Manitoba (trying to learn Cree and Anishinaabemowin too!) :)

[sofriel-archive]

I should really add a thing to my about warning people that 80% of the time I just....don't reply to messages. And then 15% of the time it takes like at least a week before I respond if not longer. 

I'm sorryyyyyyy I'm working on it D:

[cybergata]

[catsbeaversandducks]

Via cybergata: “Shironeko, the zen master of vegetable balancing.”

[sofriel-archive]

this cat always looks soooooo happy

[sofriel-archive]

whee I have the entire family house to myself for the rest of the week so excite

[knightoftaurus]

things that haven’t changed in the past two years:

the métis friends i’ve made on tumblr, and their personal stories

the #metis tag still being weird as fuck at times

[sofriel-archive]

The #Metis tag is ALWAYS a mix of some anime thing, a bunch of posts in Turkish, selfies of mixed girls from Francophone countries, Métis-related things, and very occasionally a post about that one Greek goddess. I'm really curious what the Turkish thing is about tbh.

[sofriel-archive]

lolololol it kind of looks like the tardis exploded and took my whole room with it and I'm about to be vaporized and I'm just sitting there smiling