#decolonize

[radicalgraff]

"Decolonize Everything"

“When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish caught… then you will realize money cannot be eaten.”

Anti-colonial graffiti seen in Pensacola, Florida

[hersheysmcboom]

Protect Water: #NestlePledge and #StarbucksPledge

Join the movement to #BoycottStarbucks, #BoycottNestle, and boycott all of their products.

[standwithdaanes]

In [Indigenous societies that use circular rather than linear thinking], mutual respect and recognition must always exist among members. This makes it possible to apply the law of consensus, as opposed to the coercive authority invested by linear societies in, for example, a police force. However, a society in which the law of consensus applies cannot become too large. Once it reaches a certain size, it breaks up into subgroups in order to preserve a high degree of social cohesion within each community. Speaking of this latent tendency for Wendat communities to subdivide, geographer Conrad Heidenreich explains that “village co-operation increases as population numbers decrease, and lack of co-operation increases when more and more people are involved.” He feels that the Wendat (as well as their neighbours) did not have the social mechanisms (such as coercion by police) to cope with large numbers of people if these did not wish to co-operate. However, if we look at the question from the circular perspective, we see a society of people unaccustomed to compromising their individual or group independence – a society that must have developed an instinct to subdivide when the need became apparent. There was, as a rule, no intention of making a definitive break; on the contrary, the aim of regrouping in a smaller unit was to prevent relationships from deteriorating, thereby preserving the basic unity that all Wendat took for granted.

— Eatenonha: Native Roots of Modern Democracy by Georges Sioui. Sioui is a Wendat historian, poet, philosopher, and activist from Quebec.

Quote continues under the cut (on Jesuit descriptions of Wendat culture, political organization, and consensus-based leadership style)

The virtues of this social art did not escape the Jesuits, who in 1636 remarked on Wendat government as follows: "They have a gentleness almost incredible for savages. They are not easily annoyed, and moreover, if they have received wrong from anyone they often conceal the resentment they feel –– at least, one finds here very few who make a public display of anger and vengeance. They maintain themselves in this perfect harmony by frequent visits; by help they give one another in times of sickness, by feasts and by alliances. When they are not busy with their fields, hunting, fishing, or trading, they are less in their own houses than in those of their friends; if they fall sick, or desire anything for their health, there is a rivalry as to who will show himself most obliging. If they have something better than usual … they make a feast for their friends, and hardly ever eat it alone." Next, here are two observations of Trigger [a Canadian historian] on chiefship, on the personal qualities needed to be a Chief, and on some of the social commitments and obligations implicated by such role. "[Wendat] Chiefs had no constitutional authority to coerce their followers or to force their will on anyone. Moreover, individual Wendats were sensitive about their honour and intolerant of external constraints, and friends and relatives would rally to the support of someone who believed himself insulted by a Chief. Overbearing behaviour by a Chief might, therefore, encourage violent reaction and lead to conflicts within or between lineages. In the long run, Chiefs who behaved arrogantly or foolishly tended to alienate support and would be deposed by their own lineages. The ideal [Wendat] Chief was a wise and brave man who understood his followers and won their support by means of his generosity, persuasiveness, and balanced judgment." Again, Bruce Trigger on leadership: "Being a Chief, especially a civil Chief (as opposed to Chief of defence, or “war” Chief), required the expenditure of considerable time and wealth. They were expected to entertain their supporters as well as to provide hospitality for visitors. They also had to travel considerable distances to attend meetings, sometimes in very bad weather. The Chief at whose house a meeting was held was obliged to provide food and entertainment for his visitors. This required him and his family to work harder than anyone else to produce the food that had to be given away to validate his public office. Likewise, most of the goods that Chiefs received as presents or from their control of trade routes had to be given away to maintain the reputation for generosity without which a Chief would have no support. The more influential a Chief, which meant the larger were the number of people in whose name he spoke, the greater was the scale on which he had to provide feasts and give away exotic goods."

Finally, and coming right back to where and when our country, Canada, had its beginning (Quebec City, 1535), I am giving an illustration, here reported by a Recollet missionary, of how these quintessential qualities that constitute a leader found expression in a circular-thinking (matricentric) society, be it sedentary, such as the Stadacona (Nadowek) or nomadic, such as the Mi’kmaq (Algonquian). Jacques Cartier noted in 1535 that the Stadacona Chief Donnacona, who he styled in his writings “the Lord” or “King of Canada,” was no better off than his people, who “live with almost everything in common.” In this, he was no different from all other Amerindian Chiefs in the Northeast and in the Americas generally, who only held office by virtue of their capacity and readiness for giving. The Recollet Chrestien Le Clercq detected this spiritual quality in a Micmac (now more accurately named Mi’kmaq) Chief during the 1680s. "He made it a point of honor to be always the worst dressed and to see to it that all his people were better clothed than he, having as a maxim, so he told me one day, that a Sovereign and great heart like his should rather care for others than for himself; because being the good hunter that he was, he would never have trouble getting everything he needed; that in any case, if he didn’t eat well, he would find what he wished in the affections and in the hearts of his subjects; as if he wanted to say that his treasures and wealth were in the hearts and good-will of his people."

[canisvesperus]

And we wouldn’t have to pay to see ourselves in museums.

Source

[the-elf-witch-from-space]

It bothers me how some people still believe the colonial lie that the Aztec civilization believed Cortes was Quetzalcoatl. This is a lie. They knew he was just a colonizer. Even Cortes himself wrote about it in a letter to Charles V, Cortes recounted how Montezuma told him, “See that I am of flesh and blood like you and all other men, and I am mortal and substantial.”

They knew Quetzalcoatl was from space, which is why they depicted him in a space ship. Not like how this painting depicts the colonizers taking Tenochtitlán. Montezuma didn't just hand the keys over and think Cortes was some god. It was violent colonialism.

It is a myth and a colonial lie from the 1600's that Indigenous people of the Americas thought the conquistadors were gods. They did not. This is not true, you were lied to. There were also green eyed or blue eyed people with light hair on Turtle Island.

Kukulkan is one of the three gods that was thought to have created the Earth. He is a serpent in his natural form and was responsible for teaching the Maya about such things as how to run a civilization, agriculture, and medicine. After a brief period of being on Earth Kukulcan returned to the ocean telling the Maya that he would return at some later date. This is the basis of this colonial lie. Cortes did not even have blue or green eyes or blonde or light hair, unlike the nobility of Peru and others, who they said were descended from these "gods". Look at the ceremonial costumes. They mean Quetzalcoatl was white as in paper white, non human, not "pink european colonizer white". It's a cultural memory that these masks are so often painted unnaturally white. They are depicting a species of alien whose atmosphere was damaged and did not require melanin the way humans do. Blue eyes, green eyes, red hair, are all mutations for human beings. They can happen in any human culture or race.

[belleandre-belle]

This isn’t disrespect..

It’s a response.

A middle finger to a monument carved into stolen land.

Mount Rushmore: a so-called symbol of American greatness, etched into the sacred mountain of the Lakota people.

Every face on that rock? A colonizer. A president tied to genocide, displacement, or betrayal of Native nations.

So no, this isn’t hate.

It’s remembrance.

It’s a silent scream at a country that glorifies its oppressors and erases its victims.

This land was never empty. It was never up for grabs. It still isn’t yours.

[woodsfae]

For usamericans who may not know how to support decolonization and indigenous people in their every-day lives, may I suggest checking this list of native-owned businesses, curated and maintained by indigenous folks. There's food, candles, cbd pre-rolls, clothes, jewelry, hats, baby things, handicrafts, art, and hundreds of other useful and wonderful things. I check this list before I buy non-native owned as often as I can.

Also check out the native-owned (pulitzer-prize winner Louise Erdrich started it!) bookstore and press Milkweed Editions (dot org) for an amazing selection of books by indigenous authors. I recommend Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (a collection of essays that will change your thinking if your mind is open at all) that's great for sitting down to read for bite-sized chunks. For book recommendations, check out this infographic!

Do you own property and want to support landback but still need a place to live? Odds are good that there's established precedence in your area to transfer its jurisduction to a local tribe and pay your land taxes and etc to them instead of the settler government!

Here is a list of charities and fundraisers for indigenous support.

Other ways to educate yourself and learn what indigenous people are working on nationally and locally is to follow indigenous people online! Many Native peoples on various social medias tag with #indigenous, #native, and by looking at those you will find many other tags and people to follow.

If you have extra cash, consider paying indigenous people's bail, donating to some of the causes linked above, or look for local initiatives to support in your own community!

[secular-jew]