Lizz Burke's Final Project

A girl sits in the field. She gazes thoughtfully at a flower in front of her. This flower is being pollinated by a honey bee. The bee flies off. The girl thinks about the relationship between the flower and the bee, the flower’s part in the field as a whole, the bee’s job in replenishing a new generation of flowers to compose the field, the bee’s role in making honey for her to eat. She thinks about the sun’s role in making all these plants grow, and how she wouldn’t be here if not for the intricate network of life that surrounds her. She realizes her existence is not necessary to the field. The field would go on without changing if she disappeared, but if the field were to vanish, the bee and its honey would not exist, and her life would be different. All these thoughts are defined in her language, which frames her reference for reality. Her capacity and understanding of language grows with each new observation. These observations help her establish her identity and place in the world.

The cyclical process of identity, language, and observation, is key to unlocking Ojibwe ways of knowing. Each is integral to building the other, much like the cyclical processes of nature. Observation is framed through language, and language helps define identity. An identity facilitates perception, which influences observation. The Ojibwe have employed these processes for thousands of years, through migrations and the gradual changing of their culture and people. It is for these and other reasons that I and my classmates sought to learn about the original inhabitants of the continent we share. What we found was both shocking and inspiring.

The changes of the past centuries have been devastating to many indigenous communities around the world; the Ojibwe are no exception. Outside influences have severely undermined their sense of identity. Their license plates read “Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians,” and “White Earth Ojibwe.” Some band members say “Ojibwe” while a local eco-botonist self identifies as a Native American. A professor at Red Lake Tribal college tells me nothing except Anishinaabe is acceptable, because that is the original identifier of his ancestors by his ancestors; a different professor tells me Anishinaabe simply means The People, which includes all the people of the earth; a third professor tells me I am Native American, as I was born on Turtle Island (North America), but, he made a clear distinction, I was not indigenous. One man says they keep the term Indian, even though it was bestowed upon them after some Italian got lost, because they're the only race specifically referred to in the United State constitution. The signs driving into the nearest town mark the forests as 'Chippewa,' but the only person we heard identify himself as 'Chippewa' was a drunken patron in a small local bar in Michigan.

When we came to study the culture, the last thing we expected was such a dissenting jumble of identities. But the problem of naming was only the beginning of their troubles. The native community is torn between a rich heritage desecrated by centuries of political and cultural abuse, and the contemporary challenges of American life. Reservation life reflects these conflicts. Drug abuse and alcoholism are rampant. Piles of trash overrun tiny houses nestled in reservation forest. Pairs of sneakers hang on telephone wires to mark gang territories. Shells of burnt houses, we're told, are just parties that got out of hand. Classrooms are half-empty because teachers have given up trying to find their pupils. Nearly every band member has a story to tell. Her daughter died 7 months ago from drug overdose. His house was broken into and his cousin shot. He died, hit by a drunk driver. Her husband was stabbed by the neighbor trying to protect the dog. These are not the serene tipi dwellers many Americans imagine to be the remnants of the original inhabitants of this continent.

Davey put it best when he said, "We saw a lot of bad things, but felt a lot of good things." Even amidst the poverty and the weight of tragedy, the Ojibwe spirit remains indomitable. The heart of the people beats strong as their sacred drums. Ceremonies and pow-wows continue to be held, tribal colleges battle courageously against corruption to provide higher education in the context of their own tradition, and there is still a nearly inexhaustible wealth of wisdom to be found among the elders. Children are raised by a network of family, often exposed to ancient traditions carried out in new ways, like the tapping of trees for sap: the “sugar bush.” Wild rice is harvested and cooked and shared. Wind turbines and other forms of sustainable energy are being constructed to offset the cost of powering community buildings. These, also, are not the natives Americans imagine.

The perception of the indigenous people by the average American is one of distance. There’s a notion that the stragglers of a dying culture will soon be gone, adapted or abandoned. Theirs was an era before our time, and our culture just happened to come out dominant. Another notion is that the Indians live in little bubbles across the continent, keeping to themselves and adapting their culture to smaller and smaller bits of land. Either way, people think of Indian communities as separate entities that have no bearing on anything outside their reservation. This separation is just an illusion. One of the principal teachings of the Ojibwe is that everything is interconnected and interdependent. This applies to everything from localized ecosystems to the global political machine. Everything affects everything else.

This central principle precipitates several distinct behavioral patterns for both traditional and contemporary Ojibwe communities. If everything is interconnected, then those connections can be observed. To the Ojibwe, observation is more comprehensive than a mental laundry list of objects in the immediate surrounding. Couch, television, laptop open, coffee table, books. Observation is an ongoing process of "receptivity to our surroundings. [This,] combined with creativity characterizes our perception." (Cajete 26) Infants traditionally spent the first two years of life strapped to a cradleboard, a method of allowing the baby to accompany the mother on her daily chores while opening him or her up to the world of colors, movement, and activity. As the child grows, feasts are held to celebrate observable developments, like a girl getting her first period, or a boy’s first kill, instead of arbitrary ages somehow linked to maturity.

While we didn't see any cradleboards or first kill ceremonies on the reservation, there is still a strongly fostered sense of observation as a part of education. While staying with my host family, their eldest son had very limited interaction with us, but we later found out he had many goods things to say about us. He didn’t say much while we were there, but he was observing closely. Kent Nerburn, a writer with a foot in both the inside and outside world of Minnesota's native community, couldn't have been more spot on. He told us: "You are being watched." And it’s not just people or visitors who are being watched. The weather, the plants, and animals, the myriad processes of life are all subject to their watchful eyes.

One result of their focus on observation is that they talk less. This is a difficult cultural barrier to many Americans because they are accustomed to a continuous stream of noise, either from conversation, a television, radio, media player, or just normal sights and sounds of busy industry. Silence to many is awkward or uncomfortable. To them it is a state of balance and tranquility.

Another important effect of observation is the necessity of participation in the surrounding environment. By acknowledging everything is connected, you are acknowledging that you are connected to everything, and should take the necessary steps to preserve and honor that connection. That connection is important in forming a personal and cultural identity.

Participation takes several forms. One of the most common rituals of participation is the offering of tobacco. Tobacco is a sacred plant used in many ceremonies and prayer. It is offered to the spirits as a sacrificial victim when smoked from a pipe. It's used during gathering to acknowledge a human need, that you are taking something from nature, and reciprocating by giving something back. It's not a bartering system, leaving more if you take more, but an acknowledgment of the order of things and a way of respecting nature.

Respect comes from understanding how the world is structured. The order of things involves four levels of life on the planet. Depending on Western religious and cultural variation, humans are either placed equal with or slightly above the animal kingdom. Other forms of life are ordered from the most to least complex, with the more complex organisms being designated more important. The Ojibwe reverse the system and organize not based on complexity but on dependence. Using this method of thinking, the Earth itself is at the top of the hierarchy. Everything depends on the planet. Next come the plants. The plants depend on the earth. Then come the animals, which depend on the plants. Last are humans, because nothing depends on us to live, but we depend on the lives of plants, animals, and the planet.

Everything in this order is considered active. The plants, rocks, thunder, even stories. Everything is alive and has spirit. In this sense, everything is open to participation in its environment. These spirits must be honored and respected. Western science calls this animism. Taking this into consideration and allowing it to change your perception alters the way in which a being observes.

Language is an important part of observation, because through language a culture is able to frame its experiences in reality. Native language is no different. Their world views are reflected in the structure of their language, which makes it a critical part of their culture. Just as their principle of animism projects that everything is active, most of Ojibwe-mowin, their language, is in the form of verbs, an active or moving part of communication. Without this method of expressing fundamental views of their surroundings, these views change with the translation of the language. Several times fluent Ojibwe speakers told us when they try to say things in English, it comes out backwards.

A sacred view of life cannot be properly conveyed if it’s being told backwards. All Ojibwe ceremonies, including the sacred drum and funerals, are still done in the Ojibwe language. At a funeral, even if the deceased never spoke a word of Ojibwe in their life, the language is still used because they believe it is the language their spirit will understand. Because these ceremonies are primary surviving elements of the culture, it is absolutely essential that the language remain intact and alive.

Unfortunately, this is one of their biggest obstacles. Dwindling fluency levels of their native tongue means many younger Ojibwe can’t say more than a few words or broken phrases in their own language. Nearly all fluent speakers are elders. Parents don’t know the language, and so cannot pass it to their children. The largest contributor to this problem is the legacy of the boarding schools. This was a topic we heard about in some form from nearly every person we met, an appropriate reflection of the widespread devastation it caused. The schools were run by Christian priests and nuns in order to assimilate the Indians and produce “apples:” citizens who were red on the outside and white on the inside. These men of the black book and black robe are a major cause of the current language crisis. Children were effectively kidnapped from their parents and severed from any participation with their culture or communication with their community. Speaking a language other than English was punishable by severe beatings. Many children died or were sexually abused in these schools. All this was done with the blessing of the United States government. There has still been no formal apology.

One of the many unanticipated consequences was a succession of generations that had no idea how to parent their own children, both in terms of physical and spiritual development, because they were not exposed to their own cultural traditions as they matured. Their sense of identity had been fractured by the attempted extermination of their language. The white notion of a nuclear family separate from a community was wholly foreign and largely incompatible to an Indian way of life. The Ojibwe raised children in conjunction with their aunties and uncles and grandparents just as integrally as the parents.

The splintered sense of home is amplified a thousand times because of 1887's Dawes Act. This act of Congress was just one in a long line of legislation that reversed and swindled land from previously held band ownership. The basic premise of the law was to give each Indian individual allotments of reservation land and to give the rest of the land to white settlers or industries that would extract its resources. Of the three reservations we visited, only Red Lake refused allotment and the land is still held in common to all band members. White Earth and Leech Lake are now “checkerboard” reservations where the tribe only owns a small percentage of the land. White Earth currently has a land recovery project intending to "facilitate recovery of the original land base of the White Earth Indian Reservation, while preserving and restoring traditional practices of sound land stewardship, language fluency, community development, and strengthening our spiritual and cultural heritage," according to their website. They still only own less than 10% of the original land base.

Considering even the original land base of the reservation is just a tiny fraction of the land the Ojibwe occupied shortly before the Europeans invaded, along with the cultural rape of the past century, and the continuing problems the Ojibwe face, it's a testament to their strength that they survive. Not only are they surviving, they are recovering in the face of what they now refer to as “historical trauma.” Historical trauma is a collective damaging of the community psyche. Many compare the tribulations of native tribes to the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust. This comparison is a poor one, that doesn't capture the vastness or continued insensitivity toward native problems.

By the mid 20th century, the United States government had attempted to extinguish their language and culture, rob them of their lands, and quash any identity associated with indigenous knowledge. But the persistence of the people kept the heart of the culture beating, and programs are underway to help re-establish healthy native communities and identities. I heard an Ojibwe say, “I want to be true to our traditional worldview but responsive to our realities.” Cultures change, and the hardships experienced by the Ojibwe will no doubt transform the way future generations function in the world. Their mode of thinking places an emphasis that all decisions should be made with the seventh generation in mind. Hopefully, those future generations will enjoy a place where their skills of observations and ways of knowing compliment the methodological estrangement of Western science to enable humans in interact peacefully and responsibly with their environment and each other.

The first step toward this bright future is an apology, and an acceptance. An apology for the wrongs done, and an acceptance of responsibility. My ancestors in all probability took advantage of natives in some form or another. The most difficult part of the trip was knowing that, and knowing that we were not there to help or judge. We were there to learn. We were there to co-exist. We were there to take the knowledge offered in friendship and use it to the benefit of all. It is not enough to know or to think, we must act. I will act. My future as an educator puts me in a unique position to re-shape the minds of the next generation. They will learn the full history of the land they live in, the beauty and sadness of the stories of its people, and all the intricacies of a flower and a bee.

Miigwitch, Bruce, for this experience.