Culture Matters

” When I was young, I was taught by one of my elders from my youth, Narcisse Blood, that culture isn’t something that we own. It comes from the land. Its hers, and culture, language, arts, food ways, ceremony…it all teaches us how to be in that place. It frames our worldview, and offers us instructions on how to live. Culture is our instructions of how to live on the land in a good way. 

And, right now, more than ever, we need those instructions. We need the time tested ways of living on, interacting with, and caring for the land. We need direction and to be rooted to something rich and vibrant. We need meaning beyond modern material focused “life”. We need to remember the spirit of those people we come from as to ask for their help in our days ahead. 

For people Indigenous to the nations of what we now call North America, we have been digging, and those who can share this rich culture are often still with us. For many other nations though, the days of a living memory of culture are long passed. And, we have to turn elsewhere to dig. One space full of culture and meaning, is stories. ”       – Kakisimow Iskwew (Natalie Pepin)

Digging Roots is a program series offered through Meeting My Ancestors which focuses on the deep and rich soil of traditional stories as a place where we can dig for our cultural roots.

A Letter From Natalie – 

“It raises ire sometimes…to say, there might be something left of those cultures from Europe from whom so many here in our homeland originate, though admittedly generations ago now, which might still contain something of a memory from those indigenous peoples that once lived there.

Yet…it’s imperative that there is. It’s imperative that people (everyone) remember something more than this insanity we are living through. There MUST be something to call us (and them) all home…to her. To the land. To our mother. And she is that. She is our mother. No matter where we are from, we share at least that.

Our cultures are different. We are not the same. But…we share some things. Especially back before the waves of empire which have crashed upon us here.

Indicating that there is an indigenous Memory EVERYWHERE, if we care to dig for it, doesn’t mean that modern humans are all Indigenous to this land or that they share our identity…or a birthright to tend to her, our mother, here, in this place. And, it is hugely problematic when those who are not, claim to be.

And this work seeks to add sanity to that insane trend. To remind people that they come from somewhere else, and that they could dig for what that means.

In this case, we are not digging in the soil, but in the layers that have built up over generations…in stories.

I will never be Scottish, or German, or French. I’m Indigenous to this land. I was raised with the knowledge that I am from here. I am no cultural orphan. My culture exists, intact, though battered.

However, some of my ancestors were not from here. I don’t share their culture. The traditions some of them came from are so different as to be separated by not only physical oceans…but philosophical ones also.

And, that’s okay. I don’t have to be from that time, or even that place, to see there was once more there. And though the waves of empire which have crashed against us here, once sharpened their blades and honed their skills there…indigenous memory is long. Though sometimes it’s been buried alive and we have to first dig through generations of decay to reach it.

I hope that those of us with Indigenous and mixed Indegenous ancestry can see the importance of this unearthing. That those who have settled here learn that to be “white” is a construct from the sick minds of empire. Nature did not conceive of a culture called “white”. Empire did. And it will never have depth, substance, or anything worth remembering.

But..there is something worth remembering in Celtic songs, in the land based skills of the Sami, in the art, original languages, faiths, and devotions to the land, that once existed in those places. The prayers of the old Germanic traditions matter for them. The harvest celebrations of thanks matter in Ukraine. It is worth them remembering.

Remembering who we are helps us as people who are Indigenous to THIS land. It helps us heal.

Hurt people, hurt people….and maybe healing people…will make space for healing everywhere. Even if they don’t share our traditions in how we heal.

Why am “I” exploring stories with Tad? It’s not just that he’s one of the people I love most in this world. It’s not just that I want to talk (let’s face it…I like to talk), it’s that stories matter. Culture matters. Teaching people to live in beautiful, gentle and kind ways…it matters. And I want that for not only me and my family, and my community, and my nation…but I want beauty, and kindness, and compassion, and a connection to the land…for all people. And for everyone to know, they come from somewhere. That matters.

That they can dig to find something of greater substance that the cold, shallow, empty social experiment that is the colonizing empire.

And how better get there, than through a story of a girl, and the land, and the arts, and the cosmos, and the mystery that once guided their lives in a land long ago, and far away.”