Wonderful story, thank you for reading. In Canada, I was taught never to use two words, because they are considered to be slurs.
"Tribe" is one of those words. We stopped using that word because of what it means to white people. So instead of "tribe" we say, "band" or "community" or "nation." Because it is very difficult to communicate accurately between colonial meanings and indigenous meanings.
I will give you one of my stories, you can keep it for your own. That is the tradition where I grew up and in my father's lands.
When I was in college in Ottawa, I had a professor who was very learned and well respected. She was from Philadelphia. As a gesture of respect, I took both her classes on the art history of the indigenous peoples of North America. I was born and raised on Coast Salish land, which is on the southwestern coast of Canada, near Washington state. So all my life, I grew up going to the beach and exploring, and learning about the animals who lived there. One of those animals was abalone.
So imagine my surprise when my respected professor taught her classes that abalone was a trade substance and proof of trade routes between the north and south. Her proof of this was in the language, the literal translation for abalone shell is "precious thing."
I puzzled over this for most of the term. Eventually, I decided there must be two different kinds of abalone and she was referring to a different kind than the one I knew. That is how I resolved it. But it still bothered me.
When I went home for the Summer, I went to the carver's shed in my community to pay my respects to the Elder there and to watch the carvers. I told him what I had learned and he laughed at me. I didn't know why, my feelings were hurt.
He told me this: the most precious thing in the world is water. Trees, also very precious. Air, more precious than anything else. We need these things most, therefore they are precious. You see?
Now me, being kind of stupid, I did not completely believe him. So I went to talk to the curator of the First Nations collection at the Royal BC Museum and he told me my professor was right. There must be two different species because "precious thing" proved my professors point. Still didn't seem right to me.
So I went for a walk on the breakwater, where a seagull about 20 feet ahead of me kept dipping and diving. Eventually, that seagull dropped something, and when I reached it, I picked it up. It was an abalone shell.
Sometimes people think they are communicating, they can even use the same words and agree on what those words mean, but they are not always words that carry the same meaning underneath what we say.
Abalone is not rare but it is precious. There is no correlation between scarcity and value in the indigenous world.
We do not say "tribe" or Eskimo" in Canada amongst the indigenous peoples of the land anymore, not because we do not understand their meaning, and not even because they were ever intended to be slurs, or even used as slurs. I realize in America these words are in wide use because I am American now. But I still do not use those words, out of respect for my Elders and because of the meanings and associations those words have gained over 400 years of colonial rule.
And sometimes, when I think of that Elder in the carving shed, nearly 30 years ago, I wonder if he understood that the white Governments, through their attitude correlating scarcity with value, brought about the water shortages so many first nations communities, and all of us really, are facing today.
It's almost as though they are trying to reconcile their idea of what is precious with reality by making things that are precious but still abundant, scarce and therefore, valuable.
Wonderful story, thank you for reading. In Canada, I was taught never to use two words, because they are considered to be slurs.
"Tribe" is one of those words. We stopped using that word because of what it means to white people. So instead of "tribe" we say, "band" or "community" or "nation." Because it is very difficult to communicate accurately between colonial meanings and indigenous meanings.
I will give you one of my stories, you can keep it for your own. That is the tradition where I grew up and in my father's lands.
When I was in college in Ottawa, I had a professor who was very learned and well respected. She was from Philadelphia. As a gesture of respect, I took both her classes on the art history of the indigenous peoples of North America. I was born and raised on Coast Salish land, which is on the southwestern coast of Canada, near Washington state. So all my life, I grew up going to the beach and exploring, and learning about the animals who lived there. One of those animals was abalone.
So imagine my surprise when my respected professor taught her classes that abalone was a trade substance and proof of trade routes between the north and south. Her proof of this was in the language, the literal translation for abalone shell is "precious thing."
I puzzled over this for most of the term. Eventually, I decided there must be two different kinds of abalone and she was referring to a different kind than the one I knew. That is how I resolved it. But it still bothered me.
When I went home for the Summer, I went to the carver's shed in my community to pay my respects to the Elder there and to watch the carvers. I told him what I had learned and he laughed at me. I didn't know why, my feelings were hurt.
He told me this: the most precious thing in the world is water. Trees, also very precious. Air, more precious than anything else. We need these things most, therefore they are precious. You see?
Now me, being kind of stupid, I did not completely believe him. So I went to talk to the curator of the First Nations collection at the Royal BC Museum and he told me my professor was right. There must be two different species because "precious thing" proved my professors point. Still didn't seem right to me.
So I went for a walk on the breakwater, where a seagull about 20 feet ahead of me kept dipping and diving. Eventually, that seagull dropped something, and when I reached it, I picked it up. It was an abalone shell.
Sometimes people think they are communicating, they can even use the same words and agree on what those words mean, but they are not always words that carry the same meaning underneath what we say.
Abalone is not rare but it is precious. There is no correlation between scarcity and value in the indigenous world.
We do not say "tribe" or Eskimo" in Canada amongst the indigenous peoples of the land anymore, not because we do not understand their meaning, and not even because they were ever intended to be slurs, or even used as slurs. I realize in America these words are in wide use because I am American now. But I still do not use those words, out of respect for my Elders and because of the meanings and associations those words have gained over 400 years of colonial rule.
You see?
And sometimes, when I think of that Elder in the carving shed, nearly 30 years ago, I wonder if he understood that the white Governments, through their attitude correlating scarcity with value, brought about the water shortages so many first nations communities, and all of us really, are facing today.
It's almost as though they are trying to reconcile their idea of what is precious with reality by making things that are precious but still abundant, scarce and therefore, valuable.