ORIGIN STORIES and LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

How has colonization impacted how we understand the world

and how we engage within it?

We’re offering resources as prompts to help you explore your personal, cultural, and institutional privilege and protocols.

ORIGIN STORIES:

An origin story is an account or backstory revealing how a character or group of people become a protagonist or antagonist, and it adds to the overall interest and complexity of a narrative, often giving reasons for their intentions. - Wikipedia-

WATCH and READ

What is the Doctrine of Discovery?

Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

A land acknowledgment or territorial acknowledgment is a formal statement, often spoken at the beginning of a public event, that it is taking place on land originally inhabited by or belonging to indigenous people. In Canada, land acknowledgments became popular after the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report (which argued that the country's Indian residential school system had amounted to cultural genocide). - Wikipedia-

Introduction: Our depth of connection to place influences the way we would approach something like a Land Acknowledgement. CUC Traditional Teacher/Elder, Stephen Paquette, shared that the idea of settler peoples giving a Land Acknowledgement is a recent phenomena. In his opinion, it is a custom that makes sense within a colonial perspective where ownership and rights to territory matter greatly because it says who gets to make decisions on that land and potentially profit from development. It is a political acknowledgment and an extension of the colonial mindset which views land as a commodity and humans as the beings to be acknowledged. In the video below Stephen shares that Indigenous peoples have been doing acknowledgments since time immemorial, however, they are relational acknowledgments and reflect their worldview of inter-being, connectedness, and gratitude for all life. He cautioned that the act of giving a politically inspired Land Acknowledgement is not the same as changing our sense of relationship to the land (and our behaviors as a result).

WATCH: Baroness von Sketch Show- Land Acknowledgments (2 min)

COMPARE and CONTRAST two different land acknowledgment for Toronto:

Toronto District School Board

Local Love Magazine

READ: Considerations for Land Acknowledgements

EXERCISE 2: Delegation to Meet with Indigenous Nations

You are a part of a delegation (that consists of everyone in this Decolonizing Focus Group) that is about to meet with leaders from the Indigenous Nations affected by the land your church is located on. You’re meeting with your committee to discuss how you will approach this meeting, what you will say, and what the desired outcome is. Using a padlet or shared document, write your initial thoughts and then comment below the thoughts presented by your group members.

Details of your (fictional) congregation: Located in an urban centre; the church building is owned by the church; 90 members- seniors (65%); 40-60 yrs (20%); 20-40yrs (10%); less than 20 yrs (5%).

WRITE: Take a few moments and write a Relational Acknowledgement that reflects your sense of relationship to the land you are on. Imagine using this at a community or church gathering.

JOURNAL:

Read the following scenarios and write your emotional response. Not what you think about it but what feelings are evoked. Each of these is based on a real scenario that has actually happened.

Scenario 1: You were at an event and an Indigenous person gave the Land Acknowledgement. They asked, “If you acknowledge that you are on our land, and you accept that you have done wrong by us enough that you do an acknowledgement like this at the beginning, then why don’t you just leave and go back to where you came from”? That was a year ago. You’re still here.

Scenario 2: You find out the home you own is on the traditional territory of the nearby First Nation. The land your house sits on was taken from that Nation in an underhanded way when one of the people could not pay back a relatively small loan to the Indian Agent. Since then it has been passed down to several different owners, including you, who have benefited by how it has grown in value. You continue to own the land and pay your taxes to the local colonial government.

Scenario 3: You had a conversation with a couple Haudenosaunee people recently about their dislike when people refer to them as Canadians. They also mention that they feel angry when the Canadian national anthem is played at every event they attend. The next time you are at an event where the Canadian national anthem is played, you stand with everyone else.