2) ACKNOWLEDGE
INDIGENE COMMUNITY www.indigenecommunity.info Website
MAIN SOURCES / REFERENCES / INSPIRATIONS
COWBOYS & INDIANS
In the 1950s as a young boy, when faced with the inevitable battles we would have with our plastic toys fighting 'Cowboys and Indians', I always chose to be the 'Indian', identifying with the calmness of the 'Indian' even in the face of genocidal adversity, as presented by television and movie technology. The freedom of the birds represented by the feather head-dress and functional practicality of clothing appealed to my being. Over 47 years since becoming actively involved as a teenager at 14 years old, many individuals have mentored me in Indigene Community’s body of work on ‘self-generating’ factors for sustainability and community development. 44 years ago I began in solidarity work with First Nations around James Bay dam proposals and sovereignty. It has taken me a long time to understand that 'indigenous' (Latin = 'self-generating') integrated knowledge applies to all fields of study and action forming a blueprint for sustainable development today.
SCHOOL OF LIFE & COMMUNITY SERVICE
Of all the schools which I have been involved in, I have learned more from life, culture, fellow human-beings, the praxis temper of experience & study. Taking our lead from service with the people, biosphere & circumstances around us, roots us all in realities. Of all the institutional hierarchal schools which I've been involved in, I have learned oppression & the turning off of sensory data in deference to social & economic pressures with the degradation of marking systems. I'm aware of the transfer of these degradation processes from the once student into institution with resulting oppression of clients. Process is known in cultural circles but unknown or unconscious in institutional circles.
FAMILY TREES
Just recently this winter 2011 - 12 a close friend/cousin Anoushka Delamater, who had been researching her and by extension my family tree informed me that; our common roots on Turtle Island go back to the post 1650s intermarriage between our First Nation ancestors just south of Albany New York (New Netherlands) with our also intermarried DelaMaistre and Dewitt families. Anoushka had visited the graveyards as well as researching the 'family-trees'. From my own research, I was able to contribute the Dewitt (my father Rupert's middle-name) name & origin. South of Albany, New York is traditional 'Mohawk' / 'Kanien'kehaka' ('People of the Flint'), Kanien'keh nation territory part of the 'Haudenosaunee' (Iroquois 'People of the Extended Home') confederacy, keepers of the 'eastern-door'). At the time pressures from the Dutch colonies and introduced epidemics were creating large numbers of First Nation refugees from coastal cities. Few of my close family are aware of our First Nation heritage, having been raised with few references to our genealogy / Family Tree and no awareness of our First Nation roots. Some 60% of immigrant-settler families have First Nation blood. Some 85% of First Nations have blood as well from around the world. We realize that we are one people now. Some 95% of First Nations died in the European introduced (both deliberate & in-deliberate) epidemics, genocidal war by whites and loss of traditional abundance as whites destroyed First Nation polyculture orchard and drove whole people from their ancient homelands and traditional permanent home economies / relations.
ACTIVE FAMILY: My appreciation to Rebecca my partner for all her care for our son Adrian and travelling along distinct but somewhat parallel paths.
BECOMING INDIGENOUS AGAIN TO OUR TIME & PLACE
This Acknowledgement section is a personal story of remembrance, decades of influences, progressive realizations and collaborative work which will be added to in consideration of other sources of people, place, research and literature. The questions arise, "What would our lives / economies / culture be like today, if Europeans had immigrated with respect and honour for First Nation laws and culture?" "What would our lives / economy / culture become if we adopt this respect and honour today?" "What will the world look like as 'indigenous' (Latin = 'self-generating') peoples versus continuing in 'exogenous' (L = 'other-generated') plunder. I know I have left out many sources and even some of the most important influences on this work. If I have left anyone or anything out please advise me in the comments section.
ALLEGORY STORY
Shown above is a model of a 12 foot tipi which I sewed in full scale and lived in with friends starting in Renata, British Columbia home of the Sinixt First Nation peoples. Shown is an ant on the door going through the Yin Yang symbol of metamorphosis, on the back is a coloured drawing of the rising sun, a bear who came in after apples one winter actually very cleanly cutting his hole in the tipi very cleanly and doing no other damage, a Lego boy with green hair standing in the doorway looking out and a buffalo standing in the grass. The surrounding plants include sunflowers, hollyhocks (related to the marshmallow), corn and strawberries. Tens of thousands of First Nation communities were driven from their permanent homes (structures such as Mound Cities, Pueblo, circular semi-sub-terrain homes and other sophisticated ecological / elementally-designed / total-recycling environmentally designed) architecture some being hundreds of year old buildings, across the eastern, southern Canada/USA/Mexico 'Turtle Island'. As refugees with advanced poly-culture orchard food-production, science, mathematics, urban-planning, civil & family record-keeping, cultural-memory, ownership , economic, architecture and whole-system's design civil-grace, faced with aggressive genocide, the summer travel tipi was enlarged and adopted as a refuge by millions of people across Turtle Island fleeing inland for their lives.
Renata is Sinixt territory of the Inland Salish peoples close to the Nez Perce. Thousands of First Nation Sinixt peoples were forced to leave tens of lakeside communities filled with productive orchard and polyculture on every level. Salmon ran in huge quantities from the pacific ocean a thousand kilometres up the Columbia river before the dams into each valley. Today descendent's of the ocean salmon continue sparsely in the destroyed riparian (lake and river bank) ecologies of Columbia. The Sinixt peoples were remarkable by their Kootenay 'lake' canoes with the down pointed bows. Under the pressures of aggressive disrespectful colonialism the remaining peoples travelling south to their cousins in Washington state. Dukobour, Mennonite and other once pacifist settlers came into the lakes area and planted or took-over extensive orchards. Mennonites who once occupied Renata and other lakeside communities were joined by the Minto paddle wheel ferry. In 1970 as part of flood control on dams of the Columbia river designed to support the Hanford Nuclear Isotope generating-station, the largest in the USA feeding the United States nuclear bomb armament program Mennonite and other communities were displaced by Canadian collaboration with cold war arrogance which still knows no bounds.
BEGINNINGS
APPRENTICESHIP
1952 – 1969 My own apprenticeship to my father from just years old, over decades in carpentry, house-building, electricity, plumbing, boat building, machining, mechanics, equipment and other design led to a series of apprenticeships for me in Structural Geological Mapping with the Canadian and US Geological Surveys on student doctoral projects as a field assistant in the high mountains of BC and Idaho, Ecological Design with numerous mentors on diverse building projects, worker health and safety, pollution control and other innovative design issues. This heritage has helped me to https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/4-apprenticeship-education understand apprenticeship as a learning, ownership and decision-making methodology in indigenous societies. These orientations are strongly affirmed by First Nation elders and mentors.
1967 Still in a west island Pointe-Claire, Montreal high school, and church youth groups (Anglican and United) I began with Letters to the Editor of an Anglican Church newsletter calling in a letter for printing of First Nation voices around indigenous issues.
1968 I worked my first summer at a YMCA Kamp Kanawana as the office assistant performing clerical and accounting duties for the accounts of the young campers and my first introduction to institutional camp life and the responsibility of a job outside the family.
JAMES BAY
1969 connected to a group of students united in developing student-led ‘education’ (Latin = ‘to lead forth from within’) I was influenced by Liberal Religious Youth from the Unitarian Church, where I was introduced and became involved in solidarity for Cree sovereignty (Logging of watersheds and damming of rivers versus integrated indigenous land management in harmony with nature) in James Bay around damming issues in a group study and letter writing campaign. 1969, as I met Cree at the Palais de Justice held hearings in Montreal, I began to understand that the question was one of human integrity within and with the environment. Buffy Ste-Marie is an influential poet and singer for me until this day first with her imagery and writing on peace and in the past couple of decades with the Cradleboard Teaching Project on Native American culture www.cradleboard.org
UNITED FARM WORKERS
1968 – 69 Further solidarity work in support of the United Farm Workers of California during their Grape Boycott, I learned how the USA California invasion 1848, economic concentration and exclusion had led the original First Nations of California to flee south across the border to Mexico. At the time I was also involved in the United Farm Workers UFW Grape Boycott for California Grapes in West Island supermarkets. I passed out leaflets at A&P or Dominion supermarket doors. UFW Latinos are of some 85% First Nation bloodlines so this was an aligned issue of livelihood for displaced peoples living in the apartheid of California. I visited the Grape Farms of the Central Valley of California in the early 1970s. I’ve stayed on Reservations, worked on dam issues with First Nations.
SOLIDARITY
My formation comes mostly from living in community with and working in solidarity with First Nation peoples over the past 43 years. Study has come simultaneously over decades while working with folks but always referenced to living mentors and friendship. As one who believes that politics is only an expression of economic life, Economic Democracy in First Nation and indigenous (Latin = ‘self-generating’) Production Societies has fascinated me for many decades as the foundation of a healthy society in universal distinguished ownership in each specialty. I interpret human society as interaction between the Economic Democracy (often hidden) foundation (or lack-of) and Political Democracy (the explicit focus of common awareness).
HUMANITY'S INDIGENOUS (Latin = 'self-generating') HERITAGE
A key attitude in this research developed with various mentors is that we are all ‘indigenous’ (Latin = ‘self-generating’) peoples from everyplace on earth with very similar heritage use of the string-shell on every continent, progressive ownership in Production Societies, use of circle, consensus and other key processes. For this subjective reason Indigene Community has a section on indigenous Celtic Europe https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/e-history/3-celtic-europe Thus we consider Production Societies of Celtic Europe and their later expression as Guilds (with some notable lacking produced).
RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS
1971 in Kamloops Ernie Crey author of Stolen From our Embrace spent a couple days orienting me to First Nation perspectives including the residential school issue. I made presentations on this issue to the Sorrento Center on Communications where I was living-studying 4 months in a Course in Community. We employed circle process, consensus, the talking-stick and other indigenous practices throughout the course. Caucusing (grouping of like interests) is a key complementary process to Consensus. Caucusing cultivates diversity while Consensus identifies similarities. These and other First Nation processes became the foundation for Tree-planting groups, Natural Food Co-ops and other economic ventures.
GEOLOGICAL MAPPING
1971 Bicycling from Sorrento and Celista on the Shuswap Lake to Stanley Idaho in the Sawtooth Mountains staying on a First Nations reservation at the invitation of folks I met. In Stanley being introduced to organic gardening and peace issues in the USA by a back to the land couple. That summer inspired by the beauty of the mountains and the aspiring to PhD student Geologist Larry Richener who convened dialogues with me that summer on 'Why geology? because the only application of this science is mining and resource destruction, when our city streets and industries are full of more high quality minerals concentration than the mountains themselves which is crying to be recycled, reused and made more efficient in consumption. rather than sent to garbage dumps.
1971 Originally I was enrolled at Selkirk college but as I bicycled home each day, meeting people and looking around, I realized that real education is living in community and the incredible peace legacy of the Dukobour neighbours and friends I was coming to know. Helped out at the Youth Information Project YIP and Hostel Councillor living in Castlegar, Ootichenia (land of peace), Pass-Creek building a pottery studio and sewing a tipi. Sleeping in a barn, dreaming of my cosmic timeless name as Ou-ee-ii-jay-ii
TIPI
1972 I lived for over a year spring, summer, fall and winter in a tipi which I sewed and built in the traditional Sioux pattern with both an inner liner and outer shell. Flower Raynes participated in helping to discover and process wild and cultivated harvests as well as sharing with me knowledge about several areas of life. A number of friends came for various canoe visits some 23 kilometres from the end of the road. I studied, harvested and ate wild foods, grew a garden and harvested from the abundant abandoned Mennonite orchards. Hazelnuts and some other fruits growing in outlying areas were likely to still date from the Sinixt peoples who cultivated them. I’ve been initiated into several traditional ceremonies, which inevitably refer to human relations and consensus-making processes. I also built an Inipi sweat-lodge while living by canoe in and around Renata on the Lower Arrow Lake of British Columbia. In a couple of moves of camp, the tipi poles were floated behind the canoe and the shell within. A number of First Nation elders such as Sun Bear (1929 – 1992) instructed me and influenced my course of study on everything from dreaming to understanding collective decision-making. Under this influence, I began to look for remnants of the Cherry and other orchards of the Sinixt peoples of the Lower Arrow Lake.
PIT - HOUSES & CHARACTER WRITING
1972, Fred Snyder a Mennonite friend from Deer Park showed me many of the rock character Sinixt peoples’ language drawings up and down the lake in a permanent ink which had survived the artificial damming and flooding of this valley as well as the Pit house foundations in southern facing hillsides. With a partner we bought a 10 acre orchard and developed it some, while working in many orchards locally and in parallel valley systems of the Columbia, Kootenay, Slocan and other rivers. This along with other studies on the character language from other locations around BC pointed out that First Nations were using stylized graphic Character Language writing not unlike Chinese characters on various medium. 1973 – 79 travelling with the tipi in tree planting from camp to camp.
ANABAPTIST COMMUNITIES
1971 - 80 Living and working among Dukobour, Mennonite and Quaker peace communities refining organic gardening skills, food preparation and storage techniques and other cultural practices and teaching. I worked at the Cancel Pulp Mill in Castlegar, BC as a chemical technician performing quality control tests in most processes in the plant. Writing in the provincial union paper, I helped develop a Pollution Control committee for the union, and with the influence of Dukobour and Mennonite fellow workers, advocated for multistakeholder ownership based on the Temiscaming Quebec model. Both the union and management bought into implementing participatory investment and representation on the boards of a number of pulp mills.
COOPERATIVES
1969 – 80 First in 1969 joined the Revelstoke Food Co-op Grocery store as well as the Mountain Equipment Co-op in Seattle as part of our geological mapping research. I later joined and help develop the Natural Food Cooperative network of BC, locally with the Confluence coop in Castlegar, work at the FedUp warehouse in Vancouver and associated with consumer buying groups and co-op stores and worker co-ops across the province, networked in organic buying throughout North America. I learned that one-member / one-vote consumer run co-ops don’t recognise or encourage member investment of time, expertise, resources or money, but neither are consumer or worker co-ops able to join their complementary strengths together because of this. An indigenous economy study group recognising this dilemma formed across BC with exchange of anthropological writings on First Nation and indigenous economic accounting and other practices. We had understood the dilemma of co-ops a decade and a half before natural food co-ops across North America all failed and then ceased to operate. I began to understand what had happened to the Dukobour, Mennonite and Quaker cooperative community enterprises as well as what was happening in the Soviet Communist block of cooperative run economies but not fully.
PARTICIPATION
1979 I visited the Tembec Forest Products mill in Temiscaming, Quebec. Charlie Carpenter president of the Workers’ Association took me on a 4 ½ hour tour of the mill and explained participatory companies with progressive ownership by Manager, Worker, Supplier, Townspeople stakeholders voluntarily investing and being recognised for diverse investments. Charlie told me that the 40% First Nation workforce had determined much of their participatory model because of their traditions different from the co-operative model. Even though academics from Montreal and other cities pressured and advocated among workers, management and the board for the co-op model, even holding out the promise of significant development funds, the group of workers chose an indigenous model of recognising, accounting for their own labours and other contributions.
URANIUM MORATORIUM
1978 – 80 The British Columbia Uranium moratorium brought me in touch with many First Nation peoples whose livelihood and health was under constant threat and subversion by government and corporate interests on their lands. I could see that for indigenous people committed to stewarding the places in which they live, that moving was neither an option nor anything but full integral responsibility with the land and all other communities. I had previously abandoned a research background in structural geological mapping studies of the Western cordillera with the Canadian and USA Geological Surveys. As the land spoke to me of its beauty, it was no longer an option to be a ‘can-opener’ for industrial destruction, our city streets awash in metal and other resources thrown into the garbage. Really by this time it was a collection of First Nation voices which I began to hear within me which influenced me. My experience in mining exploration surveys gave me some moratorium insight and strategies.
URBAN CONTEXT
1980 I moved back to Montreal. George Podmorov a Dukobour elder who had come over on the boat from Russia in 1899 spent many hours with me in their Krestova/Goose-Creek settlement. George described for me the difficulties of making decisions together using the co-op model and how the community had disintegrated as a working unit. George also opined that all the Dukobour, Mennonite and Quaker ‘Anabaptist’ (Ana = ‘upright’ + ‘baptist’ = ‘free-choice of religion by the capable adult’) communities had started among urban city based peace advocates in Russia, Germany and England respectively. George felt that by moving to rural areas, these peace movements had lost their context and roles for the nations and European continent in which they lived. George knowing I was originally from Montreal suggested that; the most important work of community and peace building still remained to be accomplished in the cities of the world. In 1491 the largest cities in the world were located in the Americas far larger than anything in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. Tenochtitlan or Mexico City was an artificial island with 350,000 people living in the valley of Mexico with some 19,000,000 people (see 1491 by Charles C. Mann.
FAMILY HOME
1980 – 90 Back in Montreal and among family, I worked slightly on a family grain farm tasting the ripe and full wheat right off the harvester. I worked with a local natural food coop Wifco and then at the provincial warehouse La Balance as a worker and on the provincial board of directors. I invented designed, built, and arranged a manufacturer for a five product gravity fed food dispenser, which was installed in six stores across Quebec. At the same time, I wrote up Indigene Sharing our Livelihood with Community Ecological Economic Participation as a four stakeholder Founder, Worker, Supplier and Consumer Human Resource Time-Based accounting for their diverse expertise, labour, time, goods, services, patronage and other ongoing contributions including money but as one portion. A French version was published in the Journal du reso, the network newspaper of the La Balance supplied Quebec cooperatives. This call for a multi-stakeholder organisation with recognition for human resource investment and progressive ownership based in indigenous traditions was well received by many. John Curotte from Kahnawake kindly took me to a Longhouse and described to me some of the processes and meaning.
CONFEDERACIES
1990’s Piel Maltais, a Micmaq elder from the Gaspe of Quebec. I visited Piel at a Montreal common apartment sessions together wherein he helped me understand the Confederate model of five to seven nation alliances across Turtle Island (some 35 major confederacies). Other correspondents believe the Clan system is partially based in Production Society and
CONTINENTAL SHELVES
Community livelihood specializations. Piel pointed out the evidence that when tall trees covered vast territories of the world that water was moderated and held by an abundant biosphere, tree and roots in massive quantities so as to lower the ocean levels in certain geological and periods of indigenous human society exposing large areas of the continental shelf to human habitation.
ECO-MONTREAL TIOHTIAKE GREEN MAPPING
1993 – 2000 Influences from Kanien’kehaka: Undertaking the Eco-Montreal Tiohtiake Green Map based in Geographic Information Systems GIS with collaboration with McGill’s School of Urban Planning and Department of Geography students and teachers. Eva Johnson and Lynn Konwaia'tanon:wes Jacobs from the Kahnawa:ke Environment Office provided orientation and direction for undertaking the project as well as contacts in Kahnawa:ke referring us to the Kahnawa:ke Cultural Center around mapping of First Nation heritage. Konwaia’tanon:wes shared with me that I might consider my indigenous Celtic roots from Scotland and the other parts of Europe where my family had come from. My family has been in North America since 1650 as Dutch and there are oral records of intermarriage with First Nations but no names. Kawennisake of the Kanien’kehaka Raotitiohkwa Cultural Center related the traditional knowledge that "wherever one finds an old church, one can assume that the first trading forts and settlements were made close to Mohawk and Wendat villages for purposes of trade in furs or other resources and particularly food and other materials grown, harvested and processed by First Nations for the sustenance of what eventually became colonies.”
EXTENDING OUR WELCOME
1998 Tekahonwen:sere (Melvin Diabo) then coordinator of the Onkwawena Language Center organised 35 elders to contribute to the Tsi Tetsionitiotiakon Sustainability Rooted in Heritage Mohawk Placename mapping involving ), Kanatase (Raymond Gabriel) for his work in mapping the Mohawk placenames of Kanehsata:ke. I helped bring together bachelor, masters, doctoral and post-doctoral students and mentoring professors to support the elders in Geographic Information System software as well as other research and presentation tools and resources https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/home/mapping-ecological-indigenous-heritage as well as bringing Kanatase (Raymond Gabriel)’s work of placename and mapping in Kanehsata:ke to the project. Kanatase helped me understand the spiritual significance of the Longhouse from its meaning ‘Place of the extended rafters’ interpreted as ‘Place of the extended welcome’. Martin Akwiranoron Loft historian and artist at the then unified Kahnawake Kanien'kehaka (culture) Onkwawena (language) Raotitiohkwa Culture Center.
2006 Roberto Zuazo, an Aymara elder from the Bolivian-Brazil Amazon living in Ottawa works as a translator and writes books on Aymara Indigenous Knowledge with remarkable insight on the power of love and intention.
MAIN LITERATURE AND RESEARCH SOURCES FOR INDIGENE COMMUNITY Countless other mentors and document sources have provided me orientation. There are more sources listed in the Indigenous Welcome and Orchard Food Production Efficiencies article https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/design/food-materials-resouces particularly in the attachment.
Today with the advent of the internet and Google, sources are multiple and piecemeal. It would be a privilege to systematically compile Ethno-historical sources in more detail on decision-making and governance.
BECOMING INDIGENOUS (SELF-GENERATING) TO OUR TIME & PLACE
Indigenous Knowledge Ethno-historical research is a progressive collective process. During the imperial colonial period, whites destroyed / burned Wampum in the Northeast, other First Nation records and libraries in Mexico and other sites across the Americas. Since then no redress has been made and indigenous heritage compilation has been next to completely non-funded by colonial institutions to this day. We can understand white sovereignty fears and Chauvinism denigrating unknown indigenous values. Europeans fear the indigenous as a subconscious memory of the violence, destruction and degradation of our own Celtic Indigenous heritage by Roman and other invaders.
THE LONG NOW
One cannot rebuild a heritage in a climate of alienation and degradation as well as continuing colonial aggression. One must weigh knowledge relativity (the weight of evidence or opinion) and probabilities for funding continuing to alienate us from our long human heritage. Attitudes by whites and others working in colonial institutions (government, schools, churches, institutions, etc) weigh heavily against adequate resources being made available. Hence we can live in indigenous (Latin = ‘self-generating’) ways for our time and place, regardless.
I’ve been influenced by pieces of research in everything from:
1. The Iroquois Great Law of Peace which focuses primarily on the Longhouse and String-shell as economic tools of inclusion and peace. There are a number of versions which emphasize various aspects. I tend to go with those which do not have the violent sections sometimes associated with this document.
2. The Two Row Wampum which is a treaty between First Nations and the Dutch circa 1650 is founded in the non-imposed cultivation of diversity between cultures.
3. The Medicine Wheel which focuses on equilibrium in diverse factors of First Nation life.
4. the New Netherland Narratives, 1609 – 1664 (found at McLennan Library McGill) where I found reference to use of the lengths of string wampum for voting as ‘proportionally to the amount of string wampum held by the owner’ recorded by a Dutch settler.
5. The Inca, Comentarios Reales de los Incas, 1609 by Garcilaso de la Vega (Inca mestizo) who describes some of the accounting for their Quipu string as a recognition for work performed in Time-based accounting by their Quipu keepers and some of the decision-making in Production Societies. Written circa 1530 AD
6. At the Wood’s Edge, an Anthology of the History of the People of Kanehsatata:ke by Brenda Katlatont Gabriel-Doxtater and Arlette Kawanatatie Van den Hende 1995. Reference and encounter as well to the French translation by Francine Lemay.
7. Seven Generations, a History of the Kanien’kehaka, 1980 by David Blanchard 548 pages Open Library OL22101570M “The words and thoughts of many Mohawk teachers and traditional leaders have been recorded throughout history. I have included much of this information in an attempt to provide that Mohawk point of view to the teacher. In a way, this book is their work too, and I have been their editor. I hope that I have done them justice.” Published by the Mohawk Survival School in Kahnawake.
8. Iroquois Foods and Food Preparation from Canadian Geographical Society 1916 has a range of reports on the role of community Production Societies reprint of the original monograph first published in 1916 by the Government Printing Bureau, Ottawa, as Memoir 86 in the Anthropology Division of the Geological Survey of Canada series. The publication is a classic in the anthropological literature on the Iroquois. Frederick W. Waugh (1872-1924) worked as an ethnologist for the Geological Survey of Canada, now the Museum of Civilization. His interest in Iroquois technology and material culture led to fieldwork from 1912-1915 at Six Nations of the Grand River and Oneida of the Thames in Ontario, Caughnawaga in Quebec, and the Tonawanda and Onondaga Reservations in New York. During these visits, his informants provided detailed information on planting, harvesting, storing, and cooking a variety of food products. Some of the 32 informants acknowledged in the text include Chief John Arthur Gibson and his wife, Chief David Skye, Chief David Key, and Seth Newhouse at Six Nations; Peter Sundown, Barber Black, and Alexander Snider at Tonawanda; and Mrs. David Williams, Anthony Day, Henry Danford, and Jacob Schuyler at Oneida. The text is organized into sections on horticulture, cookery and eating customs, utensils and implements, recipes, ceremonial food, and foods from hunting, fishing and gathering. The Iroquois are well known for their use of corn, beans and squash. In addition to detailed information on horticultural techniques, details on division of labour, planting customs, thanksgiving and ceremonies are also discussed. In the section on tools and utensils, a variety of baskets, bowls, dishes, as well as the mortar and pestle are described. At the end of the text there are illustrations and photographs of the various utensils and implements as well as archival photographs of people and places. Two plates are in full colour; one shows 15 varieties of corn and the other illustrates the 36 varieties of beans cultivated by the Iroquois. Throughout the text, the author includes the names of the plants, foods, and utensils in the five Iroquoian languages - Mohawk, Oneida, Seneca, Onondaga, and Oneida. This text is a comprehensive study of food and recipes used by the Iroquois at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is invaluable to anyone interested in Iroquois/Haudenosaunee culture, culinary arts, and the history of Iroquois cookery.
9. The Indian Tipi: Its History, Construction and Use Reviews by Reginald & Gladys Laubin includes patterns and building instructions for an 18 foot traditional Sioux tipi among other First Nation plains variations from which I scaled down the plans to a 12 foot (traditional for travelling by a smaller family). What a majestic space to live in! I originally sourced the Indian Tipi through the Whole Earth Catalogue.
10. 1491 by Charles C. Mann 2006 as an ethno-history (story from perspective of First Nations) with diverse sources on 3-dimensional orchard led food production.
11. Their Number Became Thinned by Henry F. Dobyns circa 1990s forms a foundation for understanding both the epidemics, epidemiology and estimations of population through Food Production capacities of the Polyculture Orchards of the Timucean peoples of Florida and the Carolinas. Dobyns opened my eyes to the huge productivity of 3-D polyculture orchards compared to agriculture but as well a culture of peace in both internal and external relations.
12. As Coordinator of the Eco-Montreal Tiohtiake Green Map and Tsi Tetsionitiotiakon Sustainability Rooted Heritage mapping 1999 – 2001 of Mohawk placenames http://cbed.geog.mcgill.ca/WIP.hml also on the Indigene Community site https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/home/mapping-ecological-indigenous-heritage 35 elders guided our research as to placenames and heritage aspects.
13. Another America, Native American Maps and the History of our Lands 1997 by Mark Warhus describes the heritage of mapping and urban planning model building in First Nations communities and their territories pre and post invasion.
14. Boundaries of Home. Mapping for Local Empowerment 1993 by Doug Aberley from UBC bases much of his understanding for interdisciplinary living documentation by Geographic Information Systems GIS in indigenous knowledge he has learned from First Nations.
15. In the Absence of the Sacred, The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations 2002 by Jerry Mander As western society is entranced in a spell of our own technological making, a mirror of self-congratulatory but largely unwarranted as we have disconnected the social feedback systems, which would tell us the truth. Mander analyses each technology and its supposed benefits and real costs with a comparison with indigenous technology’s benefits and costs to arrive a truly cross-cultural perspective of relative efficiencies.
16. A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright 2005. I’ve met Ronald as well as read this book.
17. Spoken Here by Mark Abley, I’ve spoken with Mark over the years as well as attended a lecture by him at the Kahnawake Cultural Center.
18. Seven Arrows by Hyemeyohsts Storm 1972, “The Universe is the mirror of the people and each person is a mirror to every other person.”
19. The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that describe his training in sorcery. The books, narrated in the first person, relate his experiences under the tutelage of a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named Don Juan Matus. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge; A Separate Reality; Journey to Ixtlan and The Power of Silence. Carlos Cesar Arana Castaneda indicate that he was born on 25 December 1925 in Cajamarca, Peru.
INDIGENOUS INTER-DISCIPLINARY ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY DECISION-MAKING**
A main focus for Indigene Community is about the relationship between human relations and the ecological technologies which we are able to understand. As “each person is a voice of the earth speaking”, then including each other is essential for understanding essential living dimensions for the earth and its biosphere.
** ‘Decide’ from the Latin ‘de’ = ‘off’ + ‘caedere’ = ‘to-cut’ is the wrong word for the kinds of nurturing integration made by inclusive individuals and groups of people cultivating complementarity of diverse factors into holistic products and solutions.
There are numerous piecemeal sources on First Nation decision-making and governance but very little effort has been placed by our colonial societies into gathering the perspectives and knowledge of First Nation peoples.
There is a constellation of Turtle Island and indigenous thinking and science which is far more extensive than we have been led to believe. Human evolution is part of a much larger framework than our colonial society has conceived even to hold the likelihood of infinite time-scales, world-wide systems, deep social consciousness and scientific awareness spanning tens of millennia if not more.
I’ve been working around ‘consensus’ processes now for forty-three years and believe that consensus best fits into a Constellation of indigenous processes rather than by itself. Consensus as a focus on commonalities or those parts of a conversation or situation which everyone agrees upon has an important role in decision-making. The problem of consensus is a tendency for homogenization and even elimination of perspectives and diversity. When consensus is paired with ‘caucusing’ (Iroquois means ‘grouping of like-interests’) in groups, together they help us to find common-ground as well as recognise differences, group together advocates and cultivate diversity. Typically a group facilitator will reach for consensus with an ear open for differences. As part of reaching a consensus agreement, a door is open for those with different ‘minds’ (areas of interest or approach) to form caucus with their specific goals or processes.
The popular groups which I’ve been involved in have tended to use consensus by itself, which is good as far as finding common ground among people or groups who may be used to focusing on problems or differences only. However, when folks go home and feel lukewarm about an agreement because important elements of their raison d’etre have been left out, then caucusing offers an option which they can pick up on, cultivate their inspirations and still remain part of the group.
When First Nations first welcomed the Dutch, who were in great need of sustenance, they offered the Two Row Wampum treaty on the basis of caucus principles, under which the First Nation would remain in their Longhouses and canoes and the Dutch in their detached homes, forts and ships. The First Nations offered that we would both learn from each other, working and living in parallel.
The time-based accounting of the specialised Production Societies allowed for recognition of diverse individual or caucus contributions to each economy. The String-shell accounting systems recorded each person’s labours, gifts and services in a system of progressive ownership from young apprentice to elder master. This time-based accounting into string shell values integrated capital, currency, condolence (social-security), collegial (apprentice education), diplomatic conveyance (compensations in share resource use), communications and many other factors treated holistically. This form of accounting enabled inclusive welcome to Production Society and caucus economies and facilitated family adoption and other community processes. The Longhouse (apartment-like) and Pueblo style multihome housing (privacy in individual family or personal dwellings but joined in proximity and economy enabled for inter-generational and interdisciplinary interactions. Under the A. Home section is subsection 3) on the Indigenous Circle of Life with a constellation of socio-economic processes used: https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/home/indigenous-circle-of-life
To Barbara for her care for Liv, now grown.
Douglas Jack Ou Ee Ii Jay Ii, douglasf.jack@gmail.com , www.indigenecommunity.info