Thread by @karlajstrand

Attending this conference, all throughout October, starting tomorrow. Check it out.

https://twitter.com/BridgeStateU/status/1311400455138934788

This morning will begin with Linda Coombs (Aquinnah Wampanoag) giving an introduction to the conference.

Then will continue with Joyce Rain Anderson (Wampanoag) @joyce_rain18 moderating a panel about Creation Histories. Panelists include Bob Charlebois (Abenaki), Nitana Greendeer (Mashpee Wampanoag), and Doug George (Mohawk).

Coombs: Goals of the conference are to raise awareness of continuing Indigenous presence and importance, acknowledge ancestors, replace stereotypes, raise Indigenous voices, reclaim history, and address omissions. One of 9 @Plymouth_400 signature events.

Coombs: If we commemorate the Mayflower arrival in 1620, impact of this event must be commemorated as well. Yet huge portions of the histories have been omitted, changed, stereotyped, lied about. Must lift this veil of mythology and disrupt the normative narrative.

Coombs: The impact of colonization and "development" on Indigenous people, lands, cultures, etc. must be told. This is an opportunity to reassess the stories, impacts, histories, mythologies, etc. How do we want to go forward into the next 400 years?

Coombs: This conference was created, planned, run by majority Indigenous people with help, support, panelists who are non-Native. Will cover actual historical record, will correct inaccurate mythology.

Coombs describes the conference agenda and sessions that will occur throughout the month. plymouth400inc.org/event/indigeno… Registration is free.

Coombs: Hopefully attendees will be enlightened and see the world in old and different ways. With eyes open. "We must create the future differently."

@Plymouth_400 Hoping you, panelists, coordinators don't mind if I live tweet the events of the conference.

Panel I: Creation Histories with Joyce Rain Anderson (Wampanoag), Doug George (Mohawk), Nitana Greendeer (Mashpee Wampanoag), and Bob Charlebois (Abenaki). Will try to live-tweet.

Anderson: Session will discuss life before colonization. For too long, myths have overtaken the truths of the histories of Indigenous peoples long before settler colonialization.

Charlebois: Will discuss creation stories of Abenaki people. Many stories place western Abenaki people as Shawnee and Mohican, but this will cover the truth.
[I won't tweet the stories themselves.]

Charlebois: Describes the creation of the Homeland (what is known as Vermont and New Hampshire), the Green Mountains and Adirondacks (Mohawk language), as well as what is known as Lake Champlain.

Charlebois: Can't discuss the land without discussing the people. Explains the creation of different beings and then humans of the area. They learned, over time, how to live.

Discusses the creation of what is known as Mt. Mansfield. The creators had deep feelings and a moral code by which they lived, and they taught others how to live.

Greendeer will talk about Wampanoag language and how it dovetails with creation stories, cultures, and more. By learning the language, she has been able to reconnect with the histories.

Greendeer: People were created from rocks, then pine trees, sea foam. These were the first Wampanoag people that remained. Greendeer has read the letters and histories. They don't say they came from Asia but were created on/for Wampanoag land.

Greendeer: Animacy and inanimacy ideas in Wampanoag similar to normative ideas of these words but a bit different. The pine trees and the sea foam are animate beings. These ideas allow for a greater understanding of creation stories.

Greendeer: Wampanoag language is focused on the mind as opposed to the heart. So what we think of as feelings (happiness, sadness, etc.) in English, are more like mindsets in Wampanoag. It's more rational, less emotive.

Greendeer: Wampanoag language and histories provide confirmation and reassurance that this (rational) is how they are supposed to be. "I don't *feel* a certain way, I *am* that way." It is intended to be that way. The people are who they are supposed to be.

Greendeer: The Wampanoag are matrilineal people. Linguistic understanding gives more clarity about that structure and what that may have looked like throughout history. The language teaches how they are supposed to be.

Greendeer: For as long as Wampanoag have had a voice, this is how they have been. Despite colonialism and how some things may have changed or been manipulated, language has remained.

Doug George offers an acknowledgement of the natural world, Mother Earth, medicines from the earth, the plants, the Three Sisters, the trees, the animals, the birds, the deer, the winds and rains, Thunder Beings, the sun and moon, human beings, elders and those yet to be born.

George: Acknowledges that some may be carrying a burden. The feather, leather, and water cleanses us to reach the good mind so that we can hear, speak, and communicate with clarity and goodness.

George: Agreement between humans and the natural world must last as long as Earth exists. The Rotinosionni (Haudenosaunee Six Nations Iroquois) are star people; George describes their creation.

George: Music, song, and dance are integral to their existence and their connection to the natural world. Iroquois people have always known everything moves in a circular manner, that this world wasn't the center of the universe, that there are innumerable worlds.

George: Europeans have an unhealthy dependence on masculinity. But for many Indigenous peoples, women are the center. They don't have the challenging relationships that Europeans do to the natural world.

George: Not descended from primates. Designed specifically for this world. While this goes against European science, it is a more comprehensive outlook, a totality of existence.

George: Not from Asia. Roots are in Central America. DNA evidence says closest relatives are Polynesian from lands in Eastern Pacific. They upset the balance of the earth which shifted the polarity of the earth and the Ice Age. Then ended up in South America and went from there.

George: Linguistics disprove the Bering Strait theory. Too much diversity in language and culture for this only to have occurred 12k years ago. Iroquois creation and origin stories are based in biological, geologic, and linguistic evidence.

Concerning climate change -
George: Indigenous peoples have made great appeals to American governments for years alerting them to changes in/with the earth. Earth is reacting very logically to the mistreatment by human beings.

George: No ambiguity. They knew about these challenges and tried to warn people of the great destruction that will take place and is taking place. Climate change is now beyond our control. Aboriginal people gave us the way to live and we ignored it.

George: We are feeling the results of this male-centered, unsustainable, greedy, ignorant way of living. Now we can only take care of our communities. Must reestablish connection to the natural world. Must make constitutional amendment to protect the Earth.

George: Because of America's refusal to listen to and their oppression of Aboriginal peoples, we are feeling the effects from the earth. We were warned and didn't heed the warnings. Now great harm is upon us.

George: Europeans are so male-dominated. In Iroquois culture, women define existence, they oversee everything and men supplement. The creator is a woman. Can never reconcile the belief of the creator as a man, it doesn't make any sense them.

George: Indigenous life is based on empirical observation of laws of nature and universe. Europeans had to suppress this woman-centered, rational way because it threatened their male-dominated culture and ways.

Charlebois: Western European colonizers first and foremost negated the power of women throughout the world.

George: Efforts were deliberately made to enlighten people to Indigenous/Aboriginal ways of thinking and being. This movement went to the UN to fight for acknowledgement of the integral rights of Indigenous people.

George: We have the key to survival of this planet. This is why they have and will come after us. They will continue to try to silence the last knowledge keepers of this world.

Greendeer: Creation of Wampanoag traditional language school is one successful way to get language into the homes and lives of young people. Start young and it's just a part of their lives. Not many adults who speak it, so not many kids are learning it at home.

Greendeer: Their language is part of them, it's fun for them and it works to have a cohort of students learning together.

George: 10% of their Mohawk community speaks the language. Total immersion schools and adult learning. They provide financial incentives for those who want to learn the language for a year. Using new technologies. Anyone can learn Mohawk online.

George: Of 100k Mohawk, 80k live off reservation, so they decided to allow online learning of language. They want people (even non-Native) to learn the language. Must share the knowledge.

George: Mohawk are developing innovative, model curricula for formal degrees but students *must demonstrate proficiency in a Native language.

George: Mohawk using all contemporary means (ie technology) to provide language instruction at every age level. They have provided the most advanced learning systems because if you lose language, you lose connection to natural world.

Charlebois: Eventually, we will find out we are all related, we are all one.
George: And not divided by nations.

Many books from Indigenous peoples are available; Syracuse Univ Press has a great series. Also check out the Native American Music Awards for music. Doug George's book is called Iroquois Culture & Commentary. press.syr.edu/supressbook-se…

Thanks to all the presenters, moderators, and @Plymouth_400 for this amazing first session! Next session will begin in 30 min.

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