Many within the Pagan movement are having discussions on how we can decolonize spirituality. We recoiled in horror when faced with the “Qanon Shaman”; a young man part of the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol, dressed in attire that could easily be spotted at any number of Pagan festivals.
“You don’t represent us!” we cried indignantly. “This is not who we are!” And yet, this strange amalgamation of mockeries is entirely too close for comfort, or we would not have had such a strong reaction. If we would like to ensure this is not who we are, and instead build traditions that promote well-being for the planet and all its inhabitants, we need to evaluate ways in which we cause harm, and how we can do better. Participating in decolonization efforts is one way we can do this.
And who better to learn from than the original, indigenous people of this land?
We are fortunate to have two Indigenous voices here in this writing. Both live in the St. Louis, MO area. One, a Two-Spirit biracial Cherokee (Tsalagi) with Pagan leanings, has chosen to speak with us under the pseudonym Marsha, in keeping with her commitment to anonymity in her activist work. The other, a Black Cherokee woman going by Kamama, comes highly recommended by Marsha for an Indigenous perspective without Neopagan influence. We are grateful for their generosity in sharing their views here!
We have explored three topics to focus the conversation. This is what they have to share with us.
1) How do Indigenous people think about the practice of decolonization in general? What are the most important elements that should be embraced first? How can non-Native people contribute to this work in meaningful ways?
Kamama: Know who’s land you’re on! Land acknowledgements feel wonderful, because Indigenous people have felt invisible for so long. We are not past tense! We have been here all along, so to be seen and acknowledged is crucial.
In the prayer group I am a part of, one of our members does the land acknowledgement ceremonies. This is her ancestral territory. We don’t want to take her voice. But what if she isn’t available? So the next choice would be a Native person. Ideally someone who speaks the language of the place. After that, then we’d ask a white person. Our prayer group is inclusive. You can still acknowledge even if you are European.
Marsha: Land acknowledgements can sometimes feel performative when done by a non-Native person. If you are a non-Native, consider your motivations for doing them. Is it possible to invite an Indigenous person native to that area to do one as part of your event?
(Note: It is respectful to gift an honorarium for their community).
Kamama: Most people think of Dee Brown’s best-selling book Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee when they think of Native American History. But that book leads up to the massacre at Wounded Knee and then just stops. “Oh, they all went west of the Mississippi and died”.
We’re still here!
David Treuer, an anthropologist and Anishinaabe Ojibwe man, picks up where Dee Brown left off, in a book called The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, where he presents a counter-narrative of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.
Land acknowledgments are a start. But then that leads to “What are the reparations? What are you going to do about it?”
Kamama continues: How to help? Support the Landback Movement, a movement to get Indigenous lands back into Indigenous hands. It is a reclamation of everything that was stolen from the original peoples. Farmers are gifting back land to tribes through this movement! There is a Pawnee Seed Preservation group I know of. The Pawnees had been moved to Oklahoma from their original land in Nebraska, and these older seed strains wouldn’t grow in Oklahoma. But when the Pawnee were given land in Nebraska, these older seed strains grew, they remembered! So now there are Pawnee beans again, and older strains of corn.
Interviewer: We have the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust here in the Ohlone territories (East San Francisco Bay Area) doing a similar thing. Sogorea Te’ is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people. You can help by paying a voluntary land tax (called “ paying Shuumi”) if you live in the area, calculated based on your mortgage or rent. (Resources are listed at the bottom of this article).
Marsha: Let me tell you about the herb Broad-Leaf Plantain, also called “White Man’s Footprint”. It is not native to this continent, but it is also not invasive. It tries to be useful, it works with its surroundings. It knows it is part of an interconnected whole. As a transplant, we can look for ways to be part of the network, rather than be the center of attention.
You ask “How can non-Native people contribute to the work of decolonization in meaningful ways”. Well, how do we end white supremacy?
2) Obviously non-Native people (and particularly Europeans) adopting a romanticized practice of what they think of as “Native American spirituality” has been hurtful to Indigenous people. Those of us wanting to contribute to the conversation on decolonizing spirituality hope to steer folks away from these behaviors, and suggest replacement practices for them to do instead. Are there ways for non-Natives to participate in land-based spiritual practices, that honor the connection to the land on which they live, which are also honoring and respectful to Indigenous people? That lifts you up, instead of takes from you? (Or at the very least, do not actively cause harm?)
What things are most important to avoid? What things are most important to include?
Marsha and Kamama: Don’t take!
Marsha: We need to understand that colonialism is not something that happened ‘a long time ago’. This is still a very fresh wound. Do not take anything from Indigenous land without asking. And learn to Respect the ‘No’.
Kamama: You cannot take our teachings, our songs, just because you are around when they are used. You need to know the proper way to do that. Under whose authority are you sharing this teaching, this song? And even if it’s under Native authority, are you being a help?
There was that man in Sedona several years back, who was in the news because he piled 70 people into a sweat lodge made out of plastic cloth, and gave folks very little time to get in and out; he wasn’t allowing people to leave, and 8 people died, their organs shut down. And he was charging money for this experience! If it had been a Native person who did that? The ramifications would have been much greater.
The man running the sweat lodge used as his defense, “But I have this certificate from a Native American!” He supposedly had “permission” from some Native person, who probably needed to feed his family. But…he didn’t have permission. Not really. Buying a certificate from someone in a desperate situation is not getting permission.
Are you really learning to be respectful of Indigenous ways, and investing yourself in that community? Is it someone you know well and have a relationship with who is giving you the authority to pour water or use a song or wear regalia?
Don’t think you can pour water because you’ve been to a sweat lodge. Who has said you can do that? Under what conditions have they granted that authority?
A lot of Europeans see what we have and they want that. They want that peace. They want that tie with the Earth and the Moon. So they are taking pieces of our things, but they are not asking and they are not reciprocating.
Take herbalists - herbalists are so wonderful! But they aren’t sitting for a decade with a pine tree, learning what the medicines are from that pine tree. Our herbalists have a different view. We don’t go to a local herb shop. We are out collecting the herbs, and putting down tobacco and prayer with those plants. Some people say those medicines don’t always work well for settlers because you didn’t ask the plants! You are appropriating those too, like you are appropriating our practices and our songs.
Native folks do not like it when settlers learn their traditions and then sell them in $800 weekend workshops. That is not how they do things.
Marsha adds: There is a saying, “The illness of white people is that they’ve forsaken their ancestors for money”.
Interviewer: how can we improve upon this?
Reciprocity is a key concept that both Marsha and Kamama spoke of, and which is mentioned frequently in a book Kamama highly recommends, Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Potowatomi woman and botanist. In the book, she shares the wisdom of plants from both an Indigenous and a scientific perspective, with a central message that reciprocity with the living world is essential in entering into the ecological awakening we say we want. We can learn much about reciprocity from the natural world and Indigenous people alike.
Marsha: Introduce yourself to the land. Make friends with the guardian or guardians of the land. This is often a specific tree or stand of trees. If you aren’t sure who the guardian is, you can say, "Hello Guardian/s of this land, my name is (first/last name) from (wherever your people come from, including local and travelled far-flung).
It is also OK to say, "My name is (first/last) and I don't know where my people come from. I live in that house over there right now.”
You can leave food offerings for the Guardians. Just be sure that it is not toxic for the plant/animal life around (ie: don’t leave chocolate).
If you are near Tribal Trust land, see if their Tribal headquarters has a visitors center. If they do, you can introduce yourself, and bring a gift, or ask what would be helpful to them.
Find out ahead of time if they welcome visitors by looking them up online and emailing them through their public facing contact-us page and say “Hey I'm here on stolen land and I'd like to offer a gift, and was wondering if you had any direction you could point me?”
Going up to a tribal headquarter that does not have a clearly marked visitor's center is NOT recommended.
Kamama affirms: including your lineage in your introductions to Indigenous people is a helpful approach. You could say “I’m from (my people, Scottish clan or whatnot) and I’d like to spend some time on your land”. Indigenous people relate to tribal people so if you understand yourself as a tribal person, even from a European tribe, Native people feel a little more comfortable with you.
Marsha: bringing housewarming gifts is appreciated, when visiting Indigenous people’s homes, such as an offering of food, or something handmade, like a potholder. Something from the heart, not just some store bought thing. Tobacco is also a good gift. Clean tobacco without chemicals, like American Spirit or Tip Top. Sweet flavored tobacco is enjoyed.
Interviewer: Consider what we have to give, rather than what we want. What value are we bringing to the relationship?
Marsha continues: If you are feeling scolded, getting caught up in “the rules”, you aren’t getting it. The connection isn’t there yet. You aren’t thinking about it the right way. If you get frustrated because finding a path to do the work is hard, dedicate your efforts to the land. Let the land know ‘Hey I'm trying, it's just not worked out yet, and here's some more food’. Relationship is key as you can see from my POV!”
Marsha adds: If you want to be respected by Indigenous people as someone who practices land-based spirituality, don’t just do ceremony. Pick up litter! Actually help take care of the land!
3) It’s been said that even the Environmentalist/conservation movement, which tries in great earnestness to take better care of the earth, has sometimes been as damaging to Indigenous communities as extractive industries! Could you speak to this a bit, and how we might be able to do better here?
(From this article, written by a Potawatomi environmental justice advocate:
Kamama: It’s because we are not at the table. And when you are not at the table you are on the table.
If Indigenous folks aren’t at the table, how can our perspectives be taken into account?
A lot of European settler environmentalists don’t realize, we have figured things out years before. Trees talk to each other? Yeah, we know. How to prevent forest fires? Yeah, we know! The stars have shifted, yeah we know!
We know this land. Include us in discussions on how to take care of it.
Long before people were marching for climate change, Inuit Elders and people in the bayou and down at the delta have been saying “Something is wrong, the water levels are rising” and then science catches up with what we already know.
Indigenous women are caretakers of the water in many tribes. Grandmother Josephine Mandamin (an Anishanaabe elder and founding member of the water protectors movement) and many of the other grandmothers have been walking around the Great Lakes saying “Something’s wrong, this water is alive, it has memory, it has spirit”.
Then all of a sudden this Japanese doctor, Dr. Masaru Emoto is saying “Water has memory”. Yeah.
Dr. Emoto visited some of our water walkers, and what he found was that the songs our women sing, Indigenous songs, are pleasing to the water. Its added tone is healing to the water. Yeah. We know, that’s why we’ve done it for thousands of years.
On Sundays mornings we Native people and others gather along the rivers. We sing songs, we pray, we sing to thank and heal the water. We use a vessel to collect the water, and we return it into the rivers like the Mississippi, and it meets that dead zone a few weeks later. But if you look at metaphysics, which you all are just catching up on, those prayers are instantly put in, because time is not linear, it is circular.
Lake Atasca at the beginning of the Mississippi, Grand Rapids and Hidden Falls in MN, St. Louis area in MO. There are Native people there every single week, whether ten below zero, frozen, no matter what, they are out there praying for the water. “Water we love you, water we thank you, water we respect you” “Water is life”. If people screw up the water we all die. Doesn’t matter who is in office! Native people have always been the stewards of this land, and we’ve never stopped being the stewards of this land.
Some of these environmental groups come in and they think they know what they’re doing and then they realize “Oops, that wasn’t it, it’s this” and we go, “Yeah. We know”. You’ve been burning down these forest and you wonder why these trees won’t grow. Or there are these fires. Hmm. You haven’t been taking care of it the right way. We know how, and you haven’t been listening.
Native folks have been boots on the ground at Line 3 in Minnesota. People have been up in the trees, blocking roads, and slowing the progress, or these pipelines would already be in. These pipelines were being run through treatied Ojibwe lands, and they do not have permission from the tribe to be there!
Tuscarora singer-songwriter Pura Fe sings, “We didn’t cross the borders. The borders crossed us”. Those children at the borders are native children. Not Mexican. They are indigenous people. The genocide continues. In Canada last year, they were taking babies from their mothers. In one case, a Native woman had just had a C section. They took her baby and used the excuse, “She isn’t doing well”. And then said she’s irrational because she’s upset about it! Of course she’s upset about it! They also “fixed” some of the women. As horrible as the boarding school era was, it is still going on, in the US and in Canada.
A quote, from the article which prompted the question:
“No-one can claim to be an ally if their agenda is to prevent their own future dystopias through actions that also preserve today’s Indigenous dystopias”.
As Kamama has said: When we are not at the table, we are on the table.
As Marsha has said: How do we solve these problems? Well, how do we end white supremacy?
Marsha reminds us that we can learn from the Broad Leaf Plantain (and it’s somewhat ironic nickname, “White Man’s Footprint”). We can learn to become part of an interconnected whole, rather than an invasive species. As transplants, we can look for ways to be part of the network.
Marsha adds: You did not choose to come here. Neither did the Broad Leaf Plantain. Both are here now because of what their ancestors did. However, you do have choices about how you exist here. That is the task of decolonizing right here and now.
Our deepest gratitude to Marsha and Kamama for speaking with us! Here are some resources for becoming part of the network: