Happy Valentine’s Day: Imagining a World with No Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Through Anishinaabe Consciousness

In the spirit of February 14^th and Missing and Murdered Indigenous women, I want to decolonize the meanings that are associated with this holiday of love and romance, meanings that have been imposed and created through the colonial world we live in, here on Turtle Island. I do this in the spirit of all girls and women, in my life and not, distant and far, who have and continue to experience violence(s).

I want to decolonize by sharing what February 14^th and its popular expressions may mean from within Anishinaabe consciousness because to me, Anishinaabe consciousness affirms Indigenous life, Anishinaabe life, all life. This knowledge is built on the shoulders of Anishinaabeg giants, our Elders, who have been growing it in our homelands for thousands of years.[1] This is not an anti-violence program. This is not a lobby for new legislation. This is a different kind of Valentine Day’s card that wants to contribute to possibilities for love that are meaningful inside one’s body, bones, spirit, and are coherent with the land. If we can feel deeply satisfied and content within ourselves and our lives with others, we can stop making Indigenous women go missing, we can stop murdering Indigenous women.

February 14^th. An indicator of time. Anishinaabe consciousness is grounded in moon cycles not calendars. These cycles are named in accordance to what Mashkikimakwe (that which creates; mother earth) is doing throughout the vast region known as Anishinaabeg homelands (i.e. the Great Lakes region). I am living in Mississauga Anishinaabeg homelands now and here, this time of year is known as aanshin giizis, turn-around moon. This refers to the behaviour of makwa (bear), or nozhem (female bear) who is turning around in her den getting ready to have her babies. At this time of year we engage in ceremonies that honour makwa, who gives us so much life. She is the one that sits in kiwedinong, the north, sharing her gifts of protection and healing. For me personally, this is a very special time of year, as it is the time that I turned around in my den, several years ago, getting ready to birth my child. She was born at home surrounded by her Aunties and Nana, her father, and midwives; her Anishinaabe name reflects the spirit of a particular bear.

I like to imagine what the colonial heteropatriacrhal capitalist able-bodied society we live in would look like if we took the time as individuals and communities every February 14 to honour our animal relatives, with a feast, ceremony, and other spiritual practices (e.g. fasting); to honour the female spirit that prepares to birth new life. I like to imagine what practices my neighbouring Indigenous relatives engaged in historically and continue to engage in during this time. I like to imagine what life would be like if our engagement with life this way ousted consuming, constructing, manufacturing expressions of love that make corporations richer and exploit mashkikimakwe. How would this shift impact our regard for the life and lives of Indigenous women and girls? All women? How would this shift, however we identify, impact how we experience our humaneness and how we experience connection with multiple aspects of creation?

Love. The Anishinaabe word for love is zaagidewin: opening ones heart, the process of opening ones heart or having an open heart. These are variations of the word zaagidewin and they begin to reveal Anishinaabeg understandings of love. It has nothing to do with material exchanges, money, insititutionalized or commericialized commitment, or a particular structuring of relationship. It suggests love is a state of being with another person. G’zaagin: my heart is open to you. This is how Anishinaabeg say, “I love you.” There is no special month or day set aside for hyper-expressions of of love, of zaagidewin, of having an open heart for someone. While aanshin giizis is not a particularly significant month for direct human expressions of love for each other it is very significant for human expressions of having an open heart for makwa, particularly nozhem. We know somehow that by showing love and honour to makwa and nozhem, Anishinaabeg show love for one another, our ancestors, and our future.

I like to imagine what the world would look like if we engaged each other with open hearts. Or, what love might look like in relationships, all kinds of relationships, if the foundational value was to engage with an open heart. What would relationships with friends, colleagues, sales clerks, children, family members, partner(s), lover(s), strangers, enemies, look like if we engaged from zaagidewin? What would the world look like if we engaged Indigenous women and girls with open hearts? What would the state of Missing and Murdered Women look like if police, municipal officials, politicians, economists, and CEO’s engaged the world in zaagidewin? What would our relationships with mashkikimakwe look like if we engaged her with an open heart?

And, gender. Hallmark and jewellery commercials portray the heteronormative values that dominant the colonial society in which we live. However, man-woman relationships and expressions of man-woman love are accentuated on the days leading up to and on February 14^th. We are inundated with popular images of what love, particularly on this day, is supposed to look like: white, middle-class, heterosexual, able-bodied, free, healthy. Because gender—the rigid gender dichotomy of man-woman—is salient, Anishinaabemowin (language) is also particularly significant to this aspect of the discussion as well. For instance, one meaning I have come across that is associated with nini, the Anishinaabe word for man, is straight, true, upright. One tree in our world is named ininaatig, meaning man-tree. These meanings are coherent with Anishinaabe cultural meanings of the tree which are said to represent truth. This meaning is derived from the fact the tree, most of them; grow up right and straight up which reflects a nuance of our meanings of truth.  The word for woman is ikwe which, based on what I understand, refers to the changing nature of a being, she is changing, transforming. And importantly, in a colonial society that imposes its own ideas of masculinity and femininity to men and women, respectively, and does so particularly on this holiday, the word aangokwe takes on particular significance. Some Anishinaabemowin speakers interpret this word as referring to a man with a woman’s way or spirit. Or, to be more grounded in Anishinaabe consciousness, a nini with ikwe spirit. To date, I have not heard of an Anishinaabe word that describes a woman with a man’s spirit or ikwe with nini spirit. I’m keeping my ears out.

I like to imagine what the world would look like if men and women saw themselves these ways, if we saw men and women these ways. Or, if we lived in societies where comfort for heterosexuality was replaced with comfort for gender fluidity and diversity, in expression, responsibilities, and relationship. A gender fluid and diverse world includes heterosexual identities and relationships as well. Certainly, we know that organizing life around the wants, dreams, desires, voice, thoughts, needs, limitations, and strengths of (western meanings of) man—white, brown, beige, or black—does not work and is not working. Women—brown, beige, black, and white—of all abilities and classes, tell us this and work tirelessly at changing it. Men who experience patriarchy as oppressive for men and/or women, also tell us this and work with women to create change. Given this situation, it’s invigorating to imagine how the remembering and recognition of gender fluid and diverse societies might be organized. I like to imagine how the world would engage Indigenous women and girls if gender fluidity and diversity supplanted the dominating logic and structure of a colonial world. I like to imagine how this might alter the state of Missing and Murdered Women.

February 14^th is a day of love in that it offers many possibilities. It may continue to perpetuate colonial meanings and manifestations of love. Or, it may offer an opportunity to consider our own Indigenous-to-wherever-we-come-from meanings. It may offer an opportunity to learn about the Indigenous meanings of time, gender, and love that have been displaced, eroded, erased, or buried in the places we inhabit. Or, it may offer an opportunity to speak with fierce love to those forces that displace, erode, erase, or bury. Importantly, it offers a time, a day to imagine new meanings that feel coherent with our bodies. New meanings that can, if we want them to, compel our distancing from the colonizing system that dehumanizes us and the land; and, compels our engagement in acts and thoughts and feelings and senses that honour non-human life-giving life, open heart life, upright & truthful life, ever-changing life, fluid & diverse life. Surely, such transformation would eventually create a world where Indigenous women no longer go missing or are murdered.

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[1] To know more about my teachers, or academic sources, please contact me here in the comment section.

Nitaam (First) Guest Blog in Recognition of Valentine’s Day and Missing & Murdered Women: “Towards anti-violence, anti-colonialism and consensual relationships: Interpretations from a non-Indigenous settler woman” by Kristen Gilchrist

Kristen Gilchrist self-identifies as a non-Indigenous woman with Scottish, Welsh, French-Canadian and Ojibway relations, living on un-surrendered Algonquin lands. She’s working on a doctorate in sociology at Carleton University, is a survivor of sexual violence(s), co-founder of Families of Sisters in Spirit (FSIS), and ally in Ottawa’s sex-workers’ rights movement.

This Thursday is Valentine’s Day. Throughout the day, Memorial Marches will be held in at least thirteen communities across these lands to honour of missing and murdered women. The first annual Memorial March took place in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside, Coast Salish territories 22 years ago. During the past decade (or so) grassroots groups like No More Silence in Toronto (Mississauga of New Credit), Missing Justice in Montreal (Mohawk), Full Moon Memory Walk in Thunder Bay (Ojibwe), and FSIS (Algonquin) have also dedicated February 14/Valentine’s Day to drawing critical awareness to violence(s) happening in their communities, especially violence(s) directed at Indigenous women.

When (blogger) asked me to contribute to his blog, I was grateful and appreciative for the opportunity to mention all these kickass community-based, Indigenous women-led actions happening on February 14, 2013. But when he asked me to write about my experiences as a settler ally in movement(s) to end violence(s) against Indigenous women and girls it took me a long time to figure out what I was going to write. In reality, on the day of the deadline, my piece was far from being finished.

The testimonies and knowledge(s) of Indigenous women across Turtle Island (North America) are foundational to my understandings and are an important starting point. But I speak only for myself. I do not represent FSIS or claim to speak for Indigenous women or have any claim to Indigenous knowledge systems. This writing is a reflection of my social location, background, and experiences as a privileged non-Indigenous settler woman. My interpretations of their work locate colonialism and colonization as violent processes and as violence in-and-of themselves.
Bonita Lawrence (2002) shatters the settler myth of Canada as being a nation founded on peaceful settlement; where colonialism was largely benign, colonizers were necessarily paternalistic, and that the appropriation of lands, resources, sovereignty of Indigenous Nations were a step towards the democratic and egalitarian Canada presumed to exist today. Andrea Smith (2007) highlights parallels between sexual violence (forced disappearance and murders are also relevant) and attacks on the economic and political sovereignty of Indigenous Nations. Both signify control over one’s own life—body and/or community— has been stolen. Both necessarily imply lack of consent and coercive force. Both serve the larger goals of colonization and colonialism.

As Jessica Danforth (Yee) (2012) articulates, violence from the state is connected to violence against the land which is itself connected to violence against Indigenous bodies. Beverley Jacobs (2011) and Patricia Monture (2011) point out that it was not by accident, but by deliberate policy and practice that Indigenous women’s authority and autonomy’s were attacked as a means of control for a dispossessed peoples (Lawrence 2002). What this means is that struggles to address violence(s) cannot separate gender justice from sovereignty, because it was exactly through gender violence that colonial processes operate (Andrea Smith 2005). Interpersonal violence(s) like sexual assaults, forced disappearances and deaths by violence are connected to colonial processes that infuse all relations in Canadian society (Carol D’Archangelis & Audrey Huntley 2012).

Very real obstacles have exist/ed for FSIS in terms of organizing with/across government, non-profit, and grassroots sectors. Barriers are especially apparent when there is failure by allies to makes connections between anti-violence, anti-colonialism, and settler responsibility. For instance, tokenization, inclusion of Indigenous women’s voices only as an after-thought, taking up too much space/silencing those most affected, appropriation of the communities’ efforts, and folks running their own agenda(s) which Indigenous women are simply expected to go along with, happens far too often.

Despite considerable barriers, it’s possible to build a multiplicity of long-term alliances around commitments to anti-colonial and anti-violence movements (Carol D’Archangelis & Audrey Huntley 2012). But this requires acknowledgement and acceptance that we are all complicit (whether it is immediately apparent to us or not) in the colonial structures that have stolen lands and lives (Harsha Walia 2012). This is especially important for non-Indigenous and settler folks because dominant ideologies mask colonial violence(s), deny their consequences, and hold these violent structures in place (Andrea Smith 2011).

Krysta Williams and Erin Konsmo (2010) call on settler allies to take responsibility for our own lives and communities; first and foremost. As has been said, the revolution starts at home and/or the revolution starts within and by viewing ourselves as agents we can begin to understand how to transform our own lives, relationships and institutions as a project in our daily life. Using our uniquely situated voices and locations to support Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty can help to foster consensual, ethical, accountable relationships, friendships, and alliances across our differences. This commitment to engagement in an ongoing process of learning and re-learning together can be fertile ground for social transformations lasting beyond our lifetimes.

References

Danforth, J. (2012). Jessica Danforth: Fucking While Feminist Episode 13.
http://www.jaclynfriedman.com/archives/776
D’Archangelis, C. & Huntley, A. (2012). No more silence: Toward a feminist pedagogy of \ decolonizing solidarity. In Linzi Manicom & Shirley Waters (pp.41-58). Feminist Popular
Education in Transnational Debates: Building Pedagogies of Possibility. Palgrave MacMillan: New York, New York.

Jacobs, B. (2011) Restoring the balance: Aboriginal women’s issues in Canada. UBC Critical
Issues in Aboriginal Life and Thought Series. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A6DWgw8_YM
Lawrence, B. (2002). Rewriting histories of the land: Colonization and Indigenous resistance in
Eastern Canada. in Sherene Razack (Ed.) (pp. 21-46). Race, space, and the law: Unmapping a white settler society. Between the Lines: Toronto, Ontario.
Monture, P. (2011). Thinking about Aboriginal justice: Myths and revolutions. Justice as
Healing: A newsletter on Aboriginal concepts of justice. Native Law Centre, 16(3), 1-3.http://www.usask.ca/nativelaw//publications/jah/2011/JAH_V16N3_2011_Tree_.pdf

Smith, A. (2005) Conquest: Sexual violence and American Indian genocide. South End Press:
Cambridge: Massachusetts.

Smith, A. (2007). Native American feminism: Sovereignty and social change. In Joyce Green (Ed.) (pp.
93-107. Making space for Indigenous feminism. Fernwood Publishing: Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Smith, A. (2011). Building Unlikely Alliances: An Interview with Andrea Smith. Upping the
Ante, No. 10, in conversation with Sharmeen Khan, David Hugill, and Tyler McCreary. http://uppingtheanti.org/journal/article/10-building-unlikely-alliances-an-interview-with-andrea-smith/
Walia, H. (2012). Decolonizing together: Moving beyond a politics or solidarity towards a practice of
decolonization. Briarpatch Magazine. briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/decolonizing-together

Williams, K. & Konsmo, E. (2010). Resistance to Indigenous feminism. In Jessica Yee (Ed.) (pp.
21-36). Feminism for REAL: Deconstructing the academic industrial complex. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives: Ottawa, Ontario.

he got big roll uh, first thing in the morning

On Travelling, Part II: Scenes I

 

                    he rolled wild and broad and epingishmok-way. tumbling and swirling so sure; sweeping goon across cleared away lands, sleeping fields, yellow decapitated maandomin laying exposed. he rolled beautiful & tragic & uncaring, in all his glory, parading there in front of a star-struck audience of ininaatigok—all tall and slender and naked. and me here watching it all; amazed. driving closer and closer. he moved like he knew the way was his and no one could stop him. hmph. why would anyone want to anyways? his danger, swelling roll and roll, captivated. white spirals revealing nodin’s curves, her rambunctiousness, playfulness. the kind of playfulness that is grounded in a knowing that she can kick ass too. i smiled and hurriedly worked some mashkiki out for him, his spirit; steadied my right hand on the driver’s wheel ’cause i could feel him pushing and pulling, taunting, teasing, cajoling. come on, come on. wanna play? i put my window down, wishing for the old hand cranked window ’cause that would make it more you know, just more; put that window down desperate to make my offering before time passed us both by. i stuck my hand out there, up high, and offered him that asemaa. he claimed it ferociously. rightly so. he was working beautiful & tragic. i let him blow in, right over me, anticipating his bite, his sting. anticipating it with humility, gratitude, and held breathe. surely such display, such grandeur, such awe must have a cost? i was amused and surprised and giddy that this big roll, this big show, this jaw-drop was refreshing on my face; this rolling show this push and pull was a soft caress on my left cheekbone and eyelashes. his big show made me laugh right out loud and i thought he did that for me but no, he claimed that too, my belly laugh, without hesitation. i put the window up quick, skittish with the feeling that i was at the limit of something here. as i drove through him blowing around me, i couldn’t help but smirk, shake my head. he big roll uh, first thing in the morning. had to give that one a right lovely saasaakwe. had to resist the urge to catch another glimpse in my rearview mirror, keep my eyes on the road, hands on the wheel. big roll uh?

epingishimok is the name of the spirit that resides in the western direction. This spirit or the gifts, the work, the purpose this direction has relative to Anishinaabeg life is rich and complicated; best relayed in Anishinaabemowin (the language) and therefore beyond the realm of the writer, who is merely at a baby-speaking stage of the language and the meaning of this aspect of Anishinaabe worldview;

goon is snow (on the ground);

maandomin is corn;

ininaatigok are man-trees; straight, upward, truthful (that is one translation of inini/man); maple trees;

nodin is wind;

mashkiki is medicine; worked medicine out refers to taking it out of a medicine pouch;

asemaa is niitam mashkiki: the first or lead medicine; tobacco;

saasaakwe is a shout out to the spirits; acknowledgement; recognition for that being; calling out to them; letting them kow that you too are here; you are over here shouting out to them in recognition, love, awe, joy. 

      solid. smooth. stretching and bending back into itself. freezing and freezing. cold hearted and clear, so solid she shows allhercards except for theonesdown deep so much frozen to see anyways, and bubbles leaves lines cracks. distract enough with their beauty she had no worry about a wanting to prod, pry for deeper. […]