When I moved to western Oregon fourteen years ago, knowing that this would be my home for some time to come, I wanted to establish the same sense of place, the same deep spiritual connection to the land, that I developed over many years in my childhood home in the Minnesota River Valley. So I set to work digging in the soil, learning its texture and odor, sowing seeds, learning what would grow in which season. I took off exploring, not just on trails but setting up camp in the backcountry under old-growth firs, reading
Although it (necessarily) hazards presenting fiction as nonfiction, and (necessarily) merely synthesizes the work of others (including Deloria Jr.), I feel that James Wilson's 'The Earth Shall Weep' is an insightful portrait of pre and post-colonial Indian life and therefore the likely default for pre-societal (ie tribal) human experience in general. It provides a lot of very good meta analysis, imo.
He quotes Alfonso Ortiz's "The Tewa World:"
"A Tewa is interested in our own story of our origins, for it holds all that we need to know about our people, and how one should live as a human. The story defines our society. It tells me who I am, where I came from, the boundaries of my world, what kind of order exists within it; how suffering, evil and death came into this world; and what is likely to happen to me when I die...
Our ancestors came from the north. Theirs was not a journey to be measured in centuries, for it was as much a journey of the spirit as it was a migration of a people. The Tewa know not when the journey southward began or when it ended. We are unconcerned about time in its historical dimensions, but we will recall in endless detail the features of the 12 places our ancestors stopped.
We point to these places to show that the journey did indeed take place. This is the only proof a Tewa requires. And each time a Tewa recalls a place where they paused, for whatever length of time, every feature of the earth and sky comes vividly to life, and the journey itself lives again."
This is in the context of Wilson debating the Western / Christian viewpoint that migration is intrinsically and always displacement: In the tribal perspective, it is precisely what makes location meaningful.
You are well-versed in much more than microbiology and evolution :-).
I haven't read the other works you reference here. While the Tewa mythology of migration is beautiful, the alternative perspective (that "migration is intrinsically and always displacement") would seem to be a patently false argument. Many of my own ancestors came here from Europe not because they were kicked out but because they envisioned a better life or wanted to start anew. And in-migration need not displace the people already present unless there is intention and military capacity to do so.
Although I didn't include it in the essay, I think it is entirely possible to be rooted in more than one place, both individually and culturally, and that some elements of rootedness apply anywhere on the planet.
Regarding displacement, Wilson is arguing that the Western / Christian creation myth frames historic interpretations of colonization - we were 'cast out' of an Eden into a 'wilderness' which then only became habitable due to the outcast's cultivation of it, which erases the massive benefit of prior land management especially in New England by the Indians just wiped out by smallpox - and weaponized in modern times in legal disputes over displacement - "see, your people were not actually set down here by God upon the exact instant of your creation, but came from somewhere else, just like us." In either case what is erased by the Christian, "displacement = outcast" viewpoint is the gift of the land.
Ha - I have a lamentably unfocused fiction habit, though that's been on pause since starting Unglossed. So my research roams in wild directions.
In 2011 I was writing a sci-fi that was going to include an environmental bioterrorist among many other anti-heroes and so I researched the immune system and gene vector / phage stuff for that. In 2019 I wrote a screenplay on the premise "Seven Samurai but in Green Bay, 1830," so Wilson's book was for that.
"Most concerningly, though, it sets up a psychological barrier of guilt to beginning the personal process of becoming rooted in place."
It doesn't improve upon your analysis and description, but the language that came to my mine was that land acknowledgements are a modern "spell of alienation" from body and place. There are probably loads of such "spells" one could find in both sjw rituals and the social media landscape (with the exception of the heavy promotion of geotagging in the case of the former).
My heart feels your deep soul acknowledgement of your rooted place within life, nature, Earth, and your current home in the Willamette Valley. I also appreciated your direct yet respectful way of speaking to the surface ways in which we attempt to include the Native experience in this country while standing on top of rather than within our generative wise living Earth.💚🌎💗
Such a beautiful and well articulated essay. I really connected with your sentiments being an immigrant in rural Ireland and trying to develop a rootedness here....I'm actually in the process of recording a song about my experience! I think the process you outline here is bang on and something to indeed be followed.
I myself have felt the barrier of guilt preventing me from developing a sense of belonging too...being English and knowing how past generations of my countrymen treated the Irish people. Having children who are half Irish has strangely helped me to overcome this though.
Thank you so much for such a great piece of writing.
The social and environmental justice crusades of today have had a foul odor I couldn't quite identify, and you articulated it so well here: "Most concerningly, though, it sets up a psychological barrier of guilt to beginning the personal process of becoming rooted in place." These barriers indeed endanger the ability to connect to the Earth and Nature, and if this mentality gets instilled into a single generation, separation from our roots may be fully achieved. It kind of seems that has been the name of the game for quite some time, tragically. Hopefully enough people will see clearly enough through this guilt-inducing lens to see a better path forward, such as the principles found in this post.
Thank you for putting such a beautiful spin on this topic <3
Although it (necessarily) hazards presenting fiction as nonfiction, and (necessarily) merely synthesizes the work of others (including Deloria Jr.), I feel that James Wilson's 'The Earth Shall Weep' is an insightful portrait of pre and post-colonial Indian life and therefore the likely default for pre-societal (ie tribal) human experience in general. It provides a lot of very good meta analysis, imo.
He quotes Alfonso Ortiz's "The Tewa World:"
"A Tewa is interested in our own story of our origins, for it holds all that we need to know about our people, and how one should live as a human. The story defines our society. It tells me who I am, where I came from, the boundaries of my world, what kind of order exists within it; how suffering, evil and death came into this world; and what is likely to happen to me when I die...
Our ancestors came from the north. Theirs was not a journey to be measured in centuries, for it was as much a journey of the spirit as it was a migration of a people. The Tewa know not when the journey southward began or when it ended. We are unconcerned about time in its historical dimensions, but we will recall in endless detail the features of the 12 places our ancestors stopped.
We point to these places to show that the journey did indeed take place. This is the only proof a Tewa requires. And each time a Tewa recalls a place where they paused, for whatever length of time, every feature of the earth and sky comes vividly to life, and the journey itself lives again."
This is in the context of Wilson debating the Western / Christian viewpoint that migration is intrinsically and always displacement: In the tribal perspective, it is precisely what makes location meaningful.
You are well-versed in much more than microbiology and evolution :-).
I haven't read the other works you reference here. While the Tewa mythology of migration is beautiful, the alternative perspective (that "migration is intrinsically and always displacement") would seem to be a patently false argument. Many of my own ancestors came here from Europe not because they were kicked out but because they envisioned a better life or wanted to start anew. And in-migration need not displace the people already present unless there is intention and military capacity to do so.
Although I didn't include it in the essay, I think it is entirely possible to be rooted in more than one place, both individually and culturally, and that some elements of rootedness apply anywhere on the planet.
Regarding displacement, Wilson is arguing that the Western / Christian creation myth frames historic interpretations of colonization - we were 'cast out' of an Eden into a 'wilderness' which then only became habitable due to the outcast's cultivation of it, which erases the massive benefit of prior land management especially in New England by the Indians just wiped out by smallpox - and weaponized in modern times in legal disputes over displacement - "see, your people were not actually set down here by God upon the exact instant of your creation, but came from somewhere else, just like us." In either case what is erased by the Christian, "displacement = outcast" viewpoint is the gift of the land.
Ha - I have a lamentably unfocused fiction habit, though that's been on pause since starting Unglossed. So my research roams in wild directions.
In 2011 I was writing a sci-fi that was going to include an environmental bioterrorist among many other anti-heroes and so I researched the immune system and gene vector / phage stuff for that. In 2019 I wrote a screenplay on the premise "Seven Samurai but in Green Bay, 1830," so Wilson's book was for that.
"Most concerningly, though, it sets up a psychological barrier of guilt to beginning the personal process of becoming rooted in place."
It doesn't improve upon your analysis and description, but the language that came to my mine was that land acknowledgements are a modern "spell of alienation" from body and place. There are probably loads of such "spells" one could find in both sjw rituals and the social media landscape (with the exception of the heavy promotion of geotagging in the case of the former).
My heart feels your deep soul acknowledgement of your rooted place within life, nature, Earth, and your current home in the Willamette Valley. I also appreciated your direct yet respectful way of speaking to the surface ways in which we attempt to include the Native experience in this country while standing on top of rather than within our generative wise living Earth.💚🌎💗
Such a beautiful and well articulated essay. I really connected with your sentiments being an immigrant in rural Ireland and trying to develop a rootedness here....I'm actually in the process of recording a song about my experience! I think the process you outline here is bang on and something to indeed be followed.
I myself have felt the barrier of guilt preventing me from developing a sense of belonging too...being English and knowing how past generations of my countrymen treated the Irish people. Having children who are half Irish has strangely helped me to overcome this though.
Thank you so much for such a great piece of writing.
The social and environmental justice crusades of today have had a foul odor I couldn't quite identify, and you articulated it so well here: "Most concerningly, though, it sets up a psychological barrier of guilt to beginning the personal process of becoming rooted in place." These barriers indeed endanger the ability to connect to the Earth and Nature, and if this mentality gets instilled into a single generation, separation from our roots may be fully achieved. It kind of seems that has been the name of the game for quite some time, tragically. Hopefully enough people will see clearly enough through this guilt-inducing lens to see a better path forward, such as the principles found in this post.
Thank you for putting such a beautiful spin on this topic <3