Lynn Gehl - Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit

Claiming
Anishinaabe

Decolonizing The Human Spirit

Lynn Gehl

2017 Lynn Gehl

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Printed and bound in Canada at Friesens. The text of this book is printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper with earth-friendly vegetable-based inks.

Cover design: Duncan Campbell, University of Regina Press
Text design: John van der Woude, jvdw Designs
Copy editor: Patricia Sanders
Proofreader: Katie Doke Sawatzky
Indexer: Siusan Moffat
Cover photo: Samantha Moss

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Gehl, Lynn, 1962 -, author
Claiming Anishinaabe : decolonizing the human spirit / Lynn Gehl.

Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. isbn - - 88977 - - (softcover). isbn - - 88977 - - ( pdf ). isbn - - 88977 - - ( html )

. Native peoplesCanadaEthnic identity. . Decolonization. . Spirituality. . EthnoscienceCanada. . Knowledge, Theory of. . Spirit. I. Title.

e . e g 2017 . c 2017 - - x c 2017 - 905002 -

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

University of Regina Press, University of Regina
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, s4s 0a2
tel: (306) 585-4758 fax: (306) 585-4699
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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada. / Nous reconnaissons lappui financier du gouvernement du Canada. This publication was made possible with support from Creative Saskatchewans Creative Industries Production Grant Program.

Our Indigenous knowledge systems are the very thing that makes us human. We need to protect them, and hang on to them tightly. This work is dedicated to people who, due to the criminalization of their Indigenous knowledge, were denied the full expression of their spirit and, consequently, what it means to be a good human being. Unlike deer, trees, rock, and water, who are all born with their knowledge and intelligence, humans are more pitiful in our need to learn. Unlike all the other orders of Creation, humans walk into being who they are with help from their ancestors, family members, and larger community, and the knowledge that they have, hold, and share. European settlers and colonial oppressors had no jurisdiction to take away our right to be the good human beings Creator intended us to be.

It is hard to be human; just keep trying!

Part One: Setting the Stage

Part Two: Indigenous Knowledge and the Human Spirit

Part Three: Indigenous Teachings and Ways of Being

Part Four: Contemporary Indigenous Issues I Do

Figures

Figure : 1945 Letter to Annie Gagnon

Figure 2: A Model of Unharnessed Knowledge

Figure 3: Debwewin Journey: A Model and a Process

Drawings

Part One: Petroglyph Drawing: Showing the Same Side of Face

Part Two: Petroglyph Drawing: Winonah, Creators First Woman

Part Three: Pictograph Drawing: Algonquin Crane Dodem Signature from the 1701 Great Peace Treaty of Montreal

Part Four: Petroglyph Drawing: Man Receiving the Sacred Pipe

Lindsay Lambert, an Ottawa-based historian and concerned ally to the Algonquin Anishinaabeg, and whose work I discuss in a later chapter, and I first came into contact with one another after he read and processed some of my work. He contacted me to learn if I could help out in some way against the proposed further corporate destruction of an Algonquin sacred place, now known as Chaudire Falls, and the islands located downstream. Chaudire Falls are presently dammed, and a private corporation known as Windmill is bidding to develop the islands. The problem is that the Chaudire Falls is the very land and waterscape where Creator

Lindsay and I eventually began communicating by email and then, to accommodate my vision, by telephone. Our conversations were always lengthy. He would share with me his knowledge about the falls and the islands gained from his archival research, and I would share with him my knowledge about the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. During my process of sharing I found myself having to talk about Anishinaabe assumptions, beliefs, traditions, and teachings as a way of getting Lindsay to better understand Indigenous knowledge philosophy and the paradigm he was on the verge of entering, and also what the processes of colonization did to the Algonquin. As he told me about the history of the falls and the islands, I would tell him about the four sacred elements, the four orders of Creation, and the First Sacred Pipe. In line with Anishinaabe ways of knowing and beingincluding the need for repetitionwe would tell our stories to one another over and over and over again. As we shared he would remind and correct me, and I would remind and correct him as we went along.

During one of our discussions Lindsay shared with me his personal view and thoughts about why he thinks humans are, to use my words, so pitiful. He offered that it was his thought that, of all of Creators beings, it is only human beings who are able to create spirit, and this ability, he argued, is the very skill that gets humans into trouble. Of course, I was right on top of this idea that he holds, as I have worked hard to make sure I am rooted in the belief system of the Anishinaabeg. My immediate response to him was that humans do not have the ability to create spirit, as he thinks. Rather, I told him, before humans came along, spirit was out there and everywhere already. Creator brought it all into existence at the time of Creation.

I then told him the story that it is said that one of the most spiritual practices or ceremonies humans can engage in is sex, where, within this act, it is the spirit that chooses to be conceived and born through the Eastern Doorway and into the human realm of existence. I explained that, contrary to his thinking, humans do not have the capacity to create spirit. Rather, what we can do with the gifts that Creator bestowed is create collective meaning. I then added that it is my thinking that meaning is the myelin sheath of the human spirit.

Spiritual beliefs and the inherent meaning Indigenous people apply constitute a large part of the world in which the Anishinaabeg live. Spiritual traditions and practices that emerge from these beliefs are known to a collective of people into which individuals are born and socialized. Said another way, spiritual beliefs and traditions, and practices that emerge from them, constitute an entire cultural meaning system that is then held by a collection of people. They are more than a thought, or an opinion, held by one individual; they must be more, they have to be more.

Miigwetch to Bruce Walsh of University of Regina Press for encouraging me to publish this work. Also miigwetch to Karen Clark, and to the three reviewers of an earlier version of my manuscript. Collectively, your suggestions have improved this work. I must also say miigwetch to Nikolaus Karl Gehl for his proofreading skills and his many suggestions.