Jillian Morris is Kanien’kehá:ka, turtle clan and band member of Six Nations of the Grand River Territory now living in Collingwood. She will be sharing stories and experience passed down through the oral traditions of Kanien’kehá:ka culture in her regular column, entitled Ka’nikonhrí:io, (The Good Mind) published on CollingwoodToday.ca.
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Shé:kon sewakwé:kon, greetings all. The first month of 2023 is coming to a close. To be honest, I’m not fairing too well with my re-commitment to balance some retrospective time with my visioning for what is coming.
Snow is gently but relentlessly falling as I write today. My husband and I trekked around the yard in our snowshoes making trails that may very well be undetectable by day's end. Does this mean that our steps were for nought?
Mother nature will eventually devour the evidence of the existence of all of us.
That is natural law.
Time is funny. We wish for more. We wish for it to hasten. We wish for it to stop. We wish for it to return.
The work that I will produce, the poetry that I will craft, the sharing of story that I will engage in doesn’t exist yet. Still, I am a servant to it.
This trail of thought brings me to legacy. Legacy intersects with so many aspects of a life. For me, it feels closely tied to identity.
I’ve been reflecting lately on an issue that has endured for many decades and highlighted in media in recent years. It is what has been coined “pretendians” or race shifting.
The irony of it. Descendants of a people who wanted to eradicate the Indigenous nations of Turtle Island, fraudulently claiming lineage to those very nations.
I thought about my own identity and how this impacts me and the way I see my indigeneity. How after forty-plus years of life, I still feel uncertainty about my role and representation as onkwehonwé (original people).
I lived on reserve, but I didn’t attend Longhouse. I was raised by two Indigenous parents, but they were raised as Christians. Just two and three generations back, my (great) grandparents spoke fluently the language of their first nation but I can barely introduce myself in Kanienka:ha. I didn’t go to residential school, but I have still been subjected to residual abuse cycles.
I’ve had to fight to stay in this life because of the genocidal practices that succeeded in making me feel less than. I also watched several family members give way to that fight. Beautiful, youthful, gifted beings with broken spirits.
I’m expected to have grace for family members who perpetuate physical and sexual violence against our children because “they learned it somewhere, it likely happened to them”.
Sometimes it feels like I’m in a constant state of grief – or at least grief recovery.
On one hand, I’m grateful that I am a Status Indian, I’m a registered band member, I can be easily verified as a bona fide native (insert sass). On the other hand, I’m disgusted that I must carry a government of Canada-issued card to prove my ancestry.
My indigeneity is grounded in my beautiful culture, connection to my people, traditional stories, and teachings that remind me to be grateful and honour this life. I’m beholden to my ancestors who made profound efforts to preserve the life-promoting aspects of being Indigenous.
Pretendians don’t carry the harshness of blood memory from a violent history. They want to dance in our dances without having to carry the sacrifice of those that kept them alive.
While pretending to be one of us, romanticizing our existence, they enact further harm. Co-opting our stories and experiences. Speaking on our behalf as their ancestors did.
It seems they carry on a legacy, just not the one they want us to see.
Maybe my actions won’t reach seven generations ahead, maybe my footfalls will fade with time. But I’ll keep trekking and carry the hope for those who lost it along the way.
Skén:nen, peace.
